This Week in America (Vol. 4, Week 2)

 TWiA explores the intersection of policy and politics, and most importantly, how that intersection affects real people. It's dedicated to the proposition that good government is possible, it matters, and taxpayers deserve nothing less. Its starting point is that facts are facts, science is real, data are real, and we can and must learn from history. Below you'll find facts and opinions that derive from fact, informed by a close and careful study of these issues that began in 1968 and has never stopped. Note, when we discuss generic "Democrats" and "Republicans" or "conservatives" and "liberals," etc., we're generally talking about elected officials, unless otherwise noted. Also, bonus bear news and other awesomeness. We appreciate comments and arguments, so please chime in, and if you like it, spread the word. 

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This  Week in SOTU

President Obama delivered his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, and what may be his last major speech on a national stage until his speech at this year's Democratic Convention, which will be his swan song. We admit that it makes us sad, because this country has had few orators who can match his skill as a speaker or as a writer, and none of the candidates running to succeed him come close. The full video is here and a transcript--with annotations--is here (along with an annotated transcript of Gov. Nikki Haley's (R/SC) solid GOP response speech, of which the video is here. What both speeches had in common was a plea for the nation to reject the politics of anger and divisiveness represented by the rise of Donald Trump--a fact that upset far-right critics of Haley's speech. Less extremist Republicans think the speech made her an even stronger contender than she already was for a vice-presidential nomination. It's certain that she'll be on any candidate's shortlist (except maybe Trump's, unless he's smart enough to realize that for the general election, he'll have to soften his message), although we're still thinking Gov. John Kasich (R/OH) is a likelier choice. Republicans will take South Carolina regardless, but they can't win without Ohio, and Kasich goes a long way toward delivering it.

The speech is worth reading or watching--especially for the last section, in which he appealed to what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature."

So, my fellow Americans, whatever you may believe, whether you prefer one party or no party, whether you supported my agenda or fought as hard as you could against it -- our collective futures depends on your willingness to uphold your duties as a citizen. To vote. To speak out. To stand up for others, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable, knowing that each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us. We need every American to stay active in our public life -- and not just during election time -- so that our public life reflects the goodness and the decency that I see in the American people every single day.

It is not easy. Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a little over a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I will be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that helped America travel so far. Voices that help us see ourselves not, first and foremost, as black or white, or Asian or Latino, not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born, not as Democrat or Republican, but as Americans first, bound by a common creed. Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word -- voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love.

And they’re out there, those voices. They don’t get a lot of attention; they don't seek a lot of fanfare; but they’re busy doing the work this country needs doing. I see them everywhere I travel in this incredible country of ours. I see you, the American people. And in your daily acts of citizenship, I see our future unfolding. .

I see it in the worker on the assembly line who clocked extra shifts to keep his company open, and the boss who pays him higher wages instead of laying him off.

I see it in the Dreamer who stays up late at night to finish her science project, and the teacher who comes in early, and maybe with some extra supplies that she bought because she knows that that young girl might someday cure a disease.

I see it in the American who served his time, and bad mistakes as a child but now is dreaming of starting over -- and I see it in the business owner who gives him that second chance. The protester determined to prove that justice matters -- and the young cop walking the beat, treating everybody with respect, doing the brave, quiet work of keeping us safe.

I see it in the soldier who gives almost everything to save his brothers, the nurse who tends to him till he can run a marathon, the community that lines up to cheer him on.

It’s the son who finds the courage to come out as who he is, and the father whose love for that son overrides everything he’s been taught.

I see it in the elderly woman who will wait in line to cast her vote as long as she has to; the new citizen who casts his vote for the first time; the volunteers at the polls who believe every vote should count -- because each of them in different ways know how much that precious right is worth.

That's the America I know. That’s the country we love. Clear-eyed. Big-hearted. Undaunted by challenge. Optimistic that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. That’s what makes me so hopeful about our future. I believe in change because I believe in you, the American people.

And that’s why I stand here confident as I have ever been that the State of our Union is strong.

Thank you, God bless you. God bless the United States of America.

Below the fold: Flint, Guns, Debates, Bowie, and Bears.

 

This Week in Flint

We haven't covered the horrendous crisis in Flint, MI, but MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show has been on it nonstop and is doing really excellent journalism around it. Here's their recap:

In 2014, the city of Flint, under the control of an “emergency manager” appointed by the governor, was looking for ways to save money. To that end, the Snyder administration approved a plan in which the city would switch its water source: instead of getting water from Detroit, Flint would cut costs by drawing water directly from the Flint River.

 

In theory, there’s nothing particularly wrong with getting drinking and bathing water from a nearby river; plenty of communities across the country already do that. But in order to make Flint River water safe for people, it has to receive a special anti-corrosion treatment. Failing to treat the water sends corrosive river water through local pipes, it starts to eat through plumbing, and the result is lead poisoning.

 

The Snyder administration did not take the necessary precautions. What’s more, as the community grew concerned about its water, administration officials initially told local residents not to worry and to keep drinking the water.

 

The result, of course, is a public health crisis in which countless city residents, including many children, have been poisoned, which leads to severe and long lasting  consequences. Snyder last week declared an official emergency – he also issued an apology of sorts on New Year’s Eve – but the people of Flint still don’t have safe, clean water.

 

There’s also the political crisis as a result of this man-made disaster. The EPA warned Snyder administration officials about rising lead levels, but the governor did not alert the public and state officials delayed action to address the problem.

 

What that doesn't mention is that the Snyder administration has made similar decisions in other cities throughout Michigan. Not with the drinking water, necessarily, but whenever Gov. Rick Snyder (R) feels it's appropriate--mostly in black-run cities, as it turns out--he has appointed "emergency managers" to step in and take over. This takeover literally undoes the democratic process in those cities. Whoever the citizens have elected as mayor or to the city council is rendered powerless, and the emergency manager makes all the decisions those people would ordinarily make. Anyone looking for something like tyranny in America need look no further than Gov. Snyder and his cronies.

 

This week, the Detroit Free Press, which twice endorsed Snyder, calls him out for his administration's "shameful" response. It's not just the response that's shameful, we feel, but the idea that emergency managers can be sent into cities to eliminate democracy and rule dictatorially. Snyder has much to answer for, and now the lead poisoning of a good-sized American city--and all the long-term developmental and behavioral ramifications thereof--is on his head as well.

* * *

Also this week, Snyder called in the National Guard, albeit in a limited way--about 30 Guard members "are expected" to be in place by Friday to help deliver bottled water and filters to a city of almost 100,000 people. In the More Bad News category, there's also been an outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease. Officials can't say for sure whether it's related to the poisoned water supply, but it's a distinct possibility. Snyder claims there have only been 43 confirmed cases of elevated lead levels, but the pediatrician who first brought the problem to national attention--despite attempts by the Snyder administration to discredit her--says that figure is bogus. Those cases were all measured after the story broke in September, and therefore after people in Flint started taking precautions. But for almost two years before that, everybody in Flint who drank, cooked with, or bathed in tap water was exposed to dangerously high levels of lead.

* * *

In one more turn of the proverbial screw, Flint's residents are still being billed for the poisonous water--officially considered "hazardous waste," in some cases--being delivered to their homes.

Should you feel inclined to help Flint's beleaguered residents, TRMS has pulled together this information on nonprofits in Flint working to make a difference. 

This Week in Gun Safety

Max Ehrenfreund at the Washington Post thinks President Obama was wrong to dismiss the idea, at last week's CNN "Guns in America" town hall,  that he's planning to take away Americans' guns as a conspiracy theory, because so many people believe it's true. And people, he argues, believe in conspiracy theories when they feel powerless. Add to that the idea that guns confer power, and the symbolism becomes more potent. None of which is to say that it isn't a conspiracy theory, because it plainly is. He just doesn't think the president should call it one in public.

Astronaut Mark Kelly (husband to Gabby Giffords*) put it in perspective at that event when he asked the president this question:

Thank you for being here, Mr. President. As you know, Gabby and I are both gun owners, we take gun ownership very seriously. And, you know, really think about the voices of responsible gun owners in this debate.

But, I want to follow up to something Father Pfleger said, and you answer to his question. And, it's about expanded background checks. Often what you hear in the debate of expanding background checks to more gun sales, and, as you know, Gabby and I are 100% behind the concept of somebody getting a background check before buying a gun.

But, when we testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, we heard not only from the gun lobby, but from United States Senators that expanding background checks will, not may, will lead to a registry, which will lead to confiscation, which will lead to a tyrannical government.

So, I would like you to explain with 350 million guns in 65 million places, households, from Key West, to Alaska, 350 million objects in 65 million places, if the Federal government wanted to confiscate those objects, how would they do that?

Looked at that way, the impossibility of confiscation becomes clear. Add in that Republicans control both houses of Congress and the vast majority of statehouses--and Obama has just over a year left in office--and it's even more stark. Finally, since the Supreme Court has already ruled on the issue. there's no chance that confiscation is on the way. Zero. It would be helpful if people would understand that, so we can move on to more productive discussions of how to reduce gun violence.

Those viewing on TV didn't get to see this moment, because it happened during a commercial break, when President Obama greeted Gabby.

Photo via CNN

 *Kelly and Giffords endorsed Hillary Clinton for president this week.

* * *

The NRA wants to take credit for the creation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The pro-gun death organization's extremely pro-gun death executive vice president, the shameless Wayne LaPierre, said, “The best kept secret is that the national instant check system wouldn’t exist at all if it weren’t for the NRA.” 

Which is, not surprisingly, a big fat lie. The NRA wanted to kill the Brady Bill, so it promoted multiple amendments designed to do just that. Eventually, the bill passed despite its opposition, and the NRA tried to sue it out of existence. The Trace reports: "Meanwhile, background checks enjoy clear popularity in opinion surveys. A FiveThirtyEight analysis notes that a December Quinnipiac University poll, one of dozens to arrive at similar results, found that the policy is supported by at least 84 percent of respondents in every demographic, including gun owners, men, rural residents, and Republicans. Other polls have found that strong support for background checks extends directly to members of the NRA, which has incentive to promote itself as a gun safety organization. Perhaps that accounts for why LaPierre wants the NRA to get credit for the creation of the background check system, even as his group has fought against its expansion."

* * *

Between 2009 and 2014, 70,000 guns used in crimes in Mexico were traced back to gun dealers in the US (predominantly in California, Arizona, and Texas). Most guns in the hands of Mexican drug cartels originate in the US and are bought legally, then shipped south across the border. According to the Washington Post, "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has data on exactly which of these retailers are disproportionately likely to sell guns that end up in the hands of cartels. But neither you nor I nor researchers nor state and local governments are allowed to see that data thanks to Congress. In 2005, they passed a bill prohibiting ATF from sharing this data with the public, government agencies, and even with researchers who could help figure out how to try to stanch the flow of illegal guns."

This Week in the Constitution

Steve Benen at Maddowblog addressed this week an issue we tackled early last week: Marco Rubio's yen for a constitutional convention. There is an update--Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has called for one, too, only he wants it to re-litigate a question solved by the Civil War.  Benen goes into more detail than we did about the process of convening a constitutional convention--and describes the inherent dangers therein--so if you're interested in the topic, you might want to give his piece a read. As for Rubio's specific issues, Benen reaches the same conclusions we did:

Perhaps, though a balanced-budget amendment is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.

 

As for term limits, we already have them: they’re called elections. What Rubio is pushing is a system in which the government places new restrictions on who Americans can vote for: if we want to re-elect officials we believe are serving us well, Rubio wants to change the Constitution so that our choice is taken from us. In other words, he wants to impose an arbitrary mechanism that artificially blocks Americans’ right to re-elect our own representatives, regardless of our wishes, in the hopes of keeping experienced policymakers out of government by legal fiat.

 

This Week in 2016

 

"There's something going on, and it's bad," Donald Trump said during this week's Republican debate, broadcast by Fox Business "News." Our response, live-blogging the debate, was to quote him and ask, "Is he talking about this debate?" Because it was the worst debate yet, in a season filled with plenty of contenders for that role. Here's the annotated transcript.

 

Conventional wisdom says the winners were Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. For a Republican primary audience, that may be correct. For someone who lives in the real world, not so much. The FBN moderators were terrible, teeing up softball questions, or asking obvious ones that everybody already knew the answers to, letting the candidates ignore the rules, and neglecting follow-ups.

 

At one point, Jeb! Bush said, "And so everybody needs to discount some of the things you're going to hear in these ads, and discount the -- the back-and-forth here, because every person here is better than Hillary Clinton." 

 

Which prompted this exchange between Ben Carson and moderator Neil Cavuto:

 

CARSON: Neil, I was mentioned too.

 

CAVUTO: You were?

 

CARSON: Yeah, he said everybody.

 

Which is cute--but Cavuto let him talk, as if he really had been singled out. The debate had supposedly been scheduled for two hours, but it was allowed to run a half-hour longer, prompting weeping from viewers on the east coast.

As opposed to Tuesday's SOTU address, the overwhelming mood here was of a nation in the depths of despair--one that can only be rescued by electing one of the people proclaiming how doomed we are. Right from the start, Rubio came off like a fast-talking TV pitchman, spewing old, nonsensical talking points at the speed of sound:

RUBIO: But the real -- but I think we have to get back to what this election has to be about. OK? Listen, we -- this is the greatest country in the history of mankind. But in 2008, we elected a president that didn't want to fix America. He wants to change America. We elected a president that doesn't believe in the Constitution. He undermines it. We elected a president that is weakening America on the global stage. We elected a president that doesn't believe in the free enterprise system.

This election has to be about reversing all of that damage. That's why I'm running for office because when I become president of the United States, on my first day in office we are going to repeal every single one of his unconstitutional executive orders. When I'm president of the United States we are getting rid of Obamacare and we are rebuilding our military. And when I'm president, we're not just going to have a president that gives a State of the Union and says America is the greatest country in the world. When I'm president, we're going to have a president that acts like it.

Later, he called Obamacare "a certified job-killer." Of course, it isn't, but none of those other things are true, either. The free enterprise system is doing just fine under President Obama. The Constitution is not under attack, and executive orders are not unconstitutional. We are more respected around the world than we were during the previous administration. America overall is in far better shape than it was on January 19, 2009.

Falsehoods flowed freely throughout the evening, as expected, but mile-a-minute-mouth Rubio machine-gunned out more of them than most. The New York Times fact-checked some of the most egregious ones from all the candidates.

Chris Christie and Ted Cruz both called President Obama a child. We've been trying to remember presidential candidates ever saying that about a white president, but we can't. Christie also said, "Come November, we're throwing your rear end out of the White House," which is not only as disrespectful as we've ever seen a presidential candidate, but doesn't even make sense--Obama's in the White House until the morning of January 20, 2017, when his term ends. Even in the incredibly unlikely event that he won, Christie would have no bearing on that. Talking tough with absolutely no way to back up your words isn't the same thing as being tough.

Ben Carson is increasingly out of his element. You have to be pretty smart to be a brain surgeon, or so we believe, but Carson came across like someone who had found himself on the stage while sleepwalking and had no clue what he was doing there. His answers ranged from simplistic to incomprehensible, as was the case with his first question, about how we attack ISIS:

CARSON: Well, I'm very happy to get a question this early on. I was going to ask you to wake me up when that time came. [TWiA NOTE: This was in the first round of questions, so he hadn't been skipped. But he had practiced that line, and he was by God going to deliver it.]

You know, I find it really quite fascinating some of the president's proclamations. The fact of the matter is he doesn't realize that we now live in the 21st century, and that war is very different than it used to be before. Not armies massively marching on each other and air forces, but now we have dirty bombs and we have cyber attacks and we have people who will be attacking our electrical grid. And, you know, we have a whole variety of things that they can do and they can do these things simultaneously. And we have enemies who are obtaining nuclear weapons that they can explode in our exoatmosphere and destroy our electric grid.

I mean, just think about a scenario like that. They explode the bomb, we have an electromagnetic pulse. They hit us with a cyberattack simultaneously and dirty bombs. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue at that point? He needs to recognize that those kinds of things are in fact an existential threat to us.

But here's the real key. We have the world's best military, even though he's done everything he can to diminish it. And the fact of the matter is if we give them a mission and we don't tie their hands behind their back, they can get it accomplished.

To which the only rational response is, "WTF?"

Cruz and Trump went after each other, with both scoring points on some occasions and losing on others--but those points were scored on topics like Cruz's eligibility for the presidency and "New York values"--hardly issues that matter in the greater scheme of running the country. Columnist Frank Bruni writes, "The only sane response was sorrow—that this is a presidential election in the greatest democracy on earth, and that blowhards like Trump and Cruz are, for now, setting the pace and the terms in one of our two major political parties."

As usual, the only people who really made any sense at all were Jeb! Bush and John Kasich, neither of whom seems likely to make it all the way through to the convention. Instead, the race is shaping up more and more as an ugly battle between Trump and Cruz, with an ever-more-desperate Rubio and Christie bringing up the rear, shouting their lies at top volume.

 "I want to use that same up here, whatever it may be to make America rich again and to make America great again." (Yes, that's an actual debate quote. Trump wants to use his hair, or whatever it may be, to make America great again.) Photo by Chris Keane/Reuters

* * *

Former Republican congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, who served on both the House and Senate budget committees in a career that ran from 1983-2011, has some truth to tell about the economic plans coming from the presidential candidates.

 

I have concluded that this ritual denunciation of deficits and out-of-control spending is a fraud. Not only does the party not care about the deficit, but its practice since 1981 has been to worsen it.

We should pay particularly close attention to the Republican budget proposals from the presidential candidates in 2016. If a Republican is elected president, the party will almost surely have maintained control of Congress and, therefore, control the federal budget.

Since Mr. Rubio offers a detailed plan on taxes and spending — and since he is widely considered an “establishment” candidate — voters might carefully consider what his budget blueprint offers. Here’s the short version: It draws on fantasy math that would wreck America’s fiscal house.

On the tax side, Mr. Rubio slashes rates on personal and corporate income, and gives bigger breaks to wealthier Americans.

It doesn’t end there. Other candidates would reduce rates on capital gains and dividends, but Mr. Rubio would eliminate those taxes. He almost went out of his way to concoct a policy that would benefit the richest Americans: 79 percent of current revenue from these two taxes comes from the top 1 percent of earners, and less than 10 percent from the bottom 95 percent.

He would also end the estate tax. Republicans invariably call this the “death tax,” insinuating that it hits everyone unfortunate enough to die. Not even close: Only about 5,400 estates in America owe federal estate tax for 2015. But getting rid of it would add about $300 billion to the deficit over 10 years.

Mr. Rubio’s policies would cause a tidal wave of red ink. A repeal of the capital gains tax would cost roughly $1 trillion over 10 years While there as yet is no estimate for the cost of dividend tax repeal, my best professional guess is a minimum of $250 billion.

His entire tax package would increase the deficit by at least $4 trillion. But even Ramesh Ponnuru, a right-leaning columnist who approves of the plan, admits its price tag could be as high as $6 trillion (the plan incorporates highly optimistic economic assumptions).

At the same time, Mr. Rubio piles on military spending. According to a Cato Institute analyst, his all-you-can-eat Pentagon budget could cost at least an extra $1 trillion over a decade. Based on my 28-year congressional career analyzing military budgets, I’d say that’s an underestimate. Among the many programs he wants, an additional carrier battle group, extra ground combat personnel (whose pay and benefits will be with us for decades), and missile defense could easily cost more than $1 trillion. For perspective, just one item, nuclear modernization, could alone cost $1 trillion.

And that's just Rubio. Lofgren pauses to explain the origins of the "magic asterisk: "When I began work on Capitol Hill in 1983, President Ronald Reagan adopted policies devised by his young budget director, David Stockman, who came up with a “magic asterisk” in his documents to show that future deficits could be imagined out of existence by additional unspecified budget reductions. This deception allowed the administration to push through steep tax cuts and vast military increases. Over President Reagan’s two terms, gross federal debt nearly tripled. Republicans have been largely budgeting by magic asterisk ever since."

Then he summarizes some of the other plans out there, before reaching his grim conclusion:

Mr. Rubio’s current fiscal plan is only in the middle range among the 2016 Republican contenders’ budget-busting schemes: Jeb Bush’s would add about $3.7 trillion to the deficit; Donald J. Trump’s, an eye-watering $12 trillion. Yet they all rail against what they call Mr. Obama’s fiscal irresponsibility.

Their consistently sorry fiscal record and proposals raise the question: Why hasn’t the public caught on?

Republicans have been remarkably successful in delinking taxes from fiscal policy, “framing” taxes as a distasteful personal burden unconnected to widely desired public goods like roads, food-safety inspections or clean water. Instead, they claim that reducing taxes will spur so much investment the cuts will “pay for themselves.” Three decades of evidence have shown this claim to be false, but the candidates display ferocious discipline in pretending that tax cuts don’t harm the budget.

The party also benefits from public ignorance of the federal budget. When voters think foreign aid is the largest item in the budget (it is less than 1 percent), or that we can reach fiscal balance by cutting waste, fraud and abuse, they are deluding themselves.

Working for Republicans, I learned the hard way that expecting the party to restrain the deficit, let alone balance the budget, is, in Samuel Johnson’s words, “the triumph of hope over experience.”

* * *

Last week, we argued that it's pointless to waste energy declaring Ted Cruz ineligible for the presidency because he was born in Canada. We still think that, but there's a new twist that casts a little doubt. Cruz's eligibility rests on the notion that his mother was an American citizen when he was born. Now, though, a document has come to light showing her on a list of Canadian citizens eligible to vote in Canada in 1974. If she was genuinely a Canadian citizen, that could change things. His campaign has released a statement through that highly ethical, impartial news site (that's sarcasm, in case you don't recognize it) Breitbart.com saying, "the document itself does not purport to be a list of 'registered Canadian voters ... All this might conceivably establish is that this list of individuals (maybe) lived at the given addresses. It says nothing about who was a citizen eligible to vote." Trouble is, that statement is unequivocally false.

 

A professor of constitutional law who has done extensive research into this very issue concludes that Cruz is not eligible to be president--not because his mother was Canadian, but because the true definition of "natural born citizen," according to the English common law from which that clause in our Constitution was derived, means only people born within the US or American territories. Of course, the question was never raised during the previous candidacies of people born outside the US (for instance, that of George Romney--Mitt's dad--who, was born in Mexico, where his family had fled to escape persecution of polygamists). The professor writes, "Let me be clear: I am not a so-called birther. I am a legal historian. President Obama is without question eligible for the office he serves. The distinction between the president and Cruz is simple: The president was born within the United States, and the senator was born outside of it. That is a distinction with a difference."

 

Does the fact that the campaign is lying about the document mean that Cruz isn't an American? Not necessarily. If his mother had taken on Canadian citizen and never went through any formal citizenship process once she got back here in the US, is Cruz an undocumented immigrant? Maybe. We're not saying anything definitively until more is known, we're just saying that it's potentially not as clear-cut as we thought it was last week.

 

Back in 2008, the Democratic-led Senate passed a measure unanimously--or close to it--declaring that Sen. John McCain (R/AZ) was an American citizen, despite having been born in the Panama Canal Zone. The Zone was considered US property at the time, and his mother was clearly American. It really wasn't an issue, but the Senate nonetheless made the effort to clarify. But McCain had many friends in the Senate, on both sides of the aisle. Cruz, conversely, is almost universally despised by those who know him best, and this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R/KY) made clear that the Senate won't be riding to Cruz's rescue.

 

 * * *

 

Speaking of Cruz, we learned this week that he broke FEC reporting regulations when he failed to disclose multimillion dollar lines of credit to his Senate campaign from Goldman Sachs* (his wife's employer) and Citibank. The campaign claims that it was an "inadvertent oversight," but that's a blatant fiction--when he was running, Cruz made a big deal out of the fact that he had liquidated his family's entire liquid net worth--that he was a man of humble means, risking everything to serve his country in the Senate. Now we know that the story was a con job--Cruz and his wife were wealthy by any standards, and they got sweet terms on loans that only the wealthy can get. Cruz likes to pretend he's not part of the ruling elite--listen to him go off on "Harvard Law professors" sometime--but he's a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law, a former Supreme Court Clerk, and a highly paid corporate attorney married to a highly paid Goldman Sachs exec. Nothing about him is authentic, except perhaps the instant dislike people take to him when they know him.

 

Asked about it during this week's Republican debate, Cruz dodged by blaming the New York Times, which broke the story, for running a "hit piece" on him, then writing it off thusly: "And yes, I made a paperwork error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the other." Maybe that explanation satisfies the average primary voter, but when you think about Cruz's background, it doesn't fly. A high-powered corporate attorney is paid handsomely to know how the papers have to be filed, and to make sure it's done right. "Accidentally" failing to file legally required documents is grounds for an enormous legal malpractice suit. It's a rookie mistake that Ted Cruz wouldn't make, which means it was a deliberate

attempt to buttress the campaign's bogus claim that Cruz and his wife were "risking it all" out of dedication to public service.

 

*Goldman Sachs is paying the US a $5 billion fine for its role in creating the financial crisis by pushing subprime mortgages.

 

* * *

 

Cruz was endorsed this week by noted bigot and spewer of hate speech Phil Robertson. Rather than declining the endorsement, as any decent human being would do, Cruz trumpeted it. Reason enough not to vote for him for anything, ever.

 

Ted Cruz, trying to pass as a normal guy

 

* * *

It's been clear for a long time that Donald Trump has a lot of support from the white racist community. That became even more evident this week, when a white nationalist SuperPAC started making robocalls on Trump's behalf in Iowa. The group says it's moving on to New Hampshire, then taking the message national. The calls include endorsements from William Daniel Johnson, chair of the white racist American Freedom Party, and Jared Taylor, a founder of the Council of Concerned Citizens. If that group sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because that's where Dylan Roof learned his racist propaganda before opening fire on a Bible study group in the basement of the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston last year. Taylor is also the publisher of a white supremacist magazine. His message says about immigrants, in part, “We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump."

 

* * *

 

For a former federal prosecutor, Gov. Chris Christie has an interesting way with words. During his State of the Union Address, President Obama said "When you come after Americans, we go after you. If you doubt America's commitment -- or mine -- to see that justice is done, just ask Osama bin Laden."

 

Speaking about that later in the week, Christie said,  "We're all very proud and happy that our SEAL team was able to murder Osama bin Laden and bring him ultimately to justice, and I commend the president for authorizing that action. That was a long time ago now."

 

Prosecutors have to be very specific in word choice, at least in the courtroom. So do presidents, any time they're speaking in public. For any president to say American forces "murdered" Osama bin Laden would be a dangerous statement to make in public. Americans, and westerners in general, would likely understand that it was just a slip of the tongue. But jihadist propagandists and recruiters would be unlikely to see it that way, and phrasing it that way would be admitting to a serious violation of international law, and probably a war crime.

 

Christie might have been speaking deliberately. We blame bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks, but he never stood trial and we don't know the specifics of whatever operational role he might have played. When he was killed, he was within the borders of an ostensible ally, Pakistan, which had not invited us to come in and kill terrorists. We flew in under cover of darkness, perfectly ready to kill any Pakistani soldiers who might have objected. We're not arguing that anything should be changed, that bin Laden should be alive, or that the mission was anything but a triumph for America. But it might well have been extra-legal. Somehow, though, we doubt if that's why Christie chose that particular word.

 

If he really thinks bin Laden's death was a murder, he should explain why. If he doesn't, he should be more careful when he opens his mouth.

 

This Week in Asia

 

Susi Kim is a reporter who has lived in North Korea and reported extensively on it. She points out that the problem of North Korea is not unlike the old problem of Cuba, which is that we've tried basically the same policy for decades, and it doesn't work. The differences are that North Korea is even more isolated than Cuba was, and it's led by a crazy person, and they have nuclear weapons. That makes North Korea a genuine security risk, and potentially calls for a response different than the failed policy of the last several decades. But what other response is there? Kim suggests that if we are truly concerned about their nuclear capabilities, we might have to consider military intervention. That would have enormously ugly consequences--and, oh yeah, did we mention they have nuclear weapons? The whole situation is so scary it's hard to think about, but hopefully there are people in the Pentagon and the State Department thinking about it all the time.

Meanwhile, national security expert Michael O'Hanlon writes for Brookings that President Obama has basically the right balance of policies regarding Asia. "All that said, we are on the right track with the rebalance, TPP, and strong presidential leadership in regard to the Asia region. Obama has created a solid legacy and, beyond the ratification of TPP, the most important thing is that his successor sustain its essence." But he, too, admits that we haven't really addressed the North Korea issue.

This Week in Land

The gunmen holding birds hostage in Oregon don't quite understand what they're doing there. As the New York Times reports, "Ammon Bundy, the crew’s leader and the scion of a Nevada ranching family steeped in disputes with the federal government, said he and his sympathizers had gone to Oregon to give the refuge back to local ranchers."

Giving something "back" implies that the recipient once had it. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has been federal land--your land and my land, as the song goes--for longer than Oregon has been a state. Giving it "back" to the ranchers isn't a thing. Giving it to the ranchers could conceivably be done, but it would mean taking something we all own and making it private property--taking a piece of our shared national heritage and handing it to someone for personal profit. If we're going to give it back to anyone, it would have to be the local Paiutes, and they've already told the gunmen to get off. Apparently Bundy and his thugs don't care what the actual original occupants say.

In other parts of the country, ranchers have learned to work with the government, not against it (we mentioned the Malpai Borderlands Group before; it's not the only example). Key to that partnership is mutual respect. Bundy and his followers obviously don't have that respect for the federal government, and haven't earned it from any of us. They should surrender, face criminal charges, and be punished appropriately.

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Nothing to worry about here. The Oregon Nutjob Militia has brought in a sovereign citizen "judge"--who isn't, in fact, a judge, but a computer technician from Colorado--to prepare to put local Harney County, OR officials on "trial." What could go wrong?

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Here's what's really hurting ranchers--not the federal government's efforts to protect the ecological soundness of public land, but the consolidation of power within the industry in the hands of a very few megacorporations. Four companies control almost 90% of the meat-slaughtering and packing in the US, and a handful of big retailers control the distribution channels. As they push prices down, it's the ranchers who get squeezed.

This Week in Dying

Kevin Drum has long been one of our favorite political writers. He's thoughtful and has a good big-picture view on the issues facing the country. This month in Mother Jones, he writes about the right to die, in a story that's personal, informative, and deeply moving. We wish him all the best.

This Week in Liberalism

Is America becoming more liberal? Peter Beinart at The Atlantic thinks so, and argues his case in this longish read. President Obama has been just as transformative a president in a leftward direction as president Reagan was in a rightward one a generation ago.

This Week in Mexico

Why doesn't the US have an ambassador to our neighbor to the south? Because in a fit of pique over President Obama's Cuba policy, Sen. Marco Rubio (R/FL) has put a hold on a highly qualified, uncontroversial nominee for that job.

This Week in Planet Earth is Blue

There are plenty of influential musicians in any generation, since music captures a vast swath of culture and many of us relate to it on such personal, powerful terms. But there's influential and there's influential, and on the italicized list there are just a few true groundbreaking artists, without whose presence the whole of popular music would look and sound different. Off the top of our head (and working from the 60s onward--obviously Sinatra and Presley were enormously formative, as were others of their generations), we'd list Brian Wilson, Lennon & McCartney, Bob Dylan, maybe Mick Jagger and Paul Simon. Heavy metal music wouldn't exist without Led Zeppelin. Soul, R&B, and hip-hop wouldn't be what they are without James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye. But no such list would be complete without David Bowie. In the soundtrack of the lives of several generations, Bowie's music is always there, and his influence on others is profound. He'll be missed, and his music won't soon be forgotten.

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The Germans say Bowie helped bring down the Berlin Wall. Maybe he did, at that. This is the performance they're talking about (and incidentally, TWiA's favorite Bowie song).

 

This Week in Bears

It's been a hard week all around. Let's lighten it up with some adorable bear video.

This baby polar bear is in Toronto, but we'll stretch the definition of "America" to include that for the moment.

And this older bear takes delight in a Christmas tree.

 

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