The Commentariat -- October 5, 2016
If you haven't seen the "Eight Years in America" exposé in New York on Obama's legacy and the events that have impacted it, check it out.--safari
Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information at the request of US intelligence officials, according to a report. The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA) or FBI, two former employees and a third person who knew about the program told Reuters. Some surveillance experts said this represents the first known case of a US internet company agreeing to a spy agency's demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time." --safari
Presidential Race
A Yuuge Loser. Stephen Shepard of Politico: "Mike Pence didn't just defeat Tim Kaine in their only debate -- he also outshined Donald Trump.... [T]he Pence -vs.- Trump comparison was unanimous: Each and every one of the four dozen GOP insiders who responded to a post-debate survey Tuesday night said Pence delivered a better debate performance than the New York businessman at the top of the Republican ticket." --safari
Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "[T]hat these debates, in a real sense, don't matter -- makes it tempting to treat them as pure political theater, judged on style and poise. By that standard, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence won the vice presidential debate with Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, full stop.... But politics isn't pure theater, and we shouldn't use that standard. Who performed better is less important than whether the candidates were honest and truthful...And by that standard, Mike Pence was a clear and abysmal failure.... Rather than demure or decline when confronted with Donald Trump's rhetoric and ideas, Pence denied that any of it happened." --safari...
Jonathan Chait: "Pence provided an evening of escapist fantasy for conservative intellectuals who like to close their eyes and imagine their party has nominated a qualified, normal person for president. It is hard to see how he helped the cause of electing the actual nominee.... But the pattern that quickly asserted itself in the debate revolved around Kaine's attacks on Trump, which he was able to introduce into every subject that came up. Pence had a handful of responses to this approach. He would shake his head, or chuckle.... At one point, Kaine observed that Pence had not defended his running mate, and Pence offered to do so, and to go point-by-point through the accusations, but he never got around to it." --safari...
... Esmi Cribb of Talking Points Memo has a run-down on eight of the times Pence denied that Trump said exactly what he said...
... Jackie Kucinich & Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "At the debate Tuesday night, Pence proved totally unflappable, calmly reimagining Trump's policy proposals on a host of issues and refusing to flinch through dozens of interruptions by Tim Kaine...And while the debate was a proxy battle for the top of the ticket, Pence managed to both make it about his own competence and political skill rather than Donald Trump's many flaws. Think Pence 2020, rather than Trump-Pence 2016." --safari...
...Juan Cole: "Trump running mate Mike Pence continued the unreality of this election season in Tuesday's debate by denying many things that are true and asserting many things that are not true.... The biggest Middle East news to come out of the VP debate was that Mike Pence advocated that the US strike 'military' targets of the Assad regime as a way of punishing Russia...That's huge! Pence wants to go head to head with Russia in Syria and wants vastly to expand the US military involvement by bombing Syrian military targets that are protected by Russian anti-aircraft batteries.... No one asked him how he would get around Russia anti-aircraft batteries or how he would stop Russia, which has a naval base and air bases in Syria, from supplying more and better ones to Syria. Or maybe he wants to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia?" --safari
Margaret Hartmann of New York: "As some presumably small portion of Americans sat through a dull debate between the Republican and Democratic vice-presidential nominees on Tuesday night, a far more interesting drama was unfolding within the Libertarian ticket. VP candidate Bill Weld told the Boston Globe that he plans to focus exclusively on attacking Donald Trump for the remainder of the campaign -- essentially admitting that running mate Gary Johnson can not become president." --safari
Eric Levitz of New York: "On Monday, Bill Clinton 'slammed Obamacare,' calling it the 'craziest thing in the world.' Or so headlines on The Hill and CNN suggested. And on first glance, the stories beneath those headlines seemed to deliver the goods.... But, as the Huffington Post notes, when you look at Clinton's quote in context, you see that this is not what he realized at all. Before Clinton started talking about the people our 'crazy system' is failing, he made it clear that said system is still better than the one Obama inherited, which Donald Trump would have us return to...Thus, the former president was advocating for Hillary Clinton's proposed reforms to the ACA, not for the law's repeal." --safari
Other News & Views
Oliver Milmann of the Guardian: "The vast patch of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean is far worse than previously thought, with an aerial survey finding a much larger mass of fishing nets, plastic containers and other discarded items than imagined...The density of rubbish was several times higher than the Ocean Cleanup, a foundation part-funded by the Dutch government to rid the oceans of plastics, expected to find even at the heart of the patch, where most of the waste is concentrated." --safari
Capitalism is Awesome, Ctd. Christopher Moraff of The Daily Beast: "In 2009, with opioid-painkiller deaths at an all time high in America, a British consumer goods company you've probably never heard of was facing a crisis of its own. That year, Reckitt Benckiser's patent for its opiate-treatment drug Suboxone expired, opening the gates for cheaper generic+ versions of the medication to hit the market...According to a massive antitrust lawsuit made public last week, that's when Reckitt Benckiser decided to destroy the Suboxone market in order to keep it. A copy of the 92-page ... complaint describes how the company ... gamed the pharmaceutical regulatory process using a variety of 'deceptive and unconscionable' practices to maintain a chokehold on the emerging market for medicine-based addiction treatment."--safari
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Reader Comments (9)
Scrappy Citizen Kaine debates mild mannered Apprentice from Central Casting: The red tie guy snarls at the blue tie guy and the music played on. Pence was unable to defend his running mate, but showed us all what a REAL conservative sounds like––the Republicans finally have their spokesman. And Trump? he was left by the wayside with his potty mouth open wide and his tiny hands waving in the wind.
P.S. the head shaking from Pence is what all the so called defenders of Trump do when they listen to the litany of despicable Trumpisms. They then quickly segue to criticisms of Hillary because they can't defend their one and only. I would have liked to see Kaine just stop talking and say, "Why are you shaking your head? Am what I'm saying not true?"
The last segment of the two romancing their faith was, according to the pundits, very real and heartwarming. I found it ironic that Pence, who advocated his state's "Right to discriminate law" is so very upset when abortion seeps into his pia mater. The Christian message to love your neighbor as you would love yourself goes a long way only if YOU have your own way.
From Bouelle's Slate piece: "... Pence looked commanding, almost presidential. And on Twitter, pundits and observers began immediate speculation about the vice presidential nominee’s prospects for 2020, should Donald Trump lose the election for president."
That is a great meme that should be repeated often. "Pence is presidential."
That will drive DJT to turn on Pence like a dog chasing his own tail, internally at least, which will show up in strange Trumpian eruptions.
Never outshine the boss, if the boss is DJT.
So lets see. Not having the guts to say barely anything is a winner!
Did anyone else notice Pence seeming to nod in acknowledgment to a lot of the points Kaine was making about Trump? Sort of like "Nice point there, Tim."
Pence - best warm fuzzy blanket establishment GOP could ask for. Proof the party, as they know it, is not dead. The GOP is overwhelmed in the moment. Per usual, short sighted and blind to the reality that the electorate has changed and will continue to change in the next 4 years. The same old tired ideas have realized their full bigoted potential in Trump and the dog whistles are now a Sousa band leading the white supremacists to the glory land. I have no doubt that group will remain stirred up. The 2018 midterms, as well as constant focus on voter suppression tactics are critical. Meanwhile, the electorate is growing new voters, many of whom are brown and black.
The media is perpetrating all that Pence love because it makes them feel soooo much better than dealing with Trump. He's just a run of the mill, white guy whose lies comport with what is defined as Republican. They're desperate to distance themselves from the horrible mess their irresponsible reporting has visited on us.
I was disappointed that Kaine didn't take a moment to point out that with Pence and Republicans in power, Indiana unemployment has gone from the national average to worse than the national average and the growth in the national GDP has outpaced the growth in Indiana's GDP by an average of 1% annually since 2011 even though Obama has been hobbled by the millstone of a Republican party pledged to never pass any Obama legislation.
In spite of all the heat it takes I've got a feeling FEMA is going to be very popular down here in the southeast in the coming weeks. What with hurricane Matthew bearing down with 120 mph winds governers who have refused federal aid for their citizens are going to be lining up with their hands out.
Here's to it not being as bad as we fear and that I personally don't get hit too hard.
Think good thoughts.
@safari: thanks to you for continuing the site today–-much appreciated and your link to "Eight Years in America" is , as a younger crowd would say, Awesome!
The lyin' king is no Selina Meyer ("Can I pick 'em?"), and Pence is no Tom James (Mr. Smart 'n' Dreamy). We knew this would be his response to the 'Pence outshines trump' verdict. Dopey Don is so predictable and manipulable, but he doesn't have to follow that script verbatim.
I hope he remembers that Tom was a snake, as will be Pence.