The Commentariat -- April 28, 2015
Defunct videos removed.
NEW. Nick Gass of Politico: "President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the violence that consumed Baltimore overnight was a product of a 'slow-rolling crisis' of policing issues, and that Americans need to get serious about the underlying problem of impoverished communities. 'We as a country have to do some soul searching,' he said in a press conference in the Rose Garden." ...
... Sorry about the Fox "Newsiness" of this, but you will want to hear President Obama's remarks on the situation in Baltimore:
NEW. Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Thanks to protests last week, the public now knows that some of the workers serving meals to U.S. Senate's members, staff and visitors are paid barely enough to scrape by. Many rely on government benefits like food stamps, and at least one of them -- 63-year-old Charles Gladden -- is homeless, spending his nights outside a downtown Metro station. Responding to the protests, eight Democratic senators, led by Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), plus Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), on Monday called for better wages and benefits for the Senate's own contract workers, some of whom make less than $10 an hour. They wrote to Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees Capitol campus matters, telling him a new $10.10 wage baseline supported by President Obama is only a start."
Adam Liptak & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed deeply divided about one of the great civil rights issues of the age: whether the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. The justices appeared to clash over not only what is the right answer but also over how to reach it. The questioning illuminated their conflicting views on history, tradition, biology, constitutional interpretation, the democratic process and the role of the courts in prodding social change."
... NEW. Noah Feldman in Bloomberg: "No one really believes that Tuesday's oral argument in the gay-marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges, is an occasion for the justices to make up their minds about how they're going to vote. Rather, it's an exercise in making certain points, not so much to their colleagues as to the public. According to reports from the first section of the questioning, the justices had some messages they want you to hear." ...
... ScotusBlog: "On Tuesday the [Supreme] Court will hear oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges, which is consolidated with three other cases, on the questions of whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires that states grant and/or recognize same-sex marriages. [ScotusBlog] will be live-blogging updates from the oral argument at this link beginning at 10:45 a.m." ...
... "Kennedy multiple times talked about marriage being the same for 'millenia.' He said he 'kept coming back' to that thought. #ReutersSCOTUS ...
... "Bonauto closed her argument with a neat turn of phrase. The Court had said that the question is 'who decides' whether same sex marriage will be lawful: the courts or the states? She responded that the choice is not between the Court and the state, but instead whether the individual can decide who to marry, or whether the government will decide for him.... One very interesting aspect of the early argument was that it was primarily a set of questions about what 'marriage' means as an institution, and accordingly, whether it is 'irrational' or 'invidious discrimination' to exclude gays and lesbians." ...
... "Ultimately, Justice Scalia seemed satisfied that a minister could refuse to perform those weddings.... Justice Ginsburg spoke of how it was recent changes to the institution of marriage that made it appropriate for gay and lesbian couples -- in particular, it becoming an egalitarian institution rather than one dominated by the male partners who determined where and how the couple would live.... The petrs had said they were looking to 'join the institution of marriage.' The chief [Roberts] objected that perhaps they were not looking to redefine it, not join it. And he emphasized that he had looked up all the definitions he could find, and it was always a man and a woman."
... ** UPDATE: The audio is here. ...
... Here's the New York Times' liveblog of the hearing. ...
... The New York Times story, by Adam Liptak, is here. ...
... John Culhane in Politico Magazine: "There's no real case against gay marriage" so "opponents rely on dubious warnings of social Armageddon." ...
... Emily Bazelon & Adam Liptak discuss the case in the New York Times Magazine. ...
... Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "... whatever happens with the Court in June, the struggle for gay and lesbian rights -- even for basic humanity -- will go on. A good Supreme Court opinion could make it less divisive. In constitutional law, the reasons for a decision matter as much as the decision itself." ...
... Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "Religious leaders are calling on members of the Supreme Court's liberal wing to recuse themselves from the blockbuster gay marriage case that the court will begin considering on Tuesday. Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, Scott Lively, president of Abiding Truth Ministries, told reporters he's filing a motion with the Supreme Court calling for the recusal of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan." ...
... Liz Goodwin of Yahoo! News: "Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 82-year-old leader of the Supreme Court's minority liberal wing, has cast aside her usual restraint in the past months and left little doubt where she stands on the upcoming gay marriage case." ...
... See also Presidential Race below.
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "After months of delay by the Senate, Loretta E. Lynch was sworn in Monday morning as the 83rd attorney general, the first African American woman to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official. With her husband at her side, along with her 83-year-old father, Lynch repeated the oath of office to Vice President Biden during a ceremony at the Justice Department."
... Kendall Breitman & Jennifer Shutt of Politico: "Loretta Lynch barely had the chance to settle into her new office at the Justice Department before she was asked to take up a racially and politically charged topic: the violent and escalating riots in Baltimore. 'I condemn,' the new attorney general said in a statement Monday night, 'the senseless acts of violence by some individuals in Baltimore that have resulted in harm to law enforcement officers, destruction of property and a shattering of the peace in the city of Baltimore. Those who commit violent actions, ostensibly in protest of the death of Freddie Gray, do a disservice to his family, to his loved ones, and to legitimate peaceful protestors who are working to improve their community for all its residents.'" ...
... David McCabe of the Hill: "The Department of Justice will send two officials to Baltimore amid clashes in the city between police and citizens, new Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Monday night. Vanita Gupta, who head's the Civil Rights Division, and Director of Community Oriented Policing Services Ronald Davis 'will be traveling to Baltimore to meet with faith and community leaders, as well as city officials,' Lynch said in a statement." ...
... NEW. Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: Many of "the people now calling for nonviolence ... are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray's death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray's death and so they appeal for calm.... When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse."
Burgess Everett of Politico: "Democrats are demanding that Republicans help them rebuff hot button amendments to a bipartisan nuclear review bill. But GOP leaders, on the eve of the first potential votes on the measure, have refused to commit to working in tandem, according to sources in both parties. The bill, which enjoys broad bipartisan support, would allow Congress to review and potentially reject a nuclear agreement with Iran. Democrats want assurances from Republican leaders that GOP amendments requiring Iran to recognize the state of Israel or demanding the release of Americans held by Tehran will be defeated resoundingly with no votes from both sides."
Adam Behsudi of Politico: "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will get the royal treatment this week during his U.S. visit: an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn; an Oval Office meeting and press conference with President Barack Obama; a State Department lunch with Vice President Joe Biden; and Secretary of State John Kerry and, last but not least, a state dinner with nearly 300 guests. But behind the scenes, White House officials are working feverishly to unsnag a trade deal with Japan and 10 other Asia-Pacific countries that would be the largest such agreement in history. The two major hold-ups: rice and cars."
** Truth through Comedy. Ezra Klein of Vox: "The joke of President Obama's performance [at the White House Correspondents dinner] on Saturday was that he wasn't joking."
** Coral Davenport & Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "... as [Pope] Francis prepares to deliver what is likely to be a highly influential encyclical this summer on environmental degradation and the effects of human-caused climate change on the poor, he is alarming some conservatives [link fixed] in the United States.... Top Vatican officials will hold a summit meeting Tuesday to build momentum for a campaign by Francis to urge world leaders to enact a sweeping United Nations climate change accord in Paris in December. The accord would for the first time commit every nation to enact tough new laws to cut the emissions that cause global warming." CW: Pretty enjoyable to read how "alarmed" the deniers are.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Driftglass on David Brooks, counterculture hero, featuring more on the Club You Are Not In. A very enjoyable way to be reminded that these people are here to annoy us at best or ruin us at worst, as they pat each other on the ass for their cunning deeds.
Presidential Race
Ryan Lizza has a long piece in the New Yorker on Elizabeth Warren as a "virtual candidate." CW: I'd call it "Stalking Hillary." Lizza always provides an enjoyable read packed with stuff you didn't know. ...
... Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: Hillary Clinton is promising to beef up the local Democratic party in New Hampshire & Iowa.
Matea Gold & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Never have so many candidates entered a White House contest boosted by such huge sums. The financial arms race could fuel a protracted primary season similar to the one in 2012 -- exactly what party leaders were hoping to avoid.... The political money boom is being driven largely by super PACs, which can collect unlimited donations from individuals and corporations. The groups are supposed to operate independently from the candidates they support, but in this race they are functioning as de facto arms of the campaigns." ...
Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "Republican presidential candidates are struggling to adjust to a rapidly changing legal, political and cultural landscape this primary season, as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments Tuesday on whether same-sex marriage is a constitutionally protected right. Once a winning primary issue as well as a powerful wedge issue wielded against Democrats, opposing same-sex marriage has grown far more complicated for Republicans. While it could offer conservative candidates a way to break through a crowded primary field, it looms as a liability with general election voters, particularly independent ones...." ...
... Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "While his campaign touts his outreach to gay Republicans, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network this weekend that anyone who believes that gay people have a constitutional right to marriage have a 'ridiculous and absurd reading of the U.S. Constitution.'"
Walker Worried the Stupid Will Show. Patrick Healy & Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "Advisers said [Scott] Walker ... is devoting considerable time ... to addressing a weakness that could derail him with a single gaffe no matter how much some donors love him: his lack of depth on issues facing a president, especially national security. He is attending near daily policy briefings...."
Evan McMurry of Mediaite: "Senator and 2016 GOP candidate Rand Paul (R-KY), who has made hay of his opposition to the use of drone against American citizens in the past, defended President Barack Obama on Fox & Friends Monday morning over the January drone strike that killed two hostages." CW: You read that right.
Beyond the Beltway
Zoe Sullivan of the Guardian: "The Kenosha[, Wisconsin,] Professional Police Association (KPPA) posted a billboard thanking the community for its support. Some residents question the message behind the ad. It features Pablo Torres, a young officer who shot two people within a 10-day period in March." CW: If the Guardian's characterizations of the shooting deaths is accurate, both sound avoidable.
News Ledes
CNN: "A U.S.-flagged ship was recently intercepted by an Iran Revolutionary Guard naval patrol, the U.S. Navy revealed to CNN Tuesday. The incident occurred on Friday when four Iranian naval vessels surrounded the U.S.-flagged Maersk Kensington in the Strait of Hormuz. The episode came ahead of an encounter Tuesday in which Iran Revolutionary Guard patrol boats fired shots at a commercial cargo ship and then intercepted the vessel, the Marshall Islands-flagged M/V Maersk Tigris, which was also crossing the Strait of Hormuz. At this point, no U.S. military action is expected on the ship that was seized Tuesday aside from monitoring the situation."
TMZ: "Joni Mitchell is unconscious in a hospital, unable to respond to anyone, with no immediate prospects for getting better."
Washington Post: "Violence swept through pockets of a low-income section of West Baltimore on Monday afternoon as scores of rioters heaved bottles and rocks at riot-gear-clad police, set police cars on fire, and looted a pharmacy, a mall and other businesses. At least 15 officers were injured." ...
... The Post has live updates here. The Baltimore Sun's liveblog is here.
New York Times: "Two days after Nepal's worst earthquake in 80 years, the official death toll rose to more than 4,000, and humanitarian aid was starting to flow to the capital. Katmandu's airport had been so overloaded by aid and passenger planes that incoming flights sat for hours on the runway."
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Reader Comments (9)
I tried to post this yesterday but evidently it didn't go through. I'll try again:
Akhileus and Marie,
I think I found the answer to whether the Republicans have the sole claim to supporting the Constitution. The answer is, they do! It says so right in the Republican Party Platform, where they call for a "Restoration of Constitutional Government." Obviously, the Democrats haven't been governing constitutionally, or with any legitimacy. Because when a Democrat is in the highest office, government is by definition unconstitutional - or something like that. I find this attitude very offensive.
https://www.gop.com/platform/we-the-people/
The GOP used to wrap itself in the flag - now it's the Constitution.
On a completely different subject, I agree with others who have lauded the President's impeccable timing as demonstrated once again at the Press Corps dinner. My favorite joke of the evening - and it's hard to choose - was the riff on "bucket list." That was priceless.
What a smart, funny, cool guy is our President.
Thanks Victoria for the "We the People Platform"–––first time I've actually read it. Wow! We Democrats, according to the GOP, are a bunch of no good scallywags who have an antipathy toward the Constitution by demonstrating one lawless procedure after another. We are lost in a mire of no-goodness and no godliness and should all be shot at sunset. My favorite sentence : " A Republican President and Republican Senate will join House Republicans in living by the rule of law, the foundation of the American Republic." Now, I ask you, isn't that special?
Victoria––your mention of the Press dinner: From what I understand it is a night not only for comedic antics, but to give out awards for journalism excellence. All the regular stations skipped this and instead had a plethora of talking heads yaking ––yada, yada, yada––plus each station had a string below asking whether we thought the jokes were funny or not–––very annoying. I finally realized this must be on CSpan that covered the whole procedure without the bells and whistles. Our media, I must say, seem to be pandering to all those who love those bells and whistles, but aren't interested in the lyrics or the authors of.
More Constitutional Ignorance.
According to Konstitushunal Skolar and Confederate candidate for president Marco Rubio, "...anyone who believes that gay people have a constitutional right to marriage have a ridiculous and absurd reading of the U.S. Constitution...there is no federal constitutional right to same sex-marriage”
Hold on a minute Marco. Of course you also know there is no constitutional right to marriage of any kind, straight or gay, right? None. Oh, you didn't know that? Why am I not surprised?
A number of tremendously important rights we all take for granted do not come from the Constitution. Wingers love to point out that nowhere in the Constitution can you find the words "separation of church and state", which is true, but you can find the establishment clause which, if read by a sane person, is the same thing.
But you won't find a single mention of a couple of our most sacred legal rights, the right to be held innocent until proven guilty and the right to a trial by a jury of our peers anywhere in the Constitution. These rights came down from English common law and were perhaps taken for granted by the framers. There isn't any mention of a right to education either, something I can believe after listening to wingers rattle on about stuff of which they appear in complete ignorance.
But would Rubio suggest that anyone claiming a right to be held innocent until proven guilty was ridiculous and absurd?
So, no, wingers, there is no mention of marriage of any kind in the Constitution and yet you all have been braying about the right of straight people to marry. Are you all absurd and ridiculous too?
No. No mention of marriage. But there is a mention of equal treatment under the law. And that's yet another reason the Confederates despise the Fourteenth Amendment.
This amendment is Case Closed for the haters. Unless Little Johnny and the Dwarfs are able to concoct a perverted federalist interpretation of that amendment that truly is absurd and ridiculous, marriage will be defended for everyone. And not just for straight wingers who love marriage so much they do it again and again. Some of whom love it so much they leave their current spouse lying on her deathbed to run off and marry someone else.
Is that the kind of marriage these people are defending?
Well, good luck with that. And while you're all on your second or third honeymoon, take a moment to actually read the Constitution, not just the ignorant, wishful thinking of un-American twits.
Victoria,
The president's "bucket list" segment of his monologue was brilliant. But even funnier were the scowls on the faces of the wingers in the crowd who even at truly funny lines (many of which had nothing to do with Confederates or their warped ideology), refused to even smile and sat on their hands, sourpusses shaking their heads in disgust. These people are so hate filled they can't even reel it in for one night.
But hey, as the president might say, if they don't like it, bucket.
Well, they're off and running. Early on it appears that Little Johnny may be siding with the haters. Slammin' Sammy suggests that discrimination and bigotry at the state level are pro'bly okay as long as no one actually means any harm, and aren't illegal. Love that logic. Oh shit, I didn't mean to kill that guy. Okay, you didn't mean it. Case dismissed.
Re the argument that the institution of marriage predates the Constitution by millennia: so did the institution of slavery, and that of women being chattel. Not to mention the Roman laws on the rights and privileges of the paterfamilias. Or perhaps those are the "Good Old Days" conservative wish to conserve.
D.C.
I really don't know what to make of all that "marriage has been this way for millennia" bullshit (especially from Kennedy). Yes, and for millennia we were earth bound too. And we didn't use microwave ovens until we had them. This is a stupid argument. "But we've always done it that way" is a phrase that shows up perennially on lists of reasons nothing ever gets done.
Conservatives who are swimming against the current want to remind everyone that the rivers always used to move the other way, and should still. They forget that rivers change direction across the Great Divide, and we've already crossed that landmark.
Sorry boys, swim faster. You're being swept out to sea.
Take Marie's advice and check out the Ryan Lizza article on Elizabeth Warren. Along with some fine writing there are wonderful bits of political Inside Baseball.
Some of the piece, especially the intersections of personalities, policy skirmishes, and political blood letting, remind me of an early encounter with this kind of reportage, Hedrick Smith's wonderful "The Power Game". I recall back in the 80's being frequently puzzled by much of what was coming out of Washington. A few years later I read Smith and he cleared up a lot of the mystery. It didn't necessarily make me happier at the outcomes, but his explications of what was going on in the bowels of the sausage factory dramatically expanded my sense of how things worked and why. I knew why some sausage was hot, some mild, and some inedible.
Lizza does some of that in this piece.
The article also clarifies another puzzlement. Comparisons by the Both Siders between Warren and Cruz are a dime a dozen. "Both highly partisan, uncompromising firebrands" goes the meme, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Cruz certainly is against any compromise and he is a loudmouthed hyper-partisan. But Warren has learned that some compromise is necessary. She can be partisan when it comes to staving off the ravages of Big Banks, especially where families are at risk of predatory policies, but unlike Cruz, she's done something about it. Sometimes it's a game of inches, hard work and small gains, something Republicans eschew in droves. Where Cruz claims the mantle of man in the street populist, he's never done anything of value. Instead, he shuts down the government, costing millions, and spends time sucking up to billionaires.
And the Lizza story also demonstrates the difference between Warren, who came to Washington with experience, background, decades' worth of research into bankruptcy law and practices, and savvy about the banking industry, and pretenders like Cruz and Li'l Randy who are great at making speeches and self promotion but little else. Cruz seems to have a great resume but you'd never know it from the stupid things he says.
Plus Warren has something none of the Confederate candidates have: self awareness. She's not ready to be president. She feels like she can be much more effective where she is now, unlike the tyros Cruz and Paul who feel ready for the presidency a week after being out of short pants.
It's a good piece.
@D.C. Clark: Thanks. Bonauto -- the attorney for the plaintiffs -- would have done herself a favor if she had read something like this this.
The justices got all hung up on the history of marriage as if "for millennia," it had been around as the same sort of "love match" ideal we have today. For the most part, as it still is in some cultures, marriage was a contract negotiated between two families, the purposes of which were to create an economic alliance & to pass on a family estate. That is, marriage was not a contract between "one man and one women" but a contract between "one family and one other family" (although sometimes close family members married each other).
If you throw in polygamy, which was common especially among the wealthy of many cultures, marriage was "for millennia" not strictly a contract "between one family & one other family" but between "one family & numerous other families."
BTW, I don't think the confederate Supremes are ignorant; they're just pretending to be because their feigned ignorance is convenient.
Marie