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wolf blitzer
Make the Candidates Talk About Voting Rights in Tonight's Debate
Where do the Republican presidential contenders stand on the issue of voter suppression?
Feb 25, 2016
Dear Wolf Blitzer,
On February 17 and 18, your CNN colleague Anderson Cooper moderated town halls in South Carolina at which the Republican candidates for president were questioned by the audience and the moderator.
Cooper chose to stick to the standard issues -- national security, the economy, immigration, terrorism and the like. The audience followed suit. This allowed the candidates to regurgitate talking points they have used repeatedly since the debate season began last August 6.
He also spent time on what he apparently thought was crucial personal information about the candidates. "What's your favorite cocktail?" Mr. Cooper asked Senator Ted Cruz. Answer: scotch. Donald Trump is "a big fast food guy" and Marco Rubio's wardrobe was a mess until his "godly and wonderful wife" began selecting his clothes.
But tonight, Wolf Blitzer, you will moderate the last Republican debate before the all-important Super Tuesday primary elections. You have the chance to be the FIRST journalist to seek the candidates' views on one subject that has never been discussed in a televised Republican debate or town hall: voter suppression, the passage in at least 16 states by Republican legislatures of new laws that make it more difficult for African Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, students, the poor and disabled to cast a ballot. You can break new ground, forcing the candidates to reveal their views on one issue that may well affect the outcome of the presidential election.
First, a bit of history. For decades, Republicans were proud to be known as "the party of Lincoln" and many of its leaders played a key role creating and then defending the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act. The original act was written in the office of Senate Minority Leader Senator Everett Dirksen. He joined with President Lyndon Johnson's lawyers to craft a bill that would win bipartisan support. They were successful: 92 percent of Senate Republicans supported the passage of the act, a number greater than Senate Democrats (73 percent, the disparity explained by Southern segregationists who were still Democrats.)
When the act's temporary provisions were reviewed in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006, Republican Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George W. Bush signed renewals into law. In 2006, every member of the US Senate voted in favor.
The Voting Rights Act helped elect our first African-American president in 2008, and the coalition President Obama built persuaded Republicans that the only way they could take back the presidency was through voter suppression. Following the Republican congressional victory in 2010 (when the GOP controlled both legislative bodies in 26 states, and 26 governorships), legislatures passed and governors enacted a series of laws designed to make voting more difficult for Obama's constituency -- minorities, especially the growing Hispanic community; the poor; students; and the elderly or handicapped. These restrictions included the creation of voter photo ID laws, measures affecting registration and early voting, and, in Iowa and Florida, laws to prevent ex-felons from exercising their franchise.
Democrats were stunned. "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens in voting the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today," former President Bill Clinton said in July 2011. Then, in 2013, the Supreme Court's conservative majority struck down a crucial provision of the Voting Rights Act, weakening it severely. Once again, the voting rights of American minorities were in peril.
A bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives has drafted a new Voting Rights Act but Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, believes the bill is unnecessary, and Speaker Paul Ryan, although a supporter of the legislation, refuses to force Goodlatte to hold hearings.
So much for history. Where do today's current Republican presidential contenders stand on the issue of voter suppression?
Donald Trump has said nothing about it during the nine previous debates, although in fairness, not a single moderator has sought his views. His website describes his position on guns, US-China trade reform, Veterans Administration reform, tax and immigration reform, but is silent on voting rights. Wolf, please ask him what he thinks.
Despite John Kasich's pleasant demeanor, he is no friend of voting rights. As governor of Ohio, he enacted a law that significantly limits opportunities for early voting (known in Ohio as "Golden Week") and abolished same day voter registration. In 2012, it's estimated that 90,000 voters, mostly minorities, voted during Golden Week. They will not have that opportunity in 2016. Do such policies contradict Kasich's oft-repeated pledge "to renew the American spirit"?
"I'm going to be a president for all Americans," Senator Marco Rubio told Anderson Cooper, "because an American president has to love the American people, even those that don't love you back." Yet Rubio believes that his Florida constituents should not be allowed to vote in federal elections without first showing a government-issued voter ID, although evidence of voter fraud has been shown to be almost non-existent. Rubio has also opposed early voting and is against allowing nonviolent ex-felons to again have the right to vote.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz's website offers a litany of his achievements -- protecting the 10 Commandments, the Pledge of Allegiance and the Second Amendment. It also offers "Get Cruz Gear" -- cups, glasses, cell phone covers, caps and sweatshirts bearing the campaign logo. But it is silent on voting rights. Nevertheless, his public statements make it clear that he is rabidly opposed to making it easier for Texans to vote. The ACLU's Voting Rights Project found that approximately 600,000 Texans, predominately minorities and the poor, lack the documents needed, documents which are too expensive or time consuming to acquire. For many Texans, going to the polls is no longer a practical option and they have chosen not to vote at all.
Finally, there is retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. A visit to his website reveals his views on cyber security, education, energy, healthcare and more, but nothing on voting rights. That's a bit strange because he has publicly mentioned the Voting Rights Act -- and it was to you, Wolf, in an interview last October: "Of course I want the Voting Rights Act to be protected. Whether we still need it or not, or whether we've outgrown the need for it is questionable. Maybe we have, maybe we haven't. But I wouldn't jeopardize it." Ask him to be more precise.
So three of the candidates -- Kasich, Rubio and Cruz -- clearly favor policies that make it harder for African-Americans, Hispanics, students and the poor to vote. Trump is uncharacteristically silent while Carson is equivocal. Are Republicans still the party of Lincoln, or even Everett McKinley Dirksen? Forcing them to discuss their views on voting rights will be a first, Wolf. Call them out.
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American Hypocrisy: Against Muslim Sharia Law at Home, Calls it 'Moderate' in Syria
Oct 20, 2015
I just watched the 5 pm news hour on CNN anchored by Wolf Blitzer, and the editors had decided that the lead was that the Russian bombing in south Aleppo risks creating a new wave of refugees. They also stuck to the cover story that the Russians are only attacking the "moderate rebels."
American bombing of populated areas has never been reported in that way on mainstream cable news. The US bombing thatkilled Sanafi al-Nasr said to have been the no. 2 man in the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, the Support Front, was reported on the same show as a great victory. But was he in a completely deserted area? Were any civilians killed around him? It has now come out that most US drone strikes don't even kill the intended target; probably, it is the landlord's family that mainly dies. Was al-Nasr a renter?
Nor did CNN lead with civilian casualties when it covered Israeli PM Netanyahu's bombardment of defenseless little Gaza in the summer of 2014.
Russian bombing of populated areas, like all such bombing, is killing civilians, of course. The point isn't that CNN is wrong but that it is selective.
Whether Russian bombing is more or less egregious than any other can could be debated. I suspect it is less egregious than the Syrian air force, though that wouldn't be saying much. Robert Fisk reports that the Syrian Arab Army is frustrated with the Russians precisely because their air force is very cautious about civilian casualties:
"The Syrians have found that the Russians do not want to fire at targets in built-up areas; they intend to leave burning hospitals and dead wedding parties to the Americans in Afghanistan. This policy could always change, of course. No air force bombs countries without killing civilians. Nor without crossing other people's frontiers. But the Russians are now telling the Turks - and by logical extension, this information must go to the Americans - their flight coordinates."
Note that the Syrian regime has been dropping barrel bombs on civilian areas for years now, and no CNN news hour has begun with this headline. It appears to me that they mind when Russia bombs but not when anyone else does. I should underline that I oppose the Russian intervention in Syria and think it will likely go to dark places. But I also insist that it be reported and analyzed exactly as the actions of the US and its allies are. And this is not the case. The Fisk point of view should be noted, as I just did, even if one has reservations about it (as I do).
As for the "moderate rebels," who have suddenly reappeared in American official discourse only after Russia intervened, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey wrote Congress in the fall of 2013 that he did not want to intervene in Syria because he could not be sure that the victorious rebels would support US interests:
" In an August 19 letter to Representative Eliot Engel, obtained by the Associated Press, Gen. Dempsey effectively ruled out even limited intervention, including US cruise missile attacks and other options that wouldn't require US troops on the ground. "Syria today is not about choosing between two sides but rather about choosing one among many sides," he said. "It is my belief that the side we choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the balance shifts in their favour. Today, they are not."
What he was saying was that by the middle of 2013, the democratic forces in the Free Syrian Army had either collapsed or their units had joined or closely allied with one of the two major al-Qaeda offshoots, Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) or the Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra, which reports to al-Qaeda 9/11 mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri).
There are many small rebel groups in the hinterlands of Homs, Hama, and Aleppo, as well as in Idlib province, who are not al-Qaeda. But most have become hard-line Salafis a la Saudi Arabia who want Sharia law and allow how they might not kill all the Alawis, Christians, Druze, and other minorities that come under their rule but keep them as second-class citizens under a dictatorship. Some are still Muslim Brotherhood, some of whom want a Muslim state but with elections.
However, these groups are small and not very effective fighters and have been forced to ally with al-Qaeda to avoid being killed by the Syrian Arab Army and in hopes of taking more territory. Moreover, the amount of Syrian territory now held by rebels who want democratic elections and full legal equality for all Syrians would be, in my estimation, zero percent. Almost all Syrian rebels now want a society ruled by Sharia or a hard-line medieval notion of Islamic law. (Sharia itself, as private practice and individual choice, is as inoffensive as Jewish Halakha or Roman Catholic canon law, but making a fundamentalist interpretation of it the basis for national law is a whole set of human rights crimes waiting to happen).
Note the irony. The same GOP politicians who denounce all US Muslims for allegedly wanting to impose Sharia or Muslim law on all Americans are talking about the Syrian rebels who want a Sharia society as "moderates" and "US allies" being targeted by Russia. (The allegation about American Muslims, who, in my experience, love the US Constitution half to death, is incorrect).
When Wolf Blitzer interviewed Rep. Adam Schiff, he asked a leading question about the Russians attacking the "moderate rebels." Schiff concurred that that was what Moscow was doing and spoke of these forces as being backed by US allies in the Gulf. He did, however, veer off script by admitting that Russia isalsoattacking al-Qaeda in Syria. He complained, however, that Russia is not attacking Daesh/ ISIL.
Russia is, of course, occasionally bombing Daesh. However, that organization mainly holds territory in the country's far east, away from the western population centers. It is Syrian al-Qaeda that holds a great deal of Idlib Province and spearheads the Army of Conquest coalition of Salafi jihadis who control the rest of Idlib Province.
So why is it objectionable that Russia is attacking an organization reporting to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, who killed nearly 3,000 Americans in 2011? Or that Russia is attacking groups that have political or tactical alliances with al-Qaeda in Syria? Wouldn't that make them like the Taliban in Afghanistan? Is the US wrong to bomb the latter because they were only allied with al-Qaeda?
And how can the same news hour report positively on the killing by American bombing of al-Qaeda's al-Nasr and slam the Russians for bombing . . . al-Qaeda?
This isn't news reporting. This is government propaganda.
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The Mind-Boggling Libertarian Legal Game Plan to Repeal Obamacare
Jul 23, 2014
Dave Weigel explains something that I had not fully understood before --- the Obamacare repeal legal game plan:
At least 4 million people, who signed up for Obamacare in states that chose not to set up exchanges (or in the case of Oregon, tried and failed to set up their own), are currently panicking about the threat of erased subsidies and higher payments. Why do I attribute this to libertarians? Like I wrote in 2013, and like Alec MacGillis has been writing, the Halbig case's chief advocate was Michael Cannon, a Cato Institute scholar who had previously campaigned to stop states from setting up their own exchanges.
Cannon's goal, stated bluntly and frequently, was that Obamacare had to be brought down by any means necessary. States that did not set up exchanges were in a better position to sue the government. Fewer people in the exchanges meant higher overall costs. To insurers, the "death spiral" was an apocalypse scenario; to Cannon, it meant freedom.
"A victory for the Halbig plaintiffs would not increase anyone's premiums," he wrote Monday.* "What it would do is prevent the IRS from shifting the burden of those premiums from enrollees to taxpayers. Premiums for federal-Exchange enrollees would not rise, but those enrollees would face the full cost of their 'ObamaCare' plans."
This is the Leninism I'm referring to in my headline. Cannon's no socialist--quite the opposite!--but he saw a solution to the Republican crisis of watching people grow used to new entitlements. Rip the entitlement away, weaken the system, and a painful short term would give Congress no choice but to undo the law. Take away some of the beams, and what do you know? The roof collapses.
An what "undoing" the law means in this context is removing the requirements for pre-existing conditions and the basic package of coverage --- which means that people affected will go uncovered or pay an unaffordable price for an inadequate policy. You know, like it used to be. Which in their minds was a great system apparently.
Remember, this is how they really feel about this:
Teaparty: Just Let Uninsured People Die (CNN GOP debate, Ron Paul)https://24ahead.com/s/tea-parties (Super special note for Ron Paul fans below) Teapartiers shout out "yeah!" when Wolf Blitzer ...
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