The Commentariat -- April 30, 2016
The White House Correspondents' Dinner is tonight. CW: C-SPAN begins coverage of the "red carpet" at 6 pm ET, but my recollection is that the President doesn't begin his shtick until about 9 pm ET. ...
... David Litt, "a former White House speechwriter, is the head writer and producer for Funny or Die DC," in a New York Times op-ed on President Obama's approach to comedy: "... this president has a talent for comedy -- an impressive sense of timing and audience. His administration combined that talent with an understanding of a changing media landscape and the emergence of viral videos. Jokes became a real tool to move his agenda forward." -- CW ...
... Jessica Taylor of NPR: "Posing as her character C.J. Cregg, who was the press secretary in the ["The West Wing" TV series]..., actress Allison Janney took a surprise turn on the podium to the delight and surprise of the real White House press corps." -- CW:
Michael Shear & Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "President Obama will use the power of his office to try to jump-start long-stalled 'smart-gun' technology that could eventually allow only the owner of a firearm to use it, the White House announced Friday. Over the opposition of gun rights groups, he also vowed to push ahead with a new federal policy giving the F.B.I. access to more mental health records of some Social Security recipients to better flag people who might be banned from buying a gun." -- CW ...
... The Washington Post story, by Juliet Eilperin & Michael Rosenwald, is here. -- CW ...
Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "The Obama administration has warned the US will need to deal with a wave of 'climate refugees' as the Arctic continues to warm, joining with the Canadian government to express alarm over how climate change is affecting indigenous communities. Sally Jewell, US secretary of the interior, painted a stark picture of communities relocating and lives disrupted in her first official visit to Canada. The Arctic, which is warming at twice the rate of the global average, has just recorded its lowest recorded peak ice extent after what's been called a 'warm, crazy winter'." -- CW
Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Mistakes by the crew flying an AC-130 gunship, compounded by equipment and procedural failures, led to the devastating attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in northern Afghanistan last year, and 16 American military personnel, including a general officer, have been punished for their roles in the strike, the Defense Department announced on Friday. The punishments for the attack on Oct. 3 in Kunduz, which killed 42 people, will be 'administrative actions' only, and were not more severe because the attack was determined to be unintentional. The punishments include suspension and removal from command as well as letters of reprimand, which can seriously damage a career. But none of the service members being disciplined will face criminal charges." -- CW: BTW, this is your classic Friday afternoon news dump. (Also linked, um, Friday afternoon.) ...
... Gregor Aisch, et al., of the New York Times: "The disciplinary measures were unlikely to satisfy Doctors Without Borders and other rights groups that have said the attack may have constituted a war crime and that have called for an independent criminal investigation. The punishments were 'administrative actions' that could include suspension or removal from command." The Times report summarizes the findings of the investigation. -- CW
Rachel Bade of Politico: "The Pentagon is pushing back against the [GOP-led] House Benghazi Committee, saying its repeated requests for documents and interviews are straining the department's resources -- and, to make matters worse, many of the queries are speculative or hypothetical. Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen Hedger complained in a letter to the committee on Thursday about its continued demands for information, and implied that the panel is grasping to make assertions based on theory rather than facts." -- CW
Richard Wolf in USA Today: The Supreme Court refused Friday to block Texas' photo ID law, the strictest in the nation, from remaining in effect for now, but it left open the possibility of doing so this summer if a lower court challenge remains unresolved. Civil rights groups who say the law discriminates against black and Hispanic voters had argued that it should be blocked because it was struck down by a federal court in 2014 and a three-judge appeals court panel last year. The full appeals court will hear the case next month. -- Akhilleus ... (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... The New York Times story by Adam Liptak is here. -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)
Danny Yadron of the Guardian: "At the FBI's request this week, the supreme court ruled that federal judges should be able to issue hacking warrants to federal law enforcement for anywhere in the US if the suspect has tried to hide their location, as criminal suspects are wont to do. Additionally, the FBI could get authority to infiltrate any computer -- regardless of the owner -- if it has already been taken over by bad hackers. The changes to so-called 'rule 41' go into effect 1 December unless Congress acts to block them. The move has set up a showdown with Senator Ron Wyden, the most senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, who is marshaling the opposition on Capitol Hill. He told the Guardian on Friday that he plans to introduce a bill blocking the court's move." -- CW
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Former Alabama governor Don E. Siegelman was sent to solitary confinement this week at the Louisiana facility in which he is imprisoned on political corruption charges, according to his son Joseph Siegelman. Siegelman, 70, was quoted extensively in a Washington Post article this week on former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, whose 2014 conviction on public corruption charges was reviewed by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Siegelman was transferred to solitary confinement at the federal correctional institution at Oakdale, La., on Monday after the story was posted online, according to his son. But Bureau of Prison officials, who refused to confirm that the former governor was in solitary confinement, said that there was no link." -- CW
John Sides in the Washington Post: "In an election season about voter anger, one important thing is underappreciated: voter optimism. And in particular, optimism about the economy." -- CW
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "The GOP is poised to permanently lose a generation of voters, and not (only) because of its odious and uncommonly disliked presidential front-runner. New survey data suggest that young people have become increasingly averse to just about every plank in today's creaky Republican Party platform." -- CW ...
... Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch: "Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator and Tea Party firebrand who is now the president of the Heritage Foundation, became the latest in a string of conservatives to admit that restrictive voting laws ... are an attempt to help Republicans win elections.... DeMint [said] ... Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's move to restore the voting rights of people in the state who had served time for felonies ... was 'awfully suspicious' and tied it to what he claimed was a Democratic plan to get votes from 'illegals' and through 'voter fraud.'... 'And so it's something we're working on all over the country, because in the states where they do have voter ID laws you've seen, actually, elections begin to change towards more conservative candidates.'" -- CW ...
... Steve Benen: "It's one of those classic cases of someone making a mistake by accidentally telling the truth." -- CW
Presidential Race
Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Bernie Sanders' campaign is withdrawing its lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee that alleged the party organization wrongly revoked the campaign's access to its voter data file. In its statement on Friday announcing the withdrawal, Sanders' campaign also strongly maintained that it never deliberately stole information." -- CW
Kristin Salaky of TPM: "Asked during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper about Trump's 'crooked Hillary' nickname, Clinton said types of comments from men were common in her experience. 'I have a lot of experience dealing with men who sometimes get 'off the reservation' in the way they behave and how they speak,' Clinton said. 'I'm not going to deal with their temper tantrums or efforts to try to provoke me.' The former secretary of state didn't specify who else she was referring to." -- CW: I'd have written that last sentence, "The former first lady didn't specify...."
Reince as Sister Mary Elephant. Nick Gass of Politico: "Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus warned his fellow party members on Friday that they should watch what they say about each other, a day after it was reported that former House Speaker John Boehner referred to Ted Cruz as 'Lucifer in the flesh' and a 'miserable son of a bitch.'" -- CW
Jonathan Martin & Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's remarks [yesterday at California's GOP convention] offered a vivid illustration of the current state of his campaign: As he edges closer to the nomination, he is under pressure to curb his hard-edged language and exude a more statesmanlike demeanor. But the continuing attacks from other Republicans plainly rankle him, and he appears to have little appetite to make peace with his critics." -- CW ...
... Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "Undeterred by protesters who nearly blocked his way into a California Republican convention, Donald Trump called on the party Friday to unite behind him even as he lashed out at what he portrayed as its corrupt system for picking presidential nominees. Police in riot gear were unable to stop egg-tossing demonstrators who broke through street barricades and rushed to the entrance of the convention hotel near San Francisco International Airport, forcing Trump's motorcade to pull over on the shoulder of the 101 Freeway. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, the New York developer hopped a concrete barrier and entered the hotel through a back door. 'It felt like I was crossing the border,' Trump joked to hundreds of Republicans at a lunch banquet. The crowd laughed." -- CW ...
... Cindy Carcamo, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "As Donald Trump's presidential campaign moves into California, he's being met by a revitalized, youthful Latino-rights movement playing from a different rule book than its predecessors. Trump faced large and hostile demonstrations outside a rally Thursday night in Costa Mesa and at the Burlingame hotel where he delivered a speech to the California Republican Convention." -- CW
Another Great Endorsement for the Donald! Katherine Krueger of TPM: "In a sit-down interview with a Richmond news station, the Imperial Wizard of the Rebel Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan said Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is his candidate for President." -- CW
** Charles Pierce: "A country that remembers, a country with an empowered memory that acts as a check on the dangerous excesses of power itself, does not produce a Donald Trump." CW
Paul Waldman: "Like so much about Trump, his conception of what it means to be presidential is both curious and disturbing. As near as one can surmise, for Trump, to be presidential means to be polite.... So what does 'presidential' mean to the rest of us? At the simplest level it suggests a combination of dignity and command, someone who holds enormous power and demonstrates him or herself worthy of it.... 'Presidential" is less about behavior than about identity: A person doesn't act presidential, a person is presidential.... [Trump] may not realize it, but just by being a 69-year-old rich white guy, in the eyes of his supporters he's as presidential as could be. But in 2016, people who see that as the beginning and end of being presidential are probably in the minority. Just like people who support Donald Trump." -- CW ...
... Playing the Men's Card. Dana Milbank: "Trump orchestrated his primary campaign success on the basis of economic and racial resentment. Now he's building a general-election strategy -- against the first woman to lead a major party's presidential ticket -- on gender resentment.... It may be the best card he has to play, with 7 in 10 women regarding him unfavorably. A man who has demagogically divided Americans by race and ethnicity now aims to finish the job by dividing us by views of gender roles." -- CW ...
... Conservopundit Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post: "If Trump were a woman, not only would he not get 5 percent of the vote, but also he would be tarred, feathered, branded and ridden out of town backward on a donkey. Voters male and female would recognize immediately that such a woman was inappropriate, lacking in quality and character, perhaps more than a little crazy -- and utterly unqualified to be president of the United States. The only thing Trump's got going for him, one is tempted to say, is the men's vote, which is no way to deflect accusations of a GOP war on women." -- CW
Senate Short-Timer "Goes from #NeverTrump to Ready for Trump. Jonathan Chait: "For a brief period of time, '#NeverTrump' was practically Marco Rubio's presidential-campaign slogan. Rubio made slashing attacks on Trump as a 'con artist.' Rubio's campaign website sold anti-Trump swag, like a '#Never Trump' bumper sticker.... Now, appearing on Univision, Rubio sounds ready to rally around Trump.... So maybe a con artist can be the Republican nominee after all. Perhaps we should have paid more attention to the fact that Rubio's campaign page advertising the '#NeverTrump' bumper sticker used the word removable. Twice." -- CW
George Will's Last Stand: Republicans must keep Donald Trump out of the White House. -- CW
Even if Donald Trump dresses up as Hillary Clinton, he shouldn't be using the girls' restroom. -- Ted Cruz, in Indiana ...
... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "As Senator Ted Cruz of Texas seeks every possible edge to stop Donald J. Trump, he has seized on a once-obscure issue with a proven power to inflame conservatives: letting transgender women use women's bathrooms. Mr. Cruz mentions it constantly in Indiana, a state with many social conservatives that is all but a last stand for him in his fight to deprive Mr. Trump of the Republican presidential nomination." -- CW
Roll the Videotape. Please. CW: Gabriel misunderstands the motivation behind Ted's weird obsession with trans people. According to Cruz & his daughter Caroline, Ted recently dressed up in "this pink boa .. and these, like, big goofy-looking underwear" for a school event. "That was on a videotape the whole time," Caroline reported. Yeah, Ted likes to dress up in women's underwear & frou-frou. So repeatedly bringing up the bathroom thing is Ted's way of getting ahead of the inevitable release of the videotape, which, again according to Caroline, "they're sending out to all the parents." -- CW ...
... BTW, Ted Cruz's daughter Caroline really can't stand him. -- CW
... Gail Collins reflects on recent events in Ted's campaign. Also, she has suggestions for other possible Cruz running-mates, not that Carly isn't great! -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
George Mason Wakes Up, Finds Koch Boys Have Put Dead Justice in His Bed. Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "... the announcement last month that George Mason [University] would rename its law school in honor of Justice Antonin Scalia..., and that it was tied to a $30 million combined gift from the Charles Koch Foundation and an anonymous conservative donor -- focused attention for the first time in a serious way on whether the administration and trustees at George Mason had allowed Virginia's largest public university to become an ideological outpost. The university administration insists that the answer is no. But a drumbeat of public letters, social media posts and campus debates expressing concerns about the gift suggests a vocal group of faculty, students and state legislators are not convinced." -- CW
Reuters: "A Louisiana man has walked free from the state's notorious Angola prison after serving 41 years of an unconstitutional life sentence over the killing of a white high school student during a violent segregation standoff. The high-profile case of Gary Tyler, 57, ended when he entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 21 years -- just over half of the time served -- and told he could go home on Friday...." -- CW
Meera Jagannathan & Ethan Sacks of the New York Daily News: Actor "Will Ferrell 'is not pursuing' a controversial comedy in which he would have portrayed former president Ronald Reagan in the throes of dementia.... A source close to the actor told the Daily News that a smart satirical script by Mike Rosolio had gotten unfairly politicized after Reagan's children had condemned the project." -- CW
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Reader Comments (5)
@Monkius: Thanks for the correction in yesterday's Comments. You're right, of course. I meant to do it myself, but didn't get to it.
Marie
The number of those turned into unemployed statistics by Liarina I used in that comment was just a teensy exaggeration. I suppose I should have made it 10 million because when I think of it, and when you consider Confederate incompetence and cupidity, half a million out of work doesn't seem like an impossible enough number. After all, with the flick of the federal light switch, Lyin' Ted Cruz slashed 120,000 jobs. (See yesterday's comment for documentation). If a Democrat had done that, he have had a horse collar wrapped around his neck, his hands tied, cement blocks chained to his feet and been tossed into the Potomac. A Confederate liar does it and they want him for president.
Seymour Hersh (who seems perfectly sane as a few of us here wondered about) on Sanders and Clinton: "Something amazing is Happening in the country." One of those amazing things is the fact that for the first time that Hersh can recall, a Democratic candidate, in this case, Sanders, didn't have to go to the Jewish community in N.Y. to get money to run. Perhaps Israel isn't going to be that Albatross hovering over our political system forever.
The chaos that has been created during this campaign season Hersh sees as positive––brings out all the stinky underbellies of failed systems and lays it open wide on the gurney for a surgical splicing.
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/seymour_hersh_on_sanders_and_clinton_something_amazing_20160428
I've been reading about James Baldwin of late and in a piece in the recent NYRB I came across this which I find significant and pertains in part to today's issues:
"Baldwin was alluding to the blindness of Robert Kennedy, who could not see why an African-American man who came of age during Jim Crow might not feel inspired to sacrifice his life for his country in Vietnam. He was talking about the inability of white Americans to understand that Elijah Muhammad drew a devoted following not because he spoke about racial separatism but because he spoke about power. Baldwin was also addressing the blind devotion of many white Americans to the national mythology, “that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians….”
"Share a Ticket with Trump?" the new NYTimes header asks?
And I have no answer because the most desperate-appearing of the lot has already been taken by Cruz.
Oops! Forgot Sarah. I'd guess she's at a point in her life where she'd take any gig. Besides, she's a woman and as we know, she gives great speeches. A can't miss combination seems to me.