Friday
Sep112015
The Commentariat -- Sept. 12, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
White House: "In this week's address, the President announced the launch of a new College Scorecard, meant to help students and parents identify which schools provide the biggest bang for your buck":
AFP: "Barack Obama will not stay at New York's Waldorf Astoria during the UN general assembly this month after the hotel was bought by a Chinese insurance firm. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama and the US delegation would stay at the nearby New York Palace Hotel.... Earnest would not say whether the Chinese acquisition of the Astoria had raised concerns about possible espionage.... For years the Waldorf has been used as a base for US operations when leaders from around the world descend on Manhattan for the UN general assembly meeting. The State Department has long held a suite at the Waldorf for the US ambassador to the United Nations, currently Samantha Power."
Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The House on Friday passed a set of bills intended to send a clear message to President Obama that the Republican-led body will continue to attack the Iran nuclear deal and warn against rolling back economic sanctions imposed on Tehran. But at this point these efforts amount to a political protest because Republicans lack the votes to stop the White House from implementing the agreement." House Speaker John Boehner is still threatening to sue President Obama administration. ...
Do not sacrifice the safety, the security and the stability of 300 million Americans for the legacy of one man. -- Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), during Friday's House debate, as he stood next to a poster of the Twin Towers burning on September 11, 2001
... Lauren French of Politico: "For weeks, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been penning handwritten, personalized thank you notes to the nearly 150 House Democrats who publicly backed President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. The personal touch caps a months-long behind the scenes campaign by the California Democrat, who has worked hard to ensure the survival of the crowning foreign policy achievement of Obama's second term. And it came just months after Pelosi ... rallied opposition against his push for a sweeping free trade agreement. In an interview with Politico on Thursday, Pelosi said she worked hand-in-glove with the White House, pinpointing skeptical Democrats and helping to make sure Obama called them all." ...
... "Atomic Obamacare." Steve Benen: "It's striking the degree to which Republicans ... see the Affordable Care Act, lurking in every corner, representing everything they abhor in all contexts.... [So] An international agreement to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons is 'Atomic Obamacare.'... If there is a compelling parallel between 'Obamacare' and the international nuclear agreement it's this: Republicans abandoned rational thought in their contempt for the idea, and despite pleas for an alternative solution to an important pressing problem, they offered nothing but slogans and cheap talking points. Five years later, every GOP prediction about the Affordable Care Act has been discredited and proven false. Here's hoping, five years from now, opponents of the Iran deal appear equally foolish about the efficacy of the national security policy."
Burgess Everett & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview Friday he will back a plan to fund the government into December with no conditions, rejecting in his strongest terms yet calls from within his party to defund Planned Parenthood as part of a larger budget bill. 'It's an exercise in futility,' the Kentucky Republican said of a strategy that would likely provoke a government shutdown. 'I'm anxious to defund Planned Parenthood' but 'the honest answer of that is that's not going to happen until you have a president who has a similar view.'" ...
... CW: I'm not all that sure Mitch is so opposed to Planned Parenthood. His wife Elaine Caio sat on the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies which works with Planned Parenthood Global "to improve access to family planning information, contraceptives and reproductive health services for women...." (Caio quit the Bloomberg board after it became an issue in McConnell's 2014 Senate campaign, but the issue was Bloomberg's anti-coal initiative, not reproductive health.)
Surprise, Surprise. Harry Stein of the Center for American Progress, in Politico: "'Hardly anyone knows it,' [Ron] Haskins], a former Bush II staffer,] wrote in the New York Times, 'but since its earliest days the Obama administration has been pursuing the most important initiative in the history of federal attempts to use evidence to improve social programs.' But even though Congress appears to support evidence-based policymaking in theory, a closer look shows that it is waging a quiet war on the idea. The current versions of spending bills on Capitol Hill would defund data collection, analysis, and pilot programs that are helping to solve some of the toughest challenges facing the nation.... This Congress seems to be targeting evidence-based initiatives in particular, and for reasons that seem deeply political. THE ATTACK IS most apparent in the field of climate science." Congress is also cutting research funding for gun research, healthcare reform & other areas.
Kristina Wong of the Hill: "Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on Friday criticized a Marine Corps study that showed that female Marines in a mixed unit did not perform as well as men in several key areas. 'They started out with a fairly largely component of the men thinking this is not a good idea, and women will not be able to do this,' he said in an interview with NPR. 'When you start out with that mindset, you're almost presupposing the outcome,' he said."
Is that a shoephone in your hand -- or a pocket heater?Never Mind. Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "When the Justice Department arrested the chairman of Temple University's physics department this spring and accused him of sharing sensitive American-made technology with China, prosecutors had what seemed like a damning piece of evidence: schematics of sophisticated laboratory equipment sent by the professor, Xi Xiaoxing, to scientists in China. The schematics, prosecutors said, revealed the design of a device known as a pocket heater ... used in semiconductor research, and Dr. Xi had signed an agreement promising to keep its design a secret. But months later..., independent experts [whom Xi's attorney brought forward] discovered ... the blueprints were not for a pocket heater.... The Justice Department on Friday afternoon dropped all charges against Dr. Xi, an American citizen. It was an embarrassing acknowledgment that prosecutors and F.B.I. agents did not understand -- and did not do enough to learn -- the science at the heart of the case before bringing charges that jeopardized Dr. Xi's career...." ...
... CW: This sounds like a plot-line from "Get Smart," only as Dr. Xi said, "This is not a joke.... I barely came out of this nightmare." Why can't we get better federal agents? I'm glad the Times put this story in a prominent position in its online edition. Xi deserves as much publicity for his exoneration as he got for his false arrest.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd., Politico Edition. Politico is still Politico. In a story titled, "Obama Wins Ugly on the Hill," Lauren French & John Bresnahan write, "President Barack Obama is winning ugly. Despite hostile GOP majorities and balky Democratic progressives dogging him on some issues, Obama is using the powers of his office to finally get stuff done on Capitol Hill. While Republicans rolled to big Election Day wins last November, Obama has emerged on top since then in bruising showdowns over trade, Iran, Attorney General Loretta Lynch's nomination, Patriot Act reauthorization, immigration and funding for the Department of Homeland Security.... Past fights were, in part, Obamaps own fault. He spent six years in the Oval Office eschewing the type of glad-handing needed to build relationships with lawmakers that are fundamental to winning tough votes." CW: Res ipsa loquitur.
Presidential Race
Philip Rucker & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Bernie Sanders is fast expanding his political staff, crafting a delegate strategy and cultivating a vast volunteer corps and digital fundraising network that he believes can seriously challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Dismissed only a couple months ago as a fringe candidate, the self-described democratic socialist senator from Vermont has proven in recent weeks that he is a contender to win the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.... Asked if there was a strategy to 'humanize' Sanders like the Clinton campaign has, [Sanders strategist Tad] Devine burst out laughing. 'Is he going to change to earth tones?' Devine said. 'Is he going to take the pens out of his pocket? No. This is it. Nothing's changing.'"
Dana Milbank: "We knew [Hillary] Clinton was going to be funny and warm [when she appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show] because her aides told the New York Times she was going to be funny and warm. 'Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say,' was the headline on Amy Chozick's piece week, reporting that 'there will be new efforts to bring spontaneity to a candidacy that sometimes seems wooden and overly cautious.... Maybe they seemed poll-tested because they were poll-tested.... Planned spontaneity? A scripted attempt to go off script? This puts the 'moron' into oxymoron. Here's a better idea: Find and fire people who talk about her that way. Thin out the whole bloated campaign and its cadre of consultants...." ...
... The other day, Charles Pierce advised Clinton to "Fire everybody." ...
... Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "Making her 2015 debut in Scott Walker's home state of Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton on Thursday unleashed her harshest and most extended diatribe yet against a Republican rival not named Donald Trump, accusing the governor of being a tool of the billionaire Koch brothers." ...
It seems to me, just observing him, that Governor Walker thinks because he busts unions, starves universities, guts public education, demeans women, scapegoats teachers, nurses, and firefighters, he is some kind of tough guy on a motorcycle, a real leader. Well, that is not leadership folks. Leadership means fighting for the people you represent.... It looks like he just gets his marching orders from the Koch brothers and just goes down the list. -- Hillary Clinton, in Milwaukee
... ** James Downie of the Washington Post: "Wednesday, Clinton gave a speech at the Brookings Institution about the Iran deal and U.S. foreign policy. On the surface, it sounded like a speech the Democratic base could agree with.... But beneath that, a more hawkish Clinton kept peeking out.... It was a speech short on hope and long on danger; while no one would confuse her and George W. Bush, the address, as the Atlantic's Steve Clemons said, certainly felt 'neocon-influenced.'... The more one listens..., the less it seems that she learned much from the Iraq war or even the 2008 campaign.... Her Brookings appearance crystallizes just how much room [Bernie Sanders] has to her left, giving him a chance to repeat then-Sen. Obama's success using foreign policy against Clinton." ...
... CW: When I listened to (part of) Clinton's speech, I interpreted her sabre-rattling to be an answer to universal GOP chest-thumping. But Downie is causing me to rethink my initial impression. Also, see Kate M.'s related comment at the end of yesterday's thread, which expands on one of Downie's points.
... AP: "Hillary Clinton had the right to delete personal emails from her private server, the US justice department has told a federal court. Lawyers for the government made the assertion in a filing this week with the US district court in Washington, part of a public records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that seeks access to Clinton's emails.... Clinton asserts she had the right under government rules to decide which emails were private and to delete them. This week's filing puts the justice department's approval on Clinton's claim."
Jim Sullivan of the Boston Globe: "A senior state Democratic Party official likened the national party chairwoman's tenure to a 'full-fledged dictatorship,' amplifying growing unease among some top Democrats about party leaders' efforts to restrict the number of candidate debates during the presidential primaries. Deb Kozikowski, vice chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said the chief of the Democratic National Committee, US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, had done a disservice to grass-roots volunteers by allowing Republicans to dominate the airwaves for the last month."
Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times: "In the first casualty of the 2016 presidential race, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry suspended his campaign Friday amid anemic fundraising and little traction in the polls. Perry's departure, coming days before the second GOP presidential debate, is unlikely to affect the contours of the race, given Perry's lack of support among Republican primary voters. But it appears to mark the end of a 30-year political career of a man once viewed as a swaggering star of the Republican Party. ...
... Here's the Washington Post story, by Dave Weigel & others. ...
... Gail Collins: "His departure is a crushing blow for those of us who have already put in the time to read 'Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington,' in which Perry announced that Americans were tired of being bossed around and being told 'how much salt we can put on our food, what windows we can buy for our house' and 'what kind of cars we can drive.' I will not even have the opportunity to point out that Washington doesn't actually tell us any of those things." ...
... One Last Time:
CW: Here's a hopeful note. We live in a country where Bernie Sanders is more popular than Rick Perry. At least that's something.
Michael Tomasky adds his voice to pundits who are sick of reporters lumping Bernie Sanders in with Donald Trump & (Ben Carson): "People on the left are angry about economics -- about inequality and the new Gilded Age, and they have rallied to Sanders because of his positions. People on the right are angry about liberals and moochers and society and culture, and they have rallied to Trump and Carson because of who they are (or aren't)." ...
... CW: I don't think Tomasky has that quite right: I don't know about Carson's supporters -- they may all be seeing Ben Carson as the Vehicle of the Lord who's a'coming to beam them up -- but Sanders & Trump have tapped into the same anger: it's just that Sanders supporters correctly see the Masters of the Universe & their political sock puppets as responsible for wealth & income inequality, while Trump supporters fantastically blame "liberals & moochers," most especially those of color. The difference is between reality & knee-jerk racist scapegoating. In addition, many of Sanders' supporters are altruistic -- they are not rallying to him in furtherance of their own self-interest -- while Trump's supporters -- angry white men -- are just your average greedy bastards.
Dave Weigel: Ben "Carson was the first declared candidate of either party to visit [Ferguson, Missouri], though Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held a 'listening session' before announcing his bid, and Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig made a visit before launching his. Unlike Paul, Carson kept the roundtable -- and the tour -- closed to press. According to Mayor James Knowles, who has invited any and all contenders to Ferguson, Carson's tour included a stop at the city's only coffee shop, lunch at an Italian restaurant, and conversations with the people who happened by."
... Jane Timm of NBC News: "In the interview portion of his appearance..., Trump eventually conceded, 'I will absolutely apologize sometime in the distant future if I'm ever wrong.'"
Heather Haddon of the Wall Street Journal: "Donald Trump estimated that it will take 18 months to two years to get the roughly 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to leave the country, and that he would then build a wall running along the border with Mexico." CW: It would take 18 months to two years to get the first court date to respond to the tens of lawsuits brought against a Trump administration that might try this stunt.
Jim Sullivan: Mitt Romney's former campaign staffers & prominent political backers are now working for different candidates, but they're allied on one matter: Stop the Donald.
Ed Kilgore: "Perhaps the most important news about the treatment of the [GOP] field by CNN is that one candidate, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, was excluded from both debates on grounds that he has no discernible political pulse."
Congressional Election
Chicago Tribune/Wire Services: "Darin LaHood, a Republican state senator and son of former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, easily won a special election Thursday to replace disgraced former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, sending a familiar name to Washington from Illinois."
Beyond the Beltway
Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times: "The [California] state Senate on Friday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that would allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to Californians diagnosed as having less than six months to live. Two days after the bill cleared the Assembly, the Senate approved the measure, sending it to the governor's desk."
Benjamin Mueller & Nate Schweber of the New York Times: "The New York Police Department released surveillance video of the arrest [of former tennis star James Blake] on Friday, offering a minute-long glimpse of the manhandling of a biracial celebrity by a white plainclothes officer that compelled police officials to swiftly strip the officer of his gun and badge.... Officer [James] Frascatore's history of excessive force complaints, including at least three filed against him with the Civilian Complaint Review Board in 2013 and several lawsuits, revealed a pattern of residents claiming they were detained without explanation and manhandled despite complying":
Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "Lawyers for Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis asked a federal appeals court on Friday to effectively end the requirement, currently in place under an order from the trial judge, that all couples be allowed to marry in the county.... Shortly after this latest motion was filed on Friday, the 6th Circuit directed that the plaintiffs file a response to Davis's request 'on or before the close of business, Tuesday, September 15, 2015.' Davis also has appealed the contempt order itself and asked the 6th Circuit to halt Gov. Steve Beshear from enforcing what her lawyers refer to as a same-sex marriage 'mandate.'" CW: They're really racking up those Billable Hours for Jesus, aren't they? ...
... Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch: "... almost as soon as they arrived [in Rowan County, Kentucky], the Oath Keepers are packing up and going home. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes writes in an email to members today that [Kim] Davis, through her attorneys at the Religious Right legal group Liberty Counsel, has (probably wisely) declined their offer of assistance. He encourages members to save their gas money for another mission, such as 'our planned upcoming operation to guard Texas border ranches against drug cartel violence and invasion.'"
La Ti Da. Katharine Seelye & Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: One of Harvard's all-male clubs, Spee, made the revolutionary move of inviting women to join. According to the club's president, Spee now "welcomes all genders." "It was not clear Friday whether any of the other eight clubs, known as 'final' clubs because they were once the last organizations that students were likely to join before they graduated, would follow suit."
Way Beyond
Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's opposition Labour Party on Saturday took a remarkable leftward turn, electing as its leader Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime socialist committed to nationalizing key industries, scrapping Britain's nuclear missile system and reversing the centrist policies of previous leaders such as Tony Blair. The result of the contest, announced on Saturday morning in London, gave stewardship of the Labour party to the hard left for the first time in more than three decades, a development seen here as one of the most surprising upsets in modern British politics." ...
... The Guardian's liveblog is here.
News Ledes
AP: "Police say 82 people were killed in two nearly simultaneous explosions in a crowded restaurant in central India. Inspector Mewa Lal Gond says a cooking gas cylinder exploded in the restaurant on Saturday and triggered a second blast of detonators stored nearby."
AP: "The head of Saudi Arabia's civil defense directorate says high winds caused a massive crane to topple over and smash into Mecca's Grand Mosque, killing at least 107 people ahead of the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage."
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Reader Comments (5)
Yesterday I learned from our intrepid fact checker, C.W., that indeed Ben Carson is a scientist. Today I read that California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) mailed Carson a copy of the Synthesis Report from the United Nations intergovermental panel on Climate change along with a private letter to Carson in essence saying, get the facts before you shoot your mouth off.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-evidence-climate-change_55f305b4e4b077ca094ed3b5
And here's an excellent piece by Lawrence Krauss from the New Yorker that corresponds to above post: "All Scientists Should be Militant Atheists."
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/all-scientists-should-be-militant-atheists?intcid=mod-most-popular
Thanks, PD. It is an excellent article & well worth the read.
Mostly, Palin isn't worth the energy it takes to generate a minor bout of flatulence. However, the irony of her shouting and rending her clothing on behalf of stomping out Planned Parenthood is just too much. How does all that Christian holier-than-thou-family-values talk and the fact that her offspring, the 2x pregnant minus the wedding Bristol, who was a spokesperson for birth control "every time" make any sense. I know, dumb, I withdraw the question.
On another note....There must be somebody who is willing to do a drive-by on Trump with an industrial strength battery operated blow dryer that could whoosh the bejeebus out of that comb over. Of course, then he'd trip on his hair.
I still think patience will be rewarded. None of the powerful want Trump in the WH and they'll have to spend their dollars on keeping him out. That works in Democratic favor. Grimacing wildly, I will still pull the lever for Hilary, knowing full well that her own shortcomings are compounded by the stinky barge that is Bill is dragging behind.
@PD, thanks. As the only career scientist in a large first degree family, including some fundamentalists, an article I can distribute that they might actually read.