The Commentariat -- June 7, 2015
Nedra Pickler & Julie Pace of the AP: President "Obama kicked off an overnight visit for the Group of Seven summit of world leaders by focusing on mending relations with host Germany, with a visit to this picturesque Alpine village [Kruen. Germany] with Chancellor Angela Merkel." ...
... Julie Davis: "One year after President Obama rallied core allies to join the United States in punishing Russia for its bellicose ways, he will use a gathering on Sunday of the world's largest industrialized democracies to urge them to stand strong, and together, in isolating the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. But this time, Mr. Obama faces an additional challenge: It is not entirely clear that their efforts are working. The tough economic sanctions that have been the linchpin of American and European efforts to confront Moscow over its annexation of Crimea last year and its continuing aggression in Ukraine have, along with the lower price of oil, exacted a toll on Russia. They may even have helped deter Mr. Putin from escalating his intervention."
Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who began his life on the national stage more than four decades ago under the dark cloud of a family tragedy, laid his elder son, Beau, to rest on Saturday, marking yet another moment of grief in a long political career shaped by it. At a funeral Mass that drew about 1,000 mourners, including President Obama and members of the cabinet, former President Bill Clinton, a four-star general and members of Congress, Mr. Biden and his family remembered Joseph Robinette Biden III, who died of brain cancer on May 30 at the age of 46":
... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly: "This morning as I watched President Obama give an incredibly moving eulogy for Beau Biden, I couldn't help but think of another political family that has also had to shoulder more than their fair share of grief. That's because today [Saturday] is the 47th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.... It is hard not to wonder how this one man's death changed the trajectory of our country." LeTourneau cites a portion of Kennedy's speech following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. ...
... NPR: "Here's an astonishing speech by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, who in 2010 became the second African-American appointed as federal judge in Mississippi. He read it to three young white men before sentencing them for the death of a 48-year-old black man named James Craig Anderson in a parking lot in Jackson, Miss., one night in 2011. They were part of a group that beat Anderson and then killed him by running over his body with a truck, yelling 'white power' as they drove off."
New York Times Editors (June 5): CIA torture of prisoners was much worse than the U.S. government admits. "If the fully unredacted story of that treatment ever has a hope of coming out, it won't be through the American government, which continues to hide key details of torture and abuse from the public."
Amanda Terkel & Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "During the 2004 elections, George W. Bush's campaign, managed by a closeted gay man, pushed a series of anti-gay ballot initiatives across the country. The House of Representatives, led by a male speaker who allegedly sexually assaulted a male minor, moved a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage after beating back attempts to strengthen hate crimes legislation. And the White House, led in part by a vice president with a lesbian daughter, eagerly encouraged a conservative evangelical base hostile to gay rights.... [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert wasn't a strident culture warrior during his time in Congress. But he was a vital cog in the anti-gay political machinery that the GOP deployed for political benefit.... During his tenure, he was a clear foe of the LGBT community." ...
... Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "After a relatively slow start to his career as a consultant and lobbyist, J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, became very busy in 2010.... He also made an unusual request to one of his business associates: to find a financial adviser who could come up with a plan for an annuity that would generate a substantial cash payout each year. According to the associate, J. David John, the former speaker also asked that the adviser not be told of Mr. Hastert's involvement. The request came just a few weeks before Mr. Hastert, according to charges in a federal indictment, made his first payment to a man known as 'Individual A' in what was to be a total of $3.5 million." John & Hastert later had a falling-out, & John has sued Hastert.
Your Forever Stamps Are a Bad Investment. Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service will have to roll back a portion of its largest rate increase in 11 years after a federal court ruled that the higher postage prices in place since January 2014 can't be permanent. Postal regulators had agreed to a 3-cent emergency postage hike for first-class letters, to 49 cents from 46 cents, after the Postal Service said it needed to recoup billions of dollars it lost during the recession.... But regulators set a cap on the amount of revenue USPS could recoup with the higher prices. The cap will be reached this summer.... The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the emergency rates should not become permanent.... As of Friday, it was unclear when the rates will be rolled back and by how much."
Kellie Woodhouse of Inside Higher Education: "It didn't take long for the criticisms to begin rolling in after Harvard University announced a $400 million donation to its engineering college."
Marie's Sports Report
Melissa Hoppert of the New York Times: "American Pharoah, the flashy colt with the smooth stride, won the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, becoming the first Triple Crown winner in a generation and etching himself in the history books":
... And now you'll never remember how to spell "pharaoh."
Presidential Race
Bill Moyers & Michael Winship in Salon: "Far from being an outsider, [Bernie] Sanders is paddling his way along the mainstream of American public opinion."
In the New York Review of Books, Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast has a long, ostensible review of Peter Schweizer's Clinton Cash. CW: I haven't the time to read it, so any reviews of the review would be welcome.
Lisa Mascaro of the Los Angeles Times: "As Republican presidential hopefuls negotiated a motorcycle ride and pig roast Saturday in Iowa farm country, the race was on for who had more swagger -- the bikers who could become the party's nominee, or the woman senator leading the trip.... 'Joni's 1st annual Roast and Ride' was part fundraiser, part campaign stop on the road to Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucus next year, drawing not only [Scott] Walker and [Rick] Perry, but Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Carly Fiorina. Rubio, who didn't ride but was planning to join the roast, provided much of the buzz as Iowans begin to take a closer look at the candidate who they ranked second, after Walker, in the crowded GOP field, according to a recent Bloomberg Politics-Des Moines Register poll." ...
... MEANWHILE, Jebbie was in Kennebunkport celebrating his mother's 90th birthday & no doubt looking over the new "cottage" Barbara Bush is having built for him there. ...
... AND Who Knows Where This Guy Was? Tyler Bridges of the Washington Post: "Just weeks before he is expected to announce his presidential campaign, Bobby Jindal is at the nadir of his political career. The Republican governor is at open war with many of his erstwhile allies in the business community and the legislature. He spent weeks pushing a 'religious freedom' bill that failed to pass, while having little contact with legislators trying to solve Louisiana's worst budget crisis in 25 years."
Steve Benen on "an alarming concern raised separately by several Republican presidential candidates: the imaginary prospect of Christianity being 'criminalized' in the United States."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Turkish voters delivered a rebuke on Sunday to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as his party lost its majority in Parliament in a historic election that dealt a blow to his ambition to rewrite Turkey's Constitution and increase his power."
New York Times: "The State Police and other law enforcement agencies were continuing on Sunday to hunt for two fugitive murderers in the wilderness and rural communities of northern New York, a day after the two men escaped from the maximum-security state prison here. In a news conference on Sunday afternoon, officials said investigators were sifting through more than 150 leads. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that the state was offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the inmates, or $50,000 for tips leading to each one."
New York Times: "Ronnie Gilbert, whose crystalline, bold contralto provided distaff ballast for the Weavers, the seminal quartet that helped propel folk music to wide popularity and establish its power as an agent of social change, died on Saturday in Mill Valley, Calif. She was 88."
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Reader Comments (1)
Eye-catching placement, the Judge Reeves speech, followed by the NYTimes editorial on new CIA torture revelations.
The State (of mind) of Mississippi that Judge Reeves describes obviously extends far beyond that state's physical borders and includes highly paid government officials in Washington, D.C., who are so proud of what they did, they are still lying about it.
Then there are those once (not twice) elected leaders living--one blessedly more quietly than the other--in Wyoming and Texas, whom I am reminded of far more often than I would like.
The only weakness in Judge Reeves brilliant remarks is that they do not go far enough. Our Mideast wars, whose body counts he references, clearly possess a racial as well as a religious element, which we most often conveniently ignore.
Niggers, gooks, ragheads, and niggers again. It's a long list. Why must these be the words with which we write our history?