The Commentariat -- Oct. 15, 2014
Internal links removed.
Note to Leon Panetta, John McCain & Assorted Super-Hawks. Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "A C.I.A. study has found that [arming & training rebel groups in other nations] rarely works. The still-classified review, one of several C.I.A. studies commissioned in 2012 and 2013 in the midst of the Obama administration's protracted debate about whether to wade into the Syrian civil war, concluded that many past attempts by the agency to arm foreign forces covertly had a minimal impact on the long-term outcome of a conflict. They were even less effective, the report found, when the militias fought without any direct American support on the ground.... American officials said that the fact that the C.I.A. took a dim view of its own past efforts to arm rebel forces fed Mr. Obama's reluctance to begin the covert operation. 'One of the things that Obama wanted to know was: Did this ever work?' said one former senior administration official who participated in the debate.... The C.I.A. report, he said, 'was pretty dour in its conclusions.'" ...
... MEANWHILE, former Defense Secretary & former CIA Director Leon Panetta is complaining to all who will listen (& help him sell his memoir/hatchet job) that President Obama made a huge mistake in not taking his (Panetta's) advice to arm Syrian rebels. CW: Panetta, who was Defense Secretary until February 2013, surely knew about these studies during his tenure & would have had access to their preliminary findings. Mazzetti's scoop completely undermines a big component of Panetta's Complaint. Mazzetti's report is the Obama Leak Squad giving Panetta, et al., the middle finger. ...
... Digby, in Salon, takes a look back at Panetta's career: "... Leon Panetta, for all his apparent talent at a wide variety of government jobs, is all about Leon Panetta. Where he was once a hero for resigning over an issue of principle, it's hard to escape the realization that he has parlayed that early admirable moral stand into a habit of burnishing his own reputation, at the expense of the presidents he works for. Like the other 'mavericks' of our time -- John McCain and Joe Lieberman come to mind -- he is concerned about one thing and one thing only: his own sense of righteousness." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link.
** C. J. Chivers of the New York Times: "From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein's rule.... The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.... The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the government's invasion rationale.... The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harm's way and from military doctors. The government's secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war's most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds."
Amy Nutt, et al., of the Washington Post: "The hospital that treated Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan had to learn on the fly how to control the deadly virus, adding new layers of protective gear for workers in what became a losing battle to keep the contagion from spreading, a top official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.... CDC Director Thomas Frieden expressed regret Tuesday that his agency had not done more to help the hospital control the infection. He said that, from now on, 'Ebola response teams' will travel within hours to any hospital in the United States with a confirmed Ebola case." CW: Glad to see you've quit blaming the healthcare worker-victims of the disease for "breaches in protocol," Dr. Friedan. There couldn't very well have been a breach in protocol, because there was no standard protocol. ...
... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post gives four Pinocchios to the "absurd claim that only Republicans are to blame for cuts to Ebola research." CW: Yeah, and here's something absurd about your marionette analysis, Glenn. The Agenda Project ad you're blasting here never claims that "only Republicans are to blame for cuts to Ebola research." To pretend that Republicans have not been the drivers of across-the-board budget cuts is to wilfully ignore reality.
** Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed more than a dozen Texas abortion clinics to reopen, blocking a state law that had imposed strict requirements on abortion providers. Had the law been allowed to stand, it would have ... required many women to travel more than 150 miles to the nearest abortion provider. The Supreme Court's order -- five sentences long and with no explanation of the justices' reasoning -- represents an interim step in a legal fight that is far from over.... The Supreme Court, in an unsigned order apparently reflecting the views of six justices, blocked the surgical-center requirement entirely and the admitting-privileges requirement as it applied to clinics in McAllen, Tex., and El Paso. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have allowed the law to be enforced." CW: The dissenting justices, in a one-line, unsigned opinion, said that the Framers "originally intended women to be chattel; thus, purported concerns for their health and well-being represent nothing more substantial than unconstitutional sentimentality."
New Washington Scandal! "Obama Environmental Plan Tainted by Association With Environmentalists." Jonathan Chait: "Republicans are launching investigations in both the House and the Senate to expose the hidden hand of environmentalists in the crafting of environmental regulations. 'The E.P.A. appears to have a far cozier relationship with N.R.D.C. lobbyists on carbon emission rule-making than with any other stakeholders,' charges Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.... The accusation -- 'far cozier' -- merely charges that the administration worked more closely with the NRDC than with, say, lobbyists for oil and coal.... [The EPA plan] is surely a pluralistic one. Pluralism is an old-fashioned political science concept that described policies that incorporate compromises between competing interest groups.... In modern American politics, it describes policies within the Democratic Party, which draws support from business as well as labor, environmentalists, and consumer groups. The Republican Party's economic coalition, by contrast, has a monolithic pro-business cast.... Within the Republican Party, it has come to seem normal for environmental regulations to be crafted entirely along the lines demanded by business lobbyists. The existence of a significant lobbying role for environmentalists -- even the moderate, well-respected ones at the NRDC -- seems to them scandalous." ...
... ** I'm relinking this piece by Charles Pierce on Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis's spot against her GOP opponent Greg Abbott, which I linked early yesterday afternoon. Pierce puts the ad in the context it needs putting: as a pushback against typically egregious Republican practices & policies. He adds a shoutout to the media for promoting these policies by their silence.
Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "President Obama will not nominate a candidate for attorney general until after the midterm elections, a White House official said Tuesday. The White House is pushing off the nomination at the request of Senate Democrats, who asked the White House to delay naming a successor to Eric Holder, who announced his resignation last month."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "The Democratic Party is held in worse regard than at any point in the past 30 years, according to a new poll. The poll, from the Washington Post and ABC News, shows 39 percent of Americans now have a favorable impression of the blue team, while 51 percent have an unfavorable impression. Both are new records. Through it all, of course, Democrats continue to have a better image than their GOP counterparts, whose favorable/unfavorable split with the American people is currently 33/56."
"Yes, I Am a Nut." -- Paul Ryan. Jonathan Chait: "During a debate last night for his election to the House, Paul Ryan was asked if he believes that human activity has contributed to global warming. 'I don't know the answer to that question,' he replied, 'I don't think science does, either.' In fact, science does know the answer.... This is another way of saying that Paul Ryan is a nut. His ideological fantasies prevent him from accepting even basic scientific facts. He is, to be sure, a lucid nut, rather than a raving nut who accosts passersby on street corners.... Ryan is in a party where this sort of thing barely even attracts attention."
Annie Lowrey of New York on Bill Gates v. Thomas Piketty. Gates "that we [in the U.S.] have not reached a state of old-world dynastic wealth and that philanthropy might be a powerful force for dissipating concentrated fortunes from generation to generation.... This is a weird, weird telescoping. Piketty is not arguing that the United States has a tradition of dynastic wealth that explains its inequality. Rather, he shows that wealth inequality has ballooned of late, meaning in the past few decades, driven by an increase in income inequality.... [A] Wealth-X study found that billionaires tend to give away but small slivers of their wealth. And there is no evidence that the country's 1 percent or 0.1 percent, writ large, are becoming more philanthropic." ...
... CW: Lowrey writes, "Half are entrepreneurs who made their own fortunes, Gates notes.... Put billionaires in an age bracket, and there's a big hump around 55 to 64, with fat tails on either end. The average American billionaire is in his early 60s." I would add that there's a good reason for that: the all-too-brief window of high funding of public education that began after WWII & started falling during the Vietnam War. That funding allowed hundreds of thousands of children of working- & middle-class American families access to higher education, & thus to high-paying jobs & entrepreneurial opportunities. In some cases, the generation of billionaires in their 60s built on the successes of their parents, the first generation to benefit from generous public education funding. Bill Gates is such a billionaire; his father went to college & law school on the G.I. bill, which allowed the father the wealth to provide his children with rich learning experiences in "exclusive" schools. Those "self-made" billionaires who despise Elizabeth Warren's populist message should acknowledge that they themselves are the beneficiaries of the ideal Warren for which advocates.
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Dave Jamieson of the Huffington Post: "A Jimmy John's employment agreement ... includes a 'non-competition' clause that's surprising in its breadth. Noncompete agreements are typically reserved for managers or employees who could clearly exploit a business's inside information by jumping to a competitor. But at Jimmy John's, the agreement apparently applies to low-wage sandwich makers and delivery drivers, too.... The noncompete agreement is now part of a proposed class-action lawsuit filed this summer against Jimmy John's and one of its franchisees." CW: Jimmy John's is a sandwich chain with more than 2,000 locations. The non-competition agreement, if enforced, would severely limit low-wage workers' ability to find similar employment elsewhere, even if they left their Jimmy Johns jobs because they moved to a new city thousands of miles away. ...
... CW: If Congress cared about workers' rights, it would outlaw companies from imposing these types of agreements on management & non-management personnel who are not privy to extensive insider information. Some states, BTW, do just that, rendering these non-competition clauses unenforceable against most workers. Unfortunately, most low-wage workers don't know their rights, & are apt to "voluntarily" comply with the unlawful agreements they signed. ...
... Of course as Susie Madrak points out, "Joke's on [Jimmy John's] -- I'll bet most workers sign it without reading it."
November Elections
Nate Silver explains again why polls might be wrong or skewed in favor of one party over the other. ...
... Paul Waldman on "unscewing" the polls. Waldman argues that Democrats aren't doing what Republicans did in the 2012 presidential race. CW: I think Waldman is right. If Republicans take the Senate & pick up a few seats in the House, I'm not going to be shocked & believe the election results were rigged & my team "really won," as many Republicans did re: the 2012 presidential election. Nothing I've read -- & I've read a lot -- suggests that the polls are methodologically & purposely skewed to favor Republicans (although they were methodologically skewed before pollsters figured out how to poll mostly-younger voters who didn't have landlines).
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Since last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has essentially given up efforts to unseat Republicans in several races, pulling advertising money from a dozen campaigns in Republican-held districts to focus on protecting its embattled incumbents. Democrats need 17 Republican seats to win back the majority, but of the 25 races still on the campaign committee's battlefield, only seven currently belong to Republicans. That means they are playing defense in 18 districts and offense in seven." ...
... CW: Re: this story & several others here, see James S.'s comment at the top of today's Comments.
A Chamber in Conflict with Itself. John Stanton of BuzzFeed: "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce may want the GOP to change its tune on immigration policy, but that isn't stopping the powerful business lobby from pouring more than $15 million into efforts to re-elect nearly two dozen Republicans who disagree with them. In fact, in four Senate races in North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, and Kentucky that could determine control of the Senate, the Chamber has spent nearly $7.8 million propping up Republicans against providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants."
Arkansas. James Hohmann of Politico on last night's Senate debate among the four candidates. ...
... David Ramsey of the Arkansas Times: "Rep. Tom Cotton is running for U.S. Senate, advocating root-and-branch repeal of Obamacare as the key tenet of his platform, and he refuses to be honest about the impacts that policy change would have on Arkansans. For all of his big talk of principled stands and doing "the hard right over the easy wrong," he has shown himself afraid or unwilling to level with the people of Arkansas about the policy change he is advocating for. Cotton's explicit plan would repeal the private option, ending health insurance coverage for 200,000 Arkansans. He just won't admit it." Via Paul Waldman. CW: This, obviously, is the preferred GOP strategy, especially in states where the ACA has had a highly-significant impact. See Kentucky.
Colorado. Eric Bradner of CNN: Right-wing extremist & Denver Post darling "Cory Gardner has opened up a four-point lead [against Sen. Mark Udall (D)] in a Colorado Senate race that's key in determining whether Democrats can hold onto their majority, a new CNN/ORC poll shows."
Georgia. James Hohmann of Politico: "National Democrats are reserving $1 million more for ads in Georgia, where they see the Senate race moving in their direction thanks to attacks against Republican David Perdue's record of outsourcing. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has pumped in $800,000 for the ads, to start airing Wednesday for two weeks in Atlanta, the state's biggest media market, and is in the process of snapping up another $200,000...." ...
... WXIA Atlanta: "For the first time, Michelle Nunn leads the race for Georgia's Senate seat. In an exclusive 11Alive poll conducted by Survey USA, Democrat Michelle Nunn leads likely voters 48% to Republican David Perdue's 45%. Libertarian Amanda Swafford grabs 3%, just enough votes to possibly force a runoff.... The Governor's race between Republican incumbent Nathan Deal and Democrat challenger Jason Carter[, former President & Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter's grandson] is tied. Each candidate gets 46% of likely voters."
Iowa. Katie Weiderman of KCRG-TV Cedar Rapids: "The wife of Doug Butzier confirmed Tuesday morning that it was Butzier who crashed his plane near the Dubuque Regional Airport around 11 p.m. Monday." Butzier died in the crash. "Butzier worked as an emergency room physician at Mercy Medical Center in Dubuque. He was also running for U.S. Senate as the Libertarian candidate."
Kentucky. Adios, Alison. Kyle Trygstad of Roll Call: "The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has gone dark in Kentucky, where the party is targeting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. After a significant investment in support of Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, the DSCC had not reserved time for the final three weeks of the race and, as of today, is no longer on the air." ...
... Update. Greg Sargent: "Some claim national Dems have given up on Alison Grimes' candidacy, based on the news that the DSCC is not currently running ads in Kentucky. But the DSCC clarified last night that Dems have just put $300,000 into voter mobilization there. While that obviously isn't big money, and while it remains to be seen whether the DSCC will go back on the air, I'd caution against reading too much into the 'abandoning Kentucky' storyline."
... Sabrina Siddiqui of the Huffington Post: "Mitch McConnell Wants Kentucky To Believe Its Obamacare Exchange Is Just A Website." CW: Yesterday I pointed out that Grimes didn't effectively challenge McConnell when he repeated this, um, lie. The governor of Kentucky issued a statement that does what Grimes failed to do. You can bet few people read the governor's accurate rebuttal, but thousands saw Grimes flub it. ...
Tonight, Mitch McConnell looked into the camera and misled Kentucky about his plan to take Kynect from more than 500,000 Kentuckians who have gained health care in the last year. Mitch told Kentuckians he'd keep the website up, while pulling the plug on federal funding, tax credits, and tearing down a marketplace that has made Kentucky a model of success for the nation -- all to advance his partisan political agenda that has Washington in gridlock to the point of paralysis. -- Gov. Steve Beshear (D), Monday
... Brian Beutler: "... here was McConnell..., caught in a massive contradiction about the fate of hundreds of thousands of people's health benefits, and the media still yawned it off. How to explain this? The answer lies, at least in part, with the political press corps' general indifference to policy, and its aversion to speaking fluently about substantive debates." ...
... CW: Yes, Chuck Todd, if Grimes' stupid refusal to say how she voted in the last two presidential elections is "disqualifying," why isn't it "disqualifying" to lie to voters about ObamaCare/Kynect? ...
... Why, Chuck, even GOP apologist Ron Fournier, who calls you, Chuck Todd, "my friend," & who describes McConnell a "hypocrite ... playing with the health of 500,000 Kentuckians ... [and] misleading conservatives," writes, "If running away from Obama is disqualifying, playing both sides of the fence on Obamacare might be worthy of retirement." ...
... AND ya know what Chuck's big complaint is? "... no journalist likes to be used in a TV ad. It is cheap and likely useless. And McConnell has hidden himself from questions for months." That's right: Chuck Todd is pissed because Mitch McConnell is unfair to Chuck Todd. McConnell is using Chuck's public statements in a TV ad, yet he won't speak to Chuck.
Missouri Elected Official Seeks Military Junta to Oust President Obama. Not a Parody. Progress Missouri: "Jefferson County Recorder of Deeds Debbie Dunnegan [R] took to her Facebook page this week to ask her military friends why no one has taken action against 'our domestic enemy ... supposedly the commander in chief.' That's right, she asked why President Obama hasn't been taken care of (or something) by the military yet. Apparently, in Dunnegan's Constitution the military has 'the authority' to oust the President for unspecified misdeeds.... Dunnegan is up for reelection as Recorder of Deeds this November. Jefferson County voters deserve better." ...
... CW: Looks like Little Debbie there has got herself a copy of Right Wing World's Official U.S. Constitution; you know, the upside-down one, where in this case, the military controls civilian authorities rather than the other way around. ...
... Sometimes Suggesting a Violent Insurrection Is Just a "Poor Choice of Words." Leah Ithorsen of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: " Jefferson County Recorder of Deeds Debbie Dunnegan said Tuesday that she used a poor choice of words on a post on her personal Facebook page that some are interpreting as an attack on President Barack Obama." CW: The sweet thing about it is that Debbie asks very politely why the military haven't conducted a coup.
North Carolina. David Firestone of the New York Times: "Capitalizing on fears of a looming national security threat is an old and often successful Republican tactic. For George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it was al Qaeda; for their successors, it is the Islamic State, which is being waved like a red blanket in several other races as well. Its usefulness is one of the reasons why the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced yesterday that it would spend another $6 million on ads for [Thom] Tillis in the last three weeks of the campaign...."
Ohio. Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "Ohio’s [Gov.] John Kasich [R] ... is coasting toward a second term in a state that long has been one of the nation's presidential battlegrounds, campaigning on policies he believes can put a more empathetic face on the national Republican Party. His economic philosophy is Republican orthodoxy, drawn from supply-side theory and coupled with a reformist streak. What sets Kasich apart from some others in his party, however, is his willingness to use the levers of government and the zeal with which he has embraced his own version of compassionate conservatism, with strong religious overtones." You'll enjoy reading about Kasich's Democratic opponent Ed Fitzgerald, a loser in every sense. Also, Kasich does not like to pay to park his RV, which he cites as a reason he's not running for president.
South Dakota. Larry Pressler Is No Liberal. Danny Vinik of the New Republic: Former GOP Sen. Larry Pressler, now running for the Senate as an independent candidate, demonstrates how far-right the GOP has moved & why "partisan gridlock persists." CW: There is, BTW, no reason to think Pressler would caucus with Democrats if he won the Senate seat. He's said he might try to form an independent "working group" with Bernie Sanders & Angus King, the two Senate independents who do caucus with Democrats & usually vote with them.
Wisconsin. Charles Pierce thinks Cap'n. Scotty's "ship be sinking." I hope he's right.
We don't have a jobs problem in this state. We have a work problem. -- Gov. Scott Walker, during a gubernatorial debate
CW Translation: Lazy poor people are the state's biggest economic problem.
I don't think it serves a purpose. -- Scott Walker, on the minimum wage, yesterday
CW Translation: To hell with people who can't get highly-skilled, well-paying jobs.
Beyond the Beltway
Dee Hall of the (Madison,) Wisconsin State Journal: "U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa ... Tuesday gave the green light to campaigns and purportedly independent groups to coordinate some political activity -- legalizing, at least temporarily, the type of activity at the heart of the now-stalled John Doe investigation.... A national campaign finance expert said he expects that order likely will be appealed -- and overturned." Thanks to Nadd2 for the link. ...
... As Ian Millhiser of Think Progress documented in May, Randa is fond of making ideologically-wingnut decisions, which the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is apt to overturn. (CW: As far as I can tell, the second matter Millhiser cites -- the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case -- is still out on appeal.)
Mary Walsh of the New York Times: "Detroit and its last big holdout creditor said on Tuesday that they were close to a settlement, cutting short a day of planned testimony on whether the city's prized art collection should be used to help end the city's bankruptcy. Thomas F. Cullen Jr., a lawyer representing Detroit, told Judge Steven W. Rhodes, of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, that 'substantial progress' had been made in talks with the Financial Guaranty Insurance Company during a weeklong break in the city's bankruptcy trial."
Christine Byers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Gunshot residue tests and ballistics evidence indicate that Vonderitt D. Myers Jr. fired a gun at a police officer before being fatally shot, police and union officials said Tuesday. The police department issued a statement saying that forensic scientists from the Missouri Highway Patrol crime lab found gunshot residue on Myers' hands, shirt and inside the waistband and pockets of his jeans.... Ballistics evidence also revealed three bullets that hit the ground where the officer was trying to take cover matched Myers' gun." Myers' shooting has resulted in some protests. CW: Some of Myers' relatives claimed he did not even have a gun at the scene.
Katherine Driessen of the Houston Chronicle: "Houston's embattled equal rights ordinance took another legal turn this week when it surfaced that city attorneys, in an unusual step, subpoenaed sermons given by local pastors who oppose the law and ... are tied to the conservative Christian activists that have sued the city." CW: I hate to stand up for bigots, but based on the little I know from this report, subpoenaing sermons certainly smacks of a First Amendment violation. Besides, the issue in the lawsuit brought by pastors (& others, I think) is whether or not the group gathered enough signatures to put the equal rights issue on the ballot. The pastors have made clear they oppose the city's equal rights ordinance; demonstrating just how anti-gay they are seems irrelevant to the subject of their suit.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Stocks plunged Wednesday in rocky trading, closing down on a fourth straight day of losses amid a stretch of volatility in international trading that routed investors to the refuge of government bonds."
Washington Post: "Kurdish fighters have turned the tide against Islamic State militants in the battle for control of the Syrian border town of Kobane after two days of relentless bombardment by U.S. warplanes, Kurdish officials and activists said Wednesday."
New York Times: "Norward Roussell, who in 1987 arrived in Selma, Ala., as the city's first black superintendent of schools with aspirations to equalize educational opportunity -- only to be fired three years later amid racial animosities, protests and a school boycott that recalled the historic Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march of 1965 -- died on Monday in Selma. He was 80."
AP: "Riot police moving against activists sparked outrage after officers were seen kicking a handcuffed protester and dragging dozens of others away Wednesday in the worst violence against the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong since they began more than two weeks ago. Clashes that erupted before dawn Wednesday continued early Thursday, as police used pepper spray to push back crowds of protesters trying to occupy a road outside the government's headquarters."
Reuters: "Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade." ...
... CW: This amazes me because for years I've read that nuclear fusion was a hoax. Here's a 1989 article from the NYT wherein leading physicists said they had debunked supposed nuclear fusion claims, & they mocked the scientists who said they had achieved it in lab experiment.
New York Times: "President Obama on Wednesday canceled his travel to a fund-raiser and a campaign rally so he could convene a meeting of several top cabinet members to coordinate the government's response to the Ebola outbreak, officials announced." ...
... New York Times: "Health officials authorities in Texas said on Wednesday that a second health care worker involved in the treatment of a patient who died of the Ebola virus had tested positive for the disease after developing a fever. The worker ... had been 'among those who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan after he was diagnosed with Ebola,' at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, a statement from the Texas Department of State Health Services said."
Oops, forgot to link this yesterday. Washington Post: "David Greenglass, confessed member of the infamous Rosenberg atomic spy ring, died July 1 at 92, more than a half-century after his better-known sister, Ethel Rosenberg, went to the electric chair in part for what he later claimed was his false testimony against her." The New York Times story is here.
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Reader Comments (18)
On the issue of campaign funding--who's getting it; who's losing it--I would suggest reading David Nir's daily reports on Daily Kos. It's far more complex than the NYT seems to understand. Actually, the RNCC and DNCC are close to being minor players in the various races. And while it's quite true that they are triaging money from one race to another, it's also true that many shadowy sources are quite willing to fill the void.
Three cheers for the Supreme Court for blocking the 5th Circuit's horrible decision regarding Texas abortion clinics, at least temporarily while on appeal.
It is only mid-October and I am over the edge with spite and fury at our political sluts: Leon Panetta, and Tuck Chodd--and ready to boil in oil the Republican nut cakes: Scotty Walkster, John Kaisch, Mitchy McConnell. A special shout-out for Alison Lundergan Grimes for her wussy lack of courage. ( I hope she and Tuck Chodd meet on the Appalachian Trail and have a silly, messy affair--which does not end well.) And, not to forget, a shit sandwich for Debbie Dunnegan.
#2 slut, Tuck Chodd, appeared on Chris Hayes tonight and portrayed himself as such a "victim" that I wanted to arc a bean. He is truly despicable. (I think Chris enjoyed making him sweat!) As for his shallow little show: "Press the Meat." He and Lukey Russert deserve each other.
As for Leon Panetta. He makes me rethink voting for Hillary--so much in the Clintons' nasty pockets is he. A trashy traitor. May his book be banned for excessive narcissism and bad editing! What a gross troll! (SUPREME COURT....damn.)
I will not even mention Darrell (the arsonist) Issa. He is beneath contempt.
There.........I feel bettah already!
Federal judge Randa strikes again!
He has ordered Wisconsin to stop enforcing laws to prevent collusion between campaigns and dark money organizations.
It is expected, by optimists like me, that his ruling will yet again be overturned by the appeals court--but probably not before the election.
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/federal-judge-orders-state-to-stop-enforcing-anti--coordination/article_0c66e6f3-d43b-5784-8ef5-879b6be9a813.html
Forgot to mention that Judge Randa's order came down before the defendants (ie, the JohnDoe prosecutors--the good guys, if you're understandably having trouble following) even had a lawyer. The state (Walker and his lackey AG Van Hollen) refused to defend them and dragged their feet appointing representation.
Less Reasonable Than Barbarians.
So the Democratic Party is throwing in the towel in house and some senate races. Despite her campaign mistakes, Grimes is still close in Kentucky, but with McConnell battering her on the airwaves and Democratic support drying up, her defeat is all but assured. Kentucky Democrats are stunned. Why give up when it's still close?
Why?
Because that's what Democrats do. They give up. Republicans never give up, never give in. Never give an inch. I'll give them that. They fight to the end. That's why they're where they are right now. In 2000, instead of fighting tooth and nail, the Democrats caved and let the worst president in US history take us down the path of war and economic collapse. Republicans hired thugs to attack recount officials, had James Baker parachute in with money and storm troopers threatening lawsuits and enforcing the will of the right. As Gore and the Democrats wavered, gave no sign they had any fight in them, the Supreme Court had all they needed to stop the recount and install their guy, a veritable coup d'etat. Democrats could only mumble about how they would support the new president and blah, blah, blah.
Now, with everything on the line, Democrats look like they're folding again. Maybe not everywhere, but I'll bet Republicans aren't giving an inch anywhere. It's a mindset. There have been a number of posts linked here over the last few weeks about the way Republicans look at politics. It's a blood sport for them. And you can delete "sport" for my money. They realize it's a fight to the death. Democrats treat it like a board game. "Let's see, we'll take money from here, move it over there..." Instead of bombarding us with requests for money, how about asking for help with boots on the ground? How about mobilizing the troops and developing a battle plan?
Pretty soon they'll be reduced to pleading just to be allowed to keep a few seats in congress. Like Pope Leo in 452 CE riding out to beg Attila and his Huns to please, please, pretty please, not burn Rome to the ground and put everyone to the sword.
The big difference is Attila was a reasonable guy.
Republicans are not.
The Barbarians aren't at the gate. They're inside, deciding on who gets to live and who gets to die.
(P.S. Leo only staved off the inevitable when he got Attila to agree, for whatever reason, to not turn the Rome into a dung heap. Three years later, the Vandals sacked the city anyway.)
If you're unsure about my thesis, see Nadd2's posts above.
They do whatever it takes. Legal shenanigans, untraceable money (thanks, Johnny!), vote suppression, anything and everything to win.
I'm not necessarily suggesting that Democrats adopt all the illegal underhanded methods favored by conservatives, but they need to at least adjust their mindset and marshal their forces in order to stay in the fight. As I said previously, they don't show up at a gunfight with a knife, they show up unarmed with their hands tied behind their backs and a target painted on their asses.
You don't beat bullies and crooks by playing nice and pretending we can all get along. Would you invite a crocodile to spend time with your kids?
Here's how bad it is.
I had to check the link, above, related to the Supremes disallowing Texas from shoving pieces of bamboo under the fingernails of women who might think they have a choice as to how to conduct their own lives.
Marie quotes the dissenting judges' contention that women should not be given such consideration (access to abortion facilities) because they are chattel and any such finding would represent unconstitutionally supported sentimentality.
I actually had to look that up because it certainly sounds like something Alito, Thomas, and Scalia might say.
Even if they didn't say it, they clearly think it, or something close.
Don't worry. If they actually had said something like that, Upchuck Todd and the MSM bothsiders would loudly insinuate that plenty of Democrats feel the same way.
Kate,
So glad you're feeling better!
I for one, after reading of the latest Issa investigation (is this Made Up Scandal Investigation #234 or #235?) have decided that ol' Darrel is one of a new breed of congressional dog, Pavlov's Congressman. Whisper "investigation" and he starts to drool.
I'm especially amused by the latest "scandal", that the ENVIRONMENTAL Protection Agency has been talking to ENVIRONMENTALISTS.
Holy Greenpeace, Batman!
I can't imagine Republicans doing anything that dastardly, such as the vice president calling a closed door meeting with energy companies and big oil and gas to discuss how a national energy policy can be crafted to increase their already obscene profits.
That would never happen, would it?
As for us lesser mortals, if I had, say, a broken ankle, would it be scandalous of me to consult a......DOCTOR?
How about a dented fender? Would I display traitorous and unethical tendencies if I took my car to a body shop?
"Idiot" is too kind a description. How about gun toting, car thieving, company stealing, insurance scamming, arson loving idiot?
This is republication of a comment by @Creeger, written this morning, but published in yesterday's thread. Creeger is responding to the extreme umbrage I took to a comment he made yesterday:
Wow. OK, but the point I was attempting to raise was, given what Diane Rourk - a presumably humble, nice, likable, college educated person -, encountered when trying to stay within proper channels to raise questions about government intelligence agencies' overreach (sic), maybe it's time to set aside the ad hominem attacks and listen to what Snowden has been attempting to telling us. The response I see suggest that I am wrong. I can't resist observing: Thomas Paine, like Snowden, Greenburg, Assange et al, was thought by many to be a thoroughly obnoxious character. Regardless, I think RealityChex is the best!, indispensable really, and I apologize for having been so offensive. I certainly didn't intend to be.
@Creeger: First, I accept your apology.
Let me just explain why I found your comment so offensive.
(1) You're not a regular commenter, so your criticism was a drive-by.
(2) I made a special point to urge readers to read the part of the review about Diane Rourk's experience, a part of the review which was pretty far down the page.
(3) I urged readers to check out her story because it lent support to Ed Snowden's rationale for going public the way he did.
(4) I reminded readers that I had suggested – maybe a year ago – that Snowden could have attempted to take a route similar to the one Rourk took.
(5) I acknowledged that had Snowden taken the path I suggested, it would likely have been as futile as Rourk's experience & that of others she said had expressed similar concerns “thru channels.”
(6) Ergo, I implied I was wrong or at least not helpful.
(7) AND you responded by demanding that I get naked & parade up & down I-95 carrying an “I love Ed Snowden” poster over my head.
Item (7) there ain't gonna happen. And it's not because of the quality of Snowden's personality. Probably the majority of whistleblowers are people who were never going to win the “Most Popular” prize. In addition, I think that among Snowden's reasons for the massive docu-dump was the “pure” one, if you will, of righting something he believed was morally & legally wrong. It is apparent from his social media trail that at some point he had an epiphany of sorts & decided – correctly, I think – that the NSA & its collaborators in the executive & judicial branches were violating implicit Constitutional privacy rights as well as legislative acts.
Like many a convert, Snowden became an extremist to his newfound religion. He wasn't satisfied to reveal what he already knew about the NSA's activities; he specifically changed jobs to a position that gave him extensive access so he could learn more, downloading all along the way. As I recall, a few of the low-level people he duped in pursuit of his quest lost their jobs for trusting him.
There's nothing in the record of which I'm aware to suggest that Snowden's main motivation was “My bosses are idiots,” although that particular belief was clearly in the mix. He has said as much.
Whenever somebody does something that doesn't smell right or doesn't seem to make sense, I always try to put myself in their shoes & ask myself what I would or should do if I were in that situation. As I have always acknowledged, Snowden didn't have any optimal choices. In this case, if I decided the effort was worthwhile, I probably would have done something very similar to what Diane Rourk tried. That obviously would not have turned out well.
I should add that I probably would not have done anything (although it's more likely that I would have at a more tender age than I am now). It is unclear to me how much actual harm the NSA's institutionalized probable Constitutional violations actually have caused any law-abiding U.S. citizen. As far as I can tell, what the NSA is doing is potentially awful, but not actually awful. (I am aware of instances of NSA workers “freelancing” gross invasions of privacy, but that's a different matter.) So probably if I'd been in Ed's shoes, I would have said to my co-workers &/or boss, “You know this shit we're doing here is unconstitutional, don't you?” And the co-workers would have said, “So?” And I'd have let it go. Or I'd have asked for a transfer to the place where they do stuff that's more ethical. Before I get my hackles up, I have to see where somebody is in imminent danger of being harmed, not where there's merely a vague potential for harm.
If you think it's horrifying that the government could find out whom you called if they bothered to look, I find it more annoying that Google – a private, for-profit company – knows exactly where I'm sitting right now, & that they're currently acting on that knowledge, sending me messages to vote for Scott Brown. It's true Google can't arrest me for sitting in my living room, but the feds aren't going to arrest me, either, for calling a friend (a call they are not bothering to track, anyway).
I still object to what Snowden did & the way he did it. It's just foolish to “trust” an opinion columnist & other people you don't know with huge troves of sensitive documents & hoping they'll publish & present the material responsibly & fairly. Even Snowden kind of acknowledged that point in his recent interview with the New Yorker when he said he would not have published some of the stuff that journalists & their publishers chose to print: "I would draw those lines much more conservatively than some of the journalists have," he said.
Marie
P. S. If you had attacked a reader as you did me, I would have just deleted the comment.
Listening to the press conference regarding Ebola being held with POTUS press secretary. I must say it does nothing to increase my respect for the mainstream press. What a repetitive obtuse group of questions mostly designed to elicit s gotcha moment rather than to shed real light on a serious situation
Mustn't forget about the rematch for Governor of CT between incumbent Dannel Malloy (D) and Tom Foley (R).
From yesterday's NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/nyregion/tough-punches-traded-in-connecticut-rematch-dannel-malloy-thomas-foley.html?ref=nyregion
Death Be Not Loud.
The right has adopted ebola as the Obama Monster of the Month.
Fox "expert" "psychiatrist", "Doctor" Keith A-blowjob has decided that the ebola virus is the greatest threat to America since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But the medical aspect is not the worst of it. The worst? The president is allowing--welcoming--ebola to spread in this country. In fact, he has planned its spread.
Why?
Oh, c'mon. You know why!
Blacketty, black, black, black.
According to the guy who declared that he would "run" for the senate seat in MA being vacated by John Kerry as long as no one ran against him (he being a tried and true wingnut dickweed--meaning as long as it was handed to him, he would deign to accept the win), Barack Obama wants (Whitey, white, white, white) Americans to die horrible deaths because he is actually, no, really, the President of Africa.
Bet you didn't know there was such a thing. I sure didn't. I thought Africa was a continent, unlike wingnut icon Sarah Palin, who though it was a country.
Well kids, according to "Dr." Keith A-Blowjob, here's the secret. Ready? This is really amazing. And he came up with this all on his lonesome, can you imagine??
Who are the two worst, most awful, most terrifying, most bloodthirsty, worstest, baddest, poopiest, evilest villains in all of American history type stuff?
Oh, c'mon, you namby-pamby, evil loving liberal types....if you weren't such 'merica haters and watched Fox, like you SHOULD, you'd know.
Osama (Obama) Bin Laden, and (Saddam) Hussein.
Get it????? Barack (a 'merica hatin' name if there ever was one...why couldn't he have a real 'merican name....like Ron...) Hussein OSAMA....oops, Obama.
So, if your name is vaguely reminiscent of some terrible person, YOU ARE TO BLAME for every fucking horrible thing in history!!
So everyone with a name that can be connected to some evil-doer (The Decider's fave designation--even though his family was a HUGE supporter of a guys named ADOLF and--oops--OSAMA), you are a very, very, very bad person. And you are hereby never allowed to say the Pledge of Allegiance ever again. So there.
This is what passes for fact based analysis in Right Wing World.
This isn't fact based, this is self abuse.
Keith Ablow sits in some smelly john somewhere and jerks off to himself about his fantasies, and Fox serves this mess up as NEWS.
I don't even know how to describe this crazy shit. And I'm usually not at a loss for characterizing right-wing cookamunda.
The bottom line, for the right, is ebola comes from Obama who wants to kill white people.
I can't even begin to describe how vile and racist this shit is. The fact that Fox allows depraved, bigoted pieces of shit like this guy to talk about anything more than the how much he hates the microscopic size of his dick is beyond me.
But here's the kicker.
So far there have been 8, that's eight, 8, as in less than 10, cases of ebola in this country. And the wingnuts are losing their shit over it.
But, as has been pointed out, a medium sized city of people, over 30,000, die every year at the muzzle of a gun. Something the right supports without question.
As long as American deaths accompanied by the sound of gunfire aren't counted, we can throw our hands up in the air and scream about ebola. And blame Obama. Because name, something, something, something.
Makes sense, duzn't it?
The republicans have created what can only be properly described as a complete clusterfuck for voters in Texas. The desperate relentlessness to pursue voter restrictions in the face of a complete lack of widespread voter fraud belies the cancerous plague that the Texas GOP represents to our democratic society.
Corporate media remains casterated on the issue as usual. Texas will remain blood red for this election cycle, with judicial activism for the assist.
Plus link, lo siento
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/15/gops_disturbing_voter_id_win_how_a_brutal_texas_law_just_got_reinstated/
I have a different take on Alison Lundergan Grimes’s campaign than the beltway gang. For one, she holds statewide office now, so she has some winning notions about running for statewide office in Kentucky. (I may be mistaken, but I don’t think Tuck Chodd has ever done that, especially in a state as peculiar as Ken-tuck.) I spent a bit of time in hill-and-hollow southeastern Kentucky; nine-month assignment with, two years later, a three month reprise. Talking to people, county judges, coal miners, the Breckinridge’s nurses on horseback (except they were Jeep-back by then); going to community meetings and tent revivals and hospital waiting rooms. It’s not like Cleveland Park or Bethesda or Alexandria. It doesn’t move the same way. Not even close. Read Harry Caudill’s “Night Comes to the Cumberlands” and you’ll see what I mean.
AK: "Why give up when it's close? That's what Democrats do." They do that because as people like Panetta and Podesta show, the powerful Democrats in control of the purse strings are actually Republicans and want anything except an independent minded elected official who not beholden to the money interests. If Panetta and Podesta were appointing Supreme court justices, do you think they'd look much different than Roberts or Kennedy? Think Jon Corzine. Think Andrew Cuomo. The seductions of power and position are pretty attractive to guys who like to strut in locker rooms. At the end of the day, this election is about the Supreme Court and Senate. Democrats roll over and play nice. They need more Wendy Davis type ads calling out asshole Republicans.