The Commentariat -- March 3, 2016
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court's liberal justices united Wednesday to attack Texas's abortion regulations as an unconstitutional burden on a woman's rights, but the justice who holds the key vote [-- Anthony Kennedy --] left the court's ultimate resolution of the issue in doubt." ...
... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "There is a very real procedural complication in this case that could delay its ultimate resolution, possibly for a couple of years. But if he has to reach the merits of this case, Kennedy appeared inclined to strike down the law." ...
... ** Dahlia Lithwick of Slate provides a superb account of yesterday's proceedings: "It felt as if, for the first time in history, the gender playing field at the high court was finally leveled, and as a consequence the court's female justices were emboldened to just ignore the rules." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. ...
... Mark Stern of Slate zeroes in on the exchange between Justice Ginsburg & Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller regarding the state's assertion that women seeking abortions in the El Paso area could zip over to New Mexico, which does not have the same requirements for abortion clinics that the Texas law imposes. CW: It must have been awfully sad to see Keller lose both his swagger & his fake drawl at the hands of a little old lady from New Yawk City. (Keller is a native of the Midwest. He used to work for Ted Cruz.)
... Dana Milbank: "If Wednesday's argument was an indication, the Republicans appeared to have fired up the other side more than their own with this revival of the culture wars. About 80 percent of the few thousand people braving the cold and wind outside the court were abortion rights supporters. Inside the courtroom, the liberal justices, who are now in a 4-to-4 tie with the conservatives, were unusually feisty as they considered abortion restrictions in Texas that cut the number of clinics nearly in half and the abortion capacity by about 80 percent.... Putting the court's composition to a popular referendum [-- as Republicans want to do --] will, inevitably, bring the atmosphere inside the court ever closer to the coarse displays outside." ...
... Linda Greenhouse: Absent Justice Scalia, the Supreme Court is a new and different institution now. Litigants are accommodating the change, & so are the justices themselves. ...
... Julie Davis & David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "President Obama is vetting Jane L. Kelly, a federal appellate judge in Iowa, as a potential nominee for the Supreme Court, weighing a selection that could pose an awkward dilemma for her home-state senator Charles E. Grassley, who has vowed to block the president from filling a vacancy.... In a Senate floor speech in 2013, Mr. Grassley effusively praised Judge Kelly, a longtime public defender, just before she won unanimous confirmation to her current post on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.... He said in an interview on Wednesday that he would not change his position even for a fellow Iowan." ...
... "The Party of Chaos." Greg Sargent ties the GOP's anti-Trump efforts to Senate Republicans' refusal to consider an Obama nominee to the Supreme Court. If TrumpsSoBad, why are Senate Republicans insisting they won't do their jobs to hear Obama's candidate only to allow Trump to pick the nominee replace Justice Scalia? CW: There's a teensy inconsistency in their stance that might make the skeptic suspect racism is part of the equation. ...
... Sam Biddle of Gawker (March 1): "According to some of [Justice Antonin Scalia's] former law students..., a younger Scalia also went out of his way to undermine young legal scholars, simply because they were black." ...
... CW: Although the allegations are shocking enough in their own right, it seems likely that Scalia would never have been confirmed had these stories come to light before or during Scalia's confirmation hearings. You could ask Judge Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions about that. In 1986 -- the same year the Senate confirmed Scalia's nomination to the Supreme Court -- the Senate rejected Sessions' nomination to a District Court judgeship because of charges of less-blatant racial discrimination. P.S. Thanks, President Reagan!
Elana Schor of Politico: "Former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, one of the leading forces behind the nation's natural gas boom, died Wednesday in a one-vehicle car wreck, Oklahoma City police said -- one day after his indictment on federal conspiracy charges.... 'He pretty much drove straight into the wall,' police Capt. Paco Balderrama said, according to CNBC.... The Justice Department described the indictment -- involving an alleged scheme to rig competitive oil and gas leases in northwest Oklahoma -- as the first step in 'an ongoing federal antitrust investigation' into the petroleum industry."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
James Poniewozik of the New York Times loved the CNN on-air battle between Van Jones & Jeffrey Lord, who called the KKK "the terrorist arm of the Democratic party" which killed people "to further the progressive agenda." When Jones pointed out that that was the Democratic party of a century ago, Lord argued that, no, it was "the Democratic party of today" which "divides people by race." Delusional. But, you know, riveting teevee. One does have to wonder why, if the KKK is a "liberal" organization, Lord's favored candidate has so much trouble denouncing it.
Frank Pallotta of CNN: "ESPN baseball analyst Curt Schilling appeared to violate the network's guidelines when he told a radio station that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should be 'buried under a jail.' ESPN said Wednesday, 'We are addressing it' and would not go into further details."
Presidential Race
Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "... buried beneath Mrs. Clinton's wide-ranging and commanding victories on Tuesday night were troubling signs of a party that has not yet rallied to her call. Democratic turnout has fallen drastically since 2008, the last time the party had a contested primary, with roughly three million fewer Democrats voting in the 15 states that have held caucuses or primaries through Tuesday.... It stands in sharp contrast to the flood of energized new voters showing up at the polls to vote for Donald J. Trump in the Republican contest.... And despite the seemingly inexorable demographic rise of Hispanic voters, the American electorate is still overwhelmingly white." ...
... Adam Goldman of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has granted immunity to a former State Department staffer, who worked on Hillary Clinton's private email server, as part of a criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information, according to a senior law enforcement official.... As the FBI looks to wrap up its investigation in the coming months, agents are likely to want to interview Clinton and her senior aides.... 'There was wrongdoing,' said a former senior law enforcement official. 'But was it criminal wrongdoing?'" CW: Just the kind of story a political candidate wants: a former employee is granted immunity from criminal prosecution so he can testify in a case involving your own "wrongdoing." ...
... Steven Myers & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "As Hillary Clinton moves toward the Democratic presidential nomination, she faces legal hurdles from her use of a private computer server as secretary of state that could jar her campaign's momentum in the months ahead.... It is commonplace for the F.B.I. to try to interview key figures before closing an investigation, and doing so is not an indication the bureau thinks a person broke the law." CW: On the other hand, watching your candidate do the perp walk, handcuffed, is a bummer.
The Lineup. Marcobot Rubio, Don Stubby Fingers Trump, Ted Napoleon Cruz & John "How Am I Losing to These Guys?" Kasich. ... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Fresh off a Super Tuesday that reordered the Republican field of presidential hopefuls, the remaining four candidates will gather in Detroit Thursday at 9 p.m. ET for a debate that could prove to be the most consequential of the 2016 race.... It will be the first time this year that Mr. Trump will face Megyn Kelly, the Fox News anchor with whom he feuded last year.... Democrats will hold their own debate in Flint, Mich., on Sunday." CW: You know, when we'll all be watching the final episode of "Downton Abbey." Well done, Debbie!
Kevin Drum: "In the mysteriously mumbly style we've come to expect from him, Ben Carson has dropped out of the presidential race without actually saying that he's dropping out of the presidential race:"
... Back to Pyramid Theories & Pyramid Schemes. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Ben Carson, the only Republican to have once threatened the lead of Donald J. Trump in national polls, said on Wednesday that he saw no path forward and would skip a debate on Thursday in his hometown, Detroit, signaling an end to his candidacy after paltry performances in the nominating contests. Mr. Carson stopped short of suspending his campaign and said he would provide more details in a speech on Friday, but after his dismal showing in the Super Tuesday states, his campaign is effectively over."
Adele Stan of the American Prospect: "Win or lose, Trump has unleashed a beast that has long lived in limited captivity amid the American electorate. Outward expression of contempt for those one resents -- whether through epithets, violence, or mere coarseness -- is no longer a pursuit reserved for those on the fringe of American politics. It's gone mainstream, thanks to Trump, each baldly stated prejudice now packaged as a legitimate political position." ...
... Brendan O'Connor of Gawker: "If Donald Trump Jr. had known that the radio host he was speaking to was pro-slavery, Bloomberg Politics reports, he would not have consented to the interview: 'This is clearly the mainstream media trying to turn a story into nothing,' he said. Pardon? The interview, recorded at a campaign event in Tennessee and to be aired this weekend, was conducted with the white supremacist James Edwards, who has said that 'slavery is the greatest thing that ever happened to' black Americans and that 'interracial sex is white genocide.' Edwards has received media credentials from the Trump campaign." ...
... Eric Levitz of New York: "The Trump campaign, however, denies that any such interview took place. The campaign told The Hill that Donald Jr. was not in attendance at Saturday's rally, and did not 'to his knowledge' grant Edwards an interview this past week." ...
... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "Trump rallies are now apparently a key feature for Edwards' program -- he and his colleagues have been to three rallies where they are fully credentialed and say they are treated as 'every bit as legit' as the traditional media. They are more legit, apparently, in the Trump campaign's eyes than the Huffington Post, the Des Moines Register, and Fusion which have all previously been denied credentials to Trump rallies. And yes, Edwards is really a white supremacist and his show is most definitely about white supremacy. The Anti-Defamation League has written ... that Edwards has used the platform to interview 'a variety of anti-Semites, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, conspiracy theorists and anti-immigrant leaders.' The Southern Poverty Law Center adds 'James Edwards has probably done more than any of his contemporaries on the American radical right to publicly promote neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, raging anti-Semites and other extremists.' And he's a VIP in Trumpland."
Ah, Who Will Be the Third-Party Candidate?
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "Donald Trump said Thursday he is being treated unfairly by the Republican establishment and may run as an independent. 'I am watching television and I am seeing ad after ad after ad put in by the establishment knocking the hell out of me, and it's really unfair,' Trump said on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.' 'But if I leave, if I go, regardless of independent, which I may do -- I mean, may or may not. But if I go, I will tell you, these millions of people that joined, they're all coming with me'." ...
... Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Spurred by Donald J. Trump's mounting victories, a small but influential -- and growing -- group of conservative leaders are calling for a third-party option to spare voters a wrenching general election choice between a Republican they consider completely unacceptable and Hillary Clinton.... Two top Republicans, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, said this week that they would not vote for Mr. Trump in November." ...
... CW: If you're wondering how well this conspiracy of confederates will work, read on: "William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, said he would work actively to put forward an 'independent Republican' ticket if Mr. Trump was the nominee, and floated Mr. Sasse as a recruit." Kristol has been on this horse for quite some time. His earlier choices for a third-party candidate, via Driftglass, who was not making this up: Dick Cheney or Tom Cotton. ...
... Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "... even as the anti-Trump groups begin to coordinate, some Republicans are throwing their hands in the air, convinced that a TV advertising campaign won't succeed; Trump is already carrying a double-digit lead over Rubio in Florida, where thousands of voters will have cast absentee ballots before election day. 'The "Stop Trump" campaign is now officially a fantasy, about as real as "the campaign to stop yesterday,"' said Alex Castellanos, a veteran Republican strategist who tried unsuccessfully to launch an anti-Trump group." ...
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Wednesday:
... Michael Bender & Justin Sink of Bloomberg: "The rapidly intensifying effort by the Republican establishment to dislodge Donald Trump from the top of the party's presidential nominating race will star 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who is preparing a speech for Thursday when he'll lay out his case against the front-runner.... While making the case against Trump at the Hinckley Institute of Politics Student Forum at the University of Utah, Romney will not endorse one of his opponents...." ...
... Jonathan Stearns & Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg: "Donald Trump took to the airwaves Thursday with a barrage of name-calling in response to news that ... Mitt Romney was trying to torpedo the billionaire real-estate developer's chances in this year's contest. 'Mitt Romney is a stiff,' Trump said on NBC's 'Today Show.'... Romney is planning a speech later Thursday in a bid to dislodge Trump from leading the party's presidential nominating race, branding the New York mogul as untrustworthy and saying he'd be a boon to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. 'Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,' Romney will say later Thursday at the University of Utah, according to a transcript provided to Bloomberg News by a person familiar with his remarks. 'He's playing the American public for suckers.'" ...
... Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "In a last-ditch effort to stop Donald Trump's likely nomination as the Republican Party's candidate for president, a group of more than 50 conservative foreign policy experts have banded together in an open letter condemning the real estate magnate as unfit for the office.... The letter was published Wednesday night on the foreign policy site War on the Rocks." CW: Yeah, that really will get the attention of Trump voters, who are probably lifetime subscribers to War on the Rocks. Should stop Trump in his tracks. ...
... Michelle Conlin of Reuters: "The Koch brothers, the most powerful conservative mega donors in the United States, will not use their $400 million political arsenal to try to block Republican front-runner Donald Trump's path to the presidential nomination, a spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. The decision by the billionaire industrialists is another setback to Republican establishment efforts to derail the New York real estate mogul's bid for the White House, and follows speculation the Kochs would soon launch a 'Trump Intervention.'"
An Academic Theory of Drumpf. Amanda Taub of Vox: "... authoritarianism -- not actual dictators, but rather a psychological profile of individual voters ... is characterized by a desire for order and a fear of outsiders. People who score high in authoritarianism, when they feel threatened, look for strong leaders who promise to take whatever action necessary to protect them from outsiders and prevent the changes they fear.... The GOP, by positioning itself as the party of traditional values and law and order, had unknowingly attracted what would turn out to be a vast and previously bipartisan population of Americans with authoritarian tendencies.... If you were to read every word these theorists ever wrote on authoritarians, and then try to design a hypothetical candidate to match their predictions of what would appeal to authoritarian voters, the result would look a lot like Donald Trump." ...
Welcome Back, Jim Crow. Brent Staples of the New York Times: "Donald Trump's flirtation with the Ku Klux Klan should come as no surprise. He has functioned for years as a rallying point for 'birthers,' conspiracy theorists, extremists and racists who are apoplectic about the fact that the country elected a black man president. These groups have driven the Republican Party steadily rightward, helping to create a national discourse that now permits a presidential candidate to court racist support without paying a political price.... The [era] that is still unfolding in the wake of Barack Obama's presidency bears a striking resemblance in tone to the reaction that swept the South after Reconstruction...." ...
... Gail Collins thinks "Mister Trump" and the other GOP presidential candidates are pretty hilarious. CW: I'm not laughing. For one reason, see today's Beyond the Beltway. ...
... CW: I read about this incident yesterday but wasn't able to find video until now. Here is video of white supremacists & other thugs at a Trump rally repeatedly shoving and roughing up a young black woman:
... Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "White supremacists hurled racist and sexist slurs Tuesday afternoon as they pushed a black protester out of a Donald Trump rally in Kentucky.... 'I was called a n****r and a c*nt and got kicked out,' said Shiya Nwanguma, a University of Louisville student. 'They were pushing and shoving at me, cursing at me, yelling at me, called me every name in the book.... The hat-wearing Trump supporter appears to be white nationalist Matthew Heimbach, head of the Traditionalist Worker Party...."
... CW: That's right. The person who got kicked out of the rally was the victim of physical & verbal abuse. The white supremacists? They stayed on. Welcome to Trump's Amerika. It's great again. And remember, it's "liberals" who are "dividing people by race." Not funny, Gail. ...
... I'm with Collins' colleague, Charles Blow: "Stop thinking that it's all a joke, a hoax, a game. It's not. Maybe [Trump] began this quest as a branding exercise, but it has morphed into something quite real: a challenge to the collective moral character of the republic. The success of his candidacy so far calls into question the very definition and direction of America." ...
... Excuse of the Day. Eric Levitz of New York: "Donald Trump Says He Didn't Denounce the KKK on CNN Because He Didn't Want to Risk Offending Jewish Philanthropies." CW: Trump's concern, as I understand it, was that he was afraid "KKK" might stand for something like Kabbalah, Kibbutz & Knish.
Ken Vogel of Politico: "Donald Trump's speaking slot at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday is prompting an acrimonious backlash from the conservative critics desperately trying to mount a last-ditch campaign to block the GOP presidential front-runner from winning the party's nomination. A top aide to Trump rival Marco Rubio has accused CPAC organizers of being in the tank for Trump and clearing the way for his acceptance into mainstream conservatism, while an anti-Trump super PAC is pressuring organizers to rescind their invitation to the surging GOP front-runner.... Sources tell Politico that Trump has made multiple donations totaling more than $100,000 ― including a $50,000 check last year ― to the American Conservative Union, the group that organizes CPAC. That dwarfs the amounts donated in recent years by allies of Trump's rivals...."
Adios, Marco. Gabriel Sherman of New York: "Throughout the primary, Fox provided Rubio with friendly interviews and key bookings, including the first prime-time response to Barack Obama's Oval Office address on ISIS.... But this alliance now seems to be over. According to three Fox sources, Fox chief Roger Ailes has told people he's lost confidence in Rubio's ability to win. 'We're finished with Rubio,' Ailes recently told a Fox host. 'We can't do the Rubio thing anymore.'" CW: Who now, Roger? ...
... BUT, the Miami Herald, probably Florida's most influential newspaper, has endorsed Rubio for the GOP nomination ahead of the state's primary.
Beyond the Beltway
Today in Republican Party Leadership. Jordan Rudner of the Texas Tribune: Robert Morrow, "the newly elected chair of the Republican Party in the county that includes the Texas Capitol, spent most of election night tweeting about former Gov. Rick Perry's sexual orientation and former President Bill Clinton's penis, and insisting that members of the Bush family should be in jail. He also found time to call Hillary Clinton an 'angry bull dyke' and accuse his county vice chair of betraying the values of the Republican Party." When told that other members of the Travis County party were plotting to unseat him, Morrow told the Tribune, "Tell them they can go fuck themselves." "Morrow, who's also tweeted that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is 'very likely a gayman who got married,' said he supports the brand of Republican politics he most closely associates with Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz.... Last week, he tweeted that the Republican National Committee was just a 'gay foam party.'... For years, he has alleged that Perry is secretly bisexual.... Though Morrow has tweeted often about sexually explicit acts involving Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton and his last several Facebook profile pictures were of scantily clad women, he said he denies any charge that he is sexist.... When the Tribune asked about the content of some of Morrow's social media posts, without using the specific racial slur Morrow had employed, Morrow seized on the omission as an example of corruption within the media." ...
... Eric Hananoki of Media Matters has a nice collection of Robert Morrow's "writings." Morrow bills himself as an "alternative historian." CW: So a gentleman AND a scholar. ...
... "Two Degrees of Separation from Trump." Steve M.: "... when Roger Stone -- dirty trickster, Nixon tattoo bearer, founder of the interestingly acronymed anti-Hillary 'organization' Citizens United Not Timid, and once (and future?) Donald Trump campaign surrogate -- wanted a co-author for his book The Clintons' War on Women, Morrow ... was his choice." ...
... CW: This information has been out there for a long time. Hananoki raised it last September as did Mother Jones & Daily Kos. And not one major media outlet, not one of Trump's rivals, brought it up in profiles or political attacks on Trump & Friends. AND CNN employed Stone until he attacked fellow commentators in racist, sexist tweets. But they hired him knowing he was "a Holocaust denier who blames a 'Jewish plot' for the 9/11 attacks. Stone's history includes forming an anti-Hillary Clinton group named 'C.U.N.T.' during the 2008 election." Sorry, but that's malpractice all around.
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