The Commentariat -- June 2, 2015
All internal links removed.
NEW. Sam Borden of the New York Times: "Sepp Blatter said Tuesday that he would resign from the presidency of FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, in the wake of a corruption inquiry, an extraordinary turn just four days after he was re-elected and defiantly insisted that he was blameless and committed to cleaning up the organization. Mr. Blatter, 79, said he would ask FIFA to schedule a new election for his replacement as soon as possible. The next FIFA congress is scheduled to meet in May 2016, but he acknowledged that the organization could not wait that long for new leadership given the current situation."
NEW. Mike DeBonis & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The Senate advanced a sweeping remake of U.S. surveillance powers Tuesday, two days after an internal split among Republicans caused the legal authority for key counterterrorism programs to temporarily expire. By a vote of 83 to 14, the measure cleared a crucial procedural hurdle, as senators acted to close debate on the USA Freedom Act, a House-passed bill that would end the National Security Agency's practice of collecting troves of call data from telephone companies.... Depending on the amendment votes and procedural maneuvers, the bill could be signed into law as soon as Tuesday night."
NEW. Jerry Hirsch of the Los Angeles Times: "Elon Musk says his companies don't need the estimated $4.9 billion they enjoy in government support, but the money will help them move faster to transform the dirty business of energy. 'If I cared about subsidies, I would have entered the oil and gas industry,' said Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and the chairman of SolarCity. Musk's remarks came in response to a Times story detailing his corporate strategy of incubating high-risk, high-tech companies with government money -- estimating the total received or pledged so far at $4.9 billion, a figure Musk did not dispute."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday revived an employment discrimination lawsuit against Abercrombie & Fitch, which had refused to hire a Muslim woman because she wore a head scarf. The company said the scarf clashed with its dress code, which called for a 'classic East Coast collegiate style.' 'This is really easy,' Justice Antonin Scalia said in announcing the decision from the bench. The company, he said, at least suspected that the applicant, Samantha Elauf, wore the head scarf for religious reasons. The company's decision not to hire her, Justice Scalia said, was motivated by a desire to avoid accommodating her religious practice. That was enough, he concluded, to allow her to sue under a federal employment discrimination law. The vote was 8 to 1, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting.... In dissent, Justice Thomas wrote that the company's dress code was a neutral policy that could not be the basis for a discrimination lawsuit."
... The Washington Post story, by Robert Barnes, is here. ...
... CW: I'm just glad Scalia recognizes non-Christian practices. In the past, he has argued that the cross stands for people of all religions & has ridiculed the idea that it does not.
Adam Liptak: "The Supreme Court on Monday made it harder to prosecute people for threats made on Facebook and other social media, reversing the conviction of a Pennsylvania man who directed brutally violent language against his estranged wife. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said prosecutors must do more than prove that reasonable people would view statements as threats. The defendant's state of mind matters, the chief justice wrote, though he declined to say just where the legal line is drawn. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for seven justices, grounding his opinion in criminal-law principles concerning intent rather than the First Amendment's protection of free speech." ...
... Robert Barnes' story is here.
Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "A federal judge who is hearing a lawsuit from House Republicans against President Obama is requesting more information about a funding dispute at the center of the case.... Judge Rosemary Collyer, an appointee of former President George W. Bush..., appeared skeptical last week of the administration's request to dismiss the lawsuit.... The administration last week asked Collyer to dismiss the lawsuit ... argu[ing] the House lacked standing, meaning there is no particular harm to the House and the body is, therefore, ineligible to bring the suit. But Collyer ... indicat[ed] that there could be harm to the House if the administration had ignored its funding decisions."
Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Mona Lynch in a New York Times op-ed: "For decades, our federal court system has been quietly perpetrating some of the deepest injustices in the name of the war on drugs.... We must rein in these practices if we are to reshape our country's criminal justice system for the 21st century.... Data also indicate that mandatory minimums and enhancements ... have been disproportionately used against black defendants." See also the story of Lester Bower under Beyond the Beltway.
Tierney Sneed of TPM profiles Edward Blum, the man behind the Supreme Court case that could change one-person-one-vote to one-voter-one-vote.
The Guardian is liveblogging today's Senate debate on the USA Freedom Act. ...
... Mitch's Latest Game Plan. Dustin Volz of the National Journal: Rand Paul "won't be scoring votes on the surveillance amendments he so desperately wanted. But Mitch McConnell will.... The majority leader came to the floor late Sunday evening — after most senators had gone home for the night -- to offer a handful of amendments to the surveillance-reform bill known as the USA Freedom Act. The measure would revive the Patriot Act's dead authorities but reform its most controversial one, Section 215, to effectively end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of U.S. phone metadata. By 'filling the tree' with what he called 'modest' changes to the measure, McConnell effectively blocked off debate on other potential amendments -- including two Paul had said he would stand down for if he was promised simple-majority votes on them.... If any of [McConnell's amendments] pass, they would need to go back to the House, which could prompt a game of legislative Ping-Pong delaying the bill's final passage -- and keep the Patriot Act lapse from ending." ...
... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "Mitch McConnell -- even in the face of an Appellate Court finding against the NSA -- has been demonstrating why Rand Paul is right. "... the only amendments there ought to be room for are ones that McConnell wouldn't like." (CW: And which, according to Volz, Mitch has precluded.)
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The families of four Americans imprisoned or unaccounted for in Iran will testify Tuesday before a House committee poised to call for Iran to release the detainees immediately."
Justin Fishel, et al., of ABC News: "An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation's busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned. The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system. According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General's report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints." Emphasis added. ...
... CW: This should make the usual scaredy cats a lot more anxious than the sunsetting of the NSA's bulk data collection program. ...
... Adam Lerner of Politico: "Melvin Carraway, the TSA’s acting administrator was reassigned, according to a statement issued by Jeh Johnson, secretary of Homeland Security. Mark Hatfield, who had been the agency's acting deputy director, will take the reins. Carraway, who joined the agency in 2004, had been the acting administrator only since January. Johnson's moves came the same day of an embarrassing report about the agency's handling of security at the nation's airports."
Michael Grunwald of Politico: "The public debate [on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal] has focused on the adequacy of TPP's environmental and labor safeguards, its potential to feather the nests of well-connected pharmaceutical, software and finance interests, and the secrecy of its negotiations. But the heart of the deal is an effort by the twelve participating countries to phase out tariffs and other export barriers for more than 11,000 categories of commodities, and [U.S. Trade Rep Michael] Froman is frustrated that isn't getting more attention. In an interview with Politico, he said export-supported U.S. jobs pay 13 to 18 percent more than the average job, and argued that freer trade along the Pacific Rim would create a lot more of them." ...
... Nick Gass of Politico: "WikiLeaks announced an effort Tuesday to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for the remaining chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, after the organization published three draft chapters of the deal in recent years. 'The transparency clock has run out on the TPP. No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let's open the TPP once and for all,' WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement."
Still Doin' the Obummer Care Song & Dance. Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "House GOP leaders are offering a glimpse into how they plan to respond to this month's highly anticipated decision on ObamaCare. The trio of House leaders plans to outline specific policy proposals sometime before the court's ruling, but will hold off on releasing legislative language until afterwards, according to a spokesman for Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). 'We'll have a plan that will be public before the ruling, but given that we don't know exactly what they'll say, we'll have to wait for the ruling to have text to align with the situation,' spokesperson Brendan Buck said Monday." CW: Some glimpse. Just one more effort to influence the Supremes in a decision they probably already have made. ...
... Simon Maloy of Salon: "The day before oral arguments in the case began in March, the three working group members published an op-ed laying out in determinedly vague terms the principles for their Obamacare 'off-ramp' proposal. After the oral arguments, the working group released a statement saying 'we will be ready to act' if the court rules for the plaintiffs. That was three months ago. The court's ruling is expected to be released very soon. So where is the 'contingency plan' majority leader [Kevin] McCarthy said would be forthcoming back in January?... He and his colleagues have insisted over and over that they'll be 'ready' for the fallout of the King decision, but when pressed to demonstrate that readiness, they demur. The reality of the situation -- which McCarthy and his colleagues have worked to obscure -- is that the Republicans remain as divided as ever on how to actually handle the impossibly complex task of crafting healthcare legislation." ...
... MEANWHILE in Kansas. Katrina vanden Huevel of the Nation, in the Washington Post: "This 'real live experiment [to reject the ACA Medicaid expansion, among other catastrophic decisions],' as [Gov. Sam] Brownback once put it, has resulted in the pain and suffering of many Kansans. And yet, instead of acknowledging those consequences as a warning sign, the Republican presidential candidates have embraced them as a blueprint. It's all part of the same GOP pattern -- a continued retreat away from reason and toward a blind ideology -- one that always comes with a body count."
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The federal judge assigned to preside over the criminal case against former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) donated at least twice to Hastert's congressional campaigns, federal campaign finance records show. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin gave Hastert for Congress $500 in 2002 and $1000 in 2004, according to the Federal Election Commission. Thomas Durkin made the donations while he was a partner at a private law firm, Mayer Brown." He also made other small donations to Republican candidates. Durkin is an Obama appointee. "One of [the defense] lawyers [in another case against Hastert], Hastert's son Ethan, is a partner at Mayer Brown -- which happens to be the same firm Durkin worked at before he was appointed to the federal bench." ...
... CW: Hey, Durkin is a gentleman & a judge. I'm sure he'll be impartial. This is how the system works. ...
... Bill Press thinks Denny Hastert got a raw deal. It was his own money! It was private! He's not a drug dealer or a Mafia guy! ...
... Jeffrey Toobin: "The precise contours of Hastert's relationship with Individual A remain mysterious, but his legal ordeal is easily understood and, it seems, richly deserved." BTW, according to Toobin, paying off an extortionist is legal.
Opera Buffa. Dana Milbank: Yet another bungled GOP effort at "minority outreach." CW: A low-comedy version of "The Marriage of Figaro," without the sex. But music! Betrayal! Missed meetings! Buffoons! Buffoons! Buffoons!
Brady Dennis & Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post: "The National Cancer Institute's announcement Monday that it will soon begin a nationwide trial to test treatments based on the genetic mutations in patients' tumors, rather than on where the tumors occur in the body, highlights a profound shift taking place in the development of cancer drugs. Researchers increasingly are using DNA sequencing, which has become far faster and cheaper over time, to identify molecular abnormalities in cancers. That technology is allowing them to develop drugs they hope will prove more effective in specific sets of patients and to design clinical trials that get the most promising drugs to market more quickly. 'We are truly in a paradigm change,' James H. Doroshow, director of the division of cancer treatment and diagnosis at the NCI, said in announcing the initiative Monday."
William Rashbaum & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Federal authorities believe that Sepp Blatter's top lieutenant at FIFA made $10 million in bank transactions that are central elements of the bribery scandal engulfing international soccer, United States officials and others briefed on the case said Monday. The revelation puts the money trail closer to Mr. Blatter, FIFA's president, than had been previously known." ...
Presidential Race
Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "In a wide-ranging interview [with Katie Couric], the Vermont independent senator and Democratic presidential hopeful [Bernie Sanders] said he is running because someone needs to stand up for the middle class":
... CW: Thanks to Yahoo! for giving Bernie a halo.
Sam Frizell of Time: "Hillary Clinton will officially launch her campaign for president on June 13 with a rally on New York City's Roosevelt Island, ending the gradual ramp-up phase of her bid for president."
Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: Run Warren Run is shutting down.
Katie Glueck of Politico: "He's spent a third of his life in Congress and is a fixture on the Sunday morning news-show circuit, making nearly 70 appearances in the past five years. But as he announced his presidential bid Monday here in the tiny town where he grew up, Lindsey Graham sought to knock down the notion that he's a creature of Washington, telling a personal story that's largely been overlooked over the course of his two decades in the House and Senate. It's the tale of a son of pool-hall owners, who grew up near-impoverished in the back room of his parents' bar. As a college student, he raised, and eventually adopted, his little sister after their parents died, before going on to have a career as an Air Force lawyer and then rising to become South Carolina's senior senator." CW: I'm glad to find out Graham is an actual human being & not just a talk-show clown. I'm not sure why coming up through the school of hard knocks turns a person into a warmonger. ...
CW Update: Oh, I forgot. Contributor D. C. Clark reminds me that Graham answered my question last week:
My family owned a restaurant, a pool room, and a liquor store, and everything I know about the Iranians I learned in the pool room. I ran the pool room when I was a kid and I met a lot of liars, and I know the Iranians are lying. -- Lindsey Graham
... Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Lindsey Graham has a plan to win the GOP nomination. If it works, it'd be a first." DelReal explains the flaw in the plan. CW: What DelReal doesn't discuss is how much control Graham has over his state's GOP organization, a consideration crucial to his thesis & Graham's plan.
As Akhilleus might say, "He seems nice."According to the Wall Street Journal (no link), Dick Cheney is making a comeback with a book & an "advocacy group" -- lovely daughter Liz is his co-conspirator -- that is meant "to make a splash on the national stage" and "is bound to make himself a flash point in the 2016 debate." ...
... Steve M. is not quite convinced. ...
... Neither is Simon Maloy of Salon. ...
... "Can't Keep a Bad Man Down." As Ed Kilgore notes, most of the GOP slate is already pretty much on board the Cheney train; indeed, two of Cheney's policy aides are already advising Jebbie. ...
... Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post on "the ridiculous non-candidate charade.... [Jeb] Bush maintains that he can't decide whether he wants to become the next Decider." CW: What makes it not ridiculous is that it allows the pre-candidates to raise gobs of money without having to comply with our campaign laws.
Beyond the Beltway
Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "The Garden Valley School school district in Idaho purchased four rifles and 2,000 rounds of ammunition to help school officials protect students against potential threats, Idaho television station KBOI reported on Saturday. 'We just have to protect our kids and we didn't want to do it in a haphazard way,' Garden Valley School District Superintendent Marc Gee told KBOI." CW: Providing arms & ammo to a few "school officials" doesn't seem haphazard to me.
Mainiacs. Steve Mistler of the Portland Press: "A bill that would allow Mainers to carry a concealed handgun without a permit moved a step closer to becoming law Monday when it cleared a key vote in the House of Representatives. The 83-62 vote increases the likelihood that Maine will become only the seventh state that allows a person to carry a concealed handgun without a permit. The legislation has the backing of Republicans and Democrats, including 15 Democrats in the House.... In the Senate, the bill passed Friday on a 23-12 vote [but requires more procedural votes]. Gov. Paul LePage is expected to sign the bill if the Legislature passes it."
Another Texas Execution. Jordan Smith of the Intercept: "Now 67 and one of Texas's oldest and longest-serving death row inmates, [Lester Bower] has faced seven execution dates. His eighth -- and most likely final -- is scheduled for Wednesday, June 3. This time, unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, he will almost certainly be executed. Bower maintains his innocence. He has alleged his defense at trial was deficient, and that prosecutors withheld critical evidence from his attorneys. Moreover, since his conviction, witnesses have come forward to say that they know who really killed the four men in the aircraft hangar at the B&B Ranch -- and it wasn't Les Bower."
News Ledes
Politico: "President Barack Obama will deliver a eulogy at Beau Biden's funeral in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday, the vice president's office announced Tuesday. The Catholic funeral mass will cap three days of ceremonies to mourn the death of Vice President Joe Biden's eldest son. Beau Biden, the former attorney general of Delaware and an Iraq veteran, died of brain cancer on May 30 at age 46."
Washington Post: "A video released Monday by Oklahoma Highway Patrol shows [Nehemiah] Fischer, an associate pastor at a local Tulsa church, pushing a trooper moments before he was shot on Friday. For authorities, the video is proof that Fischer started the scuffle that ended in his death. For the Fischer family, it's an uncomfortable but unavoidable epitaph to an otherwise 'God-fearing man.'"
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Reader Comments (18)
"My family owned a restaurant, a pool room, and a liquor store. And everything I know about the Iranians I learned in the pool room. I ran the pool room when I was a kid and I met a lot of liars. And I know the Iranians are lying."
—Sen. Lindsey Graham
I can't add anything to that.
More on the TPP from Stan Sorscher:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-sorscher/tpp-reduces-human-traffic_b_7
In his post Sorscher uses the word "creepy," which has been appearing frequently here on RC, and with good reason. There's a lot of creep going around.
Graham raised in back of a barroom, too? Wonder when Boehner will toss his hat in the ring? If a barroom rearing does the trick, he would seem to be equally qualified.
I work with high school kids and so remember my high school days. In my freshman year, our history teacher taught us that the Roman emperors who had been soldiers were BAR RACK Emperors. BAR RACK. I never understood why the BAR and why the RACK. Years later, I realized that they were actually Barracks Emperors because soldiers live in barracks. Kids learn the darnedest things.
Perhaps Lindsey can be our first BAR RACK President and he can regale us with terrifying tales of racking 'em up in the back of the bar. That is, when he's not hiding under the bed wailing like an air raid siren.
It may be entirely rhetorical, but has Clarence Thomas ever decided in favor of a human being as opposed to a corporation?
@Akhilleus. Yeah, it's rhetorical.
Marie
The Guardian is moving on a noble initiate by attempting to count the mounting number of dead Americans from police encounters. If you read the front page of the U.S. internet version today, it's (by chance I assume) full of stories connected to police deaths, past and present. Makes me think of Victoria's comment a while back about living in a police state. It's hard to believe that with the few statistics we can piece together and seeing the numbers mount, any accountability and transparency is met by fierce stonewalling by public officials and complete indifference by the public.
In a country where we poll and quantify and analyze every number under the sun, it's amazing that a national attempt at databasing deaths of the hands of the police doesn't exist, but as the piece in the Guardian notes,
"The question of who counts and whom is counted is not simply a matter of numbers. It’s also about power; the less of it you have the less say you have in what makes it to the ledger and what form it takes when it gets there. Collecting information, particularly about people, demands both the authority to gather data and the capacity to keep and transmit it. Those who have both the authority and the capacity need to feel that the people on whom they are keeping tabs on matter."
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2015/jun/01/the-counted-keeping-count-police
Things about Dick Cheney that are not new:
Still a war monger
Still a liar
Still a snarling douchebag
Still responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands
Still a liar (did I already mention that?)
Things about Dick Cheney that are (relatively) new.
Convicted war criminal.
I don't think this was very well reported at the time. It was pretty much buried. Thanks to Charlie Pierce for this reminder of such an uplifting event in the history of justice.
So Cheney is officially a war criminal. Not to mention criminally liable in part for the deaths on 9/11. Attempting to fatally wound a suggestion that the US should not be responsible for bombing every country Cheney thinks might support terrorists, and should maybe dial back the Darth Vader crap, he snarled:
“Well, that makes no sense at all, if 19 guys with airline tickets and box cutters can take down the World Trade Center and Pentagon.”
No, Dick, here's what makes no sense at all: an administration which was told that certain individuals were, in fact, planning on flying planes into important buildings and instead of doing something to stop it, went on vacation.
I did say "Convicted War Criminal", didn't I?
Safari,
Cop empties his Glock 17 into the bodies of two unarmed citizens in a car. He then reloads, jumps on the hood of the car, so he can fire at closer range, and shoots these citizens 15 more times for a total of 49 bullets fired at them by this one cop. Other cops at the scene shoot also, a total of 137 times.
So here are the numbers.
2 unarmed citizens
13 police officers
137 bullets fired
1 cop indicted
0 convictions
Now, you tell me. Does that sound like a police state? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
I suppose it's worth mentioning that those two citizens, now deceased, were two black unarmed citizens, now deceased.
Marie,
Thanks for the link to Dana Millbank's review of the GOP's off-off Broadway production of "We Suck, Pt.V", their sad, sad attempt to pretend to care about black culture and, you know, actual black people too. Because, hey, they all have black friends, right? The guy who picks up their trash is black, you know, whatsisname....he's a great guy. AND he votes Republican, too! You can ask him, if I can ever remember his name.
Like their equally lame attempts to be hip and relevant, this production was worse than a dud. At least a dud tends to be something that could have been good but failed. This turkey had no chance from the planning stage.
First, Sam Moore and Marlon Jackson? Sam Moore was a great performer. I saw Sam and Dave in a club in Harlem in the late 70's. They killed. One of the best shows I've ever seen. But the guy is pushing 80. And Marlon sang "doo-doo-doo" behind his brother Michael. How many young black kids know much of anything about either of these guys? And Raynard Jackson, the event organizer, who is referred to optimistically as "a black consultant" to Republicans (shouldn't Millbank have used the definite article there? Are there really more than one?) clearly missed a chance to include younger performers like Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, and Esperanza Spalding which might have gotten some buzz in the broader press.
Sam Moore's recollection of pig fucker Lee Atwater entirely misses the point. I have no doubt that Atwater, who fancied himself a blues guitarist, was nice to Mr. Moore. I'm not even sure Atwater really was a diehard racist. But what does it matter if he foments racism? Atwater was a vicious, conniving asshole. If he was arming his campaign schemes with racist material designed to appeal to the knuckledraggers and KKK grand wizard types, then it doesn't matter if he played onstage with BB King, was nice to Sam Moore, or served madeleines and tea to Rosa Parks at the commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation.
And what, 25 people showed up for this fiasco?
Can't wait for "We Suck, Pt. VI.
This is why, as Charlie Pierce aptly noted last week, Little Johnny and the Dwarfs are finding it necessary to make it practically illegal for Republicans to lose at the polls. Otherwise, within a decade they'll be lucky to win elections as board members of the parks and recreation commission in Ari-fucking-zona.
@Akhileus: At least the prosecutor in the Cleveland case is appealing the judge's ridiculous reasoning. I applaud him for that even though it can't reverse the acquittal.
And, yes, it does sound like a police state.
Clarence Thomas is one of those "smart guys" who never realized the goal of education and experience is that you be a better person at the exit of life than when you started. Sheesh.
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/27/julian_assange_on_the_trans_pacific. I found this a pretty clear explanation of TPP. As an aside, I couldn't help think of this treaty as containing the same constraints for reforming trade differences of opinion as the international treaties that make marijuana use a crime. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs.) And then we are stuck with stupid laws with irreconcilable consequences and complete inability to modify them to changing circumstances.
More in the Intriguing History Department:
Have been reading a biography of Joseph Pulitzer whose early years in Missouri immediately following the Civil War coincided with a break in the Republican Party between the rising liberals within the party and the old guard that won the war and hated the un-reconstructed South. One of the major disputes between them was over restoring voting rights to supporters of the Confederacy. Seems that that brand of Democrat had not been allowed to vote in many states since the war and the liberal Republicans, for various reasons, thought that animus had run its course.
Besides the twists of history that have made today's Republicans yesterday's Democrats, there is a further irony worth a look. Old guard 1870 Republicans had no problem denying the vote to those they did not like. Today, tho' the R and D's political roles are reversed, the R's still don't like the wrong people to vote. In the last 140 years that much has not changed in what was once but surely is no longer the Party of Lincoln.
BTW, the liberal Republicans got trounced in the 1872 election. Their odd-duck candidate, Horace Greeley, supported by strange-bedfellow Democrats, even died before all the votes were counted...
And speaking of Opera Buffa...
Meant to include this in the comments on "We Suck, Pt. V".
Marie compares the Republicans' attempt to weasel their way into relevance with black music lovers with the ridiculous Keystone Kop style kerfuffles in certain comic operas, mentioning, as an example, Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro".
That reference as well as the reminder of world class asswipe Lee Atwater, recalled the perfect confection of these ingredients, Doctor Bartolo's aria, "La Calunnia" (Calumny, or Slander), from Rossini's take on the earlier Figaro play, "The Barber of Seville".
Bartolo would have made a perfect Atwater type flack for Republicans, being both a conniving douchebag and an amoral slug.
This aria outlines his plans to screw over an adversary by slandering the guy (an Atwater specialty, adopted by every Republican apparatchik since). It will make you smile. Plus, Rossini's music. What's not to like?
Historical note of interest: this aria, sung by the superb Samuel Ramey, early in his career, is from a performance at the Metropolitan Opera from 1976, conducted by the august Sarah Caldwell who founded the Boston Opera Company and became the first woman to conduct at the Met.
Incominciate!
Another entry in the walking/quacking department:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/31/hillary-clinton-speeches-keystone_n_7463108.html
Remind me why, exactly, a speech by Mrs. Clinton is worth $275K.
If this isn't "the appearance of corruption," it's hard to see what would qualify.
Ken,
Is that the Morris biography of Pulitzer?
Reconstruction was a wild time in the US, and the 1872 election was just as wild. I recall that it was the first time a candidate (Greeley) was nominated by two different parties (Democrats and the Liberal Republicans--how funny does that name sound?). It was also the first time a woman ran for the office (suffragette Virginia Woodhull) with Franklin Douglass on the ticket in the VP slot (can you picture how that ticket did in the south?).
I didn't know that Greeley had died before the final results were in, but since he was trounced he probably had an inkling. It seems he went west a little too early.
Just imagine, today, if we had to wait a month or more to get the final vote count.
Oh wait, anyone who was around for the 2000 coup d'état, doesn't have to imagine. The loser won. Thanks again, Supremes!
I have a two word solution to our Darth Vader (aka Dick the Dick) problem - extraordinary rendition. Let's see how he likes how the other shoe fits.
Unwashed,
C'mon now. That would be unconstitutional, wouldn't it?
Here's an interesting but sad article about six of our former guests at Guantanamo that were released after 12 years and taken in by the former Mujica government of Uruguay.