One Last Scandal for 2014
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Morning Jolt December 30, 2014
This is the last Jim-written Morning Jolt of 2014. I'll next haunt your e-mail box Friday, January 2. One Last Scandal for 2014Who's having the worse week, Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh or House majority whip Steve Scalise? House majority whip Steve Scalise (R., La.) spoke to an event hosted by a white-nationalist group when he was a state legislator in 2002, according to multiple reports. Scalise's office has confirmed that he took part in the event organized by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), a group founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana politician David Duke, and says his limited staff at the time had not properly vetted the event. He attended the event while campaigning against a state budget measure. "Throughout his career in public service, Mr. Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints," Scalise spokeswoman Moira Bagley told the Washington Post. She explained that he attended the event while campaigning against a state ballot initiative. "He has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question," Bagley continued. "The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband, and a devoted Catholic."
Congressman, the group is called the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. What, did you mistake them for -- NATO? Were they strangely unresponsive to remarks about trade policy and currency exchanges? Moronic as Scalise's decision might have been, he did make it twelve years ago. If there was any indication the guy had any white-supremacist instincts, one would think they would have surfaced in the following decade. Maybe Scalise really did have no idea of the group's agenda or hateful perspectives. The Washington Post quotes a bunch of Democrats making typically opportunistic comments about the revelation. You can't really blame them; if we learned a high-ranking Democratic official had addressed a hate group, Republicans and voices on the right would be calling attention to that. But the Democrats shouldn't be too loud in their denunciation, in light of other figures they've forgiven . . . In the early 1940s, a politically ambitious butcher from West Virginia named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had collected the $10 joining fee and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every applicant, the "Grand Dragon" for the mid-Atlantic states came down to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to officially organize the chapter . . . Byrd wrote that he continued as a "Kleagle" recruiting for the Klan until early 1943, when he and his family left Crab Orchard for a welding job in a Baltimore shipyard. Returning to West Virginia after World War II ended in 1945, he launched his political career, but not before writing another letter, to one of the Senate's most notorious segregationists, Theodore Bilbo (D-Miss.), complaining about the Truman administration's efforts to integrate the military. Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter -- which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith -- that he would never fight in the armed forces "with a Negro by my side." Byrd added that, "Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels." If you can forgive all that -- as just about everyone in Congress did -- then I think you have to give Scalise the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, Suh is saying all he did was accidentally step on a guy. On Monday, the NFL suspended Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh for doing something stupid once again. And it might just be the last thing he does as a Lion. He was suspended for one game because he performed an idiotic two-step on Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers in Sunday's 30-20 loss at Lambeau Field. Unless the suspension is reversed on appeal, the Lions will play the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs Sunday without their best defensive player, and there's a chance that he will never wear a Detroit uniform again. Suh didn't seriously injure Rodgers with his missteps. Instead, Suh ended up hurting his own team, which is trying to win its first playoff game since the 1991 season. Life ain't easy for a boy named Suh. Maybe That Hack Wasn't Nork-estrated After All Hey, remember all of the outrage over North Korea's hack attack on Sony? What if it wasn't really the North Koreans? FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator — another example of the continuing whodunit blame game around the devastating attack. Even the unprecedented decision to release details of an ongoing FBI investigation and President Barack Obama publicly blaming the hermit authoritarian regime hasn't quieted a chorus of well-qualified skeptics who say the evidence just doesn't add up. Researchers from the cyber intelligence company Norse have said their own investigation into the data on the Sony attack doesn't point to North Korea at all and instead indicates some combination of a disgruntled employee and hackers for piracy groups is at fault. The FBI says it is standing by its conclusions, but the security community says they've been open and receptive to help from the private sector throughout the Sony investigation. The FBI said Monday it is standing behind its assessment, adding that evidence doesn't support any other explanations. "The FBI has concluded the Government of North Korea is responsible for the theft and destruction of data on the network of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Attribution to North Korea is based on intelligence from the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community, DHS, foreign partners and the private sector," a spokeswoman said in a statement. "There is no credible information to indicate that any other individual is responsible for this cyber incident." Boy, if it turns out to be a disgruntled former Sony employee, that's an epic embarrassment for the administration, huh? President Obama didn't leave any wiggle room in his statements about the hack: President Obama said on Friday that the United States "will respond proportionally" against North Korea for its destructive cyberattacks on Sony Pictures, but he criticized the Hollywood studio for giving in to intimidation when it withdrew "The Interview," the satirical movie that provoked the attacks, before it opened. "I think it says something about North Korea that they decided to have the state mount an all-out assault on a movie studio because of a satirical movie," he said, smiling briefly at the ridiculousness of an international confrontation set off by a Hollywood comedy. A bit ironic, considering the president's entire political career is based upon blaming a president for rushing into a decision to take action against a hostile dictator based upon bad intelligence. Stay In This New Year's Eve! As discussed in last night's live podcast with Mickey White, New Year's Eve is a vastly overrated holiday -- at least when it comes to going out . . . New Year's Eve has turned into the Marvel movie post-credits scene of holidays. Even when it's good, which isn't nearly often enough, it's a tacked-on afterthought, an inevitable let down compared to what happened earlier. We literally had Christmas less than a week ago -- probably the biggest holiday of the year, with relatives coming and going, present-purchases for everyone, at least one and maybe two big special meals, special masses, special concerts, decorations everywhere, television specials, parties . . . and then, just six days later, "Oh, hey, here's one more party to go to." God help you if you go out, because restaurants and bars turn into hideous versions of themselves on New Year's Eve. Suddenly you need a reservation for your favorite hangout. The place is crowded and the service is usually terrible. For some reason, a lot of establishments think providing one glass of champagne in a plastic flute at 11:45 justifies a $100-per-head charge for the night. The fixed price menu is usually whatever they can make in large quantities and is often ludicrously overpriced. A chef is rarely going to bring his A-game to the New Year's Eve crowd. My worst experience came a few years out of college, in Georgetown in Washington, D.C. My friends, future wife, and I spent probably 75 bucks a head for the 10 p.m. seating at a nice restaurant. The plan was to eat for an hour, hour and a half and then be ready for the ball to drop. The problem was the 8 p.m. seating customers tried to beat the system by refusing to leave. The waiters had a hard time shooing them out, and by the time we were seated, we were told we had fifteen minutes to eat before they had to clear the tables to create a dance floor. It was the biggest rip-off ever. ADDENDA: Scratch one of 2014's most surprising political winners early: "Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) announced late Monday that he will resign from Congress, effective next week. The Staten Island congressman pleaded guilty on Tuesday of last week to a federal tax evasion charge in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn." Get ready for a controversial special election: Daniel Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney who most recently failed to secure an indictment in the Eric Garner case, is lining up support behind-the-scenes for a bid to replace Mr. Grimm. And Mr. Donovan, well-liked by the borough's Republican machine, is a front-runner to win the backing of the Staten Island Republican party in a special election that will likely be held sometime next year, sources say . . . A special election to replace Mr. Grimm will mean no Democratic or Republican primaries. Instead, the Staten Island Republican and Democratic organizations will each select a candidate to face-off after Gov. Andrew Cuomo selects a date for the election.
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