The Commentariat -- April 14, 2015
Internal links removed.
The Guardian is liveblogging or livefeeding or something Hillary's Clinton's first campaign stop in Iowa. She looks rested & ready to go after that long, hard drive across the Northeast.
National Constitution Center: "It was 150 years ago tonight the President Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching a play at Ford's Theater. Lincoln died the next morning, and in the aftermath, some odd facts seemed to pop up." The writers elaborate.
NEW. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Tuesday that the panel had reached an accord on a bipartisan bill giving Congress a vote on an international deal to rein in Iran's nuclear program. The compromise measure would shorten a review period for a final deal and soften language that would make the lifting of sanctions dependent on Iran's ending support for terrorism. The agreement, struck between Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the committee's chairman, and Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, its ranking Democrat, still must be voted on this afternoon, but leaders in both parties expressed their support. One senior Democratic aide said the bill would now have overwhelming, veto-proof support in the full Senate."
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "One former Blackwater security contractor received a life sentence on Monday and three others received 30-year sentences for killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007. The shooting left 17 people dead and was a gruesome nadir in the war in Iraq. It transformed Blackwater Worldwide from America's wealthiest and most politically powerful security contractor into a symbol of unchecked and privatized military power. Nicholas A. Slatten, a former Army sniper from Tennessee, was convicted of murder for firing the first fatal shots. Three others -- Dustin L. Heard, also of Tennessee; Evan S. Liberty of New Hampshire; and Paul A. Slough of Texas -- were convicted of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and the use of a machine gun in a violent crime." ...
... The Washington Post story, by Spencer Shu & Victoria St. Martin, is here.
Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday approved the delivery of a sophisticated air defense missile system to Iran, potentially complicating negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program and further straining ties with Washington. The sale could also undermine the Obama administration's efforts to sell Congress and foreign allies on the nuclear deal, which Iran and the United States are still struggling to complete. It might also reduce the United States' leverage in the talks by making it much harder for the United States or Israel to mount airstrikes against Iran's nuclear infrastructure if the country ignored such an agreement."
Emily Wax-Thibodeaux of the Washington Post: "Not even completed yet, [a] $1.7 billion [VA hospital] facility [in Aurora, Colorado, is already among the most expensive hospitals in the world, and it's just one of several VA hospital projects that are greatly over budget and behind schedule, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Manu Raju of Politico: "Sen. Patty Murray is refusing to endorse Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin for the job of Democratic whip, a sign that the Washington senator is keeping open the option of seeking the No. 2 position in her caucus hierarchy."
Jim Newell of Salon: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wants you to know that President Obama, who is worse than Neville Chamberlain, is leading us on a path to nuclear war. Sometimes Cotton has to change his rationale mid-graf, but everything leads us to -- Obama = Ka-Boom!
Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Digby, in Salon: "The horrific story of the unarmed Walter Scott's death at the hands of Officer Michael Slager continues to reverberate.... And on even further investigation it was found thatthis jurisdiction is known as 'Taser town.'... Tasers guidelines vary by department and jurisdiction, but generally their use is only considered reasonable when the subject poses a safety threat. Clearly, shooting an unarmed 50-year-old man when he runs from the taser is not one of those cases."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Dylan Byers of Politico: "FiveThirtyEight founder and statistics guru Nate Silver has accused Ezra Klein's Vox.com of stealing other people's charts without attribution. 'Yo, @voxdotcom: Y'all should probably stop stealing people's charts without proper attribution,' he tweeted Monday. 'You do this all the time, to 538 & others.' Silver wasn't alone: Anthony De Rosa, the editor-in-chief at Circa, a mobile news app, joined the fray, claiming that he'd reached out to Vox.com content director Max Fisher 'about this about dozen times and he never responds.'" Klein did respond to Byers, & Byers updated his post with the response.
Presidential Race
NEW. Caren Bohan, et al., of Reuters: "Hillary Clinton, under pressure from the left wing of her Democratic Party to aggressively campaign against income inequality, voiced concern about the hefty paychecks of some corporate executives in an email to supporters. Striking a populist note, Clinton..., said American families were still facing financial hardship at a time 'when the average CEO makes about 300 times what the average worker makes.' In a tightly scripted campaign launch in which there were few surprises, the comments were unexpected, at least by progressives, who saw them as an early sign she may shift away from the centrist economic policies pursued by her husband, former President Bill Clinton." ...
... Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Obama will not automatically endorse Hillary Clinton now that she has formally declared her candidacy for president, the White House said Monday. Press secretary Josh Earnest said that Obama and Clinton have 'become friends' during Clinton's years serving as secretary of State but 'there are other people who are friends of of the president' who are considering their own campaigns." ...
... Digby, in Salon: "... it's vital that Clinton's campaign realizes that this is not 2008 and the issues and political terrain have changed in seven years.The time is ripe for a woman president and it's ripe for an unabashed progressive populist agenda. If Hillary Clinton seizes this moment and runs with it, she could make history in more ways than one." ...
... Peter Beinart of the Atlantic does a bit of textual analysis of Hillary's announcement video & concludes that "absent serious primary competition that might have forced her left in the primaries, Hillary has gone left anyway: with culturally progressive imagery, a class-oriented economic message, and a purely domestic focus." ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "What is striking is the convergence in thinking [about income & wealth inequality] between the center and center-left that has taken place in recent years, as the basic facts about rising inequality have become impossible to ignore. Now it's up to Clinton and her advisers to exploit this convergence. As long as they are willing to defy some of their more conservative and tax-phobic donors, there is plenty of common ground on which to construct an inequality agenda that will satisfy ... progressives."
... Dylan Scott of the New Republic: "Clinton has been openly enthusiastic about the [Affordable Care Act] in the weeks leading up to her announcement." ...
... Ben Adler of Grist, in Mother Jones: "Clinton's record and stances [on climate change] are cut from the same cloth as Obama's." ...
... Juan Cole: "it seems to me that Sec. Clinton's Middle East foreign policy would be very similar to that of President Obama, but more interventionist. She differs with Israel, as all presidents have since 1967, over its occupation of the West Bank. But she is closer to the government of Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu than is Obama."
... Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Here's Bloody Bill Kristol with the false equivalency of the day.... Kristol: If they get to nominate Hillary Clinton, why don't we get to nominate Dick Cheney. I mean, he has a much -- he has a much better record...; He has a much better record... [Tavis] Smiley: God help us all."
NEW. Luciana Lopez & Scott Malone of Reuters: "New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican trying to gain traction in a crowded 2016 presidential field, on Tuesday proposed a major overhaul of the popular Social Security program for older Americans that would cut benefits for wealthy people. At a New Hampshire appearance later on Tuesday, Christie plans to propose Social Security 'means-testing' that would reduce the size of benefits for people earning more than $80,000 annually and phase them out entirely for those earning $200,000 or more."
Ed O'Keefe & Manuel Roig-Franzia of the Washington Post: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the son of Cuban immigrants who made a remarkably rapid ascent through Florida politics, announced that he is running for president Monday afternoon, in front of supporters in Miami.... Rubio, 43, first told supporters the news earlier Monday, during a conference call." CW: The most exciting thing about Rubio's announcement is that it opens up Senate seat. ...
... Alex Isenstadt & Marc Caputo write the Politico story. ...
... Brian Beutler: "Marco Rubio Is the Most Disingenuous Republican Running for President. He's not a reformer. He's a fraud.... Either Rubio is promising to run up bigger deficits than any president in history, or he's swindling someone. Upper income tax cuts, middle class tax credits, anti-poverty spending -- at least one of these will have to give. The experience of watching his tax plan evolve tells us a great deal about which one won't." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "So Rubio has already surrendered to the status quo to the extent that he packages an even larger boon to the wealthy than other Republicans ... but acceptance for some 'family-friendly tax credits.'... All this dubious maneuvering actually looks worse when you contrast it to Rubio's impressive lack of nuance when it comes to foreign policy, where he's a full-on champion of every Neocon position... Those who are impressed by the heterodoxy of positions he's already abandoned might want to think about that more carefully." Kilgore wants to know if Marco "gets credit for the positions he's abandoned." ...
... Nate Cohn of the New York Times: Rubio's "central problem is that Jeb Bush has found considerable support from the party's mainstream conservative and moderate donors in the so-called invisible primary -- the behind-the-scenes competition for elite support that often decides the nomination.... Despite the initial insurgent bid against Charlie Crist that made him a Tea Party hero, Mr. Rubio has always been an establishment-oriented candidate..... Mr. Rubio is not the obvious leader of any major faction of the party, and his message isn't obviously oriented toward any wing of the party, either." ...
... Contra Cohn, Harry Enten of 538 writes, "Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's campaign ... has so far attracted paltry support from Republican voters, according to polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as nationally. He's down near Chris Christie! Yet, when we talk about him in the FiveThirtyEight office, we usually put Rubio in the top tier, in front of everyone except Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, the two candidates at the top of the polls. Why? Rubio is both electable and conservative, and in optimal proportions." Enten calls Rubio "the first real contender" to enter the presidential race. ...
... David Graham of the Atlantic: "Here's one theory, though: Rubio is the perfect second choice for GOP voters."
Beyond the Beltway
Jon Schuppe of NBC News: "Tulsa, Oklahoma reserve sheriff's deputy was charged with second-degree manslaughter Monday for the shooting death of an unarmed black man. The charges against Robert Charles Bates came hours after the family of the dead man, Eric Courtney Harris, accused deputies of treating him inhumanely after he was shot at the conclusion of an April 2 foot chase stemming from a sting operation in which Harris had allegedly arranged to sell a gun to undercover officers from the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office Violent Crimes Task Force."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Atlanta educators convicted of racketeering in a huge public school cheating scandal who rejected a sentencing deal received prison time during proceedings on Tuesday in a Fulton County court.... Among those declining [sentencing] deals were three higher-level administrators, Sharon Davis-Williams, Michael Pitts and Tamara Cotman, all regional directors at Atlanta Public Schools. An irate Judge Jerry W. Baxter of Fulton County Superior Court sentenced each of them to 20 years, with seven to be served in prison, and the remainder on probation. Each must also pay a $25,000 file and perform 2,000 hours of community service."
Washington Post: "Jason Rezaian, a reporter for The Washington Post imprisoned in Iran for almost nine months, has had only one brief, cursory visit with his lawyer in advance of his upcoming trial, according to information provided by his family on Tuesday."
CBS Denver: "A CBS4 investigation has learned that two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers. It happened roughly a dozen times, according to information gathered by CBS4."
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Reader Comments (13)
All that is needed to understand the political culture of the United States, is to remember that it has been created by the same people who gave us: "Please don't squeeze the Charmin". It's all marketing. How often have you seen an advertisement that had any information content?
D.C.
That is the primary reason why I have stopped watching the teevee. 6324 stations to choose from but still not much worth watching in between all of the commercials. Unfortunately, I believe that much of journalism is following marketing's lead - all fluff and no substance to speak of.
On another note, here's a good way to teach our youth a civics lesson about patriotism - school nurse refuses to treat student who wouldn't stand for the pledge of allegiance. I'd bet that the nurse would throw the book, a bible in her case, at the girl for not saying "under god" even if she did stand.
Well I'll be darned! Convictions in the Nisour Square melee, an event that made me cringe at what was being done in my name in Iraq. It seemed clear that, to the Blackwater folks, Iraqi lives didn't matter, and the quotes in the NYT article make it sound as if the mercenaries still believe that. There's even a "As God is my witness..." quote. Indeed, the quotes make them sound like Jessup on steroids.
I have never been in combat, and I understand that we comfortable civilians need to grant a certain amount of leeway to people who are in grave danger 24/7. Even with that caveat, the Nisour Square melee was arrogant and shameful.
Now that it's "throw your hat into the ring" season I am getting reams and reams of emails––this morning even got one from a dating service showing me "attractive singles in your area," both male and female, all with big smiles and good teeth. Most emails, however, are asking for money as though my paltry sum would actually make a difference (it would if we had a different campaign finance system), but we don't and all candidates depend on large sums from big donors and what they do want from us is our name and address so they can send us more stuff–––maybe they use the small donations for their doughnuts and coffee. I will support any candidate I choose, (am willing to canvas) but not with money––until we change this system I am refusing to participate in this undemocratic money grubbing.
The other problem (there are so many) that was discussed yesterday is the ignorance of the public––Marie's example of informing her workman, yet probably not changing his mind at all. How to reach the vast populace who are being hoodwinked into believing that someone like Rubio will actually save the day and when he says he will take our country back, he really means back, not forward, not changing the system for more equality, etc., but shelling for those rich guys that have helped him get where he is. Perhaps playing the Dobbie Brother's "What a Fool Believes" outside of the Republican headquarters might work. But perhaps I'm the fool to believe that Hillary or O'Malley might––just might–– make a dent in this craziness. The fact that General Electric Corp. has made the changes it has is a good sign, I think and with Elizabeth Warren still barking at the heels of all those layabouts there does seem some small silver linings.
Unwashed,
I have not watched a regularly scheduled program on commercial television in nearly 30 years. (that's why I had to reach back so far for such an iconically annoying ad)
On the rare occasions I do watch a special event, I cannot understand how any sane adult can stand a steady diet of such ads.
Even PBS is becoming annoying with 5 to 10 minutes of plugs for donor companies every hour. The worst are smarmy, self adulating, bits for banks and investment companies that make the HRC ad seem like rocket science.
On the bright side -- every day I find more and more reasons to be glad I'm not young.
Running my eyes over the length of today's entries under "Presidential Race," it occurs to me that with the election so far in the future, we have entered the era of the Perpetual Campaign, perhaps the most noxious consequence of Citizens United and its evil successors.
Unlimited money in politics not only allows people with big bucks to buy candidates, it also encourages people eager to be bought to jump into the race. We already see a troop of Koch-Confederates with their hands out, ready to do tricks--and all their tricks will be reported, ad nauseam.
And with all that nonsense in print and on the airwaves in the next two years, is it possible no one will still care enough to vote by the time of the actual election.
Maybe in the long catalog of harm done by Citizens United and its offspring the most prominent will be terminal political boredom, the wet dream of the Koch-Confederates, the ultimate in voter suppression.
They held an election and no one came.
So good to see that American justice can still work. The murderous mercenaries hired by Bush BFF Erik Prince, who founded the thuggish, incompetent, out of control, but wildly successful (at making money) Blackwater, are going away for a long time for the unprovoked murders of Iraqi civilians in 2007.
In many ways, the groundwork for the massacre of those civilians was laid by George W. Bush's incompetence, coziness with big donors, alternate reality world views, and desire to look tough, like a man's man. (D.C, maybe he was thinking of the Marlboro Man.) Surprised?
The Blackwater debacles (they were numerous) were representative of the larger Bush-Cheney Debacle, hard core ideology but no real plans, just talk tough, shoot from the hip and damn the consequences 'cause we make our own reality. Thus went Bush's War of Choice, run by well connected but unsupervised GOP insiders, friends of Bush and Cheney and right-wing religious nutballs who made billions off taxpayers while the Iraqis suffered through massacres (Haditha), atrocities (Nissour Square) and the Abu Ghraib war crimes.
But true to form, the guys at the top are not ever held accountable. Bush and Cheney who should both be behind bars are free. Erik Prince has changed the name of his company several times in order to try to escape the stench of his mismanagement style which has resulted in numerous deaths including those of his own employees, sent out unprepared and without proper equipment and defenses. He made billions and now he runs a Romney style private equity firm. Like Bush and Cheney, what does he care?
But it's worth remembering exactly how many Confederate big-wigs were connected to Blackwater and served in their defense even after their total incompetence was clear to all. Bush even gave Blackwater contracts to stuff its pockets a year after Katrina hit. Blackwater made over $73 million running errands in New Orleans (it's not clear exactly what they were paid to do) after the Bush let the city drown.
Besides Prince, who has had his hands in the governments pockets (then using much of that money to support far right religious and military groups) for decades, Blackwater hired J.Cofer Black, the preening, strutting, tough-talking incompetent (just like Dubya!) who briefed Bush during the early days of the war on the CIA operations, AFTER deciding not to push Bush and Rice on warning signs prior to 9/11. Black also ran the CIA rendition and torture programs. Like most in those days, he tried to cover his ass by making flamboyant macho statements about promising to bring Bin Laden's head to Bush in a box full of dry ice. No wonder the Bush War was such a cluster fuck. Oh yeah, Black went on to serve as a highly regarded adviser on "Islamofascism" to the Romney Mechanism.
Fred Fielding, a name you probably all remember, was also on the Blackwater BFF list. He was White House counsel to both Nixon and Reagan and defended the company against a suit brought by the families of employees who were slaughtered after being sent out unprepared by Blackwater.
Fielding, who was also John Roberts' boss, left the case and was replaced by Jack Abramoff's law firm and finally by Ken Starr (yeah, that Ken Starr) who did what he does best: ratfucks whomever he's after. He kept the proceedings going until the plaintiffs ran out of money and could no longer pay their legal fees. A judge threw out the case. Blackwater then settled out of court with two of the plaintiffs but they were never found guilty of anything. Win for Blackwater.
At least they don't win all the time.
The Decider: the asshole that continues spewing shit into the world, years after he retired to loll in his hammock and paint his toes.
Re: Chris Christie's means-testing proposal for Social Security: this is a bad idea on several levels, though I understand why Republicans love it: it makes them seem "populist." In fact, their motive is exactly the opposite. The idea of Social Security is that if you put in a lot, you get back a lot, but probably not as much as you put into it. If you put in a little, the richy-riches will probably supplement your paltry contributions; that is, you'll get back more than you put in. (Both instances, of course, depend upon how long the recipient lives.)
However, if a program is overtly means-tested (I found out from my accountant today that Social Security already is means-tested to the extent that part or all of it is taxable to taxpayers above a certain income-level), it becomes in the minds of everyone just another form of "welfare." And that gives Republicans the "moral" excuse to cut it, so the lazy old bastards won't be resting on somebody else's laurels.
In addition, I'm a good example of why means-testing sucks. In 2014, I had a windfall that -- under Christie's plan -- would mean I would receive no Social Security next year -- when I'll need it to live on. The following year, I guess I'd be back in the money. But I'm sure many people on Social Security have financial ups & downs, & administering a means-tested policy would not only work a hardship on some beneficiaries, it would also likely create a bureaucratic nightmare.
Marie
The latest Confederate attempt to kick people who rely on government (for anything--oh, unless you're a corporation or thrive on corporate welfare like the Kochs), Chris Christie's means testing for Social Security, should serve, along with their many other attempts to make life more miserable for millions of Americans, to point out to voters the immense gulf between what Republicans stand for and what even moderate Democrats support.
Recent headlines about Confederates sticking it to poor people in the delusional belief that those who survive on food stamps are out dining on crab legs and filet mignon and the continued success of the Confederates' War on the Poor (and average Americans as well), clash with actual facts from the ground. A Times article published yesterday, demonstrates via statistics and findings (as opposed to gut feelings and unconfirmed anecdotes and made up bullshit) from a study done by a reputable, respectable (as opposed to invented shit paid for by some shady wingnut think tank) operation, the Berkeley Center for Labor and Research Education, that "...Nearly three-quarters of the people helped by programs geared to the poor are members of a family headed by a worker".
These aren't people lounging around, cruising in their Cadillacs while white Christian wingnuts are paying their bills. Their problem is simple. GOP policies have made it easy for enormous employers like Walmart and McDonalds to pay slave wages to employees who then require government assistance to survive. So, in effect, and in fact, Republicans who look the other way when giant corporations keep their employees locked down are themselves the agents of public assistance they then try to cut off or curtail as much as possible.
If Kafka could write such a story of circular evil we'd admire his ability to construct a truly perverse nightmare scenario. The people who are best friends with companies who won't pay you a living wage and force you to get help from government programs then kill or kneecap those programs. Add to that the Christie plan to means test average Americans for the own Social Security and you really find yourself plumbing some despicable depths of hatred and cavalier viciousness.
These people truly are fucking monsters.
Akhilleus,
And that's why I attach "Koch" to Confederates, manipulators and lackeys. It is all about following the money: Ever upward, to those who have and always want more. Monsters, indeed.
Just wondering how many "Sic Semper Tyrannis" parties are going on among Confederates today?
Oh, I know they say how much they "love" Abraham Lincoln, but there is a pretty rabid culture of Lincoln haters on the right who have friends in some pretty high places.
Rand Paul is best friends with Jack Hunter who fancies himself the Southern Avenger and wrote an essay titled "John Wilkes Booth was Right". Aqua Buddha describes Hunter's Confederate sympathies as just youthful hijinks even though Hunter was 39 when he wrote a piece declaring that assassinating Lincoln wasn't such a bad idea.
And the Little One himself subscribes to the extremist neo-Confederate theory that Lincoln was a racist and a hypocrite.
I suppose it's an apple not falling far from the tree sort of thing. Daddy Paul's faux libertarian fantasies began after he heard a speech by Ludwig von Mises, the same Ludwig von Mises who has been adopted as a favorite Austrian School economist by so many Confederates and GOP presidential candidates, and the guy who also has written:
"It must be emphasized that the destiny of modern civilization as developed by the white peoples in the last two hundred years is inseparably linked with the fate of economic science."
So then we meet another guy, a white supremacist who loves him some von Mises-style racism and founds the Ludwig von Mises Institute, guy name of Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr. Lew Rockwell becomes Ron Paul's congressional chief of staff and runs the Ron Paul Associates. He also is considered the most likely author of the infamous Ron Paul Political Reports which praised the KKK and despised MLK, pushing racist and homophobic screeds for years and making upwards of a million dollars a year for the Ron and Li'l Randy Paul family. Rockwell is also a great supporter of another Lincoln Hater, Thomas DiLorenzo who, apparently, spends his every waking moment hating on Lincoln.
It's all pretty incestuous, but it's good to know that a guy vying to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom is such a staunch "supporter" of all he stood for. Oh, except that part about him being racist and a hypocrite who never really freed the slaves.
Musta been some other guy.
If you haven't already done so, check out that story linked by Unwashed. It's eye-popping.
The idea that a public school nurse, paid by taxpayers, can verbally attack a child and then deny her medical attention because that little girl is standing up for her rights as an American, and then stop that child from attempting to call her mother is outrageous in the extreme.
And extreme is the word, alright. There really isn't much of a spectrum on the right anymore. You're either on their side, or you're a non-person. What another group of extremist haters would refer to as an infidel.
Okay, just one more.
I didn't want this day, the anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, to go by without rememberingthat the book by nationally known serial fabulist, Bill O'Liely, one in his series of books about killing--a favorite topic on the right, it appears--"Killing Lincoln", was rejected by (many) historians when released a few years ago for its startlingly long list of historical lapses and inaccuracies:
"A reviewer for the official National Park Service bookstore at Ford’s Theatre has recommended that Bill O’Reilly’s bestselling new book about the Lincoln assassination not be sold at the historic site “because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication."
Oops.
I guess they didn't buy the part where O'Liely claimed to have been in the crowd at Ford's Theatre and tried to chase after Booth but decided instead to climb into the president's box and try to save his life with some timely brain surgery. Mrs. Lincoln did not approve.
And the rest is (loofah) history.