The Commentariat -- Feb. 20, 2016

Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "The Justice Department, impatient over its inability to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino killers, demanded Friday that a judge immediately order Apple to give it the technical tools to get inside the phone. It said that Apple's refusal to help unlock the phone for the F.B.I. 'appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy,' rather than a legal rationale. In court documents, prosecutors asked a federal judge to enforce an earlier order requiring Apple to provide the government with a tool to extract the data from a locked iPhone 5c. They are trying to get into the phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the attackers in the San Bernardino rampage, which left 14 dead." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "For years, President Obama has struggled to reconcile a civil libertarian's belief in personal privacy with a commander in chief's imperatives for the nation's security. This week, security won. The decision by Mr. Obama's Justice Department to force Apple to help it breach an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists has ended, at least for now, the president's attempts to straddle the feud over encryption between Silicon Valley and law enforcement. Asked about the president's backing of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's inquiry into San Bernardino, one of the worst terror attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Obama's press secretary declared on Wednesday that 'the F.B.I. can count on the full support of the White House.'"

What a Mess. Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "The United States Supreme Court declined late Friday to stay a lower court ruling that has forced North Carolina's Republican-dominated legislature to redraw its congressional electoral maps on the grounds that the original maps amounted to racial gerrymandering. As a result, the state must now follow a contingency plan, also devised by Republican lawmakers, that tries to comply with the lower court's ruling by making significant changes to the boundaries of the some of the state's 13 congressional districts.... The contingency plan was approved by the state legislature on Friday, hours before the Supreme Court announced that it had rejected North Carolina Republicans' application for a stay. But the approval of the contingency plan came over the strenuous objection of Democrats, who claimed that the new congressional maps were hyperpartisan -- giving Republicans 10 safe districts to the Democrats' three -- and still failed to protect black voters' interests." ...

... Richard Hasen: What I said. Plus: "Justice Scalia's absence might have been decisive here.... It is quite possible that there could be a Voting Rights Act violation now. The problem with the last plan was that North Carolina took racetoo much into account. But now perhaps NC did not take race enough into account to assure that the districts comply with Section 2 of the Act, which requires the creation of minority opportunity districts under certain circumstances.... None of this would have happened if the Supreme Court had not ruled in Shelby County to strike down the trigger for the preclearance provisions of the VRA.... There's a lot of confusion on the ground, and I expect that the three-judge court will quickly hold a hearing and figure out what the heck comes next. Wow!"

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "For President Obama, the process of scrutinizing candidates for the Supreme Court in earnest begins the weekend, when he will start reviewing dossiers on potential nominees. The materials include information about the candidates' records, professional experience and other matters, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest." ...

... Somebody Got to Murkowski. Tierney Sneed of TPM: "Moderate GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK), one of the few Republicans initially willing to break ranks on whether President Obama's nominee to succeed Antonin Scalia should be considered, reversed course Thursday evening. In a series of Tweets she said 'the American people will be weighing in on the direction of SCOTUS' in the upcoming election and that Obama should 'allow his successor to select the next Supreme Court justice.'" ...

... Martin Longman. What I said. With context: "... if there is anyone in the Republican Senate Caucus who might be inclined to buck the lunatics and insist that the president has the right to nominate someone and the nominee is owed the courtesy of a vote, it's Lisa Murkowski. She's already demonstrated that she can survive in Alaska even if beaten by a primary challenger. The Republican Party wasn't loyal to her. The GOP actively tried to defeat her." ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "RIP, GOP. You're all the party of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump now."

Lawrence Hurley of Reuters: "President Barack Obama, the U.S. Supreme Court's eight remaining members, former law clerks and thousands of ordinary Americans paid respects to the late Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday as his body lay in repose in the stately, white-marble courthouse. The president and first lady Michelle Obama were greeted by Chief Justice John Roberts, spoke with some Scalia family members and briefly stood in silence, heads bowed, in front of Scalia's casket during an afternoon visit." ...

... Charles Pierce comments (below his tribute to Harper Lee). The citation of Frederick Douglass -- part of the Lee tribute -- is helpful.

Lisa Miller of New York on a topic we discussed in yesterday's Comments: "... the pope was splitting hairs [on contraception], walking a fine line between the established doctrine of his Church and the wishful thinking of his fans -- a line he has walked masterfully since he ascended to the throne of Peter, sending rhetorical signals about a modernizing, liberalizing church while not moving much on actual policy. (Just how much you think this counts as progress, and how much political savvy you think it entails to allow a basically backwards church to have it both ways, probably depends a lot on how moved you've been by Francis's progressive PR campaign.)"

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Great Expectations. Paul Waldman: "On Saturday, Republicans vote in South Carolina and Democrats vote in Nevada. While we don't know how those contests will turn out, we know that the results will be judged not so much on their own terms but on whether they conformed to 'expectations.'... When a candidate either exceeds or fails to meet expectations, all it means is that the ones doing the expecting -- i.e. the press -- were wrong.' In explaining the expectations game, Waldman illuminates the daily challenges of the political reporter: "Imagine that it was your job to follow Ted Cruz from one campaign event to another, where he said pretty much the same thing again and again, and yet you had to come up with a new story about it every day. It's not easy, and you have to find as many different angles as you can to discuss what is essentially a repetitive series of fake events."

Presidential Race

The New York Times Editors think the Democratic superdelegates will come around & support whichever candidate wins the most delegates in popular primaries & caucuses. CW: I'm less sanguine. The whole purpose of having superdelegates was to allow the party's leaders to choose a candidate to their liking should someone like Bernie Sanders win the popular delegate vote. However, this most likely is a moot point; Clinton will probably win the popular vote, too.

Dana Milbank: "Hillary Clinton has raised $26 million for the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties so far this campaign. And Sanders? $1,000.... This is the source of the panic that Sanders causes the much-maligned Democratic elites. It's not about ideology; it comes from a fear that having Sanders as a nominee will decimate progressive candidates down the ballot.... The Obama presidency has been a disaster for the Democratic Party nationwide. Clinton has pledged to rebuild the party and has begun to make good on that promise. Sanders, by contrast, has shown little concern for the very real crisis the party faces.... The consequences of the Democrats' atrophy at the state level are potentially catastrophic for progressives.... If Sanders leaves the Democratic Party for dead, as he is now doing, the odds against his success are even greater." ...

... Well, not exactly, Dana. Here's how it works. ...

... Matea Gold & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "A record 32 state parties signed on to [a joint fundraising committee with Hillary Clinton], allowing the committee to solicit donations 130 times greater than what a supporter can give to Clinton's campaign for the primary.... The states have yet to see a financial windfall. Meanwhile, Clinton's own campaign has been a major beneficiary, getting an infusion of low-dollar contributions.... The joint committee that was formed, called the Hillary Victory Fund, ended up raising nearly $27 million by the end of 2015, thanks to six-figure donations from longtime Clinton allies and a New York fundraiser headlined by the singer Sting.... The victory fund now functions as an operation embedded within the Clinton campaign, run by campaign staffers. Last year, the fund reimbursed the campaign nearly $1.5 million for salary and overheard." CW: This whole thing sounds suspiciously like a clever Clinton scam, aided & abetted by our winger friends (including the dearly departed) on the Supreme Court. ...

... CW: If you wonder why DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has bent over backwards to give Clinton the debate schedule she wanted, wonder no more: "Campaign finance records show that nearly $2 million in donations to the fund initially routed last year to individual state party accounts was immediately transferred to the DNC, which is laboring to pay off millions in debt." ...

... Josh Gerstein & Rachel Bade of Politico: "The State Department released more than 1,100 additional pages of Hillary Clinton's emails Friday night, shedding light on her handling of diplomatic crises and detailing her team's efforts to make sure President Barack Obama didn't get all the credit for U.S. foreign policy.... The latest batch comes at a particularly crucial and inconvenient time for the former secretary of state, as she searches for her first decisive win in the Democratic presidential primary contest.... Each release serves as a reminder of Clinton's decision to use the private server and of the FBI's investigation into the potential intelligence breach -- a probe the law enforcement agency said was ongoing as of earlier this month." ...

... BUT. When Morgan Freeman, backed by violins, tells me to do something, it's hard to say no. ...

... CW: I missed this Feb. 9 report by J. K. Trotter of Gawker, but it's stunning in a Dick Cheney-Judith Miller way: Clinton's State Department spokesman Philippe Reines cut a deal, via e-mail, with Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic in which "you can see Reines 'blackmailing' Ambinder into describing a Clinton speech as 'muscular' in exchange for early access to the transcript" of an upcoming Clinton speech. I don't know that Scooter Libby dictated the actual language of the misleading NYT reports Miller wrote. ...

     (... In e-mails to the WashPo's Erik Wemple, Reines & Ambinder defend themselves. Ambinder claims the word "muscular" was his idea, one he shared with Reines in a phone call. Reines defends transactional "journalism.") If, like Will Rogers, all you know is what you read in the papers, you don't know much. ...)

Caitlin Cruz of TPM: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Thursday accused rival Hillary Clinton of embracing President Obama to curry favor with black voters. 'You know Hillary Clinton now is trying to embrace the President as closely -- as she possibly can. Everything the President does is wonderful. She loves the President, he loves her and all that stuff,' Sanders said in an excerpt of a half-hour BET special featuring himself and Clinton published by Indie Wire. 'And we know what that's about,' he continued. 'That's trying to win support from the African American community where the President is enormously popular.'"

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "The Clark County Black Caucus, an organization based in Nevada's most populous jurisdiction, announced its support Thursday for Sanders in his contest against Hillary Clinton. Yvette Williams, chairwoman of the caucus, said that Sanders's agenda most closely aligned with that of her nonpartisan group, saying the endorsement of Sanders 'wasn't a very difficult decision.'" ...

... A Presidential Candidate Should Be an Only Child. Nico Hines of the Daily Beast: "The problem with the Clintons, according to Bernie Sanders's big brother, is that people don't realize what an awful president Bill was. For the most part, Larry Sanders says, that's because people are too busy debating 'Is Bill really such a terrible rapist -- or is he a nice rapist?' These are shockingly blunt words from a soft-spoken man, who has been calmly explaining his little brother's sudden political success from his sun-drenched kitchen table in Oxford.... Larry is at pains to point out that they have real respect for Hillary. (The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)"

Sean Sullivan & Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "The [South Carolina GOP presidential] race has resembled a three-man contest more than ever during the final push before [Republican] voters head to the polls here Saturday. [Donald] Trump is heavily favored to win, and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida are furiously vying for second place.... Trump, Cruz and Rubio have directed most of their fire at each other this week, trading the kind of petty insults and underhanded tactics that have come to define South Carolina's primary. With each day, the sniping has escalated." ...

... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "From Lee Atwater's whispers that a congressional candidate was psychotic to rumors that John McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock to fake Mormon holiday cards supposedly sent by Mitt Romney, South Carolina is infamous for its dirty politics. While this year has not lived up to past levels of salaciousness -- so far -- presidential candidates are not shying away from employing underhanded tricks ahead of the Republican South Carolina primary on Saturday. And they have been more than happy to cry foul. Here are some of the more creative efforts." In all but one of these "creative efforts," other candidates have charged that Ted Cruz was the culprit. CW: I'm surprised. He seems nice. ...

... McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: "A new robocall going out to South Carolina voters on the eve of the state's Republican primary blasts Donald Trump as a culture war appeaser in the battle between gay rights and religious freedom -- and urges listeners to support Ted Cruz.... The recording was paid for by the Courageous Conservative Political Action Committee, the same pro-Cruz group that launched another eleventh-hour robocall this week attacking Trump for praising the removal of the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina statehouse.... A spokeswoman for Cruz told the Post and Courier newspaper Friday that the campaign did not condone the Confederate flag call. But she did not respond to requests for comment from BuzzFeed News Friday night about the new robocall, except to say that the campaign wasn't associated with it." ...

... Katie Glueck of Politico: "South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford endorsed Ted Cruz at a Charleston rally Friday afternoon, boosting the Texas senator in the final hours before the first-in-the-South primary.... Sanford's decision appears to have come late in the game: He was spotted at a Rubio rally earlier this week." CW: Yeah, an endorsement from former Gov. Appalachian T. Rail should help Sen. Family V. Alues." ...

... At a South Carolina campaign event feature "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson, Cruz jokingly suggests Robertson for the U.S.'s ambassador to the U.N. Politico's headline writer bills this as "Southern charm." One might want to call it pandering. I'd say it's just more evidence that Cruz thinks us regular folks belong to a despicable inferior life form. ...

... "It Takes Two Wings to Fly." Ed Kilgore looks at the Sanford & Robertson endorsements as evidence of Cruz's "dual strategy."

Artwork by the Daily Beast.Yeah, they’re in that closet. -- One of Ben Carson's Secret Service detail, when asked the whereabouts of Dr. Carson & Ted Cruz

Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast: Ted Cruz called a meeting with Ben Carson in a storage close Thursday night, "in an attempt to mend fences ... ahead of the South Carolina primary.... The two huddled in the unusual venue for nearly 20 to 25 minutes, as Carson's Secret Service detail stood outside.... It is unclear if there were lights inside of it." A Carson campaign operative said the meeting "did not go well": "Carson's campaign confirmed the meeting -- which was was supposed to be short and off-the-record -- and blamed the Cruz campaign for leaking the fact that it occurred in an attempt to rectify his public image." CW: I can't stop laughing. Yes, yes, I know the fate of the nation is at stake.

Pamela Engel of Business Insider: "... Donald Trump just called for a boycott of Apple in light of the company's reluctance to help authorities hack into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters." ...

... Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News: "Donald Trump, embroiled in a long-running legal battle with former students of his defunct Trump University, has been accused in recently filed court papers of threatening to financially ruin the woman who is a lead plaintiff in the suit. Trump's comments, according to the filings, came in a secret deposition he gave just two months ago, on Dec. 10 -- the same day he was making international headlines over his pledge to ban Muslim immigrants from the country.... Exactly what Trump said in his December deposition is unclear." ...

... CW: Upon reading Isikoff's piece, it occurs to me that Trump may be running for president in part as a means to delay & disrupt the lawsuits against him. That didn't work for Bill Clinton, but that was a one-off; it could work for a president facing multiple suits. ...

Which one of these critters has the longer attention span? Or the better memory? Or the more courage? ...... The Art of the Flipflop. Gail Collins: "Perhaps you didn't see Trump's town hall on CNN.... The great theme of the night was things that Donald Trump said that he now doesn't remember, or didn't necessarily mean. This happens all the time. Either our great business genius is incapable of mental fact-checking, or he has about as much political courage as a rabbit." ...

... As if determined to make Collins' point, There's This. Alan Rappeport: "In a town-hall meeting hosted by CNN on Thursday night..., Mr. Trump said, 'I like the [ObamaCare] mandate.' So here's where I'm a little bit different.... I don't want people dying on the streets.' Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Trump backed away from his remarks, proclaiming himself to be the fiercest opponent of the health law.... In the face of ... backlash [from winger opponents & supporters alike], Mr. Trump fired back on Twitter that he had been misunderstood. He said he only liked the provision in the law that requires insurers to provide coverage for people who are already ill. He then promised that he intended to repeal the entire piece of legislation, including the mandate.... It was the latest example of a candidate who has been impervious to inconsistencies again emerging unscathed from a misstep that would probably be damaging to anyone else." ...

... Oh, There's More. Cooper Allen of USA Today: "A day after the uproar over Pope Francis' comments that Donald Trump 'is not Christian' because of his proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, a Vatican spokesman offered a clarification of sorts. Father Federico Lombardi of the Vatican Press Office told reporters (translated from Italian) that 'the Pope emphasized that those who only think of building walls, not bridges, is not Christian.' He added that the pontiff has emphasized the need for bridges over walls in the past, including with the European migration crisis. 'This is one of his general attitudes, very consistent with what is a courageous following of the Gospel,' Lombardi said." ...

... Andrew Kaczynski, with Christopher Massie, has returned to the Trump Time Machine: "Donald Trump, faced with his own words from 2002 that directly contradict his claim he opposed an Iraq invasion early on, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night he opposed the war by the time it started. But in an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto one day into the Iraq invasion, Trump did not express his opposition to war, and said it appeared to be 'a tremendous success from a military standpoint.' Trump predicted the war would continue to be great for Wall Street. (See related link in yesterday's Commentariat.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Nicholas Watt, et al., of the Guardian: Prime Minister "David Cameron has succeeded in renegotiating the terms of Britain's European Union membership, paving the way for a cabinet meeting on Saturday that will allow him to announce a referendum on 23 June. A marathon round of talks over two days, during which the prime minister managed just three hours sleep in the early hours of Friday morning, led to an agreement for the UK shortly after 9pm UK time."

News Ledes

The Washington Post report on Justice Antonin Scalia's funeral mass is here.

Los Angeles Times: "Umberto Eco, an Italian novelist and intellectual of worldwide renown who imbued his work with humor and scholarship and whose novel 'The Name of the Rose' became a global phenomenon, has died, his American publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt confirmed late Friday afternoon. He was 84." ...

     ... Update: Eco's New York Times obituary is here.

The Commentariat -- Feb. 19, 2016

Tea Leaves. Michael Grunwald of Politico: "In the wide-ranging interview that often turned provocative, especially when he complained about the Democratic presidential race he decided to skip, the vice president flatly said an Obama nominee in the outspoken progressive mold of former Justice William Brennan is 'not going to happen.' Biden, who fiercely defended legislative prerogatives as the longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also volunteered that 'it was never intended for the president to pick whoever he wants and that's it.' And he suggested the Senate has the right to consider not only a nominee's philosophy, but how much the nomination would change the court, a common GOP talking point these days.... He said Obama also intends to nominate 'someone who has demonstrated they have an open mind, someone who doesn't have a specific agenda,' even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he shouldn't bother nominating anyone in his last year." ...

... Mitch McConnell & Chuck Grassley in a Washington Post op-ed: "We don't think the American people should be robbed of this unique opportunity [to allow the next president to nominate a Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia]. Democrats beg to differ. They'd rather the Senate simply push through yet another lifetime appointment by a president on his way out the door.... The Senate has not confirmed a nominee to fill a vacancy arising in such circumstances for the better part of a century." ...

     ... CW: Here's a "circumstance" for you fellas: New York Times: "The Senate has never taken more than 125 days to vote on a successor from the time of nomination; on average, a nominee has been confirmed, rejected or withdrawn within 25 days. When Justice Antonin Scalia died, 342 days remained in President Obama's term." ...

... Erica Martinson & Nathaniel Herz of Alaska Dispatch News: "Whomever President Barack Obama nominates to replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski [R] thinks the nominee deserves to be vetted by the Senate." ...

... Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "... the actuarial tables offer a somber prospect over the next four years. Scalia's departure is the opening act, not the conclusion, of a historic generational shift. If President Obama's pick is confirmed, the Court's moderate liberals will have a slight advantage in the head count. That's true for at least the next term, but not much longer. The new shape of the Court is much more likely to be determined by the next four years than by the next four months. The 'partisan balance' of the Court may shift more than once.... I suspect that [Chief Justice Roberts] does not believe that 'the American people' should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice' -- at least not a direct one.... The current Republican tantrum may change minds inside the marble palace; it may do more to break a Republican 'bloc' than Barack Obama ever could." ...

... Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post: "The number of white dudes becoming federal judges has plummeted under Obama.... Just 38 percent of district judges appointed by Obama have been white men. Under Bush, the figure was 67 percent, and under Clinton, it was 52 percent. By contrast, under President Reagan, fully 85 percent of judges appointed to district courts were white men." ...

... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "Of course this is exactly the kind of change that terrifies the conservative insurgency. But for the rest of us, it is a victory to keep in mind as we tally the legacy of our 44th President and consider the wealth of talent he has to chose from in a Supreme Court nominee."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice Antonin Scalia's body will lie in repose on Friday in the Supreme Court's majestic Great Hall, not far from the courtroom where he dominated the court's arguments for three decades and helped shape American law. His body will be placed on the same catafalque, on loan from Congress, that once held President Abraham Lincoln's coffin." CW: Seems appropriate. Lincoln proposed to free slaves & Scalia tried to enslave free Americans again. Roll over, Abe Lincoln. ...

... Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "The White House on Thursday defended President Barack Obama's decision not to attend Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's funeral.... 'There's so much rancor in politics and partisanship that we allow ourselves to get drawn into different corners to the extent that some people actually want to use the funeral of a Supreme Court justice as some sort of political cudgel,' White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday. 'The president doesn't think that that's appropriate, and, in fact, what the president thinks is appropriate is respectfully paying tribute to high-profile patriotic American citizens, even when you don't agree on all the issues. And that's what he's going to do.'"

John Eligon of the New York Times: "In a test of Kansas' wide-ranging voter registration law, a federal lawsuit filed on Thursday challenged a provision that required residents to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, takes aim at a measure that was pushed through the Republican-led Legislature five years ago by Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach.... The A.C.L.U., saying that fraud claims were unfounded, brought the class-action suit on behalf of six Kansas residents who said they were left off the voter rolls after registering at the state's Department of Motor Vehicles."

New York Times Editors: "... Apple is doing the right thing in challenging the federal court ruling requiring that it comply [with a court ruling].... In a 1977 case involving the New York Telephone Company, the Supreme Court said the government could not compel a third party that is not involved in a crime to assist law enforcement if doing so would place 'unreasonable burdens' on it. Judge Pym's order requiring Apple to create software to subvert the security features of an iPhone places just such a burden on the company." ...

... Libertarian presidential candidate & anti-virus software guru John McAfee rips the government for demanding Apple provide a "back door" to encrypted messages on a dead San Diego terrorist's iPhone, then offers his team to decrypt the phone free of charge.

Emily Crockett of Vox: "'Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil,' [Pope] Francis said. "In certain cases, as in this one [-- the Zika virus --]..., it was clear. I would also urge doctors to do their utmost to find vaccines against these mosquitoes that carry this disease.' If Pope Francis actually granted an exception for women in Zika-afflicted areas, it would be a huge deal. He has suggested before that the church should focus less on contraception and abortion issues -- but he hasn't actually proposed any policy changes. The church bans contraception and abortion outright. This has major public health consequences, especially for developing countries that are heavily Catholic, like in Latin America."

Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "New data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that January of 2016 was, for the globe, a truly extraordinary month. Coming off the hottest year ever recorded (2015), January saw the greatest departure from average of any month on record, according to data provided by NASA." CW: Oh yeah? The other day, it was 14 below where I live & it's 7 degrees right now, so these data couldn't be true.

Presidential Race

Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "When it comes to labor powerhouses in Nevada, few organizations quite match the Culinary Workers Union: 57,000 strong, more than 50 percent Latino.... But to the increasing distress of the two Democratic presidential contenders, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Hillary Clinton, the union has decided to sit out the Democratic presidential caucuses [in Nevada] on Saturday, setting off a free-for-all for its members and adding to the increasingly tense and unsettled political atmosphere here.... Union leaders said they were staying on the sidelines because the demands of mobilizing behind either Mr. Sanders or Mrs. Clinton would divert resources, distract members and potentially polarize the union just as they are entering critical contract negotiations. The Culinary Workers will instead focus its resources on the general election, in which Nevada is almost certain to be pivotal." ...

... Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Nevada was once supposed to be a firewall for Mrs. Clinton, its large minority population primed to accelerate her drive to the Democratic nomination. But after her narrow victory in Iowa and crushing defeat in New Hampshire, it has turned into yet another tight and unpredictable contest, in which Mr. Sanders stands to gain more from a victory, and Mrs. Clinton stands to lose more from a defeat.... Mrs. Clinton's aides have appeared to brace for the worst here, playing down expectations and shifting their attention to the South Carolina primary the following weekend and on the 11 states that hold contests on Super Tuesday, March 1." ...

... Jamie Self of the (South Carolina) State: "U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn will endorse Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the state's presidential primary, a Clinton campaign aide told The State Thursday night. The endorsement will come at 11 a.m. Friday at Columbia's Allen University, a source close to Clyburn also confirmed." ...

... Hope Yen & Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "So much for Bernie Sanders' big win in New Hampshire. Since then, Hillary Clinton has picked up endorsements from 87 more superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention, dwarfing Sanders' gain from the New Hampshire primary, according to a new Associated Press survey. Sanders has added just 11 superdelegate endorsements. If these party insiders continue to back Clinton overwhelmingly -- and they can change their minds -- Sanders would have to win the remaining primaries by a landslide just to catch up.... After the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has a small 36-32 lead among delegates won in primaries and caucuses. But when superdelegates are included, Clinton leads 481-55, according to the AP count." ...

... Paul Krugman turns up the anti-Sanders volume, this time devoting his column to excoriating the fantastical economic projections made by an economist who is not associated with Sanders' campaign but whom Sanders' top campaign aides have praised. CW: Krugman's criticism of crazy projections is well-taken, but he should have mentioned that the economist he associates with Sanders is a Hillary Clinton supporter. ...

... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post is similarly derisive of the numbers associated with the Sanders' plan, but at least she acknowledges the the economist who came up with the phony numbers is a Clinton supporter.

Jim Yardley of the New York Times: "'A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,' [Pope] Francis said when a reporter asked him about Mr. Trump on the papal airliner as he returned to Rome after his six-day visit to Mexico. The pope ... also waded into the question of

... Simon Maloy of Salon: "... pretty much every one of Trump's rivals ... also wants to throw up some sort of wall-like structure on our frontier with Mexico. At the Reagan Library debate last September, Marco Rubio said the first step towards immigration reform is 'we must secure our border, the physical border, with -- with a wall, absolutely.' Ted Cruz says all the time that 'we're going to build a wall' and jokes that he's going to get Trump to build it for him. Ben Carson thinks 'the border wall is a good start' but is also open to other security measures, like drone strikes along the border.... If we're going to go with the 'Pope questioned Trump's Christianity' interpretation, then we have to expand that out to pretty much every Christian in the Republican Party, which is a lot of people. That's why you're seeing Republicans like Rubio and Jeb Bush -- Catholics both -- pushing back against the pope's statement, even though it's being widely interpreted as an attack on their chief rival for the GOP nomination. The way they see it, the pope didn't attack Trump, he attacked a key policy platform of the party." ...

... More Christian Than the Pope. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump said it was 'disgraceful' that Pope Francis questioned his faith on Thursday and suggested that his presidency would be the answer to the Vatican's prayers because he would protect it from terrorists if elected." Trump said in a statement, "No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith. They [the Mexican government] are using the pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant." (Emphasis added.) Trump's full statement is here. ...

     ... CW: The most hilarious part of Trump's statement is the highlighted bit, inasmuch as Trump has a long history of questioning President Obama's faith. I seriously doubt faithful Roman Catholics will be amused at Trump's criticizing the Pope. ...

... Nick Gass of Politico: "The White House weighed in on Thursday afternoon, with press secretary Josh Earnest delivering a cutting comment during the daily briefing. 'I will, however, though, extend to Mr. Trump the courtesy that he has not extended to the president and not use this opportunity to call into question the kind of private, personal conversations that he's having with his god,' Earnest said." ...

... Jenna Johnson & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "... Pope Francis added the strongest voice yet to a growing chorus of world leaders taking a stand against the celebrity candidate -- condemning Trump's hard-line immigration agenda and suggesting he was not a Christian because of it.... First was the British prime minister, who called Donald Trump 'divisive, stupid and wrong.' Then came Britain's Parliament, which denounced him with colorful language. The French prime minister, the Turkish president and a Saudi prince also weighed in: The Republican presidential front-runner, they agreed, was a demagogue disgracing the United States." CW: Don't worry, Donald. Vladimir Putin & Kim-Jong Un probably find you likable enough. ...

... "Pope Francis, Tear Down That Wall." Liam Stack of the New York Times: "Supporters of Donald J. Trump were quick to suggest on Thursday that Pope Francis was being hypocritical to criticize as un-Christian Mr. Trump's proposal to build a wall between the United States and Mexico because the pontiff himself lives in Vatican City, a small state with sturdy walls of its own.... But scholars who study Medieval Italy and the history of the Roman Catholic Church dismissed those criticisms as the product of a basic misunderstanding of both the geography and the history of Vatican City. There are, to be sure, formidable walls in Vatican City, and much of of the site, including the gardens and the modest guesthouse that is home to Francis, is set behind them. But the walls do not entirely enclose the city-state, and in the modern era they are not meant to, historians said." ...

... Nick Gass: "During a taped telephone interview aired during ABC's 'Good Morning America,' co-anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Trump if he thought his statement slamming the pope's remark would hurt him going forward, including in Saturday's South Carolina primary.... Repeating his usual rhetoric about building a wall to keep out drugs and undocumented immigrants, Trump commented that Francis' remarks were 'a little bit lighter ... than the press portrayed after I read a transcript.' The pope's precise words do not specifically mention Trump but rather speak in general religious terms about anyone who constructs a wall instead of building bridges. During Thursday night's town hall event on CNN, the businessman had already begun dialing back his rhetoric, calling Francis 'a wonderful guy.' In an interview on MSNBC, Jeb Bush said he thought 'it was probably inappropriate for the pope to intervene at the -- in the height of a contested primary in that way.'" ...

... Steve M. reminds us that right-wingers have been attacking Pope Francis for some time. So don't expect this to be the downfall of the Donald." ...

... Sarah Posner of Rolling Stone: "It's almost as if Trump sees himself as the Henry VIII of reality TV (though he didn't need any permission for his divorces). He's hinting, not too subtly, that allowing immigration would tie the country closely to Rome, an ugly insinuation given the history of anti-Catholicism in American politics. He wants to divide -- Catholics from each other, Americans from Catholics, immigrants from 'real' Americans -- and create a new American church, one in which he is the divinely ordained King, and reading the Bible is optional." ...

... Also too, as digby points out, "He hasn't ruled out beheading either." ...

... Andrew Kaczynski & Nathan McDermott of BuzzFeed: "For months, Donald Trump has claimed that he opposed the Iraq War before the invasion began -- as an example of his great judgment on foreign policy issues. But in a 2002 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump said he supported an Iraq invasion. In the interview, which took place on Sept. 11, 2002, Stern asked Trump directly if he was for invading Iraq. 'Yeah I guess so,' Trump responded. 'I wish the first time it was done correctly.'... Trump's comments on Stern are more in line with what he wrote in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, where he advocated for a 'principled and tough' policy toward 'outlaw' states like Iraq.'... Trump, asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper at a town hall on Thursday about the Stern interview, said, 'I could have said that.'" ...

... Katie Glueck of Politico: "Trump on Thursday night again claimed he had opposed the war in 2002-2003, and then he additionally said that George H.W. Bush had handled Iraq correctly in 1992's Operation Desert Storm--statements which are both at odds with his 2002 claims." ...

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post also was disgusted by MSNBC's Morning Joe & Mika Trump Fan Club Revue: "Any hour-long session with Donald Trump that doesn't ask him about [his shameful racism & bigotry] is a puff session. Allowing this fellow to pronounce on entitlement reform, strategies on the Islamic State, campaign tactics, Iraq, Jeb Bush, health-care reform, gun rights, Supreme Court nominations and other such topics without grinding through an extensive accounting of his racism and bigotry is an outrage only sightly less egregious than the candidate's own." ...

... Charles Pierce calls the "town hall" a "one-hour infomercial that Joe Scarborough ran on behalf of Donald Trump.... Roll over, Eric Sevareid and tell Ed Murrow the news."

Aamer Madhani, et al., of USA Today: "A judge will hear arguments on Friday from an Illinois voter alleging that Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz is not a 'natural-born citizen' and should be disqualified for the party's nomination. Lawrence Joyce, an Illinois voter who has objected to Cruz's placement on the Illinois primary ballot next month, will have his case heard in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago. Joyce's previous objection, made to the state's Board of Elections, was dismissed on February 1. He appealed the decision and was granted a hearing for Friday before Judge Maureen Ward Kirby." ...

... Breaking: Ted Cruz Is Still Ted Cruz. Alex Griswold of Mediaite: "The Marco Rubio campaign is livid Thursday after the Ted Cruz campaign released a website that includes a photoshopped image of their candidate shaking hands with President Barack Obama.... Among the red flags that the image is fake... who shakes with their left hand? Certainly not the right-handed Rubio.... The Cruz campaign doubled down, telling CNN that they believe the image is authentic." ...

... Understanding Marco. He has a history of flipflopping & shirking his duties. Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post reports on Marco Rubio's practices in Tallahassee. ...

... He's Still at the Flipflopping. Greg Sargent: "In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Rubio clarified that on Day One of his presidency, he will end President Obama's executive action protecting the DREAMers -- people brought here illegally as children -- from deportation.... Here's what he said in February 2015, according to Politifact: 'What I'm not advocating is that we cancel it right now at this moment, because you already have people that have signed up for it. They're working, they're going to school. It would be deeply disruptive. But at some point, it has to come to an end.'" ...

... He's Still at the Shirking. Katie Glueck of Politico: "Marco Rubio's last-minute cancellation at a conservative confab Thursday night instantly became fodder for rival candidate Ted Cruz, with the event's pro-Cruz organizer [confederate nut Mark Levin] calling it 'pretty damn rude.'... Rubio communications director Alex Conant said in an email that following scheduling issues, the candidate was 'running super late.' The team sent surrogates Rep. Trey Gowdy and Sen. Tim Scott in Rubio's place," but Levin didn't allow them to speak.

Beyond the Beltway

Beyond Belief. Scott Thistle of the Maine Sun Journal: "Maine Gov. Paul LePage on Thursday added his voice to the ongoing debate regarding the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created with the unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia last Saturday. LePage sided with former governor and U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, saying President Barack Obama should nominate a replacement for Scalia. 'I'm a big constitutionalist,' LePage said. 'If it's in the Constitution, I think it means something.'"

Senate Race

Steven Dennis of Bloomberg: "Last year, [Alan] Grayson [D-Fla.], who was first elected to Congress in 2008, made a passionate speech denouncing trade with dictatorships or countries that employ forced labor. But weeks earlier, his family cashed in a long-held investment in a mining company that derives its revenue almost entirely from Eritrea, an east African country labeled 'a pariah state' by Human Rights Watch in part for its system of forced labor in service of a government that hasn't held an election since 1991. Grayson said he wasn't aware of the 2013 report criticizing the company."

Way Beyond

"We'll Always Have Paris." Tim Egan presents a picture of Paris apres the terrorist attacks. It's still Paris, according to Egan, albeit a Paris with armed soldiers around every corner.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Harper Lee, whose first novel, 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' about racial injustice in a small Alabama town, sold more than 10 million copies and became one of the most beloved and most taught works of fiction ever written by an American, has died. She was 89."

New York Times: "American warplanes struck an Islamic State camp in Libya early Friday, targeting a senior Tunisian operative linked to two major terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year. The airstrikes, on a camp outside Sabratha, about 50 miles west of Tripoli, killed at least 30 Islamic State recruits at the site, many of whom were believed to be from Tunisia, according to a Western official...."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 18, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Jim Yardley of the New York Times: "'A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,' [Pope] Francis said when a reporter asked him about Mr. Trump on the papal airliner as he returned to Rome after his six-day visit to Mexico. The pope ... also waded into the question of whether the Roman Catholic Church should grant an exception to its prohibitions on abortion and birth control in regions where the Zika virus is causing a public health emergency, including in much of Catholic-dominated Latin America."

Understanding Marco. He has a history of flipflopping & shirking. Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post reports on Marco Rubio's practices in Tallahassee.

*****

Jim Avila & Serena Marshall of ABC News: "President Obama is planning a trip to Cuba some time next month, marking the first time in more than 80 years a sitting U.S. president will visit the country, according to sources with knowledge of the plan. A National Security Council official plans to make the announcement tomorrow at the White House briefing."

Gail Collins assesses the state of Republican leadership. It's morning again in Canada.

NEW. Linda Greenhouse reflects on Justice Scalia's impact on jurisprudence. Well, not the prudence part. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. ...

... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Obama 'regrets filibustering the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in 2006, his top spokesman said Wednesday, though he maintains that the Republican opposition to his effort to replace Justice Antonin Scalia is unprecedented. 'That is an approach the president regrets,' White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. Obama and the Democratic senators who joined him in filibustering Alito 'should have been in the position where they were making a public case' against the merits of his nomination to the high court instead, Earnest said. 'They shouldn't have looked for a way to just throw sand in the gears of the process,' he added."...

... Eric Bradner of CNN: "Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says President Barack Obama should name Antonin Scalia's replacement.... 'I don't agree (with Republicans)," O'Connor [-- a Reagan appointee --] said in an interview with Phoenix-based Fox affiliate KSAZ. 'We need somebody in there to do the job and just get on with it.'" ...

     ... CW: If President Obama wanted to defang the Republicans -- and there's little reason to think he does since they are chewing themselves up -- he could appoint O'Connor tomorrow. It would be a gamble, of course; there's no telling how she would decide on the important cases before this session of the Court. ...

... Mike DeBonis & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans clashed Wednesday over how to battle President Obama's expected Supreme Court nomination as the White House left open the remote possibility that the president might sidestep a confirmation fight by making a rare recess appointment.... But Obama's opportunity to make a recess appointment will probably disappear after Monday, when the Senate returns from its weeklong recess. Republicans, who control the Senate, are likely to keep the Senate officially in session continuously for the rest of the Obama's term." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... in record time, the liberal and conservative Washington lobbying and advocacy machines are roaring to life, as both sides prepare for a fight on a battlefield that includes the White House, Congress and the campaign trail. Advocacy groups are already vowing to spend millions of dollars." ...

... Frank Rich: President "Obama, a lame duck who will not be on the ballot in November, has nothing to lose by standing on principle and carrying out a president's duty to submit a nominee to the Senate. The GOP, by contrast, has a lot to lose come Election Day -- including control of the Senate." ...

... Mark Kleiman has fairly delightful commentary on the merits of a recess appointment, although, as he notes in an update, the Senate may not in fact be in recess now. Kleiman is a professor of public policy at UCLA. CW: As I read the full adjournment statement, in conjunction with the fact that the House is in adjournment, it looks to me as if the Senate is also. ...

... Dana Milbank: "By attempting to make the election about the Supreme Court, Republicans would turn the discussion to topics on which Democrats have large advantages: climate change, business regulations, abortion, same-sex marriage, voting rights and campaign finance. (Polling on immigration and gun control, two other hot-button issues associated with the High Court, is more mixed.) The refusal to seat a justice would also further the impression, already widely held, that Republicans are more to blame for Washington's dysfunction." P.S. Ron Johnson retains his title as America's Stupidest Senator. But he's great at Twister! ...

... CW: Nobody could use a Supreme set-to better than Hillary Clinton, who was the subject of the Citizens United case. Americans overwhelmingly think Citzens United should be overturned. ...

... Jamiles Lartey of the Guardian: "Republican calls for Barack Obama to refrain from nominating a successor to deceased supreme court justice Antonin Scalia are 'odd' and 'absurd', according to constitutional scholars and experts. 'The arguments that they are making -- that this is a matter of principle – are nonsense,' said Michael Dorf, professor of constitutional law at Cornell Law School. 'It's just that they politically want some different kind of nominee.'" ...

... Greg Sargent does an "on the one hand/on the other hand" for Senate Republicans. ...

... Laura Clawson of Daily Kos: "It took Senate Republicans a couple of days to realize that swearing ahead of time that they'd refuse to even consider any Supreme Court nomination from President Obama didn't look good, so on Tuesday they started walking it back a little -- and the backwards stumble continues. They're not saying they'll be reasonable, mind you -- they're basically saying they'll block any nomination but at a slightly later, more media-friendly point in the process." ...

... AND Clawson notes we need better headline writers. (Another example was one Frank Rich mentioned in the post linked above: "Though a Times front-page headline this morning reads 'Court Path Is Littered With Pitfalls, for Obama and the G.O.P.,' the only potential pitfalls it actually identifies are all for the GOP.") ...

... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: Some newspaper editorial boards are targeting home-state Republican senators who have spoken out against President Obama's nominating a candidate for Supreme Court justice. ...

... Obama's Butler Did It in the Bedroom with a Pillow. Pema Levy of Mother Jones provides another helpful guide to Scalia assassination theories. ...

... Kate Hudson of CBS "News": "The ranch owner, John Poindexter, tried to clarify his comments, telling 'CBS This Morning' that Scalia 'had a pillow over his head, not over his face as some have been saying. The pillow was against the headboard.'" CW: Yeah, the perps also change their stories.

Trey's October No-Surprise? Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "The leader of the House Select Committee on Benghazi promised to release a report 'as soon as possible' as the panel approaches its two-year mark. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) announced the committee has conducted a total of 75 witness interviews since its creation in May 2014 to investigate the Benghazi terrorist attacks, including recent sit-downs with White House national security adviser Susan Rice and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes." Greg Sargent figures that "as soon as possible" means "October."

Timothy Lee of Vox does an explainer on the FBI-Apple battle over unlocking Syed Farook's iPhone. ...

... Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times predicts that, at least in the long run, Apple -- & the tech companies in general -- with emerge victorious: "Apple, Google, Facebook and other companies hold most of the cards in this confrontation. They have our data, and their businesses depend on the global public's collective belief that they will do everything they can to protect that data." ...

     ... CW: Manjoo has good arguments, but they rely on the assumption that iPhone customers -- or potential customers -- don't care about lawlessness or terrorism. Seems flawed. Manjoo has been writing about technology for a long time. His friends are probably techies. I think if he got out in the real world he'd find that people are more terrified a Mooslim will murder them in their beds than they are worried that Barack Obama is listening in on their amorous phone calls. ...

... Shane Harris of the Daily Beast: "... in a similar case in New York last year, Apple acknowledged that it could extract such data if it wanted to. And according to prosecutors in that case, Apple has unlocked phones for authorities at least 70 times since 2008. (Apple doesn't dispute this figure.) In other words, Apple's stance in the San Bernardino case may not be quite the principled defense that [CEO Tim] Cook claims it is. In fact, it may have as much to do with public relations as it does with warding off what Cook called 'an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers.'" CW: No kidding. ...

... Max Rosenthal of Mother Jones: Some experts say that the difference is that in the older cases, the government was asking Apple to apply means they already had to open the files, while in this case, the government is telling Apple to write new decryption software. CW: A distinction, yes, but not one with much of a difference. If a bank, say, develops a "fail-safe" system to prevent unauthorized access to your safety deposit box, then gets a court order to open the box, they'll have to develop a new protocol to comply with the order.

Joshua Partlow & Gabriela Martinez of the Washington Post: "Overlooking the flood lights and barbed wire that line the U.S. border, Pope Francis on Wednesday quietly prayed for the migrants who have died during their journeys to America, as thousands of people watched on both sides of the Rio Grande's fortified shores. In what amounted to a symbolic rebuke of America's presidential campaign rhetoric -- which has included calls for mass deportations of illegal immigrants and a huge border wall -- the pope prayed atop a platform that overlooked the frontier. The pontiff waved and made the sign of the cross to a crowd cheering across the river in El Paso, Tex., suggesting his concern for those transiting through danger, in Mexico and beyond." ...

Presidential Race

Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "A group of leading liberal economists who served in the Obama and Clinton administrations have assessed the proposals of Bernie Sanders and concluded that the Vermont senator's rosy economic projections do not add up. In a letter to Mr. Sanders and Gerald Friedman, a University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor who has said that Mr. Sanders's economic policies are would yield surging growth and job gains, they warn that 'no credible economic research' supports those conclusions." ...

... CW: Here's why the economists right: Kevin Drum has it in chart form. With exclamations! "WTF? Per-capita GDP will grow 4.5 percent? And not just in a single year: Friedman is projecting that it will grow by an average of 4.5 percent every year for the next decade. Productivity growth will double compared to CBO projections -- and in case you're curious, there has never been a 10-year period since World War II in which productivity grew 3.18 percent. Not one. And miraculously, the employment-population ratio, which has been declining since 2000 and has never reached 65 percent ever in history, will rise to 65 percent in a mere ten years.... This is insane. If anything, it's worse than the endless magic asterisks that Republicans use to pretend that their tax plans will supercharge the economy and pay for themselves. It's not even remotely in the realm of reality." ...

... Paul Krugman: "Sanders needs to disassociate himself from this kind of fantasy economics right now. If his campaign responds instead by lashing out -- well, a campaign that treats Alan Krueger, Christy Romer, and Laura Tyson as right-wing enemies is well on its way to making Donald Trump president." ...

... CW: It looks as if Krugman doesn't need to worry. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "New Public Policy Polling surveys of the 12 states that will hold Democratic primaries for President between March 1^st and 8th ... find Hillary Clinton leading the way in 10 of 12, with double digit leads in 9 of them.... Clinton is benefiting in these states from overwhelming African American support. She leads by anywhere from 40-62 points among black voters in the nine of these states that have more black voters than the national average." ...

... Krugman again: "As Matt O'Brien rightly said recently, even the incremental changes Hillary Clinton is proposing are very unlikely to get through Congress; the radical changes Bernie Sanders is proposing wouldn't happen even if Democrats retook the House. O'Brien says that the Democratic primary is 'like arguing what's more real: a magical unicorn or a regular unicorn. In either case, you're still running on a unicorn platform.' This is, alas, probably true: the platforms of the candidates are better seen as aspirational than as programs at all likely to happen." Here's O'Brien's post, dated Feb. 8. ...

... Facts aside, economist Thomas Piketty -- in a Guardian essay published originally in Le Monde -- sees Sanders as a welcome harbinger of "the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections.... Sanders' success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism. Hillary Clinton ... appears today as if she is defending the status quo, just another heiress of the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political regime." CW: Maybe Piketty can help the Sanders campaign come up with some believable numbers. ...

... BUT. I think Hillary has a real winner in this new ad running in Nevada. I'd guess this is something Bernie can't match. Ad via Greg Sargent:

A Pogo Stick in Every Household. Margaret Hartmann of New York gleans some little-known facts from the GOP teevee-town-halls that aired last night.

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Senator Marco Rubio received the endorsement Wednesday of South Carolina's governor, Nikki R. Haley, a stamp of approval that could prove significant as his campaign tries to break out ahead in the state's primary on Saturday. Mrs. Haley endorsed Mr. Rubio at an early evening rally in Chapin, S.C...." ...

... Marco's One-Way Conversations. Mike Zapler of Politico: "On Tuesday and Wednesday, [Marco Rubio] held four events -- all dubbed ahead of time as 'town halls' -- but the candidate didn't take questions from voters at any of them. He did stick around each time to mingle and take selfies with audience members after delivering his roughly 40-minute stump speech. He also took questions from reporters after an event Wednesday. A campaign spokesman said the events were changed from town halls to rallies. That more controlled setting allows Rubio to limit the possibility of a bad moment...." CW: Even when he tries to stifle the audience, Marco screws up. Tuesday, he laughed along with the crowd when someone shouted,"Waterboard Hillary!" (If you think torturing women is funny, I guess that's not a screw-up. Nikki Haley didn't seem to mind, anyway.) ...

... Update. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "An audience member at a rally for Senator Marco Rubio called Hillary Clinton 'a traitor,' prompting an objection from the candidate. 'I wouldn't go that far, sir,' Mr. Rubio said from the stage where he was campaigning with Gov. Nikki Haley...." According to Barbaro's reporting, this was the same guy who then said, "Let's waterboard Hillary," which Marco treated as a joke.

Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "After receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Donald Trump for running an ad that characterized Trump as pro-choice, Ted Cruz effective said, "So sue me." "Mr. Cruz held forth in a hotel conference room [in Seneca, S.C.], laying papers across a table and gesturing toward his visual aids: a video screen, on which he played the ad, and a poster detailing Mr. Trump's past contributions to Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid. 'You have been threatening frivolous lawsuits for your entire adult life,' Mr. Cruz said of Mr. Trump.... 'I may well not use outside counsel,' Mr. Cruz said. 'I may take the deposition myself." ...

     ... CW: Yes, we know you're a crackerjack lawyer, Ted might remember the adage "A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." ...

... Alan Rappeport: "Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has erased Donald J. Trump's lead in a new national poll that could signal a significant shift in the race for the Republican nomination with primary election season in full swing." ...

... Mark Murray of NBC News: "Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has fallen behind Ted Cruz in the national GOP horserace, according to a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. In the poll, Cruz is the first choice of 28 percent of Republican primary voters, while Trump gets 26 percent. They're followed by Marco Rubio at 17 percent, John Kasich at 11 percent, Ben Carson at 10 percent and Jeb Bush at 4 percent." ...

... Oh Yeah? Anthony Salvanto, et al., of CBS "News": "Donald Trump (35 percent) continues to hold a commanding lead over the rest of the field, with a 17 point lead over his closest rival, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (18 percent). John Kasich (11 percent) has now risen to a virtual third-place tie with Marco Rubio (12 percent). Trump leads among nearly every demographic group. More than half of Republican voters say they may still change their minds about who to support, but two thirds of Trump voters say their minds are made up." CW: I assume this is also a national poll. ...

... Isaac Chotiner of Slate: Joe "Scarborough and [Mika] Brzezinski [of MSNBC] hosted what appeared to be a rehearsed and 'safe' town hall [with Donald Trump Wednesday night], in which American voters asked the candidate such hard-hitting questions as 'Why did you decide to run for president?' and 'how will you set yourself apart' from other Republicans? It was completely worthless television, except in one sense: The program highlighted the many ways in which the media's coverage of Trump has been soft, insufficient, and without substance.... The media's relationship with Trump should worry Hillary Clinton, assuming each of them vanquishes their primary opponents."

... Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "Nearly three decades before ... [Donald Trump] began his run for president ... he ... called for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York following a horrific rape case in which five [black] teenagers were wrongly convicted."

Beyond the Beltway

Phil Helsel of NBC News: "A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and two other men in connection with a 2014 armed standoff, nearly two years after the confrontation that thrust them into the national spotlight. The indictment of Bundy, 69, his sons Ammon and Ryan and two other men, Ryan Payne and Peter Santilli, in the Nevada standoff comes three weeks after the collapse of another armed protest over federal land management in Oregon led by the Bundy sons." ...

... They Left Their Shit Behind. Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Nearly a week after the Oregon wildlife refuge occupation ended, federal authorities poring over the site say they have found firearms and explosives as well as 'significant amounts of human feces' around an area that's home to cultural artifacts."

Michael Shepherd of the Bangor Daily News: At a town-hall meeting in Freeport, Maine, Gov. Paul "LePage called asylum seekers 'the biggest problem in our state.' That drew harsh reactions from some in the crowd who yelled, 'Shame on you,' some of whom walked out of the overflowing room at the town's library. He elaborated, saying that Maine often doesn't receive federal aid to help secondary migrants. Then he doubled down on a past, baseless argument that asylum seekers pose a public health threat, saying they're bringing hepatitis C, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV and 'the ziki fly,' an apparent malaprop reference to the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus." CW: Or maybe he meant "tsetse fly" which is almost a homonym. Or maybe he meant frat boys; Zeta Beta Tau men used to be called "Zekes." I myself would worry about an influx of frat boys.