The Commentariat -- April 11, 2016
Reality Chex was far better than usual this weekend because of contributions by Weaders other than I. Thank you all. -- Constant Weader
Afternoon Update:
Greg Sargent: "Hillary Clinton's secret weapon against Bernie Sanders: Democratic voters." New York state & a number of other states will hold "closed primaries"; that is, where party crossovers or independents are not permitted to vote. Since many of Sanders' voters have been independents, while more of Clinton's core supporters are registered Democrats, Clinton has an advantage in these states which Sanders may not be able to overcome. -- CW
The Guardian has been liveblogging developments in the British Parliament re: published revelations based on Panama Papers documents.
*****
Whose Big Mistake Was It? Claire Landsbaum of New York: "'Failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya' was 'probably' his biggest regret as president, [President] Obama told Fox's Chris Wallace." CW: Hmmm. That would have been the Secretary of State's job, wouldn't it? See video of the full interview in yesterday's Commentariat.
... Juan Cole of Informed Comment: "You could make a case that some Clinton policies as secretary of state did contribute to the spread of Daesh to Libya, but in my view that is a stretch. Libyan radical fundamentalists were well established in the country, and had supplied fighters against the US in Iraq in the thousands." -- LT, HT: PD Pepe.
Neil Irwin & Quoctrung Bui of the New York Times: "For poor Americans, the place they call home can be a matter of life or death. The poor in some cities -- big ones like New York and Los Angeles, and also quite a few smaller ones like Birmingham, Ala. -- live nearly as long as their middle-class neighbors or have seen rising life expectancy in the 21st century. But in some other parts of the country, adults with the lowest incomes die on average as young as people in much poorer nations like Rwanda, and their life spans are getting shorter.In those differences, documented in sweeping new research, lies an optimistic message: The right mix of steps to improve habits and public health could help people live longer, regardless of how much money they make." Includes interactive map. -- CW
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry will focus on the vision of a nuclear-free future while he is here and will not apologize for the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, killing 140,000 people, a U.S. official said Sunday. Kerry arrived in Hiroshima on Sunday morning to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries, who discussed the war in Syria and the refugee crisis sweeping Europe." -- CW
... Update. Carol Morello: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Monday said he thought everybody, including President Obama, should visit Hiroshima, after completing what he called a 'gut-wrenching' visit to a museum at ground zero in the city where the United States dropped the first atomic bomb, in World War II.... No decision has been made about whether President Obama will visit Hiroshima next month when he comes to Japan for a meeting with leaders of the G-7 countries."
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, "a Taiwan-born Navy officer who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, faces charges of espionage, attempted espionage and prostitution in a highly secretive case in which he is accused of providing classified information to China, U.S. officials said." -- CW
Paul Krugman writes about a court case that sided with MetLife on its objections to being designated a "systemically important" financial corporation. CW: I suspect he's written an extended criticism of Bernie Sanders, even tho he doesn't mention Sanders by name. ...
... CW: Here's why it's sometimes important to read comments sections:
According to Open Secrets, Met Life has contributed the third highest amount to the Clinton campaign -- $156,000, trailing only Citicorp and Goldman Sachs in Open Secrets' listing of her top 20 contributors ... but you snidely imply -- once again -- that Bernie Sanders, who does not do Super PACS or accept donations is unfit for president but Hillary Clinton with her Snoopy-endorsed MetLife money is? Good grief, PaulKrugman! -- Gluscabi
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: The Panama Papers"... leak signaled something ... that was a big deal but went unheralded: The official WikiLeaks-ization of mainstream journalism; the next step in the tentative merger between the Fourth Estate, with its relatively restrained conventional journalists, and the Fifth Estate, with the push-the-limits ethos of its blogger, hacker and journo-activist cohort, in the era of gargantuan data breaches." -- CW ...
... CW: Just because the Panama Papers are a huge cache, I don't see how their use by the Fourth Estate has been materially different from countless other journalistic scoops. That is, investigative journalists traditionally rely on information which whistleblowers have obtained illegally from the government or in violation of their confidentiality contracts with private entities. What is different from the old days, where hardcopy documents were physically stolen or copied, is hacking, a virtual theft. Hacking usually, but not always (Ed Snowden hacked the accounts of NSA coworkers), is the work of outsiders.
Presidential Race
Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: Hillary & Bill Clinton "spent an entire day [Sunday] courting black voters in half a dozen New York churches and at a campaign event in Baltimore" after Bill Clinton escalated an encounter with Black Lives Matter activists last week. -- CW
Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) endorsed Hillary Clinton on Sunday, after months of staying neutral in the presidential contest because of his post as the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform." -- CW
Kristen East of Politico: "Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed the Boston Globe as a 'stupid' and 'worthless' newspaper on the same day that the organization published a fake front page with stories depicting would-be news events during a Trump administration. '... The whole front page, they made up the story that Trump is the president and they made up the whole front page,' he said during an event in Rochester, New York. "It's a make-believe story, which is really no different than the whole paper.'... At the same event Sunday, Trump also criticized the New York Times and the Washington Post as 'dishonest' publications." -- CW
David Masciotra of Salon: "We let the idiots take the wheel... The framers of the United States Constitution were ... terrified of what damage the public might inflict upon their invention. Benjamin Franklin even went so far as to predict that 'the people shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.' Thomas Jefferson... called information the 'currency of democracy.' It would appear that large parts of America are all but bankrupt, suffering the consequences of a long liquidation at the hands of a sensationalistic media, but most of all, a broken education system." -- LT
...speaking of idiots: Jenny Rowland of the Center for American Progress: "By launching an ideological attack on the government's authority to protect and preserve lands, waters, and wildlife, the anti-parks caucus is proving to conservative primary voters that it is opposed to the federal government in every way." -- LT, an unhappy national and state park-loving Coloradan
Ed Kilgore of New York: "The [Trump] campaign seems to figure all policy specifics are premature until [he] takes office and sits down with Republicans -- and Democrats -- on the Hill (...) The [Republican] party has been hoping and planning to avoid deal-making or bipartisanship at all costs if it takes the White House. In the first days of a new Republican administration, the plan has been to cram absolutely everything the right wants on major domestic-policy topics -- with health care high on the list -- into a budget-reconciliation bill (which, because it deals money, cannot be filibustered) and whip it through Congress to be signed immediately by the president." -- safari
Kristen East: "CIA Director John Brennan shut down one of Donald Trump's biggest campaign talking points on Sunday, saying his agency would not engage in waterboarding, even if a future president were to order it. 'I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard banded about because this institution needs to endure,' Brennan said in an interview with NBC News." -- CW ...
... National security expert Donald Trump derided Brennan. Nick Gass of Politico: "'Well I think his comments are ridiculous,' Trump said in a telephone interview Monday with 'Fox & Friends.'... Trump went on to suggest that the reason the U.S. cannot defeat the Islamic State is because it cannot operate in a 'strong' enough manner." -- CW
Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Donald Trump's convention manager, Paul Manafort, said on Sunday that the Republican presidential front-runner's campaign didn't do all it could to win delegates in Colorado. 'I acknowledge that we weren't playing in Colorado,' he said." -- CW
Steve M. has a good summary (with links) of Trump's Bad Weekend. Trumpelstiltskin has been raging about the "crooked deal" he got as five states, to some extent or another, chose Cruz's delegates over Trump's, even where Trump won the popular vote. But the Trumpbots are "not rioting. Unless that changes, I think they could be paper tigers in reaction to a Trump-thwarting convention." -- CW
Worse than Trump? The terrible, no-good horrible prospect of a Drumpf presidency must not cloud the very real possibility that a Cruz victory could actually be worse. Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch reminds us that there "...seems to be no activist who is too extreme" for Ted Cruz who engaged "...infamous demon-hunting, anti-gay exorcist/state legislator Gordon Klingenschmitt" to help him win whatever that was that happened in Colorado. -- Akhilleus
To whom much is given, all will be retained, except insofar as there be a payoff. -- The Gospel according to Drumpf ...
Ebenezer McDrumpf.... ** American Cheapskate -- A Narcissist's Definition of Charity. David Fahrenthold & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump has said that he gave more than $102 million to charity in the past five years. But ... not a single one of those donations was actually a personal gift of Trump's own money. Instead..., many of the gifts that Trump cited to prove his generosity were free rounds of golf.... The largest items on the list were ... land-conservation agreements to forgo development rights on property Trump owns.... Many of the gifts on the list came from the charity that bears his name..., which didn't receive a personal check from Trump from 2009 through 2014.... Its work is largely funded by others, although Trump decides where the gifts go. Some beneficiaries on the list are not charities at all: They included clients, other businesses and tennis superstar Serena Willimas. His giving appears narrowly tied to his business and, now, his political interests." -- CW
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "While [House Speaker Paul] Ryan has repeatedly said that he has no intention of becoming his party's nominee this year, he is already deep into his own parallel national operation to counter Donald J. Trump and help House and Senate candidates navigate the political headwinds that Mr. Trump would generate as the party's standard-bearer -- or, for that matter, Senator Ted Cruz, who is only slightly more popular. Mr. Ryan is creating a personality and policy alternative to run alongside the presidential effort -- one that provides a foundation to rebuild if Republicans splinter and lose in the fall." -- CW
Stupid Apples Don't Fall Far From Ridiculous Loser Tree. it appears, according to Carrie Dann at NBC news, that those crazy Trump kids "Eric and Ivanka Trump -- failed to register as Republicans in the state in time to be eligible to vote for him in New York's April 19 primary...according to New York's public Voter Registration Database, both Eric and Ivanka Trump are registered to vote but not enrolled in a political party." Oopsy. -- Akhilleus
Beyond the Beltway
Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe gutted a bill to let Virginia use the electric chair when it cannot find scarce lethal-injection drugs, making an 11th-hour amendment Sunday that would instead allow the state to hire a pharmacy to make a special batch in secret. [McAuliffe was u]p against a midnight deadline to veto or amend legislation from this year’s General Assembly session...." -- CW
Mike Dumke of the Chicago Sun-Times: As Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced growing criticism last fall over the city's handling of police shootings, Chicago Police Department officials laid plans to have undercover officers spy on protest groups, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show." -- CW
Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "Police used punches, knee strikes, elbow strikes, slaps, wrist twists, baton blows and Tasers at Homan Square, according to documents released to the Guardian in the course of its transparency lawsuit about the warehouse. The new information contradicts an official denial about treatment of prisoners at the facility. The injured men are among at least 7,351 people -- over 6,000 of them black -- who, police documents show, have been detained and interrogated at Homan Square without a public notice of their whereabouts or access to an attorney."--safari
Jonathan Cole in the Atlantic: "America's great public research universities, which produce path-breaking discoveries and train some of the country's most talented young students, are under siege. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' recently completed Lincoln Project report, between 2008 and 2013 states reduced financial support to top public research universities by close to 30 percent. At the same time, these states increased support of prisons by more than 130 percent." --safari
Sam Levin of the Guardian: "Eleven employees at the University of California at Berkeley have been fired or resigned after facing accusations of sexual harassment, according to new records that provide disturbing details on numerous misconduct allegations and dramatically expand a scandal plaguing the prestigious institution. The hundreds of pages of records -- which include extensive documentation of harassment cases involving 19 employees and were released on the heels of multiple high-profile controversies -- show that men in powerful positions avoided discipline after the school substantiated harassment complaints from students and employees." -- CW
Christopher Goffard of the Los Angeles Times: On his last day in office, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) reduced the sentence of convicted murderer Esteban Nuñez, the son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, a friend & political ally of Schwarznegger's. Esteban will be released this week. Schwarznegger did not reduce the sentence of Esteban's s co-defendant, who will presumably serve out his term. "'Of course you help a friend,' Schwarzenegger later said, a remark that deepened widespread outrage over the commutation, which was reflected in editorials and denunciations by Republicans and Democrats alike." -- CW
Samantha Page of ThinkProgress: "A group of youngsters just won a major decision in their efforts to sue the federal government over climate change. An Oregon judge ruled Friday that their lawsuit, which alleges the government violated the constitutional rights of the next generation by allowing the pollution that has caused climate change, can go forward." --safari
BOYCOTT! The Associated Press in the Hollywood Reporter:" Canadian rocker Bryan Adams is canceling a performance this week in Mississippi, citing the state's new law that allows religious groups and some private businesses to refuse service to gay couples." --safari
Way Beyond
Andrew Roth of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Sunday announced his resignation, calling for the formation of a new government as Kiev endures its worst political crisis since the Euromaidan revolution of 2014. The public's patience has grown thin with Yatsenyuk, as well as with President Petro Poroshenko, because of a struggling economy, stalled reforms and entrenched corruption. The ruling coalition has fractured as public support hits new lows." -- CW
Thomas Seibert of The Daily Beast: "Forget The Donald, Hillary and Bernie in New York. If you want to see some serious mud-slinging, look to Turkey's capital Ankara, where the president of the republic and the leader of the opposition have been calling each other political and sexual perverts." --safari
Gangster Islam. Andrew Higgins & Kimiko De Freytas-Tamura of The New York Times Khalid Zerkani, who lived in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, Belgium, & whom Belgian judges had previously sentenced to 12 years in prison for terrorist-related activity, “has emerged as a central element in attacks in both Paris and Brussels — as well as one in France that the authorities said last month they had foiled.” -- CaptRuss
Ben Taub of The New Yorker: "The Commission for International Justice and Accountability's ... four-hundred-page legal brief ... links the systematic torture and murder of tens of thousands of Syrians to a written policy approved by President Bashar al-Assad, coördinated among his security-intelligence agencies, and implemented by regime operatives. ...The case is the first international war-crimes investigation completed by an independent agency ... funded by governments but without a court mandate. The organization's founder, Bill Wiley....had grown frustrated with the geopolitical red tape that often shapes the pursuit of justice." -- LT
News Lede
Washington Post: "Duane R. 'Dewey' Clarridge, a CIA operative and official of dash, daring and swagger who helped establish and headed the agency's counterterrorism center and also was known for his connection to the Iran-contra affair of the 1980s, died April 9 at his home in Leesburg, Va. He was 83." CW: An entertaining obituary.
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Reader Comments (14)
Is Hillary Clinton Responsible for the Rise of the Islamic State, as Sander's campaign manager claimed?
Juan Cole says No:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_hillary_clinton_responsible_for_rise_islamic_state_as_bernies_20160410
Mr. Trump is mighty mad about the satirical Boston Globe issue directed at him––says, "[the B.G.] is a stupid and worthless newspaper." Yeah, right, except it was the Boston Globe that did all the investigative reporting on the priest scandal (they even made a film about it called "Spotlight") and the paper has been lauded for other important stories. Could we be seeing our golden haired boobie being skewered little by little until...?
These 8 Senate races are shaping up to be barnburners:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/senate-races_us_5707efe8e4b0447a7dbc38f1
When states reduce financial support to top public research universities (Jonathan Cole article), it leaves a hole that can be filled with private money and influence. Look at the Koch influence in the business school at Florida State. This is just part of the grand scheme to diminish public control of services and to avoid the "liberal bias" of university education and research (e.g. University of Virginia ex- climate scientist, Michael Mann.)
Close to the Madding Crowd
A New Yorker piece, linked here yesterday, made note of Herr Drumpf's skill and proclivity for injecting frenzy into a peaceful crowd, turning an audience into a mob. This is the stuff of totalitarian dictators not (most) American presidents.
I offer an example of how the power to manipulate a crowd can go the other route, turning a mob into a peaceful crowd, calling for the best in people, not the absolute worst.
This short clip, from John Ford's 1939 masterpiece, "Young Mr. Lincoln", demonstrates the sort of power, a reverse Trump, if you will, most of us hope for from a president or any leader. There's no question which side Trump would be on in this scene.
Incidentally, this film, and this scene especially, were particular favorites of master Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein listed this as the one film he wished he could have made.
What does it say that the dean of Soviet filmmaking, a contemporary of Lenin and Trotsky, was a bigger fan of rationality and the rule of law than a Republican candidate for president?
By the way, if you pay attention, you'll notice a distinctly Trump-like figure in this lynch mob. A big mouth bullying braggart who, in the end, turns out to be whiny coward. President Trump?
Trumpism=Ineptitude
Much is being made of Trump's many stumbles as he bumps into problems he should not only be aware of, but be conversant enough in to overcome. The most recent example, the inside baseball of presidential campaigning, wherein the Conniving Cruz, besting the braggart Trump in the careful acquisition of convention delegates has forced Trump into defending against a kind of knight fork. Trump is given a choice but no matter which way he decides, he'll lose something of value. As they say in chess, he's forked. Why? Because he doesn't know how to play the game and he's too egotistical to either learn the rules and the finer points of the game or ask for help.
So, I'm thinking if this guy is too stupid and inept to develop a proficiency at the relatively uncomplicated, straightforward game of delegates (the rules are all out there for everyone to read), how will he ever fulfill his promises of handily besting the entire world at the much more intricate and recondite games of international politics, trade, and power balance (where rules are obscure at best) that require historical knowledge, deep understanding of realpolitik, and a fine hand (see Obama, Barack) at tightening or loosening the screws.
He cannot. He's a child. He proves it every day.
Drumpf is a classic example of the fatuity of the unquestioned right-wing belief that all America needs to be great again is to apply standard business models of management, adopt the kind of household budget plan used by Ozzie and Harriet, and blow up anyone who looks at you cross eyed.
These morons deserve a president like Trump.
The rest of us don't.
Trumpy's Lexicon
For a guy with all the "best words" and possessed of such a self-described "big brain", Trump's vocabulary equips his speech with all the lexical vigor of a dim five year old demanding to know, again, why he has to pee before bedtime.
Everything is "ridiculous", "stupid", or "terrific", "great", and anyone opposing his puerility is a "loser".
Can someone please show this idiot how to use a Thesaurus? That five year old mentioned above knows about 5,000 words (according to lexical researchers). I'm guessing that's about Trump's speed as well.
@Ak In Trump's world, the Thesaurus is extinct..though the Donald Donald appears alive & well.
MAG,
...and hopefully just as flightless.
For a while, I entertained the possibility that Trump spoke like a belligerent 5-year-old because he was trying to appeal to losers who thought & acted like belligerent 5-year-olds. But Trump is not speaking down to them when he speaks their language. It's the only language he speaks. When I glimpsed the transcripts of his meetings with WashPo & New York Times editors & reporters, I saw that he used the same language with them. I know he thinks they're stupid, but it doesn't follow that he thinks that can't comprehend three-syllable words & complex sentences. I suppose there's no one alive who knows if little Donnie fell on his head or ate lead paint, but something happened to make that guy such a dope.
I don't know how he got thru college except that he would have hit Fordham & the University of Pennslyvania exactly at the time grade inflation became SOP because of the Viet Nam war. BTW, for those of you who think he has an MBA from the Wharton School, he doesn't. He spent two years in Wharton's undergraduate program.
Marie
P.S. Kids, if you think you must be smarter than your parents because your college grades were so much better than theirs or because they flunked out, it ain't necessarily so. Before the mid-60s, when many college professors started giving Bs or better to students to save young men from being drafted, it was much tougher to get high marks than it is today. I know. I was there for the transition.
Marie,
....or maybe Trump, not being born and raised in Lake Woebegone, is merely "average," but benefits from the common American belief that one's money is an apt measure of his or her intelligence. In our commercial culture a good head start (a couple of million), a healthy dose of brashness, some dumb luck and an entire absence of conscience will take one a long way. For his success, Trump didn't need to be smart.
To me, the intriguing question is (ala Irving Schulman?) what makes the Trumpster run? And the answers I come up with frighten me.
Ipso Facto Dumbo
Ken makes the entirely reasonable observation that many Americans believe that rich people are, ipso facto, smart. But, living in my blood red state, I also hear that barking mad mental pygmies like Louie Gohmert and Ron Johnson must, obviously, clearly, like-are-you-stupid? be smart because they're members of congress. This is the classic circulus in probando. The guy must be smart. He got elected! Which is like saying that George W. Bush is a genius because he was elected president. Almost everyone on the Forbes 400 list considers themselves to be in someway a self-made, entitled oligarch, like Mittens Romney, who claims to have "inherited nothing". But a study released in 2012 revealed that over 60% of those on the list had a significant leg up towards their positions of wealth and influence. How many of these highly privileged, self-regarding assholes would you consider oracles of wisdom?
Anyway, you get my drift. We all know pols who have been elected despite astonishing personal indiscretions, near total lack of understanding of governance, and painful--painful!-- intellectual privation. But when you have a gigantic TV network and hundreds of well funded online abettors and "news" outfits shilling for the mentally and emotionally unstable who routinely proffer fairy tales as the answer to serious real world problems, as long as their fantasies mesh with the dominant Confederate ideology (more about this shortly), an indolent, insensible donkey doofus could get elected to high office and he or she would be hosannahed to high heaven as a deliberative dapifer of sober cogitation.
So the groundlings believe that Trump is smart because he's rich. It has been (quite easily) calculated that had Little Donnie shut his trap and simply invested the money he inherited from Dear Old Dad (ie, the money he didn't earn), and left if alone rather than fucking around with pretentious, bullshit "deals" (and multiple bankruptcies), he would have been quite a bit richer today.
Is this why so many believe that the opinions of Hollywood stars, reality TV mooks, and bilious, bearded duck call guys are worth anything more than the unpopped kernels at the bottom of a microwave popcorn bag?
Orville Redenbacher has spoken!
(Oh, Ken, I think you might have been thinking of Budd Schulberg, who wrote "What Makes Sammy Run?")
Akhilleus,
Yup, Budd Schulberg it was. Know I can't rely on memory these days, hence the lazy "?", instead of actually checking. Was certain only it wasn't Max Shulman, who brought us Dobie Gillis, which in turn reminds me of Bob Denver and "Gilligan's Island" with its Thurston Howell III, a harmless and far more pleasant Trump prototype whom I could actually laugh at.
Thanks.
Ken,
I think Shulman's only connection with "Gilligan's Island" was Bob Denver who co-starred as Dobie Gillis' perpetually high (although they never mentioned that) beatnik buddy Maynard G. Krebbs. But your mention of Gilligan reminds me that Thurston Howell III was a sweet guy (no Trump-style misogynist, he) and a Rockefeller Republican who regularly deferred to his wife; a Harvard man, to boot. But not the Grover Norquist, John Roberts, Larry Summers, Harvey Mansfield, Ted Cruz type. The kind who believed that it wasn't a horrible thing to associate with, or care about, those who worked for a living.
Times they have been a-changin'.