The Commentariat -- June 6, 2016

Presidential Race

Danica Coto & Lisa Lerer of the AP: "Hillary Clinton overwhelmed Bernie Sanders in Puerto Rico's Democratic presidential primary on Sunday, putting her within striking distance of capturing her party's nomination. After a blowout victory Saturday in the U.S. Virgin Islands and a decisive win in the U.S. territory, Clinton is now less than 30 delegates short of the 2,383 needed to win the nomination, according to an Associated Press count." -- CW

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "he Democratic primary season comes to a climax on Tuesday, when six states will vote: California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The biggest prize is California, where the race appears to be tightening.... Even though [the California results are] unlikely to affect who gets the nomination, it could have a major impact on where the Democratic Party goes from here -- toward unity or discord." -- CW

Ed Kilgore: "With Hillary Clinton drifting towards a majority of pledged delegates, it wasn't so clear California would matter that much to Democrats.... But the thing to remember is this: a narrow Sanders win will be mainly of psychological value...A big net delegate harvest for Sanders will require a big popular vote victory, and the polls just don't show that as remotely likely -- barring some really strange pro-Bernie turnout dynamics. So the current din of hype over who will 'win' California is largely a shuck." --safari

E. J. Dionne: "Hillary Clinton gave the speech about Donald Trump that, with a few changes, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) could have given. And he should have.... Instead of sticking to his vaunted principles, Ryan forged a link between the Republican Party and Donald Trump that may endure in public consciousness long after this campaign is over.... [Republican] party leaders have decided that Trump's nativism and racism, his utter disrespect for the judicial system, his soft spot for foreign dictators and his latent authoritarianism matter far less to them than holding on to power in Congress. It will be up to the voters to decide how big a price Ryan, Mitch McConnell & Co. should pay for this." -- CW

Judging Trump. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump said Sunday that a Muslim judge might have trouble remaining neutral in a lawsuit against him, extending his race-based criticism of the jurist overseeing the case to include religion and opening another path for Democrats who have criticized him sharply for his remarks.... [John] Dickerson [of CBS's 'Face the Nation'] asked Mr. Trump if, in his view, a Muslim judge would be similarly biased because of the Republican presumptive nominee's call for a ban on Muslim immigrants. 'It's possible, yes,' Mr. Trump said. 'Yeah. That would be possible. Absolutely.'" ...

... CW: We know Drumpf's sister is a federal judge, but I'll bet he doesn't think women "look judicial," just as he says Hillary Clinton "doesn't even look presidential," so let's rule out female judges, too. And why not "the blacks," (acknowledging as we do that Trump has "his African-American"). So pretty much the only kind of person who is fit to sit in the Trials of Trump are white, European-heritage, Christian guys (though maybe we'd better rule out judges of Spanish or Portugese heritage. Italians? Greeks? I'm not sure.) Also, too, they should probably be Republican appointees. Of course, any judge, no matter his pedigree, is unfaaair the minute he rules against a Trump motion. ...

... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "In May, Trump released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees in a Trump administration. Every single person on his list is white." -- CW ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post adds to the list: "Let us ... try to isolate which judges Donald Trump would like to bar from overseeing any future legal disputes involving his get-others-rich-quick schemes.... Judges from the Democratic party.... Judges who are immigrants.... Judges who are women.... Judges who are black.... Judges with physical disabilities." -- CW ...

... Chas Danner of New York: "In other news, RNC chair Reince Priebus has assured the Washington Examiner that Trump's rhetoric regarding Hispanics is likely to evolve between now and the election.... Of course, that theory of evolution is not yet supported by evidence outside the minds of establishment Republicans who now find themselves chained to the Trump Express." On Bump's list, Danner writes: "(It's probably also worth excluding otherwise eligible men who have low energy, have wives who aren't tens, or are named Mitt Romney.)" -- CW ...

... CW: As the list of "unqualified" judges grows, it will become apparent that the only person capable of judging Trump is Trump Himself. So if you think digby is exaggerating when she writes that if Trump is elected, "we will have our very own Putin," you might want to have another think. ...

... ** Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "At its rawest, [Trump's] claim amounts to, 'Who are you -- African American, woman, Jews, "Mexican" -- to judge a real citizen, a white man?'... The re-introduction of this crude, explicit racism into politics is repellent. More repellent yet, in a sense, is the effort now beginning -- by figures like [former U.S. Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales, Joel Pollack of Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and other conservative outlets -- to mainstream this dangerous deviancy." -- CW

** Larry Summers in the Washington Post: "On June 23, Britain will vote on whether to remain in the European Union. On Nov. 8, the United States will vote on whether to elect Donald Trump as president.... Both could yield outcomes that would have seemed inconceivable not long ago. Both pit angry populists and nationalists against the traditional establishment.... Yet, as great as the risks of Brexit are to the British economy, I believe the risks to the U.S. and global economies of Trump's election as president of the United States are far greater. Indeed, if he were elected, I would expect a protracted recession to begin within 18 months. The damage would in all likelihood be felt far beyond the United States." Summers explains why. And for once he writes in plain English. -- CW

Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes known as Pocahontas, bought foreclosed housing and made a quick killing. Total hypocrite! -- Donald Trump, in a tweet, May 25

The overall pattern demonstrated in the 25 real estate transactions don't support Trump's claim that she made a 'quick killing' out of foreclosed homes. Instead, Warren mainly helped family members by purchasing or financing homes that were then held for years. Her family members did appear to profit from some transactions, but only modestly. This ... fits the profile that has been portrayed by Warren and her aides -- a sister helping out her brothers and other relatives, mainly through loans. There's nothing hypocritical about that. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

Other News & Views

Anne Usher of Politico: "[E]ven if Trump is elected, taking down Paris is going to be a lot harder than he thinks. That's certainly the view of Jonathan Pershing, President Obama's new climate envoy, who's rushing to Trump-proof America's commitment to the pact -- minimizing ways in which a President Trump could obstruct the global carbon reduction plan." --safari

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "There are few relationships between President Obama and another world leader more unlikely than the one he has with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. The two have a public warmth -- or 'chemistry,' as the Indian news media like to describe it -- and that is likely to be on display Tuesday when Mr. Modi visits the White House for the second time in two years. It will be the seventh time the two leaders will have met." CW: This is one of those stories where the writer stakes out a storyline, then goes on to refute it. It is interesting, though, for some of the content.

Brian Beutler: "It is ... the Republican Party's plainly stated intention to preserve a Supreme Court vacancy so that Trump might fill it. The notion that Trump, through network effects, political pressure, and use of the Senate confirmation power, would nominate movement conservatives to positions of power is the connective tissue binding Republican leaders to a candidate they nearly all understand to be a political and moral wrecking ball. Trump's power as president to fill Supreme Court vacancies (which arise relatively infrequently) would accompany the power to fill scores and scores of other vacancies across the federal bench. That means more [bigoted judges], the GOP hopes and assumes, and more opportunities for a conservative Supreme Court to overturn liberal policy, whether on the basis of conservative theories of jurisprudence, rank opportunism, or thinly veiled bigotry." CW: You'll have to read the whole post to see how Beutler builds his case.

Democracy in Action. Eleanor Clift of The Daily Beast: "It should get our attention when a lone senator stops a popular piece of bipartisan legislation, blocking passage and opposing the prevailing opinion even in his own party. That's what Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a rising star in the GOP, has done and in a few weeks he'll have successfully killed the much needed and long overdue reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974.... The bill also has the backing of 5000 law enforcement agencies across the country, including dozens in Arkansas, and would have passed the U.S. Senate by unanimous voice vote earlier this year if Cotton hadn't stepped in with his 'hold.'" --safari

Eric Lipton & Julie Creswell of the New York Times: How "a stable of wealthy clients from the United States [hid millions of dollars in assets] are outlined in extraordinary detail in the trove of internal Mossack Fonseca documents known as the Panama Papers.... The Times's examination of the files found that Mossack Fonseca [-- a Panamanian law firm --] also had at least 2,400 United States-based clients over the past decade, and set up at least 2,800 companies on their behalf in the British Virgin Islands, Panama, the Seychelles and other jurisdictions that specialize in helping hide wealth.... For many of its American clients, Mossack Fonseca offered a how-to guide of sorts on skirting or evading United States tax and financial disclosure laws.... In 2001, Sanford I. Weill, then the chief of Citigroup, set up an offshore account called April Fool for his yacht." -- CW

Thanks, Fed! Paul Krugman: "... what is causing the economy to slow? My guess is that the biggest factor is the recent sharp rise in the dollar, which has made U.S. goods less competitive on world markets. The dollar's rise, in turn, largely reflected misguided talk by the Federal Reserve about the need to raise interest rates.... There are other policies that could easily reverse an economic downturn. And if Hillary Clinton wins the election, the U.S. government will understand perfectly well what the options are. (The likely response of a Trump administration doesn't bear thinking about. Maybe a series of insult Twitter posts aimed at China and Mexico?)" -- CW

John Oliver on low-life debt buyers and their multiple scams --safari

Sarah Carr of Slate: "If you want to know what America will look like in a generation, look at its classrooms right now. In 2014, children of color became the new majority in America's public schools...Right now, schools and school systems across the country are confronting a question that our society at large will need to answer in the coming years: Do Americans have the will and understanding to build a more inclusive, and less deeply segregated, nation? In many parts of America -- urban, rural, and suburban -- that will require a radical upending of the status quo." --safari note: interesting read, especially for you (ex)teachers out there.

Beyond the Beltway

Chris Kenning of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "A day after boxing titan Muhammad Ali died at age 74, his family announced his funeral would be held Friday in his hometown of Louisville and include a motorcade through the city, private burial at Cave Hill cemetery and a public memorial at the KFC Yum! Center with eulogies by former President Bill Clinton, Billy Crystal and Bryant Gumbel." -- CW

It Depends on How Long It Takes to Commit the Crime. Elle Hunt of the Guardian: "The father of a former Stanford University athlete convicted on multiple charges of sexual assault has said his son should not have to go to prison for '20 minutes of action'. Brock Turner, a former swimmer at Stanford University, was on Thursday sentenced to six months' imprisonment and probation for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.... Turner was expected to spend only three months of a six-month sentence...." CW: How nice that the judge pretty much agreed with Pops. By their standard, drive-by shootings should not be prosecuted. Why waste the public's money building a case against somebody who should go to jail for maybe a couple of days tops for a crime that took only a second?

Way Beyond

Raphael Minder of the New York Times: "Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to guarantee an income to Switzerland's residents, whether or not they are employed, an idea that has also been raised in other countries amid an intensifying debate over wealth disparities and dwindling employment opportunities. About 77 percent of voters rejected a plan to give a basic monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs, or about $2,560, to each adult, and 625 francs for each child under 18, regardless of employment status, to fight poverty and social inequality and guarantee a 'dignified' life to everyone." -- CW

Jim Gomez of the AP: "The Philippine president-elect [Rodrigo Duterte] has encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, urging citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back in their neighborhoods.... If a drug dealer resists arrest or refuses to be brought to a police station and threatens a citizen with a gun or a knife, 'you can kill him,' Duterte said. 'Shoot him and I'll give you a medal.'...'If you're still into drugs, I will kill you, don't take this as a joke. I'm not trying to make you laugh, son of a bitch, I will really kill you,' Duterte said to loud jeers and applause." -- safari note: How long until Drumpf starts lauding this strongman, too?

News Lede

Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Colin is located over the Gulf of Mexico as of early Monday morning and is expected to continue to move to the north-northeast. Colin is expected to make landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida late Monday. This system is then expected to be somewhere near or off the coast of the Carolinas by later Tuesday." -- CW

Comments

[Gloria]

An ntp (not trump post).
Last week on BBC4 World at One, Martha Kearney interviewed people at the Hay Festival. She asked, amongst other things, what book they would pass on to the next generation. Germaine Greer gave, I thought, an interesting response. She thinks we shouldn't be pushing kids to read books. That people should get out more and read the natural universe and become interested in how it works. Greer never fails to surprise and her comments were criticised in later interviews. I was very taken with her proposal, and how it has given us the world we live in today. Curious people who got out and read the natural universe and studied how it worked were entomologists, botanists, geologists, astronomers, and so on. Natural philosophers like Pliny, Copernicus, Newton, Hutton, Darwin built our understanding of reality. It's not that they didn't read, of course, but they spent a lot of their lives looking at the world and trying to create a coherent story around what they saw. They were trying to make sense of reality. I think Greer was giving good advice. We need more people reading reality ;)

[PD Pepe]

“He’s not someone who can be persuaded,” says Naomi Smoot. “He’s looking to make a name for himself as a new law and order icon.”

Tom Cotton––zeroed in on this guy some time ago. Norman Bates look-alike is one scary dude ––a close cousin to our old friend Ted Cruz: both with sterling bona fides and cold hearts. I can hear that music now as they both (Ted isn't done ) try and climb those stairs to fame and glory.

Marie is correct about the Summer's piece––very clear and concise. The prospect of a Trump presidency spells disaster writ large. Period.

[joynone]

What a contrast: Muhammad Ali, who courageously stuck by his principles even though it destroyed his fighting career, and Paul Ryan, who abandoned his frequently vaunted principles without any fight at all.

[Haley Simon]

Borowitz is not to be missed today!

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-mexicans-swarming-across-border-enrolling-in-law-school-and-becoming-biased-judges?mbid=nl_060616%20Borowitz%20Newsletter%20%281%29&CNDID=24491172&spMailingID=9017314&spUserID=MTA5MjQwMjc0NzkwS0&spJobID=940533334&spReportId=OTQwNTMzMzM0S0

[MAG]

Random Monday morning thoughts that have been percolating since last week's headlines and the outpouring of accolades and fond, fond remembrances of Muhammad Ali.

Why don't I recall all this love & affection and respect from 10, 15, 20 years ago? Views were lightweight for this heavyweight. Boxing was not of much interest to me, but recollection of how he was treated and regarded years ago...was simply as someone talented in his field and rather amusing. In retrospect, he was much more, of course.

Admittedly, I am not much of a sports person...just knowledgeable enough to answer the four-letter, 7-Down Crossword when the clue is: Baseball great Slaughter; or 32-Across is six-letters for: Former pantyhose-wearing football star.

Hate to sound glib, but, seems it's better to be dead to get well-deserved respect.

[JJG]

RE: A simple mind; Shoveling sand; moving 50/50 mix and bed sand for a drought resistant backyard, six yards of material, lots to the think about as the wheeled barrow rolls.
Here's one kernel, what if Hillary was running Republican, she's got all the creed; big money, check; beltway connects; check, hell of resume; check, timely gender; check, upper uber progressive; (you know, believes in science, duh) check, unfortunate in marriage, check.
What's not to like? ( For a white, college educated, I'm gettin' mine Republican, that is)
We are going to get a cartoon character as POTUS because Hill isn't Bernie? That's fucked up ( is "fucked up" still allowed on this site?)
I like most of Bernie's positions but I also like the ideas of taxing religious holdings, legalization of drugs, single payer health insurance, social security withholding on income up to a million a year, massive investment in clean energy and infrastructure and pit bulls; but that's not a platform that's going to get me elected.
So rejoice, Repubicans, don't think of Hill as a Democrat, think of Hill as your gal, Like Ike? Hill fits the bill.
For the rest of us? Hold your nose, vote for the only candidate that isn't a clown.
PS; today's the day that the tides ran red with blood at Normandy, don't forget.

[safari]

@JJG: Rest assured that Trump remembers Normandy. He's just too lazy to give it a real commemoration...

"Donald Trump commemorated the day by tweeting out a photo with “D-Day 1944″ at the top, saying, “Remembering the fallen heroes on #DDay – June 6, 1944." The problem is that the photo is actually from a 1943 training mission. As Mediaite cites, you can see a man in the foreground with his hands on his hips overlooking the scene. The actual invasion was bloody and violent, with bodies washing up on the beach. No one was just standing around."

Warhawks must be proud.

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/derp-trump-tweets-photo-from-not-d-day-to-celebrate-dday/

[Gloria]

A while ago the question was posed about whether we would vote for Sanders or HRC in the Dem primaries. I answered that I would vote for Sanders in the primary and HRC in the GE, but in the last week I have changed my mind and would vote for HRC in both. I am glad Sanders is a candidate, and I don't advocate for him to drop out, he has every right to take his campaign through to the convention. I wish HRC supporters would see that. But I think he has become somewhat irascible lately, and I can't imagine him being calm and collected under the withering pressure of what will be the worst GE campaign we will ever see. I can't imagine anyone else enduring those hours of snarky questioning in Congress with the level head that HRC did. Sanders hasn't even begun to be "vetted", has not suffered vicious, ad hominem attacks by any opponent, ruthless trawls though every moment of his past, and malicious attacks on his family. In light of his current behaviour I ask myself how would he cope with the treatment we have seen HRC withstand, which I wouldn't wish on anyone. So I feel that the message needs to get through to Sanders supporters, and maybe Sanders himself, that HRC has won the nomination by democratically acquiring more votes, not by rigging the system. He can argue that the rules prohibiting independents from voting hurt him, and that super delegates are undemocratic, but it seems from the numbers that HRC has won.