April 4, 2019

After Obama, Democrats need a new theory of change. Pete Buttigieg thinks he's got it.

The most important debate in the Democratic primary is over how to make governing great again.

By Ezra Klein@ezraklein Apr 4, 2019, 8:00am EDT

It seems very weird that the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is catching fire as a presidential candidate.

Until you talk to Pete Buttigieg. Then it doesn’t seem so weird.

I sat down with Buttigieg for my podcast, and came away unexpectedly impressed. A lot has been made of the eight languages Buttigieg speaks and his stint as a Rhodes scholar and Navy intelligence officer, but what struck me most is that Buttigieg has a coherent theory of what’s gone wrong in American politics, and what’s required to fix it. That’s rarer among presidential candidates than you might think.

In 2007, Mark Schmitt wrote a piece I think about often. In it, he argued that the contest between Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards was “not a primary about ideological differences, or electability, but rather one about a difference in candidates’ implicit assumptions about the current circumstance and how the levers of power can be used to get the country back on track.” It was, he said, the “theory of change primary.”

Obama won that primary, and, in the short period in which Democrats had 60 votes in the Senate, he managed to push through quite a bit of legislation. But while Democrats broadly revere Obama, there’s a consensus that Obama’s theory of change ultimately crashed on the shoals of Republican obstruction. As a result, many of the problems Obama sought and failed to address — from inequality to climate change to wage stagnation to money in politics to gerrymandering — have worsened, and Democrats see Trump as the poisoned fruit of those failures.

more
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/4/18290753/pete-buttigieg-bernie-sanders-filibuster-electoral-college-supreme-court

April 4, 2019

Suddenly, Republicans Don't Care About How Mueller Spent His Money

For months it was a major concern for lawmakers, who framed the investigation as a taxpayer burden. Now, it’s barely discussed.

Sam Brodey
04.04.19 4:58 AM ET

In the early months of 2019, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation headed to a close, congressional Republicans were just as interested in how much it cost to fund his probe as they were in what it actually found.

By March, Republicans on Capitol Hill were decrying how long the investigation had dragged on, frequently pointing out the amount of taxpayer dollars—reportedly some $25 million—that went toward funding it. They made clear they expected the special counsel to provide a comprehensive accounting of how much he spent and why—and also made clear that getting those answers would be a priority for the GOP.


In a statement on March 22, the day Mueller submitted his report to the Department of Justice, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), the House’s No. 2 Republican, said he expected Attorney General William Barr to brief lawmakers on how much it cost Mueller to “bully people” during his “meandering” investigation.

But since Barr released a summary of Mueller’s findings—which stated that Trump did not collude with Russia (by the legal standard) and cleared him on dicier accusations that he obstructed the investigation—most Republicans have grown agnostic if not downright quiet in their quest to find out the taxpayer burden of the Russiagate probe, choosing instead to take a victory lap over Trump’s self-described “exoneration” and urging Democrats to move on.

Asked on Wednesday if he wanted to learn more about the price tag of the special counsel probe, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, sidestepped the question, instead launching into a defense of Barr. A senior member of the committee, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), shrugged at the same question.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-report-suddenly-republicans-dont-care-about-how-mueller-spent-his-money?ref=home

April 4, 2019

Child Brides in Africa Are Advertised on Facebook and Sold to Old Men

Source: The Daily Beast


In one Nigerian community, illiterate fathers have learned from their sons that Facebook is a good way to let buyers know their daughters are for sale.

Philip Obaji Jr.
04.04.19 4:57 AM ET

OBANLIKU, Nigeria—Monica, 16, is one of two sisters sold as wives to men who found their photographs on their father's Facebook page and contacted him. She and her 14-year-old younger sister never wanted to get married until they completed their secondary education in Ogbakoko, a small village in Obanliku Local Government Area in Nigeria’s south-central Cross River state. But the teenage sisters fell victims to a culture which subjects little girls, some as young as 10, to de facto slavery through a tradition called “money marriage.”

The sisters belong to the Becheve community, a large tribe of 17 villages in Obanliku where there is a long tradition in which young girls—often referred to as “money women” or “money wives”—are sold in exchange for food or livestock or cash, or to settle debts.

Like hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of girls from the Becheve clan who are victims of money marriages, Monica and her sister were sold without their consent. Their father wanted to clear the debt he owed to a distant relative. The two sisters got married a month apart to men whom they did not know at all and who were old enough to be their grandfathers.

Their respective husbands got in touch with their father after seeing the Facebook page where he posted photos of his six daughters to draw the attention of his tribesmen. The men of the clan have found the new technology helps to extend and expand their old, exploitative traditions.


Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/child-brides-in-africa-are-advertised-on-facebook-and-sold-to-old-men?ref=home

April 4, 2019

Mosque massacre suspect to face 89 charges in court Friday

Source: Associated Press



By NICK PERRY
today

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The man accused of carrying out the Christchurch mosque attacks will face 50 murder charges and 39 attempted murder charges when he makes his second court appearance, New Zealand police said Thursday.

Police had earlier filed a single, representative murder charge against 28-year-old Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant. He is due to appear via video link during a brief hearing on Friday, and won’t be required to enter a plea.

Fifty people died in the March 15 attacks on two mosques and another 50 were injured.

Police said in a brief statement that they were considering filing more charges against Tarrant but couldn’t comment further as the case was before the court.


Read more: https://www.apnews.com/154a0cb6127346c6912d072d8d88592c

April 4, 2019

Pete Buttigieg Teases Official 2020 Campaign Launch

Pete Buttigieg has given a very strong hint that he plans to officially launch his presidential campaign on April 14. In a video posted to his social-media pages early Thursday, the South Bend mayor—who’s enjoyed a phenomenal rise in profile over the past few weeks—urged people to join him in the Indiana city in 10 days for a “special announcement.” In the video, showing highlights since he announced his exploratory bid in January, the 37-year-old gay military veteran says: “It’s not just about winning an election, it’s about winning an era. So if you’re ready to make our politics more honest, to fix our democracy, to defend racial justice, to look to the future, to bring generations together, join us April 14, South Bend.” A website has also been launched urging people to register for the event. Buttigieg’s popularity has shot up since his CNN town hall; his campaign announced Monday that it had raised $7 million in the first quarter of 2019.

https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1113735738850447362

READ IT AT TWITTER

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/pete-buttigieg-teases-official-2020-campaign-launch?ref=home

April 4, 2019

The Grotesque Red-Baiting of Mayor Pete Buttigieg

A question for any conservative trying to hang the ‘sins’ of the communist father on his son: ‘Have you no shame, sir?’

Ronald Radosh
04.03.19 5:44 PM ET

The growing popularity of South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is evidently leading to new acts of desperation from some Trumpist “conservatives.” Reading from a long-discredited playbook from the '50s, the conservative Washington Examiner has decided the best approach is to resume some old-style “red-baiting” from the McCarthy era. On Tuesday, the online edition went to press with a column titled “Pete Buttigieg’s Father was a Marxist Professor who Lauded the Communist Manifesto.”

Evidently the father’s sins are to be passed down automatically to the offspring. His father, authors Emily Larsen and Joseph Simonson write, “spoke fondly of the Communist Manifesto and dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Italian Communist Party founder Antonio Gramsci, an associate of Vladimir Lenin.”


That his father had these views is hardly a hidden secret. The late Joseph Buttigieg, who passed away last January, taught, beginning in 1980, at the University of Notre Dame, where, as the authors note, he “supported an updated version of Marxism that jettisoned some of Marx and Engel's more doctrinaire theories, though he was undoubtedly Marxist.”

There are certainly scores of Marxist professors in the academy, and clearly, Notre Dame students were able to live through the horrors of some of them having to take a course in which the Professor Buttigieg taught literary theory from a Marxist perspective. No information exists to find how many of them came out of the experience dedicated socialist revolutionaries. Perhaps some of them even found some value in applying Gramsci’s theory of “cultural hegemony,” which means “political leadership based on the consent of the led, a consent which is secured by the diffusion and popularization of the world view of the ruling class.”

Prof. Buttigieg, we learn, even spoke at “many Rethinking Marxism conferences and other gatherings of prominent Marxists.” That, of course, was his First Amendment right as an American citizen, and those who disagreed with him clearly had ample opportunity to challenge his viewpoints. Indeed, there is much to criticize in Prof. Buttigieg and his co-authors’ ideological critique of human rights activists made in one of his articles, and it is certain that that is what those who disapproved and took them seriously did.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-grotesque-red-baiting-of-mayor-pete-3?ref=home

April 4, 2019

Conservatives Have No Idea How to Handle Buttigieg

At first, many conservatives said they loved the military veteran from the heartland. But as his polls rise and he teases a 2020 announcement next week, opinions have changed.

Maxwell Tani, Will Sommer
04.04.19 4:59 AM ET

Cigar in hand, Rush Limbaugh spent a Sunday evening last month watching a CNN presidential town hall. As a hugely influential conservative talk radio host who helped Donald Trump win the White House, Limbaugh isn’t the kind of voter that the Democratic presidential hopefuls think they can reach with town-hall events.

But Limbaugh had to admit he was impressed by one of the candidates: South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

On his radio show a few days later, Limbaugh predicted that the “personable” Buttigieg would “make mincemeat” out of his primary rivals.

“There was no radicalism,” Limbaugh said.

Just a month later, Buttigieg is rising in the polls—and Limbaugh doesn’t like him anymore.

On April 1, the same day that Buttigieg announced that he had raised $7 million, Limbaugh told his audience that Buttigieg now had plenty of “radical ideas.” He went much further a day later, suggesting the millennial mayor’s recently deceased father, an expert on Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, had indoctrinated his son into communism.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/conservatives-have-no-idea-how-to-handle-mayor-pete-buttigieg?ref=home

April 3, 2019

White House Invents New Word to Cover for Trump: Transcript Claims He Said 'Oringes,' Not 'Oranges'

by Tommy Christopher | Apr 3rd, 2019, 10:31 am

Millions of Americans heard Donald Trump substitute the word “oranges” for “origins” three times at a photo op, but rather than accurately reflect that embarrassing reality, the White House invented a new word.

-snip-

But according to the official White House transcript, released almost five hours later at 6:47 pm, Trump didn’t say “oranges” at all, he said “oringes,” and he only did it twice:



Presumably, someone at the White House concluded that it’s less embarrassing for Trump to have made up an entirely new word that swaps letters and adds an “e” to “origins” than for him to have said “oranges” three times, which is what actually happened.

full article + video
https://www.mediaite.com/donald-trump/white-house-invents-new-word-to-cover-for-trump-transcript-claims-he-said-oringes-not-oranges/

April 3, 2019

Biden Addresses Allegations in New Video: I'll 'Be More Mindful & Respectful of People's Personal...

Biden Addresses Allegations in New Video: I’ll ‘Be More Mindful and Respectful of People’s Personal Space’ in Future

by Josh Feldman | Apr 3rd, 2019, 3:10 pm

Former Vice President Joe Biden has put out a video addressing the women who have come forward talking about his inappropriate behavior and touching in ways that made them feel uncomfortable.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1113515882960052224

Biden acknowledges in the video he has made women uncomfortable, saying he’s tried to “make a connection” with people by shaking hands and hugging people and “that’s the way I’ve always been.”

“Social norms have begun to change, they’ve shifted,” the former veep continued. “And the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset, and I get it. I get it. I hear what they’re saying. I understand. And I’ll be much more mindful. That’s my responsibility… and I’ll meet it.”

“I will be more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space,” he adds.

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https://www.mediaite.com/online/biden-addresses-allegations-in-new-video-ill-be-more-mindful-and-respectful-of-peoples-personal-space-in-future/

April 3, 2019

Showtime Host Mocks 'Scrubbed Potato' Tucker Carlson: 'Worm in a Bow Tie and a 3rd Grade Haircut'

Showtime Host Mocks ‘Scrubbed Potato’ Tucker Carlson: ‘Worm in a Bow Tie and a 3rd Grade Haircut’

by Caleb Ecarma | Apr 3rd, 2019, 2:42 pm

After Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on-air, Kid Mero, from the popular Showtime series Desus & Mero, said he would “duff” Carlson “so hard his bowtie would spin around like daffy ducks beak.”

Kid Mero, whose co-host Desus Nice attended a Bronx middle school with Hayes, began his tweetstorm against Carlson by stating he’d bet “10 racks” on the MSNBC host beating his Fox News rival in a “no gloves” fight.

https://twitter.com/THEKIDMERO/status/1113194880753438727
https://twitter.com/THEKIDMERO/status/1113201425566371840

In follow up tweets, Kid Mero referred Carlson as “a fuckin worm in a bowtie” with “a 3rd grade haircut” and joked about the conservative pundit calling the police for protection. He also joked that Carlson looks “like a scrubbed potato with a wig” who “my 5 year old would mop.”

Kid Mero offered his thoughts on Carlson’s neck-to-head ratio in his final tweet on the subject.

https://twitter.com/THEKIDMERO/status/1113212048580722688

more
https://www.mediaite.com/online/showtime-host-mocks-scrubbed-potato-tucker-carlson-worm-in-a-bow-tie-and-a-3rd-grade-haircut/