The Commentariat -- July 15, 2014
Internal links, defunct video removed.
Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "President Barack Obama is facing a clash with Democrats in Congress over proposals to water down a law intended to combat human trafficking in order to speed up the repatriation of unaccompanied children crossing the US southern border from Central America." ...
... Just What You'd Expect. Cristina Marcos & Peter Schroeder of the Hill: "Fresh off a trip to Guatemala and Honduras, a House GOP working group on immigration will recommend Tuesday that the conference change a 2008 trafficking law to stop the thousands of immigrant children flooding across the border. Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the working group's leader, will argue that child immigrants from Central America should be subject to the same rules as those from Mexico. A source close to Granger said the group will also advise that National Guard troops be sent to the border, a longstanding demand from Republicans." ...
... Danny Vinik: The "crisis is real and requires immediate action from Congress, but it has nothing to do with border security." ...
... Justin Sink of the Hill: "The White House said Monday it was 'likely' that immigrant children facing mortal danger in their home countries would be allowed to stay in the United States."...
... CW: Huh. Apparently those "facing mortal danger" didn't include those deported to the "gang-ridden Honduran city" of San Pedro Susa. (See Monday's Ledes.) As Gonzalez & Ortega report in the Arizona Republic story linked below,
Over three days in May, gang members in another Honduran city, San Pedro Sula, murdered five children ages 5 to 13. 'They cut their bodies into quarters as a warning to others because the children didn't want to distribute drugs in their neighborhood. -- Father German Calix, director of a Catholic relief agency
... Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has more on the White House's position re: deportation of children in danger. ...
... Saul Elbein has a piece in the New Republic on what life is like in Guatemala, which he likens to the feudal system depicted in the HBO fictional series Game of Thrones. (CW: I found Elbein's piece sort of confusing, but then so is Guatemala.) ...
... Daniel Gonzalez & Bob Ortega of the Arizona Republic have an excellent, in-depth piece on the children who are migrating from Central American countries ("Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala ...rank among the top five countries with the highest murder rates in the world") to the U.S. ...
... AND Then There's This. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones: Immigration "courts have been overwhelmed by the influx of kids coming to the United States without parents or other relatives. But they were overwhelmed even before the children started showing up, in large part because of Republicans' unwillingness to fund and staff them like other federal courts." Read the whole story; former/disgraced AG Alberto Gonzales rates more than a cameo appearance. ...
... Brian Beutler exposes Republicans' hypocrisy on President Obama's nearly $4BB request to alleviate the border crisis.
Ana Marie Cox of the Guardian: "Late last week, the Reason Foundation released the results of a poll about ... the millennials; its signature finding was the confirmation of a mass abandonment of social conservatism and the GOP. This comes at a time when the conservative movement is increasingly synonymous with mean-spirited, prank-like and combative activism and self-important grand gestures.... The conservative strategy of outrage upon outrage upon outrage bumps up against the policy preferences and the attitudes of millennials in perfect discord.... This next generation is not just inclusive, but conflict-adverse." ...
... ** BUT What the Kids Want May Not Matter. Digby has an excellent piece in Salon on the "real reason" for John Boehner's lawsuit against the President. Read it all. ...
... CW: I'd add this. George Will, whose demise I have prematurely reported, is at the center of the scheme. Will is well-connected to the conservative Supremes, & it was Will who suggested the challenge to the President's actions re: the ACA. Will may be just the mouthpiece for Scalia, et al., but Boehner surely picked up Will's signals. Retooling the balance of power in the way digby suggests may be these old boys' last hurrah, but it's a helluva hurrah.
Gene Robinson: "Apparently there's a contest among Republicans to see who can be more shameless and irresponsible in criticizing President Obama's foreign policy. So far, Chris Christie is winning.... If you disregard the rantings of unserious provocateurs such as Sarah Palin, Christie's attack represents a new low. He accuses the president of the United States of actually being responsible 'in some measure' for violence between Israelis and Palestinians, Sunnis and Shiites, dictators and rebels -- conflicts and antagonisms that began, I seem to recall, well before Obama took office in January 2009. One might assume that Christie offered specific ideas about what Obama should be doing differently. Nope.... Asked whether Obama should take some kind of military action in the region, Christie answered, 'I'm not going to give opinions on that. I'm not the president.'"
David Nather & Jeremy Herb of Politico: "If you had any doubts about how seriously some Republicans are taking the notion of a Rand Paul presidency, look at how far they’re going to shut down his views on foreign policy. In the past three days alone, Texas Gov. Rick Perry used a Washington Post op-ed to warn about the dangers of 'isolationism' .... Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) accused the Kentucky senator on CNN of wanting a 'withdrawal to fortress America.' And former Vice President Dick Cheney declared at a Politico Playbook luncheon on Monday that 'isolationism is crazy,' while his daughter, Liz Cheney, said Paul 'leaves something to be desired, in terms of national security policy.'"
Dick Cheney Still Helping Democrats. Jonathan Topaz of Politico: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday defended the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, calling it 'absolutely the right thing to do. I believed in it then, I look back on it now, it was absolutely the right thing to do,' the Wyoming Republican said with regard to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Cheney made his comments at a Politico Playbook lunch conversation with his wife, Lynne and daughter Liz at Washington's Mayflower Renaissance Hotel, a lively event that featured jokes, a standing-room-only crowd and a few interruptions -- protesters delayed the event twice, screaming at the former vice president for being a 'war criminal.'" ...
... Charles Pierce on the Cheney Family Reunion (minus "the Gay One") at the Mayflower Hotel: "... this was one of Mike Allen's little grift-o-rama special events -- a 'Playbook lunch,' sponsored by that noted mortgage fraud concern Bank Of America.... I know what Mike Allen is, but I am so goddamn tired of haggling about the price." Thanks to MAG for the link. See more on great journalism below.
Steve Holland of Reuters: "The White House asked the Republican chairman of a congressional committee [Darrell Issa] on Monday to lift a subpoena against President Barack Obama's political adviser [David Simas], who has been called to testify on Wednesday about his office's operations.... Simas is director of the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach. Recent presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have all had at least one top political adviser in a position similar to that of Simas."
Martin Crutsinger of the AP: "Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen will have some good news to tell Congress this week about the health of the labor market.... Yellen is scheduled to deliver the Fed's twice-a-year report to Congress on interest-rate policy and the economy. She testifies before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and will follow that with testimony Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee." ...
... BUT Good News Is Bad News for Rick Santelli. Myles Udland of Business Insider: Tea party inspiration "Rick Santelli had a meltdown on CNBC today.... This debate is sparked by the New Yorker profile of Janet Yellen, as well as recent inflation data that indicate things in the economy could be heating up." Udland has an extended clip. The shorter version is below. ...
It's impossible for you to have been more wrong, Rick. Your call for inflation, the destruction of the dollar, the failure of the U.S. economy to rebound. Rick, it's impossible for you to have been more wrong. Every single bit of advice you gave would have lost people money, Rick.... There is no piece of advice that you've given that's worked, Rick. Not a single one.... The higher interest rates never came. The inability of the U.S. to sell bonds never happened. The dollar never crashed, Rick. There isn't a single one that's worked for you. -- CNBC Steve Liesman to Rick Santelli ...
... Ed Kilgore: It not just that [Santelli's] infamous 2009 'rant' is often credited with creating (or at least spurring) the Tea Party Movement; it's that he so vividly captured the attitude of contempt that 'winners' had for 'losers' in the midst of an economic catastrophe almost no one had any reason to anticipate.... Rick Santelli. What a loser."
Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: Sen. Joe Manchin's daughter Heather Bresch, the CEO of a "giant" generic drugs manufacturer, is moving her operations to the Netherlands to evade higher U.S. taxes. But she's very, very sorry she has to go, etc., etc.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, in the Washington Post, explains journalism to the unbalanced. ...
... CW: Here's a good example of non-reporting: Zeke Miller of Time interviews Bobby Jindal. Every damned thing Jindal said is somewhere between untrue & stupid, though usually it's both. Out-&-out garbage. Miller writes it down & Time publishes it.
Lauren Collins of the New Yorker: The scandal-sheet Daily Mail may have met its match in George Clooney.
Senate Races
M. J. Lee of Politico: West Virginia Rep. Shelly Moore Capito (R) -- Wall Street's BFF -- is poised to win the Senate seat Democrat Jay Rockefeller is vacating. Monday Elizabeth Warren went to West Virginia to campaign for underdog Democratic candidate Natalie Tennant, West Virginia's current secretary of state. ...
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Populist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) got a rock-star reception during a standing-room-only campaign rally [in Shepherdstown, West Virginia] Monday, as hundreds of liberal activists cheered her broadsides against corporate interests and voiced hopes that her presence might shift the political winds in an increasingly Republican state." ...
... Emily Schultheis of the National Journal: Elizabeth Warren is "proving that she can be a good Democratic soldier by helping the party where and when it needs her most, and she's proving that her appeal and the appeal of her populist message extends far beyond deep-blue Massachusetts.... Monday's West Virginia event was Warren's fourth stop for a 2014 Senate candidate; she'll campaign with her fifth 2014 candidate, Rep. Gary Peters, in Michigan on Friday.... Warren's ability to move easily from blue states to red states is proof she has 'become a serious player' on the national stage, said longtime Democratic consultant Bob Shrum."
News Ledes
New York Times: "A sport utility vehicle packed with explosives detonated in a market in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, bringing down shops and leaving the bloodied remains of men, women and children in the rubble. By late afternoon, at least 89 people were known to have been killed, the Defense Ministry said."
New York Times: "Israel accepted Egypt's proposal for a cessation of hostilities with Hamas and other militant Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, but a fresh barrage of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel has left the fate of the cease-fire unclear. The Israeli announcement came via text message and without comment after Israel's top ministers, known as its security cabinet, met early Tuesday." ...
... AND THEN. AP: "Hamas rejected an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel on Tuesday, moments after the Israeli Cabinet accepted the plan, throwing into disarray international efforts to end a week of fighting that has killed 192 Palestinians and exposed millions of Israelis to Hamas rocket fire." ...
... AND THEN. Washington Post: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday threatened to escalate Israel's operations in Gaza after Hamas balked at an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire, saying it had not been consulted on its terms." ...
... AND THEN. New York Times: "The Israeli authorities said a Palestinian attack caused the first Israeli fatality in the eight-day-old military confrontation, in which Israeli bombings have killed nearly 200 Palestinians."
New York Times: "Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, faced with an imminent deadline for an agreement with the West on the future of the country's nuclear program, said in an interview on Monday that Iran could accept a deal that essentially freezes its capacity to produce nuclear fuel at current levels for several years, provided it is then treated like any other nation with a peaceful nuclear program."
BBC News: "A Ukrainian military transport aircraft has been shot down in the east, amid fighting with pro-Russian separatist rebels, Ukrainian officials say. They say the An-26 plane was hit at an altitude of 6,500m (21,325ft). The plane was targeted with 'a more powerful missile' than a shoulder-carried missile, 'probably fired' from Russia. The crew survived, reports say."
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Reader Comments (5)
For those of you who interpreted my comment yesterday to mean I was wishing a sniper attack on the Cheneys--not so. I DID wish to have been at the Mayflower Hotel with Medea Benjamin and Code Pink!
Good piece by Katrina vandenHeuvel in today's WaPo concerning journalistic false equivalence, "balanced" reporting. Maybe the karmic balance is coming around against the Chucktodds. Maybe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-the-distorting-reality-of-false-balance-in-the-media/2014/07/14/6def5706-0b81-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html?hpid=z3
Charlie Pierce's superb descriptive of the Mayflower assemblage has the best call-out of aka family Cheney yet:
"It's not just that TBOTP invited the Manson Family of American geopolitics to come together for an exercise in ensemble prevarication."
His entire morning blog says it best.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Politico_Dances_With_The_Devils
Bravo to Steve Liesman, the "Professor'...who calmly and quietly showed Santelli for what he is..a ranting, bratty egoist.
I used to watch CNBC, with the remote nearby so that I could quickly hit MUTE whenever Santelli was on screech.
Amazing display of spleen sputtering by Santelli. All the other's on the panel remained calm, but forceful and behaved like adults while Santelli screamed out his views, so sure he is right, but obviously, having been so wrong in the past, is compensating for this lack. I find those who argue on shaky ground are often quite vociferous.
Elizabeth Warren is going into states that aren't crazy nuts in love with Obama and giving her skills and popularity to help democratic hopefuls. So if these not so crazy about Obama states take to Warren readily, as they appear to be, could she, if she decides to run for president herself, pick up all those lack luster folks south of the border? Wouldn't it be something if Hillary backs off––"I'd like to spend my time with my grandchild, bask in just smelling the roses for a change." she might decide. What the hell? say all those Republicans who have been busy scribbling down all those nefarious doings of Mrs. Clinton, getting ready to shoot the moon on her candidacy. Along comes Mrs. Warren, fresh and finished and ready for the fight. Wouldn't that be something.
The immigration problem breaks my heart. The Israeli/Hamas retaliations make me furious––both sides––war mongers.
Matthew 19:14
But Jesus said, suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.
What a stupid bunch of old farts we must be. We have a trillion dollars of debt hanging over college grads of the past five years and we need to refinance or forgive all of it.
We have the young people brought here by their parents that are an asset to our country and we do not recognize their value.
We have couple of hundred thousand children at our borders and do not realize the importance of young people. We should welcome them and find them sponsors and relatives and protectors.
A congress filled with old, white guys does not seem to understand the value of young citizens and their importance for our future.