Something like a year ago I had conversations – entirely independent of each other – with very high level publishing executives at two of Facebook’s newly announced partners for Instant Articles. They came from two of the more venerable names on the list. And this was when Facebook was first pitching them on the idea of this co-publishing project, deep under the veil of tightly woven NDAs. As they related it to me, in these initial conversations with the traveling Facebook execs, their first reactions to their faces was some variant of “you’ve got to be f-cking kidding.”
To which the Facebookers replied with a mix of genuine surprise and restrained indifference.
Bush follows up on ‘based on what we know now’ …
“I interpreted the question wrong, I guess. I was talking about given what people knew then, would you have done it? Rather than knowing what we know now. And knowing what we know now, clearly there were mistakes as it related to faulty intelligence in the lead up to the war and the lack of focus on security. My brother’s admitted this. And we have to learn from that … Yeah, I don’t know what that decision would’ve been. That’s a hypothetical but the simple fact was mistakes were made, as they always are in life and foreign policy. So we need to learn from the past to make sure we’re strong and secure going forward.”
I’ve compressed the answers together here, taking out cross talk with Hannity. But it captures the gist of the floundering. Click here to see a more detailed rendition of the exchange. The upshot is he didn’t understand the question but still isn’t willing to answer it now that he does.
Jeb gets a second stab at the Iraq invasion question: “Yeah, I don’t know what that decision would’ve been.”
It’s good for yucks that presidential candidate Ben Carson thinks that the Dred Scott decision shows the President does not have to abide the rulings of the Supreme Court. That is, in fact, not what it shows. Perhaps there’s a revolutionary or moral argument. But in historical terms and in terms of constitutional practice that is most definitely not what it shows.
And as historian Kevin Kruse points out, we have no less an authority on this point than Abraham Lincoln, who laid it out explicitly in his speech on … Dred Scott.
We’ve just published part four in our five part series on the rapid growth of renewables in the last five years (sub req). In this installment, the challenges of the transition. Definitely check it out. I’m very proud of this series.
Texas House passes a bill to put an identification mark on the health insurance cards of people who receive an Obamacare tax rebate.
We’ve now seen Jeb Bush make what many saw as an eye-popping statement yesterday and now seen a former top advisor saying he now claims that he misunderstood the question which prompted that statement. There are some details to work through. Ana Navarro does not currently work for Gov. Bush (at least that’s my understanding), so we don’t know for certain yet whether she is speaking for him in this case or providing the campaign’s position. (This isn’t to doubt her. We just need to hear this from an official representative.) But the upshot is that Jeb Bush’s campaign is looked pretty screwed at the moment. And here’s why.
This looks to be a long, long day for Jeb Bush. A former staffer who is close to Jeb, Republican strategist Ana Navarro, just said that the former Florida governor told her he’d misheard Megyn Kelly’s question about whether he still thought invading Iraq was a good idea with all we know now.
Video coming shortly.
And here it is.
I always try to remind myself not to criticize with stories like the one I’m about to describe, or perhaps better to say, not to forget the core reason for providing a comprehensive national plan to provide health insurance for everyone who needs it. But this story really puts that sentiment to the test, as well as exposing the perverse politics and perceptions on this issue in Republican-run states.
Luis Lang needs an expensive eye operation to save his eyesight. But he can’t afford it, can’t get covered for the procedure and he blames President Obama and his over-complicated ACA legislation.