The Commentariat -- Sept. 14, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

Presidential Race

Nick Corasanti of the New York Times: "... Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will take his populist, progressive message to Liberty University, the Christian school in Virginia founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and deliver a convocation address on Monday morning." CW: The link wasn't working right when I tested it -- got a blank page -- but it's the only link there is, so maybe the Times will fix it.

Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is up by double-digits on former secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to a poll released by CBS News on Sunday. The senator is drawing 43 percent support in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus, besting Clinton by 10 points. Sanders is also drawing 52 percent support in New Hampshire, almost doubling Clinton, who sits at 30 percent support in the Granite State. Clinton, however, doubles-up Sanders in South Carolina, drawing 46 percent compared to the senator's 23 percent. Vice President Biden, who is considering a run for the Democratic presidential nomination, places third in all three states, drawing 10 percent support in Iowa, 9 percent support in New Hampshire, and a strong 22 percent backing in South Carolina." ...

... Charles Blow makes an important point here: Bernie "Sanders's ability to win Obama's supporters may have been made difficult by his associations. On Saturday, Sanders campaigned with Dr. Cornel West, who recently issued an endorsement of Sanders. West's critique of the president has been so blistering and unyielding -- he has called Obama 'counterfeit,' the 'black face of the American empire,' a verb-ed neologism of the n-word — that it has bordered on petulance and self-parody." ...

... Nancy Letourneau of the Washington Monthly: "I would also suggest that one of the reasons Sander's message fails to connect with African Americans is that - even in the midst of economic conditions that were much worse than today - Ellis Cose pointed out in 2011 that African Americans are the country's 'new optimists.'.... To the extent that optimism has dimmed more recently - it is in response to the shootings of unarmed Black men (often by police officers) and the lack of a 'just response' from our justice system. No matter how hard Sanders tries to tie that one to his message about income inequality and economics, it will fall short of connecting to the souls of African Americans."

Greg Sargent: "Today the Center for American Progress will release a new report that makes a detailed case that the GOP presidential candidates are all well to the right of [Ronald] Reagan, and actually represent a break from core aspects of his approach to the presidency." ...

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "An immigration reform group backed by business, political and religious leaders plans to air a hard-hitting television commercial that juxtaposes the words of three Republican presidential candidates against those of a revered GOP figure: former president Ronald Reagan. The National Immigration Forum Action Fund will air the ad in the coming days on CNN before, during and after the presidential debate that the network is hosting Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California."

Michael Grunwald of Politico: "... Donald Trump has scrambled the politics of crime by running as a pro-cop, anti-thug 'law-and-order' candidate, denouncing rioters in Baltimore and Ferguson, vowing to 'get rid of gang members so fast your head will spin.'" And as with immigration, his rivals are echoing his appeals to the angry id of their party's white base, distancing themselves from bipartisan reform. His brash pronouncements, brazen insults and absurd promises are not only dominating the 2016 political discussion, they're also driving the Republican policy agenda. And while most of the commentary about Trump ... has focused on his potential impact on the campaign, as well as the long-term future of the Republican Party, criminal justice is just one example of an issue currently pending in Washington that Trump could affect right now." ...

... Reuters: "... Donald Trump on Sunday said high salaries paid to chief executives were a 'joke' and a 'disgrace', often approved by company boards stacked with friends of such CEOs.... In particular Trump mentioned Macy's, which in July stopped selling his menswear line after he described migrants from Mexico as drug-runners and rapists." ...

... Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "In three pending lawsuits, including one in which the New York attorney general is seeking $40 million in restitution, former students [of Trump "University"] allege that the enterprise bilked them out of their money with misleading advertisements. Instead of a fast route to easy money, these Trump University students say they found generic seminars led by salesmen who pressured them to invest more cash in additional courses. The students say they didn't learn Trump's secrets and never received the one-on-one guidance they expected." CW: We've covered this before, but it bears repeating. It's easy to argue that these "students" were silly, greedy people, but conning the gullible -- and not just for votes! -- is sleazy. ...

... Nick Gass of Politico: "Ben Carson ... [said] he was not questioning [Donald Trump]'s faith but rather talking about his own. And he does not blame Trump for retaliating. 'I said something that sounded like I was questioning his faith. I really wasn't, I was really talking more about mine. But it was said in an inappropriate way, which I recognized and I apologized for that. It's never my intention to impugn other people,' the Republican presidential candidate said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Monday."

Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "... the National Federation of Republican Women's annual conference" in Phoenix, Arizona, Ted Cruz courts the ladies. "His timing may be opportune: As front-runner Donald Trump has come under fire for a string of comments many see as anti-women, Cruz is trying to seize the moment to retain and expand his foothold in the GOP electorate.... Cruz wasn't the only presidential contender who saw the importance of the conference. But he was the only man. Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina addressed the group Friday night. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee sent his wife, Janet. Other candidates dispatched staffers." ...

... CW: Your modern Republican party: Fifteen or 16 presidential candidates, & only two of them, one a woman, bother to show up for the annual meeting of some of the most active & influential women in their party. It isn't just that Republican men have no respect for women; they have no respect for their own women, even ones who dedicate their time to support & work for these men. Pretty astounding. ...

... Katie Glueck of Politico: Carly Fiorina "won the straw poll at this weekend's National Federation of Republican Women convention, organizers announced on Sunday. The victory came after she kicked off the conference on Friday by mocking Trump's apparent criticism of her appearance. Fiorina pulled in 27 percent of the vote at the event held in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ted Cruz was the only other candidate to address the conference in person, speaking Saturday. He finished second, with 20 percent." CW: Yeah, the ladies like to be noticed.

Scott Bauer of the AP: "... Scott Walker on Monday will call for sweeping restrictions on organized labor in the U.S.... At a town hall meeting in Las Vegas, Walker will propose eliminating unions for employees of the federal government, making all workplaces right-to-work unless individual states vote otherwise, scrapping the federal agency that oversees unfair labor practices and making it more difficult for unions to organize." CW: When it comes down to it, Scottie is just a hideous human being.

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: Chris Christie "said on NBC the media should 'stop blathering' about Bridgegate and insisted what mattered was how he reacted to it, and said it had not left 'a stain on my administration'.... 'What really matters, as Hillary Clinton is finding out, is how you react to a crisis,' Christie said. 'Not that there ever will be any crisis ... what did I do? When we had a crisis the next day I went out and took questions for an hour and 15 minutes, no holds barred. Let's wait and see if Mrs Clinton ever does one fifth of that on her crisis.'"

Beyond the Beltway

Jack Pearson of the AP: "Former tennis star James Blake, whose caught-on-camera takedown by a plainclothes New York City police officer prompted apologies from the mayor and police commissioner, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the officer who wrongly arrested him should be fired."

AP: "Despite his boss' objections to gay marriage, a deputy county clerk in eastern Kentucky says he'll continue issuing marriage licenses. Deputy clerk Brian Mason had previously said that if he has to, he would disobey his boss, county clerk Kim Davis, and issue licenses rather than refuse the orders of U.S. District Judge David Bunning. Monday was Davis' first day back to work after Judge Bunning jailed her for refusing to issue marriage licenses. Reading from a statement, Davis said she's not going to interfere with her deputies issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but she says she isn't authorizing them and questions whether they're valid." CW: So if Mason takes a day off, people can't get marriage licenses in Rowan County??? This is not exactly a solution. ...

... @8:08 am ET, CNN is running a crawl which says Kim Davis won't issue marriage licenses to applicants, but she won't interfere with clerks who do. ...

... Justin Moyer of the Washington Post: Kim "Davis will return to work Monday morning as legal questions linger -- and a billboard in Morehead, Ky., where her office is located, openly mocks her.... 'We put up this billboard just kind of reminding her that from a religious perspective, the definition of marriage has been constantly changing, and this isn't actually about religion,' Davis Hammit, operations director of Planting Peace, told Reuters." ...

... Kevin Conlon of CNN: Rowan County, Kentucky, Kim Davis's attorney "Mat Staver said [Sunday] his client was fully aware of the law and of the court's ruling, but that she was still undecided about what she'll do if a same-sex couple applies for a marriage license in Rowan County. 'We'll find out what Kim does when she goes to work on Monday.'"

David Eggert of the AP: "Two disgraced tea party Republicans are gone from Michigan's Legislature, but their troubles may not be over as attention turns to a criminal investigation of misconduct including a plot to conceal their extramarital affair with an email of false and explicit claims."

Way Beyond

Rod McGuirk of the AP: "Australia's beleaguered prime minister was ousted from power in an internal party ballot on Monday as the ruling conservative party attempts to win back a disenchanted public by replacing the nation's polarizing, gaffe-prone leader with his more moderate rival. Prime Minister Tony Abbott lost a leadership ballot by members of his party, who voted 54 to 44 to replace him with former Liberal Party leader and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull...."

Paul Krugman: "On economic policy, in particular, the striking thing about the leadership contest [within Britain's Labour party] was that every candidate other than [winner Jeremy] Corbyn essentially supported the Conservative government's austerity policies. Worse, they all implicitly accepted the bogus justification for those policies, in effect pleading guilty to policy crimes that Labour did not, in fact, commit.... The Corbyn upset isn't about a sudden left turn on the part of Labour supporters. It's mainly about the strange, sad moral and intellectual collapse of Labour moderates."

Melilla Eddy & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands introduced border controls on Monday, as Germany's decision over the weekend to set up checks began to ripple across a bloc struggling to deal with the influx of migrants coming to the Continent. In Hungary, the authorities said that a near-record 5,353 migrants had crossed into the country from Serbia before noon on Monday -- even as Budapest continued to try to seal off that border, which is being reinforced with the construction of a 109-mile fence made with razor wire."

Melissa Eddy, et al., of the New York Times: "With record numbers of migrants pouring across the Hungarian border and rushing west, Germany, the country that had been the most welcoming in Europe, suddenly ordered temporary border restrictions on Sunday that cut off rail travel from Austria and instituted spot checks on cars. The German move came just one day before European ministers were scheduled to meet in Brussels to discuss a plan to distribute tens of thousands of migrants across Europe, with many governments, particularly in Eastern Europe, bristling at being forced to accept more migrants than they wish to take."

News Ledes

Reuters: "A Mississippi college professor was shot and killed in his campus office on Monday, and police said a fellow Delta State University teacher was 'a person of interest' in the shooting. Authorities said they were searching for geography and social science instructor Shannon Lamb in connection with the killing of Ethan Schmidt, an assistant professor of American history. Lamb was also a suspect in the death of a woman in Mississippi earlier on Monday, according to news reports."

AP: "Some 400 homes were among the hundreds of structures destroyed as fast-moving wildfires raged through communities in Northern California, leaving at least one person dead and sending residents fleeing along roads where some buildings and vehicles were still in flames."

New York Times: "Russia is using an air corridor over Iraq and Iran to fly military equipment and personnel to a new air hub in Syria, openly defying American efforts to block the shipments and significantly increasing tensions with Washington."

Washington Post: "An altercation between inmates that lasted about two minutes resulted in the death of four prisoners, the company that runs the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, Okla., said Sunday."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 13, 2015

Internal links removed.

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama on Saturday abandoned his two-year effort to have the government create a system that explicitly rates the quality of the nation's colleges and universities, a plan that was bitterly opposed by presidents at many of those institutions. Under the original idea, announced by Mr. Obama with fanfare in 2013, all of the nation's 7,000 institutions of higher education would have been assigned a ranking by the government, with the aim of publicly shaming low-rated schools that saddle students with high debt and poor earning potential. Instead, the White House on Saturday unveiled a website that does not attempt to rate schools with any kind of grade, but provides information to prospective students and their parents about annual costs, graduation rates and salaries after graduation." See also this week's presidential address in the right column.

Jamelle Bouie: "... as much as the White House can justly gloat over its strategy for securing Senate support [of the Iran nuclear deal], we shouldn't ignore the extent to which it had a huge ally in persuading Democrats to stand with the deal. Namely, the Republican Party.... Again and again, the GOP's great obstacle -- and Democrats' great ally -- is itself. Its intransigence might win elections -- Obamacare helped the GOP win the 2010 midterms, and Republicans hope that Iran will do the same for 2016 -- but it comes at a cost: policy that's more liberal than the alternative."

New York Times Editors: "This past June, in the heat of their outrage over gay rights, congressional Republicans revived a nasty bit of business they call the First Amendment Defense Act.... It would not ... defend the First Amendment. To the contrary, it would deliberately warp the bedrock principle of religious freedom under the Constitution.... The act would bar the federal government from taking 'any discriminatory action' -- including the denial of tax benefits, grants, contracts or licenses -- against those who oppose same-sex marriage for religious or moral reasons.... The bill makes matters worse by covering for-profit companies, which greatly multiplies the potential scope of discrimination against gays and lesbians. These are radical proposals, but they are accepted without question by many in today's Republican Party."

Bob Cesca in Salon: There's a direct link between Republican politicians' attacks on Planned Parenthood & acts of terrorism. ...

Jeb! & Prescott Bush.... Once Upon a Time -- Granddad & His Doofus Progeny. Prescott Bush was a founder of Planned Parenthood & its first treasurer. And then there was Jeb! He boasts of defunding Planned Parenthood when he was governor of Florida, says the federal government should defund Planned Parenthood because "they're not actually doing women's health issues" (not sure how you "do" "issues," but that's Jeb!speak), & says Congress should investigate Planned Parenthood. (Which it is, & doing a damned fine job of it, too.) Sorry, Granddaddy.

** Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), in the Washington Post, reviews Ari Berman's Give Us the Ballot; The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America."

Presidential Race

Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "The company that managed Hillary Rodham Clinton's private e-mail server said it has 'no knowledge of the server being wiped,' the strongest indication to date that tens of thousands of e-mails that Clinton has said were deleted could be recovered."

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: Donald Trump got rock-star treatment when he showed up at the "Iowa Republican Party's tent in the parking lot before the big Iowa vs. Iowa State football game on Saturday.... Three other Republican candidates not named Trump also glad-handed and posed for selfies among the tailgating football fans before the game. But their receptions were of a different order.... Cheers went up several times over false sightings. A sign read: 'The Trump Will Set You Free.' (It was countered by a protester's sign: 'Mr. Hate, Leave My State.')... There was no applause for [Scott] Walker.... Earlier, Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky worked the tailgaters, not all of whom were thrilled to have a presidential candidate and his entourage interfering with their meat grilling, beer drinking and game playing."

Andrew O'Herir of Salon: Donald Trump's appeal is to primitive tribalism. "Even Donald Trump would not come right out in 2015 and say that he's in favor of cruelty and hypocrisy and the denial of reason, but he doesn't have to. He demonstrates his devotion to those virtues with every second of every public appearance, every hateful comment directed at women who presume to challenge him, every poisonous calumny about the immigrants..., and every preening pronouncement that he plans to exert power and authority well beyond that allotted to the president by the Constitution, or that he possesses a magical solution for some nonexistent problem but won't tell us what it is.... [Bernie] Sanders and Trump are almost negative images of each other, so much so as to represent alternative and perhaps impossible pathways for the human future."

Katie Glueck & Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Scott Walker's standing in Iowa has disintegrated, and he can't blame Donald Trump. The Wisconsin governor once-heralded by political insiders as the front-runner for the GOP nomination is struggling with perceptions that he is inconsistent at best and a full-out flip-flopper at worst.... In Iowa, where Walker was supposed to perform best among the early-voting states, he is now polling at only 3 percent, according to a Friday poll from Quinnipiac University. And short of a miracle on the debate stage next week, other Republicans say, it's hard to see how he comes back. 'There was a ton of excitement about Scott Walker, and that's subsided some,' said Karen Fesler, a prominent Iowa activist who is aligned with Rick Santorum." CW: How any sane human being could feel "a ton of excitement" about this nincompoop is way beyond me. ...

... Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Scott Walker has canceled two speeches he was scheduled to give next weekend in Michigan and California so that he can instead spend time meeting voters in South Carolina and Iowa." CW: Don't worry, Scottie. You seem like the perfect candidate to pick off all those Rick Perry caucus-goers.

Beyond the Beltway

The Gay Harasser. Mark Stern of Slate: "After promising [a judge he would] comply with federal law, [Texas Attorney General Ken] Paxton [RTP] pulled an about-face, actively fighting to prevent a lesbian from inheriting her dead partner's estate.... What's especially bizarre about Paxton's legal theory is that it's disproved by Obergefell itself. Paxton argues that, because [a wife in the case] is already dead, the state cannot recognize her relationship as a valid marriage. Yet that was exactly what James Obergefell asked the Supreme Court to do." CW: You do have to wonder why people like Paxton are so consumed with hatred of people they don't even know.

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "In fewer than 12 hours, the [Valley fire in Lake County, California,] had scorched 40,000 acres. As firefighters evacuated homes in its path, the fire would jump ahead of them, threatening more homes before firefighters could advance.... Experts said the Valley fire moved faster than any other in California's recent history."

Reuters: "Egypt's police and military killed 12 Egyptians and Mexicans and injured 10 when they accidentally shot at a Mexican tourist convoy whilst engaging militants in the country's western desert, the ministry of interior said on Monday."

New York Times: "Moses Malone, the N.B.A center known as the Chairman of the Boards for prodigious rebounding that propelled him to the Basketball Hall of Fame and acclaim as one of the top 50 players in the league's first half-century, died during the weekend in Norfolk, Va. He was 60."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 12, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

White House: "In this week's address, the President announced the launch of a new College Scorecard, meant to help students and parents identify which schools provide the biggest bang for your buck":

AFP: "Barack Obama will not stay at New York's Waldorf Astoria during the UN general assembly this month after the hotel was bought by a Chinese insurance firm. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama and the US delegation would stay at the nearby New York Palace Hotel.... Earnest would not say whether the Chinese acquisition of the Astoria had raised concerns about possible espionage.... For years the Waldorf has been used as a base for US operations when leaders from around the world descend on Manhattan for the UN general assembly meeting. The State Department has long held a suite at the Waldorf for the US ambassador to the United Nations, currently Samantha Power."

Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The House on Friday passed a set of bills intended to send a clear message to President Obama that the Republican-led body will continue to attack the Iran nuclear deal and warn against rolling back economic sanctions imposed on Tehran. But at this point these efforts amount to a political protest because Republicans lack the votes to stop the White House from implementing the agreement." House Speaker John Boehner is still threatening to sue President Obama administration. ...

Do not sacrifice the safety, the security and the stability of 300 million Americans for the legacy of one man. -- Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), during Friday's House debate, as he stood next to a poster of the Twin Towers burning on September 11, 2001

... Lauren French of Politico: "For weeks, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been penning handwritten, personalized thank you notes to the nearly 150 House Democrats who publicly backed President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. The personal touch caps a months-long behind the scenes campaign by the California Democrat, who has worked hard to ensure the survival of the crowning foreign policy achievement of Obama's second term. And it came just months after Pelosi ... rallied opposition against his push for a sweeping free trade agreement. In an interview with Politico on Thursday, Pelosi said she worked hand-in-glove with the White House, pinpointing skeptical Democrats and helping to make sure Obama called them all." ...

... "Atomic Obamacare." Steve Benen: "It's striking the degree to which Republicans ... see the Affordable Care Act, lurking in every corner, representing everything they abhor in all contexts.... [So] An international agreement to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons is 'Atomic Obamacare.'... If there is a compelling parallel between 'Obamacare' and the international nuclear agreement it's this: Republicans abandoned rational thought in their contempt for the idea, and despite pleas for an alternative solution to an important pressing problem, they offered nothing but slogans and cheap talking points. Five years later, every GOP prediction about the Affordable Care Act has been discredited and proven false. Here's hoping, five years from now, opponents of the Iran deal appear equally foolish about the efficacy of the national security policy."

Burgess Everett & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview Friday he will back a plan to fund the government into December with no conditions, rejecting in his strongest terms yet calls from within his party to defund Planned Parenthood as part of a larger budget bill. 'It's an exercise in futility,' the Kentucky Republican said of a strategy that would likely provoke a government shutdown. 'I'm anxious to defund Planned Parenthood' but 'the honest answer of that is that's not going to happen until you have a president who has a similar view.'" ...

... CW: I'm not all that sure Mitch is so opposed to Planned Parenthood. His wife Elaine Caio sat on the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies which works with Planned Parenthood Global "to improve access to family planning information, contraceptives and reproductive health services for women...." (Caio quit the Bloomberg board after it became an issue in McConnell's 2014 Senate campaign, but the issue was Bloomberg's anti-coal initiative, not reproductive health.)

Surprise, Surprise. Harry Stein of the Center for American Progress, in Politico: "'Hardly anyone knows it,' [Ron] Haskins], a former Bush II staffer,] wrote in the New York Times, 'but since its earliest days the Obama administration has been pursuing the most important initiative in the history of federal attempts to use evidence to improve social programs.' But even though Congress appears to support evidence-based policymaking in theory, a closer look shows that it is waging a quiet war on the idea. The current versions of spending bills on Capitol Hill would defund data collection, analysis, and pilot programs that are helping to solve some of the toughest challenges facing the nation.... This Congress seems to be targeting evidence-based initiatives in particular, and for reasons that seem deeply political. THE ATTACK IS most apparent in the field of climate science." Congress is also cutting research funding for gun research, healthcare reform & other areas.

Kristina Wong of the Hill: "Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on Friday criticized a Marine Corps study that showed that female Marines in a mixed unit did not perform as well as men in several key areas. 'They started out with a fairly largely component of the men thinking this is not a good idea, and women will not be able to do this,' he said in an interview with NPR. 'When you start out with that mindset, you're almost presupposing the outcome,' he said."

Is that a shoephone in your hand -- or a pocket heater?Never Mind. Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "When the Justice Department arrested the chairman of Temple University's physics department this spring and accused him of sharing sensitive American-made technology with China, prosecutors had what seemed like a damning piece of evidence: schematics of sophisticated laboratory equipment sent by the professor, Xi Xiaoxing, to scientists in China. The schematics, prosecutors said, revealed the design of a device known as a pocket heater ... used in semiconductor research, and Dr. Xi had signed an agreement promising to keep its design a secret. But months later..., independent experts [whom Xi's attorney brought forward] discovered ... the blueprints were not for a pocket heater.... The Justice Department on Friday afternoon dropped all charges against Dr. Xi, an American citizen. It was an embarrassing acknowledgment that prosecutors and F.B.I. agents did not understand -- and did not do enough to learn -- the science at the heart of the case before bringing charges that jeopardized Dr. Xi's career...." ...

     ... CW: This sounds like a plot-line from "Get Smart," only as Dr. Xi said, "This is not a joke.... I barely came out of this nightmare." Why can't we get better federal agents? I'm glad the Times put this story in a prominent position in its online edition. Xi deserves as much publicity for his exoneration as he got for his false arrest.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd., Politico Edition. Politico is still Politico. In a story titled, "Obama Wins Ugly on the Hill," Lauren French & John Bresnahan write, "President Barack Obama is winning ugly. Despite hostile GOP majorities and balky Democratic progressives dogging him on some issues, Obama is using the powers of his office to finally get stuff done on Capitol Hill. While Republicans rolled to big Election Day wins last November, Obama has emerged on top since then in bruising showdowns over trade, Iran, Attorney General Loretta Lynch's nomination, Patriot Act reauthorization, immigration and funding for the Department of Homeland Security.... Past fights were, in part, Obamaps own fault. He spent six years in the Oval Office eschewing the type of glad-handing needed to build relationships with lawmakers that are fundamental to winning tough votes." CW: Res ipsa loquitur.

Presidential Race

Philip Rucker & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Bernie Sanders is fast expanding his political staff, crafting a delegate strategy and cultivating a vast volunteer corps and digital fundraising network that he believes can seriously challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Dismissed only a couple months ago as a fringe candidate, the self-described democratic socialist senator from Vermont has proven in recent weeks that he is a contender to win the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.... Asked if there was a strategy to 'humanize' Sanders like the Clinton campaign has, [Sanders strategist Tad] Devine burst out laughing. 'Is he going to change to earth tones?' Devine said. 'Is he going to take the pens out of his pocket? No. This is it. Nothing's changing.'"

Dana Milbank: "We knew [Hillary] Clinton was going to be funny and warm [when she appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show] because her aides told the New York Times she was going to be funny and warm. 'Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say,' was the headline on Amy Chozick's piece week, reporting that 'there will be new efforts to bring spontaneity to a candidacy that sometimes seems wooden and overly cautious.... Maybe they seemed poll-tested because they were poll-tested.... Planned spontaneity? A scripted attempt to go off script? This puts the 'moron' into oxymoron. Here's a better idea: Find and fire people who talk about her that way. Thin out the whole bloated campaign and its cadre of consultants...." ...

... The other day, Charles Pierce advised Clinton to "Fire everybody." ...

... Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "Making her 2015 debut in Scott Walker's home state of Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton on Thursday unleashed her harshest and most extended diatribe yet against a Republican rival not named Donald Trump, accusing the governor of being a tool of the billionaire Koch brothers." ...

It seems to me, just observing him, that Governor Walker thinks because he busts unions, starves universities, guts public education, demeans women, scapegoats teachers, nurses, and firefighters, he is some kind of tough guy on a motorcycle, a real leader. Well, that is not leadership folks. Leadership means fighting for the people you represent.... It looks like he just gets his marching orders from the Koch brothers and just goes down the list. -- Hillary Clinton, in Milwaukee

... ** James Downie of the Washington Post: "Wednesday, Clinton gave a speech at the Brookings Institution about the Iran deal and U.S. foreign policy. On the surface, it sounded like a speech the Democratic base could agree with.... But beneath that, a more hawkish Clinton kept peeking out.... It was a speech short on hope and long on danger; while no one would confuse her and George W. Bush, the address, as the Atlantic's Steve Clemons said, certainly felt 'neocon-influenced.'... The more one listens..., the less it seems that she learned much from the Iraq war or even the 2008 campaign.... Her Brookings appearance crystallizes just how much room [Bernie Sanders] has to her left, giving him a chance to repeat then-Sen. Obama's success using foreign policy against Clinton." ...

... CW: When I listened to (part of) Clinton's speech, I interpreted her sabre-rattling to be an answer to universal GOP chest-thumping. But Downie is causing me to rethink my initial impression. Also, see Kate M.'s related comment at the end of yesterday's thread, which expands on one of Downie's points.

... AP: "Hillary Clinton had the right to delete personal emails from her private server, the US justice department has told a federal court. Lawyers for the government made the assertion in a filing this week with the US district court in Washington, part of a public records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that seeks access to Clinton's emails.... Clinton asserts she had the right under government rules to decide which emails were private and to delete them. This week's filing puts the justice department's approval on Clinton's claim."

Jim Sullivan of the Boston Globe: "A senior state Democratic Party official likened the national party chairwoman's tenure to a 'full-fledged dictatorship,' amplifying growing unease among some top Democrats about party leaders' efforts to restrict the number of candidate debates during the presidential primaries. Deb Kozikowski, vice chairwoman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said the chief of the Democratic National Committee, US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, had done a disservice to grass-roots volunteers by allowing Republicans to dominate the airwaves for the last month."

Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times: "In the first casualty of the 2016 presidential race, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry suspended his campaign Friday amid anemic fundraising and little traction in the polls. Perry's departure, coming days before the second GOP presidential debate, is unlikely to affect the contours of the race, given Perry's lack of support among Republican primary voters. But it appears to mark the end of a 30-year political career of a man once viewed as a swaggering star of the Republican Party. ...

... Here's the Washington Post story, by Dave Weigel & others. ...

... Gail Collins: "His departure is a crushing blow for those of us who have already put in the time to read 'Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington,' in which Perry announced that Americans were tired of being bossed around and being told 'how much salt we can put on our food, what windows we can buy for our house' and 'what kind of cars we can drive.' I will not even have the opportunity to point out that Washington doesn't actually tell us any of those things." ...

... One Last Time:

CW: Here's a hopeful note. We live in a country where Bernie Sanders is more popular than Rick Perry. At least that's something.

Michael Tomasky adds his voice to pundits who are sick of reporters lumping Bernie Sanders in with Donald Trump & (Ben Carson): "People on the left are angry about economics -- about inequality and the new Gilded Age, and they have rallied to Sanders because of his positions. People on the right are angry about liberals and moochers and society and culture, and they have rallied to Trump and Carson because of who they are (or aren't)." ...

... CW: I don't think Tomasky has that quite right: I don't know about Carson's supporters -- they may all be seeing Ben Carson as the Vehicle of the Lord who's a'coming to beam them up -- but Sanders & Trump have tapped into the same anger: it's just that Sanders supporters correctly see the Masters of the Universe & their political sock puppets as responsible for wealth & income inequality, while Trump supporters fantastically blame "liberals & moochers," most especially those of color. The difference is between reality & knee-jerk racist scapegoating. In addition, many of Sanders' supporters are altruistic -- they are not rallying to him in furtherance of their own self-interest -- while Trump's supporters -- angry white men -- are just your average greedy bastards.

Dave Weigel: Ben "Carson was the first declared candidate of either party to visit [Ferguson, Missouri], though Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held a 'listening session' before announcing his bid, and Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig made a visit before launching his. Unlike Paul, Carson kept the roundtable -- and the tour -- closed to press. According to Mayor James Knowles, who has invited any and all contenders to Ferguson, Carson's tour included a stop at the city's only coffee shop, lunch at an Italian restaurant, and conversations with the people who happened by."

... Jane Timm of NBC News: "In the interview portion of his appearance..., Trump eventually conceded, 'I will absolutely apologize sometime in the distant future if I'm ever wrong.'"

Heather Haddon of the Wall Street Journal: "Donald Trump estimated that it will take 18 months to two years to get the roughly 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to leave the country, and that he would then build a wall running along the border with Mexico." CW: It would take 18 months to two years to get the first court date to respond to the tens of lawsuits brought against a Trump administration that might try this stunt.

Jim Sullivan: Mitt Romney's former campaign staffers & prominent political backers are now working for different candidates, but they're allied on one matter: Stop the Donald.

Ed Kilgore: "Perhaps the most important news about the treatment of the [GOP] field by CNN is that one candidate, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, was excluded from both debates on grounds that he has no discernible political pulse."

Congressional Election

Chicago Tribune/Wire Services: "Darin LaHood, a Republican state senator and son of former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, easily won a special election Thursday to replace disgraced former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, sending a familiar name to Washington from Illinois."

Beyond the Beltway

Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times: "The [California] state Senate on Friday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that would allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to Californians diagnosed as having less than six months to live. Two days after the bill cleared the Assembly, the Senate approved the measure, sending it to the governor's desk."

Benjamin Mueller & Nate Schweber of the New York Times: "The New York Police Department released surveillance video of the arrest [of former tennis star James Blake] on Friday, offering a minute-long glimpse of the manhandling of a biracial celebrity by a white plainclothes officer that compelled police officials to swiftly strip the officer of his gun and badge.... Officer [James] Frascatore's history of excessive force complaints, including at least three filed against him with the Civilian Complaint Review Board in 2013 and several lawsuits, revealed a pattern of residents claiming they were detained without explanation and manhandled despite complying":

Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "Lawyers for Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis asked a federal appeals court on Friday to effectively end the requirement, currently in place under an order from the trial judge, that all couples be allowed to marry in the county.... Shortly after this latest motion was filed on Friday, the 6th Circuit directed that the plaintiffs file a response to Davis's request 'on or before the close of business, Tuesday, September 15, 2015.' Davis also has appealed the contempt order itself and asked the 6th Circuit to halt Gov. Steve Beshear from enforcing what her lawyers refer to as a same-sex marriage 'mandate.'" CW: They're really racking up those Billable Hours for Jesus, aren't they? ...

... Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch: "... almost as soon as they arrived [in Rowan County, Kentucky], the Oath Keepers are packing up and going home. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes writes in an email to members today that [Kim] Davis, through her attorneys at the Religious Right legal group Liberty Counsel, has (probably wisely) declined their offer of assistance. He encourages members to save their gas money for another mission, such as 'our planned upcoming operation to guard Texas border ranches against drug cartel violence and invasion.'"

La Ti Da. Katharine Seelye & Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: One of Harvard's all-male clubs, Spee, made the revolutionary move of inviting women to join. According to the club's president, Spee now "welcomes all genders." "It was not clear Friday whether any of the other eight clubs, known as 'final' clubs because they were once the last organizations that students were likely to join before they graduated, would follow suit."

Way Beyond

Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain's opposition Labour Party on Saturday took a remarkable leftward turn, electing as its leader Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime socialist committed to nationalizing key industries, scrapping Britain's nuclear missile system and reversing the centrist policies of previous leaders such as Tony Blair. The result of the contest, announced on Saturday morning in London, gave stewardship of the Labour party to the hard left for the first time in more than three decades, a development seen here as one of the most surprising upsets in modern British politics." ...

... The Guardian's liveblog is here.

News Ledes

AP: "Police say 82 people were killed in two nearly simultaneous explosions in a crowded restaurant in central India. Inspector Mewa Lal Gond says a cooking gas cylinder exploded in the restaurant on Saturday and triggered a second blast of detonators stored nearby."

AP: "The head of Saudi Arabia's civil defense directorate says high winds caused a massive crane to topple over and smash into Mecca's Grand Mosque, killing at least 107 people ahead of the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage."