The Commentariat -- December 7, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
Afternoon Update:
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a Second Amendment challenge to [a Highland Park,] Illinois ordinance that banned semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.... Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented.... The ordinance, enacted in 2013..., prohibited possession of what it called assault weapons, defining them as semiautomatic guns that can accept large-capacity magazines and have features like a grip for the nontrigger hand."
Kelsey Snell of the Washington Post: "A bipartisan group of negotiators worked through the weekend in hopes of striking a year-end spending deal by the end of Monday so Congress has enough time to pass the legislation before Friday and avert a government shutdown."
Alan Yuhas of the Guardian: "Hillary Clinton previewed a slew of ideas 'to rein in Wall Street' on Monday, including fines for executives whose companies break the law and an 'exit tax' on companies moving abroad.... [Clinton] outlined her proposals in part to reassure progressive voters that she has the will to fight bankers who have backed her."
Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "For the first time, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas took the top spot in an early-state poll, pulling ahead of Donald J. Trump in Iowa in a survey released on Monday by Monmouth University. Mr. Cruz, the beneficiary of a crucial endorsement by a hard-right Iowa congressman [Steve King] and the precipitous decline of Ben Carson, was supported by 24 percent of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa.... Mr. Trump had 19 percent, Marco Rubio had 17 percent and Mr. Carson was at 13 percent."
Alicia Caldwell of the AP: "The Obama administration will announce a new terror alert system 'in the coming days,' Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday. Johnson said the new alert system will better inform the public about threats to the United States, but he did not provide specific details. This will be the third terror alert system put in place by the Homeland Security Department since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks."
Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors in Chicago will not file criminal charges against a police officer who shot and killed a black man last year, an incident that occurred a week before a different fatal shooting that brought national scrutiny to Chicago's police force, officials said Monday.... George Hernandez, a Chicago police officer, shot and killed Ronald Johnson III in October 2014, the week before a different officer shot and killed Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old."
Michael Ruane of the Washington Post: During the past six months, the government has been working to identify the "remains of hundreds of sailors and Marines who perished 74 years ago Monday" at Pearl Harbor.
Britt di Resta, in a New York Times op-ed piece, on oppo research: how it's done & how it works.
*****
Michael Shear & Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "President Obama sought on Sunday to calm a jittery American public after the terrorist attack last week in California, delivering a prime-time address designed to highlight the government's campaign against an evolving threat. Speaking from behind a lectern in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama bluntly acknowledged the heightened fears that followed attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino, Calif., which his administration over the weekend called an 'act of terrorism' that was inspired, but not directed, by members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria":
... The Washington Post has an annotated transcript here. ...
... Nahal Toosi of Politico: "... President Barack Obama's carefully scripted Sunday night address to the nation included at least one mistake. Obama said he'd requested a review of the 'visa waiver program' under which one of the suspected San Bernardino attackers arrived in the United States. But that alleged assailant, Tashfeen Malik, came under a fiancé visa; she didn't arrive under the program that waives a visa requirement.... White House officials confirmed after the speech that the president was supposed to say 'visa program,' but apparently the word 'waiver' also slipped through. The official transcript includes a correction." ...
... Peter Beinart of the Atlantic: "At the core of Barack Obama's terrorism speech on Sunday night lay a contradiction. He gave the address to convince an increasingly fearful nation that he takes the terrorist threat seriously. But he doesn't, at least not in the way his political opponents do.... Unlike Rubio, he considers violent jihadism a small, toxic strain within Islamic civilization, not a civilization itself. And unlike [George W.] Bush, he doesn't consider it a serious ideological competitor.... While Republicans think ISIS is strong and growing stronger, Obama thinks it’s weak and growing weaker." ...
... Onward, Christian Soldiers. Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "Moments after Barack Obama delivered a primetime address aimed at easing Americans' fears in the wake of last week's terrorist attack in California, top Republicans condemned the president's speech as insufficient and lacking a sense of urgency in the fight against the Islamic State." CW: Ferociously rattling sabres in one hand while their trigger fingers of the other twitched ominously over imaginary nuclear red buttons, the GOP presidential candidates all vowed to remain part of the problem. Most promised to hunt down Muslims in their beds while defending the rights of American terrorist suspects to own multiple assault rifles & yuuuge ammo depots. You'll have to read Siddiqui's report for details. I stick to the overviews here. ...
... Caroline Bankoff of New York has more details of candidates' responses. ...
... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "... no one else, least of all the likes of Trump, Cruz, and Graham, has any dramatic answers either. Obama has laid out a road. Critics who have never been dealt hard questions on the subject soon reveal that their road doesn't look very different. Some have called the war against groups like ISIS a 'long war.' There are no magic bullets or buzzwords." ...
... Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "None of the Republicans used the moment of Mr. Obama's speech to take a new or surprising stand on war strategy or gun control, or offer much more than familiar partisan attacks on the president.... Mr. Obama had not even begun speaking when one Republican candidate, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, issued a statement calling on the president to use the phrase 'radical Islamic terrorism.'... Mr. Cruz pressed Mr. Obama to lay out 'a plan for decisive action for victory over evil.'... Mr. Cruz said as president he would 'direct the Department of Defense to destroy ISIS.'" ...
... Greg Sargent: "Taking 'decisive action over evil' and 'directing DOD to destroy ISIS' are great ideas. Why didn't anyone else think of this?" ...
... Andy Borowitz: "Moments after its conclusion on Sunday night, President Obama's speech about combating ISIS came under heavy criticism from people with zero better ideas." CW: I told you you couldn't satirize these people. Borowitz's lede is no different from the line I cited from Healy's NYT report.
... Missy Ryan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Law enforcement agents Sunday again searched the home of a man suspected of providing San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook with the military-grade rifles he and his wife used to gun down 14 people, expanding the investigation into the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.... [Enrique] Marquez, who works as a Walmart security guard, checked himself into a mental health facility Friday; it is not yet clear whether he has already been questioned by authorities or if he will be charged.... On Sunday, Italian publication La Stampa published an interview with Farook's father, also named Syed, in which he said his son had harbored anti-Semitic animosity." ...
... Ted Bridis of the AP: "The U.S. government's ability to review and analyze five years' worth of telephone records for the married couple blamed in the deadly shootings in California lapsed just four days earlier when the National Security Agency's controversial mass surveillance program was formally shut down. Under a court order, those historical calling records at the NSA are now off-limits to agents running the FBI terrorism investigation even with a warrant.... Under the new law, passed in June, investigators still can look for links in phone records but they must obtain a targeted warrant to get them directly from phone companies...." ...
... CW: While we're all ringing out hands over presidential candidates' irresponsible statements about gun control & the Congress's refusal to enact curbs on even rapid-fire assault weapons for terror suspects, we shouldn't forget the third branch of government's role in this mass-murderous situation. Dorothy Samuels of the Brennan Center is here to remind you that Nino's majority opinion in Heller v. D.C., "was less in sync with the founding generation than with the top priority of" the NRA & "was an aggressive exercise in mendacity" which "upend[ed] the well-established meaning of the Second Amendment" and "made the country less safe and less free."
Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker has a long piece on the division within the Republican House.
Monica Davey & Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "The Justice Department plans to begin a far-ranging investigation into the patterns and practices of the Chicago Police Department, part of the continuing fallout over a video released last month showing the police shooting of Laquan McDonald, a person familiar with the case said Sunday. The investigation, similar to those of troubled police departments in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, could be announced as early as this week."
David Gans of the New Republic: "... with two cases from Texas, including a second trip to the Supreme Court for the Fisher case, [conservative organizer & financer Ed Blum] is hoping to rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment's broad guarantee of equality, seeking to sharply limit affirmative action on college campuses and deny unnaturalized immigrants, children, and others equal representation in state legislatures.... In Evenwel [v. Abbott], Blum's team insists that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to draw districts on the basis of the state's voter population, not its total population. In other words, only a subset of the population is entitled to representation in state legislatures. Blum’s argument is that unnaturalized immigrants, children, and other who lack access to the ballot should not be counted for purposes of legislative representation, which would unquestionably result in a major shift in political power away from urban population centers toward the whiter, more rural areas of the state. No court in history has ever accepted Blum's radical claim...."
Brady Dennis & Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Former president Jimmy Carter told a large Sunday school class he was teaching that there are no signs of the cancer in his liver and brain months after his melanoma diagnosis, a family friend in attendance said."
Paul Krugman: There's a good chance the Federal Reserve is making a mistake by raising interest rates. "I suspect, however, that [Fed] officials have been worn down by incessant criticism of their policies, and want to throw the critics a bone. But those critics have been wrong every step of the way. Why start taking them seriously now?" ...
... CW: I believe Larry Summers says the same thing, but you'd have to be the sharpest kid in his Econ 482 class to correctly interpret his WashPo op-ed. But nice try, Larry, at connecting with the masses. ...
... Jared Bernstein in the Washington Post (Dec. 4), on why the Fed will likely raise interest rates: "... there are a lot of data saying 'don't raise.' On the other side, unemployment is low, job growth is solid and steady, the economic expansion is 'mature' (it's been in place for over six years) and the Fed's got a seven-year itch they're about to scratch."
AP: "The National Park Service and the U.S. Navy plan to hold a joint memorial service Monday to mark the 74th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. The joint service is a rehearsal for what is expected to be a much bigger memorial service next year to mark the 75th anniversary of the attack by Japan that killed over 2,400 Americans and brought the U.S. into World War II, KITV TV reported (http://bit.ly/1R3z7aA)."
Sarah Marquis of NOAA (Dec. 3): "NOAA and University of Hawaii archaeologists today released rare images of a U.S. Navy airplane sunk during the opening minutes of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Oahu on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. Minutes before attacking Pearl Harbor, Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft bombed the nearby U.S. Naval Air Station on the east coast of Oahu. Twenty-seven Catalina PBY "flying boats" on the ground or moored on Kāne‛ohe Bay were destroyed, and six others were damaged."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
... we just can't underestimate -- this is the reason why the elected officials take on Trump and it doesn't help and, in fact, it helps Trump in a way, because people have a deep distrust of our elected officials, confidence and honesty and in some ways, frankly, after the last decade, you'd say having a distrust in political elites and financial elites is warranted. -- Bill Kristol, "a chief architect of the Bush Administration 'Lie America Into Iraq' strategy" (TM Driftglass), on ABC News "This Week"
Driftglass locates the appropriate response to Kristol's remark.
Presidential Race
David Sanger of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that the Islamic State had become 'the most effective recruiter in the world' and that the only solution was to engage American technology companies in blocking or taking down militant websites, videos and encrypted communications. 'You are going to hear all the familiar complaints: "freedom of speech,"'; Mrs. Clinton said in an hourlong speech and question-and-answer session at the Saban Forum.... Mrs. Clinton said, 'We need to put the great disrupters at work at disrupting ISIS.'... It was the second time in two weeks that Mrs. Clinton ... had thrown herself into the brewing battle between Silicon Valley and the government over what steps should be taken to block the use of Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and a range of encrypted apps that are adopted by terrorist groups. Mrs. Clinton's comments echo recent White House calls for what would amount to a cease-fire with technology firms after the revelations by Edward J. Snowden...." ...
... Vanessa Williams of the Washington Post: "... Hillary Clinton said Sunday that the United States is 'not winning' the battle against the Islamic State and called on Congress to update the use-of-force authorization passed after Sept. 11, 2001, to give President Obama more options to fight the militant group. But she stopped short of calling for a declaration of war." ...
... In a New York Times op-ed, Hillary Clinton outlines her plan to "rein in Wall Street." CW: If I were a Wall Street banker, I'd be pleased to know Hillary was on my side. Clinton is as likely to "rein in Wall Street" as Rick Santorum is to preside at a gay marriage. ...
... CW: If you think it is only right-wing dingbats who can't remember the past (Ralph Nader), whose "thinking" doesn't get much past bumper-sticker slogans (Hillary Clinton is "strikingly dishonest"; "why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free?") & whose rigidly ideological views are both nutty & disastrous, read Shane Ryan, who is apparently a regular at Salon now. His proposal -- & his "reasons" -- to "just let the Republicans win" are way past stupid. P.S. I don't care for Hillary Clinton, & I voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 primary. So I understand the "feeling" Ryan has, but it does not translate into reasonable action, just as I have a "feeling" I'd like to box Ryan's ears, but I wouldn't do it.
Rebecca Leber of the New Republic: "Bernie Sanders rolled out a 16-page climate change plan on Monday that combines many of his long-held environmental positions, like dropping fossil fuel subsidies and banning offshore drilling, with a couple of new ideas.... What truly separates Sanders's plan from those of the other Democratic candidates, though, is its emphasis on special interests and big money in campaigns (which fits into the larger themes of Sanders's campaign). The U.S. can't take necessary action on climate change, Sanders says, until polluters lose their stranglehold on the political process." CW: And that's the truth.
E. J. Dionne: "Republicans are having trouble taking on Trump not only because they welcomed his support in the past and not only because they have often embraced (in a less colorful and direct way) many of the themes he is accenting, but also because they have delivered next to nothing to their loyal white, working-class supporters."
Patrick Healy: "Donald J. Trump is having trouble keeping some details straight about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Three times during the last week Mr. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, has made remarks that do not align with the timeline [of what actually happened]." ...
... CW: Read Healy's post. I'll bet you remember more-or-less what time of day the planes hit the World Trade Center, even if you didn't see victims jumping to their deaths from your Manhattan penthouse four miles away. The fact that Trump seems to think the planes hit the Towers at "dinner" or "lunch" time suggests he has no memory at all of 9/11, but maybe watched news reports later in the day or in the days that followed. It is quite possible that the guy who says he has "one of the all-time great memories" is suffering from some form of progressive dementia, a disease that presents in the form of "memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning." And no, I'm not kidding. ...
... Patrick Healy: "Mr. Trump ... said on CBS's 'Face the Nation' that Americans have been too politically correct regarding Muslims and repeated his disgust over reports that neighbors did not contact authorities with concerns about the California couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, out of fear that it could be considered racial profiling. Mr. Trump, who has called for mosques to be monitored and for a database to track Muslims, made his clearest statement yet in support of racial profiling...." Trump rivals Chris Christie, John Kasich & Jeb Bush disagreed with Trump's call for racial profiling. ...
... CW: This Daily Caller post (Dec. 3) appears to be the report Trump is referencing. According to numerous media reports, Farook & some friends often worked on restoring cars in his garage. In addition, the Farooks had a new baby. So the so-called "suspicious activity" -- working in the garage & receiving "quite a few packages" -- have innocent explanations. As for a neighbor's claim that the police may have been called to settle a domestic dispute, I'd say the authorities already knew about that, if it happened. A few neighbors' reports of "suspicious activities" sound like hindsight to me. Trump, then, has proposed a sweeping plan to curtail the rights of millions of Americans because of a Daily Caller post says a few neighbors didn't report the Farooks for the same kinds of "suspicious activities" most of us engage in from time to time: working in the garage & getting several packages over the course of a few days.
Reasons terrorist suspects should be able to buy arsenals full of guns & ammo:
(1) David Edwards of the Raw Story: "... John Kasich warned over the weekend that people on the terrorist watch list should be able to buy guns or it could 'tip somebody off' that they are being watched." ...
(2) Katie Valentine of Think Progress: "Marco Rubio said Sunday that people on the U.S. government's No-Fly list should still be able to purchase guns, because the list is full of 'everyday Americans' who are on the list by accident. 'The majority of the people on the No-Fly list are often times people that just basically have the same name as somebody else, who doesn't belong on the No-Fly list,' he said on CNN's State of the Union.... When [Jake] Tapper said he didn't think it was accurate that a majority of people on the No-Fly list were there by mistake, Rubio said he thought it was a 'very significant number.'" ...
... CW: Rubio might have a point, if he were a consistent defender of civil liberties. But after the Paris terrorist attack, Rubio out-Trumped Trump. He said he "doesn't just want to consider shutting down mosques, as [Donald] Trump says, but wants to shut down 'any place where radicals are being inspired.'" A week or so before that he compared Muslims to Nazis.
Beyond the Beltway
Texas Republican Party Votes against Secession. Patrick Svitel of the Texas Tribune: "In a voice vote Saturday afternoon, the [Texas] State Republican Executive Committee rejected a measure that would have put [secession] on the March 1 primary ballot.... The pro-secession measure was sent to the full body on Friday after approval by its Resolutions Committee. The ballot language before the executive committee Saturday afternoon read, 'If the Federal Government continues to disregard the Constitution and the sovereignty of the State of Texas, the State of Texas should reassert its prior status as an independent nation.'" In a nearly-unanimous vote, the executive committee also rejected a proposal to move the state convention from Dallas, which has a new anti-discrimination ordinance to which some in the party objected.
Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "A former Australian politician says his country should warn citizens about traveling to the U.S. in the wake of the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting. Tim Fischer, a former deputy prime minister who spearheaded Australia's mandatory gun buyback program in 1996, said it is time to 'call out' the U.S. on gun violence.... 'Have we not reached the stage where the Smart Traveler advice of the [Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] needs to be muscled up?' he asked." CW: Months ago, I suggested other countries should think about warning their citizens about the dangers of travel to the U.S. It hasn't happened yet, but it is on some people's minds.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "The U.S. military alleged Monday that Russian warplanes were responsible for an attack on a Syrian army position in eastern Syria, an airstrike that Syria blamed on the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State militant group in the country."
New York Times: "Officials in the Chinese capital declared for the first time on Monday evening that the thick smog blanketing the city was bad enough to require a red alert, the highest level of alarm. It was the first time a code red had been sounded since Beijing announced an emergency air pollution response system with multicolored warnings in 2013. Across the city, residents braced for the onset of another 'airpocalypse' -- the term that some English speakers here use for the most toxic bouts of air pollution."
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Reader Comments (20)
In today's NJ Star Ledger, a letter to the editor from a real witness of Muslim activity in Jersey City on 911. Note that here was a substantial protective police presence in the Muslim community.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/12/no_truth_to_trumps_911_comments_barchi_to_blame_at.html#incart_river_index
Of course this will change nothing.
Shane Ryan from Slate might as well be a paid Republican. Clearly, he is a twit. Losing is never winning, unless of course we consider some long ago dispute with your infant where you lost but got more sleep as a consequence. The deal is simple: any Democrat is better than any Republican. Period. I know I'm touching the third rail, but incessant calls for gun control in advance of the election instead of even greater focus on economic equality, reproductive rights and anti-war politics plays into the hands of Republicans who want Democrats to have a circular firing squad. Republicans know they won't win the white house unless the Democrats have a litmus test around guns like Repubs do around abortion. This is the cleverness of the NRA; they have legislated their way into a no short term defeat for their views. Bear the NRA's long term strategy in mind when your beating up on your fellow Democrat with whom you mostly agree.
If those people at Pearl Harbor had just had guns...
Marie, I think that your suggestion that Adolf has a form of dementia is giving him too much credit. He never bothers for even a millisecond to think about what he is going to say. The words and statements are all about what he thinks makes him feel important. So adding lunch or dinner is about making him feel like he is enhancing the moment. He absolutely never thinks about anything that is called a fact. Every spoken word, regardless of the situation is nothing but a rant in his mind. If you asked him how many airplanes were involved in 911, he knows but he would have to stop is brain, reset it for a moment and do something rare, think. Remember, there are no facts, just Trumps.
@Marvin Schwalb: As Healy points out, Trump did get the number of planes wrong!
Marie
A little quote I found today over at The Daily Beast about Charles Dickens' tour of the U.S. in the 1840s witnessing the horrors of slavery and violence and his opinion thereupon:
“These are the weapons of Freedom,” Dickens wrote with brutal irony. “With sharp points and edges such as these, Liberty in America hews and hacks her slaves; or, failing that pursuit, her sons devote themselves to a better use, and turn them on each other.”
Sounds appropriate.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/06/the-u-s-right-to-own-guns-came-with-the-right-to-own-slaves.html
So let me get a few things straight.
Republican hate rhetoric about Muslims, talk of forced registration, closing of mosques, surveillance of all of them, increased roadblocks for those fleeing the chaos begun by a Republican administration, and talk of bombing "the shit" out of Muslim countries serve as the best recruiting tools for radicalism a jihadist could possibly hope for short of the Prophet returning from the grave carrying an AK and saying "Kill them all". Then...once they've created throngs of fresh radicals, here and abroad, Republicans make it as easy as possible for these people to get their hands on military grade weapons designed to kill people as quickly as possible.
And a reasonable and responsible political response seems next to impossible in this country because Republican pols and pundits have so poisoned the water with lies, unpaid for wars, fear-mongering, subterfuge, illegal surveillance of Americans, and both-siderism, that many Americans no longer trust the government in any capacity.
In short, they've sown the seeds for a vast increase in terrorist activity, given them the tools they need to accomplish their grisly goals, and short-circuited our ability to address the problem and in most cases made it impossible by actually helping the terrorists.
And now they want to elect someone who will increase all of the above?
What else do Democrats need, and why aren't these GOP accomplishments being shouted from the rooftops? About the only thing these people are good for is helping billionaires and terrorists destroy lives. And this is no hyperbole. Not even close.
In a more rational world, these charlatans and traitors would be in a cell.
@Akhilleus: As Fred Kaplan wrote in the post linked above,
"In the past, Trump has also said he would 'bomb the shit' out of ISIS. Sen. Ted Cruz one-upped him this weekend, telling a crowd, 'We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion,' adding, 'I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out.' Do these candidates know what they’re saying? Is Cruz really threatening to drop nuclear bombs in the Syrian desert? It’s not as if ISIS is camped outside towns, away from populated cities, and it’s not as if the residents of those cities are all members of ISIS or at war with us. By comparison, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who advocates sending 20,000 American ground troops to Iraq and Syria (a position that almost no one supports, including Trump, Cruz, or anything close to a majority of congressional Republicans), seems moderate."
I don't know that these assholes should be sharing a cell in a maximum-security federal prison, but they should be marginalized.
Marie
Re: Not voting for H. Clinton
This article makes an argument which is worth hearing:
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/06/just_let_the_republicans_win_maybe_things_need_to_get_really_bad_before_america_wakes_up/
@Keith Howard: See my comments above on that post you think is worth reading. See also Citizen625's comments in this thread.
Marie
Could Trump be a terrorist spy?
His remembered time frame for the 9/11 attacks might be accurate after all. Maybe he does have an elephant-like memory.
Stalag 17, Billy Wilder's 1953 film about life in a Nazi concentration camp, had prisoners trying to ferret out a spy in their midst who was giving away their plans, causing a number of escapees to be caught and killed. Bill Holden, the most likely candidate for the role of traitor/spy, proved that another man claiming he was a native of Cleveland was guilty and was in fact a Nazi spy by grilling him about Pearl Harbor.
"When was Pearl Harbor, Price, or don't you know that?"
"December 7, '41."
"What time?"
"Six o'clock, I was having dinner."
"Six o'clock. In Berlin. They were having lunch in Cleveland."
If you figure that the 9/11 attacks took place around 9:00 AM, it would have been dinner time in Kabul. Maybe Trump was having some tabbouleh with Bin Laden.
So the question is, Trump: spy, traitor, or dunderhead?
The idea that letting Republicans win would be good for the country is so manifestly absurd as to beggar rationality.
The argument seems to go something like, we're disappointed in Hillary so let Cruz/Trump/Rubio win and let the country see how bad it gets then. After four years of that crap they'll vote for someone we like.
Seriously? We're already in the shitter and no one seems to care. And this has been going on now for a generation--since Reagan. Fox and a gigantic phalanx of media outlets work ceaselessly to blame all the problems caused by Confederate policies on anyone from Clinton to Rudolph the fucking Red Nose Reindeer on down to voters themselves (if you're not happy and rich, it's your own fault). Anyone but them. And that would be the party line during a Republican administration "Oh things will get better, but look at the mess Obama made of the country. It'll take yeeeeaaaars to fix. First we'll get the economy going again (hand it off to our billionaire supporters) then we'll clear up all those social horrors the Democrat Party supported, like selling baby body parts and child molestation, giving million dollar checks to blahs and letting terrorists move in next door. Then we'll get to your problems. Just keep voting Republican!"
And like that.
It would be a decade at least of authoritarian billionaire control and religious zealotry before the people who now vote Republican would even begin asking questions. If they were intellectually capable of doing so, they would have been up in arms ten years ago.
This is a silly and dangerous idea, and pundits offering it as a thoughtful solution should be shunned like an infestation of diseased vermin.
Watching and seeing how bad things get was our solace in 2001. How did that turn out?
"In the past, Trump has also said he would 'bomb the shit' out of ISIS. Sen. Ted Cruz one-upped him this weekend, telling a crowd, 'We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion,'...Do these candidates know what they’re saying? Is Cruz really threatening to drop nuclear bombs in the Syrian desert?"
(Marie, quoting Fred Kaplan, above.)
Presidential candidates promising to nuke and pave entire regions of the middle east?
I think I may have mentioned recently how leery Americans once were of Barry Goldwater, thinking him a dangerous loony hanging about the verge of world wide nuclear war. I mean the guy lost because he was widely seen as a nut, even by reporters.
But it doesn't bother anyone in the MSM, apparently, that Cruz and Trump (not to mention a real fruitcake like Carson) make Goldwater look like the soul of sober deliberation.
NiskyGuy,
Damn straight.
Akhilleus,
"In a more rational country...."
A hell of a premise.
I've written too much at too great a length lately, so I'll make (try anyway) to make this one short.
Not only do we not live in that more rational country, today's Republicans seem to like it that way because they promote and thrive in it. It's the only way a party that has nothing substantive to offer can survive.
As you say, they present no governing principle or policy that makes sense, as Mae West said in another connection, either foreign or domestic. They are all about immediate gratification of our worst urges from greed to racism to xenophobia to resentment to a generalized fear of change, and immediate gratification is not a governing principle; it's a blueprint for barbarism.
The Wrong Every Time Kristol idiocy above is emblematic of their methods. When you have power, gratify you own childish urges, which will inevitably make things worse. When you're out of power, blame government, heightening distrust of the institution you have worked so hard to wreck, joyfully following the pattern recent Republican administrations have pursued in both their foreign and their economic policies. Leave office in shambles, then blame your successor for the mess, as an avenue back to power.
....and pay Faux News lots of money to tell the folks how awful things now are. What's wrong with a few lies in a good cause?
If the Republicans have a vision of government or society at all, it doesn't extend beyond getting elected.
BTW, I think I understand Kristol. He's wrong,but for him it's all about some simple-minded hope for Israel.
For the rest, they're just dumb, moral paupers, or outright megalomaniacs.
As a strong counter to the Shane Ryan piece, I would suggest reading the Sean Wilentz Rolling Stone piece Marie linked yesterday. This is no time for apathy!
I had a chance to glance over a transcript of Face the Nation from yesterday. It's enough to send lifelong teetotalers to the nearest gin mill. At least while there, they'd have a better chance of hearing someone who made more sense than Donald Trump.
Reading Trump's arrogant attacks on truth, reason, and polite discourse is probably not nearly as debilitating to one's brain stem as watching him on the TV, but it's bad enough.
It's like listening to your curmudgeonly, winger uncle who gets hammered at every family event and goes off on a tear about how we never landed on the moon, it was all a conspiracy, and how the CIA can watch you through your TV, and liberals are to blame for all crime, and did you know that Kennedy is still alive on an island in the Mediterranean? No amount of proof or rational discussion cuts through the angry clutter or stifles the bilious outbursts. If he's caught he simply lies his way out or tells you you're stupid for not agreeing with him. The difference between your crazy drunk uncle and Trump is that eventually the uncle passes out and shuts up.
Oh, and he's also not leading the polls in the presidential primary race.
Re: New York Times op-ed. Hillary to rein in Wall St. Me thinks
they spelled this wrong. How about 'Hillary to reign on Wall St."
But WTF, who else other than Hillary?
The Republicans plans for defeating ISIS and others
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/11/kurt-schlichter-fights-real-enemy-hint.html