[Note to readers: The political scene is just too hot right now to take time out; so I'm going to compromise. For the next few days, I will post two articles each day, one political and one not. So if you want to skip one or the other, just scroll down to the other. Today, following this, there is a new article about the awful Ted Cruz and his dirty tricks: "The Price of Assholery"]
A smirking, eye-rolling Martin Shkreli took the 5th amendment at his subpoenaed appearance before a congressional committee hearing yesterday on pharmaceutical price gouging. He spoke no words except to assert his right against self-incrimination, but he spoke plenty with his facial expressions, reacting with disdain and utter disrespect for committee members as they spoke throughout the hearing.
Photos by Getty Images
Shkreli is the former pharmaceutical CEO who bought a company that manufactured a life-saving antiparasitic drug needed by AIDS patients and others -- then he hiked the price per dose from $13.50 to $700.00, which is over 5000%. Of course, that is not illegal, but Shkreli showed the same reaction to criticism for that unconscionable decision as he showed here in the hearing.
He was arrested -- and is out on $5 million bail -- on unrelated charges of securities fraud for running what amounted to a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors in his other failing businesses.
Shkreli's facial disdain for the proceedings got so extreme at one point that his lawyer tried to intervene, only to be shut down by the committee chair. As if that weren't enough, Shkreli later tweeted: "Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government."
Well, sometimes I feel the same way about Republican investigative committees, but I wouldn't want to find myself associated with this young man, who seems so intent on making himself the most hated man in America.
Ralph
"The Price of Assholery" is the title of a post from Josh Marshall, editor of TalkingPointsMemo.com, on Feb. 4, 2016. Here's the gist of what he wrote:
"It took a day or two for it to really crystallize for me. But has
there ever been a candidate who not just won Iowa but won it
unexpectedly and fairly decisively and yet got so little positive bump,
momentum, attention or even simple human empathy because of it? The
rather strong, though unstated assumption from the commentariat seems to be: Yeah, you won Iowa. Great. Good luck ever winning anywhere else."
The post-Iowa focus has been on Rubio's outperforming and Trump's under performing of expectations. Rubio's star is rising, Trump's is maybe setting. Even more, the post-Iowa focus on Cruz has been largely negative.
First there is the dirty tricks memo the Cruz campaign circulated just prior to the start of the caucuses, saying that Ben Carson is dropping out and asking his supporters to vote for Cruz. This had been preceded by a letter that had gone out to a wide number of Iowans on what was intended to look like an official government letter, which was rather intimidating by citing how often each of them -- and their neighbors -- had voted in recent years. It actually implied some vague sort of threat if they didn't go to the caucuses. It was another blatant, dirty trick kind of fradulent effort to increase the numbers of votes for Cruz.
So there was that. Then Rick Santorum pointedly endorsed Rubio, not Cruz, even though he is more ideologically aligned to Cruz's positions. Tracking polls in New Hampshire show Trump holding on to his lead and Rubio and Cruz neck and neck for second place. Ironically, it's Rubio, who finished third in Iowa, not the winner Cruz, who seems to be getting the bounce of our Iowa.
On top of that, at least one group of Christians is challenging Cruz's appropriating them as his base and attributing his win in Iowa to Christians. The online goup "Faithful America," which is "the largest and fastest-growing online community of
Christians putting faith into action for social justice," has put out a statement saying:
"Our members are
sick of sitting by quietly while Jesus' message of good news is
hijacked by the religious right to serve a hateful political agenda.
We're organizing the faithful to challenge such extremism and renew the
church's prophetic role in building a more free and just society."
They did not name Ted Cruz specifically, but the shoe fits, as it does for most of the Republican agenda these days. This sounds like a group that might lead the way toward reasserting the true values of the message of Jesus, thereby challenging the high-jacking of the mantle of "Christian" by the religious right -- when they do not deserve it.
It's not just Christian groups challenging them. Jimmy Kimmel did a sketch with a man dressed to represent the usual image of Jesus of Nazareth speaking line after line of quotes from Republican politicians. The irony of hearing these lines come from the teacher who emphasized feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, helping your neighbor, and taking in the stranger made for a very pointed message.
But lest we put this all on Ted Cruz, what are we to make of Rubio's headline grabbing statement about President Obama's visit to a mosque Wednesday, during which he denounced anti-Muslim rhetoric? Rubio accused Obama of "pitting people against each other." I don't quite get his point: We should all be united in our bias and rejection of all Muslims? Is that his point?
Let's not forget that, with the exception of Jeb Bush and John Kasich and Rand Paul, all of the others would probably agree with Rubio's statement. So bring it on. Let's show them in November that it is the Democrats who represent the values and the positions of the Christians, the Muslims, the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and the atheists and agnostics as well.
The Republican agenda is, in the words of a blogger on Daily Kos, "the coalition of cruelty." And I don't know any recognized religion that is based on cruelty as its central tenet.
Ralph
OK, so this is more politics. But it can't wait.
We've long known that Ted Cruz is a mean snake, albeit a smart one. But his slick manner, which has always seemed slimey to me, apparently fools a lot of people, particularly conservative evangelicals. Maybe because so many of their preachers have this same inauthentic public persona, while having a hidden dark side that often gets them in trouble.
In the Iowa caucus, a story surfaced that the Cruz campaign had spread a false rumor that Ben Carson was leaving the race, and the Cruz people were asking for his supporters to vote for Cruz. This was an email notice that went out to people just before their caucuses started on Monday night.
They really did intentionally spread a false rumor; but at first Ted Cruz apologized to Carson and claimed that they were just passing on a news report that they claimed came from CNN. Now it turns out there is a lot more to this story.
First, CNN has strongly denied that they said Carson was getting out of the race, but only that he was going home to Florida before going on to New Hampshire and South Carolina. Rachel Maddow reported tonight on MSNBC that Carson's wife had come to Iowa and was in one of the caucuses, where a Cruz representative had earlier told the group there that Carson was dropping out and asked for their votes. Mrs. Carson had to stand up and correct this misinformation.
Other caucus goers have said that they received this Cruz email just before the caucuses began -- and that the Cruz campaign did not sent out a correction after the Carson campaign told the Cruz people directly that the rumors were incorrect.
So, even if we grant that it was "an honest mistake," which it most certainly was not, there is no excuse for not trying to undo the damage by sending out a correction.
So, yes, Ted Cruz's mean, unlikeable side is showing through the pious slime. Conservative evangelicals do like their "repentant bad boys," but I don't think they will like this kind of abject sleeziness -- especially against the nice-guy evangelicals' other favorite, Ben Carson.
Having gotten only 1% of the caucus vote in Iowa, the state he won four years ago, Rick Santorum ended his campaign -- and endorsed Marco Rubio. One might have expected he would throw his support to Cruz, given their similar hard right, evangelical appeal. Is this just a personal preference? Or is Santorum sending a message to the right wing voters?
And, in fact, the first post-caucus national poll is out tonight from Public Policy Polling, one of the more respected polls. It is not good news for Cruz or Trump. Trump's lead is down and Cruz and Rubio are now tied for second nationally. Here's the breakdown:
25% Trump
21% Cruz
21% Rubio
11% Carson
5% Bush, Kasich, and Paul
3% Christie and Fiorino
Since the last PPP poll in mid-December, Trump has dropped from 34% (loss of 9%), Cruz has gone up from 18% (gain of 3%), and Rubio is up from 13% (gain of 8%). Carson is up from 6% (gain of 5%).
Ralph
About a week ago, Nate Silver, the genius of political predictions, outlined four possible outcomes -- "Roads out of Iowa" -- for the Republican Iowa caucuses and what each will mean going forward for the party establishment. I'll summarize the first three.
Road No. 1: Trump beats Cruz, and Rubio does well.
This is the one the Republican establishment would prefer. It would essentially knock Cruz out of the running, making a two-man race between Trump and Rubio. Then they would work to coalesce around Rubio as "the savior" from the Trump/Cruz crowd.
Road No. 2: Trump beats Cruz, and Rubio does poorly. If this happened, the party elites might try to coalesce around another -- Bush, Kasich, or Christie -- in New Hampshire. Or they might begin to capitulate toward Trump, thinking him unstoppable.
Road No. 3: Cruz beats Trump, and Rubio does poorly. This would be a big problem for the Republican elites, because their hope was for a good showing from Rubio to stop Cruz. In this scenario, they're left with both Trump and a stronger Cruz, without the savior they were hoping for in Rubio.
And the winner is:
Road No. 4: Cruz beats Trump, and Rubio does well. I'll quote Nate's reasoning in full, since it turned out to be right one.
"If both Cruz and Rubio have strong nights in Iowa, however, the
meaning is clearer: Trump didn’t live up to the hype. There would be
questions about whether Trump’s support in polls was a mirage to begin
with, whether it had collapsed at the last minute because of voter
dissatisfaction with his having skipped the Republican debate, or
whether his lack of a turnout operation had foiled him. Those questions
would be important for determining whether Trump had a chance to recover
in New Hampshire. But in terms of the media narrative, they’d all be
variations on the theme that Trump had gone bust.
"In some ways, the Republican primary might even start to look fairly
conventional. An 'outsider' candidate with evangelical support would
have won Iowa. A couple of 'insider' candidates would be looking to
emerge out of New Hampshire, with Rubio having a leg up because of his
strong Iowa showing. Trump wouldn’t necessarily disappear — the media
will keep writing him into the plot so long as he is willing — but it
might be as more of a Newt Gingrich-esque sideshow, a candidate who wins
a few states here and there but has little chance of commanding a
majority. If we enter Iowa in a Trumpnado and exit it with what seems to
be a fairly normal Republican race, that might be the biggest surprise
of all."
Now, enough about Iowa . . . and about the election for a few days. New Hampshire is just a week away though.
Ralph
PS: The final tally on the Democratic side keeps narrowing. The latest as of midnight on Tuesday is that Clinton's lead was not 0.3% but 0.2%. And now we hear that some of the precinct caucuses were absolute ties and had to be decided by a coin toss. So it seems a bit overdone for Hillary Clinton to keep making so much out of "winning" Iowa.
With a record number over 170,000 people attending the Iowa Democratic caucuses, Hillary Clinton eked out the narrowest win in their caucus history of just 0.3% of the vote. In the arcane way of delegate allocation, however, she gets 23 delegates, with 21 going to Sanders.
Clinton 49.9% 23 delegates (I was wrong earlier in saying 28)
Sanders 49.6% 21 delegates
O'Malley 0.6% 0 delegates
Clinton was fast to claim victory, and she turned out not to be wrong (barring problems with questionably reliable counts in some precincts). But there can be little real rejoicing over a victory the final polls predicted her win by 3% (not the 0.3% she actually won by).
So I still count it a significant almost-win for Sanders -- and perhaps a psychological win.
On the Republican side, most media I'm reading is calling Donald Trump "the big loser." What it shows, according to this wisdom, is that his do-it-yourself campaign can't deliver the votes that his popularity promises when it comes down to ground organization and getting out the vote.
It puts a crimp in his sails and will likely hurt his lead in New Hampshire. Here are the Republican final percentage votes plus delegates to the national convention
Cruz 27.6% 8 delegates
Trump 24.3% 7 delegates
Rubio 23.1% 7 delegates
Carson 9.3% 3 delegates
Paul 4.5% 1 delegates
Bush 2.8% 1 delegates
Even though Trump lost -- and just barely edged out Rubio for second place -- Sam Stein and Jennifer Bendery, political writers for Huffington Post, emphasized that Trump's impact on the race has been immense and will be long-lasting.
Rubio now emerges as the establishment candidate to coalesce around. He got the same number of delegates as #2 Trump and only 1 less delegate than #1 Cruz. This should mean a lot of money now comes his way, plus pressure on Bush, Kasich, and Christie to drop out. Bush could do himself a favor and restore his reputation and legacy by withdrawing and endorsing his old protege Rubio.
Cruz's first place showing, despite the attacks from all sides on him in recent weeks, gives him some momentum. The elimination fight between Cruz and Trump is still on for another day. As Stein and Bendery write:
"That portends both a massive headache for the Republican Party,
which faces the very real prospect of a fissure in the months ahead, and
for voters across the country, who now must soberly envision life under
Trump's nativist policies or a slightly diluted variation of them.
"Things were even more muddied on the
Democratic side . . . where former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton clung to a marginal lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders . . . [but] it will be
something of a Pyrrhic victory. Rather than show herself to be the
inevitable nominee on Monday . . . she struggled to handle a man she once led by more than
50 points in the polls.
"Now, Clinton faces the prospect of an upcoming loss in New Hampshire,
where Sanders enjoys a healthy lead, and a drawn-out fight for the
nomination. Whoever wins will inevitably be forced to empty his or her
copious war chest and resort to more personal attacks in the
process. . . .
"Iowa, in short, was not so much the first domino of the campaign
season as it was a warning shot for each political party. Existential
questions and messy disputes lie ahead."
There's also the question of how Donald Trump will react to losing. His concession speech was unlike what we might have expected. It was short, dignified, gracious, very unexpected.
Will he bring in some experienced political operatives? Will he now put money into attack ads on Cruz? Or will he do his pivot now and try to present himself as someone acceptable both to the conservative base and to the party establishment? In other words compete with Rubio rather than with Cruz? Will he become a serious candidate -- as his concession speech suggests he might?
Stay tuned.
Ralph
The actual winner in the Iowa Republican caucuses was Ted Cruz with 28%. followed by Donald Trump with 24%.
But the real winner -- because he far exceeded expectations and came close to beating out Trump for second place -- was Marco Rubio with 23%. This is with 99% of precincts reporting. Nobody else came close: Carson with 12% and others in single digits. Jeb Bush languished at 3%.
So the GOP race is now effectively a three-man contest. As it solidifies Rubio as the establishment candidate and gives him momentum going forward.
Although Hillary Clinton gave what amounted to a victory speech, without actually saying she won, she and Bernie Sanders are in a virtual 50-50 tie at this point (12:45 am) with 98% of precincts reporting. The MSNBC analysts said this may have been a miscalculation in Clinton's data analysis room, since she seemed confident she had won at the point she gave her speech earlier. Bernie Sanders spoke later and said it looked like a virtual tie. If she doesn't, in fact, win when all the votes are counted, it's going to make Clinton look grasping at straws.
So the Democrats have a very active two-person contest.
Both Mike Huckabee and Martin O'Malley announced that they were dropping out of their races.
Second place for Donald Trump really made him the loser, because he under-performed. And Bernie Sanders is the psychological winner for the Democrats, whoever squeeks out the actual percentage win, because he more than met expectations.
Ralph
PS: It should be noted that Donald Trump made a concession speech that was, in the words of a Vox commenter: "shockingly classy." It was low key, congratulatory, and dignified without his usual braggadocio or petulance.
