Academics Plan 'Read In' of Michel Foucault to Protest Inauguration of Donald Trump

These people are insane.

But they're leftists, so you knew that.

At the Other McCain, "Academics Protest Trump With Public Reading of French Homosexual’s Book":

Foucault was a gay French philosopher who died of AIDS in 1984. His postmodern (or poststructural) philosophy was typical of the French Left in the decadent political and intellectual aftermath of World War II. The Communist Party was so powerful in France that, when the Kremlin wished to signal a change in the party line in 1945, the chosen messenger was Jacques Duclos, the Stalinist leader of the French Communist Party. It was the infamous “Duclos letter” that spelled the doom of CPUSA Chairman Earl Browder (who had sought to maintain the old Popular Front line) and ushered in the anti-American stance of Cold War Communism. The extraordinary influence of Communism in post-WWII France helps to explain why French intellectuals like Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were so consistently anti-American, a tradition to which Foucault was an heir, and which made him a darling of American academics, whose hatred of America is their intellectual raison d’etre...

Robert Stacy McCain should have a second career as a professor of political philosophy, heh.

Still more.

Goldman Sachs, With Long History of Public Service, Makes Return to Washington in Trump Administration

This is pretty fascinating.

At NYT, "Goldman Sachs Completes Return From Wilderness to the White House":

“Government Sachs” is back. In the Trump administration, economic policy making is being handed to Goldman alumni. https://t.co/xOpGGxPGl3

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 12, 2017

“Government Sachs” is back.

After eight years in the political wilderness, its name synonymous with the supposedly undue and self-serving influence in Washington that brought us the financial crisis and the Wall Street bailout, Goldman Sachs is again making its presence felt. In the Trump administration, to an unprecedented degree, economic policy making is largely being handed over to people with Goldman ties.

The Goldman alumni include Steven T. Mnuchin, the nominee for Treasury secretary; Gary D. Cohn, tapped as director of the National Economic Council and White House adviser on economic policy; and Stephen K. Bannon, who was named chief White House strategist. Jay Clayton, named to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, is a Wall Street lawyer who has represented Goldman.

This week President-elect Donald J. Trump hired Dina H. Powell, a Goldman partner who heads impact investing, as a White House adviser. Anthony Scaramucci, a Goldman alumnus (whom I spotlighted last week), is on the Trump transition committee and is expected to be named to a White House position as well.

And this after Mr. Trump campaigned against Wall Street, excoriated Senator Ted Cruz for his ties to Goldman, and castigated Hillary Clinton for giving paid speeches to big banks, Goldman among them.

The Goldman influx has so far drawn little criticism, perhaps because worries about what once would have been deemed undue influence now mix with relief that there is some adult supervision in the executive branch.

On balance, “it’s a plus,” Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who built his fortune on Wall Street, told me this week. “Whatever you may think of them individually, you can’t get to be a Goldman partner and survive if you’re stupid, lazy or unprofessional.” (Mr. Bloomberg is co-chairman of Goldman’s “10,000 Small Businesses” initiative, which provides support to fledgling entrepreneurs.)

Whatever bricks Mr. Trump threw at Wall Street during the campaign, investors have cheered his victory, driving the stock market to new highs. And Goldman has been a particular beneficiary, with its shares gaining 35 percent since Election Day — the top-performing stock in the Dow Jones industrial average in that time.

Mr. Trump, a spokeswoman of his told me, sees no contradiction here. There’s a difference between individuals who happen to have worked at Goldman Sachs, at some point in their careers, and Goldman Sachs itself. “He’s said from the beginning that he’ll hire the very best people for the job regardless of where they worked before, which is what he’s done throughout his career,” said the spokeswoman, Hope Hicks.

While the firm’s influence in a Trump administration may reach a new apex, Goldman alumni have long been fixtures in both Republican and Democratic administrations. The Goldman legend Sidney J. Weinberg headed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s influential Business Advisory and Planning Council.

Recent Treasury secretaries with Goldman roots include Robert E. Rubin, a former co-chairman, under Bill Clinton; and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former chairman and chief executive, under George W. Bush.

Even in the Obama administration, where a Goldman pedigree was something akin to a scarlet letter, Gary Gensler was credited with reviving a moribund Commodity Futures Trading Commission and might have been Treasury secretary had Mrs. Clinton won in November.

Which raises the question: Why would such a disproportionate number of the “best people,” in Mr. Trump’s view, come from just one bank? After all, Goldman is hardly the only large bank, and it is also far from the biggest. It employs roughly 33,000 people; JPMorgan Chase’s work force is many times as large.

Many point to a unique Goldman culture that has long encouraged public service and philanthropy as integral to its business model.

Goldman “does seem to produce people who are very smart and have valuable experience,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “And they have a culture and a long tradition of leaving the firm for public service. The firm pushes them to do that.”

More.

Kellyanne Conway Discusses Trump's Transition and First 100-Days (VIDEO)

Politico reports that there's infighting going on, "Trump team rivalries spark infighting."

But Kellyanne Conway gave no hint of acrimony or dissension, on Hannity's last night, "Kellyanne Conway on Trump's transition and 100-day plan."

BONUS: Check this great post at Hot Air, "Kellyanne Conway for chief of staff":

As noted yesterday, Trump has three constituencies rather than the usual two to please in appointing cabinet members and senior aides. He’s got his true believers, the people who voted for him; he’s got the people who worked for him and who actually helped him get elected, the spoils-system recipients; and he’s got the majority of the country, the Democrats, independents, and Trump-skeptic Republicans who watched the returns Tuesday night thinking Do I need to buy gold? The ideal pick for each job is someone who checks all three boxes. When push comes to shove, his voters need to be satisfied first. But if you can find a pick who makes everyone happy, why not pick them?

The only position I’ve seen Kellyanne Conway touted for so far is White House press secretary, which makes some sense. She was Trump’s most effective surrogate during the campaign by a country mile. If you’re looking within Trump’s inner circle for someone to be a day-to-day liaison to the national media, you couldn’t do better. But here’s the problem: Press secretary is a stupid, garbage job. The daily press briefing is one of the dreariest rituals in modern politics. Those who are good at it have perfected the art of saying nothing meaningful in a lot of words. Given what Conway accomplished in steering Trump to one of the unlikeliest national victories in American history, it’s borderline insulting to reward her with a position that lame.

Chief of staff, arguably the single most influential job in the White House apart from the presidency itself, would be better and would recognize the magnitude of her accomplishment. You could say the same for Steve Bannon, the campaign’s CEO and reportedly a top contender for the position, but between his Breitbart pedigree, his support for the alt-right, and the dirty laundry that the media aired this summer and will gleefully revisit if he’s named as COS, choosing him would freak out the third group I named above and will be treated by the press as confirmation of all their worst fears about Trump, rightly and wrongly. There’ll be headlines about how picking Bannon is a declaration of war on minority America — and on the rest of the GOP, given Bannon’s antipathy to Paul Ryan — and that’ll set the tone for everything going forward. (Besides, everyone understands that Bannon will be an eminence grise even if he’s not named to any formal position.) Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is another contender for the job. He seems capable and his instincts appear sound (he was reportedly in favor of dumping Corey Lewandowski over the summer), but he’s a political novice. As a friend said to me yesterday, Trump naming his daughter’s husband to a major position like COS without any experience would come off like something a Panamanian dictator would do. I think all three groups above would tolerate it, but there would be a lot of “huh?” and “amateur hour” reactions in group three, fairly or not.

After Latest Hack, Fear of Being Next

Yeah, I expected to see a lot of trepidation when I first blogged this story. Nothing's safe these days.

At NYT, "Concern Over Colin Powell’s Hacked Emails Becomes a Fear of Being Next":

WASHINGTON — A panicked network anchor went home and deleted his entire personal Gmail account. A Democratic senator began rethinking the virtues of a flip phone. And a former national security official gave silent thanks that he is now living on the West Coast.

The digital queasiness has settled heavily on the nation’s capital and its secretive political combatants this week as yet another victim, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, fell prey to the embarrassment of seeing his personal musings distributed on the internet and highlighted in news reports.

“There but for the grace of God go all of us,” said Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council spokesman for President Obama who now works in San Francisco. He said thinking about his own email exchanges in Washington made him cringe, even now.

“Sometimes we’re snarky, sometimes we are rude,” Mr. Vietor said, recalling a few such moments during his time at the White House. “The volume of hacking is a moment we all have to do a little soul searching.”

The Powell hack, which may have been conducted by a group with ties to the Russian government, echoed the awkwardness of previous leaks of emails from Democratic National Committee officials and the C.I.A. director, John O. Brennan. The messages exposed this week revealed that Mr. Powell considered Donald J. Trump a “national disgrace,” Hillary Clinton “greedy” and former Vice President Dick Cheney an “idiot.”

The latest hack could well spur a new rash of email deletions across the country as millions of people scan their sent mail for anything compromising, humiliating or career-destroying. It adds to the sense that everyone is vulnerable.

The soul searching is happening with a special urgency in Washington, where email accounts burst with strategies, delicate political proposals, gossipy whispers and banal details of girlfriends, husbands, bank accounts and shopping lists.

A television news anchor said that producers and staff members at her network had jokingly agreed at a morning news meeting to issue blanket apologies to one another if their emails were ever made public.

She said Mr. Powell’s emails had revealed him, a normally stoic public official, to be just as gossipy as everyone else, and added that the gossip, not classified information, was what people feared becoming public.

On Capitol Hill, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, said the news of Mr. Powell’s hacked emails had him thinking that Senator Chuck Schumer’s never-ending use of an old-fashioned flip phone “makes more sense than ever.”

“I think more and more people are realizing that there isn’t a thing you can say in an email that isn’t likely to be hackable or discoverable at some later point,” Mr. Durbin said, lamenting his own complacency.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, shrugged off the news. “I haven’t worried about an email being hacked since I’ve never sent one,” Mr. Graham said. “I’m, like, ahead of my time.”

But for another network anchor in Washington, who declined to be named for fear of becoming an even more prominent hacking target, the Powell disclosures led to a long night Wednesday that involved saving a few personal emails and then deleting his entire account. Everyone, he said, has sent emails they would not want released, including innocent messages that could be misinterpreted...

More at that top link.

Federal Reserve's Missteps Fueled Populist Disillusion on the Economy and Political Class

I don't know? Seems like blaming the Fed is letting a lot of people off the hook.

Interesting, in any case.

At WSJ, "Years of Fed Missteps Fueled Disillusion With the Economy and Washington":

Once-revered central bank failed to foresee the crisis and has struggled in its aftermath, fostering the rise of populism and distrust of institutions.

In the past decade Federal Reserve officials have been flummoxed by a housing bubble that cratered the financial system, a long stretch of slow growth they failed to foresee and inflation persistently undershooting their goal. In response they engineered unpopular financial rescues, launched start-and-stop bond buying and delayed planned interest-rate boosts.

“There are a lot of things that we thought we knew that haven’t turned out quite as we expected,” said Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “The economy and financial markets are not as stable as we previously assumed.”

In the 1990s, a period known in economics as the “Great Moderation,” it seemed the Fed could do no wrong. Policy makers and voters saw it as a machine, with buttons officials could push to heat or cool the economy as needed. Now, after more than a decade of economic disappointment, the central bank confronts hardened public skepticism and growing self-doubt about its own understanding of how the U.S. economy works.

For anyone seeking to explain one of the most unpredictable political seasons in modern history, with the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, a prime suspect is public dismay in institutions guiding the economy and government. The Fed in particular is a case study in how the conventional wisdom of the late 1990s on a wide range of economic issues, including trade, technology and central banking, has since slowly unraveled.

Once admired globally for their command of the economic system, central bankers now are blamed by the left and right for bailouts during the financial crisis and for failing to foresee and manage forces suffocating the global economy in its aftermath.

Populist protest movements called “Fed Up,” “End the Fed” and “Occupy Wall Street” lashed out at the bank’s policies, and in the case of End the Fed, its very existence. Lawmakers of both parties want to subject it to more scrutiny or curb its powers.

David Einhorn, founder of the hedge fund Greenlight Capital, cites the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, in which a famished grasshopper begs a thrifty ant for help in wintertime after failing to stockpile food during warmer weather.

“We had the grasshoppers party from 2002 to 2007 and winter came and the Fed bailed them out,” said Mr. Einhorn, referring to financial firms and individuals who lived above their means. “Now the ants are pissed.”

The Fed’s struggles will be on display from Friday to Sunday when it gathers for an annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo. On issues of growth, inflation, interest rates, unemployment and how to fight a recession, basic assumptions inside the central bank’s complex computer models have been upended.

“I certainly myself couldn’t have imagined six, seven years ago that we would be employing the policies we are now,” Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said to a packed ballroom in New York earlier this year. She lamented the government has leaned so heavily on the Fed to stimulate the economy while tax and spending policies were stymied by disagreements between Congress and the White House.

Many Fed officials believe—and private economists agree—their responses to the crisis helped avert a second Depression, outweighing any unfairness in the bailout process. Fed leaders believe low rates helped, too. “Inflation would be lower and unemployment higher now by noticeable amounts had we not employed those policies,” Ms. Yellen said in March.

Regardless, confidence in the central bank’s leadership has dropped. An April Gallup poll found 38% of Americans had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in Ms. Yellen, while 35% had little or none. In the early 2000s, confidence in Chairman Alan Greenspan often exceeded 70%...

Keep reading.

No Political Guardrails

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "President Obama broke all the boundaries—and now Clinton and Trump are following suit":

Twenty-two years ago, my esteemed colleague Dan Henninger wrote a blockbuster Journal editorial titled “No Guardrails.” Its subject was people “who don’t think that rules of personal or civil conduct apply to them,” as well as the elites who excuse this lack of self-control and the birth of a less-civilized culture.

We are today witnessing the political version of this phenomenon. That’s how to make sense of a presidential race that grows more disconnected from normality by the day.

Barack Obama has done plenty of damage to the country, but perhaps the worst is his determined destruction of Washington’s guardrails. Mr. Obama wants what he wants. If ObamaCare is problematic, he unilaterally alters the law. If Congress won’t change the immigration system, he refuses to enforce it. If the nation won’t support laws to fight climate change, he creates one with regulation. If the Senate won’t confirm his nominees, he declares it in recess and installs them anyway. “As to limits, you set your own,” observed Dan in that editorial. This is our president’s motto.

Mr. Obama doesn’t need anyone to justify his actions, because he’s realized no one can stop him. He gets criticized, but at the same time his approach has seeped into the national conscience. It has set new norms. You see this in the ever-more-outrageous proposals from the presidential field, in particular front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Mrs. Clinton routinely vows to govern by diktat. On Wednesday she unveiled a raft of proposals to punish companies that flee the punitive U.S. tax system. Mrs. Clinton will ask Congress to implement her plan, but no matter if it doesn’t. “If Congress won’t act,” she promises, “then I will ask the Treasury Department, when I’m there, to use its regulatory authority.”

Mrs. Clinton and fellow liberals don’t like guns and are frustrated that the duly elected members of Congress (including those from their own party) won’t strengthen background checks. So she has promised to write regulations that will unilaterally impose such a system.

On immigration, Mr. Obama ignored statute with executive actions to shield illegals from deportation. Mrs. Clinton brags that she will go much, much further with sweeping exemptions to immigration law.

For his part, Mr. Trump sent the nation into an uproar this week with his call to outright ban Muslims from entering the country. Is this legally or morally sound? Who cares! Mr. Trump specializes in disdain for the law, the Constitution, and any code of civilized conduct. Guardrails are for losers. He’d set up a database to track Muslims or force them to carry special IDs. He’d close mosques. He’d deport kids born on American soil. He’d seize Iraq’s oil fields. He’d seize remittance payments sent back to Mexico. He’d grab personal property for government use.

Mr. Obama’s dismantling of boundaries isn’t restrained to questions of law; he blew up certain political ethics, too. And yes there are—or used to be—such things. Think what you may about George W. Bush’s policies, but he respected the office of the presidency. He believed he represented all Americans. He didn’t demonize.

Today’s divisive president never misses an opportunity to deride Republicans or the tea party. He is more scornful toward fellow Americans than toward Islamic State. This too sets new norms. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid now uses the chamber to accuse individual citizens of being “un-American.” Asked recently what “enemy” she was most proud of making, Mrs. Clinton lumped “Republicans” in with “the Iranians.” Ted Cruz rose to prominence by mocking his Republican colleagues as “squishes.” Mr. Trump has disparaged women, the other GOP contenders, Iowans, wives, the disabled, Jews. (Granted, he might have done this even without Mr. Obama’s example.)

Can such leaders be trusted to administer Washington fairly? Of course not. That guardrail is also gone...

Sobering.

And there's still more.

Renee Ellmers Resignation Rumors

Kevin McCarthy resignation rumors as well.

At Twitchy, "DEVELOPING: Amid affair rumors, Kevin McCarthy and Renee Ellmers expected to resign?"

PREVIOUSLY: "The Renee Ellmers Rumor and Kevin McCarthy’s Decision (CACHED)."

The Renee Ellmers Rumor and Kevin McCarthy’s Decision (CACHED)

This was at Memeorandum earlier today, "The Renee Ellmers Rumor and Kevin McCarthy's Decision."

But clicking through shows that the post, at Red State, was taken down. It turns out Congresswoman Ellmers got a cease and desist order against Erick Erickson. See Matt Lewis, "Why did Kevin McCarthy quit?"

The cached version of Red State is here, "The Renee Ellmers Rumor and Kevin McCarthy’s Decision."

These are salacious rumors. Renee Ellmers is a hot woman. See Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, at Right Wing News, "Rumored Renee Ellmers Affair Helps Drive Establishment Squish Kevin McCarthy Out of Speaker’s Race [Video]."

#BlackLivesMatter Activists Disrupt Mayor Muriel Bowser Speech on How to Stop Black Killings (VIDEO)

It's Thermidor.

At Power Line, "D.C. MAYOR STANDS UP FOR BLACK LIVES AND TO “BLACK LIVES MATTER”." (Via Memeorandum.)



More at WUSA News 9 DC, "Protesters interrupt Mayor Bowser's crime agenda remarks."

Vintage World War II Planes Fly Over Washington D.C.

At the Washington Post, "Photos: Arsenal of Democracy Flyover salutes World War II veterans," and "Meet the 19 WWII planes of the D.C. flyover."



More video at CNN, "WWII-era warplanes flyover Washington monuments," and "Come aboard one of the B-25 bombers that flew over Washington D.C."

#WHCD is a Celebration of a System of Access Journalism That Enables Democrat Lawbreaking and Treason

Actually, I changed the headline above from that seen at Mediagazer, "WHCD is a celebration of a system of access journalism that failed to detect a phony war."

I obviously don't believe the Iraq war was a "phony war," especially since the Democrats and the entire international community considered Saddam Hussein's Iraq to be a threat to international security, as demonstrated by numerous U.N. resolutions and the continuance of economic sanctions and the no-fly zone right though the decade of the 1990s, until President George W. Bush took office. But Jay Rosen's a leftist. I give him that. All he had to do is add a couple of more paragraphs to his essay and he wouldn't have been able to avoid discussing the institutional press corp's guilt in enabling the current crimes of Washington, D.C., from Benghazi to Bowe Bergdahl to Russia securing massive strategic mineral deposits on U.S. soil. The Clinton Foundation violating U.S. law by taking foreign donations while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state? We're only now seeing the beginning of the biggest political lie of the 21st century.

But then, even people like Jay Rosen can't follow their otherwise immaculate logic to the very end.

At Pressthink, "On the deep grammar of the White House Correspondents Association Dinner":

“The Washington press corps is like that big extended family with a terrible secret that cannot be confronted because everyone knows how bad it would be if the discussion ever got real.”

Have you ever come to know members of a family who collaborate in staying silent about something bad that happened in the past, something no one wants to talk about because to talk about it would probably tear the family apart?

The innocent would have to accuse the guilty. The guilty to defend themselves would find a way to spread responsibility around— or just lie about what happened. Which would then enrage people who were there because it rewrites history and erases their experience. If you have ever come to know such a family — or been part of one, as I have — then you know how participants in the conspiracy share a signaling system that can instantly warn an incautious member: you are three, four hops away from violating the pact of silence… if you don’t want to bring the whole structure down, then I suggest you change the subject… or switch to one of the harmless work-arounds we have provided for the purpose of never getting too close to the source of our dread.

None of that has to be said, of course. It’s all done by antennae. The result is that serious talk about certain subjects is off limits. Key routes into that subject are closed off, because the signaling system activates itself three or four rings out from dread center. To an outsider this manifests itself as an inexplicable weirdness or empty quality, difficult to name. To insiders it becomes: this is who we are… the people who route around—

I mention this because I think it helps in interpreting a bizarre event that unfolds tonight in Washington and on many a media platform: the White House Correspondents Association dinner. How bizarre? Well, look at the evidence of compulsion:

entering #WhiteHouseCorrespondentsDinner weekend. We all hate it; it's antithesis of journalism; but everyone goes to every party they can.

— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) April 24, 2015

It’s not like they don’t realize it. This is from Politico, house organ for the insider class in DC.

Everyone knows the White House Correspondents Association dinner is broken. What started off decades ago as a stately formal celebration of the best of presidential reporting has morphed into a four-day orgy of everything people outside the Beltway hate about life inside the Beltway— now it’s not just one night of clubby backslapping, carousing and drinking between the press and the powerful, it’s four full days of signature cocktails and inside jokes that just underscore how out of step the Washington elite is with the rest of the country. It’s not us (journalists) versus them (government officials); it’s us (Washington) versus them (the rest of America)

“Everything people outside the Beltway hate about life inside the Beltway.” True! And yet they keep doing it. Why?

I’m sure you have your ideas. Here is mine. I know it will sound crazy (and provide a few chuckles) to those in the room tonight at the Washington Hilton, but I don’t care because the event is itself one gigantic neurotic symptom that begs for some interpretation...

Keep reading at the top link.

Emily Miller Gets Her Concealed Carry Permit

She's a good lady.

At My FoxDC, "FOX 5's Emily Miller gets DC gun carry permit approved."



And buy Emily's book, Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours.

Millions Brace as Massive Winter Storm Hits East Coast

Huge coverage at the Weather Channel, "Winter Storm Juno Forecast: Northeast Snowstorm Ramping Up; Blizzard Conditions Expected in 7 States" (via Memeorandum).

And at the Boston Globe, "Baker declares state of emergency, statewide travel ban: Boston public schools to be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, Mayor Walsh says."

And at CNN, "Officials plead with residents amid blizzard preparations."

Added: From London's Daily Mail, "'Worst snowstorm in history' shuts down the East Coast: Thirty five million hunker down as five states declare emergencies, troops are deployed and New Yorkers rush home before 11pm curfew."

Four Top Secret Service Executives Forced Out in Agency Shake-Up

Good.

The president and his family are lucky they've not been attacked. Sheesh.

At LAT, "In a shake-up, Secret Service reassigns key officials":

The Secret Service is removing four officials from key positions as the agency continues to deal with fallout from a series of security lapses, according to an agency official.

Four senior officials from the agency have been told they must leave their current jobs. A fifth official, Vic Erevia, had recently decided to retire, the agency said. Erevia, an assistant director for training, had once headed President Obama's detail.

The moves were first reported by the Washington Post.

The Secret Service confirmed that the officials being reassigned within the agency or the Department of Homeland Security are Mark Copanazzi, assistant director for technology; Jane Murphy, assistant director for government and public affairs; Paul Morrissey, assistant director for the office of investigations; and Dale Pupillo, assistant director for protective operations.

The personnel moves come after a series of incidents last year that included a dramatic breach at the White House when a military veteran with a history of mental health problems hopped the fence and made it all the way into the residence.

In addition, there was concern raised after an armed guard who did not have security clearance rode in an elevator with President Obama while he was visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The prestigious agency had faced criticism two years earlier when Secret Service agents were involved in soliciting prostitutes ahead of Obama's visit to Colombia for a conference...

Heart-Wrenching First-Hand Report on the D.C. Metro Fire

Someone dying right before your eyes, you offer help. But sadly it's too late.

At the Washington Post, "Metro rider who helped dying passenger: 'I told her she was going to be okay'":

Jonathan Rogers said he was in the second or third car of a Yellow Line train Monday when it stopped abruptly in a tunnel just outside of the L’Enfant Plaza station. Soon, smoke filled the car and some passengers began having breathing problems. On Tuesday, Rogers, who works at the D.C. Department of Transportation, said he was still recovering from a difficult afternoon and remembering a woman he and his fellow passengers tried to help.

Rogers recalled that after several minutes aboard the smoke-filled train, passengers began having difficulty breathing, including a woman, who was identified Tuesday afternoon as Carol Glover, sitting in one of the seats facing the door. But unlike others who were very vocal about their discomfort, “She was kind of stoic.”

“She was just sitting,” he said. “You wouldn’t have even noticed that anything was wrong. ”

But there was something seriously wrong. Rogers watched through the smoke as the woman slid out of her seat and sank slowly to the floor. Eventually, she got down on all fours, he recalled.

“It wasn’t like she was demanding help,” Rogers said. “She was too short of breath.”

He and other passengers rushed to her side to help...

Keep reading.

'The moment each day’s work ended, the entire squad ran wind sprints the width of the field, as orderly as Blue Angel pilots, while the Redskins looked on...'

That quote really struck me.

A great read, at the Washington Post, "Washington Redskins, burning out under magnifying glass."

And the team just lost its finale to Dallas, 44-17.

Nikki Finke Said to Be in Talks With Politico

Well, she's the master Hollywood gossip reporter (or she was), and she's sure be a nice fit at Politico, with its "win the morning" ethos.

See the New York Times, "Nikki Finke, Hollywood Chronicler, Said to Be in Talks With Politico":

Ms. Finke grew infamous in Los Angeles for aggressive coverage of the entertainment industry, which made her former website, Deadline Hollywood, into a draw for breaking industry news. Penske Media acquired the site in 2009. But in 2012 it purchased Variety, a competing Hollywood trade publication, which sparked a dispute that resulted in Ms. Finke’s leaving the company.

Ms. Finke and Penske recently came to settlement terms, which prohibited her from writing about the entertainment industry for another company. Writing about Washington might circumnavigate that agreement.

Yeah, her parting with Deadline must burn like a thousand suns. I wrote about that here, "Final Deadline for Nikke Finke?"

And best of luck to the lady.

Hot New Dining Trend: No Reservations and Four-Hour Waits at Trendy D.C. Restaurants

I'll pass, thank you.

At the Washington Post, "No reservations? This restaurant trend has become harder to swallow."

Tom Sietsema sees ageism and inhospitality when restaurants force guests to line up and wait.

Top Domestic and Foreign Policy Analyst Will.i.am Joins 'Meet the Press'

Heh.

This is pretty delicious, at Twitchy, "Meet the Press jumps the shark: David Gregory invites will.i.am to talk Benghazi, foreign policy."

Lol. http://t.co/sh4CAulhDs discussing foreign affairs and military involvement as a "world traveler." @meetthepress pic.twitter.com/uRS83XXRJY

— J.C. Polanco Esq MBA (@JCPolancoNYC) May 4, 2014

The "as a world traveler" clip is here.

Muriel Bowser Defeats Mayor Vincent Gray in Democrat Primary for D.C. Mayor

At Associated Press, "Bowser Tops Incumbent Gray in DC Mayor Primary."

And the Washington Post, "Councilwoman Bowser defeats incumbent Gray in D.C. mayoral primary":

Muriel E. Bowser, a low-key but politically canny District lawmaker, won the Democratic mayoral nomination Tuesday, emerging from a pack of challengers in a low-turnout primary to deny scandal-tarnished incumbent Vincent C. Gray a second term.

The 41-year-old D.C. Council member triumphed in the latest in a string of District elections to reveal a city unsettled over the shape of its future. Bowser’s win heralds many more months of uncertainty as she faces a substantial general-election challenger while a lame-duck Gray is left to steer the city amid the threat of federal indictment.

Bowser (D-Ward 4) moved deftly to capitalize on public doubts about Gray’s trustworthiness fueled by the still-unresolved federal corruption investigation into his 2010 campaign. Alone among seven Democratic challengers, she amassed a coalition that crossed demographic and geographic lines allowing her to outpoll Gray’s shrunken but steady base of African American voters.

The outcome of the race remained in doubt for four hours after the 8 p.m. closing of polling places as elections officials struggled with an unusually late and messy tabulation process.

For much of the evening, the campaigns and the public watched results trickle in and wondered what was going wrong at city elections headquarters downtown. Officials blamed the slow pace on poor training of election workers in the use of electronic voting machines. And the campaigns waited impatiently to know who had won.

Tamara Robinson, a spokeswoman for the city Board of Elections, said vote counters noticed inconsistent numbers reported in several precincts, so they stopped releasing tallies until they could examine them more closely. They found that five or six machines had not been shut down correctly by poll workers, who may have been overwhelmed by the larger number of electronic machines at precincts this year.

With 89 percent of precincts reporting shortly before midnight, Bowser led Gray 44 percent to 33 percent — prompting a concession speech from the incumbent.

Gray said he intended to keep working, and “by the way, we have nine more months.”

In her subsequent victory remarks, Bowser struck a conciliatory note, reaching out to her rivals’ supporters in an appeal for party unity during a seven-month general-election campaign to come.

“It’s our job to let them know that I’ll be their mayor, too,” she said. “We’re going to earn their support. We’re going to hear their vision, and we’re going to work with them.”

More.

And at Politico, "Muriel Bowser ousts Vincent Gray in D.C. primary."