The Commentariat -- Dec. 16, 2014
Internal links removed.
Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "The Senate on Monday confirmed Dr. Vivek Murthy as the next surgeon general of the United States over the objections of gun rights advocates. Murthy, a 36-year old physician, was approved 51-43 as the nation's top doctor despite opposition from the GOP for his support of gun control and ObamaCare. Three Democrats voted against him, while Sen. Mark Kirk (Ill.) was the only Republican to vote in favor." The Democrats who voted against Murthy's confirmation were gun-totin' Joe Manchin (W.V.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.) & Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) ...
... Sarah Ferris: "Gun control and public health groups were quick to cheer the Senate's decision Monday to confirm Dr. Vivek Murthy as the next surgeon general."
Helen Ubiñas of the Philadelphia Daily News: "WHATEVER REASON we eventually settle on for the latest deadly shooting spree, this time in Montgomery County yesterday - mental illness, easy access to guns, a world gone mad - we know one thing for sure: A gun shattered families, a community and our sense of safety. A gun. Again."
James Risen & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The C.I.A. has said it hired [psychologists James] Mitchell and [Bruce] Jessen because their experience with 'nonstandard' interrogation was 'unparalleled.' But the government's own experts favored the traditional approach to questioning prisoners. And the Senate report makes clear that the speed with which Mr. Mitchell was brought into the program -- less than 24 hours elapsed between the time his name was floated and that first cable -- meant there was no time to analyze whether his approach was best. Former officials involved in the program attribute the speed to one thing: desperation. With the C.I.A. under pressure to obtain information from its prisoners, Mr. Mitchell seemed to have the answer to how to do it." Read the whole article. ...
Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "... the two questions before us now are whether the Obama administration's approach to the old torture regime -- eschewing prosecutions, resisting disclosure, prohibiting CIA torture via executive order -- maximizes accountability and assures that, in Obama's words, we 'leave these techniques where they belong -- in the past.' The release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's beleaguered torture report tested these propositions, and the Obama approach failed both.... The most troubling thing about Obama's approach isn't that it let everyone get away with torture, but that partial disclosure alone hasn't created deterrence of any kind.... He can't ... argue that his look-only-forward approach to the torture program has relegated institutional torture to the past. His own CIA director won't even argue that."
... Jonathan Chait on "Dick Cheney's 6-Step Torture Denial." Thanks to MAG for the link. Bottom line: it's never torture if Americans do it. ...
... You may be surprised to learn that PolitiFact rated some of Dick Cheney's claims as "false" & "mostly false." ...
... King Dick. Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "... if the immigration action is Caesarism -- if, as Sen. [Ted] Cruz has said, it's the action of an 'unaccountable monarch' -- then the same is surely true of the torture program. In reality, it's not even a comparison. On one hand, you have discretion for some unauthorized immigrants, rooted in congressional statutes. On the other, you have a secret and illegal program of kidnapping and torture, justified by wild claims of executive authority and defended in the name of 'security.' Barack Obama used his office to help illegal immigrants, and for this, Republicans have attacked him as a Caesar. That's fine. But Dick Cheney used his office to claim dominion over the bodies and persons of alleged enemies, some of whom were innocent. If that isn't Caesarism, if that isn't despotism, then it's something scarily close. But here, with few exceptions, Republicans are silent."
... Charles Pierce: "There is nothing exceptional about American torture. There is nothing exceptional about its stated motivation. There is nothing exceptional about the physicians and psychologists who took part in the program, and who ought to have their licenses lifted yesterday. There is nothing exceptional about the politicians who ordered it, the officials who conducted it, the officials who covered it up, and the officials who are out there now defending it. There is nothing exceptional about it, not even the pale and puny excuses for it. There is nothing exceptional about America. It is a country that tortures." ...
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. -- U.S. Constitution, Eighth Amendment (Emphasis added.)
... Charles Pierce: "The simple historical fact is that the United States committed itself early on to being a nation that did not torture. It is part of the country's fundamental nature." ...
... Somebody had better tell Nino about the Eighth Amendment. ...
Steve M.: "I don't know if the gloves are going to come off again on the first day of the next GOP presidency, but if we have a Sidney siege with a Republican in the White House and any of the perpetrators are captured alive, it seems likely to me that the waterboarding equipment is coming out of mothballs." ...
... CW: Actually, no, Steve. There going to have to get them some brand-new waterboards. "The Senate report describes a photograph of a 'well worn' waterboard, surrounded by buckets of water, at a detention site where the CIA has claimed it never subjected a detainee to this procedure."
... Driftglass: "... with the perfect totalitarian logic, we arrive now at that place where, in order to protect the Big Lie by which they live, Conservatives must now actively celebrate sadism and torture.... We give our monsters the run of the place. We let them have their own teevee networks, their own publishing houses and newspapers, their own churches, their own political party and to them is ceded around 70% of the on-camera real estate during ... our national Sunday Morning Gasbag cavalcade."
... Akhilleus wrote an excellent comment yesterday on the use of euphemisms to avoid describing torture as torture. As Akhilleus points out, torture advocates are now shortening those euphemisms, like "enhanced interrogation techniques" to acronyms. Why, "EIT" sounds about as benign as "MIT" or "CIT," doesn't it? LOL. BTW, it took the New York Times a mere decade to call torture "torture." Maybe Karl Rove can get the paper-of-record to start calling torture "the 'T' word." ...
... Matt Wilstein of Mediate: "Fox & Friends made a smooth transition from breaking news coverage of the Sydney hostage crisis this morning to Vice President Dick Cheney's defense of the CIA torture program on Meet the Press. Within the span of a few minutes, host Elisabeth Hasselbeck was using the still-unfolding situation in Australia as justification for the CIA's use of so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques.'" ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "If only we had more state-sponsored torture in the world. No doubt that would put a stop to all of this." ...
... Here's a Reality Chek for Hasselbeck (not that reality ever creeps into her pretty little head). Steve M.: "... the attacks we've been facing in the West these days simply aren't hatched in melodramatic meetings of international terrorists who then send the operatives off on transcontinental jets so they can execute elaborate plans for mayhem. What we're seeing instead are mostly solo attacks ... that don't involve terrorist cells or centralized brain trusts. Inspiration comes from terror groups..., but there aren't conspirators per se -- angry locals just seem to answer the online call, working on their own. In the case of Man Haron Monis, the hostage-taker in Sydney..., [it appears] this was just the latest in a series of sociopathic acts on his part, some of them of a jihadist nature, others allegedly just garden-variety violent criminality, and all of them none of them part of a bigger conspiracy, as far as we can tell." ...
... Steve M.: Dubya just happened to show up at the 9/11 Memorial Museum Sunday evening -- for the first time. It's been open since May, & the grounds have been open since 2011. "... he wanted to wait until now because of the torture report. Oh, and because he hopes it will occur to some people that his new book about his father would make an excellent Christmas gift. Oh, and Jeb's clearly running for president -- gotta polish up the Bush brand on his behalf."
Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Democrats would like some credit for the run of good economic news. Yet the better those reports are, the more divided the party has become over how -- even whether -- to take any. In one camp are Democrats who argue that if they do not take some credit, they will continue to receive little. Others counter that boasting would backfire, infuriating millions of Americans who do not see the economy improving for them or their children."
Manu Raju & Burgess Everett of Politico: "Republican senators pounded Ted Cruz over the weekend, lashing him for his procedural tactics and ultimately voting in large numbers against his immigration gambit. Now, Cruz's allies off Capitol Hill are looking for revenge. Conservative outside groups view Saturday's vote as the first salvo in the GOP v. GOP purity wars that they hope to reignite in the beginning of the new Congress and in the run-up to the 2016 Senate races, when 24 Republican senators will be on the primary ballots."...
... CW: Of course, because it's Politico, the reporters compare the GOP revolt to Elizabeth Warren's recent high-profile moves: "What's happening on the GOP side is not unlike the deep divide among Democrats...." See links to related commentary/rebuttals in today's "Presidential Election" section. BTW, I doubt there will be any liberal groups thinking about mounting a primary challenge to, say, Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who voted for the Cromnibus."
Nick Anderson of the Washington Post: "Federal data on college discipline obtained by The Washington Post suggest that students found responsible for sexual assault are as likely to be ordered to have counseling or given a reprimand as they are to be kicked out. They are much more likely to be suspended and then allowed to finish their studies. The University of Virginia has expelled no students for sexual misconduct in the past decade, a record that has intensified scrutiny of the public flagship university now at the center of debate on campus sexual assault."
Paul Kendrick in TPM: "Stop blaming Obama for failing to cure America of racism."
Annals of "Justice," Ctd.
I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. -- Tom Joad, protagonist of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath ...
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), in an Atlantic essay: Men of color "are offered no lenience, even for petty offenses, in a system that seems hell-bent on warehousing them by the millions of people, while others escape the consequences of pervasive malfeasance scot-free. Some people rationalize that it was unfortunate, but not altogether disturbing, that Michael Brown was put to death without due process because, after all, he allegedly took some cigarillos from a corner store. But who went to jail for the mortgage fraud that robbed his community and other black communities around the country of 50 percent of their wealth?"
Katrina Vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post: "At a time when there is political momentum to address mass incarceration and the war on drugs, it is crucial that our efforts to fix the broken criminal justice system include police reform. And while removing local district attorneys from the process of investigating police officers is a start, more can be done to repair relations between police and communities of color and protect people from bad policing, such as requiring officers to wear body cameras, defunding police departments that use excessive force or racial profiling, and ending the 'broken windows' enforcement strategy that encourages aggressive interactions with low-level offenders."
Adam Ferrise of Northeast Ohio Media Group: "Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins defended his wearing a 'Justice for Tamir Rice' shirt during warm-ups before Sunday's game against the Bengals.... Hawkins made the statement the day after Cleveland police union president Jeff Follmer called Hawkins' shirt 'pathetic' and said Hawkins should stick to playing football." CW: Hawkins has nothing to "defend," especially in light of the Justice Department's report on rampant malfeasance in Cleveland's police department. Follmer should be working to improve the department, not criticizing wholly justifiable criticisms of the cops.
** William Bastone, et al., of the Smoking Gun: "The grand jury witness who testified that she saw Michael Brown pummel a cop before charging at him 'like a football player, head down,' is a troubled, bipolar Missouri woman with a criminal past who has a history of making racist remarks and once insinuated herself into another high-profile St. Louis criminal case with claims that police eventually dismissed as a 'complete fabrication.' In interviews with police, FBI agents, and federal and state prosecutors -- as well as during two separate appearances before the grand jury that ultimately declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson -- the purported eyewitness delivered a preposterous and perjurious account.... Referred to only as 'Witness 40' in grand jury material, the woman concocted a story that is now baked into the narrative of the Ferguson grand jury, a panel before which she had no business appearing." CW: If you didn't think Bob McCullough's grand jury presentation was a Soviet-like travesty, maybe you will now.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
The Week, to which I occasionally link, is closing its comments section because some commenters are assholes. CW: Sorry, but I don't think that's the best way to deal with assholes.
Peter Beinart of the Atlantic thinks the media are about to fall in love with President Obama again. "Journalists like to build up, tear down and then build up again. This year, Obama's media coverage has been horrendous. According to The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, Obama had the worst year of any major figure in Washington. But it's precisely because so many journalists share Cillizza's views that our easily bored tribe will now try to push the pendulum back. Which won't be very hard at all." Yeah, that's journalism, folks.
... Ken Kurson of the New York Observer: "It's been a tough month for factchecking. After the Rolling Stone campus rape story unraveled, readers of all publications can be forgiven for questioning the process by which Americans get our news. And now it turns out that another blockbuster story is -- to quote its subject in an exclusive Observer interview -- 'not true.' Monday's edition of New York magazine includes an irresistible story about a Stuyvesant High senior named Mohammed Islam who had made a fortune investing in the stock market. Reporter Jessica Pressler wrote regarding the precise number, "Though he is shy about the $72 million number, he confirmed his net worth is in the "'high eight figures.'" The New York Post followed up with a story of its own, with the fat figure playing a key role in the headline: 'High school student scores $72M playing the stock market.' And now it turns out, the real number is ... zero."
Jacob Weisberg of Slate re: the Sony hacks: "... when it comes to exploiting the fruits of the digital break-in, journalists should voluntarily withhold publication. They shouldn't hold back because they're legally obligated to -- I don't believe they are -- but because there's no ethical justification for publishing this damaging, stolen material.... In the case of the Sony hack, it's hard to see any public interest at all."
CW: Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post continues with Part 3 of his series which might be titled, "There's nothing we can do to help working people." In Part 3, he notes that poor people can't afford a college education, which is what they need to lift themselves out of poverty. Jim sees this as "ironic." The connundrum, apparently, has NOTHING TO DO WITH PUBLIC POLICY. Jim suggests maybe Catholic Charities can help a very, very few people (but even then the new grads probably won't be able to get jobs). Swell solution. Why, oh, why is it, Jim, that Elizabeth Warren, who is in her mid-60s & grew up poor, was able to become a university professor? Or a high school -- and still -- friend of mine, who grew up in the same financial straits I did, went on to become a university president? And yet, and yet, today's poor people cannot afford even an undergraduate degree.
NOT RELATED AT ALL. Zoe Carpenter of the Nation: "The [CRomnibus] bill slices $300 million from Pell Grants, which help cover college tuition for some of America's poorest students, including two-thirds of all black and half of Latino undergraduates.... There's just about nothing in the bill to spur job growth or halt and reverse free-falling wages -- no funds for major infrastructure investments, for example. In fact, it explicitly blocks a high-speed rail proposal. The bill leaves the tax code untouched, meaning it will still be tipped in favor of corporations."
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: "Trying to head off a new round of consumer headaches with President Barack Obama's health care law, the insurance industry said Tuesday it will give customers more time to pay their premiums for January. America's Health Insurance Plans, the main industry trade group, says the voluntary steps include a commitment to promptly refund any overpayments by consumers who switched plans and may have gotten double-billed by mistake." CW: Aah, why not just scrap the whole thing. ...
... CW: I remain confused as to why this is "Barack Obama's health care law," or ObamaCare. Members of Congress wrote (and rewrote) the bill, &, as I recall, Nancy Pelosi had to talk Obama into going for it after the 2010 election "shellacking." I'm not saying President Obama didn't have input -- he laid out broad goals for what he wanted the act to do &, for instance, he made with Big Pharma that smoothed the path to passage.
Sarah Ferris: "Tennessee has struck a tentative deal with the federal government to become the latest red state to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare, Gov. Bill Haslam (R) announced Monday. Haslam said he has received 'verbal approval' from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to move forward with a new pilot plan to help about 200,000 low-income Tennesseans gain coverage. The state's plan veers from the traditional route of expanding Medicaid.... The expansion plan will likely face a tough test in Tennessee's GOP-controlled state legislature, where the Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris has complained that Haslam is leaving lawmakers out of talks."
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Alison Griswold of Slate: "Uber, no stranger to outrage, has stirred up more of it for hiking fares in Sydney as a hostage crisis played out on Monday. As people sought to flee Sydney's business district, Uber reportedly quadrupled its fares until a single ride cost a minimum of $100 Australian, or $80 U.S. While it at first seemed possible the increase was a mistake -- Uber's pricing algorithm responding to a spike in demand -- the company soon made clear that the increases were intentional." ...
... Tony Romm of Politico: "Uber on Monday strongly defended its privacy practices, telling Sen. Al Franken in a letter that the company 'prohibits employees from accessing rider personal information except for business purposes' -- but the Democratic senator said he still isn't convinced."
John Hooper of the Guardian: "A three-year papal investigation into America's 50,000 nuns, which inspired comparisons with the Inquisition, produced an unexpectedly benign report on Tuesday, containing somewhat tepid reprimands and calling for a careful review of their spiritual practices. The Vatican ordered the investigation -- technically an 'apostolic visitation' -- in 2008, during the pontificate of Benedict XVI. It affected almost 400 institutes. The change in tone in Tuesday's report may reflect a new and more conciliatory policy under Pope Francis." ...
... Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "The relatively warm tone in the report, and at the Vatican news conference that released it, was a far cry from six years ago when the investigation was announced, creating fear, anger and mistrust among women in religious communities and convents across the United States."
Alan Cowell of the New York Times: "... last year, a United Nations panel concluded that there was 'persuasive evidence that the aircraft [which crashed in what is now Zambia, killing U.N. Secretary Dag Hammarskjold, a Swedish diplomat] was subjected to some form of attack or threat as it circled to land at Ndola.' On Monday, Sweden formally asked the United Nations General Assembly to reopen the investigation. Significantly, the request included an appeal for all member states to release any hitherto unpublished records -- a reference aimed largely at securing the declassification of American and British files...."
Gene Robinson: "It seems there is something to offend everyone in the upcoming Hollywood comedy 'The Interview.' At this point, I'm guessing, most wounded of all may be the Sony Pictures Entertainment executives who greenlighted the film." Robinson explains why. ...
... Gawker has video of the Kim-Jong-un exploding-head death scene here. Now, that's comedy! (But it's not torture; in the plotline, the assassination was CIA-instigated.)
Presidential Election
Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, announced on Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday that he had 'decided to actively explore the possibility of running for president of the United States.'"...
... Gary Fineout of the AP: "Bush's announcement is sure to reverberate throughout Republican politics and begin to help sort out a field that includes more than a dozen potential candidates, none of whom have formally announced plans to mount a campaign."
Kevin Cirilli of the Hill: "MoveOn.org officials announced Monday that they have garnered 110,000 signatures on a petition urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for president in 2016.The announcement comes just one week after the progressive grassroots group launched a 'Run Warren Run' campaign that included a $1 million investment." The petition sign-in is here. ...
... Warren Refuses to Make a Shermanesque Statement. Danny Vinik of the New Republic: "In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that aired Monday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren repeatedly dodged whether she intends to run for president, saying that she 'is not running for president.' That's been her line for months, but it only makes clear that she's not running for president at this moment; it says nothing about her future plans.' ...
... Steve Inskeep of NPR: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren failed to stop a change in bank regulations last weekend, but she raised her profile yet again. The Massachusetts Democrat tells NPR that her fight over a provision in a spending bill was a 'warning shot.' She intends to continue her fight against what she describes as the power of Wall Street, even though that fight brought her to oppose leaders of her own party." Includes audio. ...
... Here Warren, speaking from the Senate floor, took on CitiGroup -- and the Obama administration. It was quite a speech:
There's a lot of talk coming from CitiGroup about how Dodd-Frank isn't perfect.... To anyone who is listening at Citi, I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn't perfect. It should have broken you into pieces.
... Ed Kilgore: "What's most interesting about her speech is that she placed as great an emphasis on Wall Street influence in the Obama administration Treasury Department as she did on the legislative provisions in the Cromnibus. She's pulling no punches.... [BUT] I'm afraid we need to call B.S. on this idea of Elizabeth Warren (or any other 'populist) becoming a pied piper to the Tea Folk, pulling them across the barricades to support The Good Fight against 'crony capitalism.'' ...
... Oh Yeah? "Warren Can Win." David Brooks: "... there is something in the air. The fundamental truth is that every structural and historical advantage favors Clinton, but every day more Democrats embrace the emotion and view defined by Warren." ...
... CW: This impressionistic "something in the air" was just the kind of rationale Peggy Noonan used immediately before the 2012 election to predict Mitt Romney would win the presidency: "In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same." I'd say Brooks & Noonan are breathing the same air.
... "The False Equivalence Parlor Game." Driftglass: "In this week's episode [of the Sunday Showz], the Citibank Reacharound Act of 2014 was used as a vehicle to demonstrate that Elizabeth Warren is really pretty much just the Left's version of Ted Cruz." (Also linked above.) CW: Here's the great thing about immigration reform: all those undocumented, soon-to-be-legal workers will help bail out the banks. Lucky duckies. I don't think Ted has thought through this. But he never does. ...
... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "Warren isn't exactly on the verge of reading Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor for no real reason, but the media's fawning response to her maneuvering angered Republicans, and they probably won't let her forget the comparison [to Ted Cruz]. 'Extremism comes in all sizes, colors and sexes," Republican senator Lindsey Graham told Newsmax. 'The double standard by which the media views the actions of a Democrat versus a Republican is still astonishing to me.'"
Jonathan Chait: "Fresh off his latest failed stunt, Ted Cruz is gearing up his presidential campaign. National Review's Eliana Johnson has a fascinating account of Cruz's pitch for how nominating him would not backfire in the same terrible way everything else associated with Cruz has, but would instead lead the Republican Party to glorious triumph. Cruz has plans to appeal to millennials ('on social media, Cruz is the most talked-about presidential candidate on the right') and women (advisers 'cite his speeches about the influence of the important women in his life, his support for Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand's bill that would have removed sexual-assault cases from the military chain of command, and his attempts when he was a college student to confront the problem of date rape'). The most hopeful element of Cruz's 2016 coalition is his plan to win over the Jews."
Catherine Lucey of the AP: "Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad [R] is pushing to end the state's Republican straw poll, but the state party chairman says the event may still go on next year. Branstad said Monday that the poll -- traditionally held in Ames the summer before a contested presidential caucus -- is a turnoff for many candidates and could diminish the power of the state's caucuses.... But State Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said he thinks there's interest in continuing the tradition, provided it's permissible under Republican National Committee rules.... The Republican Party of Iowa runs the poll. Kaufmann said the State Central Committee, which governs the party, will meet next month and he expects a vote on whether to hold a straw poll. Kaufmann has sought a written opinion from the RNC in response to concerns that Iowa could jeopardize early voting status by holding a voting event before the caucuses."
News Ledes
New York Times: "In one of Pakistan's bloodiest attacks in recent years, scores of people were killed after a group of Taliban gunmen stormed a school in northern Pakistan, officials and rescue workers said on Tuesday. Hundreds of students remained trapped inside the compound as security forces exchanged fire with the gunmen, officials said. The toll of dead and injured remained uncertain, but the local news media, citing government officials and hospitals, reported 126 dead, more than 100 of them children. The army press office announced that five attackers had been killed."
New York Times: "President Obama has decided to sign legislation imposing further sanctions on Russia and authorizing additional aid to Ukraine, despite concerns that it will complicate his efforts to maintain a unified front with European allies, the White House said on Tuesday. The legislation calls for a raft of new measures penalizing Russia's military and energy sectors and authorizes $350 million in military assistance to Ukraine, including antitank weapons, tactical surveillance drones and counter-artillery radar. The bill was approved unanimously by Congress, but Mr. Obama hedged for days on whether he would sign it." ...
... Washington Post: "Russia appeared headed Tuesday into a full-fledged currency crisis after the central bank imposed a massive, middle-of-the-night interest rate hike but failed to halt the plummet of the ruble."
Philadelphia Inquirer: "In one of the region's deadliest shooting rampages, an Iraq war veteran shot and killed his ex-wife and five of her relatives early Monday, terrorizing four upper Montgomery County communities and sparking a manhunt that continued deep into the night, officials said. The suspect, Bradley W. Stone, 35, of Pennsburg, had a 'familial relationship' with all of the victims, officials said. Besides his ex-wife, he allegedly killed her mother, grandmother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece. The couple's two daughters were unharmed....A 17-year-old boy, Stone's former nephew, was shot and wounded."
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Reader Comments (16)
The front page of the NYT says so much about the media and the 'terrorists'. The photo of the killer from Australia made it to the front page. I wonder how many other people saw that and wondered how easy it is to become world famous!
And in no way ignoring the unfortunate loss from that event, in today's local paper were the following headlines:
'Six killed in killing spree near Philly'
'Man is charged in drive-by shooting'
'Man hospitalized after being shot'
'Women found shot to death inside home'.
And this is just another typical day in the neighborhood.
@Marvin Schwalb: If it bleeds, it leads.
I do think the "killing spree" near Philly is newsworthy in New Jersey, largely because the guy is still (at this writing) on the loose & was supposedly spotted in Doylestown, Pa., which is only a few miles from New Jersey. If I still lived in Frenchtown, N.J., I'd be locking my doors in the daytime till he's caught.
Marie
Prob'ly should have mentioned this before but other topics were already in the queue.
Can anyone recall a more nefarious sounding name than "cromnibus", in recent political memory?
The thing sounds downright Stygian. Something vaguely malevolent about the whole thing. And funnily enough, it IS malevolent.
I recall reading about a highway plan in the northeast some years ago with the incredibly tone deaf name of Scheme Z. Yeah, that'll bring out the supporters. "Hey gang, let's all get out the signs and march in support of Scheme Z." Why not just call it the Evil Developers' Plan?
But even that doesn't beat cromnibus in the dread department.
@Akhilleus: In defense of "CRomnibus," I do think everyone on both sides of the political divide -- politicians & real people -- considered the Cromnibus a horrible thing. I doubt the nickname was supposed to put a positive spin on it, as in "Patriot missiles."
"Cromnibus" sounds like a scary, gigantic multi-headed monster bent on destroying the last vestiges of democratic government. And it is.
Marie
Alas, "Cromnibus" gave me chilling visions of a Jean Paul Sartre-dystopic future crammed into large boxy vehicles with the entire Romney family. Sartre said, "Hell is other people," and he hadn't even met Ann and Mitt.
"Don't look behind that door!"
"Why?"
"Tagg's in there."
@Jack Mahoney: Ha ha. Maybe you're thinking of the "Romnibus," "A ... vehicle designed to help Mitt Romney appeal to the average American. It was designed for Romney after he saw an Amish family riding though central Pennsylvania. The vehicle combines the humble nature of an nineteenth century carriage with the convenience of using blue collar workers as draft animals."
You could check with Gail Collins, but I'm pretty sure there's anmiserable four-legged critter strapped to the top of the bus.
Marie
Yesterday I mentioned the "Ticking Time Bomb" canard used by most current aficiandos of barbarism as a blanket excuse for going medieval on whomever they choose. Well guess who else thinks it's just the grandest thing since the idea of personhood for corporations?
"The 78-year-old justice [Scalia] says he doesn't 'think it's so clear at all,' [the moral opprobrium connected to the use of torture] especially if interrogators were trying to find a ticking nuclear bomb."
First, as I mentioned yesterday, even if you had a classic ticking time bomb situation, it doesn't give you the right to round up just anyone and start pouring water down their throats until they pass out. It's not a fishing license. And here again--as with the Michael Brown story--spurious narrative elements become so embedded in the storyline that things like Saddam's nuclear weapons program, which never existed and was fabricated out of a ratty old pair of Dick Cheney's tighty-whities, can be referenced in normal conversation as if they were factual. It would be like some idiot still insisting that Barack Obama was not even born in this country....oh, wait.
But it's one thing when some wingnut talk radio drooler peppers his or her lunatic philippics with discredited and untruthful references. It's quite another thing to realize that a Supreme Court justice cleaves to, and very likely bases some of his judicial rulings on, delusional beliefs.
And, as a special extra Nino-Nino-Nanu-Nanu Bonus, he's also not sure, as Marie indicates, that the section of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment needs to be considered an actual part of the Constitution, kinda like his glib circumvention of the first part of the Second Amendment.
More constitutional cherry picking by the right. Right wing thinking is nothing if not teleological. Anything can be discarded or conveniently ignored, legal precedence, human rights, morality, ethics, facts, truth, even the importance of truth, if it doesn't support the desired conservative end result.
We can be pissed about this, and should be, but the worst thing about such goal oriented teleology is that, in essence, their world view is based on fantasy and supported by the most transparent of casuistries.
The guiding light on the right is an ignis fatuus.
Bad news for all of us being dragged along in its pursuit.
Marie,
I think the Rom Clan has learned its lesson.
Now they strap those critters to the undercarriage.
Oops, Seamus, watch that drive train, buddy, and oh, shit; another speed bump on the way to the White House. Soooorrry.
Jack,
I think if Sartre had met the Romneys he'd have had proof positive of the absurdity of existence.
An interesting two-part article about our country's racial and political divide from across the pond.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/african-americans-express-disappointment-with-obama-over-ferguson-a-1005993.html
@ Marie: Since I'm not html savvy, could you please provide an example of how to use coding syntax below your "Post" box to create a hyperlink to other articles. I sure appreciate other's doing it and would like to reciprocate.
To continue with Romnibus, there's Romneysia: when you can't
remember which self serving lie you last told. Romnivore: an
organism that consumes small businesses. Romnipotent: to be
completely insignificant, inconsequential, powerless, and trivial.
(compliments of Urban Dictionary).
Unwashed,
Here's something that might help:
How to add links to comments, and other neat stuff.
Look at the second line down from the top. Copy and paste that into your comment (once you do it a few times, you can just type in the HTML command). In the first part of the command you copy the URL and paste it in. The second part allows you to call it whatever you want.
Forrest,
Nice, nice. I also like "romnidirectional", being on all sides of an issue at the same time.
I haven't seen romendacious, but that would be a good one too, for the times when he talks about how he was poor once and how he never inherited anything. But Romneysia is a great one.
I'm for Romneymendacious.
I recall that during the campaign I said that he's a lying sack of shit.
Barbarossa,
You DID say that. And I remember thinking that fewer true things were said about The Rat during his Run to Rule.
I can't imagine that he's become less of a lying sack of shit in the meantime; leopards, spots, and all of that.
And given the repulsive options currently on offer from the Party of Grand Guignol, there's every dreary reason to believe that Mittens may poke his rodential snout out of whatever beachfront elevator-gah-rage equipped manse the Romacrats now inhabit and proffer himself as the Savior of the Monied Class once again.
Christ, I can't wait.
Rachel, as she often does, gives us a background story to link with her main point which last night happened to be our esteemed (in his eyes only) senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, who took to the floor yummering about Obama's immigration (along with Mike Lee, his mini-me) holding up all the congress critters who wanted to get the hell out of there for the weekend, but as luck would have it the democrats used that time to pass all those appointments that had been sitting there waiting to be passed. The comparison that Rachel used was the Brown player, Johnny Manzell, arrogant dude who trotted around the field showing off his supposed prowess which came, in the end, to nothing––just like Cruz's stunt. Now, I had no knowledge of the Manzell situation, but what came to mind was Mr. Zumbuttel's chickens. The Zumbuttel's lived in our neighborhood when I was a girl and strange as it was for that suburban setting they had in the back of their lot a chicken coop. Many of us enjoyed fresh eggs and listened to the rooster's call in the morning, but what I remember most about those chickens was the rooster. He preened, he stalked, he was clearly the king of that pen––-why, I asked Mr, Zumbuttel, was he the only rooster with all those hens? "Because," he said, "You only need one somabitch to get the job done."
I wonder if Ted's mindset is like Mr. Zumbuttel's rooster.