Wednesday
Mar112015
The Commentariat -- March 12, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
Jon Stewart comments on racism & wingers' denials thereof:
Carol Leonig & Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: "Two Secret Service agents suspected of driving under the influence and striking a White House security barricade disrupted an active bomb investigation and may have driven over the suspicious package itself, according to current and former government officials familiar with the incident."
Scott Higham of the Washington Post: International Relief and Development Inc. of Arlington, Va.,"the largest nonprofit contractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, billed the government $1.1 million for staff parties and pricey retreats -- three of them held at one of the poshest destinations on the East Coast, Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Pennsylvania."
*****
Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry sharply criticized a letter from Republican lawmakers to the leaders of Iran in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, calling it misleading and irresponsible. 'My reaction to the letter was utter disbelief,' said Mr. Kerry, who warned that the letter, signed by 47 Republican senators this week, could embolden Iranian hard-liners.... Dissecting the letter, Mr. Kerry said the authors were wrong when they said that Congress had the authority to modify the terms of an agreement negotiated by the president. He added that a future president would continue to honor the accord as long as Iran kept its part of the bargain and as long as the other negotiating partners -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China --- continued to support it":
... Kerry Tries to Explain Rudimentary U.S. Middle East Policy to Lazy Schoolboy. Steve Benen: "Honestly, it was like watching a competent teacher trying to explain the basics of current events to a student who failed to do his homework.... Rubio recently said he'd have an important advantage in the race for the White House because he, unlike the GOP governors, has 'a clear view of what's happening in the world.'... That's not a bad argument, though it's predicated on the assumption that senators who deal with foreign policy actually have some idea what they're talking about." Read Benen's whole post for background. Little Marky-Marco is completely confused:
... Burgess Everett of Politico: "Some Republican senators admitted Wednesday they were caught off guard by the backlash to a letter warning Iranian leaders against a nuclear agreement with President Barack Obama. And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Republicans -- many of whom blessed the missive during a brisk signing session at a Senate lunch a week ago, as senators prepared to flee a Washington snowstorm -- should have given it closer consideration.... Though Cotton has insisted that Democratic senators were approached about the letter, neither Bob Casey of Pennsylvania nor hawks like Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said they had been approached. Politico was unable to locate a Democrat who was aware of the letter before it became public." ...
... ** Paul Waldman: "Tom Cotton is a conservative hero -- and a complete crackpot." Read the whole post, to get a flavor of some of Cotton's other bright ideas. The "sins of the grandfather" is a doozy. ...
... Dwane Powell of the Raleigh News & Observer rebukes North Carolina's Sens. Richard Burr & Thom Tillis for signing the letter: "This is one of the most horrid and tangible examples of pure partisanship run amok in modern times. So much do Republicans resent the fact that President Obama has won two terms they'll now resort to blowing up a negotiation aimed at preventing war in the Middle East. This, despite the fact that since the presidency of George Washington, America has always tried to present a united front to the world." Via Paul Waldman. Let's hope more hometown papers whack the wackos. ...
... ** Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pushing back hard against conservative claims that the Republicans' recent letter to Iranian leaders, which has infuriated the White House amidst delicate nuclear talks, is akin to her 2007 visit to Syria against the wishes of the Bush administration. The office of the House minority leader issued a scathing statement Wednesday night saying her meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was part of a bipartisan effort -- conducted through the Bush administration -- to encourage peace in the region and accusing the Republicans of launching a 'desperate' defense of their Iran letter to mask criticisms coming from both sides of the aisle." Read the whole post for the details.
Charles Pierce: "The modern Republican party has become an authentic mechanism for political subversion.... A rookie meathead submarines the president's foreign policy. Rick Perry is currently running for president on a platform more suited to a campaign conducted under the Articles of Confederation. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the United States Senate, has suggested that governors out in the several states ignore the Environmental Protection Agency. At every conservative gathering, from CPAC on down, there at least is one panel touting the benefits of nullification and old-school states rights politics. Yes, a lot of it is about how states rights got whipped over civil rights in the 1960's, but it's not all about race. It's about a deliberate, calculated attempt by one of the only two political parties we allow ourselves to dismantle the federal union. They want the country to come apart so they can sell off the pieces to the people who run their campaigns."
David Hawkings of Roll Call: Loretta "Lynch is on course to be confirmed this month after the longest wait ever for a nominee to be attorney general -- and very likely by the closest vote ever to put a new person in charge of the Justice Department. Lynch has earned just the sort of tough but fair reputation that's customarily made for bipartisan smooth sailing in the Senate. But at least three-quarters of Republicans are going to oppose her anyway, mostly because of a single position she's taken as the nominee: Obama was on solid legal ground in deferring deportations of as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants.... The single biggest reason Republicans oppose Lynch is that she disagrees with them on a single matter of public policy." Via Greg Sargent.
Alan Yuhas of the Guardian: "The war against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria may be expanded to include Boko Haram in Nigeria and militant elements in Libya, secretary of defense Ash Carter said on Wednesday."
Good Grief! Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The administration is investigating allegations that two senior Secret Service agents, including a top member of President Obama's protective detail, drove a government car into White House security barricades after drinking at a late-night party last week, an agency official said Wednesday. Officers on duty who witnessed the March 4 incident wanted to arrest the agents and conduct sobriety tests, according to a current and a former government official familiar with the incident. But the officers were ordered by a supervisor on duty that night to let the agents go home, said these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal matter." CW: I wouldn't trust these yahoos to guard my cat while she was napping.
Mark O'Brien of the Washington Post: "There's a currency war going on, and the United States is losing. As of Wednesday, the euro had fallen to a 12-year low of $1.05, down from as much as $1.39 just last year. That's a 30 percent drop in 11 months.... It's not just the euro that's falling against the dollar, but almost every other currency in the world, too...."
Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "House Republican leaders are considering a vote next week on legislation that would abolish cuts to Medicare payments, a policy change that could cost upwards of $174 billion to enact. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team are quietly coordinating a bill, four sources say, in hopes of ending the decades-long battle over how much doctors and healthcare providers should be paid for treating Medicare patients. But bringing up the legislation would be a huge gamble, because it could spark a revolt among fiscal conservatives who are likely to balk at legislation that adds to the deficit." CW: Hard to believe the House might actually do something. So note the caveat. Democrats will have to do the heavy lifting. Again.
Jonathan Chait: "The proof that [Paul] Ryan's [2013] poverty tour was not a form of spin is that he is releasing a propaganda film about it.... Ultimately Ryan’s motives are beside the point.... The primary evidence for analyzing Ryan should not be his own testimony about his motives, nor his visits to bookstores..., but his actual policy agenda.... Ryan's budget proposes to reduce taxes for the rich, increase defense spending, leave retirement benefits for everybody over the age of 55 untouched, and eliminate the budget deficit. This combination requires massive cuts to programs targeted to the poor."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Paul Waldman: "Here&;s a tip for my fellow scribes and opinionators: If you find yourself justifying blanket coverage of an issue because it 'plays into a narrative,' stop right there. That's a way of saying that you can't come up with an actual, substantive reason this is important or newsworthy, just that it that bears some superficial but probably meaningless similarity to something that happened at some point in the past."
Presidential Race
Steve Peoples of the AP: "The Associated Press on Wednesday sued the State Department to force the release of email correspondence and government documents from Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. The legal action follows repeated requests filed under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act that have gone unfulfilled. They include one request the AP made five years ago and others pending since the summer of 2013." ...
... Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "No fewer than three House committees have launched or are considering probes into Clinton’s email practices, a feeding frenzy that could allow the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to cast the investigations as yet another partisan witch-hunt. It could also become a problem for Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team, which has made a point of trying to prevent multiple committees from tripping over themselves investigating the same topic. They’re now working to keep the Clinton investigations on distinct tracks." ...
... CW: Yeah, right. Like there's no duplication in Trey Gowdy's fishing expedition, which initiated the Clinton e-mail probe. It is the fifth House committee "investigation" of events surrounding the attack in Benghaaazi. Boehner himself set up the committee & Gowdy slow-walked it to make sure it would be ongoing during the run-up to the presidential campaigns. ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "A top freedom-of-information expert isn't buying Hillary Clinton's explanation of why she set up her own email system to conduct official State Department business, calling it 'laughable.' Daniel Metcalfe, who advised White House administrations on interpreting the Freedom of Information Act from 1981 to 2007, told The Canadian Press that the former secretary of state acted 'contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the law.'" ...
... Frank Rich: "That it took Clinton as long as it did to respond to the rising chorus of these questions, and that she did so as defensively and unconvincingly as she did, is yet more evidence that she's not ready for the brutality of a presidential campaign.... Some of what Clinton said didn't pass the smell test. It reminded me of an episode in the first season of Veep where the vice-president announces she will release all her internal office correspondence to quell a controversy and then instructs her staff to make sure it's 'Modified Full Disclosure Lite.'" ...
... Gail Collins: "There won't be a new Hillary. What voters can hope for is the best possible version of her flawed self. That while there will be messes, she will force herself to be open during the cleanup. That while she might not be a transformative speaker, she will be able to explain how she can take the issues she's been pursuing for decades and turn them into a plan for serious change." ...
... Jack Shafer of Politico: It depends upon what the mean of "not saved" is. Hillary "Clinton intended to run for president as a cool, decisive, above-it-all diplomat. Instead, she finds herself back on the ground, muddied and bruised, and tangled up in an email kerfuffle that magnifies all of the weaknesses of the House of Clinton." ...
... ACCORDING TO Philip Rucker & Paul Kane of the Washington Post, "Senior Democrats are increasingly worried that Hillary Rodham Clinton is not ready to run for president, fearing that the clumsy and insular handling of the nine-day fracas over her private e-mails was a warning sign about the campaign expected to launch next month." ...
... ACCORDING TO Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times, "Congressional Democrats are counting on a strong Clinton campaign to help lift them back into the majority. Party leaders at all levels want her fund-raising help and demographic appeal. And from the top of the party to its grass roots, Mrs. Clinton's pseudo-incumbency is papering over significant disadvantages: a weak bench, a long-term House minority and a white middle class defecting to the Republican Party faster than the Democrats' hoped-for demographic future is expected to arrive." ...
... CW NEWS FOR DEMOCRATS: You abdicated in 2014, & you're abdicating now. Hoping Hillary Clinton -- or any single candidate -- will pull your ass out is going to happen right about the time all elected Republicans self-deport. There's no Plan B?? Hell, there's no viable Plan A. Clinton is 67 years old. She would be 69 by the time she took office. What if she got hit by a bus? (Think a Secret Service agent will run interference? Ha! Probably too drunk.) What if she got sick? What if she already has "brain damage," as Karl Rove imagines? The other day I named ten Democrats I thought should run for president in 2016. Here are two Virginians: former Virginia governor & current Senator Tim Kaine & former Senator Jim Webb. Duval Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts is another possibility. Joe Biden, too. I'm not suggesting which of these candidates I'd like to see win (Sheldon Whitehouse), but they should all be making themselves presences in Iowa, New Hampshire & South Carolina. People should know their names. ...
... Update. Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg View on the Democratic "bench": "Dan Balz of the Washington Post says Democrats have a problem for 2016: 'The absence of a strong Democratic bench.' National Journal's Josh Kraushaar replies, 'Spot-on.' The New York Times repeats the 'weak bench' line and quotes Democrats who agree that their party would be in trouble without Hillary Clinton. It's bunk." Bernstein comes up with his own "bench": Martin O'Malley, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Cuomo, Al Franken, Tim Kaine, Amy Klobuchar, Mark Warner, Michael Bennet, Mike Beebe, Christine Gregoire, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hickenlooper and Deval Patrick." ...
... Ken Vogel of Politico: "By Election Day 2016, taxpayers will have paid out more than $16 million to fund Bill Clinton's pension, travel, office expenses and even the salaries and benefits of staff at his family's foundation, federal records show. Multiple sources familiar with Clinton's funding say the special federal money has supplemented the salaries of some employees of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, a global non-profit that has served as Hillary Clinton's primary platform as she prepares for a presidential campaign expected to launch in coming weeks." ...
... CW: A teeny fraction of what we paid to fund big bank executives & their staffs in 2008, 2009 & even unto today.
... every Republican presidential candidate in the Senate did sign -- Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz. They don't seem to realize that the farcical blundering of this incident gives them all the gravitas of Sheriff Andy and Barney Fife.... -- Frank Rich
Dana Milbank has been following Martin O'Malley around -- O'Malley is not exactly fired up & ready to go.
Steve Eder of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush has sold his stakes in his two remaining business commitments, his spokeswoman said Wednesday, another strong signal that the former Florida governor will embark on a campaign for president."
Addendum -- Presidential Race 2020. Ozark Stupid. Andrew DeMillo of the AP: "U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton is barely into his third month in office, but a lawmaker in his home state of Arkansas wants to let the freshman Republican run for re-election and the White House in 2020. A bill advanced by a state Senate committee Tuesday would allow congressional and U.S. Senate candidates in Arkansas also appear on the ballot as presidential or vice presidential candidates. The majority-GOP Senate could consider the bill Wednesday."
Senate Race -- Maybe
Marc Caputo of Politico: "The high-level maneuvering to replace Florida Sen. Marco Rubio accelerated Wednesday as Congressman Patrick Murphy emerged as the top pick of Senate Democratic leadership, and word leaked that Republican Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera is interested in the seat as well.... Much of the posturing is speculative -- Rubio still has not definitively said he won't seek reelection in 2016 if he explores a bid for president. But he's expected to announce his presidential run in April."
Beyond the Beltway
John Eligon of the New York Times:"Two police officers were shot in Ferguson, Mo., early Thursday morning as gunfire rang out in front of the police station, throwing into panic what had been a spirited -- and at times tense -- but largely peaceful night of protests." The shots apparently came from a distance & not from among the gathered protesters. ...
... John Eligon: Thomas Jackson, "... the embattled police chief of Ferguson, the focus of bitter complaints of racial discrimination within his department that turned into national protests after one of his white officers fatally shot an unarmed black teenager last August, has stepped down, the city said Wednesday in a statement."
Joanna Walters of the Guardian: "A protest is planned for Wednesday evening in the Georgia county where a military veteran was shot dead by a police officer who found him running naked around a suburban apartment complex."
Jennifer Dobner of the Salt Lake Tribune: "After seven years of debate and a historic compromise, the House on Wednesday voted final passage of a bill to enact Utah's first statewide nondiscrimination protections for the gay and transgender community, while providing safeguards for religious liberty. The 65-10 vote was the last legislative hurdle for SB296, just one week after it debuted with the blessing of the LDS Church and the LGBT community. Utah's Republican Gov. Gary Herbert is expected to sign the bill at a ceremony scheuduled for 6 p.m. Thursday."
Way Beyond
Jean-Luc Renauldie of AFP: "Less than a week before Israel's second general election in two years, Isaac Herzog's centre-left Zionist Union opened up a lead on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud, polls showed Wednesday." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "The drift in all the recent polls does indeed support Haaretz's conclusion that Netanyahu's big speech in Washington didn't help him much back home. So the price that he and Israel paid in damaged relations with Washington and a loss of bipartisan solidarity may well have been for naught." ...
... Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much-publicized and controversial address to Congress, Americans' opinions of him have worsened. His favorable rating is down seven percentage points, to 38%, while his unfavorable rating has increased five points, to 29%. These changes are largely confined to Democrats; Republicans' views are essentially stable."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Michael Graves, one of the most prominent and prolific American architects of the latter 20th century, died on Thursday. He was 80."
Washington Post: "An American health-care worker has come down with Ebola and will be transported to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda for treatment, NIH announced in a news release on Thursday. The statement said NIH will not share information about the patient, other than the fact that he or she was volunteering in an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone and contracted the virus."
New York Times: "Two weeks after voting to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday released a 313-page document detailing what would be allowed."
CNN: "A newly released ISIS video shows a child shooting a man the group claims is an Israeli spy. The video identifies the man as 19-year-old Mohamed Said Ismail Musallam, an Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent."
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Reader Comments (11)
Marie's point about the abdication of Democrats recalls a previous race in which the party's most eligible candidates declined to jump into the pool, deciding to sit it out in the belief that Poppy Bush, fresh off the first Bush Iraq Invasion, would run the table, a decision that favored the other Clinton.
I remember back then that I had heard of Bill Clinton but didn't know all that much about him except what I knew from friends who lived in Arkansas. But what really struck me at the time, and still does, is how all the big guns weenied out. Sam Nunn, Bill Bradley, Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, George Mitchell, and of course, most infamously, Mario Cuomo. They left the field to Clinton, Paul Tsongas, and Jerry Brown, who actually made a show of it, at least enough to scare Tsongas out of the race. No one thought Jerry Brown would be able to beat Poppy, but few people had heard of Bill Clinton either. Then we got Gennifer Flowers and it was Katy bar the door.
That 60 Minutes interview with Hillary doing her best "stand by my man" routine, pushed him into the spotlight. He ran off the Super Tuesday primaries and next thing ya know, the Clintons were getting ready to murder Vince Foster, fuck with travel arrangements, scare insurance companies, and calling for that girl in the blue dress, what's her name?
The point is not that Bill Clinton's presidency was a disaster. It wasn't as bad as it could have been (yes, yes, the kowtowing about welfare was pretty slimy); he was his own worst enemy, but he got the budget into the black and was reelected. But the Democratic big wigs all sat back when they could have sat in and maybe won the game. And maybe a new face was needed to overcome the hangover of the Reagan/Bush years, but I still think Bradley, Cuomo, Nunn, and perhaps Al Gore could have made a game of it.
And now here we are, no lessons learned, with another Clinton ready to take the stage and no understudy in sight in case she becomes, as they say in the theater world, indisposed. Of the possible possibles Marie listed the other day, not a one outside Warren has much name recognition outside their home states. And when you think of the sad number of Americans who couldn't even tell you who their congressperson or senators are, maybe not even much there. But this isn't a reason not to run either. Look at the first Clinton.
On the other hand, everyone has heard the names Cruz, Paul, Rubio,Christie and the rest of the wingnut clowns. They're famous for their stunts and their idiocy, but they have name recognition. Even this idiot Cotton has someone pulling for his upcoming spin on the presidential dance floor because of his recent attempt to start a war all by hisself.
Maybe by primary season this e-mail bullshit will be forgotten, but don't count on it. Fox--and MSM both-siders--will be flogging Whitewater and travelgate, and Benghaaaaaazi, and who the hell knows what else, from now until midnight of election day.
She really needs to step up. And that, right soon. And no more fuck-ups (he says wishfully).
And the Democrats need to get it together 'cause I'm getting tired of this shit.
Say it here and it pops out somewhere else. That didn't take long.
According to Pat Robertson who, against all available evidence is not dead yet, we can't trust Hillary because she murdered Vince Foster and yadda, yadda, yadda.
Wonder what Darrell Issa was doing in 1993? We shoulda had some investigations of those Clintons. Oh, wait. That's right. He was busy making a fortune off that company he stole from a friend, the one he made even more money off by torching for the insurance money.
Robertson even mentions the potential return of "bimbo eruptions" which I'm not sure we'll see unless Hillary has yet another secret. Maybe she's trying to hide e-mail mash notes to Paris Hilton.\
It's gonna be a loooonng campaign.
@Akhilleus: As it stands now, the next year-and-a-half is going to raise the profiles to Republicans -- perhaps not always in a good way -- and leave geniuses like Dan Balz lamenting that there are no potential Democratic candidates as great as Bobby Jindal & Mike Huckabee. Over this period, Republicans are going to get all the air time, with the exception of a few shots of Hillary testifying before Republicans in the House about how she only wrote to Huma Abedin about Thanksgiving side-dish recipes. Republicans aren't going to look like the dominant party; they're going to look like the only party.
I'm not suggesting Hillary won't win the nomination or that other Democrats should go for her jugular. On paper, she is arguably the most-qualified (which she was not in 2008 -- Biden & Bill Richardson, ferinstance, had longer & more distinguished public records). But a bunch of Democrats should get up there on the teevee in "debates," no matter how fake/cordial, & make the case for Democratic leadership. This is just sensible, & minimally necessary, PR, if nothing else. It would give younger potential candidates name recognition, & national standing, in the next presidential race & in the interim.
The Democratic brand, if not dead, is on life-support. One thing that would help revive it would be presidential debates. Besides, Bernstein's assertion that Hillary had "won" the nomination is offensive to me. We may know that's true, but voters need to feel they are a part of the process. A planned coronation is not the way to do that.
So, thanks, Martin O'Malley. You might be boring, but you're doing the right thing.
Marie
Another thing Hillary doesn't have going for her this time around, that she did in 2008, when she lost the nomination nonetheless, is the uniqueness of a viable female candidate for president.
In 2008, Hillary was the first woman to run for president who actually had an excellent chance of winning. That was an exciting, new prospect then. Now, as a result of her near-successful run, I think people take it as a given. We can thank Hillary for that, but we shouldn't crown her for it.
Marie
Typo correction from a former Massachusetts resident -- the former Governor's name is Deval, not Duval, Patrick.
Marie,
True, that. We need to be working the farm teams. No big league team succeeds just on superstars or free agents.
Democrats need to build their talent pool and spirited debates about what the party stands for could encourage younger talent to get involved and more established Democrats to join in the discussion. This way, we begin formulating a coordinated game plan to exploit Republican anti-Americanism and incompetence and put forward a platform that will explain to voters what the Democratic party and progressive policies have meant and could mean in the future, to them and their families, never losing an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the Koch Party (a task one would not think to be all that difficult; it's like demonstrating the difference between a living person and a flesh eating zombie, and yet, the both-siders are unable--or unwilling--to see it).
And Hillaryites need to beware this My Turn--Coronation thinking. Democratic voters can be notoriously cantankerous about some things, especially if they are weaned away from She Who Would be Queen by some upstart candidate. Remember Ralph (thank you very much for George Bush) Nader?
And I think you may be a touch optimistic about how much bad press the Republicans might garner over the next two years, and how much the public will take from that. It was pretty clear to everyone what a lying piece of shit George Bush was and what an elitist hater Mittens Romney was, but millions of "undecideds" still cast votes for them. The public can be notoriously under or misinformed, especially when getting their news from the likes of Upchuck Todd, Mark Halperin, Jonathan Karl, and whatever TP "journalist" 60 Minutes picks next to be their resident liar.
And while I'm thinking of elections, Go, Isaac Herzog!
Be a Bibi beater, baby.
I read somewhere yesterday (I'll try to track it down, I was too busy laughing) that war-mongering Likudniks are whining that President Obama may be trying to influence Israelis to vote for Herzog and what a horrible and nasty thing that is, for the leader of one country to try to influence what goes on in another country.
This gives Netanyahu permission to yank out that victim card he has permanently sewn into the pocket of every suit he owns. What is about these wingers? They must have that victim thing embedded in their DNA. Even when they're on top of the world they're victims.
Schmucks.
Go Isaac!
Just a thought. What happens if they find whoever shot those cops in Ferguson and they turn out not to be black?
What will Fox say then?
Just sayin', after months and months of peaceful protests, during which time the only serious threats and actual acts of violence have come from police, why all of a sudden, when Ferguson officials, police, judges, and their supporters desperately need to be seen as victims, in the wake of such a damaging report, does this happen all of a sudden?
I could be way out of line on this, but it just seems terribly odd.
And it gives Fox plenty of fuel to ramp up the racist outrage because you know the assumption, tantamount, for them, to a certainty, is that the shooter(s) had to be black.
If the shooters were white, they'll never be found and the decision will be that those uppity blacks deserved the abuse that has been heaped upon them.
Wingnut World is a magical place.
Senate historians find no precedent for #iranletter. This really is disgraceful.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/03/10/259257/precedent-for-gops-iran-letter.html
I hope that Jon Stewart offers a correction to his "both sides do it" piece equating the Pelosi visit to Syria to the infamous letter. Her spokesman, per the Hill article linked above, makes chrystal clear how very different the situations were:
' "This visit was organized by the Bush State Department, executed by the Bush Defense Department, and officials from the Bush Administration's Embassy at the time in Damascus even sat in the meeting with President Assad," Hammill said. "As Republican Congressman David Hobson said at the time about the delegation's visit to Syria, 'I think we actually helped the administration's position by showing there's not dissension.'
"The comparison between the Republican Senator letter to Iran and Leader's Pelosi bipartisan delegation to the Middle East in 2007 does not stand up to any level of scrutiny," he charged.'
Akhilleus––thinking back to around 1972 Democrats seemed unable to muster a rhetoric that could explain the party to the electorate––or bind together the warring fractions that were tearing the Democrats to pieces. So while the liberals floundered about in disarray, the Republicans developed an effective anti-liberal message, stuck with it and eventually landed Reagan in the White House. What I see happening now, although certainly in a different century with very different players, the same kind of anti-liberal voices whose forceful messages resound in the public's ears. We saw this during the last election where Republicans won hands down while Democrats hid behind flimsy rhetoric––Grimes wouldn't even let us know who the hell she had voted for in the last presidential election. If for the voters who aren't savvy, who aren't paying attention, just hear the loud noise coming from the Right (even though they seem rather fractured at this point),and are privy to the lambasting and ugliness directed at Obama and his administration then–––then the squeaky wheel gets the attention. Your recommendation for the Democrats is exactly right––they need to build their talent pool and give us spirited debates––Call out the villains, damnit––cuz, baby, they is everywhere!!!!
The dismissal of John Kerry by Corker was infuriating. Kerry wasn't giving a speech, he was informing these yokels who obviously were misinformed.