The Commentariat -- Oct. 18, 2014

Internal links removed.

** Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Saturday allowed Texas to use its strict voter identification law in the November election. The court's order was unsigned and contained no reasoning. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a six-page dissent. 'The prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,' she wrote, undermines 'public confidence in elections.' Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the dissent." CW: Hmmm. Once again, it's the girls against the boys, & this time not on a gender-specific issue.

Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "'The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me,' [Federal Reserve Chair Janet] Yellen said at a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. 'I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation;s history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity.'... But ... she stays away from the aspects of the inequality puzzle that have a close tie-in to the policies of the Federal Reserve.... It seems like Ms. Yellen offered this speech as a way to use her bully pulpit to cast public attention on an issue she cares about deeply, deliberately avoiding areas where inequality intersects with the policy areas under which she has direct control." ...

     ... See also, Connecticut gubernatorial candidate, in November Elections below. ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times: "Good luck distinguishing between good oligarchs & bad oligarchs." He's right. The opinions & preferences of the wealthy may sometimes line up with the public good, but they should not be given any more weight than yours or mine. See also, Bill Gates/Common Core.

White House: "In this week's address, the President discussed what the United States is doing to respond to Ebola, both here at home and abroad, and the key facts Americans need to know":

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Beneath the calming reassurance that President Obama has repeatedly offered during the Ebola crisis, there is a deepening frustration, even anger, with how the government has handled key elements of the response. Those frustrations spilled over when Mr. Obama convened his top aides in the Cabinet room after canceling his schedule on Wednesday.... Officials said Mr. Obama placed much of the blame on the C.D.C...." ...

... Julie Davis & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday named Ron Klain, a seasoned Democratic crisis-response operative and White House veteran, to manage the government's response to the deadly virus as public anxiety grows over its possible spread. Mr. Klain, a former chief of staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joseph R. Biden Jr., is known for his ability to handle high-stakes and fast-moving political challenges. He was the lead Democratic lawyer for Mr. Gore during the 2000 election recount, and was later played by Kevin Spacey in the HBO drama 'Recount' about the disputed contest." ...

... CW: So Frank Underwood. Great. Maybe he can ruin the lives of some GOP loudmouths. ...

... CW: You'll be shocked, shocked, to read this. David McCabe of the Hill: "GOP blasts Obama Ebola czar pick. No sooner had the White House announced that it had selected Ron Klain to coordinate the administration's response to concerns about the Ebola virus than several congressional Republicans were expressing anger about the pick. Most highlighted Klain's past as a political operative." The lede to this story has been changed, but I prefer the original one, copied above. ...

... Joe Nocera on the CDC's "failure of competence.... When you think about it, many of the Obama administration's 'scandals' have been failures of competence. The Secret Service ... the Veterans Health Administration ... the Obamacare website.... [CW: I'd add Benghaaazi! & the IRS to that list.] The Republican right takes it as an article of faith that the national government can't do anything right.... And now comes the C.D.C. -- the most trusted agency in government -- thrust in a role for which it was designed: advising us and protecting us from a potential contagion. With every new mistake, it becomes, in the public eye, just another federal agency that can't get it right." ...

... Nate Silver looks at flight patterns coming out of West African countries to show why a travel ban wouldn't work. "... the next Ebola patient may be on a flight from London, not Liberia." ...

... Jonathan Cohn takes a more comprehensive look at why a travel ban, including one based on the nationality of the potential passenger, wouldn't work. One of his main sources: Bush administration Secretary of Health & Human Services Michael Leavitt, who studied the feasibility of a travel ban during an avian flu epidemic. Leavitt's conclusion: fageddaboudit. ...

... Your Ebola Chart of the Day is here. BUT never mind ...

... Kathleen Ronayne of the AP (Oct. 16): "U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told a group of college students Wednesday the deadly virus Ebola can spread from a person who has the disease to someone standing three feet away and said the White House should be honest about that. His comments directly conflict with statements from world health authorities who have dealt with Ebola outbreaks since 1976." ...

... Here's more from Benjy Sarlin of MSNBC. ...

... Steve Benen: "At the risk of putting too fine a point on this, it's no longer clear just how much respect Rand Paul is due.... To assume Paul knows what he's talking about, and that he has more credibility that legitimate medical experts, is a mistake." ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM digs for the roots of Li'l Randy's Ebola truther moment. He finds some in a crackpot conspiracy theorists' organization called Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, of which both Rand & Ron Paul are a card-carrying members. Sounds like an upstanding professional group, doesn't it? It isn't. "... they suggested that President Obama was not simply a gifted orator but actually 'deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis developed by Milton Erickson, M.D.?' The group's journal has also claimed that humans have not contributed to climate change, that HIV does not cause AIDS, that abortion causes breast cancer, that undocumented immigrants are flooding the US with leprosy, [etc.]... The year before running for senate at their annual conference. 'I use a lot of AAPS literature when I talk,' he told the group in his speech." ...

     ... CW: If you're looking for something to panic about, I suggest you freak out about the possibility that this nutjob could become president. ...

     ... Hey, maybe President Randy would make his old man the surgeon general! Ben Adler of Grist elaborates on Marshall's story: "Ron Paul, as it happens, has come out with what might be the most disturbing thing said by any conservative about Ebola." Paul thinks "liberty, not government, [is] the key to containing Ebola.... Rand Paul is shrewd enough not to say what Ron did about Ebola. But his belief system is the same. And his father's latest missive is a taste of the dangers a Rand Paul presidency would carry for the environment, public health, and public safety." ...

... MEANWHILE, more Texas crazy from Louis Gohmert, a bona fide elected representative of the people & until now, secret feminist, who tells us "... the CDC head, Frieden, is apparently the commander of the Democrats' new war on women nurses. Because, goodnight, they set them up, and then they throw them under the bus." (CW: Oddly, I think he's partly right on his main point, before he & Glenn Beck pivot deep into Right Wing World.

... Dana Milbank: "In an interview published Sunday night, [NIH Director Francis] Collins shared with the Huffington Post's Sam Stein his belief that, if not for recent federal spending cuts, 'we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this' Ebola outbreak. This should not be controversial. His conjecture was based on cold budgeting facts.... Yet conservatives pounced.... Who would say, given the economic catastrophe that an Ebola outbreak could cause, that spending tens of millions more for an Ebola vaccine is wasteful?" ...

... CW Answer: Dr. Ron Paul, for one.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" for the LGBT-WMD Community":

     ... CW: If you can't figure out why your Fox "News"-watching acquaintances are so ignorant, watch the clips Colbert highlights.

From the Department of Inconsequential Matters. Did the plaintiff in this case really suffer from "intentional infliction of emotional stress" or is he just a guy who can't take a joke?

November Elections

Connecticut. Tatiana Schlossberg of the New York Times: "Thomas C. Foley, the Republican candidate for governor of Connecticut, paid $673 in federal taxes in 2013, despite personal wealth that allowed him to spend $11 million of his own money in a race for the same office in 2010.... The campaign released his 2010, 2011 and 2012 tax summaries last month; 2013 was the third year in a row that Mr. Foley effectively paid no federal income tax." ...

... CW: That should make you angry.

Florida. Gov. Rick Scott pumped out flood zones caused by rising sea levels so he won't have to admit sea levels are rising.

Nebraska. It's Willie Horton All Over Again:

     ... AND the charges the Republican Congressional Committee makes against Demcorat Brad Ashford are based on mighty thin "evidence." Nebraska's Republican governor supported the same sentencing bill Ashford did. ...

     ... Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blasted the ad on Friday afternoon, accusing the ad of 'race-baiting' and demanding that it be taken down." ...

     ... CW: One reason we may never get sensible sentencing laws: politicians are afraid if they vote for any bill that allows for any sort of early release, they will be Willie-Hortoned in their next election bid.

Nevada, I guess. Cliven Bundy's New Black Friend. CW: I do believe the real reason AG Eric Holder is resigning is he's a'skeert to face Cliven Bundy & his ranch hand candidate for Congress Kamau Bakari:

Texas. See the Supreme Court ruling linked at the top of the page.

Virginia. Washington Post Editors: GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie proposes a national healthcare plan "worse than Obamacare." CW: Hey, it will raise the deficit, has poor protection for people with pre-existing conditions, & will hurt poor people, leaving them with nothing but bare-bones catastrophic coverage. But otherwise it's great.

Presidential Election

Paul Waldman lists a few reasons why "there's no way [Rand Paul] (or any other Republican) could get a third of their votes in a presidential campaign.... No matter how much he reaches out, other people in his party are going to keep doing things like air this latter-day Willie Horton ad. Then there's the comprehensive Republican project to restrict voting rights, which African-Americans rightly interpret as an effort to keep them from voting. Then there's the fact that for the last six years, Barack Obama has been subject to an endless torrent of racist invective, not only from your uncle at Thanksgiving but from people with nationally syndicated radio shows. On his listening tour, Paul might ask a few black people how they feel about the fact that America's first black president had to show his birth certificate to prove he's a real American." ...

... CW: Yeah, & how about Li'l Randy himself "standing by" his aide & co-author, the "Southern Avenger"? Plus, as Howard Fineman pointed out in the linked post, "Paul will have to deal with myriad nettlesome issues that come from his family's political roots in the libertarian, states' rights and nativist soil deep in some reaches of American politics." When you get right down to it, Rand Paul is a Southern white boy. He has pretty much let on in recent remarks that his inerest in bridging the GOP racial divide is about garnering votes, not about giving a whup about black Americans.

Beyond the Beltway

** Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "The police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., two months ago has told investigators that he was pinned in his vehicle and in fear for his life as he struggled over his gun with Mr. Brown, according to government officials briefed on the federal civil rights investigation into the matter. The officer, Darren Wilson, has told the authorities that during the scuffle, Mr. Brown reached for the gun. It was fired twice in the car, according to forensics tests performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The first bullet struck Mr. Brown in the arm; the second bullet missed.... [Federal] officials said that while the federal investigation was continuing, the evidence so far did not support civil rights charges against Officer Wilson.... The officials ... said the forensic evidence gathered in the car lent credence to Officer Wilson's version of events."

News Ledes

AP: "Searchers found human remains on Saturday that could be those of a University of Virginia sophomore who has been missing since Sept. 13, police said. Further forensic tests are needed to confirm whether the remains are those of Hannah Graham, but Graham's parents were notified of the preliminary findings, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo told a news conference."

AP: "Police in the Seattle suburb of Auburn said Thursday that they believe they have found the body of missing actress Misty Upham, known for her roles in 'August: Osage County,' 'Frozen River' and 'Django Unchained.'"

Reuters: "The survivalist charged with murdering a Pennsylvania trooper and wounding another was spotted near his old high school carrying a rifle and with mud smeared on his face, police said on Saturday, five weeks after a manhunt for the suspect began. Eric Frein, 31, who is on the FBI's Most Wanted list, was spotted by a woman in a 'surprise encounter' while she was taking a walk, said Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police."

New York Times: On a trip to Milan to meet with European leaders, Vladimir Putin behaves badly.

The Commentariat -- Oct. 17, 2014

Internal links removed.

"Privatized Politics." Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times Magazine: "The result [of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision] was a massive power shift, from the party bosses to the rich individuals who ran the super PACs.... Almost overnight, traditional party functions -- running TV commercials, setting up field operations, maintaining voter databases, even recruiting candidates -- were being supplanted by outside groups. And the shift was partly because of one element of McCain-Feingold that remains: the ban on giving unlimited soft money to parties..... A party platform has to account for both the interests of the oil industry and those of the ethanol industry; those of the casino industry and those of the anti-gambling religious right; those of Wall Street and those of labor." ...

... Spencer Woodman of Slate: "... the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, or BIPAC, [is] a political organization ... [whose] primary aim ... is to turn as many private employers as possible into 'employee political education' machines for business interests. BIPAC urges major companies to transform their workforces into a voting bloc and provides sophisticated tools that show employers how to do it. Although BIPAC claims nonpartisanship, in the races that matter most -- such as this year's hotly contested battles that will determine control of the Senate -- BIPAC has the GOP's back.... The group has partnerships with most companies on the Fortune 100 list...."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama remained at the White House on Thursday to focus on the government's response to Ebola, canceling a second day of election-season travel as the administration concentrated on what is already turning into a political as well as a public health crisis.... The drop-everything approach is a striking change for a White House that prides itself on always maintaining its cool." ...

... Michael Shear: "President Obama said Thursday evening that he might appoint an 'Ebola czar' to manage the government's response to the deadly virus, a concession to critics who have questioned whether his administration has stayed on top of the medical crisis." ...

     ... Here's an expanded Times story by Jack Healy, et al., on the czar thing. ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "The President's problem is that he appears to be reacting to events rather than dictating them. Initially, his Administration resisted calls to screen visitors from West Africa; the day Duncan died, it announced a system of screening. Until yesterday, the White House insisted that the C.D.C. had established proper protocols and systems for hospitals dealing with Ebola victims. Now it is beefing up federal oversight and promising to fly in SWAT teams." ...

... Alan Cowell of the New York Times: "Adding a new and troubling dimension to the search for Americans possibly exposed to the Ebola virus, the State Department said Friday that an employee of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who may have had contact with specimens of the disease had left the United States aboard a cruise ship. The employee and a traveling partner, who were not identified by name, had agreed to remain isolated in a cabin aboard the vessel, the State Department said, and 'out of an abundance of caution' efforts were underway to repatriate them. A physician aboard the cruise ship had said the employee was in good health.... 'The individual was out of the country before being notified of the C.D.C.'s updated requirements for active monitoring,' [according to a State Department] statement. 'At the time the hospital employee left the country, C.D.C. was requiring only self-monitoring.'" ...

... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "Facing sharp questioning at a Congressional hearing on Thursday about the troubled handling of Ebola cases in the United States, federal health officials said that a nurse with Ebola would be transferred to a specialized unit at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, to ease the burden of the Dallas hospital where she became infected.... Both nurses [who have contracted Ebola] worked in the hospital's intensive care unit, and Dr. [Thomas] Frieden said that investigators' 'leading hypothesis' was that the women became infected in the first few days of caring for Mr. Duncan, when, according to hospital officials, they were wearing basic protective gear but had not yet upgraded to full biohazard suits." ...

... Eun Kyung Kim of the "Today" Show: "Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse Briana Aguirre, who cared for her friend and co-worker Nina Pham after she tested positive for the Ebola virus, says she can no longer defend her hospital over how she claims it responded to the disease once Thomas Eric Duncan arrived. 'I watched them violate basic principles of nursing,' Aguirre told 'Today''s Matt Lauer ... Thursday.... Administrators never discussed with staff how the hospital would handle an Ebola case prior to Duncan's arrival, Aguirre alleged.... She said there was mass confusion over procedures...." ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "Dr. Thomas Frieden, the CDC director, [argued against a travel ban] on Thursday to a lineup of Republican lawmakers who wanted to know why the government hadn't banned commercial travel from the west African countries at the center of the Ebola epidemic. Frieden said authorities preferred a system where they could screen people trying to come to the U.S. by air rather than instituting a ban that would force would-be travelers to go around checkpoints and slip into the country undetected.... Frieden, with help from Democrats on the committee, also argued that a travel ban would restrict access to the 'huge quantities' of aid and personnel that needed to get in and out of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to help stem the crisis at its source. ...

... Lena Sun, et al., of the Washington Post profile Thomas Friedan, the CDC director. ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: Thomas "Frieden's ... account of how [Amber] Vinson[, a nurse infected with Ebola,] got on the plane ... was at least evasive and, depending on what he knew and what exactly Vinson was told, may have been worse. He was asked three different ways if Vinson had been told not to fly, and each time dodged the question in a way that left the impression that Vinson was some sort of rogue nurse who just got it into her head that she could fly wherever she wanted. He talked about her 'self-monitoring,' and that she 'should not have travelled, should not have been allowed to travel by plane or any public transport' -- without mentioning that his agency was who allowed it." Read the whole post. ...

... Josh Voorhees of Slate writes an excellent, balanced piece on the parties' Ebola vaccine blame game. ...

... Dylan Scott of TPM: "It isn't a surprise to see conservative media beating the drum of conspiracy and incompetence. But now, with all perspective and nuance being tossed aside, the more mainstream media is starting to pick it up, too." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. ...

... Brian Beutler of the New Republic: "... the story that many conservatives are telling about Ebola goes something like this: We'd love to eschew hysteria, and we'd love to believe our public health officials can break the chain of transmission within the U.S., but the Obama administration has proven itself untrustworthy.... Members of the media are enabling this opportunism. They should be anathematizing it.... That the risk is provably infinitesimal underscores the fact that the issue with Ebola isn't the virus itself so much as paranoia about it." ...

... Simon Maloy of Salon: "... 'the Doom-and-Disease Chorus' [is] ... nurturing along the perception that existing policies are failing horribly and the likelihood of outright catastrophe is increasing. The 'do something' politicking is the natural outflow from all their efforts to keep people scared. It won't solve the problem -- it could even make it worse -- but it appeals to the frightened person who's been made to feel that the situation is slipping into chaos and is just looking for something, anything, to be done." ...

... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "Federal officials have no indications that terrorists are seeking to use the Ebola virus as a biologic weapon against the United States, FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday. 'No,' Comey replied simply when asked whether there was any credible evidence that foreign terrorists were looking into using the virus to target the U.S." ...

... Michael Schmidt & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "The director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, said Thursday that federal laws should be changed to require telecommunications companies to give law enforcement agencies access to the encrypted communications of individuals suspected of crimes. In a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Mr. Comey warned that crimes could go unsolved if law enforcement officers cannot gain access to information that technology companies like Apple and Google are protecting using increasingly sophisticated encryption technology."

Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "Four [Department of Veterans Affairs] executives were selected for termination in recent weeks, but two of them retired abruptly before they could be shown the door.... On Tuesday, Susan Taylor, the deputy chief of procurement for the Veterans Health Administration, announced her retirement by email, three weeks after the Veterans Affairs agency released a scathing report saying she had steered business toward her lover and to a favored contractor, then tried to 'assassinate' the character of a colleague who attempted to stop the practice. The other executive who retired before being fired, John Goldman, was accused of allowing employees at a V.A. hospital in Georgia to delete hundreds of appointments from records to hide wait times at the hospital. He submitted his resignation in September."

Famous Economists Who Don't Like Each Other. Paul Krugman: "... it's hard to escape the conclusion that people like [former Fed chair Alan] Greenspan knew as much about what the market wanted as medieval crusaders knew about God's plan -- that is, nothing.... In fact, if you look closely, the real message from the market seems to be that we should be running bigger deficits and printing more money. And that message has gotten a lot stronger in the past few days.... I'm talking about interest rates, which are flashing warnings, not of fiscal crisis and inflation, but of depression and deflation. Most obviously, interest rates on long-term U.S. government debt -- the rates that the usual suspects keep telling us will shoot up any day now unless we slash spending -- have fallen sharply."

Famous GOP Senators Who Hate Each Other. Judy Kurtz of the Hill: "Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) daughter [Meghan McCain] said on Wednesday that her father and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) 'hate each other.'"

Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter was discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine, according to a report. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Biden was discharged earlier this year after failing a drug test in June 2013. A lawyer and former lobbyist, Biden was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Reserve in 2013. He applied for a commission into the reserve as a public affairs officer at age 42."

Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post: "Facing outrage from traditional Catholics, top clergy at a Vatican meeting on Thursday altered a document meant to guide future outreach to gays and lesbians, changing the goal of 'welcoming homosexual persons' to 'providing for homosexual persons.'"

November Elections

Mark Lopez, et al., of Pew Research: "A record 25.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote in the 2014 midterm elections, making up, for the first time, 11% of all eligible voters nationwide. But despite a growing national presence, in many states with close Senate and gubernatorial races this year, Latinos make up a smaller share of eligible voters...."

Florida "Fangate," Ctd. Jim Newell of Salon: "If this weird, petty nonsense is the sort of thing that decides the next governor of Florida, it won't be a tragedy. It will be fitting. This is a race between two notorious creeps. Rick Scott is an arch Medicare fraudster. Charlie Crist, who was a Republican vice-presidential short-lister not that long ago, is one of the purest opportunists in modern American politics. The debate that eventually happened between the two last night consisted of them flinging these very valid critiques of each other back and forth. This race, like so many others in this cycle of blanket unpopularity, is not one of profound optimism and inspiration."

I waited to be -- 'til we figured out if he was gonna show up. He said he wasn't going to come to the, uh -- he was -- he said he wasn't gonna come to the debate. So why come out until he's ready? -- Rick Scott, explaining why he missed the first six minutes of his gubernatorial debate with Charlie Crist

Makes a lot of sense. -- Constant Weader

Iowa. Greg Sargent: "Democrats have unearthed new audio of Joni Ernst [RTP] in 2013, in which she details rather stark views about the relationship of Americans with their government.... In it, Ernst claims that we have created 'a generation of people that rely on the government to provide absolutely everything for them,' and that wrenching them away from their dependence 'is going to be very painful.'" Here's more:

We're looking at Obamacare right now.... It's exponentially harder to remove people once they've already been on those programs.... We rely on government for absolutely everything. And in the years since I was a small girl up until now into my adulthood with children of my own, we have lost a reliance on not only our own families, but so much of what our churches and private organizations used to do. They used to have wonderful food pantries. They used to provide clothing for those that really needed it. But we have gotten away from that. Now we're at a point where the government will just give away anything. ...

... Jonathan Chait: "That's the fundamental belief that motivates most, if not all, the conservative opposition [to ObamaCare]: Health care should be a privilege rather than a right. If you can't afford health insurance on your own, that is not the government's problem." ...

... Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post: "Iowa Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst said she would support a federal bill that gives legal personhood rights to fetuses from the moment of fertilization, effectively wiping out legal abortion in the United States." ...

... Manu Raju & John Bresnahan of Politico: Tom Harkin is a selfish cheapskate, & the result maybe that winger Joni Ernst takes his seat.

Kansas. Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "... as Supreme Court rulings reignite a national debate over voter ID and fraud, no candidate more defines this moment of politicized voting rules than Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach, who has transformed an obscure office in a place far from the usual political battlegrounds, to become a lightning rod on restrictive voting and illegal immigration.... Mr. Kobach was elected by a 22-point landslide in 2010. Now he faces an unexpectedly tough re-election fight in deeply Republican Kansas, where many think the party may have gone too far. It is the same wave threatening to swamp Gov. Sam Brownback."

North Carolina. David Firestone of the New York Times: "In North Carolina, [GOP Senate candidate] Thom Tillis is the last holdout against gay marriage.... Pursuing [an] appeal [of a lower court ruling striking down the state's same-sex marriage ban] will cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars, all so that he can rally conservative opponents of gay marriage to support his election bid. Though the appeal has no chance of success, Mr. Tillis has his eye on a very different victory." CW: So consider it a taxpayer-funded campaign contribution.

Pennsylvania. E. J. Dionne: Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania's Democratic candidate for governor, who is almost certain to oust current Gov. Tom Corbett, is "a businessman who ... thinks capitalism works best when employees have a stake in their firm's success. 'I share 20 to 30 percent of my net profit with my employees,' Wolf says. 'Everybody is a stockholder in the company. My Republican father came up with the idea. And he did it because it really works. I am judged in my company by my truck drivers, not by me. They see my customers more than I do....' Thinking of workers as stakeholders is old-fashioned. But these days, it's also revolutionary."

Beyond the Beltway

Christine Byers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: A grand jury witness "who said he saw the killing of [Michael] Brown from start to finish and talked to the grand jury recently -- has given the Post-Dispatch an account with some key differences from previous public statements from other witnesses.... After an initial scuffle in the car, the officer did not fire until Brown turned back toward him. Brown put his arms out to his sides but never raised his hands high. Brown staggered toward [Officer Darren] Wilson despite commands to stop. The two were about 20 to 25 feet apart when the last shots were fired."

Odd News. Patricia Wen & Martin Finucane of the Boston Globe: "An unusual witness testified Thursday in the trial of a friend of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev. Former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis said he and his wife were long-time family friends of Robel Phillipos's mother. Dukakis even took Phillipos to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he said. Dukakis testified in US District Court in Boston that several days after the Marathon bombing Phillipos's mother said she was concerned about him, so he got Phillipos's cellphone number and called him."

Presidential Election

Bro Nation. Steve M. on "The Most Interesting Man in Politics!" CW: For your amusement. Tho it won't be so funny as we watch Steve M.'s predictions come true. ...

... Most Interested Reporter at Politico Interviews Most Interesting Man in Politics. Mike Allen: "Sen. Rand Paul tells Politico that the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 could capture one-third or more of the African-American vote by pushing criminal-justice reform, school choice and economic empowerment."

News Ledes

Reuters: Alan Long, "the mayor of Murrieta, California, who led a local backlash against the arrival of undocumented Central American immigrants flooding the U.S. border, has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in an accident that injured four teenagers."

Florida Times-Union: "Twenty-three months after Michael Dunn shot and killed Jordan Davis, a judge sentenced the 47-year-old man to life in prison Friday. Dunn will serve life in prison without possibility of parole for the death of Jordan Davis and 90 years for shooting at the three other teenagers."

Washington Post: "The cruise ship carrying a Texas health-care worker who 'may have' handled lab specimens from Dallas Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan is headed back to the United States after Mexican authorities failed to grant permission for the ship to dock off the coast of Cozumel, according to a Carnival spokeswoman."

The Commentariat -- Oct. 16, 2014

Internal links, illustration, defunct video & related text removed.

They kind of blew me off. -- Dr. Sean Kaufman, when he warned the CDC that its Ebola control protocol was too lax

... Donald McNeil of the New York Times: "Many American hospitals have improperly trained their staffs to deal with Ebola patients because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax, infection control experts said on Wednesday. Federal health officials effectively acknowledged the problems with their procedures for protecting health care workers by abruptly changing them. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued stricter guidelines for American hospitals with Ebola patients. They are now closer to the procedures of Doctors Without Borders, which has decades of experience in fighting Ebola in Africa. Sean G. Kaufman, who oversaw infection control at Emory University Hospital while it treated Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the first two American Ebola patients, called the earlier C.D.C. guidelines 'absolutely irresponsible and dead wrong.'” ...

... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "President Obama [said] Wednesday that the dangers of a widespread Ebola outbreak in the United States are 'extraordinarily low,' pointing to his own contact with medical personnel treating a patient infected with the virus":

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "After a two-hour meeting of cabinet-level officials who are in charge of the government's response to the virus, Mr. Obama promised that a review of the recent Ebola cases in Dallas would determine what went wrong that allowed two nurses to be infected. With a video link to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control, the president said he had ordered health officials to determine, 'How we are going to make sure that something like this isn't repeated.'" ...

... Manny Fernandez & Jack Healy of the New York Times: "A second nurse at a hospital [in Dallas] tested positive for Ebola on Wednesday, the third case of disease confirmed in Dallas in the span of 15 days and the first to heighten fears far beyond the city. The nurse, Amber Joy Vinson, 29, took a flight earlier this week from Ohio to Texas, a trip that federal health officials said should not have been taken.... The C.D.C. asked all 132 passengers on Frontier Flight 1143 to call a C.D.C. hotline.... Officials said Ms. Vinson ... was to be transferred Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, one of four hospitals in the United States that have special high-containment units for isolating patients with dangerous infectious diseases." This story has been updated....

     ... Oh My. Here's an Update of Interest. Mark Berman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Before she boarded that flight..., Amber Joy Vinson, 29, informed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she was running a temperature of 99.5 degrees, a federal official told The Washington Post. That was below the 100.4-degree­ threshold in CDC guidelines for screening travelers who have been in Ebola-affected countries, and which triggers a secondary screening. The CDC did not prohibit Vinson from traveling on the plane back to Dallas, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue." ...

     ... CW: In both cases in which nurses contracted Ebola at the Dallas hospital, Dr. Thomas Friedan, director of the CDC, first played "blame the victim" before admitting the Ebola victim was not at fault. In the earlier case, he accused the nurse (or hospital??) of some unknown "breach of protocol." I do believe Dr. Friedan needs to have a check-up for Infallible God Syndrome, a psychological condition common among medical doctors. ...

... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: Dr. Thomas Friedan "has become the face of the Obama administration's flawed response to Ebola in the United States, and on Thursday he is likely to face withering questions about his record during a congressional hearing." ...

... Katie Zavadski of New York: "Local Dallas reporter Lauren Zakalik tweeted that CDC officials told her there is a 'do not board' list that will evolve to cover potentially exposed people." ...

... Dianna Hunt of the Dallas Morning News: "Health care workers treating Thomas Eric Duncan in a hospital isolation unit didn't wear protective hazardous-material suits for two days until tests confirmed the Liberian man had Ebola -- a delay that potentially exposed perhaps dozens of hospital workers to the virus, according to medical records." ...

... Geoffrey Mohan, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Nurses at a Texas hospital where a Liberian man died of Ebola described a confused and chaotic response to his arrival in the emergency room, alleging in a statement Tuesday that he languished for hours in a room with other patients and that hospital authorities resisted isolating him.... In addition, they said, the nurses tending him had flimsy protective gear and no proper training from hospital administrators in handling such a patient." ...

... Alan Zarembo of the Los Angeles Times: "The nation's largest union of registered nurses Wednesday called on President Obama to mandate uniform standards at U.S. hospitals to protect healthcare workers from the Ebola virus. 'Not one more patient, nurse or healthcare worker should be put at risk due to a lack of healthcare facility preparedness,' National Nurses United wrote in a letter to the president. 'The United States should be setting the example on how to contain and eradicate the Ebola virus.'" ...

... Steve M.: "I'm amused ... to see this union and its officers being quoted favorably by outraged conservatives at Right Wing News, CNS News, Free Republic, and other sites on the right. Do these righties know anything about their new favorite whistleblowers? [The union's co-president Deborah] Burger advocates single-payer and opposes the Keystone pipeline, as does [union director RoseAnn] DeMoro. They also advocate a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street financial transactions. In a Washington Post op-ed published Monday, DeMoro tied our Ebola problems to the private, for-profit nature of our health care system." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... it's hard to avoid noting that Texas -- the very sovereign State of Texas, I should clarify, where the federal government is generally not welcome -- was at a loss in dealing with a single Ebola case until the feds stepped in (per a WaPo tick-tock on the Dallas situation) [linked yesterday in the Commentariat]. ...

... Benedict Carey of the New York Times: "As health officials scramble to explain how two nurses in Dallas became infected with Ebola, psychologists are increasingly concerned about another kind of contagion, whose symptoms range from heightened anxiety to avoidance of public places to full-blown hysteria." ...

... Joe Coscarelli of New York: "Fox News conscience Shepard Smith brought a rare moment of sanity to the network this afternoon when he shut down a colleague's report that there was a 'widespread panic across the country' over Ebola. 'Oh my God, Doug, I appreciate it, but I think we both know there's no widespread panic across the country,' Smith said. 'And I think we also know that if there's a widespread panic, it's not based in fact and it's not based in reason.'" ...

... Here's Smith talking sense about Ebola to Foxbots. His advice: "Get a flu shot." Flu, & associated pneumonia, killed 52,000 Americans last year:

... THEN There's Fox "News"'s Medical Expert & Obama Shrink Keith Ablow. Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Dr. Keith Ablow, a member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, on Tuesday said that Obama won't protect Americans from Ebola because 'his affinities' are with Africa, not the U.S. 'He's their leader.' 'He has it in for us as disappointing people. People who've been a scourge on the face of the Earth," Ablow said on Fox News Radio's The John Gibson show. 'In his mind, if only unconsciously, he's thinking, "Really? We're going to prevent folks suffering with illnesses from coming across the border flying into our airports when we have visited a plague of colonialism that has devastated much of the world, on the world? What is the fairness in that?'"... He also compared Obama to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein while claiming that Americans elected Obama because he hates the U.S." ...

     ... CW: Here's my question: Would Fox "News" allow this guy go on the air while he was wearing his Klan hood? What exactly is the network's journalistic threshold? See also Akhilleus's comment/rant in yesterday's thread. ...

... Brendan Nyhan in the New York Times: "... public concerns are likely to increase about whether the United States health care system can properly respond to an outbreak [of Ebola]. Data from surveys suggest, however, that those views -- like so many others -- are being shaped by people's partisan affilations as much as by news about the outbreak itself."

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "In his first major policy speech as director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey on Thursday plans to ... say that encryption technologies used on ... devices, like the new iPhone, have become so sophisticated that crimes will go unsolved because law enforcement officers will not be able to get information from them, according to a senior F.B.I. official who provided a preview of the speech."

Linda Greenhouse: "In the space of eight days, the [Supreme Court] justices managed to touch on American society's hottest of hot-button issues

... Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A day after the Supreme Court blocked a Texas law that had forced abortion clinics to close, some of the shuttered facilities prepared to reopen, pleased at the reprieve but mindful that the legal fight was far from over. Tuesday's order increased the chances, legal experts said, of a major face-off in the Supreme Court over a crucial question: What restrictions add up to an 'undue burden' on a woman's right to abortion?"

W. J. Hennigan of the Los Angeles Times: "The Pentagon has finally given a name to the international military effort against Islamic State militants: 'Operation Inherent Resolve.'” ...

... CW: Can we expect the same people who came up with "Operation Inherent Resolve" to defeat ISIS? Or anybody? Were they going for esoteric? Seriously, what percentage of American knows what "inherent" means? Prior to the Pentagon's settling on this brilliant handle, Paul Waldman suggested "Operation Pulverizing Power" or "Operation Glittering Justice." I myself prefer acronymical names, so something like Operation Bombs Away Motherfuckin' Assholes would be both inherently inspirational AND easy to remember. Also, it would make John McCain even crazier.

November Elections

Dana Milbank: "Republicans are so confident of anti-Obama sentiments that they aren’t making an effort to present an alternative agenda, the way they did with 1994’s 'Contract With America' or 2010’s 'Pledge to America.' The Republican National Committee drafted only vaguely worded 'principles' '“Our Constitution should be preserved, valued and honored')."

Greg Sargent: "... a total of six GOP Senate candidates [are] injecting Ebola into their races." ...

... Paul Waldman: "It's not your Senator's job to stop Ebola."

Alaska & South Dakota. Tim Egan: "... the fact that all the money and manipulations of the Koch brothers could be undone by a handful of native voters living in some of the poorest and most remote parts of the land is a tribute to our teetering democracy.... In Alaska and South Dakota, where the native vote could be the only thing that stands in the way of a Republican-controlled Senate."

Arkansas. Michael Winter of USA Today: "In a ruling that could affect a key U.S. Senate race, the Arkansas Supreme Court on Wednesday declared the state's voter-identification law unconstitutional. The unanimous decision, which upheld a lower court, came just days before early balloting begins Monday for the Nov. 4 election. The justices ruled that Act 595, which required voters to show government-issued photo identification, 'imposes a requirement that falls outside' the four qualifications outlined in the state constitution: A voter must be a U.S. citizen, an Arkansas resident, 18 years old and registered to vote."

Colorado. Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post: "Ebola emerged Wednesday night as a new issue in Colorado's U.S. Senate debate with Democrat Mark Udall and Republican Cory Gardner, but much of their hour-long exchange focused on familiar themes. The two exchanged jabs for nearly an hour in 9News' studio as moderators Kyle Clark and Brandon Rittiman pushed the candidates to answer questions on everything from climate change to reproductive rights to health-care reform." ...

     ... In case you think Gardner might be right, this FactCheck.org article -- written way back in mid-August, giving Gardner literally months to come up with a better story or renounce the House bill -- debunks his ludicrous claim that the House personhood bill is merely a pro-life "statement." Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org: "... the wording of these [personhood] measures could be interpreted to mean hormonal forms of birth control, including the pill and intrauterine devices, would be outlawed. Other non-hormonal forms, such as condoms, wouldn’t be affected, but oral contraception (the pill) is the most popular form of birth control among U.S. women." Also via Sargent.

Florida. "Fangate"! Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times & Mark Caputo of the Miami Herald: "In the weirdest start of a gubernatorial debate, Florida Gov. Rick Scott initially refused to take the stage Wednesday night because Democrat Charlie Crist insisted on using a fan to keep him cool. The Republican governor finally emerged at least six minutes late as flummoxed moderators struggled on live TV to figure out what to do with a bemused Crist standing solo on stage at Broward College. 'Are we really going to debate about a fan? Or are we going to talk about education and the environment and the future of our state?' Crist asked. 'I mean, really.'"

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "A Crist adviser posted a picture of the rules Crist signed on Twitter. They seem to indicate that a fan was allowed.... Later, the Scott campaign seemed to concede: a fan was fine by them after all." ...

... Charles Pierce: "It is now the conventional wisdom that Scott blew up his campaign with this stunt.... The visual was quite simply the most bizarre image to come out of a debate since Ned Coll waved a rubber rat at Edmund Muskie in 1972.... If you hung around and watched the rest of the debate, you fully understand now why the people of Florida are gagging on having to make a choice between either one of these jamokes." ...

... Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice posts the candidates' closing remarks. Scott's word salad is hard to watch. "You can go to C-SPAN and watch any random clip of Scott speaking last night, and it will be just as cringe-inducing." CW Note to Gov. Ricky: No voter gives a whip about your your "mom's watching from heaven."

Idaho. Jeff Singer of Daily Kos: Idaho's Gov. Butch Otter (R) is running only three points ahead of his ConservaDem opponent A. J. Balukoff, according to a PPP poll, forcing the Republican Governors Association to drop money into a race that most assumed would be an easy victory for Otter. Singer explains why there's a good chance Otter's numbers will improve.

Kentucky. Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned on Wednesday in Louisville, Ky., with Alison Lundergan Grimes, right, the Democratic candidate who is trying to unseat Senator Mitch McConnell....." ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post on Mitch McConnell's pretense that Kynect is "just a Website": "If he wants to rip out Obamacare 'root and branch,' then he has to explain what he would plant in the health-insurance garden instead. Otherwise his assurances on the future have little credibility."

Maine. The bigger issue right now is whether or not this individual had the proper papers. -- Gov. Paul LePage (RTP-Maine), on a person who tested negative for Ebola at a Maine hospital ...

... Portland Press Herald Editors: "Unbelievably, the governor used a potential public health crisis to point fingers at Maine’s largely African refugee and immigrant population. He’s encouraging scapegoating of those who are different, but he hasn’t bothered to point out that while the Ebola outbreak 'is strictly in West Africa' – as a Maine Med official has told the Portland Press Herald – most of the Africans in Maine are from the eastern part of the massive continent.... By making insinuations about whether the Maine Med patient was in the U.S. legally, the governor also has blatantly overstepped ethical boundaries. What’s more, it’s bad health policy to imply that a trip to the hospital for much-needed emergency care could result in being closely questioned about one’s immigration status." ...

... Linda Kintsler of the New Republic: "... thanks to the continued split between Maine Independents and Democrats, looks like it might very well result in the re-election of Republican Paul LePage, America’s craziest governor. Recent polls have the Democratic candidate, Congressman Michael Michaud, maintaining a thin lead over LePage, 40 percent to 38 percent, with the Independent, Eliot Cutler, trailing well behind at 15 percent. (Others have Michaud and Culter polling slightly higher.)... LePage, who should never have had a second shot at the governorship, now actually has a decent shot at winning. And he knows it, because this is how he got elected the first time around." ...

... If Maine is so proud of the "independence" of its voters, but the effect is to elect the wrong guys because reasonable people split their votes between or among the better candidates, there are easy & sensible solutions. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "In Louisiana, for example, all of the candidates run together in a 'jungle primary,' and then the top two candidates compete in a run-off if neither one wins a majority. Another system, known as 'instant runoff voting,' allows voters to rank their choices. Under this system, losing candidates are eliminated and their votes are redistributed to the voter’s next choice until one candidate emerges with a majority of the votes." CW: To me, the "instant runoff" seems preferable: the state doesn't have to foot the expense of two elections, & voters don't have to go to the polls twice.

FINALLY, why can't state-level debates be more like presidential debates? Via Daily Kos:

News Ledes

New York Times: "The chief clinical officer of the Texas hospital system that treated a Liberian Ebola patient apologized for what he said were mistakes made by the hospital in Dallas in the original diagnosis of Ebola and in providing inaccurate information. The remarks, part of prepared testimony for a congressional hearing later Thursday...." ...

... Hartford Courant: "Officials say Yale-New Haven Hospital expects to receive test results in the next 24 hours on a patient who recently traveled to Liberia and was admitted Wednesday night with a fever. The patient is one of two Yale University students who returned home last week after spending a month in Liberia researching the Ebola outbreak, according to the New Haven mayor's office." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the lead. ...

... New York Times: "Officials at school districts in Texas and Ohio shut schools on Thursday after they learned that two students traveled on the Cleveland-to-Dallas flight with Amber Joy Vinson, a nurse infected with Ebola, and that an employee may have later flown on the same plane."