The Commentariat -- June 13, 2016
Afternoon Update:
David Graham in The Atlantic: Obama Involved in Orlando Nightclub Shooting. "In an almost entirely unprecedented moment, Donald Trump ... suggested in interviews Monday morning that President Obama may have somehow been involved in Sunday's massacre in Orlando. Trump's suggestion came by implication, but the message is unmistakable: The president may have somehow known about or been involved in the shooting." ...
... : Off the rails, into the woods, and over a cliff. You might as well vote for the guy on the subway who talks to himself.
Steve Benen of MSNBC demonstrates how Republicans are making hay while the blood's still wet: "GOP officials, including staunch opponents of gay rights, were eager to condemn the mass shooting, but most were silent on the fact that the gunman targeted not just Americans in general, but LGBT Americans specifically.... Republicans in general were loath to mention the role of anti-LGBT attitudes in the Orlando attack, but [Ted] Cruz saw an opportunity -- not because of his sympathies, but because the slayings might be a wedge issue." ...
... : Any chance to turn bloodshed to his advantage, Lyin' Ted will hop to it. Despicable is too nice a word.
Dan Mangan of CNBC: "If the next president and Congress repeals Obamacare -- as many Republican elected officials want to do -- there could end up being more people without health insurance than before the law went into effect, a new study says. A total of 24 million more people would lose health coverage by 2021 if the Affordable Care Act was repealed, according to the study issued Monday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute. As a result, the uninsured rate would nearly double, to 19.4 percent of the U.S. population by 2021, according to the study." ...
... : What a victory that would be for Republicans. I'm sure they'd all be so proud. Those nasty moochers would be back waiting to gasp their last breath on an emergency room gurney. The Republican Way.
*****
Christal Hayes, et al., of the Orlando Sentinel: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation three times interviewed Omar Mateen for having alleged terrorist ties before he killed 50 people and injured 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The names of several people he killed have been released. ...
... The Sentinel is liveblogging developments here. ...
... The New York Times story, by Lizette Alvarez & Richard Perez-Pena, is here. ...
... Max Bearak of the Washington Post: "The father of Omar Mateen, identified by police as the man behind the carnage at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, is an Afghan man who holds strong political views, including support for the Afghan Taliban. In a video he posted on Saturday, he appears to be portraying himself as the president of Afghanistan. Seddique Mateen ... hosted the 'Durand Jirga Show' on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California. In it, the elder Mateen speaks in the Dari language on a variety of political subjects. He doesn't always make much sense.... On Sunday morning, Mateen told NBC News that his son's rampage 'has nothing to do with religion.' Instead, he offered another possible motive. He said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a few months ago." -- CW ...
... Anthony Westbury, et al., of Florida Today: "A former Fort Pierce police officer who once worked with 29-year-old Omar Mateen ... said he was 'unhinged and unstable.' Daniel Gilroy said ... Mateen frequently made homophobic and racial comments. Gilroy said he complained to his employer several times but it did nothing because he was Muslim. Gilroy quit after he said Mateen began stalking him via multiple text messages -- 20 or 30 a day. He also sent Gilroy 13 to 15 phone messages a day, he said.... 'He talked of killing people.' Gilroy said this shooting didn't come as a surprise to him." -- CW ...
...Katie Zavadski of The Daily Beast: "Years before he shot up an Orlando gay club in what became the largest mass shooting in American history, Omar Mateen regularly picked up lunch from a drag queen at Ruby Tuesday. He may have even gone to see a drag show or two, a former high school classmate told The Daily Beast.... Mateen was a few years out of playing football in high school while King [the former classmate], who is openly gay, had long, flowing extensions, and prettier hair than most of his female co-workers.... King saw none of that homophobia. Quite the opposite: He said Mateen knew that he and many of his co-workers at Ruby Tuesday were gay, and didn't seem to have a problem with it." --safari...
... Adam Goldman, et al., of the Washington Post: "The ex-wife of the 29-year-old man who is believed to have killed 50 people in an Orlando nightclub early Sunday said that he was violent and mentally unstable and beat her repeatedly while they were married." -- CW ...
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama expressed the anguish of a nation on Sunday as he condemned the worst mass shooting in United States history and vowed to respond forcefully to the devastating 'act of terror' at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla":
... Mike Weisser of the Huffington Post in a New York Times op-ed: "When 50 people were shot and killed last night at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the toll from gun murders this year rose to somewhere around 6,000 deaths, which means if the trend continues, this year may end up with the highest gun homicide count since Barack Obama took office in 2009. Add to the homicide number the 550 or so victims of police shootings, roughly the same number of accidental gun deaths and the 21,000+ Americans who use a gun to end their own lives, and the total gun mortality number this year may go above 35,000.... By my calculations, we currently suffer more gun deaths than occurred during the bloodiest war in our entire history, and it has been going on for far longer than the fifty months of the Civil War." -- CW ...
... Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "One common denominator behind ... high-casualty mass shootings in recent years is the use of assault style rifles, capable of firing many rounds of ammunition in a relatively short period of time, with high accuracy. And their use in these types of shooting is becoming more common: There have been eight high-profile public mass shootings since July of last year, according to a database compiled by Mother Jones magazine. Assault-style rifles were used in seven of those.... Gun rights proponents point out that rifles, of any type, are rarely used to kill people in the U.S.... Terrorist groups have taken note of the widespread availability of assault rifles and other guns in the U.S. In 2011, al-Qaeda encouraged its followers to take advantage of lax guns laws, purchase assault-style weapons and use them to shoot people.... Indeed, federal law allows people on terror watch lists to purchase guns, and thousands of them have done so." -- CW ...
... Larry Buchanan, et al., of the New York Times: "The vast majority of guns used in 16 recent mass shootings, including two guns believed to be used in the Orlando attack, were bought legally and with a federal background check. At least eight gunmen had criminal histories or documented mental health problems that did not prevent them from obtaining their weapons." The reporters catalog the sources of guns used in these calamities. -- CW ...
...Jane C. Timm of NBC News: "Former Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led the war in Afghanistan, endorsed strong gun control laws Tuesday on Morning Joe...'We've got to take a serious look -- I understand everyone's desire to have whatever they want -- but we;ve got to protect our children, we've got to protect our police, we’ve got to protect our population,' McChrystal said. 'Serious action is necessary. Sometimes we talk about very limited actions on the edges and I just don't think that;s enough." --safari
Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump on Sunday pounced on the news of the massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub to underscore his presidential campaign's central message -- that the United States needs to be tougher to combat Islamist terrorism. 'When will this stop?' Mr. Trump ...wrote in a Twitter post shortly before noon. 'When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?' About an hour later, he amplified that point, writing: 'Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!'... A tragedy in the middle of a presidential race would typically force restraint on candidates.... Hillary Clinton initially responded with caution Sunday morning, offering on Twitter her thoughts to those affected 'as we wait for more information.' But after Mr. Obama spoke, she issued a longer statement echoing the president: 'This was an act of terror.'... Friday, Mr. Trump used an address to a Christian conservative group to criticize Mrs. Clinton for refusing 'to even say the words radical Islam.' 'This alone makes her unfit to be president,' he said." -- CW ...
... Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "In the first hours since the mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, Democratic politicians have been far more likely than Republicans to note that the target seemed to be the LGBT community. While suspect Omar Mateen's father suggested that anti-gay animus may have motivated him, only a handful of Republicans mentioned that aspect of the shooting; nearly every Democrat did." CW: And of course the MoC who made the biggest ass of himself was Ted Cruz. ...
... There's Something About Texans. Jessica Hamilton of the Houston Chronicle: "A 'reap what you sow' tweet from Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick that went out hours after approximately 50 people were killed at a Florida LGBT nightclub has been deleted amid backlash.... Patrick's adviser Allen Blakemore issued a statement explaining that the tweet was an unfortunate coincidence." CW: Uh-huh. ...
Steve M. sez: "Follow Igor Volsky of Center for American Progress on Twitter for constant updates on all the US congresspersons and senators who have taken campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association and voted against every kind of gun control legislation" but are offering "thoughts and prayers." -- CW
... safari: after all the reports and warnings about the rise of right wing extremists, the GOP continues to play with fire, threatening the very lives of Americans they claim to cherish so. It's repulsive and sadistic. ...
... Gary Younge of the Guardian: "Those who hoped a tragedy of this nature might be extracted from partisan politics will be sorely disappointed...The array of initial reactions illustrates just how confused the political response might become...Just 48 hours after America laid its most famous Muslim, Muhammad Ali, to rest in a spirit of celebration and pride, the entire Muslim community faced finding itself under collective suspicion, not only of terrorism but of homophobia." --safari...
... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "In the hours after midnight Sunday in an Orlando nightclub, three of the most contentious questions in American culture and politics -- gay rights, gun control and terrorism -- collided in a horrific way.... Since [9/11], calamity seems only to drive the left and the right further apart, while faith in the nation's institutions deteriorates further." -- CW ...
... ** Juan Cole: "The great thing about this definition [of 'terrorism'] is that it focuses on the motive behind the act. And it specifies that the motive has to be to coerce people or influence or affect government policy...We know the FBI investigated him twice and found no reason to pursue the inquiry or to keep him on a terrorist watch list. So this person looks as though he was unbalanced and extremely prejudiced individual who bought two semi-automatic weapons only last week and then committed a mass shooting against a group against which he was bigoted. He may have invoked Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) as he began his mayhem, but there is no reason at the moment to think that he was involved with them in any practical way. He was about to commit a mass murder that he must have known would likely end in his own death as well." --safari
...Tom Boggioni of RawStory: "A Florida Imam who went on CNN Sunday morning to express condolences to the victims and families of the horrific shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando is now on the receiving end of threats and attacks on social media...At a press conference, Muhammad Musri, the President of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, disavowed contact with 29-year-old Omar Mateen and praised emergency workers.... Respondents on Twitter did not share the sentiment, with one commenter telling him, 'Leave the USA.'" --safari
Bureaucracy Hell, brought to by Washington. Laura Kwerel of The Atlantic: "Massive budget cuts and hiring freezes in the last few years have turned the Social Security Administration into one of the most understaffed and overburdened agencies in the federal government. As of June, it had a backlog of more than 1 million unresolved disability claims, the highest in the agency’s history. The average wait time to get one of these claims adjudicated is more than a year...Unfortunately, when it comes to customer service, many government agencies that serve the poor are being asked to do more with less, and the SSA has faced particularly hard times." --safari
Screwing the Poor, Vol. XXVII. Eric Markowitz of NewsWeek: "In America, jail and prison payphones are an important source of funding for local jurisdictions. For years, cash-strapped sheriffs and law enforcement officials across the country have signed contracts with third-party vendors -- phone companies, commissaries, even medical providers to take a cut of the proceeds paid by inmates and their families...Part of the reason the calls are so expensive is that a private company, Securus Technologies, has an exclusive contract to operate the jail's phone and video system. But the major reason for the high cost of the calls is that the local sheriff's office takes a cut.... But over time, critics say, the ways in which prisons and jail officials spend this money has expanded beyond recognition." Read on. --safari
Presidential Race
** He Took the Money & Ran, Ctd. Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "It was promoted as the chance of a lifetime: Mom-and-pop investors could buy shares in celebrity businessman Donald Trump's first public company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts. Their investments were quickly depleted. The company known by Trump&'s initials, DJT, crumbled into a penny stock and filed for bankruptcy after less than a decade, costing shareholders millions of dollars, even as other casino companies soared.... Despite losing money every year under Trump's leadership, the company paid Trump handsomely, including a $5 million bonus in the year the company's stock plummeted 70 percent.... Interviews with former shareholders and analysts as well as years of financial filings reveal a striking characteristic of his business record: Even when his endeavors failed and other people lost money, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee found a way to make money for himself...." (Emphasis added.) CW: Read on. What a horrible human being. ...
... ** GOP = Grifters on Parade. Paul Krugman: "... my question, as Democrats gleefully tear into the Trump business record, is why rival Republicans never did the same. How did someone who looks so much like a cheap con man bulldoze right through the G.O.P. nomination process?... Were they just incompetent, or is there something structural about the modern Republican Party that makes it unable to confront grifters?... There has always been a close association between the [conservative] movement and the operations of snake-oil salesmen.... The con job that lies at the heart of so much Republican politics makes it hard to go after other, more commercial cons." -- CW
The Anniversary of Drumpf. Olivia Nuzzi of The Daily Beast: "According to those who know him, [Trump] wanted to run just to prove he could; he wanted to poll respectably, be taken seriously. Then, he wanted to go back to NBC's The Apprentice, the popular program he'd hosted for twelve years. It didn't work out that way, of course.... A lot can happen in a year. Life can end, or begin; love can be lost, or found; the democratic process as we know it can be fundamentally changed; the Republican Party damaged beyond all recognition...Perhaps it's because in a single year, Trump created a lifetime's worth of news." --safari
Fearmongerer in Chief. Jonathan Chait of New York: "[O]n the subject of Islamic terrorism, Trump has not hijacked orthodox conservatism. He has intensified it, given it a more explicit policy objective, and brought its ideas closer to their logical conclusion. Sunday's mass murder in Orlando, and the political response that has ensued, reveal Trump as a true conservative thought leader, and further reveal the ugliness of those thoughts." --safari...
...Eric Levitz of New York: "One day after calling for Obama to resign in recompense for his failure to say the words "radical Islamic terror,"Trump suggested there could be an unspeakable motive behind that failure. 'He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other,' Trump said of Obama on Fox & Friends Monday morning. 'We're led by a man who is a very -- look, we're led by a man that either is, is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can't believe it...By saying Obama may have "something else in mind" with regard to Orlando, something "inconceivable," Trump is winking at the darkest corner of the far-right fever swamp...To appreciate how profoundly irresponsible it is for the Republican nominee to make such insinuations, please review [Trump's] butler's various fantasies about hanging the first black president on the White House lawn." --safari...
...safari: Let's take a moment to contemplate the stark reality that Donald Trump is supposedly running a Presidential campaign as the leader of the GOP, and this latest episode of absolute absurdity will hardly cause a wave in the cesspool of DC politics.
Beyond the Beltway
Joel Rubin, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Authorities on Sunday were trying to determine the intentions of an Indiana man with a cache of weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials in his car and apparent plans to attend the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said on Twitter that the 20-year-old man told one of her officers after he was arrested that he wanted 'to harm Gay Pride event.' But she did not provide any details, and officials said they are still trying to sort out his motives." -- CW...
... Sarah Burris of RawStory : "The man arrested en route to the Los Angeles LGBT Pride festival with weapons, James Wesley Howell, of Indiana, has a criminal past involving guns..., Unlike the Orlando, Florida shooter, Howell is a young, white, midwestern man with a history of right-wing ideology, if his social media is any indication. He posted both anti-Hillary Clinton and anti-Barack Obama things on his social media as well as support for marjuana legalization. His last post on Facebook shows a meme comparing the Democratic presidential candidate to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler." --safari
Rong-Gong Lin of the Los Angeles Times: "A handful of graduating Stanford seniors waved signs at Sunday's commencement ceremony showing support for victims of sexual assault and urging the university to do more to protect potential victims. -- CW
News Lede
AP: "A Dutch woman held in Qatar for nearly three months after telling police she had been raped there was released on Monday after receiving a one-year suspended prison sentence, a Dutch diplomat said." -- CW
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