Trump had his 4th physical exam this term last Tuesday. The White House claims he is in excellent health, but he hasn’t been seen in public for 7 days since the checkup. He has been posting on Truth Social, but no public appearances.
President Trump has no public events on his schedule again today. That means it has now been one week since he has appeared publicly for anything besides a pre-taped interview. His last public event was his cabinet meeting last Wednesday, one day after his trip to Walter Reed.
The Mirror US reports that Trump last held a public event on May 27, when he met with his cabinet.
The meeting came a day after Trump had a medical exam at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, an exam that the president said showed that he was in tip-top shape.
But critics aren’t buying it.
“They are lying to us about Donald Trump’s health,” one social media user said.
Said another: “Six days between public appearances feels like a long time for a president. Wonder if something is up or if this is just how his schedule works now.”
It’s been a troubling week for Trump regardless of the speculation over the medical exam.
The president in recent days has canceled a planned America 250 concert after a number of performers dropped out and he also pulled the plug on his $1.8 billion fund to compensate Americans who claimed to have had the federal government “weaponized” against them.
There have also been questions raised about Trump’s staging of a UFC match on the grounds of the White House.
But eyebrows were raised when the White House took longer than usual to release the results of the exam.
US Navy Captain Sean Barbabella, Trump’s doctor, said the president “remains in excellent health” and has “strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and overall physical function.”
But some doctors said that the report was almost too good to be true for a man of Trump’s age.
There’s more at the link.
Today, Trump again has no public events on his schedule.
Concerns over Donald Trump’s health are mounting as the president goes more than a week without making any public appearances
Trump, who turns 80 next week, has a packed schedule on Wednesday. He will start the morning by participating in “executive time,” followed by in-town pool call time, the daily arrival or briefing time for the rotating journalists covering the President.
He will then participate in a policy meeting from 11am until 2pm, before signing executive orders in the Oval Office at 3pm and having another policy meeting at 4:30pm. Finally, he will attend a dinner with his so-called Rose Garden Club at 7pm.
But there’s something unusual about the schedule for his busy day, every single event, with the exception of the in-town pool call time, is closed to members of the press. Trump has not made any public appearances since May 27, when he attended his Cabinet meeting.
Since that time, the president has only been seen in a pre-taped interview. His last public appearance came just a day after he made an hours-long visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center — his third such visit within a year.
President Donald Trump had another medical exam on Tuesday, his fourth publicly disclosed medical exam since he returned to office for a second term.
The 79-year-old president spent more than three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as preventive medical and dental checkups.
In a social media post after the visit, Trump said that he had just finished his “6 month physical” and that “Everything checked out PERFECTLY.”
Trump, a Republican, turns 80 next month and was the oldest person elected U.S. president….
For a president of Trump’s age, a complete physical would be expected to include advanced heart testing, screening for common cancers and a cognitive assessment, along with basics like height, weight and blood pressure, according to Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman.
“President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.
Several days went by before the White House released a report on Trump’s physical, and some doctors were skeptical about its contents.
look at how swollen the area under Trump's right eye is in his latest podcast appearance
Doctors who reviewed Donald Trump’s latest medical report say it is conspicuously short on the clinical specifics that would support its rosy conclusions.
Trump’s personal physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, wrote in a memorandum that the 79-year-old president “remains in excellent health, demonstrating strong cardiac, pulmonary, neurological and overall physical function,” after a roughly three-hour examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Trump’s neck rash
The memo reported a perfect cognitive score, enviable low cholesterol levels, and a heart that an AI analysis estimated to be 14 years younger than the rest of him….
That last claim drew immediate ridicule from cardiologists.
“When I discuss [sic] this with some of my colleagues in cardiology, everyone laughed!” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who was former Vice President Dick a cardiologist, told CNN’s Laura Coates Live.
The memo cited results from a coronary CT angiography, an echocardiogram, and the AI-enhanced electrocardiogram—but omitted the specific metrics physicians said they would expect to see from those tests. There was no calcium score, no description of arterial plaque, and no CAD-RADS score, which would assess arterial narrowing. The report simply stated there is “no arterial obstruction or structural abnormalities,” language doctors said could mean only that there is no total blockage, not that the arteries are clean.
“If I was creating a report to send to another physician, I would have mentioned a little bit more about the carotid ultrasound,” Dr. William Shutze, a Texas vascular surgeon, told The Wall Street Journal. “What amount of plaque there is going to be—because almost all of us are going to have some buildup there.”
The echocardiogram results were similarly sparse. Trump’s 2018 report included an ejection fraction, the percentage of blood the heart pumps with each contraction, but this one did not….
The report was also notably silent on Trump’s neck rash, which appeared earlier this year and prompted a memo from Barbabella saying the president was using a preventive cream for an unspecified skin condition. Prior physicals noted sun damage and benign skin lesions in some detail, while this one didn’t mention the rash at all.
Trump’s bruised left hand without makeup. I don’t think that’s from handshaking.
The report did note bruising on Trump’s hands, which Barbabella attributed to “frequent handshaking” and aspirin therapy.
On his leg swelling, a condition diagnosed last year as chronic venous insufficiency, a common circulatory problem in older patients, the report noted “slight lower leg swelling” and “improvement from last year” without explaining why….
The cholesterol numbers were exceptional: an HDL of 70 mg/dL and an LDL of 53 mg/dL. “He’s got like the best cholesterol numbers you’ll see,” said Dr. Daniel Torrent, a Georgia vascular surgeon, who called it unusual for medication to produce such results. “We don’t usually manage people to the point where they’re that good.” [….]
Trump’s physical included a prostate-specific antigen score, reported at 1 ng/mL, elevated from prior scores but still well within a healthy range.
Taken together, the doctors said, the Trump report paints an oddly perfect picture with suspiciously little supporting evidence.
“That report is almost too good to be true for somebody of his age,” Shutze said. “This seems to be a filtered narrative.”
If Trump is in such great health, why has he disappeared from public view? I’m sure the White House is lying. There is a long history of presidents’ medical problems being covered up by their doctors. But we can’t avoid noticing the problems that can easily be seen in the photos I’ve posted.Trump is nearly 80 years old. He has observable issues–the bruised hands, the gait problems, his falling asleep in meetings, and his verbal difficulties–incoherent rambling and general inability to stay on topic or even finish a sentence. And why are they giving him a dementia test with each physical? This is the fourth one that has been reported. That suggests that they are monitoring the progress of his dementia.
Here’s a video of Trump’s gait issues.
In my opinion, the bruising on Trump’s hands is likely caused by medicine being given to him by infusion, likely for dementia. The neck rash and the bumps that periodically show up on his face I have no clue about.
I know I’ve spent a lot of time on this issue, but I think it’s important and the legacy media organizations should be covering it more.
In other news, there were primaries in several states yesterday, and Democrats generally did well. The big races California are still undecided. For now, I’ll just post this gift article from The Washington Post by Theodoric Meyer, Dan Merica, and Hannah Knowles: Nine takeaways from a big primary night in Iowa, California and more.
Here are nine takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries:
1. A Schumer critic loses in Iowa
Turek defeated state Sen. Zach Wahls, a Schumer critic, in the Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in Iowa.
Turek will face Rep. Ashley Hinson, who won the Republican primary, in November. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) decided not to run for reelection.
2. Trump’s pick for Iowa governor flames out
Trump endorsed Feenstra last week in the race to succeed Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) — but Feenstra lost to Zach Lahn, a businessman and farmer whose slogan is “Iowa First.”
It marked a rare primary defeat for Trump, whose endorsement typically carries enormous weight in Republican contests.
3. Hilton, Becerra lead in California governor’s race
The race to succeed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was rocked in April when Rep. Eric Swalwell, one of the leading Democratic candidates, was accused of sexual assault and dropped out. His exit made room for Becerra, a former congressman and state attorney generalwho served as President Joe Biden’s health secretary, to rise in the polls.
Hilton and Becerra were leading the wide field of candidates early Wednesday morning. Tom Steyer, a billionaireDemocratic donor and former presidential candidate, trailed behind them. California is often slow to count ballots, and the results could shift as more are tallied.
4. Political newcomer advances in South Dakota governor’s race
Toby Doeden, a car salesman whose campaign pitch relied on describing himself as a “total political outsider” with fierce conservative values, advanced to a runoff in South Dakota’s gubernatorial race.
His lead has left three other Republicans vying for the second spot in the runoff. The trio includes incumbent Larry Rhoden, who became South Dakota governor when Kristi L. Noem resigned to become the homeland security secretary, Rep. Dusty Johnson and state Rep. Jon Hansen. The race has not yet been called, but Rhoden held the second-highest percentage of votes with most counted.
5. A strong night for former Biden Cabinet members
Becerra was not the only former Biden Cabinet member on primary ballots Tuesday. Deb Haaland, who served as Biden’s interior secretary, won the Democratic primary for New Mexico governor. She will face Greggory Hull, the former Rio Rancho mayor, in November but is heavily favored in the Democratic-leaning state.
6. Absent GOP congressman lands an opponent
Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, won the Democratic primary in a swing House seat in New Jersey. She will face Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has drawn attention for disappearing from public view.
Kean has not voted in Congress or appeared in public in nearly three months as he deals with what he described in April as “a personal medical issue” that he has declined to disclose. Republicans have grown increasingly worried that his absence could cost them his seat — and possibly their House majority.
7. Los Angeles mayor’s race remains uncalled
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, was facing two challengers on Tuesday: Spencer Pratt, a Republican who became famous on MTV’s reality TV show “The Hills,” and Nithya Raman, a Democratic city council member. Pratt lost his home last year in the Pacific Palisades Fire and has aggressively criticized Bass’s handling of the fire and leadership more broadly.
Bass was leading Pratt early Wednesday morning with nearly half of ballots counted, with Raman trailing in third. If no one wins more than 50 percent of the vote, which appears likely, the top two finishers face off in November.
8. An unusual three-way Senate race in Montana
Alani Bankhead, an Air Force veteran, won the Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in Montana — and now the biggest question about the race is whether she will drop out.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana), who was expected to run for reelection, withdrew in March minutes before the filing deadline, denying Democrats the opportunity to recruit a well-known candidate. Kurt Alme, a former U.S. attorney, filed to run for the seat right before the filing deadline after coordinating with Daines and easily won the Republican primary on Tuesday.
Alme and Bankhead will face an independent candidate, Seth Bodnar, former president of the University of Montana who has raised more than $2 million — far more than Bankhead. Bodnar’s strength has fueled speculation that Bankhead could drop out so Democrats could unite behind Bodnar, which she has repeatedly denied.
9. Another Israel critic is likely to join New Jersey’s delegation
Adam Hamawy, an Army veteran, won the crowded Democratic primary race in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D). Hamawy will face Republican Gregg Mele, a perennial candidate, in the general election, but the district is reliably Democratic.
This means the New Jersey delegation will probably gain another vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza. Like Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-New Jersey) — who recently won a special election and secured the Democratic nomination Tuesday for a full term — Hamawy has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
You can read more details at the gift link above, if you’re interested.
Yesterday, Trump named his chosen successor to Tulsi Gabbard–someone even less qualified than she was.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday named an ally with no background in intelligence to oversee the nation’s spy agencies, taking the helm as the U.S. remains at war with Iran after a fresh round of peace talks stalled.
Bill Pulte is the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and in that position, he has helped the Trump administration compile information to fuel investigations into the president’s perceived political enemies.
Bill Pulte
As acting director of national intelligence, Pulte will be the highest-ranking intelligence official, overseeing a vast network of 18 agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency. He will also be the president’s principal adviser on intelligence issues and will manage the daily intelligence briefing for the president.
Trump announced on social media that Pulte will remain as director of the housing finance agency, as well as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprises created by Congress to support the mortgage market.
The director of national intelligence was created after 9/11 and is a Cabinet-level role that requires Senate confirmation, but naming Pulte in an acting capacity allows the president to bypass that process for now. It was not immediately clear if Pulte will be Trump’s permanent pick for the job.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, slammed the decision, saying in a statement that Pulte was not only unqualified, but that he was chosen “precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need,” Warner said.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte would become acting director of national intelligence. Pulte is stepping in to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from her post last month. Though Trump claimed his appointee “has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America,” he’ll take the position with literally zero relevant experience for coordinating 17 American intelligence agencies’ work.
But Pulte’s appointment makes slightly more sense when you consider his place in Trump’s orbit. The 38-year-old heir to his family’s massive home construction company shares the president’s love of social media bullying, golf and abusing power for personal gain. In currying Trump’s favor, he’s become the boy who cried “fraud,” using his limited portfolio to find leverage against the president’s enemies. With the broader remit his new perch provides, Pulte could do much more harm that he already has, opening the door to threats both foreign and domestic….
Before Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche would have been the slam-dunk pick for most dangerous sycophant Trump has installed. Pulte’s new appointment challenges that claim. Since stepping into his role at the FHFA — which he will still hold while overseeing America’s intelligence operation — he has acted as though he is part of the president’s law enforcement team.
Over the past year, Pulte has referred at least four members of Trump’s enemies list — New York Attorney General Letitia James, then-Rep. Eric Swalwell, Sen. Adam Schiff of California and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis — to the Justice Department for investigation for alleged mortgage fraud.
In all but one of the cases he has passed on to prosecutors, no charges have come about — a testament to the flimsiness of the evidence Pulte provided in his. A federal grand jury handed up charges against James in Virginia, but they were later thrown out and two subsequent grand juries refused to indict her. Undeterred, Pulte pushed a new criminal referral against James for alleged insurance fraud earlier this year.
It should be obvious that drawing predetermined conclusions, then searching for evidence, isn’t ideal when dealing with the life-and-death stakes of foreign intelligence. Pulte appears to have done just that from his position overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, prompting concerns from internal watchdogs about just how he gathered the mortgage documents he then passed on to prosecutors. Last year, the Government Accountability Office opened an investigation into Pulte’s actions and a federal grand jury began investigating whether he illegally shared grand jury information, though neither have issued any conclusion.
Pulte has also stretched beyond the confines of his remit in the name of pleasing Trump. Last year, Pulte inserted himself into the president’s war against the Federal Reserve’s then-Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates quickly enough. The New York Times noted in July that he would leap to echo any of Trump’s gripes about interest rates “with a post demanding Mr. Powell’s resignation.” The Times also reported Pulte drafted a letter for Trump to fire Powell that was never issued, but made its way to the Resolute Desk. Alongside the previously mentioned fraud claims, he has also targeted Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook for investigation. (Any wrongdoing proved on Cook’s part freeing up her seat for Trump to appoint a replacement would surely only be a knock-on effect.)
Since Pulte will be acting DNI, he won’t have to be confirmed by the Senate. We just have to hope that some Republicans will push back on this appointment.
One more big story: you probably heard that CBS has fired 60 Minutes star Scott Pelley because he criticized the network’s changes to the long-time new program.
CBS News fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday, jettisoning one of the network’s best-known journalists in a clash over the future of “60 Minutes,” the country’s top-rated news program.
Mr. Pelley, 68, a “60 Minutes” correspondent and a former anchor of “CBS Evening News,” joined the network in 1989. At a staff meeting on Monday, he accused the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” citing the ouster last week of the program’s leadership team and two on-air correspondents.
Scott Pelley
“We have parted ways with Scott Pelley,” Nick Bilton, the tech journalist who was hired last week as the new “60 Minutes” executive producer, wrote in a memo to the show’s staff on Tuesday night.
CBS News declined to comment. In a formal letter to Mr. Pelley, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Bilton wrote that the correspondent had been “terminated for cause effective immediately.”
Mr. Pelley, in a telephone interview on Tuesday evening shortly after he was fired, said he had devoted decades of his life to “60 Minutes,” which he said he still cared about deeply.
“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” Mr. Pelley said. “I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.”
The firing of Mr. Pelley is among the most consequential moves of Ms. Weiss’s rocky tenure at CBS. And it is almost certain to spike tensions that have coursed through the network for months.
It also raises the stakes of Ms. Weiss’s surprising decision to replace the entire leadership team at “60 Minutes,” CBS News’s most successful franchise, and hire Mr. Bilton, who has no experience in broadcast TV, to oversee the show. The program’s viewership was up 9 percent this past season from a year prior, and the show is routinely among the nation’s highest-rated weekly broadcasts, according to Nielsen.
Those viewers are accustomed to familiar faces like Mr. Pelley, who has contributed to the program since 2004. The “60 Minutes” staff prides itself on autonomy, and it is not clear how the show’s production team may react to the firing of Mr. Pelley.
At the staff meeting on Monday, which Ms. Weiss did not attend, Mr. Pelley repeatedly pressed Mr. Bilton about the network’s decision to fire Tanya Simon, the show’s previous executive producer. He also told Mr. Bilton that he had “slender” qualifications to oversee the show and that he would “never be welcome” at “60 Minutes.”
It’s not just 60 Minutes that is being murdered. It’s CBS itself.
That’s all I have for today. What stories have you been following?
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Well, tonight’s Republican Debate will surely be a lively matter. CBS gets the honorsat 9 p.m. EST.First, there are only six candidates left and we’ve determined they pretty much hate each other. Also, we’ve got the issue of one dead Supreme Court Justice. Antonin Scalia–perhaps one of the most evil men I’ve had the displeasure of reading–died in his death in a Texas Hotel while joyously killing small animals. According to our Constitution–which is the thing that Fat Tony did his damnedest to rewrite–President Obama will appoint a new justice with the advice and consent of the Senate. Currently, the Republicans are no longer a party that wishes to govern under our Constitution and SCOTUS with Scalia has become their enabler. They’re a party of insurrection and some of the worst of them will be up on that podium tonight trying to impress the voters in the home state for the nation’s historical insurrectionists. So, the rhetoric will be amped up as they compete to eulogize the dead man in black.
The six remaining Republican presidential candidates will be on stage in Greenville, South Carolina Saturday night for the CBS News Republican debate.
The stakes are high for the remaining candidates, as they head into a period of the primary season that relies less on retail politicking. A strong debate performance could be crucial as the candidates try to reach the voters who are next in line to cast their ballots — in South Carolina and Nevada.
South Carolina will determine the survival of Jeb Bush among some of the others. It seems clearly to be in its historical insurrectionist corner with the xenophobic narcissist Donald Trump. However, there are other narcissists on the stage. The Punditry is betting on a Trump-Cruz slugfest.
After splitting the first two votes, the New York billionaire has relentlessly hammered away at Cruz on everything from his campaign’s tactics to what Trump sees as the Texan’s character flaws. And on Friday, Trump warned that he has standing to sue Cruz over questions of his birth and constitutional eligibility to serve in the White House.
“If @tedcruz doesn’t clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen,” Trump tweeted of his rival, born in Canada to an American mother.
Asked about the threat, Cruz did not back down. “There’s more than a little irony in Donald accusing anybody of being nasty given the amazing torrent of insults and obscenities that come out of his mouth on any given day,” he told reporters. “Suddenly every day he comes out with a new attack.”
Trump is expected to carry these attacks onto the stage on Saturday at the final candidate forum before South Carolina votes. It’s a fight Cruz’s allies say they are ready for, as they prepare to assault Trump’s Republican credentials with an eye on the conservative, religious and security-focused voters throughout the south.
The dynamics on Fat Tony’s demise will likely mean a group orgy of ass kissing. The Republicans have already promised to to block any potential nomination by the President. McConnell indicated that the next president should pick the new SCOTUS. This seems like a dead end argument to me. The Election math is clearly behind the D’s this time and any obstruction would likely create an avalanche of Obama Supporters to the Polls. I’m not the only one who thinks this.
Just 18 days ago, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about nominating President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court and she said, “That’s a great idea!”
Asked by an Iowa voter at a town hall event here what she thought of appointing President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court if she were to become president, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton seemed delighted by the prospect. “I’ll tell you, that’s a great idea!” a beaming Clinton told the crowd of 450 packed into a theater, noting that she’d never heard the question before.
Well. It’s an even greater idea if it is something that would happen immediately after the election, effectively motivating the same turnout as surprised the beltway for Obama in 2012.
They may posture for awhile, but they will also have to avoid going on any recess to avoid a recess appointment that would likely sail through a Dem-controlled Senate. Again, the math indicates this a statistically likely outcome. Also, if the Republicans manage to nominate one of their more obnoxious candidates, it will bring record numbers of minorities and women to the polls in states that aren’t safely red.
The 2016 elections are the Democrats’ best shot at wresting back control of the Senate for the rest of the decade, given that the 2018 off-year elections will force Democrats to defend 25 of the 33 seats on the ballot (including the two seats held by independents who caucus with them).
In a recent interview, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus acknowledged the steep challenges Republicans face in 2016. When asked how Republicans will overcome the Democrats’ huge Electoral College advantage next year, Priebus summed up his party’s chances for the presidency this way: “[W]e have to be about perfect … and the other side can be about good. And so the fact is that we do have the higher burden.” In a year like 2016, their burden will extend beyond the presidential to the Senate as well.
So, go ahead Rethugs, pick a fight! Sounds really good to me. As for the Scalia death, I couldn’t be more celebratory. It’s difficult for me to read anything the man wrote without seeing the face of evil. He was an “originalist” only when it suited his politics and theology. He didn’t die under any kind of tragic circumstances other than he’s rotting in hell right now by his own religious beliefs since no priest heard his last confession. Ironic that. This does impact the election and we can only hope and pray that it removes that 5th vote that seeks to maintain white male, christian hegemony in all aspects of life. Next month, a huge abortion case is on the docket.
This would be the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.
Issue: (1) Whether, when applying the “undue burden” standard of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a court errs by refusing to consider whether and to what extent laws that restrict abortion for the stated purpose of promoting health actually serve the government’s interest in promoting health; and (2) whether the Fifth Circuit erred in concluding that this standard permits Texas to enforce, in nearly all circumstances, laws that would cause a significant reduction in the availability of abortion services while failing to advance the State’s interest in promoting health – or any other valid interest.
Again, I believe that the Republicans should hope Obama appoints a moderate and just go with it because a Clinton appointment with a Dem majority senate would rock their world. Well, see if POTUS takes the in your face or practical route.
The most immediate implications involve the presidential election. President Obama of course has the power to nominate a successor, with the consent of the Senate. In the ordinary course, because the opening was unexpected, the nomination would not be forthcoming for a couple of months and then the confirmation process would take several more months.
Theoretically, that process could conclude before the November election. But realistically, it cannot absent essentially a consensus nominee – and probably not even then, given the stakes. A Democratic president would replace a leading conservative vote on a closely divided Court. The Republican Senate will not permit such a consequential nomination – which would radically shift the balance of ideological power on the Court – to go forward.
There is the related question of the Court becoming an issue in the election. Before today, it was unlikely that many voters would choose a presidential candidate for this reason, given the importance of issues like the economy, terrorism, and immigration. But the fact that there is an immediate vacancy – and a vacancy that could tip the Court’s ideological balance – makes the future of the Court much more concrete.
In the political primaries, the Court is not an issue that divides candidates of the same party. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, for example, are clear that they would want to appoint a more liberal successor that would oppose decisions like the Citizens United campaign finance ruling. The leading Republican candidates would all make clear their support for a nominee who would oppose the Court’s rulings upholding the Affordable Care Act.
In the general election, the Court is also an issue that tends to drive the base of each party, so it may be most relevant to turn-out rather than to changing voters’ minds. In general terms, conservatives have been more focused than progressives on the Court as a presidential legacy. But both parties have groups of voters – on the left, supporting abortion rights, and on the right, supporting gun rights and opposing abortion, for example – for which the Court has outsized importance.
Because there remains almost a year in his Term, President Obama is likely to feel an obligation to put forward a nominee rather than completely accede to Republican objections to confirming anyone. That may also be good presidential politics, as Democrats seek to paint Republicans as obstructionists. Three potential nominees are easy to identify from among current appellate judges: from the D.C. Circuit, Patricia Millett and Sri Srinivasan; and from the Ninth Circuit, Paul Watford.
But tonight we live blog the sound and the fury from some of the most extremist candidates the Republicans can offer. Then, there’s Jeb Bush who is just more of the same old same old.
Let’s dig in!
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Tonight, the three Democratic candidates for president will face off in a debate that has now been adjusted to reflect the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. This is obviously former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s bailiwick. CBS experienced some push back from the Sanders campaign for this move. The debate will be held at my sister’s alma mater Drake University and should prove interesting.
A top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., one of the three candidates, got into a lengthy dispute with executives from CBS, the network hosting the debate, during a conference call on Saturday morning. A staffer for one of the other campaigns who was also on the call described the exchange to Yahoo News as “heated” and even “bizarre,” and a second source on the call confirmed the nature of the exchange.
The dispute centered on CBS’s decision to increase the emphasis on terrorism, foreign policy, and national security in the wake of the attacks that left more than 100 people dead in Paris on Friday night. According to the rival staffer, Sanders strategist Mark Longabaugh lit into CBS vice president and Washington bureau chief Christopher Isham when the changes to the debate were detailed on the call.
“It was a little bit of a bizarre scene. The Sanders representative, you know, really laid into CBS and basically … kind of threw, like, a little bit of a fit and said, ‘You are trying to turn this into a foreign policy debate. That’s not what any of us agreed to. How can you change the terms of the debate, you know, on the day of the debate. That’s not right,’” the staffer recounted.
Another person who was on the call confirmed to Yahoo News that Longabaugh had a lengthy dispute about the changed plans for the debate format during the call with CBS. The Sanders campaign declined to comment.
The second Democratic debate will be held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, on Nov. 14. It will air from 9pm to 11pm ET on the CBS Television Network. Pre-debate coverage will begin at 8pm ET.
Pre-debate coverage: Join Senior Political Editor Steve Chaggaris and White House correspondent Major Garrett for CBSN’s livestream coverage of debate preparations will air online at CBSnews.com/live starting at 6pm ET.
CBS News is hosting the debate in conjunction with CBS’ Des Moines affiliate, KCCI, and the Des Moines Register. “Face the Nation” anchor John Dickerson will be the principal moderator, and he will be joined by CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes, KCCI anchor Kevin Cooney and the Des Moines Register’s political columnist, Kathie Obradovich.
With Friday’s attacks in Paris, the debate will also focus on foreign policy differences among the candidates and strategies to fight extremist groups abroad.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on a hot streak since the first Democratic presidential debate last month. The main question heading into Saturday’s second encounter: Can her two challengers slow down her Big Mo’?
National security will play a prominent role in the debate in the aftermath of deadly terror attacks in Paris that killed more than 125 people and left about 350 injured. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, a development that will bring terror and the U.S. response to the jihadist group to the forefront.
Heading into the debate, Clinton expects to face a more direct challenge from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley in their first debate since the Democratic field has winnowed down to three candidates.
Both Sanders and O’Malley have taken steps to point out their differences and the underdog ex-governor is also trying to undercut Sanders as Clinton’s main alternative. But the debate could take a more somber tone following the Paris attacks.
Questions on foreign policy and national security are generally believed to advantage Clinton. Beyond her years as head of the State Department, she has an international presence dating back to her time as first lady and extending through her work with the Clinton Foundation, a non-profit organization she started with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, focused on “global interdependence.”
But with great experience also comes great responsibility. Clinton’s time in the Obama White House ties her to the policies of an administration that has come under attack for its handling of conflicts in Iraq and Syria, specifically for its strategies to counter the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The armed group has claimed responsibility for the violence in Paris.
Clinton’s role in U.S. policy on Libya has proven one of her biggest potential tripwires, at least in the eyes of Republicans. The deaths of four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, in Benghazi in 2012, has spawned countless Congressional investigations and near-constant conversation in conservative media. Clinton, an advocate for military intervention in the conflict that ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has defended her beliefs, going so far as to praise the recent Libyan elections during the last presidential debate.
The debate’s shift from the economy to national security would appear to be a setback for Sanders, especially at a time when many feel he needs to communicate his core message to a broad electorate. His focus on income disparity and an under-regulated financial sector fit well with the original focus of tonight’s event, and recent polling shows voters think Sanders is as good or better than Clinton on those issues.
But economic worries and questions of national security are far from mutually exclusive. The debate over economic austerity and its effect on domestic security, for example, has been revived in the last 24 hours. In the wake of the January killings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket, French authorities said that, even though some of the attackers were known to the government, they hadn’t had the resources to track all of them.
Tonight’s debate is also likely to include questions on immigration, especially in light of the European refugee crisis and the intense focus of GOP presidential hopefuls on deporting undocumented immigrants from the United States.
Watch along with the rest of the Sky Dancers as the Democratic candidates take the stage in Des Moines.
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On March 15, The New York Times ran a puff piece on Obama foreign policy adviser and speechwriter Ben Rhodes, by Mark Landler. Landler tells us that not so long ago, Rhodes was “[a]n aspiring writer from Manhattan [with] unfinished novel in a drawer, “Oasis of Love,” about a woman who joins a megachurch in Houston, breaking her boyfriend’s heart,” and that
worked briefly for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s re-election campaign in 1997, was living a writer’s life in Queens on Sept. 11, 2001, when he watched from the Brooklyn waterfront as the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The trauma of that experience, he said, led him to move to Washington in 2002.
Mr. Rhodes went to work for a Democratic foreign-policy elder, former Representative Lee Hamilton, helping draft the 9/11 Commission report as well as the Iraq Study Group report. That report was a template for the anti-Iraq war positions taken by Barack Obama, then a senator, whose campaign Mr. Rhodes joined as a speechwriter in 2008.
Wow! A Star is born!
Landler writes that Rhodes attends National Security Council meetings and has a powerful influence on Obama’s policies. He credits Rhodes for helping convince Obama to stop supporting Egyptian dictator President Hosni Mubarak and to intervene in Libya, as well as pushing the President to engage with Myanmar. At the moment, Landler says, Rhodes is trying to convince Obama to get more involved in Syria.
A beat sweetener, as press-watchers know, is an over-the-top slab of journalistic flattery of a potential source calculated to earn a reporter access or continued access. They’re most frequently composed on the White House beat when a new administration arrives in Washington and every Executive Office job turns over, but they can appear any time a reporter is prepared to demean himself by toadying up to a source in exchange for material.
As a beat sweetener, the Rhodes piece excels on so many levels that I’ll bet the subject’s parents have framed and hung the clipping over the family mantel. Landler portrays Rhodes as a young fella with “old man” wisdom; as possessing a “soft voice” that delivers “strong opinions”; as one whose “influence extends beyond what either his title or speechwriting duties suggest”; and as someone who “cares” to the point of “anguish” but is “very realistic.”
The information content of these testimonials, made by both Landler and his sources, is just about zero.
According to Shafer, the purpose of the “beat sweetener” isn’t just to make Ben Rhodes happy.
Sucking up to Rhodes won’t necessarily earn Landler or other journalists covering the White House an automatic scoop. But beat sweeteners aren’t written with anything so crass in mind as scoops. They’re designed to keep the information conveyor lubricated (“source greaser” is another term for the practice) with journalistic goodwill. As someone who is inside the White House decision loop, Rhodes is a much better friend than an enemy.
Getting back to the NYT puff piece: two-thirds of the way through, Landler mentions offhandedly that that Ben’s older brother David (who is 38) is the president of CBS News, a job he landed in February of 2011.
Landler provides no background on brother David, never mentioning that he previously held influential positions at Bloomberg and Fox News. In fact David is the first top CBS executive who previously worked for Fox News, and he’s the youngest president in CBS history. Shouldn’t this relationship between merit more than a throwaway line in a fawning profile of an influential adviser to the President of the U.S.?
During a receiving line on the airport tarmac, Obama and Netanyahu stopped briefly to chat with Obama’s deputy national security, Ben Rhodes.
Obama noted that Rhodes’ brother, David, is president of CBS News.
“Sounds like a very incestuous relationship,” Netanyahu observed, chuckling at the idea of siblings in power roles within the administration and the news media.
“Not if you watch CBS News,” Obama replied.
There’s video of the interaction at Politico. Netanyahu may have been “chuckling,” but I’m not. How many times has Obama appeared on 60 Minutes? Has there ever been a mention of this relationship during those interviews? I haven’t checked, but I don’t recall it happening.
Of course relationships between media powerhouses and influential politicians and their advisers aren’t unusual. Here’s a short piece on this problem at TV Newser. Alex Weprin writes:
Let’s get this out of the way: conflicts of interest are rife in the TV news business.
CBS News president (and former Fox News executive) David Rhodes is the brother of one of President Obama’s advisers Ben Rhodes. NBC News anchor Andrea Mitchell is married to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. Bob Schieffer‘s brother Tom Schieffer was President Bush’s Ambassador to Japan.
In other words: potential conflicts happen all the time. The question is when should they be disclosed? Typically subjects with a conflict aren’t allowed to cover anything related to that conflict. If they do, a disclosure is a must….
In Washington, the journalists, the politicians and the lobbyists hobnob at the same parties, and many of them are friends. If everything was disclosed then just about every story from every reporter in DC would end with “I am a friend of a friend of this person” or “I hooked up with this person at 3 AM after the White House Correspondents Dinner.” Obviously that doesn’t happen, but sometimes a story does hit a little too close to home.
But isn’t this also an important reason why we don’t have an independent or serious news media?
Thinking about the incestuous nature of our Washington-New York oligarchy also leads to questions about how a young guy like Ben Rhodes–he’s just 35 now, so he was barely 30 when he began working for Obama in 2008–managed to come so far so fast.
What’s especially strange about the article is that, for those of us who continue to wonder how a virtual cipher rose so quickly from the Illinois legislature to become the most powerful person in the world, we end up wondering the same thing about an aspiring novelist from New York City who fairly catapults to enormous influence in shaping policy regarding some of the most complex and sensitive matters facing this country….
Though the Times never underlines this, the careful reader comes to realize that Rhodes’s guiding philosophy is as hard to discern as the precise reasons that he has the president’s ear. In 1997, he briefly worked on the re-election campaign of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican. Shortly after 9/11, the aspiring novelist suddenly decided to do his part for society, moving in 2002 from Queens to Washington, and quickly found himself “helping draft the 9/11 Commission report as well as the Iraq Study Group report.” [….]
We are never even told what kind of education Rhodes got, or where, or whether he has ever been anything beyond an aspiring novelist. There’s no indication of what he did on Giuliani’s campaign (he would only have been about 19 or 20 at the time) or whether his preference for the mayor who presided over the 9/11 response had anything to do with his going to Washington, or miraculously being hired by Democrat Lee Hamilton to explain 9/11 to the public.
From these improbable beginnings, Rhodes is suddenly a speechwriter on Obama’s presidential campaign. How did he come to Obama’s attention? The article doesn’t say. However, it does note that the Iraq Study group report on which Rhodes worked “was a template for the anti-Iraq war positions taken by Barack Obama” as a senator and candidate.
Baker sums up his suspicions as follows:
Once we start asking questions about Benjamin Rhodes, this leads to questions about Obama, about the Times and CBS and journalism in general. And it leads to questions about how much we, the most smugly self-assured people on earth, understand about how anything of significance actually works.
In this case, it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether some particular faction or other might have spotted “talent” and “agreeability” in Rhodes, and helped hasten his rapid ascent to the top.
Baker located answers to some of these questions. From a very stunted Wikipedia entry, Baker learned that Ben Rhodes got his undergraduate degree from Rice University. He pulled together a timeline of the twin careers of Ben and his brother David:
Searching sources other than the Times, we find that David Rhodes was a production assistant at the fledgling Fox News Channel around the same time Benjamin was volunteering for Giuliani—and was the conservative channel’s news desk Assignment Manager when the planes struck the Twin Towers. Highly trusted by Fox’s chairman Roger Ailes, he managed Fox’s coverage of three presidential elections, including the one where his brother was writing Obama’s speeches, was hired by Bloomberg TV right after Obama’s election, and in 2011 was named president of CBS News.
It was Baker’s article that got me started I found Googling for more background on the very successful and powerful Ben Rhodes. In fact I spent much of the day yesterday searching for more background on the very successful and powerful Ben Rhodes. I’ll put that into a second post that I hope to put up later today.
Oh, and I admit I was also inspired by my memory of this photo that I know you’ll also likely recall from early in Obama’s first term. The smiling guy sitting at the table in the back on the right side is Ben Rhodes. After head speechwriter Jon Favreau (on the left of the Hillary cardboard image) posted it on his Facebook page, Dak and I figured out who the other speechwriters in the room were and wrote a little about them.
You can treat this as a regular morning post and put your links in the comments as always. But I do hope some folks will wade through this post and discuss what I think are serious issues about the incestuous relationship between the corporation media and the government.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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