“Rubio Reminds Voters”: Fertilized Human Eggs Don’t Become Cats
Hillary Clinton fielded some questions from campaign reporters yesterday, and not surprisingly, she was asked about Donald Trump. But the Democratic frontrunner clearly had a different group of Republicans on her mind.
“I think if we focus on [Trump’s antics], we’re making a mistake,” she said. “What a lot of the men on that stage in that debate said was offensive.” Highlighting Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) recent comments on prohibiting all abortions, regardless of circumstances, Clinton added, “[T]he language [Trump uses] may be more colorful and more offensive, but the thinking, the attitude toward women, is very much the same.”
She went on to say. ‘What Marco Rubio said has as much of an impact in terms of where the Republican Party is today as anybody else on that stage.”
It’s an important point. Rubio has now argued, more than once, that if a woman is impregnated by a rapist, the government has the authority to force her to take the pregnancy to term, regardless of her wishes. For Clinton, this matters every bit as much – if not more – than Trump’s ugly remarks about Fox’s Megyn Kelly.
For his part, Rubio seems to think he has a winner on his hands. Yesterday, the far-right Floridian, using social media and his campaign website, even launched a new initiative, alongside a big picture of a cat:
“Watch this video and sign this petition if you know that a human life won’t become a donkey or a cat.”
Yes, Marco Rubio, who last week seemed to adopt the posture of some kind of wonk, is now pushing a bold, new campaign message: fertilized human eggs don’t develop into cats.
As for the video Rubio is eager for the public to see, Slate’s Amanda Marcotte has the backstory:
When Rubio appeared on CNN after Thursday night’s Republican debate, he kept insisting that this vague entity called “science” has declared that human life begins at conception. (Actual biologists, for what it’s worth, argue that life is continuous and that a fertilized egg is no more or less alive than a sperm or an unfertilized egg.) CNN host Chris Cuomo vainly tried to point out that “science” says no such thing, and Rubio got a little excited.
“Let me interrupt you. Science has – absolutely it has. Science has decided… Science has concluded that – absolutely it has. What else can it be?” he asked. Then Rubio reared up for what he clearly intended as his wowza line: “It cannot turn into an animal. It can’t turn into a donkey. The only thing that that can become is a human being.”
Rubio, clearly pleased with himself, added, “[If scientists] can’t say it will be human life, what does it become, then? Could it become a cat?”
When Rubio’s website says “watch this video,” it shows the interview in its entirety.
Just so we’re clear, not even the most ardent pro-choice advocates believe fertilized human eggs could become a cat. They do believe, however, that there’s a difference between people and fertilized human eggs that might someday become people – in much the same way we differentiate between acorns and trees. What something is and what something may become under the right conditions are not identical.
Nevertheless, the far-right Floridian seems quite excited about his argument. He’ll have to hope it’s persuasive to a broad audience – Rubio’s no-abortions/no-exceptions position is further to the right than any Republican presidential nominee in the modern era.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 11, 2015
“Forgetting A Little Detail Called… His Brother”: Jeb Bush Is Even Nuttier Than Trump Now
Donald Trump’s remarks about Megyn Kelly still make him the most vulgar of the Republican presidential candidates.
But he is no longer the nuttiest.
That distinction was claimed by Jeb Bush in a speech at the Reagan Library, when he declared that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are to blame for the rise of ISIS.
Jeb being the brother of the guy who used 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq in the first place, a venture that then-Senator Barack Obama opposed.
Six weeks after the opening “shock and awe” bombardment, President George Bush declared in a speech from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln that the “major combat operations” in Iraq had ended in victory.
“Mission Accomplished,” read the big banner in the background.
Thousands of deaths later, the war was still raging and proving to be unwinnable.
In 2008, President Bush signed what was officially called an “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq.”
The agreement required us to withdraw our troops from Iraqi cities by June of 2009 and from the country altogether by December 31, 2011.
The schedule was already set in place when Obama took office in 2009. That included the 2009 closing of our biggest POW facility, Camp Bucca. The prisoners who were released from Bucca included Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
As has been reported in The Daily Beast, al-Baghdadi uttered some parting words to the camp’s commander.
“He said, ‘I’ll see you guys in New York,’” Army Colonel Kenneth King recalls.
Al-Baghdadi went on to become the head of ISIS and to announce the creation of a new Islamic State.
Obama did try to renegotiate the so-called “SOFA agreement” in order to allow U.S. troops to remain in Iraq past 2011, but he could not get the deal he wanted. Critics say he could have taken a more aggressive stance in the years after 2011, when the descendants of al Qaeda in Iraq began a murderous comeback.
But, of course, al Qaeda in Iraq would not have been a force of any consequence if President Bush had not smashed the Iraqi state in 2003.
In the meantime, we spent billions training Iraqi government troops who fled seemingly whenever they were attacked, leaving behind billions more in U.S. supplied equipment.
None of that was Obama’s creation.
All of it was a consequence of what President Bush so rashly set in motion.
And now his brother Jeb is trying to pin it on Obama as a way of going after Hillary Clinton. Talk about nutty. Not to mention offensive.
Trump is supposed to be the nutty and offensive one, but when it comes to ISIS he seems mainly to be woefully uninformed.
“Believe it or not, Iran is funneling money to ISIS,” Trump said on CNN.
Jeb could no doubt tell you that Iran is in fact battling ISIS by proxy and, in some instances, directly.
Something other than ignorance is at work when Jeb tries to pin the ISIS mess on Obama and Hillary.
Yes, as senator, Hillary did vote in favor of invading Iraq. And yes, as Secretary of State, she failed to make Iraq a top priority. (Though she did push Obama to keep American troops in Iraq after 2011.)
But she can hardly be faulted for what was all but sure to follow when Jeb’s brother gave the orders to invade Iraq.
And Obama is even less at fault.
Jeb is only able to claim otherwise because the people who truly are to blame have never been held accountable.
That includes not just Jeb’s brother but also former Vice President Dick Cheney, who promises to be even nuttier than Jeb when he makes an appearance of his own at the Reagan Library on September 9, two days before the 14th anniversary of 9/11.
Cheney and his daughter, Liz, will be there to sign copies of their new book, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. The library’s website says, “Dick and Liz Cheney explain the unique and indispensable nature of American power, reveal the damage done by President Obama’s abandonment of this principle, and show how America can and must lead again.”
Never mind that between the war in Iraq, the loss of focus on Afghanistan and the CIA torture scandal, the elder Cheney probably did more to weaken America than any other single individual in recent history.
The website goes on, “The Cheneys do what no one before them has done: chart a path forward to restoring American power and strength, explaining what must be done to reverse course, to fight and win the war on terror, to rebuild our military and reassure our allies that they can once again rely on American leadership.”
Neither parody nor irony seem intended as the website concludes, “A critical, frank, and much-needed touchstone, Exceptional should stand as a guiding principle for the potential presidential candidates in 2016—and for policymakers today and beyond.”
Talk about beyond nuts.
Perhaps if some of the other candidates do use Cheney’s book as a guiding principle, they too can prove to be even nuttier than Trump, who seems unlikely to read a book or anything else.
All anybody who wants to sound wackier than The Donald need do is begin a sentence with, “Well, Dick Cheney says…”
Meanwhile, Trump remains not just the most vulgar of the candidates, but also the front-runner.
By: Michael Daly, The Daily Beast, August 12, 2015
“Republicans Willfully Misrepresenting Fundamental Facts”: Still Perplexed And Worried About Hillary Clinton’s Emails? Calm Down
Amid the ongoing hysterics over Hillary Clinton’s email server – now turned over to the FBI, along with a “thumb drive” maintained by her attorney David Kendall – it was refreshing this morning that ABC News, at least, appears to understand basic facts about this overblown affair.
In a handy question-and-answer format, the network’s Justin Fishel and Mike Levine explain why the FBI wants to examine the server, namely to ascertain that it contains no classified information, and reiterate what everyone ought to know by now: that despite propagandistic nonsense spread by Republican operatives, the bureau is not undertaking a criminal investigation of Clinton herself.
As noted in the ABC News Q&A:
The Intelligence Community’s inspector general said from the beginning that it made a “counterintelligence referral” — not a “criminal referral” — to the FBI. The main concern was that classified information could be compromised because it was sent over unsecured networks and remained in the hands of Clinton or her legal team, not that any crimes may have been committed, a spokeswoman for the Intelligence Community’s IG previously told ABC News.
But even the comparatively sober ABC News analysis omits crucial facts that seem to have eluded many observers – several of which were outlined by Jennifer Palmieri, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, in a useful briefing she posted on Medium. Yes, it is Palmieri’s job to remind everyone of these facts. And it is the job of journalists to report them – not ignore them – so that readers and viewers can understand this story’s context.
As discussed in this space before, the State Department asked the four Secretaries of State who preceded John Kerry to turn over work-related electronic mail for archiving. Only Hillary Clinton has provided any materials so far, sending over 30,000 emails from her server. According to Palmieri, at least 1,200 of those messages will be returned to Clinton, because State officials say they are wholly personal in nature.
(I still wonder why reporters seem so uninterested in the emails sent by Colin Powell on his personal account, particularly concerning Iraq. Powell insists he didn’t keep any of those messages, but nobody seems too eager to test that convenient assertion.)
Palmieri also addresses the confusion over information that wasn’t classified when Clinton sent it but may have been classified since she left office:
It’s common for information previously considered unclassified to be upgraded to classified before being publicly released [as Clinton’s official emails are being examined, redacted, and released by the State Department]. Some emails that weren’t secret at the time she sent or received them might be secret now. And sometimes government agencies disagree about what should be classified, so it isn’t surprising that another agency might want to conduct its own review, even though the State Department has repeatedly confirmed that Hillary’s emails contained no classified information at the time she sent or received them.
We can expect some partisan figures – like Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and his fellow Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi – to continue to willfully misrepresent these fundamental facts. Gowdy seems to believe that smearing Clinton, using millions of taxpayer dollars, is his job.
By: Joe Conason, Editor in Chief, Editor’s Blog, Featured Post, The National Memo, August 13, 2015
“How Black Lives Matter Can Really Matter”: Decentralized Structure Runs Risk Of Going The Way Of Occupy Wall Street
Ferguson is the raw, visceral, unsavory face of pure racial emotion and despair pouring into the streets. It is unpredictable, it can be frightening, but above all else it is essential. American society needs once again to see the frustration and anger that is born from racial injustice.
The original narrative of Michael Brown’s death—of a young black man who had just graduated from high school being gunned down in the street by someone who has sworn to protect him, and whose body was allowed to rot in the scorching summer heat for four hours while his friends, family, and neighbors helplessly watched—was the moment when many African Americans decided to make their pent-up frustrations known to the rest of America. Many coalesced into passionate and activist-driven peaceful protests, and a select few unfortunately resorted to violence. This is when the Black Lives Matter movement caught fire.
A year later, the movement is most certainly at a crossroads. Sunday, the peaceful protests organized by Black Lives Matter activists on the anniversary of Brown’s death were marred by violence, shootings, and arrests. That night, a black male opened fire on police officers, and by Monday a state of emergency was declared. That same day, roughly 200 activists staged a sit-in at the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis and 57 were arrested. Those arrested included Cornel West and prominent social media Black Lives Matter personalities DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie.
Additionally, last Saturday, Black Lives Matter activists interrupted and eventually shut down a Senator Bernie Sanders rally, similar to their actions at NetRoots Nation in July, demanding that he take bolder measures to confront police brutality and racial inequality.
So the movement is out there getting attention and generating press. But all of this noise needs to bring about a sustained change. A movement has to be more than merely raw emotion, and catharsis, and this is an evolution that Black Lives Matter needs to undertake.
A prime example of the movement’s organizational confusion is found in the strange interactions between Sanders and “members” of the movement over the past month or so. At the Sanders rally, it was Marissa Jenae Johnson and Mara Jacqueline who stormed the stage to confront the senator. But Johnson’s and Jacqueline’s connection to the movement appears tenuous at best. But Black Lives Matter does not have a central leadership or organizational body, so almost anyone’s official connection with Black Lives Matter can come into question.
“Black Lives Matter is a movement, but it is also a mantra,” said Jonathan Newton, the founder and president of the National Association Against Police Brutality. “It does not have a centralized structure, and that is what I think causes some confusion and also allows this movement to live on.”
But one might wonder: Why is Sanders still being targeted more than other presidential nominees when his long record of civil rights advocacy is at least now known to most? Maybe a month ago at NetRoots his positions on police brutality, inequality, and race were unknown, but they should not be now.
And why isn’t Hillary Clinton receiving an equal barrage of interruptions and demands from members of the Black Lives Matter movement? You could argue that her recent speech on criminal justice reform has shielded her from these attacks, but no one can really know for sure.
And more than that, why isn’t the GOP being bombarded with interruptions? It makes you wonder about the wrongs Sanders must have committed, but confusingly, none of these questions has a clear answer, and they cannot because there is not a central leadership to this movement to provide them. Almost all parties could be defined as rogue factions united by a similar ideology and mantra.
Sanders has most likely received more abuse than others because his events are more accessible than other candidates’ due to the large crowds they draw. The combination of easy access and sizable media coverage has made him an easy target. But the movement clearly cannot sustain itself on these predatory actions alone. These interruptions need to evolve and have a more clearly defined purpose.
“We can question the method of what these interrupters have been doing, but we cannot question the message,” said Newton. “And that method has already produced responses.” In the last week, Sanders has appointed Symone Sanders, an African-American woman, as his national press chair, and he has published a detailed outline of his stances on racial injustice on his official website, so the potential impact of these interruptions is clear.
Charting their future course is not. When will other presidential candidates get ambushed? How does the movement remain vibrant enough to ensure that the proposed changes become a reality?
On the flip side, the nearly nonexistent organizational structure has allowed numerous independent “Black Lives Matter” groups such as Newton’s NAAPB to arise and work for positive change on the racial injustice issues that the movement espouses, and this has energized and activated countless individuals who previously were passive observers.
If Black Lives Matter is to have the impact its activists demand through sit-ins, confrontational interactions with presidential candidates, peaceful protests, and sometimes volatile demonstrations, then the group needs to unite and organize to a more substantial degree than it does now.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s had many different groups, including the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and more. These groups independently organized supporters and occasionally clashed, while promoting the same message of change.
Black Lives Matter could peter out similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Maybe it will organize its activists like the Tea Party has and have a noticeable impact on our government. Could Black Lives Matter Democrats become a significant force in the not too distant future?
The issues that Black Lives Matter wants to impact will not be solved overnight or in one election cycle. A sustained level of advocacy, organizing, and peaceful protesting needs to occur for a long period of time, and this cannot be achieved without BLM evolving into a more organized and focused movement.
By: Barrett Holmes Pitner, The Daily Beast, August 12, 2015
“Word-Salad Foreign Policy”: Trump Wants To Re-Invade Iraq; Bomb Things
Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump pledged Tuesday morning, in a factually-challenged screed, to send American troops to invade Iraq and Syria so as to “take the oil” in ISIS-controlled territories.
“I would go in and take the oil and I’d put troops to protect the oil. I would absolutely go and I’d take the money source away. And believe me, they would start to wither and they would collapse,” Trump said on CNN’s New Day. “I would take the oil away, I’d take their money away.”
Asked last month whether U.S. troops were needed to protect the oil, Trump said, “You put a ring around them. You put a ring.”
Ironically, Trump said he opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying in May that he would “have never been in Iraq.” Some 200,000 troops were required for that invasion.
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the most hawkish members of the GOP presidential field, has called for between 10,000 and 20,000 troops to bolster the anti-ISIS campaign.
Trump’s word-salad foreign policy also fundamentally misunderstands the nature of ISIS. While it does make some money from oil sales, the so-called Islamic State does not derive its main source of revenue from oil revenue, as The New York Times points out. The vast majority of its operating resources in 2014 came from extortion, taxation, and theft.
The U.S.-led coalition has struck portions of ISIS’s oil infrastructure as recently as three weeks ago. On July 20, military airstrikes hit three ISIS crude oil collection points near the Deir Ezzor. A recent CNN article, citing military experts, points out that destroying oil infrastructure would be counterproductive to the future recovery of territories held by ISIS if and when the terrorist organization is expelled.
“You have to understand the issues a little bit better than just bombing things,” retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling told CNN.
Nor does Trump seem to understand the basic dynamics of the Middle East. “Believe it or not, Iran is funneling money to ISIS, too,” Trump said Tuesday morning. Iran’s government is a theocracy based on Shia Islam, while ISIS is a terror group based on a jihadist branch of Sunni Islam. They see each other as mortal enemies. In fact, Iran has been willing to offer Iraq an “open check” to fight the extremist group, Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. Lukman Faily has said.
Trump also criticized the Iran deal negotiated by the Obama administration. His Iran deal would be “a hundred times better,” he told CNN. “They didn’t read The Art of the Deal, obviously.” First Trump would have “doubled the sanctions,” demanded Iranian-held American prisoners back, and then “made a good deal.”
“It’s going to go down as one of the dumb deals of all time, and one of the most dangerous deals ever signed,” Trump said.
When challenged by CNN about how America’s allies weren’t likely to go along with additional sanctions, Trump gave a bewildering answer. “I don’t care—that’s part of leadership, you got to get the allies with you. You got to get them… The different people that are involved aren’t going to be with you. You know why? Because they have no respect for our president.”
CNN host Chris Cuomo almost seemed like he was apologizing to Trump for asking tough questions about national security.
“Forgive me if it sounds if I’m teaching you about the world. You know it, and I know you know it. But I’m saying that there’s a tendency to oversimplify situations, people buy into that, and you’re setting them up for disappointment,” Cuomo said.
“Sometimes oversimplification is a good thing. Sometimes we make it too complicated,” Trump said, before going on to call the Chinese currency the “wan.” It is called the yuan.
By: Tim Mak, The Daily Beast, August 11, 2015
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