The Commentariat -- March 11, 2016

Presidential Race

Jonathan Martin & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "After 11 adversarial debates, the two chief antagonists to Donald J. Trump on Thursday night largely abandoned their strategy of brutally attacking him, choosing instead to use their final face-off before next week’s round of big Republican primaries to project gravitas and champion conservative positions on trade, jobs and Israel. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, whose candidacy is on the line in his state’s primary on Tuesday, passed up easy chances to challenge Mr. Trump on immigration and foreign visas, and he stopped insulting the front-runner after his recent jabs backfired. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who is running second to Mr. Trump in many states, stuck to policy at first but gradually turned tougher against Mr. Trump, eventually saying he would be a disaster as the Republican standard-bearer." ...

... New York Times reporters are liveblogging the debate. CW: I didn't watch the debate, but I followed the liveblog. By failing to bring up Donald Trump's inciting violence against black Americans at his rallies, CNN moderators committed another act of journalistic malpractice. ...

... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The Republican presidential candidates will gather in Miami on Thursday for their last debate before voters in Florida, Ohio and three other states go to the polls next week for primary elections that could reshuffle the race. Chances are dwindling for Donald J. Trump’s rivals to slow his campaign’s momentum. With Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida under pressure to hold their home states on Tuesday, this face-off on the debate stage could prove to be decisive.... The debate will begin at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time and will air on CNN. CNN International and CNN en Español will simulcast the event."

If You Comp Me an Overnight at Your Glitzy Club, I'll Endorse You. Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Conservative favorite Ben Carson, who last week suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, plans to endorse Donald Trump on Friday morning, according to two people familiar with his thinking. The endorsement, perhaps the most high-profile nod for Trump since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie backed him, was finalized Thursday morning when Carson met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the luxury club owned by the Republican front-runner, the people said." ...

... CW: Maybe you thought Ben Carson was just a well-meaning, uninformed dingbat who was overwhelmed by the harsh realities of cutthroat politics. Nope. He's a conniving, hypocritical uninformed dingbat without an ounce of moral fiber. Listen up, Ole Doc, hanging a picture in the front hall of you & Jesus together don't mean you're a "real" Christian. Like the Jesus guy, you went into the wilderness for 40 days & 40 nights (& then some), & in the end, when the Great Satan of the Skyscrapers tempted you, you said, "Thank you, Lord, & pass the caviar." By your deeds shall you be known, Doc Ben.

It's Getting Worse. Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "A black protester [-- Rakeem Jones --] being escorted out of a Donald J. Trump campaign rally on Wednesday in Fayetteville, N.C., was sucker-punched and shoved by a Trump supporter, several videos on social media show.... Mr. Jones stumbled, then could be seen on the floor surrounded by sheriff’s deputies. In some of the videos, at least two deputies who were following Mr. Jones up the arena steps could be seen walking past the man who had just punched Mr. Jones. But on Thursday, WRAL, the local NBC television affiliate, reported that a 78-year-old man, John McGraw of Linden, N.C., had been charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct.... Later in the Fayetteville rally..., when another in a series of demonstrators was being led out, Mr. Trump himself lamented what he called 'the good old days' when someone who acted up would be carried out 'on a stretcher.'” Emphasis added. CW: Local authorities should arrest Trump, too, for inciting violence & for civil rights violations. The guy belongs in an orange jumpsuit. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

    ... Trump also complained during the Fayetteville rally that there were too few protesters & they were not troublesome enough: “It’s always like one person. Can’t we have a little more action than this?” ...

     ... Update. Inside Edition: "The [old white guy] Trump supporter [John McGraw] who was filmed sucker punching a [black] protester [Rakeem Jones] during Wednesday’s rally in North Carolina said: 'Next time, we might have to kill him.... We don’t know who he is. He might be with a terrorist organization.'... On Thursday, officials arrested and charged McGraw with assault and battery and disorderly conduct, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.” CW: Just because Inside Edition covers it, doesn't mean it's entertainment. ...

     ... CW: The Rules According to Old White Guys: Always suspect black people of being terrorists. It's best to beat them up first & ask questions later. To rekindle the good old days, try to inflict enough bodily harm that the black terrorist suspects have to be carried out on stretchers. Maybe to the morgue. ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic was at the Fayetteville rally: "Just below the surface of a Trump rally runs an undercurrent of violence. There are few overt threats. But there are thousands of people who are deeply angry at the state of the nation, whose anger is being intensified by the speaker on stage.... What is disturbing about Trump’s handling of the media at an event like this is that he knows he’s playing a game — but doesn’t tell the crowd." ...

... Freedom of the Press. Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast on how Trump & his, ah, news organ Breitbart, handle the press. Nixon kept his enemies list a secret. Trump is right out there in the open, beating them up & screwing them around. And, yeah, Breitbart, that paragon of journalistic excellence is willing to throw its "girl reporter" under the bus. Ben Terris of the Washington Post has a bit more: After finding out that Terris had witnessed Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski (or someone resembling him) rough up Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, Lewandowski made Terris wait for his scheduled interview, then cancelled the interview. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... It's Okay to Rough up MSM Reporters. CW: Steve M. on a point in Grove's report that jumped out at me, too: "The Daily Beast tells us, 'Lewandowski’s explanation ... was that he and Fields had never met before and ... he didn’t recognize her as a Breitbart reporter, instead mistaking her for an adversarial member of the mainstream media.' If she'd been from the 'adversarial' media, I guess roughing her up would have been just fine, according to Team Trump." ...

     ... Update. Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "When a protester was kicked and punched at a Donald Trump rally in November, the candidate’s excuse was that the activist deserved it. Now that a reporter has been grabbed — hard enough to leave bruises — by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, the Republican presidential front-runner is trying an even more audacious defense: Saying it never even happened.... Fort Trump is accusing Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields — and Washington Post reporter Ben Terris, who saw Lewandowski grab her roughly after a Tuesday-night press conference — of fabricating the whole thing. After remaining silent on the incident for almost two days, the campaign issued a statement on Thursday afternoon, declaring Fields's accusation to be 'entirely false.'" ...

     ... Update Update. Hadas Gold of Politico: "A roughly two and a half minute audio recording of the incident obtained by Politico — while not definitive — supports the reporter's version of the events, which were witnessed by Washington Post reporter Ben Terris."

Otto Von Drumpf XIV. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump’s blistering critique of American trade policy boils down to a simple equation: Foreigners are 'killing us on trade' because Americans spend much more on imports than the rest of the world spends on American exports. China’s unbalanced trade with the United States, he said Tuesday night, is 'the greatest theft in the history of the world.' Add a few 'whereins' and 'whences' and that sentiment would conform nicely to the worldview of the first Queen Elizabeth of 16th-century England, to the 17th-century court of Louis XIV, or to Prussia’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in the 19th century.... Mr. Trump is bringing mercantilism back. The New York billionaire is challenging the last 200 years of economic orthodoxy that trade among nations is good, and that more is better." CW: You'll have to read Appelbaum's full report to find out why Von Drumpf -- who tells us he is very, very smart -- is so wrong. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Michael Gerson: "Trump is the guy your Founding Fathers warned you about.... We have reached the culmination of the founders’ fears: Democracy is producing a genuine threat to the American form of self-government.... The founders may not have imagined political parties as a check on public passions, but that is the role the GOP must now play — as important as any in its long history. It is late, but not too late." ...

     ... CW: If you've watched 5 minutes of any political convention of either party in your lifetime, you'll find Gerson's argument laughable. Gerson describes the delegates as the "chosen body of citizens," a la James Madison's Federalist 10: “a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country.” While it's likely that some of the GOP delegates will be wearing their tricorns in the convention hall, that is where the likeness to the Founders ends. There is not an ounce of wisdom beneath the hats of the delegates. Delegates are parochial poobahs come to party hard in the Big City, not to sit & ponder & debate delicate determinants of our national future. They will be unable & unwilling to save the country from the grip of a demagogue.

Repulsive Senator Endorses Repulsive Senator. McKay Coppins & Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed: "Utah Sen. Mike Lee endorsed Ted Cruz for president on Thursday afternoon."

Other News & Views

BBC News: "US President Barack Obama and Canada's new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have lavished praise on each other during the first official visit by a Canadian leader in nearly 20 years. At the official state dinner Mr Trudeau toasted the two nations as 'siblings'. Mr Obama raised his glass to the 'great alliance', and made several jokes about Mr Trudeau and his previous careers. 'If things get out of hand, remember the prime minister used to work as a bouncer,' said Mr Obama. In a joking reference to Canadian-born presidential candidate Ted Cruz, Mr Obama laughed 'Where else could a boy born in Calgary run for president of the United States?'"

Steven Mufson & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama said Thursday he is not responsible for the Republican Party’s 'crackup' even though some GOP leaders have blamed him for Donald Trump’s divisive but effective campaign for the party’s presidential nomination." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Here's the full press conference:

President Obama welcomes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada to the White House:

New York Times Editors: "On Monday, John Cornyn, the senior Republican senator from Texas, warned President Obama that if he dares to name a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court, the nominee 'will bear some resemblance to a piñata.'... It is disgraceful for a senator to play the thug, threatening harm to someone simply for appearing before Congress to answer questions about professional accomplishments and constitutional philosophy. On Thursday, during the first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing since Justice Scalia’s death last month, Mr. Cornyn and his fellow Republicans ... look[ed] like deranged obstructionists." ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "Senators on the Judiciary Committee clashed openly on Thursday over filling a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year, with Republicans insisting that they were doing the right thing by refusing to consider any nominee put forward by President Obama and Democrats accusing them of shirking their constitutional duty. The Judiciary Committee chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, denounced Democrats for the pressure they have brought in recent days in pushing him to convene confirmation hearings once Mr. Obama picks a nominee, which could happen as soon as next week." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Responding to a drug crisis that has contributed to more American deaths than car crashes, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a broad drug treatment and prevention bill, the largest of its kind since a law in 2008 that mandated insurance coverage for addiction treatment.... The bill was threatened by Democrats who were angered that Republicans turned away an accompanying measure to provide $600 million in extra funding to pay for some of the programs that the bill authorizes.... The fate of the legislation in the House is uncertain. A companion bill there does not have strong Republican support...." ...

     ... Empty Suits. CW: If Republicans won't fund the bill, the vote today was just a campaign ploy, giving senators an I-Care talking point while not mentioning they won't spend a dime on prevention or treatment. Maybe they can come up with a few thousand bucks to print up & distribute some Nancy Reagan Just Say No posters. That should help. Thanks, Republicans!

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department said Thursday that Apple’s attempts at linking an ongoing fight over a locked iPhone to broader questions about encryption are 'a diversion,' pushing back against an argument repeatedly made by the company and its supporters in Silicon Valley.  Federal prosecutors argued in a court filing that this fight is one of Apple’s own making, accusing the company of having 'deliberately raised technological barriers' that are keeping the iPhone locked."

Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the Washington Post: "The board of the Wounded Warrior Project, one of the largest veteran support organizations in the country, has fired the nonprofit’s chief executive officer and the chief operating officer.... The departure of two top executives, CEO Steven Nardizzi and COO Al Giordano, comes at a time when the wounded veteran-focused organization is awash in controversy amid news reports accusing the group of wasteful spending.... According to Wounded Warrior Project tax forms obtained by a CBS News investigation, the organization spent $26 million on conferences and meetings in 2014, up from $1.7 million in 2010.... According to the charity watchdog, 'Charity Navigator,' Wounded Warrior Project only spends 60 percent of its budget on veterans.... The Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, on the other hand, provides more than 98 percent to veterans."

Paul Krugman writes that politicians should be honest about trade deals. CW: That is never going to happen. There is so much at stake, so many potential winners & losers, there are few honest analysts. Economists like Krugman can shed light on the realities &, well, tradeoffs of international trade & trade agreements (see Binyamin Appelbaum's piece on mercantilism, linked yesterday, for what was an eye-opener to me), but even their work suffers from various biases & preconceptions, & because there are so many moving parts subject to so many fluctiations, some of them unforeseen, what economists might agree is a "good" trade deal one year may prove to be a bad deal the next. Politicians really don't know what they're talking about; they all start from a particular slant -- sometimes toward something as parochial as a particular business in a particular Congressional district -- and work backwards from there. The fact that they understand almost nothing about macroeconomics renders their views meaningless, except for the fact that those vews are among the ones that will prevail; some politicians, like Bernie Sanders, hold honest views, but they're based on nonsensical or fantasy-based premises. Add to that that even a "good" trade agreement is probably unenforceable & subject to myriad variables, most notably corruption, & the average citizen doesn't know what to think.

The Commentariat -- March 10, 2016

Afternoon Update:

It's Getting Worse. Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "A black protester [-- Rakeem Jones --] being escorted out of a Donald J. Trump campaign rally on Wednesday in Fayetteville, N.C., was sucker-punched and shoved by a Trump supporter, several videos on social media show.... Mr. Jones stumbled, then could be seen on the floor surrounded by sheriff’s deputies. In some of the videos, at least two deputies who were following Mr. Jones up the arena steps could be seen walking past the man who had just punched Mr. Jones. But on Thursday, WRAL, the local NBC television affiliate, reported that a 78-year-old man, John McGraw of Linden, N.C., had been charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct.... Later in the Fayetteville rally..., when another in a series of demonstrators was being led out, Mr. Trump himself lamented what he called 'the good old days' when someone who acted up would be carried out 'on a stretcher.'” Emphasis added. CW: Local authorities should arrest Trump, too, for inciting violence & for civil rights violations. The guy belongs in an orange jumpsuit. ...

... Freedom of the Press. Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast on how Trump & his, ah, news organ Breitbart, handle the press. Nixon kept his enemies list a secret. Trump is right out there in the open, beating them up & screwing them around. And, yeah, Breitbart, that paragon of journalistic excellence is willing to throw its "girl reporter" under the bus. Ben Terris of the Washington Post has a bit more: After finding out that Terris had witnessed Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski (or someone resembling him) rough up Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, Lewandowski made Terris wait for his scheduled interview, then cancelled the interview.

Otto Von Drumpf XIV. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump’s blistering critique of American trade policy boils down to a simple equation: Foreigners are 'killing us on trade' because Americans spend much more on imports than the rest of the world spends on American exports. China’s unbalanced trade with the United States, he said Tuesday night, is 'the greatest theft in the history of the world.' Add a few 'whereins' and 'whences' and that sentiment would conform nicely to the worldview of the first Queen Elizabeth of 16th-century England, to the 17th-century court of Louis XIV, or to Prussia’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in the 19th century.... Mr. Trump is bringing mercantilism back. The New York billionaire is challenging the last 200 years of economic orthodoxy that trade among nations is good, and that more is better." CW: You'll have to read Appelbaum's full report to find out why Trump -- who says he is very, very smart -- is so wrong.

David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "Senators on the Judiciary Committee clashed openly on Thursday over filling a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year, with Republicans insisting that they were doing the right thing by refusing to consider any nominee put forward by President Obama and Democrats accusing them of shirking their constitutional duty. The Judiciary Committee chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, denounced Democrats for the pressure they have brought in recent days in pushing him to convene confirmation hearings once Mr. Obama picks a nominee, which could happen as soon as next week."

Steven Mufson & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Obama said Thursday he is not responsible for the Republican Party’s 'crackup' even though some GOP leaders have blamed him for Donald Trump’s divisive but effective campaign for the party’s presidential nomination." Here's the full press conference:

President Obama welcomes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada to the White House:

*****

Presidential Race

Patrick Healy & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders clashed vividly over immigration reform, health care and Cuba during a contentious debate Wednesday as the two Democrats appealed to Hispanic voters and tried to outdo each other in assailing Donald J. Trump. Mrs. Clinton, bruised by her surprise loss in the Michigan primary a day earlier, was on the attack throughout the debate as she sought to undercut Mr. Sanders’s momentum before the next round of primaries." ...

... Apparently this memo to Hillary from the New York Times Editors, published before the debate, was lost in the mail: "If she hopes to unify Democrats as the nominee, trying to tarnish Mr. Sanders as she did in Michigan this week is not the way to go." ...

... Here's more of Clinton's mean-girl routine. Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Hillary Clinton said Wednesday night that Bernie Sanders is in cahoots with the billionaire conservative Koch brothers because a group affiliated with them praised Sanders for opposing the Export-Import Bank. 'The leaders of the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, have just paid to put up an ad praising Senator Sanders,' Clinton said. 'You know, there are a lot of different powerful interests in Washington, I’ve taken them on.'” Let's go the videotape. When Ramos tried to let Clinton get away with that unfounded attack, the crowd booed: ...

     ... CW: Clinton is a barracuda, the Democrats' prettier version of Ted Cruz. If you wonder why anyone would question Clinton's trustworthiness -- a quality on which she typically scores low in polls -- there you go. Sanders is no more aligned with the Kochs than he is with Trump or Atilla the Hun. I don't mind at all her going after Sanders on points where they genuinely disagree, but this line of attack is as real as "Trump Magazine." I don't trust a word she says, including "and" & "the." ...

     ... Update: PolitiFact is fact-checking statements the candidates made in last night's debate. So far Sanders has all "Mostly True" ratings & Clinton's are all "Mostly False" or "False." ...

... German Lopez of Vox on why the Univision debate was so important. CW: And good for Democrats for holding it. I wonder why Republicans don't have a Univision debate. Oh, because they're bullies who don't have the guts to face the victims of their policies? Could be. ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "Jorge Ramos just gave advocates for the undocumented (and, probably, some GOP ad-makers) reason to celebrate. At Wednesday night's Democratic debate in Miami, the 'Walter Cronkite of Latino America' demanded Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton answer yes or no: Would they deport undocumented children and/or adults without criminal histories if elected president? Standing before a crowd of the Sunshine State's Democratic primary voters, neither candidate could say no. Although, Hillary Clinton sort of tried to – and she may have bought herself some wiggle-room in doing so." ...

     ... NEW. Greg Sargent tries to clarify the wiggle room. Neither Clinton nor Sanders really made any news, & Clinton was equivocal. ...

... Gail Collins on the debate(s): "Hillary Clinton is by far the best qualified candidate for president. But at this point in the campaign, you can understand why some people feel that voting for her against Bernie Sanders is like rewarding Washington for its worst behavior. In the end, Clinton is the one who knows how to make the system work. But she’s just got to be clearer on how she can work against the system." ...

... The New York Times is livebloggng the Bickersons' debate. ...

... Margaret Hartmann has a rundown of the big moments. And for those like Kate M., who at the top of today's Comments sensed that Univision was on Hillary's side, this multi-million-dollar tidbit: "Univision chairman Haim Saban contributed $2.5 million to a pro-Clinton super-PAC." I wish Bernie had raised that point. ...

... Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Univision’s Jorge Ramos had a disclosure to make on Wednesday night: his daughter works for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign." ...

... Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders will convene in Miami for the second Democratic presidential debate of the week on Wednesday night, ahead of big primaries in Florida and Ohio next Tuesday.... The debate begins at 9 p.m. Eastern and will be shown on Univision, CNN and Fusion." ...

... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "This debate comes at an unexpected moment of drama in the Democratic race.... After the Michigan win, it is clear that Sanders ... has not peaked." ...

... One place you can watch the debate for free if you don't have access to CNN: the Washington Post Website. The Post is cosponsoring the debate.

Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly borrows the math & anlyzes the state of the Democratic race: "1. Clinton is not on track to win the nomination outright without the help of superdelegates. On current trends, she’s going to come up about 100 votes short (2,284 out of the 2,382 needed). 2. She’s unlikely to lose her pledged delegate advantage at any point, so a mass defection of superdelegates simply isn’t going to happen barring some scandal or health scare. 3. Sanders cannot put much of a dent in her lead by winning narrow victories even in big important states like Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin. 4. Yet, Sanders should remain mathematically alive all the way to the convention. 5. Based on ... projections, Sanders is on track to win almost 1,800 of the 4,762 delegates to the convention. This would be 38% of the total delegates. After his upset win in Michigan last night, it’s certainly realistic to believe that Sanders can do substantially better than 38%, but it’s simply not realistic to believe that he can win." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "If Sanders somehow turns it all around and wins the nomination — still a very long shot — his acceptance speech in Philadelphia should begin with a heartfelt thanks to the polling industry." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Charles Pierce: Among Michigan auto workers, Clinton's attempt to smear Sanders with a half-truth (she did it again last night) on the auto bailout seems to have backfired. "The auto workers in Michigan have run out of patience with platitudes and easy answers. At least on one side of it, this is becoming an election for people who see past the politics all the way into their own lives. That's what I learned in Flint, anyway."

Apropos of a brief discussion we had Wednesday morning in the Comments sections, there's this: Daniel Strauss of Politico: "The group at the center of the Koch brothers' vast political network is praising Bernie Sanders for opposing the Export-Import Bank and for his attacks on corporate welfare. Freedom Partners put out the web video highlighting its common ground with the Vermont senator ahead of Wednesday night's Democratic debate.... But a Sanders campaign official shot back, suggesting that the video was intended to hurt Sanders, by creating the perception that he is the preferred candidate of the Kochs — an association that would be toxic in the Democratic primary." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Here's the ad:

Margaret Hartmann has a roundup of useful commentary about Michigan's Democratic primary. Biggest -- and worstest -- takeaway for me: the results suggest Clinton could lose Rust Belt states to Mr. Bizarro there. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "The Republican National Committee on Wednesday filed two lawsuits in federal court seeking records and emails of Hillary Clinton and her colleagues at the State Department. The first suit seeks electronic records sent to and from Clinton via text or Blackberry Messenger and emails to senior aides. The second suit seeks communications between senior State Department officials, Clinton’s presidential campaign and other Clinton allies after her time at State." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) CW: I'm pretty sure the complainants there are patriots concerned about national security. The court would do well to assume otherwise.

The confederate Editors of the Chicago Tribune endorse Marco Rubio for the GOP nomination. Their excellent rationale: "We like his youth, his bilingual fluency and the fact that he isn't one more Republican who's been standing in line, awaiting his turn to run." They endorse neither candidate for the Democratic nomination because, they say, both are consumed with pie-in-the sky plans to give away "Free Stuff." CW: So, you know, give to the wealthy; take from the moochers & freeloaders. I'm convinced. ...

... Contributor P. D. Pepe excavated the archives & came up with this 1964 LBJ ad. It's classic camp, a contemporaneous parody of early teevee talk shows; I love the way the actor takes out a cigarette about 2/3rds of the way thru. Still, LBJ's attack on Barry Goldwater via this ad, as P.D. points out, resonates today. Thanks a lot, P.D. Great find!:

Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "At the end of a friendly town hall interview aired on Wednesday night, Fox News personality Sean Hannity asked Trump whether as president, he would pursue a criminal indictment of Clinton should Attorney General Loretta Lynch 'cover' for Clinton and avoid indicting her. 'You have to,' Trump responded, to uproarious cheering. Though the attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president, Trump's answer conflicts with 40 years of precedent. His suggestion that he would seek an indictment flies in the face of the longstanding practice of limiting White House involvement in the prosecutorial decisions made by an attorney general." ...  

... CW: Sorry, Ben, President Trump don't need no stinking legal precedents. This is one more example of what authoritarian leadership looks like. I'm waiting for the Foxbots to spread the meme that the reason Hillary is running for president is so she can pardon herself & she's running specifically against Trump to avoid incarceration in the Trump Maximum Security PrisonsTM system. "We have the best jails, okay?"

A security guard watches over Trump products that later were distributed to guests at Donald Trump's presser/QVC event last night.... More on the Bizarro Presumptive GOP Nominee. Eric Levitz of New York: "After his victories in the Mississippi and Michigan primaries Tuesday night, Trump ... [spent] a solid ten minutes of his celebratory press conference defending Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka. The mogul went so far as to address the American people from beside a heaping platter of raw beef and bottles of Trump Water and Trump Wine. At one point, he held up the latest issue of Trump magazine and briefly mused on its cover story." CW: I could hear from this room of my own the gasps of horror coming from "exclusive" Republican clubs around our fair nation. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Where Even the Steaks Are Fake. Caleb Melby of Bloomberg: "When ... Donald Trump showed off a pile of beautifully marbled steaks atop a butcher board at a Tuesday campaign event, he called them 'Trump steaks.' That’s true in the sense that they were steaks, and they were on a Trump property. But they weren’t steaks from Trump’s fabled, now defunct, Trump Steaks business. They were from Bush Brothers Provision Co., a West Palm Beach, Florida, purveyor that counts Trump-affiliated properties among its customers, said John Bush, whose family owns the company." CW: That's right. They weren't Trump Steaks; they were Bush Steaks. Small consolation for Jeb! ...

     ... Wait, Wait, There's More. The wine is fake, too. So is "Trump Magazine." CW: Maybe "Seinfeld" had a George Costanza for President episode I missed, & we're just catching a re-enactment of it now:

... Hadas Gold of Politico: "Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski forcibly yanked Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields out of the way after his press conference in Florida on Tuesday night.... Fields was clearly roughed up by the move, [a] witness said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) CW: This is wierd only because Brietbart is reputedly in the tank for Trump.

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: Jeb! "plans to meet separately with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a spokeswoman said. There are no plans for Bush to meet with businessman Donald Trump — no surprise given their acrimonious relationship." CW: I suppose Jeb!, after flaming out in the presidential race, now aims to return to his former status as "respected party elder." And the remaining candidates are all looking for endorsements. Because there's nothing that can put a contender over the top like a Jeb Bush endorsement.

Mike Perleberg of Eagle Country Online: Al Bamburger, a 75-year-old white Marine veteran caught on video repeatedly shoving & shouting at a young black woman, Shiya Nwanguma, at a Donald Trump rally in Kentucky, says he's not a racist & hes' sorry. He got caught up in the moment or something. CW: Yeah, that'll happen. Probably what a lot of the participants in Kristallnacht told themselves, too. Not that I'm making a comparison. ...

     ... Shaun King of the New York Daily News: Bamburger "should be charged criminally alongside every other person who assaulted Shiya Nwanguma on that day." ...

    ... CW: In fact, the threat of criminal charges may be what inspired Bamburger's claimed remorse. From Perleberg's report: "A Louisville Metropolitan Police spokesman said Monday that various complaints from the March 1 Trump rally remain under investigation with no charges filed yet."

Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: "The morning after finishing second to GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump in three states (Mississippi, Michigan, and Hawaii) and winning a fourth (Idaho), [Ted] Cruz kicked off the next stretch of the campaign with a rally in [Marco] Rubio's backyard — Miami — and he did not come in peace. As many political observers have noted, the Texas senator's pivot toward the Sunshine State is apparently motivated by one impulse: to finish off Rubio." ...

... Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "Carly Fiorina endorsed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Wednesday, supplying his campaign with a high-profile supporter and an eager critic of Donald J. Trump. Mrs. Fiorina, the former presidential candidate and Hewlett-Packard chief executive, took to the role quickly, appearing as a surprise guest at Mr. Cruz’s morning rally in Florida." CW: How do you say, "Adios, Marco!" in Spanish? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Claire Landsbaum of New York: "... during [Wednesday] night's MSNBC forum [Marco] Rubio ... admitted his own parents wouldn't have been able to enter the United States under his proposed immigration policy.... A merit-based system such as the one Rubio is proposing has faced criticism for overemphasizing formal education and employment while overlooking unpaid work women perform in the domestic sphere. It also places relatively little value on family ties, and the American Immigration Council suggests it would carry implicit age and gender biases." CW: That's how it is, see. When you want to be the last one in, you lock the door behind you. ...

... Also, too, he acknowledged that his anti-Trump schtick embarrassed his own children. Cited in the Rucker story, linked below: “In terms of things that have to do with personal stuff, yeah, at the end of the day it’s not somethi ng I’m entirely proud of. My kids were embarrassed by it, and if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t.” ...

... Katherine Krueger of TPM: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) drew a 'disappointing' crowd for an event in his home state Wednesday night just days before a critical primary in the state, CNN reported. CNN’s Jason Carroll, who was on the ground in Hialeah, Florida, called the crowd 'much, much smaller' than at Rubio’s past events and said the 'couple hundred' supporters gathered were 'not even filling the end zone' of the high school football stadium." ...

     ... CW: This is the very same field (tho the seating is much expanded today) where young Marie Burns cheered on the Hialeah High School Thoroughbreds -- back before she turned her back on contact sports. Hialeah is now mostly Hispanic -- 92 percent of its residents speak Spanish at home. And Cuban-American Marco can't get Hialeahans to come out on a lovely day in Florida. ...

... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "... a cloud of fatalism now hovers over [Rubio's] campaign. Aides on Wednesday tried to beat back rumors he would quit the race — perhaps before Thursday’s CNN debate in Miami. Donors exchanged grim messages about Rubio’s fate in Florida, where his campaign, short on cash, is running no advertisements. New polls showed him trailing Trump here badly. Supporters in the small and subdued Hialeah crowd all but conceded defeat. 'I’ve been around for a long time,' said Sal Pittelli, 70. 'And you can smell the flop sweat.'”

.. Charles Gasparino of Fox Business: "Marco Rubio’s troubled 2016 presidential campaigned has devolved into an all-out civil war with some major donors saying he should drop out of the race immediately, and his paid staff urging him to stay the course, the FOX Business Network has learned. The infighting has been percolating for days, people with direct knowledge of the matter say; The battle however began picking up steam after Tuesday night’s poor showing by the candidate, who failed to win a single state or a single delegate in the Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii contests." Via Paul Waldman. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "It was literally two weeks ago that the growls from Republicans worried about a possible Donald Trump nomination targeted John Kasich’s presence in the 2016 presidential race as an obstacle to Marco Rubio’s ascent. Those whines never made much sense; Kasich probably cost Rubio some delegates over the long term, but the real obstacle to Rubio’s ascent was the same one he failed to vault on Tuesday night: Marco Rubio. It's hard to exaggerate what a debacle Tuesday night was for the senator from Florida." ...

... Nate Silver plumbs the data to determine why Rubio never had any real traction. Here's a factor: "Rubio ... may be proving that there’s not all that large a market for what you might call an upscale or cosmopolitan conservative. Many voters in the near-in suburbs, Rubio’s best areas geographically, long ago left the Republican Party. Rubio might have the image to win them back — young, Hispanic, optimistic — but he doesn’t have the policies, being staunchly conservative on issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Likewise, while Rubio appears to do well among nonwhite Republicans, there are very few of them voting in the primaries, and Rubio has turned away from the moderate immigration positions that once might have won him more Latino support." ...

... digby eulogizes Rubio's brilliant career: "... he will be remembered for three things and two of them happened on national TV with many millions of people watching: that weird water thing after the State of the Union and the robot glitch in the debate. Unfortunately, the other one is that he made a joke about the size of Donald Trump's 'hands.' These are not big things and certainly shouldn't knock him out of politics. (His throwback policies should.) But they might. Sometimes a politician is just 'off' and people can tell. I suspect Rubio is one of those guys." ...

... Scott Lemieux, in the New Republic, takes on the delusions of "moderate conservatives": "In singling out Trump and Cruz as the villains the Republicans must slay if they hope to regain respectability, [NYT columnist David] Brooks is in deep denial about the state of his party — a denial that is shared by Brooks’s center-right brethren.... Brooks’s narrative ... founders on one problem: Substantively, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Cruz and alleged moderates like Kasich, Rubio, and Ryan. And none of them have policy agendas that are any more serious than Trump’s." ...

... CW: Here's what Lemieux misses, IMHO. Brooks and other "center-right" pundits hold almost exactly the same economic views as Republican party leaders; that is, the same views as Cruz, Ryan & Kasich. They're not offended by the party's extremism; they promote it in column after column, perhaps tweaking the tax code a little to, say, encourage Americans to have more children (an excellent goal!). Their only apparent substantive differences are on social issues; they wouldn't walk across the street to avoid a gay person or a person of color. Hell, some of them are gay & some are people of color. But this is only an apparent difference: Cruz bashes gay people as a campaign tactic; in fact, he's happy to schmooze with rich gays in exchange for their campaign contributions. Trump lives in the most cosmopolitan borough of the most cosmopolitian city in the world; he isn't afraid of Muslims, blacks or Central Americans. What Brooks & Company really object to is the overt race-baiting & gay-bashing & evangelical hoohah; they can't acknowledge that their economic agenda has so little merit that it requires the unseemly pandering to & snookering of the great unwashed.

Senate Race

Greg Sargent: "... the Senate Majority PAC, which is devoted to electing Democrats to the Senate, is airing this new ad in New Hampshire, attacking Senator Kelly Ayotte for standing with the GOP refusal to consider Obama’s nominee." The ad links Ayotte to Donald Trump. "There may be more ads like this one":

Other News & Views

Michael Shear & Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, met with President Obama on Thursday for the first state visit by a Canadian leader in 19 years, a diplomatic honor made possible in part by new pledges of cooperation on combating climate change. Mr. Obama and Mr. Trudeau announced Thursday morning new commitments to reduce planet-warming emissions of methane, a chemical contained in natural gas that is about 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide and that can leak from drilling wells and pipelines.... As part of the announcement, United States officials said they would immediately begin a new push to regulate methane emissions from existing oil and gas facilities...."

Nina Totenberg of NPR: "President Obama has begun interviewing candidates for the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Sources close to the process say that among those being interviewed are Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; Judge Sri Srinivasan, of the same court; Judge Paul Watford, of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco; Judge Jane Kelly, of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis; and U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who serves in Washington, D.C. The first three are considered leading contenders." CW: I hope he doesn't pick the old white guy (Garland). ...

... Jen Kirby of New York: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid criticized the GOP again this week, saying that its senators are falling in line with Trump, perhaps hoping that if he says the name of the Establishment's most-feared candidate enough maybe they'll budge." ...

... John Bresnahan of Politico: "With the possible exception of Donald Trump, the Supreme Court vacancy is the biggest obsession of Capitol Hill these days. That’s a bad thing for Senate Republicans. The GOP’s refusal to hold hearings or vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia has put the party on the defensive in a way that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, assuming top Republicans hold their ground. Democrats are more energized than at any time since they were swept out of power in 2014, hammering Republicans daily with the mantra 'Do Your Job!'”...

... Lydia Wheeler of the Hill: "Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the Senate Judiciary Committee will have a 'full-blown debate' Thursday on whether to hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nomination." CW: Really? Are we expecting great minds to be changed? ...

... Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: "Adalberto Jordan, a federal judge in Miami seen as a top contender for the Supreme Court vacancy, has withdrawn his name from contention.... 'He pulled himself out of consideration,' Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida told CNN. Nelson said Jordan made the decision because of a 'personal, family situation' involving his mother."

... CW: Attorney General Loretta Lynch also took her name out of the running this week, saying that the nomination process would interfere with her day job. ...

** Dorothy Samuels & Alicia Bannon of the Brennan Center, on BillMoyers.com: Alexander Hamilton gets no "respect from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and most other GOP senators." Hamilton's writings make clear the function that he & the others authors of the Constitution envisioned for the role of the Senate & President in selecting Supreme Court justices. "... based on the historical evidence..., Hamilton and other of the Constitution’s Framers would have been appalled by the confirmation antics of McConnell & Co."

** Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic writes a fascinating piece -- with a lot of insider assistance including from the POTUS himself -- on President Obama's philosopy of international relations. And there's this tidbit: After she left the State Department, Hillary Clinton criticized Obama's handling of Syria. When The Atlantic published [her remarks], and also published Clinton’s assessment that 'great nations need organizing principles, and "Don’t do stupid stuff" is not an organizing principle,' Obama became 'rip-shit angry,' according to one of his senior advisers.... The Iraq invasion, Obama believed, should have taught Democratic interventionists like Clinton, who had voted for its authorization, the dangers of doing stupid shit." ...

... CW: If you want to know how a smart, rational, stable person makes life-and-death decisions, Goldberg lays it out. Now think Dubya & Drumpf. The only difference between those two bozos' gut-level decision-making method is that Dubya wasn't insane. Yeah, you should be scared. About Clinton, you should worry, too. Clearly, she's not afraid to do stupid shit.

Gregg Zoroya of USA Today: "The Pentagon has deployed drones to spy over U.S. territory for non-military missions over the past decade, but the flights have been rare and lawful, according to a new report. The report by a Pentagon inspector general, made public under a Freedom of Information Act request, said spy drones on non-military missions have occurred fewer than 20 times between 2006 and 2015 and always in compliance with existing law."

Beyond the Beltway

** Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "Even though a law almost exactly like it is still being reviewed in the Supreme Court, the state of Florida just passed a massive anti-choice bill that, under the guise of supporting women’s health, is aimed at cutting off as many women as possible from abortion, contraception, and STI prevention and treatment services. Most of the bill is modeled after the one in Texas, the one the court is currently reviewing, which uses medically unnecessary red tape to regulate abortion clinics out of existence."

Austin Huguelet & Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "A bill to give some of the nation’s broadest legal protections to opponents of same-sex marriage took a crucial step forward in Missouri on Wednesday, winning approval in the State Senate after Republicans used a rare procedural move to break a 39-hour filibuster by Democrats.Since the Supreme Court’s ruling in June legalizing gay marriage, legislators in many states have introduced bills that they say would protect religious freedom and opponents say permit discrimination. In some respects, the Missouri bill would go beyond any law now in place, prompting challenges that could keep the issue before the courts for years."

Today in Responsible Gun Ownership: Arming Preschoolers. Peter Holley of the Washington Post: "Hours after gun-rights advocate Jamie Gilt bragged on Facebook that her 4-year-old son 'gets jacked up to target shoot,' the same child accidentally turned his mother into a target, shooting her in the back." CW: Akhilleus discussed the incident in yesterday's Comments.

Justin Moyer & Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post: "A murder suspect who was the subject of a massive manhunt in the Midwest was taken into custody Wednesday, after a quadruple homicide in Kansas and another slaying in Missouri. Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, a Mexican national who was in the country illegally, was arrested early Wednesday morning in Montgomery County, Mo., the Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a news release. He has been charged in connection to five deaths across two states." CW: Cue the Fox "News" Outrage Machine. Because there's never been an American mass murderer.

Charles Pierce: Kyle "Odom shot the preacher in Idaho because he thought the preacher was a hypersexual amphibian-humanoid Martian, and he came all the way to D.C. to warn us all about the hypersexual amphibian-humanoid Martians in Congress.... I was pondering how wonderful our system is that a guy with a felony attempted-murder warrant on him in a fairly high-profile shooting can get on a plane in Boise and make it all the way to the White House fence before anyone notices anything amiss.... Also, I am happy to live in a country where a man so desperately in need of help as this guy is has such easy access to all kinds of firearms."

The Party of Racists

For good reason, Donald Trump & his cadre of white supremacists, flagrant & muted, have dominated the discussion of the GOP's racist leanings. But there's another, equally pernicious form of racism that further defines the GOP. Since Mitt Self-Deportation Romney lost the 2012 election, many party elders looked at the exit polls, discovered the party had a problem attracting Latino voters, & openly (or anonymously) admitted it. (Black voters they don't care about so much because Republicans imagine -- revealing the limited scope of their imaginations -- that blah people are all hanging out in their welfare hammocks chatting on their ObamaPhones about food stamps & other "free stuff.")

But what to do? Rather than robustly supporting immigration reform, for instance, which would appeal to many Latinos but horrify the GOP's white racist base, the poobahs got together & decided to back a symbolic Latino. That is, the white Republican elites thought Hispanic voters would be just thrilled to Dump the Dems in favor of one of their own whose boyhood lusts happened to make him a Latino-by-marriage. Sure enough, Jeb! proved he could speak to the little brown ones, in gringo-accented Spanish, of the horrors of "multi-culturalism" & of "anchor babies," too. But, really, he's one of them: the family eats tacos at home! Problem solved.

A funny thing happened on the way to the primaries. Despite his giant party-raised campaign chest, which put him on the early-state teevee all the time every day, nobody voted for Jeb! "After spending $2800 per vote in Iowa, Jeb Bush and his super PAC, Right to Rise, have continued the spree by paying $1,150 per vote in New Hampshire." Wow! New Hampshire was a bargain!

When Jeb! dropped out of the race after the next round of primaries, GOP elites looked around & turned their lonely eyes to a certified Spanish-speaking Latino, whose name (first AND last) ends in a vowel rather than an exclamation point. This is where the party's inherent racism becomes obvious. Not only do the party elder's think they can shove a guy out front just because he can rumba, but its base of more open, visceral racists have rejected the dancing guy, no doubt because he can rumba.

You can attribute Jeb!'s favored status among party leaders to his family connections, but the old boys' come-lately allegiance to an equally-flawed Hispanic candidate shows their true colors: white, white & whitey-white. It never occurs to them to change the party platform to make it more appealing to Latino voters; it never occurs to them that Hispanic voters may have unique concerns; it never occurs to them that substance matters. What matters is that their new model looks great in a respectable Republican suit & Cuban heels.

There are all kinds of ways to demonstrate racism, & the GOP knows them all. The more genteel among them share their prejudlces in "quiet rooms"; the more honest (if ignorant) ones complain Rubio would grant "amnesty" to Puerto-Rican Americans. The Republican party is the party of racists, from top to bottom.

The Commentariat -- March 9, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "The Republican National Committee on Wednesday filed two lawsuits in federal court seeking records and emails of Hillary Clinton and her colleagues at the State Department. The first suit seeks electronic records sent to and from Clinton via text or Blackberry Messenger and emails to senior aides. The second suit seeks communications between senior State Department officials, Clinton's presidential campaign and other Clinton allies after her time at State." CW: I'm pretty sure the complainants there are patriots concerned about national security. The court would do well to assume otherwise.

Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "Carly Fiorina endorsed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Wednesday, supplying his campaign with a high-profile supporter and an eager critic of Donald J. Trump. Mrs. Fiorina, the former presidential candidate and Hewlett-Packard chief executive, took to the role quickly, appearing as a surprise guest at Mr. Cruz's morning rally in Florida." CW: How do you say, "Adios, Marco!" in Spanish?

Apropos of a brief discussion we had this morning in the Comments sections, there's this: Daniel Strauss of Politico: "The group at the center of the Koch brothers' vast political network is praising Bernie Sanders for opposing the Export-Import Bank and for his attacks on corporate welfare. Freedom Partners put out the web video highlighting its common ground with the Vermont senator ahead of Wednesday night's Democratic debate.... But a Sanders campaign official shot back, suggesting that the video was intended to hurt Sanders, by creating the perception that he is the preferred candidate of the Kochs -- an association that would be toxic in the Democratic primary." Here's the ad:

Ed Kilgore: "If Sanders somehow turns it all around and wins the nomination -- still a very long shot -- his acceptance speech in Philadelphia should begin with a heartfelt thanks to the polling industry."

Margaret Hartmann has a roundup of commentary about Michigan's Democratic primary. Biggest -- and worstest -- takeaway for me: the results suggest Clinton could lose Rust Belt states to Mr. Bizarro there. ...

A security guard watches over Trump products that later were distributed to guests at Donald Trump's presser/QVC event last night.... More on the Bizarro Presumptive GOP Nominee. Eric Levitz of New York: "After his victories in the Mississippi and Michigan primaries Tuesday night, Trump ... [spent] a solid ten minutes of his celebratory press conference defending Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka. The mogul went so far as to address the American people from beside a heaping platter of raw beef and bottles of Trump Water and Trump Wine. At one point, he held up the latest issue of Trump magazine and briefly mused on its cover story." CW: I could hear from this room of my own the gasps of horror coming from "exclusive" Republican clubs around our fair nation.

Hadas Gold of Politico: "Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski forcibly yanked Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields out of the way after his press conference in Florida on Tuesday night.... Fields was clearly roughed up by the move, [a] witness said." CW: This is wierd only because Brietbart is reputedly in the tank for Trump.

*****

Presidential Race

Primary Results

A-mazing. Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders scored an upset win in the Michigan Democratic primary, according to the Associated Press, threatening to prolong a Democratic campaign that Hillary Clinton appeared to have all but locked up last week.... Mrs. Clinton ... won overwhelmingly in Mississippi, crushing Mr. Sanders among African-American voters.... On the Republican side, Donald J. Trump easily dispatched his rivals in Michigan and Mississippi, regaining momentum in the face of intensifying resistance to his campaign among party leaders." ...

... Dan Roberts, et al., of the Guardian: "Bernie Sanders pulled off his biggest win of the Democratic presidential race on Tuesday, defeating Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary on a night which also confirmed strong anti-establishment support for Donald Trump in the battle for the Republican nomination." ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "In an election year that has already shattered many received wisdoms, add another one to the scrap heap: the idea that the Democratic and Republican Party establishments were finally getting a handle on the popular insurgencies that have shaken up their parties.... It seems that Sanders's economic populism and Trump[s authoritarian populism both resonated in a state that was hard hit by the Great Recession and its aftermath. Although the messages that the two insurgents are carrying differ wildly in most respects, and shouldn't be compared in terms of policy content or morality, they both claim that the existing political system is broken, and that radical measures and new leaders are needed to fix it." ...

... Steve M.: "... congratulations, GOP establishment: your anti-Trump campaign worked ... with Democrats." It turns out many Michigan Democrats voted in the GOP primary for John Kasich in an effort to stop. They did so largely because pollsters convinced them Clinton had a lock on the Democratic side.

Democrats

I knew, I knew that these polls that had us 20 or 30 points behind were wrong. -- Bernie Sanders, in an interview ...

... Yamiche Alcindor & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Mr. Sanders pulled off a startling upset in Michigan on Tuesday by traveling to communities far from Detroit and by hammering Mrs. Clinton on an issue that resonated in this still-struggling state: her past support for trade deals that workers here believe robbed them of manufacturing jobs.... For Mrs. Clinton, it was a stinging defeat in a state that she had made a symbol of her campaign, pledging to help the citizens of Flint overcome its contaminated water crisis in a rare display of passion and outrage from a candidate who is often reserved.... Despite Mrs. Clinton's advantages, including the support of much of the state's Democratic establishment, the Sanders campaign showed deft organization and strategy...." ...

... Harry Enten of 538: "Bernie Sanders made folks like me eat a stack of humble pie on Tuesday night. He won the Michigan primary over Hillary Clinton, 50 percent to 48 percent, when not a single poll taken over the last month had Clinton leading by less than 5 percentage points. In fact, many had her lead at 20 percentage points or higher. Sanders's win in Michigan was one of the greatest upsets in modern political history. Both the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus and polls-only forecast gave Clinton a greater than 99 percent chance of winning.... Sanders ... can breathe a deep sigh of relief that all the states in the Deep South have already voted." ...

... Greg Sargent: "Clinton finished the night with more delegates than Sanders did, because delegates are awarded proportionately, and he only beat her by 50-48 in Michigan, while Clinton crushed Sanders in Mississippi. Given her current delegate lead, last night's outcome probably won't pose a serious obstacle to winning the nomination." ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "One thing that happened is that Clinton underperformed with black voters in [Michigan].... Part of the problem may be the economic issues central to Michiganders' concerns.... The state has shed a ton of manufacturing jobs over the last 25 years, thanks in part to free-trade agreements like NAFTA.... In a recent national poll, the thing people worried about most with Clinton's candidacy was her connection to Wall Street.... Black voters are her (ahem) trump card and economic issues her Achilles heel." ...

... Ed Kilgore thinks Bernie's Michigan win was less about free trade & more about demographics. ...

Driftglass: "it turns out that Bill Clinton's 1992 election strategy of 'focusing like a laser' on the economy still has enormous resonance 24 years later with people who have been screwed, blued and tattooed by our rigged system. Senator Sanders took that message to America's capital of de-industrialization and tomb of he American dream and told them that settling for a future of triangulation, crooked trade deals and amnesty for Wall Street hoodlums wasn't good enough anymore. And voters responded."

Michigan: With 3 percent of the vote counted, the state is leaning Sanders. With 75 percent reporting, Michigan is still leaning Sanders. This is remarkable. Clinton certainly may win the state. She was heavily favored going in; recent polls showed her beating Sanders by 20 to nearly 40 points. No recent polls showed Sanders even close. With 92 percent reporting, the AP has called the race for Sanders. He has only a two-point lead.

Mississippi: With no precincts reporting, the AP has called the state for Clinton.

Republicans

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. "Trump Infomercial Captivates Networks." Hadas Gold of Politico: "Millions of viewers tuned into to cable news networks during the prime 9 p.m. EST hour likely expecting to hear some candidate speeches. What they got, on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, was one candidate talking for 45 minutes: Donald Trump. All three networks stuck with Trump's long press conference even as it veered into sales pitches for his own product lines, despite the fact that Hillary Clinton, who had won the Mississippi primary in a landslide and was neck-and-neck in Michigan, spoke at the same time. They also mostly ignored Bernie Sanders' speech, which occurred in the 8 p.m. hour and John Kasich's speech, which happened during Trump's event."

Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was shut out of delegates from voting in four states voting on Tuesday after poor performances in Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi."

Scott Lemieux in LG&M: "I haven't been kind to [Marco Rubio's] campaign but this really is astonishingly terrible. Kasich at least will lose with some dignity; Rubio went down trying to out-asshole Trump. (Say this for Christie: at least he could pull of[f] the murder part of the murder/suicide strategy.) [Rubio] would have to overperform the polls like Sanders even to salvage his home state, and not only is he no Sanders I'm not sure he's even Fred Thompson."

Hawaii: Trump won the caucuses, receiving 42 percent of the vote with 100 percent reporting. Cruz followed with 33%. Rubio received 13% & Kasich 11%.

Idaho: With 19 percent of precincts reporting, the state is leaning Cruz. With 60 percent of the vote counted, the AP has called the state for Cruz.

Michigan: With less than one percent of the vote counted, the Times reports the state is leaning Kasich. Oops. Now with 2 percent counted, Michigan is leaning Trump. With 25 percent reporting, the AP has called the race for Trump. Trump now has 38 percent, Kasich 26%, Cruz 23%, & Rubio 9%. Sorry, Marco.

Mississippi: With less than one percent of precincts reporting, the state is leaning Trump by a wide margin. The AP has now called the state for Trump, still with less than one percent reporting. With 23 percent reporting, Trump had 49 percent of the vote, followed by Cruz with 35%, Kasich with 9% & Rubio with 5%.

The New York Times has full results here. Times reporters are liveblogging the results.

Tom LoBianco & Elizabeth Landers of CNN: "Bernie Sanders' campaign on Tuesday sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, accusing the Republican of quietly changing a law in an effort to block 17-year-olds from voting in the state's presidential primary next week.... 'The secretary of state has decided to disenfranchise people who are 17 but will be 18 by the day of the general election,' Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told reporters in Detroit Tuesday afternoon. 'Those people have been allowed to vote under the law of Ohio, but the secretary of state of the state of Ohio has decided to disenfranchise those people to forbid them from voting in the primary that is coming up on March 15.'"

George Zornick of the Nation: "In Sunday's Democratic debate Hillary Clinton assailed Senator Bernie Sanders for opposing, in January 2009, the release of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds that were used in part to bail out General Motors and Chrysler.... Sanders objected strenuously to the charge, and said Monday that Clinton 'went out of her way to mischaracterize my history.'... Eight Democratic senators voted the same way as Sanders.... When The Nation reached out to each [still-sitting] senator on Monday, both Cantwell's [Wash.] and Wyden's [Oregon] offices pushed back on the idea that their vote was 'against' saving the auto industry, and echoed Sanders's broader concerns about what was happening at the time with TARP money." Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), the only other still-sitting Democratic senator who voted against TARP, did not respond. ...

... CW: When auto bailout funds were a separate issue, Sanders voted for them. He voted against them when they were (an unspecified) part of the Wall Street (TARP) bailout. Clinton voted for TARP each time. PolitiFact labels Clinton's attack on Sanders on this issue half-true.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Adam Johnson of AlterNet, in Common Dreams: "In what has to be some kind of record, the Washington Post ran 16 negative stories on Bernie Sanders in 16 hours, between roughly 10:20 PM EST Sunday, March 6, to 3:54 PM EST Monday, March 7 -- a window that includes the crucial Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan, and the next morning's spin.... All of these posts paint his candidacy in a negative light, mainly by advancing the narrative that he's a clueless white man incapable of inning over people of color or speaking to women. Even the one article about Sanders beating Trump implies this is somehow a surprise -- despite the fact that Sanders consistently out-polls Hillary Clinton against the New York businessman.... The Washington Post was sold in 2013 to libertarian Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who is worth approximately $49.8 billion." ...

     ... Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly: "... it's hard for me to avoid the impression that this was at the direction of the [Washington Post] management under the guidance of senior editors.... The media, particularly the media that covers national politics, does a pretty good job of playing whack-a-mole with anyone who moves a centimeter outside the Overton Window.... However you feel, this ain't liberal bias." ...

     ... CW: If you're wondering what the Overton Window is, here's your answer. I hadda look it up a while back.

Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation in the Washington Post: "when it comes to foreign policy, there is little question that Sanders is closer to Obama's sensibility than is Clinton. One revealing 'tell' is that Clinton's criticism of Sanders echoes the attacks she leveled at Obama in 2008.... Clinton, as Vice President Biden noted, is by temperament an 'interventionist.'... Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, share a perspective of 'skeptical restraint.'... Sanders is not a pacifist."

Bullshit. -- Donald Trump, on climate science

I have the best words. -- Donald Trump

Everything you need to know about voting for Trump, expressed in one of Donald's best words. -- Constant Weader ...

... Oliver Milman of the Guardian: "A coalition of Florida mayors has pleaded for presidential candidates to be asked about climate change and sea level rises during forthcoming debates in Miami, fuelling criticism of the 'ridiculous' lack of questions on the subjects in TV debates so far. The group of 21 mayors, comprising Democrats and Republicans, has written to the moderators of the Democratic and Republican TV debates to argue it would be 'unconscionable for these issues of grave concern for the people of Florida to not be addressed'."

Thomas Mann & Norm Ornstein in a Washington Post op-ed: "... the radicalization of the Republican party -- not just in terms of ideology but also in an utter rejection of the norms and civic culture underlying our constitutional system -- ... has been the most significant and consequential change in American politics in recent decades.... Today, incredibly, it's even worse than it was.... Donald Trump, America's equivalent of European right-wing populists and possibly the most miscast presidential front-runner for a major party in American history, makes a mockery of the Republican establishment agenda and presages the GOP's possible break-up. It is a self-inflicted wound, but one with disastrous consequences for us all."

Dana Milbank: "Complaining about the media is an easy applause line for conservatives, and the news business no doubt deserves some blame for Trump's rise. But if Cruz, Rubio and other GOP leaders are looking for the real culprits, they should start with themselves.... To blame the news media now for the GOP leaders' own failings compounds their cowardice."

Among all of the wacky Trump enterprises, like Trump Steaks & Trump Mortgage (launched just before the financial crisis), you had to know there was a nutritional supplement scam in there somewhere. Sure enough there was. In late 2009, with the recession in full swing, Trump started what Ian Tuttle of the National Review calls a "get-rich-quick scheme" that straddled "the fine line between a multi-level marketing strategy and a pyramid scheme.... If the Trump Network belongs on the ever-expanding chronicle of Trump failures (Trump Airlines, Trump Mortgage, Trump Magazine, and many more), it's with an important qualification: The Trump Network's losers were not Donald Trump, but mainly the more than 21,000 people who invested in the company as recruiters, hoping to make it big, swayed entirely by Donald Trump's promises." Via Paul Waldman. ...

... Donald Trump May Have Paid Less in Taxes than You Did. David Cay Johnston in USA Today: "There's a big story in the tax returns that Donald Trump claims he cannot release because of what he describes as a routine audit.... Our lawmakers have magically transformed income taxes into a source of wealth for many in the donor class.... Tax rules ... require you to depreciate, or reduce, the value of buildings over time, even if the market value of the structures is going up. If your depreciation is greater than your traditional income from work and businesses, Congress lets you report negative income. If these paper losses are just a dollar more than traditional income, it wipes out your income taxes for the year.... If Trump's returns show he has paid no income taxes in some years, that could be a reason he has not yet released details." ...

Charles Pierce: Trump's security team is now focusing on "intelligence work." "... we're a little overdue for an explanation of exactly how closely the people whose salaries we pay -- Secret Service, local law-enforcement -- are working with the Trump campaign's 'intelligence' operatives.... I'm not comfortable at all with the notion that people with genuine badges are working hand-in-glove with what are little more than glorified casino bouncers.... Actual law enforcement is supposed to protect everyone in the crowd. The Trump campaign is already dangerously militarized. That is one of the slipperiest slopes there is."

Worst Person in the World. Keith Olbermann is so upset with the Donald that he writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "I'm moving out. Not moving out of the country -- not yet anyway. I'm merely moving out of one of New York's many buildings slathered in equal portions with gratuitous gold and the name 'Trump.' Nine largely happy years with an excellent staff and an excellent reputation (until recently, anyway) -- but I'm out of here." ...

... Thanks, Mitt! Donovan Slack of USA Today: "... a new poll finds that ... [Mitt Romney]'s attacks [on Trump] might have helped Trump more than hurt him, at least with Republican voters tasked with choosing this year's nominee. The Morning Consult survey found 31% of registered GOP voters are more likely to vote for Trump given Romney's speech, while 20% are less likely. Another 43% said it didn't have an impact either way." ...

... Congratulations, President Obama! Not everything is totally your fault. Sure, last week Bobby Jindal blamed you for the rise of Donald Trump, but this week conservative pundit Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal placed the blame for Trump partially on -- Al Franken! Steve Benen: "As Kraushaar sees it, had Franken lost his close 2008 race, Democrats would have been 'forced to negotiate with Republicans' on measures such as health care reform, which would have created a more cooperative and less toxic political climate. By bringing access to affordable health care to 20 million Americans, the argument goes, Obama sparked a political backlash." President Obama could not have got the ACA passed, Kraushaar argues, without Franken's 60th vote. "Kraushaar would have readers believe that congressional Republicans were ... ready to work with the Democratic White House.... Anyone who covered politics at all in the early part of the Obama era knows how profoundly wrong this is."

Erik Wemple: CNN has egg on its face over its claim that Marco Rubio's campaign was having an "internal debate" about whether or not the candidate should drop out before the Florida primary, so as not be embarrassed by a loss in his home state. ...

... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed; "Marco Rubio said Tuesday that CNN made up a report that some Rubio advisers think he should drop out of the presidential race before the Florida primary." ...

... CW: You'd almost think someone at CNN was working for Ted Cruz's campaign. In January, when CNN said Ben Carson was going home on the day of the Iowa caucuses, the Tailgunner's campaign spread the rumor among caucus-goers that Carson was dropping out of the race. Carson & Cruz were fighting for the same evangelical voters. Now this:

... Alex Griswold of Mediaite: "The Marco Rubio campaign is once again accusing GOP rival Ted Cruz of dishonesty, this time after his Hawaii campaign spread a story claiming that Rubio's advisors were telling him to leave the race." ...

.. ** Tampa Bay Times Editors: "Vote for me to stop Donald Trump. That is Sen. Marco Rubio's message to Florida voters this week as the Republican establishment desperately tries to prevent the billionaire from winning the Republican nomination for president and completing a hostile takeover of the party. It's a weak argument from a weak candidate who is not prepared to be president." The editorial goes on to list Marco's failures & assess his character. CW: These people know Marco. And they think he's a jerk. ...

... Dara Lind of Vox: "Ted Cruz is more interested in winning the Republican nomination than stopping Donald Trump from winning it. [CW: No kidding.] And that's very bad news for the stop-Trump strategy in Florida.... And to keep his chances alive, Cruz is willing to kneecap Rubio in Florida and hand the state to Trump." CW: Ted would kneecap his own daughter if it would help make him POTUS.

Senate Race

Yeah, They Really Tweeted That. Katherine Krueger of TPM: "The National Republican Senatorial Committee deleted a tweet Tuesday afternoon attacking Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a double amputee, for 'not standing up for our veterans.'... Duckworth[, who is challenging Sen. Mark Kirk (R) for the Illinois Senate seat,] is a U.S. Army veteran of the Iraq War who lost both of her legs in combat.... Asked for comment, an NRSC spokeswoman provided TPM a statement criticizing the media for covering the tweet."

Other News & Views

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "The loss of a single justice, Antonin Scalia, has blown up the [Supreme C]ourt and reshuffled everything. It's the early days yet, and much of the evidence of newish, liberalish outcomes at the court lies in routine housekeeping matters: unsigned orders and withdrawn appeals. Still, it's safe to say the high court is no longer going to be a candy store for pro-business and socially conservative litigants.... And despite most of the justices' eagerness to keep the court off the ballot in November, the sudden frailty of the conservative bloc and the almost giddily emboldened left reveal how high the stakes will be in the general election."

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama, resigned to his failure to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, is looking past his time in office and weighing a plan that would preserve at least the principle of a two-state solution for his successor to pursue."

Looking Good. Michael Shear of the New York Times: President "Obama's latest medical report shows him to be five pounds lighter than he was at the time of his last physical exam, in June 2014, with a slower resting heart beat, lower blood pressure and a reduced cholesterol level. Mr. Obama, 54, was examined by Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, last month. Dr. Jackson said that Mr. Obama no longer smoked but occasionally used nicotine gum." ...

... Here's Dr. Jackson's report. Unlike Donald Trump, who says Obama is a "terrible president who happens to be an African-American," it would appear that the President does not write his own fake medical reports. As a result, nowhere in the Obama report does it state that Mr. Obama is "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." In fact, he well may be, & if he had the kind of gumption Trump has, he would have slipped that into the report.

Tea Party Boy & Only Friend of Ted Mike Lee (Utah) says he placed a hold on the Senate bill to provide aid to Flint, Michigan, because Flint residents "have all the government resources they need." Bryce Covert of Think Progress reports. ...

... Erik Loomis of LG&M: "Mike Lee, Family Values Republican, is a horrible human being.... This is truly a senator of the New Gilded Age, where government aid to give people clean water creates dependency and a generation of slackers who don't know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps."

Alec MacGillis has a lo-o-ong New Yorker piece on the "carried interest" or private equity tax loophole. He focuses on how it has benefitted Washington, D.C. billionaire David Rubenstein. "Many of today's Wall Street philanthropists win the public's esteem by giving away money that, without the loophole they've fought to protect, would not all have been theirs to donate."

Faith Karimi & Steve Almasy of CNN: "The Secret Service detained a suspect in the shooting of an Idaho pastor after the man threw several objects over the White House fence, authorities said. Kyle Andrew Odom was taken into custody without incident Tuesday night in Washington, Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White said. Odom is suspected of shooting Pastor Tim Remington on Sunday, a day after he [Odom? Remington? CW Update: turns out the answer is Remington] led the prayer at a weekend campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. The pastor was found Sunday afternoon in the parking lot of the Altar Church in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He had several gunshot wounds but is expected to survive."

Beyond the Beltway

Julie Turkewitz & Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Investigators said Tuesday that Oregon state officers acted properly when they shot and killed LaVoy Finicum, one of the activists occupying a wildlife refuge in Oregon, but federal officials have opened an inquiry into the actions of F.B.I. agents for not disclosing that they also fired shots during the confrontation." ...

... Les Zaitz of the Oregonian: "An FBI agent is suspected of lying about firing twice at Robert 'LaVoy' Finicum and may have gotten help from four other FBI agents in covering up afterward, authorities revealed Tuesday. The bullets didn't hit Finicum and didn't contribute to his death, but now all five unnamed agents, part of an elite national unit, are under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. Inspector General Michael Horowitz is leading the independent inquiry. The remarkable disclosure came as a team of local investigators released findings that two state troopers shot Finicum three times in the back during the chaotic scene at a police roadblock Jan. 26. One bullet pierced his heart, an autopsy showed."

Charles Pierce: "The latest chapter in this sad saga [of Kansas] came when the state's Supreme Court began to rule that, all Randian wet-dreams aside, Kansas had an obligation to fund its public schools at a decent level." So how did the legislature respond? By funding the schools? Nope. They started working up plans to facilitate the impeachment of supreme court judges for "attempting to usurp" the legislature's power.

News Ledes

AP: "Iran test-launched two ballistic missiles Wednesday emblazoned with the phrase 'Israel must be wiped out' in Hebrew, Iranian media reported, in a show of power by the Shiite nation as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visited Jerusalem."

New York Times: An Islamic State detainee currently in American custody at a temporary detention facility in Erbil, Iraq, is a specialist in chemical weapons whom American military officials are questioning about the militant Sunni group's plans to use the banned substances in Iraq and Syria, defense officials said."