Posted: September 3, 2015 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics |
Good Afternoon!!
Has Hillary Clinton finally been caught doing something criminal? It’s highly unlikely, but here is the latest attempt to tarnish her reputation.
Washington Post: Staffer who worked on Clinton’s private e-mail server faces subpoena.
A former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server tried this week to fend off a subpoena to testify before Congress, saying he would assert his constitutional right not to answer questions to avoid incriminating himself.
The move by Bryan Pagliano, who had worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009, came in a Monday letter from his lawyer to the House panel investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The letter cited the ongoing FBI inquiry into the security of Clinton’s e-mail system, and it quoted a Supreme Court ruling in which justices described the Fifth Amendment as protecting “innocent men . . . ‘who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.’ ” ….
“While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that the members of the Select Committee will respect our client’s right to invoke the protections of the Constitution,” his attorney, Mark MacDougall, wrote.
Two other Senate committees have contacted Pagliano in the past week, according to a copy of the letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The requests came from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, according to people familiar with the requests.
OK, that doesn’t sound like a big deal to me.
More from Talking Points Memo: Clinton Campaign: We Wanted Staffer Who Set Up Email Server To Testify.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign encouraged a former State Department employee who helped set up her private email server to testify before the House committee on Benghazi.
Attorneys for Bryan Pagliano on Monday notified the committee that their client would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify at a hearing next week.
An anonymous Clinton campaign aide told The New York Times that Pagliano’s decision was “both understandable and disappointing.”
“We had hoped Bryan would also agree to answer any questions from the committee and had recently encouraged him to grant the committee’s request for an interview,” the aide told the Times, adding that the campaign believes Pagliano “has every reason to be transparent about his I.T. assistance.”
The unidentified aide told the newspaper it makes sense that Pagliano, as a private individual, doesn’t want to participate in a “political spectacle.”
Completely understandable, IMHO. What normal person would want to sit and listen to ignorant, irrelevant questions from the likes of Trey Gowdy and the rest of the Benghazi Committee? Still the Republicans will make hay from this, says Taylor Marsh.
As an antidote to that nonsense, here’s an insightful piece by Larry Sabato: The Populist Revolt Against Brain-Dead Politics.
Take a deep breath. It won’t help you understand what’s happening in the contest for the presidency, but it won’t hurt either.
By contrast, many media analyses of the state of the race have reached the breathless level. Supposedly, there’s never been anyone like Donald Trump on the political scene. In fact, there’s a long tradition of anti-establishment outsiders making a splash. Conventional wisdom says Hillary Clinton is close to throwing away her second chance at the White House. Actually, while she’s been very unimpressive as a candidate in this cycle, Clinton’s many advantages still make her a strong favorite to be the Democratic standard-bearer (absent an indictment).
Yet observers are right when they insist “there’s something going on out there.” And in our view, what’s going on is a populist revolt against the utterly predictable, locked-in, hyperpartisan politics of the two major parties.
The most important word is “predictable.” While there are 22 presidential candidates — 23 if Biden runs — most of them are human tape recorders. On the top 25 or 30 issues, each has memorized a paragraph or two; mention the issue and the candidates push the “play” button in their heads. Almost word-for-word each time, they recite the pollster-researched, consultant-approved soundbites designed to produce a Pavlovian response in partisans.
Problem is, Americans would generally prefer to elect a human being, not an automaton. It’s at least possible that a few more intractable problems would get solved if potential presidents were less inflexible — or so it appears to many voters.
Whatever else you think of him, Trump is no automaton. He isn’t rehearsed, at least compared to the others: We can’t take our eyes off him because we’re not at all sure what he’s going to say next.
Read the rest at the link.
Next, check out this post at #HillaryMen: Who Needs Fox? NY Times and Morning Joe Battle for Title of Chief Hillary Basher.
One of the most egregious aspects of the 2016 presidential campaign is the vitriolic, gender-biased attacks against Hillary Clinton by major media outlets.
The New York Times has taken the lead, but they are not alone.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski use their Morning Joe platform on MSNBC to malign Hillary and mangle her public image. The show has become a cesspool of Hillary-bashing rivaling the fetid swamps of fringe rightwing Clinton haters.
The Washington Post angles their headlines for maximum damage to Hillary’s character. CNN ponders criminal penalties against her when no criminality is alleged.
It goes on and on. The institutional forces that have barred American women from the presidency are manifested in the media’s obsession to take down the first woman with a viable path to the White House.
Soak up more wisdom from Peter Daou and Tom Watson at #HillaryMen.
Now for some of that “brain-dead politics” that Larry Sabato referred to.
From TPM, Rand Paul: Kentucky Clerk ‘Shouldn’t Be Forced’ To Sign Off On Gay Marriages.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Thursday he supports Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and added she “shouldn’t be forced” to sign a form she finds objectionable on religious grounds.
“I do support the notion that she shouldn’t be forced to sign something she finds religiously objectionable,” Paul said during an interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
On Tuesday, Paul said people like Davis who are “making a stand” for their beliefs are a “part of the American way.”
Paul did not say whether he had spoken to Davis, but said she “just doesn’t want to sign it because it indicates her approval of this.”
And here’s the second half of today’s “dumb and dumber”:
Washington Post, Mike Huckabee offers support to Kentucky clerk who refuses to issue gay marriage licenses.
Mike Huckabee called a Kentucky clerk who is refusing to issue gay marriage licenses Wednesday to offer his prayers and support for “not abandoning her religious convictions.”
The Supreme Court turned away a request by Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis to be excused from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but the clerk continues to refuse to issue those licenses, calling the requirement a violation of her religious liberties.
“I spoke with Kim Davis this morning to offer my prayers and support. I let her know how proud I am of her for not abandoning her religious convictions and standing strong for religious liberty. She is showing more courage and humility than just about any federal office holder in Washington,” Huckabee said in a statement.
In fact, almost all of the GOP “human tape recorders,” as Sabato called them, think Kim Davis has a right to refuse to do her job, according to Think Progress, Only 2 Republican Candidates Think Kim Davis Needs To Quit Or Follow The Law.
In a section of its 2012 party platform, the Republican Party made its views clear: “In this country, the rule of law guarantees equal treatment to every individual.” But at least six Republican presidential hopefuls have now come to the defense of anti-gay Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis, who will face contempt charges on Thursday for violating a court order by refusing to issue marriage licenses. A smaller number of Republican presidential candidates have said that as a public official, Davis should have to do her job or resign….
Though many of the same Republican presidential candidates have been outspoken critics of lawlessness by government officials, several have rushed to defend Davis and suggested that religious beliefs should be legal grounds for public officials to opt-out of certain parts of their jobs.
Go over to Think Progress to read the reactions from “human tape recorders” Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, and Marco Rubio.
So these morons think they can disregard both the Constitution and the Supreme Court–not a good look for a presidential candidate.
That’s all I have for you today–sorry I got such a late start. What else is happening? Please share your links in the comment thread and enjoy the rest of your Thursday.
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Posted: September 1, 2015 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2016 elections, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Iran deal, Kim Davis, Matt Salmon, nuclear weapons, Oliver Sacks, same-sex marriage, suicide bombers |
Good Morning!!
Today is September 1, and Summer is almost over. How did it go by so quickly? Pretty soon the 2016 campaign will begin to heat up; but for now we are still in the silly season and Donald Trump is still grabbing all the headlines.
The Hill: Trump pledges to reverse Obama’s mountain renaming
Donald Trump promised Monday that he would return the name of North America’s largest mountain to Mount McKinley, undoing President Obama’s decision to call it Denali.
Calling Obama’s act a “great insult to Ohio,” Trump, who is running for president next year,tweeted late Monday that Obama reversed the name the peak had for more than 100 years, in honor of President William McKinley, an Ohio native.
Does Donald Trump even know anything about William McKinley? I doubt it. Why won’t this disgusting creep go away and leave us alone? John Kasich is upset too.
“You just don’t go and do something like that,” Kasich said, according to the Associated Press. “In Ohio, we felt it was appropriate. A guy saw that mountain when he was one of the first up there … named it after the president. No reason to change it.”
Um . . . no.
The mountain, in fact, got McKinley’s name before he was elected, and he never set foot inside Alaska.
Why Ohioans should have any say in the naming of a mountain in Alaska is a mystery. But the GOP candidates latch onto anything Obama does in order to get some media attention.
GOP Wackos
These days, when you see a crazy headline, you can be at least 99% sure that it involves a Republican politician.
This headline from Local CBS5 in Arizona, for example: Matt Salmon facing parents’ anger over civics presentation to young kids.
GILBERT, AZ (KPHO/KTVK) – Several parents are demanding answers from Congressman Matt Salmon, saying they cannot believe what the lawmaker said to young school children during a visit to a Gilbert school.
“It should have probably just been a good civics lesson for kids who initially were excited to meet their congressman,” parent Scott Campbell said.
That excitement, however, turned into fear.
That fear, according to Campbell, was spawned by something Salmon said during a presentation he made Thursday about how bills become laws. The audience? Second- and third-graders at San Tan Charter School.
Campbell said the lesson took a dark turn when it came time to talk about vetoes.
“The congressman chose to give an example of the current situation in Iran, and made some inappropriate comments about ‘Do you know what a nuclear weapon is? Do you know that there are schools that train children your age to be suicide bombers?'” Campbell said.
He and other parents were shocked. He said he had to console his young daughter.
“After school my daughter was very concerned and said to me she actually didn’t even know what suicide was and was very afraid,” he explained.
WTF?!! Where do the Republicans dig these people up?
Meanwhile most Americans want their Congresspeople to approve the Obama administration’s Iran deal, according to The Hill:
According to the survey from the University of Maryland, 55 percent of respondents said that Congress should get behind the agreement, despite some concerns.
Twenty-three percent, meanwhile, said that lawmakers should instead ratchet up sanctions, and 14 percent wanted U.S. officials to go back to the negotiating table.
In a key stat for Democratic backers of the agreement, 61 percent of independents recommended that Congress approve the deal, along with 72 percent of Democrats.
Just 33 percent of Republicans expressed support, highlighting the partisan divide that has erupted over the agreement, which sets limits on Iran’s nuclear ability in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
The poll was conducted online, and the participants went through an in-depth process of listening to arguments from both sides. People were subjected to a detailed list of critiques of the agreement, followed by rebuttals to those arguments with reasons to get behind the deal.
Even the fact that 33 percent of GOP voters support the agreement is significant, considering their likely exposure to Fox News and talk radio.
Speaking of wacko Republicans, even after the Supreme Court told weirdo Kim Davis she can’t refuse to issue marriage license to gay couples, she’s still doing it. NBC News reports:
Defying the Supreme Court and invoking “God’s authority,” a Kentucky county clerk on Tuesday turned away two same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses — touching off dueling protests until sheriff’s deputies cleared the room.
The clerk, Kim Davis of Rowan County, outside Lexington, has said that her personal religious objections preclude her from issuing the licenses.
The standoff came one day after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case. That left in place a lower court ruling ordering Davis to issue marriage licenses.
Davis declined marriage licenses to two same-sex couples — two men and two women — who sought them at her office, in the small city of Morehead.
When is Kentucky going to get rid of this nutcase? She’s an embarrassment to her state and to all rational Americans.
RIP Oliver Sacks
Following the death of Oliver Sacks last week, I found myself browsing around looking for some of his writings on line. Sacks was a wonderful writer, and I’ve always enjoyed reading him. I haven’t read his book on hallucinations yet, and I think I’m going to get a copy and check it out. I have always been fascinated by altered states. Here are some links to essays by Sacks that you might want to check out if you haven’t read (or listened to) them already.
In July, I wrote about my reaction to an NPR interview about face blindness, which Sacks suffered from. It was fascinating and led to my experiencing a very positive altered state–one of those “peak experiences” that Abraham Maslow wrote about. Check if out if you haven’t already.
Yesterday I read this piece on mystical experiences at the Atlantic: Seeing God in the Third Millennium. Sacks writes that when people have near death experiences, out of body experiences, and other altered states such as the auras that preceded epileptic seizures and migraines, the brain reflects the perceptions as if they are real. These often life-changing experiences have natural–not supernatural–causes, but they can have profound effects.
In 2012, Sacks wrote in The New Yorker about the history of mind altering drugs and his own experiments with them: Altered States: Self-experiments in chemistry.
From 1987, here’s an interview with Sacks on NPR’s Fresh Air: ‘Fresh Air’ at 20: Neurologist Oliver Sacks.
From Science of Us, a summary of a fascinating case study from The Lancet on which Sacks was one of the authors: The Strange Case of the Woman Haunted by Dragons. It’s about a woman who had altered perceptions of people’s faces–they looked “dragon-like.”
Two recent NYT articles by Sacks:
From February 2015, My Own Life: Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer.
From August 2015: Oliver Sacks: Sabbath.
One of my favorite Sacks stories appeared in the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. It was reprinted in the New York Review of Books in 1985: The President’s Speech. It’s about a group of aphasia patients and their reaction to seeing a Ronald Reagan speech on TV. Here’s the introduction:
What was going on? A roar of laughter from the aphasia ward, just as the President’s speech was starting, and the patients had all been so eager to hear the President speak.
There he was, the old charmer, the actor with his practiced rhetoric, his histrionics, his emotional appeal—and all the patients were convulsed with laughter. Well, not all: some looked bewildered, some looked outraged, one or two looked apprehensive, but most looked amused. The President is generally thought to be a moving speaker—but he was moving them, apparently, mainly to laughter. What could they be thinking? Were they failing to understand him? Or did they, perhaps, understand him all too well?
Read the rest at the link.
Finally, from today’s Washington Post: The tragic story of Oliver Sacks’s celibacy.
When Oliver Sacks was 18, he faced a prospect most young people dread: a belated talk about the birds and the bees with his dad.
“You don’t seem to have many girlfriends,” Sacks wrote his father said in his memoir, “On the Move,” released earlier this year. “Don’t you like girls? … Perhaps you prefer boys?”
Sacks didn’t try to hide.
“Yes I do – but it’s just a feeling – I have never ‘done’ anything,” Sacks told his father.
He pleaded with his father not to tell his mother – but his father did. The news did not go over well — to say the least.
“You are an abomination,” she said. “I wish you had never been born.”
How heartbreaking. Read more at the WaPo.
In The News, Links Only
The Guardian: Barack Obama in Alaska: global fight against climate change starts here.
Talking Points Memo: Trump’s Latino Bashing Risks GOP Senate Hopes In 3 Key States.
Pope Francis says priests can give absolution for “the sin of abortion.” From Time: What Pope Francis’ Abortion Announcement Really Means.
Jeb Bush tells the Pope how to do his job: Jeb Bush tells pope to focus on ‘mercy for the unborn’: Women should be ‘repentant’ for choosing abortion (Raw Story)
Jonathan Chait: Jeb Bush Responds to Insanely Racist Trump Ad by Calling Trump Liberal
The Nation: The Trailer for ‘Concussion’ Should Give Roger Goodell Night Sweats.
The National Memo: Hillary Clinton Supports Ban On ‘Revolving Door’ Corporate Bonuses
US News: Clinton, aides stressed need to protect sensitive State Department information in email.
AP via Seacoast online: NH Sen Jeanne Shaheen will endorse Hillary Clinton.
Raw Story: Texas man walks free after alleged rape leaves 2-year-old girl in pool of blood.
AP via ABC News: Investigators: Georgia Officer Likely Shot by Other Officers.
What stories are you following today? Please share in the comment thread.
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