The Commentariat -- May 21, 2015
Internal links removed.
Mike DeBonis & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "A bitter ideological divide in Congress appeared destined Wednesday to at least temporarily end the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records as government officials warned they would have to begin shuttering the program after Friday if lawmakers do not act. In a memorandum, the Justice Department said the National Security Agency would need to act 'to ensure that it does not engage in any unauthorized collection' or use of the data should the program not be extended before a June 1 deadline. The memo, along with comments Wednesday by FBI Director James B. Comey, puts pressure on lawmakers to act at a time when congressional Republicans remain divided over the NSA's controversial gathering of private telephone records for counterterrorism purposes.... Comey warned the June 1 'sunset' affects not only the NSA's bulk collection but also three legal tools that he said are 'critical' to the bureau's investigations of terrorists and spies. They are 'noncontroversial,' he said, and are getting drowned out by the focus on the NSA program." ...
... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "... the National Security Agency (NSA) will begin winding down a controversial program run under that law this week, according to the Justice Department.... Patriot Act provisions that the NSA uses to justify its controversial bulk collection of metadata about U.S. phone calls are among those slated to expire at month's end."
Randal Archibold of the New York Times: "The United States and Cuba are closer than ever to reaching an agreement to fully restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies, officials in both countries say, as negotiators prepare to meet Thursday in Washington for another round of talks to iron out remaining details and discuss possible dates."
Jason Burke of the Guardian: A "library-sized cache of declassified material seized at Osama bin Laden's compound paints a portrait of a man past his prime who obsessed over security, micromanaged staff and enjoyed an eclectic mix of literature." The Washington Post story, by Greg Miller & Julie Tate, is here. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times reviews bin Laden's reading list.
Manny Fernandez, et al., of the New York Times: "The bikers involved in the biggest and bloodiest clash of motorcycle gangs in recent decades brought an astonishing arsenal to the Twin Peaks restaurant in south Waco on Sunday, the police said Wednesday. Investigators have recovered more than 300 weapons in and around the restaurant, Sgt. Patrick Swanton of the Waco Police Department said.... As the authorities on Wednesday released names of people involved in the melee, which left nine dead and 18 injured, a picture of the group began to emerge, including many men who fit the stereotyped image of bearded, tattooed, intimidating bikers but also including a number of minorities and women, a former police detective, and people who may not have belonged to any gang." ...
... Charles Blow: "... the tone and tenor of the rhetoric the media used to describe [the deadly Waco biker shootout] -- particularly early on -- were in stark contrast to the language used to describe the protests over the killings of black men by the police.... Does the violence in Waco say something universal about white culture or Hispanic culture? Even the question sounds ridiculous -- and yet we don't hesitate to ask such questions around black violence, and to answer it, in the affirmative. And invariably, the single-mother, absent-father trope is dragged out.... Is anyone asking about the family makeup of the bikers in Waco?" ...
... CW: The Waco gangsters do invoke in some of us broader cultural -- if not racial -- implications. As Fernandez, et al., point out, there is a "stereotyped image of bearded, tattooed, intimidating bikers" that the Waco massacre only reinforces. For me, it isn't about bikes -- anybody can love going riding on a bike -- but about the guns & violence culture prevalent among a broad swath of confederates." ...
... But What if the Cops Were the Principal Shooters? AP: "According to restaurant security video shown to the Associated Press, only one of the dozens of bikers was seen firing a gun from the patio of the Twin Peaks restaurant where nine people were killed on Sunday.... The video shows bikers on the restaurant patio ducking under tables and trying to get inside. At least three people were holding handguns.... None of the nine video angles shows the parking lot.... Police have said that all those arrested were part of criminal motorcycle gangs. But based on court records and a search of their names in a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety, only five of the nine people killed had criminal histories in Texas. Police have acknowledged firing on armed bikers but has not yet been made clear how many of the dead were shot by gang members and how many were shot by officers."
Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "Until recently, the perception has ... been that the Democrats had the largest political stake in [King v. Burwell,] the case [designed to take healthcare subsidies away from 13 million Americans]. After all, the A.C.A. is the signature achievement of the Democratic President. Suddenly, though, and paradoxically, it has come to seem that Obamacare's Republican opponents are most at risk if the decision goes their way.... Blaming the President ... may be unfair, but it's the way American politics works." ...
... CW: Toobin is right. Glenn Greenwald (April 2015): "An Annenberg Public Policy Center poll from last September found that only 36 percent of Americans can name the three branches of government, and only 38 percent know the GOP controls the House. The Center's 2011 poll 'found just 15 percent of Americans could correctly identify the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts, while 27 percent knew Randy Jackson was a judge on American Idol.'" They sure as hell have no idea what Roberts' or Kennedy's political philosophy is. All the majority "knows" is that if the Supreme Court says something is "illegal," then the guy who did it -- say, Obama -- must be at fault. ...
... P.S. The notion that the administration does not have a Plan B is ridiculous. Every once in a while a dumb guy says something smart, so if you want to know Obama's Plan B, ask Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.). He's got it right. No, the administration might not do this on Day One, because (a) they've been pretending they have no idea what to do, & (b) they want to see how much Republicans will squirm. ...
... Greg Sargent: "By now you may have learned of the plight of one Luis Lang, a South Carolina man whose story went viral after it was reported that he couldn't afford to treat an illness that was threatening to make him blind -- and blamed Obamacare for it.... In a subsequent interview with Think Progress, Lang said he now thinks opposition to the Medicaid expansion is the culprit, is rethinking his GOP affiliation, and is going to try to get coverage from the law, though he still says he has issues with its implementation and blames both parties.... Lang also told Think Progress that he now supports universal health care. As Steve Benen notes, he is only the latest example of people 'who thought they hated "Obamacare," right up until they needed it.'... But if the Court strikes subsidies for millions of people in three dozen states on the federal exchange -- one of which includes South Carolina -- it could put Obamacare even further out of reach for Lang."
Jill Lepore, in the New Yorker, on how the right to privacy is a poor -- and historically dubious -- basis for deciding the constitutionality of cases involving women's rights. (I disagree with her suggestion that the Nineteenth Amendment should be invoked, except perhaps as a ferinstance.) "There is a lesson in the past fifty years of litigation. When the fight for equal rights for women narrowed to a fight for reproductive rights, defended on the ground of privacy, it weakened. But when the fight for gay rights became a fight for same-sex marriage, asserted on the ground of equality, it got stronger and stronger." Also, Justice Ginsburg's logic is flawless. That the confederate deadheads have the nerve to repeatedly ignore it is unconscionable.
Gail Collins: "All of our paper money feature white men, at least half of them slave-owners.... A website called Women on 20s recently conducted a poll to find a woman to replace Jackson.... But about the poll: Harriet Tubman won. Pretty perfect. Replace the slave-owner with the escaped slave who returned to the South -- again and again and again -- to lead other slaves to freedom.... [However,] Changing American paper currency turns out to be a huge ordeal.... Maybe [one-time U.S. Treasurer] Ivy Baker Priest understood what a heavy lift change is when she said women didn't care about having their pictures on money 'as long as we get our hands on it.' 'Getting our hands on the money is equally important,' said Senator [Jeanne] Shaheen [D-N.H.] mildly. But, really, we can go for both."
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Kelsey Rupp & David Mastio of USA Today: "Yet another high-profile TV newsman may find himself embroiled in controversy over his connections to the Clinton Foundation. Until late Tuesday afternoon, the Clinton Foundation website listed CNN anchor Jake Tapper as a 'speaker' at a Clinton Global Initiative event scheduled for June 8-10 in Denver. After USA TODAY asked CNN about the event, Tapper's name was swiftly removed from the Clinton Foundation website.... A CNN spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said Tapper was improperly listed as a speaker on the foundation website; he is scheduled to interview former president Clinton at the event and later moderate a panel discussion. The spokesperson said the network-approved interview will be televised. There will be no restrictions on the questions, and Tapper will not be paid by the foundation." CW: So, if true, what exactly is the matter with that? This appears to be a fine example of the non-story story. The authors expended some effort to gather data for their report, & when the story fell apart, the paper printed it anyway, assuming few would read past the first graf. ...
... Count, for instance, Jim Warren, who now writes for the media watchdog Poynter.
Presidential Race
Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The State Department is expected to release the first batch of emails from Hillary Rodham Clinton's private email address in the coming days. The emails set for release, drawn from some 55,000 pages and focused on Libya, have already been turned over to the special House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on the United States outposts in Benghazi..... The Times obtained about a third of the 850 pages of emails. They appear to back up Mrs. Clinton's previous assertions that she did not receive classified information at her private email address. But some of the emails contain what the government calls 'sensitive' information or 'SBU' -- sensitive but unclassified."
Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "After more than a decade bearing the political burden of Iraq, Republican [presidential candidates] are making a dogged effort to shed it by arguing that the Islamic State's gruesome ascent is a symptom of Obama's foreign policy, rather than a byproduct of the 2003 invasion they once championed."
What? No Carly? No Bobby? Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Fox News announced guidelines Wednesday that will winnow the field of participants in the first Republican debate of the 2016 presidential campaign. The network will require contenders to place in the top 10 in an average of the five most recent national polls in the run-up to the event, narrowing what is expected to be a field of 16 or more by the Aug. 6 event in Cleveland. The rule could trigger an early rush of spending by lower-tier candidates.... Meanwhile, CNN laid out a different approach for the second debate on Sept. 16, which will be split into two parts -- one featuring the top 10 candidates in public polling and a second that will include lower-tiered candidates who garner at least 1 percent in polls."
Scott Neuman of NPR: "Protesting the soon-to-expire Patriot Act, presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul held the floor of the Senate for 11 hours late Wednesday in a filibuster-like speech railing against the law and the government's continued surveillance of Americans' phone records." ...
When Is a "Filibuster" Not a Filibuster? Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post: "... a filibuster by any other name is just a Long, Self-Indulgent Speech. And until it actually starts holding up Senate business, that is exactly what this is.... It's nice that [Ted] Cruz and Paul have such strong feelings and want to share them at such length, but they need to use another word for these speeches -- 'pointless harangues,' maybe?"
Ashley Killough of CNN: "Jeb Bush hit back against President Obama's claim that climate change runs an immediate risk, saying Wednesday that while it shouldn't be ignored, it's still not 'the highest priority.' A he has before, Bush acknowledged 'the climate is changing' but stressed that it's unknown why. 'I don't think the science is clear of what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It's convoluted,' he said at a house party in Bedford, New Hampshire." CW: One known factor: Ideology, political expediency & big-oil (& other polluter-industry) backers force GOP candidates to bury their heads in the sand. What percentage each of these elements contributes to the head-in-the-sand approach is unknown.
Nick Gass of Politico: "Mike Huckabee will not participate in Iowa's 2016 Republican straw poll, writing in an op-ed for The Des Moines Register that the contest, set for Aug. 8 in Boone, only 'weakens conservative candidates' and strengthens 'the Washington ruling class and their handpicked candidates.'"
Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told The Hill on Wednesday that it was a mistake for the U.S. to invade Iraq, arguing that the nation should have found a different way to remove Saddam Hussein from power." ...
... Steve M. "I don't know how this is going to go over when Carson is participating in the presidential debates. (And yes, right now it looks as if he's going to make the cut.) But it's going to be entertaining." Steve notes that Carson has previously written -- including in a letter to then-President Bush! -- that he opposed the invasion of Afghanistan & has said that the Vietnam War was a mistake, too.
Beyond the Beltway
Julie Cart, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Plains Pipeline, the large Texas-based company responsible for the pipe that ruptured in Santa Barbara County, has accumulated 175 safety and maintenance infractions since 2006, according to federal records. A Times analysis of data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration shows Plains' rate of incidents per mile of pipe is more than three times the national average.... Over the last 10 years, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which is part of the Department of Transportation, has assessed $115,600 in civil penalties against the company.... It reported $43 billion in revenue in 2014 and $878 million in profit." See also today's News Ledes. ...
... CW: So averaging the fines per years, that works out to $11,560 in fines per $878,000,000 in profits. In other words, the fines are a teeny nuisance cost of doing business.
Mark Hensch of the Hill: "The mayor of Ferguson, Mo., announced on Wednesday that his city would construct a permanent memorial to Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager shot and killed by a police officer there last summer. Mayor James Knowles III said that the tribute would honor Brown's memory at Canfield Drive, according to the Associated Press."
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story reports on a 70-year old couple who are finally able to marry after going through various maneuvers over the years -- including one of the couple legally adopting the other -- to circumvent laws against same-sex marriage. So you've gotta laugh at the way World Net Daily leads with the same story: "The Pandora's box of same-sex marriage has just released a new pairing unimaginable a few short years ago. Norman MacArthur and Bill Novak, father and son, though not biologically, will soon be husband and ... whatever...."
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Reader Comments (10)
The police in their attempts to restore order in Waco may have killed innocent bystanders. If so, it shows the lie in the commonly invoked NRA phrase: "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Clearly the problem at Waco wasn't a lack of armaments. Although since the gun activists are impervious to logic, the lesson may not take.
Cuba tourism anyone? With approaching rapprochement, it's only a matter of time. Several (Swiss and German) friends of mine have visited in recent years and highly recommended it. I've long felt that I'd seen enough of the Third World in my youth. Still, if I were to visit a poor underdeveloped region, I think I'd rather go to Cuba than, say, Mississippi.
PD,
I did go back and check out your comment. Thank you.
I was thinking, after I wrote that comment, that "on the fritz" might be one of those (now) less than PC expressions involving stereotyped impressions of certain groups or cultures, but that appears not to be the case. It's possible that the reference comes from an early 20th century comic strip, The Katzenjammer Kids, which had a couple of kids, one of whom was named Fritz, who were always messing around. I remember that strip as The Captain and the Kids.
Although American slang expressions are still with us, they don't seem nearly as colorful as those from the last century. McCarthyism is still with us and the technique to which it refers has a place of honor in the Right Wing Playbook. Our political lexicon seems constantly to be updated what with birthers and 'baggers and wingnuts and our very own concoction, Confederates, but I'm thinking more along the lines of eponymous expressions like "on the fritz". Maybe at some point, a politician caught in yet another transparent flip-flop will be referred as having pulled a "Li'l Randy". Or perhaps in the near future, someone letting loose with an unhinged, mangled load of crap devoid of logic and facts could be said to have spit out a "Gohmert" (or maybe a "Gohmert Pile").
One can only hope.
Re Tubman on the 20. I participated in the poll cited by Gail Collins. Voted for Eleanor Roosevelt -- maybe we could get her on the 50 or 100. Then the number of women on our currency would match the number of slaveholders -- equality of a sort.
D.C.,
Well, it's pretty much a lead pipe cinch that you're far less likely to be shot in Cuba where, at least according to Wikipedia, gun crime is nearly non-existent (this may, of course, be due to a repressive regime, but still...). The right to own guns in Cuba is not guaranteed. In Mississippi it's practically a requirement.
In fact, the only law pertaining to guns in Mississippi (that I can find) is the right to wave your guns around in public. According to statistics compiled by American Progress, Mississippi is number 2 in the country in gun deaths, 92% above the national average, the worst state to live in if you're a woman (highest rate of gun deaths in the country) or a child (fifth worst gun death rate--62 children shot to death in 2010). The Daily Beast rates it the deadliest gun state in America with the highest crime-gun export rate in the country, three times the national average. Wayne LaPierre's favorite state by far.
Mississippi has the worst life expectancy of any state (you'll die five years earlier in MS than if you lived in Cuba), it has the most corruption, it's dead last in education, third worst in employment rate, second highest homicide rate (previously number one!), highest obesity rate, and a whole bunch of other worsts that I'm leaving out.
And if they could measure racism, I'm betting it would be in the running for Most Racist. Besides the usual KKK bullshit, up until 2010, only white kids were allowed to run for certain positions, including, school president in some Mississippi schools. I am not even kidding. Two thousand and fucking ten!
But here's another interesting pairing of statistics. 82% (82%!!) of the Mississippi workforce doesn't have a high school education but they have the highest voting percentage of any state in the union. Sounds like paradise to me. I'm thinking they should post Dante's famous warning on all roads leading into Mississippi.
Also, I'm betting Cuba has better cigars, if that's your thing.
So Cuba it is!
The Ideology of All Maladies.
Last night I was watching an installment of the PBS documentary based on Siddhartha Mukherjee's book on cancer, "The Emperor of All Maladies", a wrenching piece of television but also wonderfully informative.
At one point, the discussion turned to cancers that are entirely, completely preventable, and the reasons they either have not been prevented or reasons for a massive change in public habits that have saved millions of lives. Smoking is the single biggest preventable cause of cancer. This has been known for a long, long time, but, of course, certain parties don't want anyone to either know this or talk about it.
In 1964 Luther Terry, Surgeon General of the United States, issued a report definitively linking smoking with cancer. A couple of years later, a young lawyer, John Banzhaf, sent a letter to a local TV station asking for equal time to rebut the glut of cigarette ads. They said no. He wrote to the FCC, referencing the Fairness Doctrine (something we've been talking about out here recently). They said yes.
Everyone out here over a certain age remembers those cigarette ads. But I think most of us also remember the anti-smoking PSA's that came in the wake of Banzhaf's victory, the coughing cowboys, the wheelbarrow full of hundreds of thousands of cigarettes (total consumption for one guy, so far), and the ads featuring smokers on the verge of death begging kids not to start and adults to quit. Finally cigarette ads were taken off the air.
The results were incredible. In 1965, 42% of all American adults were smokers. Three years after the anti-smoking PSA's started, thanks to the Fairness Doctrine, that figure dropped by a full 5%. By 1990, it was 25%. Today, it's 19%.
Millions of lives were saved from death by cancer because of this campaign, millions. Because the Fairness Doctrine insisted that Americans should have access to an opposing point of view on important issues.
Republicans hate that. They hated it then. They hate it now. Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine, and even today, the Koch owned Cato Foundation calls smoking related cancer an overblown myth, their rationale? According to Cato, no one under 35 dies of smoking related lung cancer! Hurray! How bad could it be? All those other people died of old age, not from smoking. And the Heartland Institute, home of right-wing evil across the planet, proudly boasts a "smokers' lounge" on their website where Big Tobacco acolytes and "libertarians" can find "sound science" and doctored statistics that "prove" the anti-smoking groups are all wrong.
What is it about right-wing ideology that makes it such a supporter of death? They couch their addiction to big business as love of freedom, but businesses like Big Tobacco and the military industrial complex are trading, essentially, in death. Any regulation designed to keep people healthy and well and living longer--if some corporation might lose a few bucks over that regulation--almost guarantees that Confederates will be dead set against it.
Accent on dead.
Like the Fairness Doctrine.
At least they didn't kill it before millions of lives were saved.
Akhilleus,
Definitely Cuba. And, since much of the time I spent in the Third World I was getting shot at, (went with the job) it will be a refreshing change.
Mississipi? Remember Uneasy Rider?
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/charliedanielsband/uneasyrider.html
Things haven't changed much, apparently.
The whole Luis Lang healthcare megillah demonstrates one clear fact, and that is just how far off the rails right-wing principles (such as they are) have lured large numbers of Americans; just how far removed they are from the world of facts where stupid ideas based on an unworkable and pernicious ideology trump rationality, evidence, and truth.
Here's how it works morons: you get sick, you need healthcare. Everyone does. Rejecting healthcare because you don't like the black guy is stupid beyond words and means that when terrible shit falls out of the sky on your head, you get sick and maybe you die. Or go blind. Got it?
I'm somewhat happy the guy is finally waking up to the fundamental dysfunctionality--and potential lethality--of Confederate political stances (he's still in the "both sides" phase, but at least he's not saying it's all Obama's fault that his eyes are bleeding), but does it really take the prospect of catastrophic disease before these idiots sober up and go easy on the Kool-Aid?
Christ! These people.
@D.C. Clark - Now I wish I had voted. My vote would have gone to Eleanor Roosevelt, too. In my view, she's most worthy of this recognition.
D.C.,
Great song.
"I'm a faithful follower of Brother John Birch and a member of the Antioch Baptist Church..."
Things haven't changed much, you're right.
That was back when Charlie Daniels could still look at wingers with humor, before he became a walking pile of Confederate talking points and god talk about the evils of teachin' evolution, complete with all the requisite sense of victimization by liberals and intellectuals.
I'll bet he hasn't played "Uneasy Rider" in decades. Taking the side of a long haired counter-culture dude on the way to LA against Birchers and KKK lovers who would never leave Mississippi probably wouldn't sit well with most of his audience.
I saw him once around about 1980 hoping to hear that song, but by that time "Uneasy Rider" was a long way back in his rearview mirror. Confederate ideology does not suffer apostates gladly.