Unnecessary Fight

Let us not be distracted by ex-Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, who is not a nine-year-old, but plays one on Twitter.  He tweeted "tonight@Bernie Sanders said @Hillary Clinton wasn't qualified to be President. THIS is LOW and crosses the line. Take it back, Senator."

"Take it back, Senator," said the juvenile, forgetting to add "or else I'll stomp my FEET and CRY." At about the same time, Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon tweeted "Bernie Sanders, take back your words about Hillary Clinton." A coincidence of wording, no doubt.

"I think that the Sanders campaign needs to take a timeout," Fallon whimpered on Thursday morning, demonstrating he could be as immature when speaking as on Twitter.

Notwithstanding some of her immature supporters, Mrs. Clinton has herself taken the high road since the Senator Wednesday night argued

Well let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don't believe that she is qualified if she is, if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don't think you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.

I don't think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don't think you are qualified if you've supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement, which has cost us millions of decent paying jobs. I don't think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed and which, as all of you know, has allowed corporations and wealthy people all over the world to avoid paying their taxes to their countries.









The argument over qualifications began Wednesday morning when the former Senator and Secretary of State three times denied the 20-year veteran of the Senate (or less biblically, implied he is not qualified). Both candidates wish to succeed Barack Obama, who had been a state senator, then a U.S. Senator since last Tuesday. Neither now would question his qualifications, not Sanders and not the candidate running on the slogan "Thou must not question Saint Obama."






The dispute is ironic given the obvious qualifications of Clinton and that, as Branko Marcetic wrote in In These Times early this year, unlike Obama in 2008 "Sanders actually has an impressive record of accomplishments in Congress and is well-versed in the kind of grimy, incremental work involved in passing legislation." It's also destructive because, as Charlie Peters recognizes

Neither one seems to grasp the appetite of the elite political media for a Democratic hooley to correspond to the ongoing one in the Republican Party, because that will allow for the Both Sides In Turmoil narrative that will allow the elite political media to ignore the fact that the top two contenders for the Republican nomination are an ego-driven vulgar talking yam, and an extremist theocrat who believes himself to be blessed by the Almighty to redeem this sinful land. 








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Still Stonewalling

President Obama is still disregarding the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, and 9/11 widow and activist Kristen Breitweiser is not amused.  She writes in the Huffington Post

Recently, it has become increasingly clear to me why my government has fought against such transparency, accountability, and revelation of the truth regarding the 9/11 attacks.

There are 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry of Congress (an investigation into the U.S. government intelligence failures prior to 9/11) that have remained classified and hidden away from the American public by both the Bush and Obama Administrations. These 28 pages allegedly prove that the Saudis had a controlling hand in funding the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 innocent people....

Unfortunately, the 28 pages aren’t the only example of the U.S. government protecting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to the detriment of the 9/11 families.

For the past 15 years, the 9/11 families have also tried to hold the KSA accountable in a court of law. Most recently, the KSA was dismissed from the 9/11 case on grounds of foreign sovereign immunities protection under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

The FSIA was clearly not created with the intent that nations that sponsor mass terrorism should get away with it scot-free. Nevertheless, the U.S. government has wholeheartedly supported this perverted and warped use of the FSIA by the Saudis. In short, it seems that as long as you are an ally of the U.S. and not a named state-sponsor of terrorism, apparently you can underwrite all the mass murder you want and get away with it.

Obviously, the 9/11 families have fought very hard against the Saudis misuse of the FSIA and their dismissal from our case. In fact, several times we have petitioned for a writ of certiorari seeking Supreme Court review of our case. Each time, the U.S. Department of Justice (at the direction of President Obama) has written “Letters of Interest” recommending that the Supreme Court deny hearing our case thereby allowing the Saudis to remain excused from our case via their FSIA shield...

Finding ourselves blocked by the president with regard to the release of the 28 pages, and with regard to the Supreme Court reviewing the dismissal of the KSA as a key defendant in our case, we turned to the U.S. Congress for help. And Congress answered our call with a vital piece of anti-terror legislation called JASTA(Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act).

JASTA ensures that no nation (including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) that funds terrorism will be able to use the FSIA as a shield to their culpability. JASTA is the legislative response to the Saudi’s misuse of the FSIA in our 9/11 court case. JASTA removes FSIA protections from the KSA and, as a result, the 9/11 families will finally be able to have our day in court against the Saudis....

Unsurprisingly, as soon as JASTA was set to pass with Senate approval, the shadowy Saudi-protectionist hand of the U.S. government, once again, reached out to block our progress. A whisper campaign with no fingerprints was dispensed to kill JASTA.

And, those whispers sounded something like this: if JASTA passes, the Saudis will bankrupt our economy by withdrawing $800 billion worth of T-bonds, and even worse, if JASTA passes, the Saudis will stop protecting and sharing intelligence information with the U.S. and leave us vulnerable to an ISIS attack.

So, it would seem that the same group of people who fought against the release of the 28 pages, and our case being heard by the Supreme Court, are at it once again, this time opposing JASTA and labeling it a diplomatic disaster.

Breitweiser's group is lauded by the "information & activism hub" 9/11.org, which is especially energized by the need to force release of the 28 page part 4, titled "Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters."   Therefore, with an interest in both earned benefits and the federal government's apathy toward families directly affected by the 9/11/01 attacks, yesterday I attended a "town hall" meeting featuring my U.S. representative in an age-restricted development in Southampton Township, NJ.

Later, I sent to his office an e-mail explaining that at the close of the meeting, I spoke very briefly to the congressman, who was unaware of the "28 pages" and pointing out that

After he read the 28 pages, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) in July of 2014 stated that until the American people have the "full picture of what actually happened, the intelligence picture, "it will be difficult to "prevent another 9/11 from happening." He went on to say "I want to challenge all the Congressmen who have not read the 28 pages and have the ability to read these 28 pages to do it for your constituents.... every Congressman needs to see these 28 pages."

Noting that Representative MacArthur, a Republican, has "introduced legislation to protect and preserve the National September 11 Memorial in NYC," I urged him to obtain permission to read the 28-page section. However, as Breitwer detailed, there are several (insufficient) reasons that the Obama Administration, now complicit in the  cover-up begun by President Bush, won't do the honorable thing.

Breitweiser charges President Obama, who has claimed "the most transparent Administration in history," believes "it is more important to support and protect the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rather than Americans who were victims of a terrorist attack."   If that is true- as it appears to be- the 9/11/ widows, Representative Massie and the others dedicated to transparency have a Cavanal-caliber hill to climb.















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Media Not To Blame

I'll leave the summary to The New York Times' Nicholas Confessore because he is a reliable reporter, covers campaign finance, and has a great name. In late February he noted

Mr. Trump garners what political hacks call “earned media.” He holds big rallies, says provocative things that his audience adores — “I’d like to punch him in the face,” Mr. Trump said of a heckler at his event in Nevada on Monday — and reaps of a wave of news coverage in newspapers and on television. This dynamic has earned the scorn of Trump-haters on the right and left, who have taken to blaming the news media for enabling Mr. Trump’s rise.

Give centrists and moderates some credit; they also hate Donald Trump- and probably no group more than centrists, dedicated to the proposition that there is no problem that international trade, training, technology efficiently applied, and offering up more and different programs with fewer tax revenues cannot solve.  And they, too, blame the media in part for facilitating Trump's electoral success.

They all are wrong- well, not wrong necessarily, but certainly misleading.  When Mitt Romney came out swinging against Trump last month, the super Pac formed in January by Romney's 2012 campaign manager ran the widely distributed ad (below) denouncing the front-runner for his many egregious statements about women. It was particularly fertile ground but a catalog of Trump's odd or offensive remarks, even since the beginning of the year, would be quite large.










Consider whether such statements, regarding hispanics, John McCain's war record, religion, other candidates, and much more had received the silent treatment from the media. Imagine the outrage that such an obviously offensive, self-absorbed egomaniac displaying ignorance about issues economic, domestic, and foreign were being ignored.  As with a roach, sunlight should have been an effective disinfectant (not comparing the man to the insect). It has not been thus far, but no person's immunity lasts forever. Even Teflon wears off (after the PFC's wear down your immunity to cancer).

So limit your whining, please. For whatever set of reasons, including the most visceral hatred of the people and organizations most despised by conservatives, Donald Trump strikes a chord with the Republican primary base. Instead, be thankful that- so far- he has held off the more dangerous Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Paul Ryan.









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Dainty Creatures

In the court of media opinion, the low point of either Party's presidential race in 2016 has been the competing claims of genital size of Donald Trump and "little Marco" Rubio. A month ago, CNN reported

Donald Trump assured American voters Thursday night that despite what Marco Rubio had suggested, there was "no problem" with the size of his hands -- or anything else.

"Look at those hands, are they small hands?" the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination said, raising them for viewers to see. "And, he referred to my hands -- 'if they're small, something else must be small.' I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee."

Rubio in recent days revived a decades-old old insult, mocking Trump for having relatively slight hands.

"He's always calling me Little Marco. And I'll admit he's taller than me. He's like 6'2, which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5'2," Rubio said in Virginia on Sunday. "And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can't trust them."

Only in America- no, only in the Republican Party. Soon after this series of exchanges Rubio, having failed to convinced the GOP primary electorate that he had won the argument, dropped out of the race. Still, the size of a man's genitals should not be a qualification for President of the USA.

We don't know how Ted Cruz, now Trump's main rival, would have handled The Great Penis Debate. But we do know how he handled The Dainty Wives Debate.The Associated Press observed

After an earlier and vague threat to "spill the beans" about Heidi Cruz, Trump stoked the spat on Twitter when he retweeted side-by-side images of Cruz's wife, with an unflattering grimace, and his wife, Melania, in a gauzy, glamorous pose.

"No need to spill the beans," said the caption. "The images are worth a thousand words."

Ted Cruz, campaigning in Wisconsin, was livid.

"Leave Heidi the hell alone," Cruz said, speaking through reporters to Trump.

"Donald does seem to have an issue with women," he said. "Donald doesn't like strong women. Strong women scare Donald."

Trump was set off this week when a group that opposes him released an ad before the Utah presidential contest raising questions about the propriety of Melania Trump becoming first lady. The ad showed a provocative, decade-old magazine photo of her when she was a model and before she married Trump.

Trump wrongly attributed the ad to the Cruz campaign and warned on Twitter: "Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!"

Senator Cruz could have noted that his wife's travails were a thing of the past, that she has carved out for herself a  successful career since that time.  He might have argued that he stuck by his wife- his first wife, differentiating him from Trump- and mother of his children through thick and thin.

He could have, but didnt. Instead, he tweeted "if you attack Heidi, you're more of a coward than I thought" and the next day claimed

When Donald gets scared, when he gets angry, when he gets threatened he begins yelling, he begins screaming, often cursing. And he begins to be a bully. So last night Donald threatened my wife, he went directly after my wife.

If Donald wants to get in a character fight he’s better off sticking with me, because Heidi is way out of his league.

He did not clarify what he meant by "way out of his league." Smarter? More attractive? Superior because a Goldman Sachs executive trumps a real estate billionaire?

Yet- or therefore- it was a tactically effective response, largely because it was uncontroversial and consistent with the conservative notion of a woman.

"Leave Heidi the hell alone" and "he's better off sticking with me," Cruz asserted. Otherwise, "he begins to be a bully."  Cruz thus reinforces the stereotype of woman as victim, as does John Kasich, who self-righteously contended "families should be off-limits." They took a similar approach in criticizing Trump over his recent abortion remarks, which Digby recognizes as "infantilization of women." Amanda Marcotte explained that Trump's challengers were "trying to pull" a "trick" by

Claiming that forcing a woman, against her will, into giving birth is somehow respecting her and affirming her dignity. Because nothing says “dignity” like being told you’re nothing more than an incubator whose own life, desires, and autonomy don’t matter at all.

Look, Donald Trump hates women. But Kasich and Cruz hate them more. Trump at least gives women a small amount of credit for being able to make decisions. Kasich and Cruz literally talk about women like they are extremely feeble-minded, quite literally too stupid to know that they all want to be having babies all the time.

The Cruz-Trump argument over wives has not been the most consequential of the campaign. However, it was a very low point, a harbinger of conservative outrage witnessed soon afterward, when Donald Trump haltingly attempted to make a little sense about abortion.















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The Religious Freedom Dodge

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern is not amused. He's troubled by Mississippi SB 1523, the Religious Liberty and Accomodations Act, particularly because its

primary design and intent is to debase and disadvantage LGBTQ people in every aspect of life. From employment and housing to marriage and adoption, HB 1523 puts sexual and gender minorities at risk of discrimination. Even a trip to the bathroom or the doctor’s office would suddenly become fraught with danger and uncertainty. LGBTQ people might as well stop engaging in mainstream society: At every turn, they will be confronted with the potential for discrimination and a reminder that their state views them as second-class citizens. In other words, they will live under a legal regime of segregation. For years, I believed this could never happen again. I was wrong. 

He's right currently, unfortunately. The "Religious Liberty" aspect is one which Stern does not ignore, but fails to emhasize. While the bill targets gay individuals, its purpose is allegedly is "to provide certain protections regarding a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction for persons, religious organizations and private associations."

The word "religious" appears 32 times in the body of the bill. Among its other egregious provisions, SB 1523 protects individuals who deny housing based on religious beliefs or employers who decide "whether or not to hire, terminate or discipline an individual whose conduct or religous beliefs are inconsistent with those of the religious organization."

Although they are particularly dangerous aspects of a bad bill, they did not emerge out of whole cloth.

Back in 1993, when we all were naive about the long-range game plan of the right, President William Jefferson Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The left should have had some inkling, and would have if it understood the issue.  The bill leaned on "the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner and Wisconsin v. Yoder is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing governmental interests."

Perhaps it was because the only two Justices who dared to dissent from the majority decision were the very conservative Powell and Rehnquist . Or perhaps it was because the ruling in Yoder favored a religious minority (a Mennonite sect), which when connecting the dots, appears to have motivated the American Civil Liberties Union (which ironically, has finally "gotten religion.")   In either case, the left failed to understand that the Court's ruling- bad as it was on the merits- would have far-ranging implications.

And so it has, with the "State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts" entry in Wikipedia explaining

Originally, the federal law was intended to apply to federal, state, and local governments. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court in City of Boerne v. Flores held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act only applies to the federal government but not states and other local municipalities within them. As a result, 21 states have passed their own RFRAs that apply to their individual state and local governments.

The map, from the National Conference of State Legislatures, below highlights the 21 states which enacted their own Religious Freedom Restoration Act between 1993 and 10/15/15, inclusively.   There are likely to be more because subjecting government regulations, including protection against discrimination, to personal whims based upon alleged, professed religious faith is a major objective of the right. Discrimination, particularly toward gays but among other people also, may be coming to a community near you, typically sold as "religious freedom" or "religious liberty," rationalized by a brazenly faulty misinterpretation of the First Amendment.

Hillary Clinton, especially among the presidential candidates, ought to be asked her position toward the federal RFRA to determine whether this is yet another action, one taken by the last Democratic President, with which she disagrees. However, the sins of the husband should not be visited upon the wife, assuming she renounces those sins.  The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act inspired the state laws authorizing discrimination.  This one is on Bill Clinton.









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Donald Disappoints

"A gaffe," Michael Kinsley once famously wrote, "is when a politician tells the truth."

By that criterion, Donald Trump has- finally- committed a gaffe. The shame of it all is that he has taken it back.

First, Trump offered a clarification of his remarks about punishing the women who have an abortion if and when the procedure is banned. Then he issued a statement reversing his initial comments.  The following day (Thursday) he complained to Fox News' Eric Bolling "You really had to hear it, the whole thing. This is a long, convoluted question — this was a long discussion, and they just cut it out. But it was extremely — it was extremely convoluted.” Responding to a follow-up question, he claimed "We talked about Catholicism and his religion and Chris went back and forth about that and this was a very long, convoluted discussion."








Matthews did not go "back and forth about that," only responding to Trump's (evidently unsuccessful) effort at controlling the interview.  MSNBC edited nothing and the questioning was not convoluted, at least to anyone who knows anything about the issue.

Americans United for Life has consistently contended "the woman is the second victim of the abortionist."  In response to the candidate's remarks, President Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List refers to the woman who has had an abortion as "gravely wounded."  Jeannie Mancini, President of the March for Life Education & Defense Fund, claims "Women who choose abortion often do so in desperation and then deeply regret such a decision. No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion ."

Trump could have, in contrast to anti-choice organizations and politicians, reiterated the truth he had let slip in his interview with Matthews. Amanda Marcotte explains

Trump is clearly not conversant in the disingenuous posturing about abortion expected of all anti-choice politicians. If he was, he’d know the official stance that Republicans are supposed to take is that women are victims of abortion and therefore cannot be held responsible for it. Yes, it’s true that women pick up the phone, make the appointment, talk through their decisions with medical professionals, sign paperwork and then either take a pill or let the doctor perform an abortion, but none of this should be taken, in conservative eyes, as evidence that women are the people responsible for the abortion happening. Women are regarded by conservatives as fundamentally incapable of making grown-up decisions. If they choose abortion (and by implication, if they choose sex), it’s because they poor dears were misled.

Like a heat-seeking missile, Marcotte then blows to smithereens the anti-choice line by adding "Yes, the same people that conservatives treat as literally too stupid to understand what making a medical decision entails are then expected to raise children."

The pro-life community is intent on not only discouraging abortion but encouraging childbirth by the same women whom it portrays as easily deluded and exploited. As Charlie Pierce notes of forced-birth politicians, "the real target has always been Griswold and not Roe." Digby recognizes the irrationality of the the crusaders against abortion, who strongly infer that "the woman who solicits it is not guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect. Keep in mind that one third of American women have an abortion at some point in their lives. That’s a whole lot of defective crazy ladies we’re allowing to roam free in society."

After Donald Trump is denied the GOP nomination or loses in the general election, he can go down in American political history as the crudest, most brazenly misogynistic and nativist candidate in major-party annals. Or he could go down as someone who boldly reiterated a major gaffe: if abortion is banned because civic leaders (allegedly) believe it is killing, and a woman seeks, procures, and bribes a person to perform the procedure, she be subject to prosecution.

He has made his choice. He, and we, will be far worse off for it..







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Criticized, Trump Goes With Political Correctness

Leave it to "moderate" John Kasich, the scourge of workers (especially teachers), schoolchildren, and women in need of health care, to criticize Donald Trump for one of the few commendable things the Republican front-runner has said.  "Yesterday," Kasich stated in a litany of his rival's heresies, "he proposed punishing women who received abortions." (Imagine the nerve of contemplating punishment of someone for behavior the Governor wants outlawed!)

A Bloomberg writer offers this summary of the exchange from the taping at the MSNBC town hall Wednesday evening:

 Host Chris Matthews pressed Trump on his anti-abortion position, repeatedly asking him whether abortion should be punished if it is outlawed. “This is not something you can dodge,” Matthews said.

“Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump answered.

“How about you?” Matthews asked.

“I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?” Trump said.

“I’m asking you,” Matthews said.

“I am pro-life,” Trump said. Asked how a ban would actually work, Trump said, “Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump said.

Matthews then pressed Trump on whether he believes there should be punishment for abortion if it were illegal.

“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said. “For the woman?” Matthews asked. “Yeah,” Trump said, nodding.

Trump said the punishment would “have to be determined.”









Unfortunately, the remarks were later clarified in an attempt to retract them... or retracted in order to clarify them- and not once, but twice. The final statement read

If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.

It's a pity. Donald Trump tried on the cloak of political incorrectness in the interview and was pummeled by both pro-life and pro-choice advocates. "Trump's abortion comment rankles just about everyone," in the words of a Houston Chronicle headline.   It is, however, a line of questioning a candidate should have expected because this is a signature issue of Chris Matthews, one he raises periodically with supporters of forced birth. The notion that abortion can be prohibited without penalty applied to the woman who seeks, procures, and pays for a procedure thought to be killing and condemned as "murder" is intellectually indefensible.

It is, unfortunately, strategically defensible, even wise, as indicated by the panic which must have set in with the campaign once it dawned on them that Trump had committed a cardinal sin by violating a major tenet of the anti-abortion rights crowd. This will be a confirmation of what the "lamestream" media (in Sarah Palin's words) is all about as it ignores this fundamental contradiction.  And now Donald Trump's about-face has exposed what Charlie Pierce recognizes is

the logical end to all anti-choice arguments and all anti-choice philosophy, but one that causes anti-choice politicians to hide behind the drapes out of sheer political cowardice. (You have to love a movement that is brave enough to shoot doctors from ambush, but chickens out on the obvious legal ramifications of what it says are its unshakable beliefs?) 









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