The Commentariat -- June 19, 2014
Obsolete videos removed.
Alissa Rubin & Rod Nordland of the New York Times: "Alarmed over the Sunni insurgent mayhem convulsing Iraq, the country's political leaders are actively jockeying to replace Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, American and Iraqi officials said Thursday. The political leaders have been encouraged by what they see as newfound American support for replacing Mr. Maliki with someone more acceptable to Iraq's Sunnis and Kurds, as well as to the Shiite majority." ...
... Justin Sink & Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "President Obama is not close to seeking congressional authorization for airstrikes in Iraq. After a White House meeting between Obama and the top four leaders in Congress, all sides involved signaled they want to leave options open for handling a politically delicate and fluid crisis that threatens to leave jihadist terrorists in control of Iraq." ...
... The video of this photo-op, where we see Mitch McConnell -- if not John Boehner -- smiling & looking normal in the Oval Office just strikes me as bizarre:
... BUT then I remembered that several months ago McConnell released this video for news organizations to use for outside groups to use in their ads -- presumably in clips -- with stories about Mitch. Fake smiling is what he does:
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "House Republicans will vote on their leadership on Thursday, but the outcome will essentially keep them in a holding pattern, with the real contest months if not years away.... The coming months will determine who can emerge as heir apparent to Mr. Boehner in the absence of Mr. Cantor and get established as the new voice and face of the House majority." ...
... CW: One possible scenario: Brat loses the general election to Democrat Jack Trammell, & Cantor gains back his seat in two years. This wouldn't give him back his job as minority leader, but he could still go for the top spot. This of course also depends upon whether or not Cantor & his family find the newfound mega-income that will accompany his loss too appealing to give up.
Rebecca Riffkin of Gallup: "Americans' confidence in Congress has sunk to a new low. Seven percent of Americans say they have 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in Congress as an American institution, down from the previous low of 10% in 2013. This confidence is starkly different from the 42% in 1973, the first year Gallup began asking the question."
** What DickKnew. Charles Blow: "... it's so galling to read [Dick] Cheney chastising this administration for its handling of the disaster that Mr. Cheney himself foresaw, but ignored." ...
** ... E. J. Dionne: "The Cheney polemic would be outrageous even if our former vice president's record on Iraq had been one of absolute clairvoyance. As it happens, he was wrong in almost every prediction he made about the war." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Dick Cheney [Is] Not Completely Sure If Obama Is a Traitor." ...
... Here, Chait argues that we should be listening to the people who repeatedly got it wrong. Because, like, maybe they have good arguments now. CW: Also, Monkey Types Shakespeare Sonnet. After typing millions of random characters of gibberish.
Sam Kleiner in the New Republic: "With the capture of Ahmed Abu Khatalla, the alleged mastermind of the Benghazi attack, Senator [Lindsey] Graham [R-S.C.] is once again accusing Obama of being weak on terror for failing to try the suspect in the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.... [Republicans'] attempt to push this case into a military commission is not only misguided, it is dangerous. In depicting disarrayed groups who perpetuate terrorism as unified actors in a 'war' on the United States, we send a signal that bolsters their credibility.... The Obama administration's balanced approach is spot-on, and hackneyed criticism from Republicans like Senator Graham once again misses the mark. This process of conducting an interrogation by the military and then putting the suspect in federal court allows for the military to do what it is best at and for prosecutors to do what they are best at. Republican attacks here are to be expected, but they have been proven wrong time and time again." ...
... CW: Seems to me there was a time when prominent Republicans behaved more-or-less honorably -- especially on matters of national security -- & raised objections to Democratic actions on issues with which they genuinely disagreed & had some sort of substantive evidence or philosophical reason for disagreeing. That "Republican attacks here are to be expected" is a sad commentary on the dissolute state of the party.
Jonathan Topaz of Politico: "One word — 'Iraq' -- was never mentioned at the unveiling of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's official portrait with Secretary of State John Kerry." CW: A reminder that so far George I Know There Are WMDs Here Somewhere Bush, Condi "Bin Ladin Determined to Attack" Rice & Colin "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Powell so far have not joined Cheney, Bremer, Wolfowitz, et al., on the op-ed pages & Sunday shows.
CW: Meant to link this yesterday. Tom Edsall of the New York Times: "Over the past three decades, Congress has conducted a major experiment in anti-poverty policy. Legislators have restructured benefits and tax breaks intended for the poor so that they penalize unmarried, unemployed parents -- the modern-day version of the 'undeserving poor.' At the same time, working parents, the aged and the disabled are getting larger benefits.... For the poorest of the poor, the results have been devastating."
Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post thinks that if Republicans take the Senate in November, House Republicans will be emboldened to impeach President Obama. This sounds a little wild, but as Capehart notes, "If Republicans are willing to ignore their leadership and jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States, there really is nothing they aren't willing to do.... Obama is not on the ballot in November, but Obama is on the ballot in November. Democrats have it in their power to keep the Senate and save the Obama presidency from the all-but-certain asterisk of impeachment. Obama is not on the ballot in November, but Obama is on the ballot in November. Democrats have it in their power to keep the Senate and save the Obama presidency from the all-but-certain asterisk of impeachment."
In that little paper he owns, U.S. immigrant Rupert Murdoch writes an op-ed urging legislators to pass immigration reform. Firewalled. Google this blurb to read it: "There is rarely a good time to do hard things, and America won't advance if legislators act like seat-warmers."
Annals of Journalism, Ctd.
Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "... offering Dick Cheney or Doug Feith or Paul Wolfowitz column inches and airtime without also flashing neon culpability disclosures amounts to a conflict-of-interest error these editors and reporters and producers would never allow if they were soliciting somebody from, say, the American Petroleum Institute." ...
Kelly is right about this, a 2010 remark by Joe Biden of which I was unaware:
George Will Begins His Slow, Painful & Necessary Retirement. Tony Messenger, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page editor: "Starting today, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson replaces George Will [on our editorial page].... We believe that Mr. Gerson's commitment to 'compassionate conservatism' and his roots in St. Louis will better connect with our readers, regardless of their political bent. The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier. The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it."
CW: The other day I linked a column by Dana Milbank on the rude & unseemly treatment by members of a Heritage Foundation panel on Benghaaazi! & their audience to a Muslim attendee who asked a question. In a post titled "Dana Milbank's Heritage Disaster,' Dylan Byers of Politico, after having seen a clip of a portion of the forum, wrote a highly-critical review of Milbank's column. ...
... Milbank responds to Byers' criticisms & to Byers' practice of "armchair journalism": "... there was indeed a disaster: the sort of disaster that occurs when a journalist, from the comfort of his office, levels accusations based on a nine-minute clip of a 65-minute panel he hadn't attended. (Heritage didn't post the full video until well after the Byers report, and Byers didn't take me up on my offer to provide him earlier with my audio recording.)" ...
... Brian Beutler backs up Milbank. ...
... Update: Byers has a fairly classy response. Although he doesn't take back any of his original post, he points readers to Milbank's rebuttal & reports Milbank's major objections to his own critique. Not exactly a mea culpa, but not at all whiney, either.
Presidential Election 2016
Gail Collins: "Mitt Romney is back."
News Ledes
Reuters: "Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists were locked in fierce fighting in the east of Ukraine on Thursday after rebels rejected a call to lay down their arms in line with a peace plan proposed by President Petro Poroshenko, government forces said."
CNN: "William 'Kyle' Carpenter lost most of his jaw and an eye when he fell on a grenade to shield a fellow Marine from the blast. His body shattered, one lung collapsed, Carpenter was nearly given up for dead after that 2010 Afghanistan firefight. Then he spent 2½ years in a hospital as doctors worked to rebuild his body.... On Thursday, he will become the eighth living veteran of U.S. combat in Iraq and Afghanistan to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award."
New York Times: "Two major studies by leading research groups published on Wednesday independently identified mutations in a single gene that protect against heart attacks by keeping levels of triglycerides -- a kind of fat in the blood -- very low for a lifetime. The findings are expected to lead to a push to develop drugs that mimic the effect of the mutations, potentially offering the first new class of drugs to combat heart disease in decades, experts say."
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Reader Comments (15)
Seem the clairvoyant RCers predicted, certainly urged, the increasingly cranky and befuddled Mr. Will's retirement just last week. With that kind of power in hand, maybe we ought to add more names to the list, a joyous exercise I'll leave to the rest of you, as I will be away from the computer for the next four or five days.
Farewell for now (I'm including myself; it will be a long drive), all.
Hooray for the Post-Dispatch, not just to drop out Will, but to state that his campus assault piece made dropping him easy, and that his work was offensive and inaccurate. If other editorial boards just start to apply one of those standards (accurate) it would go a long way toward improving journalism and public discourse.
About the other standard, offensiveness -- meh, no problems. As long as people are honest they can be publicly offensive as much as the market will bear.
@Ken Winkes: If you miss us, you can stop at any McDonald's along the way, plug in & connect. Take it from one with experience in these things.
Marie
As we have ascertained on numerous occasions, daily, in fact, Republicans have no shame. Dick Cheney is proof positive of this. No shame, no ethics, no morals. Just snarling, vicious self-interest.
That any media outlet offers this lying war criminal a platform to spew his poison gives the fourth estate an almost fifth columnist cast.
Interviewing Cheney on Iraq is like giving Jeffrey Dahmer his own cooking show.
@Ak!
"Interviewing Cheney on Iraq is like giving Jeffrey Dahmer his own cooking show." is perfect!!!!
It needs to be distributed widely. Can you put it on other places?
You are a stellar writer, but that sentence skewers Cheney through his used heart.
mae finch
After watching the Fox interview I couldn't keep my eyes off of Liz's robotics. Is she real? It seems she's officially joined the Dark Side and is turning into a clone of her father. I've been waiting to pop the cork on some champagne upon Cheney's false heart stopping because the world will be rid of a sick and powerful human being but now it seems clear that Liz would love to further her father's legacy by stepping into his bloody boots post-mortem.
Luckily in our male-dominated society she'll never get her hands on the levers of real power as Dick did, no matter how hard Dick spends his last days trying to sell her brand. But that won't be for a lack of trying.
Mae,
Thanks. I think if Cheney ever read that one he'd be proud in his own special, warped way.
Awed but not shocked.
...and who saw this coming? or what took so damn long!!!!!!! ?
"Prosecutors: Gov. Walker part of 'criminal scheme' "
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101769749
"....at the center of a nationwide "criminal scheme" to illegally coordinate fundraising with outside conservative groups, according to previously secret court documents released Thursday. "
On this date in 1939, the Mayo Clinic informed Lou Gehrig that he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS. Ever since then, in this country, ALS is also called "Lou Gehrig's Disease."
Since nobody really knows what causes ALS, it continues to be very expensive to do research on its causes and treatment. As a PALS (Person with ALS), I'm doing my part to raise money for the ALS Association's reseach programs this summer and fall. Lou Gehrig only lived two years after diagnosis. So far, I've survived four years. I'll do all I can while I'm still relativelly functional
Here is a link to my page:
http://wbga.alsa.org/goto/BobsWarriors
I know we're constantly bombarded with appeals for this or that cause. The ALS Assciation has a very good rating from Charity Navigator, with 72.4% of funds going where they should and only 11% on overhead. The CEO of the Georgia branch receives no salary.
Any amount you can give will be much appreciated.
Bob Hicks
aka Barbarossa
Posted with permission.
Corrected copy:
On this date in 1939, the Mayo Clinic informed Lou Gehrig that he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS. Ever since then, in this country, ALS is also called "Lou Gehrig's Disease."
Since nobody really knows what causes ALS, it continues to be very expensive to do research on its causes and treatment. As a PALS (Person with ALS), I'm doing my part to raise money for the ALS Association's reseach programs this summer and fall. Lou Gehrig only lived two years after diagnosis. So far, I've survived four years. I'll do all I can while I'm still relativelly functional
Here is a link to my page:
http://webga.alsa.org/goto/BobsWarriors
I know we're constantly bombarded with appeals for this or that cause. The ALS Assciation has a very good rating from Charity Navigator, with 72.4% of funds going where they should and only 11% on overhead. The CEO of the Georgia branch receives no salary.
Any amount you can give will be much appreciated.
Posted with permission.
MAG,
Wow. Republicans were right all along. Election laws are being violated brazenly and with complete disregard for the democratic process. Only it's by them!
Luckily for the citizens of Scott Walker's state, the Wisconsin Club for Graveolence is on the case making sure that conservative causes and Koch issues remain front and center and that illegal fundraising scams remain the backbone of Republican election stealing schemes.
No wonder that Republican judge tried to shut down this investigation and make prosecutors burn all their evidence.
This just gets better and better.
Here's some different links to the story of Scott Walker's shit hitting the fan. Haven't read them all but it sounds like he's toasting à la Chris Christie. Couldn't happen to a better sleaze.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/19/1308142/-Prosecutors-Scott-Walker-at-the-Center-of-a-Criminal-Scheme
Speak of the devil, I mention Christie's toasts and his buns burns a little brighter.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/19/1308163/-Prosecutors-closing-in-on-Governor-Christie-reports-Esquire
A response to C.W's comment re: "Seems to me there was a time when prominent Republicans behaved more-or-less honorably ..." and Ak's "Interviewing Cheney on Iraq is like giving Jeffrey Dahmer his own cooking show."
This morning while the mister and I were driving places during a morning of dirty clouds and heavy rain, a perfect weather for discussion of Liz and Dick with Lindsey Graham tacked on (his nasty retort about Obama), my mister heaved a sigh and said, "Do you remember a time when a former vice president or president disparaged a sitting president? Or a member of Congress used the kind of language Graham used while on a T.V. panel show?" I had no memory of that kind of asperity. It started with "You lie" and Cheney's "fuck you" to Leahy on the senate floor and it's been full steam ahead ever since. Then I said that the hubris of the Cheney's with their save America crap would be like Bernie Madoff coming back to advise us on our finances. Granted, it can't beat Dahmer's Dynamite Dinners (when we get our Mae Finch to weigh in, it's a red letter day) but we are on the same page; trying to get one's mind around this kind of arrogance and head in sand behavior is trying and infuriating. But back to the rain swept drive––suddenly I thought of "Rosemary's Baby" when she discovers the truth ––"All of them Witches," she says with hand over mouth at the discovery. The pictures of all of those neocons touting the cri de coer and the word Empire twinkling in their eyes swam before MY eyes and the memory of that horrific time still leaves me with an ache and both hands over my mouth.
Thanks Marie for following up on the Dana Milbank story. I watched the video and was quite amazed at the response of the panel. Chris Hayes covered it yesterday and had Dana on. Again, as happens with report of only half a story we don't get the full picture.
And kudos to Megyn Kelly for her interview. When Cheney mistakenly calls her Reagan instead of Megyn, I thought, she's gonna get him for that.
@PD Pepe-"Bernie Madoff coming back to advise us on our finances" is a jewel--as is, of course, AK's "Interviewing Cheney on Iraq is like giving Jeffrey Dahmer his own cooking show." I have laughed all day about that--and sent it on to my friends. Now they are going to get your simile. Wouldn't this be a neat game to play with our brilliant crew--after a few tokes or a few bites of a brownie. I can only imagine what we would come up with!
@Barbarossa-I am so very sorry you have ALS! That is the worst disease I can imagine--except Alzheimer's. My husband's best friend is a PALS, and he finds the going very tough. I admire your lack of self-pity and your continuing creativity in thinking, writing and being truly "into life!" I plan to send a donation to the ALS Association and will be thinking of you when I do. I think of you as a cyber soul-mate!