The Commentariat -- January 3, 2016
Kevin Freaking of the AP: "President Barack Obama is returning to the rancor of the nation's capital after two weeks of fun and sun in his native Hawaii, saying he's 'fired up' for his final year in office and ready to tackle unfinished business."
Christopher Elliott of the Washington Post: "... on a Friday in late December, the TSA revised its rules, saying an 'opt out' [of a body scan] is no longer an option for certain passengers. (The full document can be found on the Department of Homeland Security’s website.) The decision drew mixed reaction from experts and raised concerns from passengers." CW: The "new rules" sound confusing enough that I doubt some TSA personnel can understand them. So I'm thinking they'll err on the side of not allowing passengers to opt out. ...
... David Lieb of the AP: "Missouri residents soon will not be able to use their state driver's licenses as identification to get into most federal facilities, making it one of at least five states to lose a federal exemption from complying with national proof-of-identity requirements. A letter from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to Missouri, obtained on Wednesday by The Associated Press, informs the state that its exemption from federal Real ID requirements will come to an end Jan. 10."
Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "Two years after the Affordable Care Act began requiring most Americans to have health insurance, 10.5 million who are eligible to buy coverage through the law’s new insurance exchanges were still uninsured this fall, according to the Obama administration.... Plenty of healthy holdouts remain, and their resistance helps explain why insurers are worried about the financial viability of the exchanges over time."
Amy Davidson of the New Yorker on a 14th-century "climate anomaly" that affected Northern & Central Europe. CW: Davidson doesn't quite get there, but one need not have an overdeveloped imagination to see in the historical evidence how climate change would also dramatically alter the political landscape.
Christian Nation. Rebecca Santana of the AP: "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday the idea of religious neutrality is not grounded in the country's constitutional traditions and that God has been good to the U.S. exactly because Americans honor him. Scalia was speaking at a Catholic high school in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana." Thanks to Citizen 625 for the link.
Adam Clymer of the New York Times: "Dale L. Bumpers, a liberal governor and four-term Democratic senator from Arkansas who came out of retirement in 1999 to make a passionate closing argument defending President Bill Clinton against removal from office in a Senate trial, died on Friday at his home in Little Rock, Ark. He was 90." Bumpers' Senate speech in defense of Clinton is here.
Annals of Journalism. Nancy Scola of Politico reports on Medium, an online publishing platform that affords users a "medium" to go around traditional publications. "... it can piggyback off a broader shift in the relationship between Washington and journalism, with the political world no longer quite so dependent on the press in the age of social media."
Presidential Race
Ken Thomas of the AP: "Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders raised more than $33 million during the past three months in his bid to win the Democratic nomination, his campaign said on Saturday, just short of the amount brought in by rival Hillary Clinton during the same period." The New York Times story, by Maggie Haberman, is here.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump shrugged off his appearance in a recruitment video posted Friday by the Shabab, an Al Qaeda affiliate, saying there was little he could do about it. 'What am I going to do?” Mr. Trump told John Dickerson of CBS News, who hosts 'Face The Nation.' 'I have to say what I have to say.' He added: 'They’ve used other people too.'”
Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: Trump held a big rally in Biloxi, Mississippi, "heavy on military veterans." Also, his visit shut down traffic along the Gulf Coast highway & he didn't talk about the Shabab video, but complained about the media refusing to pan to the "beautiful people" in his audience. ...
... Evidently Weigel & Dickerson missed this. Andy Borowitz: "Just minutes after the Somali-based Al Qaeda affiliate Shabaab group released a propaganda video featuring a clip of Donald Trump, the Republican Presidential front-runner boasted that the video would be the highest-rated terror video of all time."
** Steve M. illuminates how Marco Rubio came up with that brilliant Constitutional Convention plan he hawked last week -- why, he borrowed it from Koch-funded ALEC. Their suggestions for Constitutional amendments go further than Marco has recommended (so-far). Steve's post is titled, "Marco Rubio and the Koch/Talk Radio Scheme to Repeal the Last Hundred Years." Steve concludes, "I don't think Rubio has the mojo to win the nomination this year, but if he does manage to win it, he'll be sold in the fall -- probably successfully -- as a likable right-centrist. He's not. He's a dangerous radical who just sounds nice." Also, read Yastreblyansky's comment.
Beyond the Beltway
"A Well Regulated Militia." Liam Stack of the New York Times: "A group of activists and militiamen protesting the federal prosecution of two ranchers occupied a remote federal building in the rural southeastern corner of Oregon, the authorities said. The building seized by the group houses the offices of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and is operated by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, about 30 miles southeast of Burns, in Harney County.... Among the occupiers were Ammon and Ryan Bundy, two sons of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher who became a symbol of anti-government sentiment in 2014, according to The Oregonian.... In an interview with The Oregonian earlier on Saturday evening, [Ammon] Bundy and his brother said they would not rule out violence if law enforcement officers attempted to remove them from the building." ...
... The Oregonian's story, by Les Zaitz, is here. CW: I leave it to someone else to try to get into the heads of these ignorant provocateurs. Includes video. The boys say "government tyranny" has "oppressed" them, so they are setting up an outpost where "patriots" can bring their arms to protect the locals from said tyranny. That's the plan. It's the equivalent of a little kid protesting to a parent, "You're not the boss of me." Only the little kid might kill the parent instead of just whining.
Way Beyond
Maria Verza of the AP: "The mayor of a city south of Mexico's capital was shot to death on Saturday, less than a day after taking office, officials said. Gunmen opened fire on Mayor Gisela Mota at her house in the city of Temixco, said the government of Morelos state, where Temixco is located. Two presumed assailants were killed and three others detained following a pursuit, said Morelos security commissioner Jesus Alberto Capella. He said the suspects fired on federal police and soldiers from a vehicle."
Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times: "Interviews with dozens of migrants, social workers and psychologists caring for traumatized new arrivals across Germany suggest that the current mass migration has been accompanied by a surge of violence against women. From forced marriages and sex trafficking to domestic abuse, women report violence from fellow refugees, smugglers, male family members and even European police officers. There are no reliable statistics for sexual and other abuse of female refugees."
Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times: "A recent 10-day journey across the Xinjiang region in the far west of China revealed a society seething with anger and trepidation as the government, alarmed by a slow-boil insurgency that has claimed hundreds of lives, has introduced unprecedented measures aimed at shaping the behavior and beliefs of China’s 10 million Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority that considers this region its homeland."
Thomas Erdbrink of the New York Times: "Iran’s supreme leader warned Sunday that Saudi Arabia would face divine vengeance for the execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric, a day after Iranian protesters ransacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran in outrage over the execution." ...
... Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran on Saturday after Saudi Arabia executed an outspoken Shiite cleric who had criticized the kingdom’s treatment of its Shiite minority. The cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was among 47 men executed in Saudi Arabia on terrorism-related charges, drawing condemnation from Iran and its allies in the region, and sparking fears that sectarian tensions could rise across the Middle East."
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Reader Comments (15)
"God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways," Scalia said.
So let me get this straight as we are wont to say after hearing something so totally off the charts. Scalia actually believes this God has been responsible for America's successes BECAUSE we honor this figure? He's been "good to us" because we in turn have been good to him? Holy Cow! (a Buddhist outrage)––(-praise the king and he'll shower his goodness upon you––-throw you gold coins from his balcony). And given this, it must also be true that this God must be pretty pissed pretty much of the time and following Scalia's logic (if that 's what you could call it) it must be because many in this country are NOT honoring HIM. So it's our fault––us non-believers–- for all the calamities.
And this man –––the real one who sits on the bench–-is in part responsible for making our laws blows me away. I also find this incomprehensible.
@PD
Betcha really meant to say reprehensible, not incomprehensible, didn't you? One of those esprit d'escalier moments that I suffer from. (aside from ending sentences with prepositions!
But, you are right about Scalia using any definition.
And here I thought that all of our problems had been caused by
things like integration and same sex marriage but now I find out
that it's because of not bowing down to some God in the clouds.
You live and learn (or not!)
Even the most cursory understanding of Christian doctrine, not to mention the Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis, is the antithesis of Scalia's pontificating stupid in public about his many intransigent hateful positions. Mostly, he's angry because its not 1950 anymore. Today, much too his chagrin, people of color actually express anger for outrageous treatment and women don't really care if Antonin got up on the crazy side of the bed this morning.
I wish I thought it was Reagan like dementia. At least, it wouldn't seem so anti-American that a SC Justice is merely a mean spirited garden variety dickhead.
@MAG: Ha! Yes, certainly reprehensible, but I did mean incomprehensible–––I fail to understand the reasoning here from someone who one hopes has a good grasp of intellectual ability. Sounds like whatshisname that told us 9/11 was caused by homosexuality–-God hates fags kind of thing. But bless Forrest Morris (love the sound of that name, by the way) he made me laugh which can take the sting out of anything.
Read the Scalia nonsense before retiring last night and am pleased to report that I slept well nonetheless.
In the clear, cold light of this Pacific Northwest morning, it all seems simple enough.
Of course, Scalia didn't make any sense. He's a Believer in things unseen, unknowable and hence by definition unexamined. As an Originalist, he seeks answers in what he would like to believe Authority meant when Authority said something hundreds or thousands of years ago. That such exegesis filtered through contemporary and personal bias is a mug's game from the start never occurs to him because he's a Believer blinded by the tenets of his belief.
Found relief from his potentially depressing utterance in the statistics Marie cited the other day about the high proportion of immigrants who claim no religious affiliation and the declining proportion of the general population who attend church regularly.
Though many Believers deny that mankind has evolved, just maybe there's evidence that it can and possibly is before our very eyes, and in an ironic reversal of the End of Times narrative so popular among some Believers, it's the Scalias of the world who are being and will be Left Behind.
Just some Sunday thoughts...
Anybody ask El Nino with whom God sided in the 30 Years War?
Oh, that's right -- in Christianist mythology, the 30 Years War wasn't about religion.
And clearly God blessed the Good Catholic Conquistadors in their genocide of Native Americans for God, Gold, and Glory. But when and where did Spain, Portugal, or Italy go wrong that they're no longer world powers?
On a lighter note re TSA body scans: OK by me. Anybody who thinks they want to look at my aged ass has got deeper problems than I can probably help them with.
Happy New Year to all, and humble thanks to MAG for including me in her list.
Siege in Oregon's Malheur?
It is extraordinary country, its landscape quintessential American West, open, still unpopulated, a wildlife haven, and on the eastern side of Steen's Mountain a wonderful, remote hot spring in which we have blissfully soaked more than once.
And now we have the worst part of the Old West sullying the country. I imagine I'm feeling a bit like the natives might have felt when the white men first arrived, but only a little because while we likely share the dismay that had to be part of their reaction, I have no wish to trade pelts or anything else for their weapons.
I certainly don't want to trade anything that might grant legitimacy to the Bundy crowd. I guess I'd let them sit there, cut off their food and water and other than posting a guard to keep the infection contained, ignore the son-a-bitches, for years if necessary.
As the Right has long said, we don't negotiate with terrorists.
Maybe Scalia would want to hold up with his fellow True Believers and teach them more about the Law. If so, I would let him pass through the cordon.
Was thinking of an early spring trip to the Malheur--hot springs do beckon on cold mornings--on the way to somewhere I have in mind, farther south and east. Sure hope all those idiots are gone by then.
Siege in Oregon's Malheur?
It is extraordinary country, its landscape quintessential American West, open, still unpopulated, a wildlife haven, and on the eastern side of Steen's Mountain a wonderful, remote hot spring in which we have blissfully soaked more than once.
And now we have the worst part of the Old West sullying the country. I imagine I'm feeling a bit like the natives might have felt when the white men first arrived, but only a little because while we likely share the dismay that had to be part of their reaction, I have no wish to trade pelts or anything else for their weapons.
I certainly don't want to trade anything that might grant legitimacy to the Bundy crowd. I guess I'd let them sit there, cut off their food and water and other than posting a guard to keep the infection contained, ignore the son-a-bitches, for years if necessary.
As the Right has long said, we don't negotiate with terrorists.
Maybe Scalia would want to hold up with his fellow True Believers and teach them more about the Law. If so, I would let him pass through the cordon.
Was thinking of an early spring trip to the Malheur--hot springs do beckon on cold mornings--on the way to somewhere I have in mind, farther south and east. Sure hope all those idiots are gone by then.
Andrew Jacobs article about Western China unrest offers what to me is a glaring over site in the Chinese government story. Apparently 40-50 miners where killed by guys who snuck up on them with knives. At the risk of generalizing, miners are some of the toughest, strongest, take no shit people in the world. How exactly did the Chinese government narrative unfold that led to 40-50 casualties? I don't believe the Chinese government for a second. Does anyone other than me know the word "Tibet"?
As for the Bundys and their gang: I bet one-on-one many of them are really nice to white people. Hispanics they need work done from they're probably ok with, and most other folks they tolerate but not blacks at all. I understand they likely want their neighbors to look just like themselves. Their inability to express themselves without citing god, guns or flag is like Scalia or the men who can't ask directions when they're lost. As for their self espoused "independence" and "conservative" nature, how much you want to bet they owe a fortune on a pick-up truck? And if these guys in Burns, OR were black, they'd be dead already. Justice, like forgiveness, needs application and development every day otherwise we are barbarians.
The well regulated Oregon militia are a perfect example of the word 'conservative'. Absolutely no government, except when I need it (and of course for free). And apparently if you own the land, the government has no rights so I guess it is OK to use slaves. And lastly, these idiots have no concept that the government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Democracy is so annoying.
The Southern Poverty Law Center did an excellent and lengthy article on the Bundy ranch standoff. Its quite damning in its analysis of the inaction of the BLM against the armed standoff with Bundy.
More enlightening, is the detailed history of the development and network of the anti-government militias operating now as well as the melding of anti-government groups with racist and anti-Semitic groups. Its worth the read to understand the depth and breadth of these groups operating in the Western US and how they are seeking violent confrontation.
https://www.splcenter.org/20140709/war-west-bundy-ranch-standoff-and-american-radical-right
Just finished reading the NYTimes' (soft-pedaled) piece concerning Trump's older brother, Fred Jr.
I can easily imagine the scheming of "undue influence" - excluding this Black Sheep from the Will - while the patriarch did not possess mental capacity.
Perhaps intimations of "You're Fired!" were first whispered into Donnie's ears around this time?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/us/politics/for-donald-trump-lessons-from-a-brothers-suffering.html
Imagine for a moment that Fred Jr. was gay - in that family. It couldn't have been easy, no matter what when the family itself eats their own young.
To Citizen625 RE . . .
<< Imagine for a moment that Fred Jr. was gay - in that family. >>
Indeed! The possibility had crossed my mind.
<< It couldn't have been easy, no matter what >>
It seems "rational" that he would have felt compelled to self-medicate.
<< when the family itself eats their own young. >>
How chillingly - yet perfectly - phrased.