The Commentariat -- May 17, 2015

Internal links removed.

** "High-Income White Noose." New York Times Editors: "The Obama administration has proposed new fair housing enforcement rules, which should be finalized soon, that make states, cities and housing agencies more accountable for furthering fair housing. But for these rules to be meaningful, the federal government will have to restructure its own programs so that more affordable housing is built in low-poverty, high opportunity neighborhoods. Federal officials must also be willing to do what they have generally been afraid to do in the past -- withhold money from communities that perpetuate housing apartheid. Given what we now know about the pervasive harm that flows from segregation, the country needs to get on with this crucial mission." The editorial provides an excellent synopsis of historical non-enforcement of the Fair Housing Act.

Helena Evich of Politico: "The Obama administration is expected to all but ban trans fat in a final ruling that could drop as soon as next week, killing most uses of an ingredient that has been put in everything from frozen pizza to Reese's Pieces but since deemed harmful to human health. The agency may create some very limited exemptions, but the ruling could force food companies to cut trans fat use beyond the 85 percent reduction already achieved over the past decade -- a key piece of the Obama administration's broader agenda to nudge Americans toward a healthier diet." ...

... digby: "If you think Iran or immigration pisses off the right, get ready. This is likely to make them completely lose their shit.

Katharine Seelye, et al., of the New York Times: "To the amazement of people elsewhere, Bostonians overwhelmingly opposed condemning the bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to death.... No one here felt sympathy for him. Rather, many thought life in prison would be a fate worse than death, especially for someone as young as Mr. Tsarnaev, who is 21. Others feared that putting him to death would make him a martyr. Still others, interviewed around the city Friday night and Saturday, reflected the region's historical aversion to the death penalty."

Karen DeYoung & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "U.S. Special Operations forces staged an overnight ground raid in Syria early Saturday, killing what the Obama administration said was a senior Islamic State official and capturing his wife.... In what a U.S. Defense official described as 'close-quarters combat' against militants using women and children as human shields, about a dozen militants were killed. They included the target of what was originally designed as a capture operation, identified by the White House and the Pentagon as Abu Sayyaf, a Tunisian.... [U.S.] Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said that no U.S. forces were killed or injured during the operation. No civilians were reported injured."

David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: Egypt's "the death sentence against [former President Mohamed] Morsi will not weaken the Islamists but only radicalize them further." CW: Why this wasn't obvious to the Egyptian court is beyond me.

God News

Nicole Winfield of the AP: "Pope Francis canonized two nuns from what was 19th century Palestine on Sunday in hopes of encouraging Christians across the Middle East who are facing a wave of persecution from Islamic extremists. Sisters Mariam Bawardy and Marie Alphonsine Ghattas were among four sisters who were made saints Sunday at a Mass in a sun-soaked St. Peter's Square. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and an estimated 2,000 pilgrims from the region, some waving Palestinian flags, were on hand for the canonization of the first saints from the Holy Land since the early years of Christianity." ...

... Contributors to Juan Cole's site Informed Comment add background.

David McCabe of the Hill: "Former President George W. Bush offered a defense of religious liberty and faith more broadly while speaking at Southern Methodist University's (SMU) commencement ceremony Saturday.... 'It is essential to this nation's future that we remember that the freedom to worship who we want, and how we want -- or not to worship at all -- is a core belief of our founding'.... He said it was his first commencement speech since leaving office. Bush has deep ties to SMU. His wife Laura graduated from the school in 1968, and the university is the site of George W. Bush's presidential library."

James Tayler, in Salon, is mighty upset with President Obama for his National Day of Prayer proclamation.

Annals of Journalism, Ctd.

Josh Gerstein, et al., of Politico: "NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting and Thomson Reuters are among more than a dozen media organizations that have made charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, the foundation's records show. The donations, which range from the low-thousands to the millions, provide a picture of the media industry's ties to the Clinton Foundation at a time when one of its most notable personalities, George Stephanopoulos, is under scrutiny for not disclosing his own $75,000 contribution when reporting on the foundation." CW: More indications that confederates should get over their Stephanopoulos freakout.

Presidential Race

David Greenberg in a Washington Post op-ed: "Candidates of the left, right and center have something in common: They all want to be seen as populists.... Yet these aren't modern versions of William Jennings Bryan, fiery crusaders jousting on the campaign trail.... All the candidates have taken what was once a very specific ideology and extracted their favorite parts, selectively interpreting the vision and generally bowdlerizing it."

Jonathan Allen of Vox: "Hillary Clinton [is] having her pockets lined by the very people who seek to influence her. Not in some metaphorical sense. She's literally being paid by them." Allen finds a quid pro quo in Corning, Inc.'s donations to the Clinton Foundation & in a $225,500 honorarium to Clinton herself. ...

... Ashley Parker & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: Some right-wing groups are attacking Hillary Clinton from the left -- disseminating information via Twitter that is aimed to weaken her appeal to liberals.

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "More than 1,300 Republican stalwarts at the Iowa state party's Lincoln Dinner listened to the biggest field of 2016 presidential hopefuls to visit the state so far. In tightly paced speeches of 10 minutes each, 11 contenders displayed the broad spectrum of ideologies and personal styles in the party's unsettled, chaotic race." ...

... Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles Times: "Though 11 Republicans eyeing the White House largely delivered scathing indictments of President Obama and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton's policies, small cracks in the GOP field emerged at a boisterous 'cattle call.'"

... Philip Rucker & Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: Republican "party officials are growing worried about a wide-open nominating contest likely to feature a historically large and diverse field. At best, they say, the Republican primaries will be a lively showcase of political talent -- especially compared with the relative coronation taking shape on the Democratic side. But officials also acknowledge just how risky their circumstance is for a party that hasn't put on a good show in a long time. With no clear front-runner and Bush so far unable to consolidate his path to the nomination -- his fumbles over the Iraq war and his brother's legacy further exposed his vulnerabilities -- the GOP's internecine battle could stretch well into the spring of 2016.

** Maureen Dowd on Dubya & "his frothing band of Reservoir Dogs": "It took a Herculean effort of imagination, manipulation and deception to concoct 'the information' that propelled the invasion, occupation and destruction of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.... Aside from the Blair poodle and the Coalition of the Willing-to-Overlook-Counterfeit-Claims, our allies tried to warn us.... Since Jeb purloined Florida for W., under family pressure, the Good Son bears some responsibility for the Prodigal Son plopping the country into a 'doo doo ball,' as one of Poppy Bush's pals calls it.... And consider this: Jeb hasn't even been asked any questions yet about W.'s dark contributions on waterboarding, the deficit and the near-total collapse of the American economy." Read her whole column; this is Dowd at her best.

Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) refused to make clear his view as to whether the Iraq War was a mistake in a Fox News Sunday interview. Repeatedly pressed by host Chris Wallace on whether in hindsight the Bush administration should have invaded Iraq, Rubio continued to dodge the question."

Beyond the Beltway

First, Fire All the Scientists." Benjamin Elgin of Bloomberg: "Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state's nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean's e-mail recounting the conversation. Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, is a major donor to the university, which is the home of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He has vigorously disputed the notion that he tried to pressure the survey's scientists.... Yet an e-mail obtained from the university by Bloomberg News via a public records request says Hamm used a blunt approach during a 90-minute meeting last year with the dean whose department includes the geological survey. 'Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed,' wrote Larry Grillot, the dean of the university's Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, in a July 16, 2014, e-mail to colleagues at the university." Elgin reproduces the e-mail from Grillot.

Comments

[PD Pepe]

When Dowd is good, she is very, very good. The regurgitation of our folly of gigantic proportions is now front and center once again as it well should be. When Jeb decided to run for President one of the biggies he should have prepared for was how to deal with the Iraq War and since we have reams of information on this, lying or trying to weasel his way out of it isn't going to wash. The fact that he doesn't seem prepared bodes ill for his candidacy and I find it strange that this should be so. Did he or his handlers think he'd not have to answer questions about Iraq?

We know that on January 30, ten days after G.W's inauguration, he met with his National Security-Council for the first time. After a brief discussion about the futility of the Israeli/ Palestine conflict–––in effect wiping their hands of it–-too difficult, but with a definite lean toward Israel, they moved on to–––IRAQ. The puppet masters behind the throne had already devised a master plan. Maps were strewed upon the large table so everyone could have a peek at that little country and its potential danger.( In Arabic, “Iraq” means “well –rooted country,” which suggests the kind of promotional thinking that that makes urban planners christen a concrete housing project “Metropolitan Gardens.” ) And the plans began.

"A major shift in U.S. policy was under way. After more than thirty years of intense engagement––-from Kissinger and Nixon to Clinton's last stand––America was washing its hands of the conflict in Israel. Now we'd focus on Iraq." ––Ron Suskind

Around this time I first learned of the word "hegemony" and how to pronounce it. Around this time I began to pay close attention to what was happening in my country in a way I had not done before. By 2003 I knew we were going to invade that "well-rooted" country whose weapons turned out to be the bogus boasting of a leader who needed to rule by imposing horrific torturous sanctions on his own people. A man, however, full of bluster and someone we could have handled.

The fact that Jeb Bush's band of brothers are the same spurious group that orchestrated this mess is another WTF kind of scratching head time. When Jeb's mom said, "We've had enough Bush's," he should have listened.

[Ken Winkes]

So the Right thinks that exploiting a crack between Hillary and those further to her left will benefit their own panoply of ultra-crackers candidates? Wonder what they're smoking?

Absent the appearance of a genuine third party candidate (shades of the myopic Nader disaster in 2000), not likely. Sanders' candidacy will nudge Hillary a bit to port, satisfying some of the leftists outliers like myself during the interminable primary season, but when it comes down to the actual vote, I can't see any Republican candidate, all of whom will have to say crazy things and espouse loony policies to get through their own primaries, appealing to anyone left of the tattered 2015-2016 American center.

A little dust-up in the Democrats' camp (like the current one on the TPP) will not make critical issues surrounding immigration, health care expansion and rampant economic inequality go away. Over the next year, even the hapless and toothless media will hold them front and center.

And then, as all RC readers have been so well taught, who could forget Supremes?

[Kate Madison]

@Ken Winkes-
Since I have not been posting much, I am delighted to read your reminder not to forget the Supremes! Even the indicted Republican candidate-to-be, Rickster Perry, says the Supreme Court is the most important factor in the 2016 election. Go figure.

I am going to campaign actively for the Democrat (undoubtedly Hillary--though she will get no money from me--which I do not have anyway). I am seriously considering having buttons and bumper stickers made: Remember the Supremes - Vote Democratic

On another note, I am thrilled that Russ Feingold is going to run again! Unless Wisconsin has gone completely off the rails, he should win easily. Besides, Ron Johnson is quite preoccupied with the urine samples he is collecting. I think I am going to send him several, and let him know I am a former Wisconsin resident who thinks urine sampling is the answer to World Peace. Maybe we could make this an RC project?!

[Nadd2]

I find the continuous revelations about Sec. Clinton's financial affairs saddening and sickening. I'm still voting for her, though. It's the Supreme Court!

Today's Wisconsin State Journal had yet another expose on Scott Walker's pet agency, WEDC, which he created and serves as chairman of the board:

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/top-scott-walker-aides-pushed-for-questionable-wedc-loan/article_2a29333c-c3dd-50ac-a4b6-c333506530e0.html

In less than two days, Walker will be blaming the mess again on his underlings and denying any knowledge of it.

(I am so sorry that I cannot understand how to link stories; if it doesn't show up you can look on madison.com.)

[PD Pepe]

@Nadd: I think this is the article you mention:

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/top-scott-walker-aides-pushed-for-questionable-wedc-loan/article_2a29333c-c3dd-50ac-a4b6-c333506530e0.html

[PD Pepe]

@ Nadd: I think this is the article you mention:

http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/top-scott-walker-aides-pushed-for-questionable-wedc-loan/article_2a29333c-c3dd-50ac-a4b6-c333506530e0.html

[Nadd2]

Thank you, PD Pepe.