The Commentariat -- July 30, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
Afternoon Update:
Calling Dr. Palmer. The "Hunter" Becomes the Hunted. Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: "The American dentist who admitted to killing Cecil the lion has not responded to attempts at contact, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service official said on Thursday. 'The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is investigating the circumstances surrounding the killing of "Cecil the lion,"' Edward Grace, the agency's deputy chief of law enforcement, said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News. 'That investigation will take us wherever the facts lead. At this point in time, however, multiple efforts to contact Dr. Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful. We ask that Dr. Palmer or his representative contact us immediately.'" CW: Wherever Palmer is in hiding, at least he's not likely limping along with arrows in his side.
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter will allow more U.S. troops to be armed while stateside and called for other security measures to be put in place following the attack in Chattanooga, Tenn., that killed five service members. The decision was outlined in a two-page memo released at the Pentagon on Thursday."
Gabrel Sherman of New York: "The Fox News GOP Debate Could Draw the Biggest Audience in Cable News History -- and Roger Ailes Is Making All the Rules."
Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "A judge set bail at $1 million on Thursday for the former University of Cincinnati police officer who shot and killed a motorist, after a traffic stop over a missing license plate."
*****
Jonathan Cohn of the Huffington Post: "It was 50 years ago Thursday that President Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation that created Medicare, dramatically altering life for America's seniors. But as debate over the program rages on, its conservative critics have learned to be more crafty about what alternatives they propose -- and how to justify them."
We Win! -- Lindsey Graham ...
... Steve Benen.: "... while that may be the end of the conversation for Graham, responsible policymakers have to wonder: 'win' at what cost? What are the security implications of the U.S. launching yet another Middle Eastern war? How long would the war last and with how many casualties? What happens after our 'victory'?" CW: Remember, this guy is likely the best candidate the GOP is fielding in the presidential race. He's the only one who's not an ignoramus or a kook or some combination thereof. And he thinks "we win" in a war with Iran is a great rationale to opt for unleashing untold carnage. This freak show isn't comical; it's scary. ...
Relieving the risk of a nuclear conflict with Iran diplomatically is superior than trying to do that militarily. -- Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a Senate hearing yesterday
... Helene Cooper & Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "While the nuclear agreement with Iran will not stop it from funding organizations the United States considers to be terrorist groups, the pact reduces the chances of a near-term military conflict between the two countries, the top American military leader, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, told Congress on Wednesday.... General Dempsey answered a barrage of questions from Republican senators that appeared intended to make him criticize the pact." CW: Yo, Lindsey, even the military thinks your bellicose approach is nuts.
CW: Adele Stan, in the American Prospect, makes the point that I made more clumsily over in Infotainment: "Among the most daunting obstacles to racial equality is the white liberal who thinks he doesn't have a racist bone in his body. Because we all do.... Until white progressives are willing to take a cold, hard look at why our movement is viewed with suspicion by those who feel shut out, a truly progressive future will be a promise unfulfilled." ...
Do-Nothing House Takes a Break. Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "The House adjourned Wednesday evening for its five-week August recess and won't have votes again until Tuesday, Sept. 8. Wednesday capped a July session dominated by Republican divides on highway funding, a controversy over displaying the Confederate flag, and a last-minute effort from a conservative rebel to oust Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)." ...
... Dana Milbank: "For the first time in 105 years, a speaker of the House is the target of what parliamentarians call a 'motion to vacate the chair'.... But, in a sense, the office of the speaker already is pretty much vacant. [John] Boehner is in charge, but only nominally. He is unable to move legislation, rendered powerless by his struggles to placate about 50 conservative holdouts.... If Boehner were instead to try a more bipartisan approach, he would further infuriate the Meadows crowd, but he would get things done. And Democrats have previously indicated they would help Boehner keep the speakership if conservatives were to stage a coup." ...
... Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Asked about [Mark] Meadows's [R-NC] gambit [to unseat House Speaker John Boehner], Republicans across the ideological spectrum reacted coolly Wednesday...." ...
... Scott Wong of the Hill: "Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told his colleagues on Wednesday he would resign from the conservative House Freedom Caucus board of directors, just a day after he offered a resolution to oust Ohio Republican John Boehner as Speaker of the House. His offer came during a Wednesday morning closed-door Freedom Caucus meeting that was called to discuss his actions...." But then he took it back.
Chris Brennan & Jeremy Roebuck of the Philadelphia Inquirer: "U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah [D] and four associates were indicted Wednesday on racketeering conspiracy charges stemming from several alleged schemes to misuse campaign funds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grant money to further their political and financial interests. The five schemes include accepting a $1 million illegal loan for Fattah's failed 2007 mayoral campaign from a 'wealthy supporter' and then repaying some of it using "charitable and federal grant funds" that passed through a nonprofit founded and controlled by Fattah, U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger said at a news conference." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Robert Schmidt of Bloomberg: "Representative Scott Garrett [R-NJ], who heads an influential House subcommittee overseeing the U.S. capital markets, is facing a revolt by corporate and Wall Street donors after he reportedly made anti-gay remarks at a private meeting of Republican lawmakers. Earlier this month..., the Big 4 accounting firms and their trade association abruptly canceled a fundraising event for the New Jersey Republican. In addition, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has decided to stop making political action committee donations to Garrett.... Other firms are likely to follow suit.... The Financial Services' capital markets subcommittee is informally known in Washington fundraising circles as the ATM -- a seat almost guarantees endless streams of cash from the financial firms that have business before the panel."
Tom Vanden Brook of USA Today: "Top Pentagon officials plan to meet Monday to lay out the road map for allowing transgender troops to serve openly in the military, a Defense Department official said Wednesday. Meantime, on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter sent a memo to top military brass and civilians formally outlining his plan that would protect transgender troops from being discharged and directs officials to develop a plan within six months to incorporate those troops into the ranks."
Alam Fram of the AP: "Under fire for its role in providing fetal tissue for research, Planned Parenthood asked the government's top health scientists Wednesday to convene a panel of independent experts to study the issues surrounding the little-known branch of medicine. Planned Parenthood's request to the National Institutes of Health came as Senate Republicans pressed their fight to bar the organization from receiving federal aid. ...
... Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, in a Washington Post op-ed: "... extremists created a apparently misleading corporate filings and then used false government identifications to gain access to Planned Parenthood's medical and research staff with the agenda of secretly filming without consent -- then heavily edited the footage to make false and absurd assertions about our standards and services. They spent three years doing everything they could -- not to uncover wrongdoing, but rather to create it. They failed.... Attacking [federal] funding [of Planned Parenthood] is attacking women who need preventive health care, including women who need cancer screenings and contraception." ...
... Anna North of the New York Times: "Long before the current 'baby body parts' effort, anti-abortion groups were accusing Planned Parenthood of profiting from abortions, as though performing an incredibly stigmatized procedure, one that puts providers at risk of cyberattacks, harassment and murder, were a great way to make some easy cash.... Lawmakers now clamoring to take away Planned Parenthood's financial support should be ashamed of their participation in this scam."
... Kevin Drum: "So far, the worst anyone has come up with from these [three] videos is that some of the Planned Parenthood folks caught on tape used a 'tone' that was unfortunate. Give me a break. This is the way any doctor talks among other health care professionals." ...
... CW: This all has me so riled I decided to make what for me is a substantial donation to Planned Parenthood. This is what I got. ...
... Update: Just discovered I could donate here. So I did.
Obama Is a Idiot. Let's Do What He Did. Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "... one of the prime objectives [of the Koch brothers network] could have a direct impact on Election Day 2016: to create a permanent ground force powered by a vast trove of data, replicating the kind of infrastructure that helped President Obama win reelection."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "Will Dana, the managing editor of Rolling Stone, will leave the magazine, just months after a controversial article about a supposed gang rape at the University of Virginia was retracted.... When asked if the departure was linked to the controversy over the discredited article, Rolling Stone's publisher, Jann S. Wenner, said, via a spokeswoman, that 'many factors go into a decision like this.'... The magazine has since been the target of lawsuits from an assistant dean at the university and by three members of the fraternity at the center of the article, who filed a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday."
Déjà vu All Over Again
I was wrong because my sources were wrong. -- Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, 2005, on her reports on Iraq's weapons capabilities
We got it wrong because our very good sources had it wrong. -- New York Times Deputy Executive Editor Matt Purdy, 2015, on the paper's story about a supposed criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail account to discuss classified information
... Eric Boehlert of Media Matters has more in this piece republished in Salon.
Something is not a secret just because you don't know about it. -- Jon Stewart
Presidential Race
Daniel Strauss of Politico: "Hillary Clinton plans to urge Congress to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba during a speech on Friday at Florida International University in Miami. Clinton, according to her presidential campaign, will say that Republican arguments in opposition to more engagement with Cuba represent the 'failed policies of the past.'... Clinton is said to have been pushing to lift the embargo for years."
Liz Kruetz of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton has staunchly defended Planned Parenthood in the wake of recently released videos that an anti-abortion group claims to show employees with the organization discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue. But, in a new interview, she calls the graphic videos 'disturbing' and says there should be a national investigation into that practice. 'I have seen pictures from them and obviously find them disturbing,' the Democratic presidential candidate told the New Hampshire Union Leader on Tuesday..., which were released by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. 'Planned Parenthood is answering questions and will continue to answer questions.' Clinton, however, did not waiver in her overall support of the organization...." ...
... CW: The Union Leader is an ultra-conservative paper. Hillary massaged her answer to appease her listeners. ...
... Rachel Bade of Politico: "An irritated federal judge Thursday put the Hillary Clinton email scandal into stark terms, grilling the State Department on a pattern of delayed document releases that has turned a possible bureaucratic logjam into a major problem for the leading Democratic presidential contender. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, known for his blunt manner, said he simply did not understand why the State Department has dragged its feet on responses for emails in requests to the Freedom of Information Act." Leon is a Bush II appointee. ...
... As of 10:45 pm Wednesday, the New York Times is going with the AP story. ...
... Rachel Bade: "Long-time Hillary Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines handed the State Department 20 boxes of work-related emails taken in part from a personal email account, State officials said Wednesday, calling into question the extent to which top aides to the former secretary of state also engaged in controversial email practices." ...
... Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Even Democrats who are not Sanders partisans are concerned about Clinton's sometimes-opaque comments on the campaign trail.... Keystone is far from the only issue on which Clinton has bobbed and weaved."
John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders spoke to supporters at more than 3,500 parties around the country Wednesday night, trying to harness the enthusiasm of the large crowds he has been drawing and bolster his insurgent campaign organization."
Quinnipiac Univesity: "... Donald Trump is the clear leader in the crowded Republican presidential primary field, but he trails any of three leading Democratic contenders by wide margins in general election matchups, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. Trump's 20 percent is the largest tally for a Republican contender in any national poll by the independent Quinnipiac University. Behind Trump are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker with 13 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 10 percent. No other Republican tops 6 percent and 12 percent are undecided. Trump also tops the 'no way' list as 30 percent of Republican voters say they would definitely not support him. New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie is next at 15 percent with Bush at 14 percent."
Ted Cruz feels the need to be as disruptive as Donald Trump, so Trump becomes Mitch McConnell's problem. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Daniel Strauss: "New Day for America, the super PAC supporting Ohio Gov. John Kasich, raised more than $11 million between April 20 and June 30 of this year.... Specifically, New Day for America raised $11,130,730.32 from 166 reportable contributions.... Of those donations, 34 were of $100,000 or more."
Dave Weigel & Ben Terris of the Washington Post: New Hampshire Republicans aren't very interested in the Most Interesting Man in Politics. ...
... CW: Oh, and there's this: Paul's moves to party orthodoxy "... have alienated the libertarian base that has always been seen as Paul's stronghold in the crowd. Paul's high-profile attacks on the tax code and Planned Parenthood are designed to make up for that." Excellent calculation, Li'l Randy. I don't know what the loud-mouthed freeedom libertarian boyz think about girls -- or if they even know any girls -- but I know some prominent adult libertarians, and they strongly support Planned Parenthood & abortion rights. Because freeedom is for girls, too. ...
... Jonathan Chait: "No White House for you, Rand Paul. All happy campaigns are alike, but each unhappy campaign is unhappy in its own way. Those unique experiences of campaign failure provide some of the best entertainment of the long and arduous journey, and the pain is compounded by the observed scientific reality that a political corpse is capable of continuing to trudge forward well after its viability has expired. We begin our study of failure with Rand Paul."
Eliza Collins of Politico: "According to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is essentially financing terrorism. And he's not backing down after the president called his comments 'outrageous.' 'If this deal is consummated, it will make the Obama administration the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism,' Cruz said during a round table Tuesday."
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "James S. Gilmore III, the former governor of Virginia, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday to enter the crowded field of Republican presidential contestants. He becomes the 17th prominent candidate to seek the party’s nomination."
AND Chris Christie blames a New Jersey university pollster for his own unpopularity.
Beyond the Beltway
Lisa Cornwell & Dan Sewell of the AP: "A University of Cincinnati police officer who shot a motorist after stopping him over a missing front license plate pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of murder and involuntary manslaughter." ...
... Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "A University of Cincinnati police officer was indicted on murder charges on Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a driver this month. In the indictment handed down by a grand jury in Hamilton County, the officer, Ray Tensing, is accused of killing the driver, Samuel DuBose, during a traffic stop near the campus on July 19. At a news conference, the county prosecutor, Joe Deters, said that Officer Tensing 'purposely killed' Mr. DuBose after the officer lost his temper. The death of Mr. DuBose, who was black, at the hands of Officer Tensing, who is white, joined a string of recent episodes ... that have raised hard questions about law enforcement use of force, and the role of race in policing." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The Jeremy Stahl of Slate: If not for the video, Tensing would have got away with (alleged) murder because his fellow officers backed up his concocted story. "As for what happens next for officers ... who supported Tensing's false account, [County Prosecutor Joe] Deters said the city was 'looking at the issue' at the urging of the Dubose family." ...
... Charles Blow: "What is happening between police officers and people of color in this country is a structural issue and must be deconstructed as such. Cameras won't change basic character.... Police and criminal justice reform has to be a priority in our political actions now, and into the future."
Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "Alabama officials are currently seeking to prevent a pregnant prison inmate from obtaining a legal abortion by stripping her of her parental rights, in a case where a lawyer has been appointed to represent the interests of her fetus."
Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "While the world mourned Cecil, the 13-year-old lion that was allegedly shot by an American hunter in Zimbabwe, an even more devastating poaching incident was quietly carried out in Kenya. Poachers killed five elephants in Tsavo West National Park on Monday night..... While the killing of the lion in Zimbabwe has attracted the world's attention, the death of the five elephants has received almost no coverage, even though elephants are under a far greater threat from poachers than lions. Their tusks can be sold in Asia for more than $1,000 per pound." ...
... Ryan Broderick & Tammera Griffin of BuzzFeed: "Here's what the internet does when it thinks you killed a lion." ...
... Alan Pyke of Think Progress: "What Walter Palmer did wasn't hunting."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The commander of a group of Syrian fighters trained by the United States has been kidnapped by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, his group said in a statement Thursday. The commander, Nadeem Hassan, and seven of his fighters were taken by the Nusra Front, a rival of the Islamic State in Syria, as they were returning from a meeting in Turkey."
AP: "Afghanistan's Taliban on Thursday confirmed the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar, who led the group's self-styled Islamic emirate in the 1990s, sheltered al-Qaida through the 9/11 attacks and led a 14-year insurgency against U.S. and NATO troops. The Taliban Shura, or Supreme Council, chose Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, who had served as Mullah Omar's deputy for the past three years, as its new leader, two Taliban figures told the Associated Press...."
Washington Post: "The U.S. economy rebounded between April and June, new government data showed Thursday, expanding at an annualized rate of 2.3 percent. Growth in the second quarter remained modest, particularly compared with the breakneck pace seen in much of 2014, but it also signaled a bounce-back from a surprisingly sluggish winter when the economy was at a crawl."
New York Times: "Government officials and families of passengers lost on a Malaysian jet that vanished last year with 239 people aboard responded warily on Thursday to the discovery of possible wreckage from the aircraft, reluctant to fan hopes after more than a year of fruitless searching and false rumors. Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss of Australia, whose country has led the search for the jet, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, said that the discovery of an airplane part thousands of miles from the search area was 'a very significant development' but cautioned against concluding that it was from the missing aircraft."
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Reader Comments (23)
Rand Paul, who? I've been regularly checking the New York magazine Web site for words from Frank Rich on the curly-headed one. Some months ago, as I recall...Rich was telling us not to sell Rand short as he would likely be a strong candidate for 2016 (even as most of us were snickering and saying, "Are you serious?"). In fact, Rich had written quite a feature on him. Yet, today Rand is way down in polls. Since Rich is usually quite astute on political matters it would be interesting to get his take today.
How did Little Randy go wrong?
Geez, maybe because taking him seriously in the first place
was a bone-headed idea.
Re white liberals, I'm reminded of a song by Phil Ockes:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/love-me-im-a-liberal-lyrics-phil-ochs.html
Oldie but goodie, a little dated, but still makes a point. Plus ça change...
I'd like to say something about anonymous sources that public commentators haven't really discussed, probably because they think it's self-evident: there's nothing the matter with reporters accepting tips from partisan sources.
Certainly most anonymous tipsters are adversaries of the person or entity they're fingering. But the sources' tips are the starting point of potential stories, not the final write-ups. Answering the phone & writing down what a tipster tells you is not "reporting."
Since almost all tipsters have agendas, reporters have to be skeptical of all the information they provide, including copies of documents. Occasionally, it is necessary or helpful to the reader to cite the sources themselves, but the story should be based on facts obtained from other sources, especially from the principals involved.
If a reporter does cite an anonymous tipster, she has to identify the person in such a way that the reader can decide for herself whether or not the source may have slanted or misstated his contention. Citing "a government official" or "high-level government official" is meaningless. Was that Barack Obama or Mitch McConnell? "Republican leader" would help. "Republican staffer on the House Select Committee" is better. "A top aide to the chairman of the Committee" is even better. If your source refuses to agree to enough specificity to identify his possible bias, a reporter and her editor must cut his input from the story. If eliminating the source's quote & his other uncorroborated assertions blows up the story, then -- guess what? -- there probably wasn't any there there in the first place.
You would think top New York Times editor Matthew Purdy, who was once Judith Miller's editor, would have figured that out some while back. Apparently, he has not.
Marie
@MAG: Yes, I,too, recall that article from Rich and remember we were taken aback a bit. But back then Rand did look as though he had some dog in the fight. I think Randy's floundering between being for something and then not being for that something made him look wishy-washy––unlike our man of the hour who has had the same problem but here Trump manages to convince he has evolved–– Rand, however, just appears weak.
Watched the Senate hearings on the Iran deal once again. Besides Lindsey's arrogant outbursts Tom Cotton was a sight to behold. He didn't ask questions in a civil tone, he commanded answers in a loud, boisterous voice––you would have thought he was portraying an irate Army Sargent. And then we had Joni Ernst who didn't look anything like herself––the band box look is gone, has glasses, no lipstick and a serious person no nonsense persona –-"Obama said," she said, "If we don't do this deal we are going to war with Iran. I find that outrageous!" Before Moniz and Kerry could correct her she was up and gone onto other business. But the final finale was our Mr. Cruz whose behavior was so confrontational McCain (who was the Chair) cut him off in midstream, thanked the panelists, and closed the hearing. I've never seen that happen before.
Yesterday I said to the mister as we were driving past the many brown lawns in our town (it's been brutally hot) that someone will come up with an organic substance that people can spray on their lawns to make them look green. Today read an article that people in California are actually painting their lawns green.
Note to D.C. I don't consider our federal educational system democratic –-right from the start Jefferson proposed universal education for girls but only on an elementary level. Few men of the founding generation believed women were capable of intellectual equality with men. Today our educational system is far from equal in all sorts of ways.
PD:
Believe I'm the one to blame, not D.C. for yesterday's education comment. Still think that public education's opportunities, while admittedly not equal for all, remain a good example of democracy in action, but I take your point and will continue to think about it.
I don't disagree with recalling the Times' Judith Miller days as foreshadowing of the Clinton e-mail "2IGs Go to Justice" screw-up. You would think that editors get paid to know how to spot this problem and deal with it professionally.
But ... there is a big difference between the two experiences.
The (dis)information that Miller peddled pursuant to invading Iraq was not really susceptible to full corroboration. She could have done a better job (or, just a job) of searching out and displaying the opinions of persons who disagreed with intelligence that claimed Iraq had the goods. She could have done a job of pointing out that her sources had biases. But neither she nor any other reporter had the ability objectively to confirm the facts on the ground.
Whereas, with the Times e-mail story last week, a few phone calls would have obtained the actual IG documents that their original sources touted as "criminal referral". The reporters could have obtained facts rather than take tips from touts. They still could have spun up a BS story, but one based on fact.
Which makes the Times reporters suckers. If I was an editor, I would not fire them to punish them, but I would consider letting them go because they are not good at their trade.
I don't disagree with recalling the Times' Judith Miller days as foreshadowing of the Clinton e-mail "2IGs Go to Justice" screw-up. You would think that editors get paid to know how to spot this problem and deal with it professionally.
But ... there is a big difference between the two experiences.
The (dis)information that Miller peddled pursuant to invading Iraq was not really susceptible to full corroboration. She could have done a better job (or, just a job) of searching out and displaying the opinions of persons who disagreed with intelligence that claimed Iraq had the goods. She could have done a job of pointing out that her sources had biases. But neither she nor any other reporter had the ability objectively to confirm the facts on the ground.
Whereas, with the Times e-mail story last week, a few phone calls would have obtained the actual IG documents that their original sources touted as "criminal referral". The reporters could have obtained facts rather than take tips from touts. They still could have spun up a BS story, but one based on fact.
Which makes the Times reporters suckers. If I was an editor, I would not fire them to punish them, but I would consider letting them go because they are not good at their trade.
Jonathan Chait's piece on Rand Paul's dreams of Oval Officedom begins with a twist on Tolstoy's famous opening to "Anna Karenina" which, as you recall, didn't end very well.
Chait also provides something that most of us miss at this stage of the Great Game, a backstage view of campaigns as they work out positions, power, strategies, personal intrigues, money, and, sometimes almost an afterthought, political philosophies.
Paul's inner circle seems, at least according to Chait's account, a pretty shaky bunch. I'm sure there have been campaigns beset by inner turmoil that eventually triumphed, but I will bet my Ovaltine Secret Decoder Ring that none of those campaigns had, at center, such an unstable, odd, and indecisive candidate as Rand Paul.
The problem is twofold. First, The Little One is a dilettante. He's never had to work very hard for anything. He came from a privileged background with a father who had a small but rabid political following and an equally rabid but somewhat darker following for ideas tinged with racism and a large dollop of conspiratorial crazy. He didn't have time to be certified by the AMA so he made up his own certification. He waltzed through his senatorial election, helped along by the pitchfork and Bible crowd, just gaining steam at that point. But his political naiveté rose to the top like soured cream when he blurted out that according to his philosophy, the Civil Rights Act was bad for FREEEDOM and he would have no problem with businesses being able to say "take a hike" to black patrons.
Oops. This wasn't a bad thing because it wasn't politically correct. It was bad because of its questionable morality and its being out of touch with the arc of history, as Martin Luther King would say. A distinct problem when applying a dubious political philosophy to realpolitik issues.
Which brings us to the second problem for Bad Toupée.
You're probably getting tired of hearing me say it, but Libertarianism is not a real philosophy. At least not one that works in the real world. Libertarianism is a collection of thought experiments, which, when translated, create a kind of weird nightmare world.
Communism has been tried in the real world. Constitutional and absolute monarchies, authoritarianism, feudalism, even theocracies. But nowhere at anytime has even a tiny south seas island instituted a successful version of libertarianism. It's the sort of thing that drunk college students debate at 3 AM, but even as a former drunk college student still awake at that hour, I had little patience for a theory so obviously unworkable.
Li'l Randy's other problem is a distinct immaturity. He doesn't want to fundraise (who does?), he doesn't want to go to meetings, he doesn't really want to have to drill down into the underpinnings of policy choices. He doesn't have the patience or perhaps the intellectual rigor to work through the consequences of his political positions which is why they seem so mercurial. I have no problem with someone changing their position based on new information or thoughtful reconsideration, but they should be able to state clearly what the problem was and how they've arrived at their new state. He can't be bothered. His default position seems to be this.
Little Randy is serious in the way that drunk college students at 3 AM believe themselves to be. And he is, in a way, representative of a certain new breed of politicians who see themselves as an avant garde movement in American politics, the 'bagger brigade, all piss and vinegar ready to take on the establishment, to kick ass and take names. But these political tenderfoots are no Cincinnatus. And they're not going back to the plow after they right the wrongs. They're in it for the money and the glory and the power. But they have no idea how to do anything. The Roman political system, even in 460 BCE was pretty complicated and Cincinnatus had been an astute observer of the scene even before his own leap into politics. He was no dim rookie.
The idea of the citizen politician who leaves his plow, goes to the capital for a couple of years of virtuous civic service then returns to the farm has been a useful canard for the right for some time now. Remember term limits? Of the Republican candidates for the House and Senate who signed a pledge on term limits in 1994, during the so-called Gingrich Revolution, 30 of these citizen politicians forgot to return to their plows; all were looking for reelection in 2006 and some are still in congress. So much for civic virtue, Gingrich style.
But here's the problem. Politics is not for dilettantes. There's too much to know. It's a profession and should be treated as such. Teabagging tyros having just tumbled off the turnip truck, like Paul and Cruz and Rubio and Tom Cotton think they can ride in, make a speech and everyone will kneel before them in recognition of their genius. It doesn't work that way as Cruz has been finding out.
The Little One may gain some footing yet, but his essential problems aren't going away. So, in this interim period between the early debates and the fallout when the wheat and chaff operation cranks up, Rand Paul may be like D.C.'s cat, Schrodinger (or to be more accurate, Schrödinger's Cat): dead and alive at the same time.
So while he may not be pushing Libertarianism into the mainstream, Li'l Randy may be in at the beginning of a new form of political phenomenon: Quantum Politics.
Although I'd hate to think that he could, like a subatomic particle, exist in more than one place at the same time. I don't think the wig could take it.
@Patrick: I agree with your assessment. However, this seems to me to be a problem of editorial policy. Reporters don't get to just write investigative stories & toss them up on line when they think they've got what they need. Their editors make the call. Will Dana is leaving Rolling Stone after two decades because of a bad call. Big difference: Dana admitted his errors; the Times editors can't imagine what else their reporters could have done (even tho as Victoria D. suggested last week, the editor of a high school paper could have made some excellent suggestions), & they laid the blame on their sources, not on their own practices.
I happen to think their sources did an excellent job. Their goal was to get an incendiary hit piece against Hillary Clinton on the front page of the New York Times. The story portrayed her as criminally careless & you know, not to be trusted at 3 am or any other time. It implicitly attacked her character, & I think character issues are what move most voters.
The sources met their goal. The fact that the Times belatedly walked back the story doesn't bother them; in fact, wingers are citing the walk-back as proof that Clinton controls the librul media.
Marie
I have to agree that this e-mail story fiasco was bad for the Times but worse for Clinton. Going along like sheep, listening to sources any reasonably aware reporters should know were highly partisan and looking for a big win for their side and applied what they should have learned in Journo 101. And it's ridiculous for any editor to allow a story with such a one-sided slant to go to press. As Marie indicates, the fact that the Times had to acknowledge their unprofessionalism only after the Clinton camp complained gives Confederates the ability to demonstrate how "liberal" the press is despite the fact that the Times was acting as a stenographer for their side.
Terrible, awful, stupid.
But the person to really blame here is Hillary Clinton. This whole megillah came about because of her (admittedly well founded) paranoia and mania for control. And it's clear that she STILL has not figured out how to deal with this shit. Instead of dribbling out e-mails for months, she should have, unless there's some horrific smoking guns in there, done a huge document dump and get this shit over with quickly. Letting the pukers whack her continuously right up to election day (which they will anyway, but then they'd have to find something else) about these e-mails is not good.
Not to mention her quisling answers about things like the XL pipeline. Jesus, Hillary, just say what you think. I know it's only smart to be circumspect, but you can't get away with "I'll tell you when I'm president" forever. Christ, you sound like Trump when you do that.
I gotta tell ya kids, I'm very nervous. Clinton does not fill me with cheer and good feelings. If the Republicans had even a semblance of a real candidate, I'd be positively reeling right now. Luckily she has a bunch of clowns on the other side, but that perception could change if she appears to be sitting back waiting for a coronation. And enough already with the cute videos. State your positions clearly and enough of this rattling around.
C'mon.
I must say that I don't see how that song of D.C.'s is helpful. There are surely liberals who are only liberal in their thoughts about others, but I don't know them. On behalf of my mother, with many, many years of marches and help to others and the founding of a Women's Center in Pittsburgh, and Girl Scouting in a so-called, literal black community in Kentucky, and me, who does not in any way live up to my mother's ideals and actions, I am offended by that song and the implication that liberals are republicans in sheep's clothing. Fuss all you wish about the Democratic party's actions or non-actions, but this is not my Democratic party or my mother's-- I believe the party has long ago left liberals of any stripe. I am disturbed by Hillary and exhilarated by Bernie, and I think other liberals are, too. Or they aren't liberals.
@Akhilleus: I haven't thought this through, so there are probably some gaping holes in my theory, likely enough to blow it out of the water. BUT ...
I think the Articles of Confederation, & to a lesser extent, early government under the current Constitution, were exercises in libertarianism. The federal government remained weak. There was little in the way of a standing U.S. military. State militias were the last defense against tyranny, foreign & domestic. Thomas Jefferson was just as a'feared of a "regular army" as those Jade Helm nuts are today.
There was little regulation of commerce, much less of health & safety matters; states were relatively autonomous on most matters, including of course slavery. For much of the pre-Civil War era, there was no national bank.
"Jacksonian democracy," as far as I can tell, is not much different from libertarianism. Jackson would have been happy to have Ron Paul as secretary of the treasury.
The president & veep were elected by the states (as it still is today), not directly by the people. There was no real "national" organization.
Before Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court's authority to conduct "judicial review" of the other two branches of government was unclear. But the "judicial review" authority remained unstable for years. Jackson declared that the president was not bound by Supreme decisions.
This is the sort of freeedom today's libertarians have in mind. No civil rights hoohah. No Social Security & Medicare. No interstate highway system, etc. Nobody "in Washington telling them what to do."
Marie
Oh, Marie, by the way, it's likely that you weren't able to access the Planned Parenthood site directly, because they've been attacked.
A denial of service attack by hackers from....an as yet unnamed source (eyes rolling). DoS attacks are pretty easy so even a not that smart Confederate hacker could pull it off.
The idea is to keep important information from women because we all know how much Confederates respect women's right to control their own lives.
@Akhilleus: The reason Clinton hasn't done a "huge document dump" is that the State Department won't let her. If the Times reporters were better writers, you would know that. I'm not convinced the reporters had any idea of what the story was actually about when they wrote it.
Many moons back, the AP (and others, I think) made an FOIA request for Hillary's correspondence related to Benghaaazi!
Right after Michael Schmidt reported in March 2015 that Hillary was using a private server, she said -- multiple times -- that she wanted all the emails to come out as soon as possible because they would prove there was no there there.
Meanwhile, the AP had gone to federal court to get State to release the documents. When the court ruled that State would have to provide the emails to the AP, State said, okay, well dump them all in January 2016. The judge said, no, you'll have to dribble them out. Meanwhile, part-time workers (as we learned yesterday) are going over each email & vetting it for secret stuff, which they're redacting.
This is what the not-criminal investigation was about. The IGs found that some of the e-mails State was dribbling out contained classified info, even tho it didn't show up as classified at the time it appeared in Hillary's e-mail correspondence. The IGs are required to send notification to the DOJ when they discovered that government officials -- in this case, grunts at State -- are making public classified material, purposely or not.
Although it was not unlawful (contra the March Times report) for Hillary to use a private server, Hillary was secretary while the Obama administration was instituting a policy to wean administration employees off of private carriers & onto the federal system (which has been breached numerous times!). Recent previous secretaries of state also used private email systems for government business, but not exclusively, as Hillary seemed to do.
I buy Hillary's defense, "I like the convenience of my Blackberry" (or whatever she was using). Yeah, me too. I hate learning a new thing every month. But here's the thing: she could have used her "convenient" device without raising any questions of impropriety if her account had automatically copied the State Department's archives on every e-mail. If she wanted to send private e-mails to personal friends about Chelsea's wedding plans or whatever, she could have used the very same device to send those private notes. I'm sure most of you have more than one email account. That really isn't hard, even for someone who's not into electronics stuff (say, someone like me).
So bottom line, Hillary did create this mess, as you say. If she didn't notice the hazards of her practice, her staff should have. Hillary's problem, once again, I think, is in relying on sycophants, none of whom will ever tell her she's screwing up. In the big picture, that's really a bigger worry about a Clinton presidency than whether or not she likes Keystone XL or a $15/hour minimum wage.
Marie
@Jeanne Pitz: You're missing the point that I've tried to convey here, mostly thru links to opinion pieces by black (and some white) writers -- that there is a structural difference between the way blacks & whites are received in our culture -- and by "culture," I don't mean just our Confederate-flag-waving wing.
When Bernie Sanders argued that his economic proposals were the answer, blacks said, no, that answer is only half-right. Bernie didn't get that till after Black Lives Matter sent him reeling. I don't approve of the tactics they used against him, but I just might be wrong about that -- because rude worked. To his great credit, Bernie later responded positively to his rude awakening.
I'm probably not as radical even now as Phil Ochs was then (and I think my reaction to Black Lives Matter tactics proves that), but Ochs' point is well-taken: white liberals can be very self-serving & self-congratulatory even when congratulations are not merited. We're okay with certified-nice Neegroes, but not so much with Malcolm X/Black Lives Matter agitators.
What Phil Ochs does is put liberals in our ideological place. We may be happy with that place & decide it's "good enough" or even "just right," but we shouldn't be shocked -- the way Jon Stewart was -- when a black person says, "no, not good enough." Others will judge us. We may ultimately conclude they're over-the-top or unreasonable, but "Fuck off! I'm done with you," is not the best first response.
Marie
This might give us a clue as to how democratic our education system is. AP History class curriculum being changed in response to right-wing criticism. Exceptionalism! Freeedom! BS!
Point taken, Marie. I think I speak out of guilt, at not being what my mother was (Stevenson voter--)but I also think things are so much more complex that it is tough to really label people accurately anymore. Self-labeling is a fall-back position, and I'm sure I haven't moved far enough left to be a "real" liberal, but that's where my sympathies lie, always. It will never be enough, though, for those who really feel the bias in daily life-- I get that.
Hello Jeanne Pitz,
When I first heard 'Love Me I'm a Liberal" in 1966, I also was quite taken aback. We were all very young and idealistic, and I had instantly identified with, and admired, every other song Ochs had written. Surly he couldn't be referring to me or my friends in that song. Others felt the same, and concert audiences reacted with, at best, rather nervous laughter.
I was also taken aback by the album cover. It featured a lengthy idyllic poem attributed to Mao, followed by the query: "Is this the Enemy?" To which my reaction was, and is, "Hell Yes." See yesterday's comment on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Ochs was a radical leftist, and the song was a biting satire on what he considered lukewarm lefties: anyone not ready for 'The Revolution'.
He took very literally the old leftist credo: "Comfort the Afflicted, and Afflict the Comfortable". There's no denying that many liberals were, and are, pretty comfortable. Not only in their material existence, but their self esteem.
The best social satire works when it forces each of us to see just a little bit of ourselves in the target sights. Ochs felt it wasn't enough to preach to the choir, sometimes you've got to shake them up bit.
Thanks for your comments, and best regards,
Marie,
Thanks for your responses to both the Hillary comment and the Libertarian rant.
I'll have more time later to go into the Libertarian thing, but I get what you're saying about the Clinton e-mail situation and I agree. I had realized that it was also an issue for State but I'm mostly peeved at the way the Clinton campaign has thus far carried itself. And it makes me nervous.
And the fact that Confederates don't know or care who government works is no excuse for the shoddy way so much of the media has treated this thing. You'd think they were reporting on someone lying to start an illegal war. Which they never did even when it happened.
But they'll happily build a big bonfire around Hillary Clinton's approach to e-mail usage.
RE: The Alabama prison mate who wants/needs to terminate her pregnancy:
Gotta love how the reach of “Guardian Ad Litem” generously extends toward ('the best interests of') the fetus . . . while wholly ignoring same for the woman who is carrying.
What so many don't (wish to?) "get" is that abortion ain't no easy-peasy "choice" (nor, at times, is it free from physical injury of consequence: with the best of care, things can happen).
I can't think of a single woman I know who, while fully understanding their decision was "right" & necessary, doesn't still carry the psychological heft of having "terminated".
I ache for this woman.
And for the future of (obtainable) healthcare for all women.
Had to share this. One of the reasons I love Oregon!😍 Of course the Coast Guard will eventually arrest the "bridge danglers," but this is one helluva protest. It will definitely affect the timetable of starting the Arctic drilling.
http://www.katu.com/news/local/Shell-ship-heading-toward-suspended-activists-on-St-Johns-Bridge-319991821.html
P.S. Why don't the Ass Hats at NYT just go back to Ronnie Reagan's favorite mantra: "Mistakes were made." That covers the waterfront and makes absolutely nobody accountable for anything.
Ophelia,
Just remember how Barney Frank described the Confederate approach to conception, birth, and life:
These people care about you from the time you're conceived until the moment you're born. After that, you're on your own.
I'd hasten to add that you're on your own unless you're rich and white and vote Republican. In that case, they will line up to wipe your ass.
Akhilleus,
Got to expand Barney and your exceptions a little:
They do have some things to say about how and to whom conception occurs. Married, monagamous hetrosexual, couples only, preferably of the same religion, ethnicity, and in the missionary position -- and none of that nasty sort of foreplay.
And at the other end -- If you're terminally ill, facing years of helpless and hopeless suffering, you cannot elect to, nor may anyone assist you to hasten your demise. You must be made to live on in agony until god is done toying with you. I wouldn't do that to a cat.