Good morning! Here’s your daily digest of money-in-politics news and the headlines of the day, compiled by BillMoyers.com’s John Light. (You can sign up to receive Morning Reads daily in your inbox!)
Boots on the ground –> We’ll now have 20 to 30 special forces advisors stationed in Syria but allegedly not engaged in frontline combat. The White House says their main priority will be advising and assisting Kurdish forces and one rebel group, the Syrian Democratic Forces, fighting against ISIS. Zack Beauchamp explains for Vox that “the fact that they’re being deployed on an ongoing advising mission, rather than a one-time raid, is significant. Advising missions generally involve training US partners and helping them more efficiently coordinate the military effort against ISIS.”
Stacking the deck –> The New York Times is publishing a major investigative report “examining how clauses buried in tens of millions of contracts have deprived Americans of one of their most fundamental constitutional rights: their day in court.” The clauses call for private arbitration and prohibit class-action suits. Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Robert Gebeloff write, “Some state judges have called the class-action bans a ‘get out of jail free’ card, because it is nearly impossible for one individual to take on a corporation with vast resources.”
Billionaire picks Rubio –> Hedge fund magnate Paul Singer, a supporter of Israel and gay marriage who last year gave more money to Republican candidates and causes than anyone in the country, has picked his candidate: Marco Rubio. Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Confessore report for the NYT.
Out of place –> At Buzzfeed, Ben Smith argues that Jeb Bush’s campaign difficulties reflect the simple fact that Bush is a politician from another time. During the years spent outside of electoral politics — Jeb! last campaigned in 2002 — a lot has changed, Smith writes. First and foremost: the Internet. If a campaign is like a media company, it is hard to imagine “a media company in this era of extreme change reaching back a decade and pulling [Bush] out of retirement.”
It’s debatable –> GOP candidates are continuing their push for greater control of the debates — talking about the supposed liberal bias of venues like CNBC really resonates with primary voters. The Washington Post’s Robert Costa and Dave Weigel report that to soothe the campaigns, RNC chair Reince Priebus has shaken up his senior staff working on the debates. ALSO, David Atkins at Washington Monthly: “The press is facing an existential threat. With Republicans increasingly unashamed to tell grandiose lies and respond to any press criticism with derogatory insults and whines about media bias as well as blackmail threats to cancel appearances if the questions are too tough, the press must decide how to respond.” AND: Lee Fang at The Intercept: “The top fundraisers for Clinton include lobbyists who serve the parent companies of CNN and MSNBC.”
One detainee heads home –> Shaker Aamer, a Guantanamo detainee held for 14 years but cleared for transfer away from the prison back in 2007 finally made it home to the UK this weekend. He “did not eat or drink anything after boarding the plane at Guantánamo,” one of his doctors told The Guardian. “He was still fearful that they might spike it with something, even at this very late stage.”
Exxon continues taking heat –> At National Journal, Ben Gemen writes that the oil industry already is having a hard time due to low prices as the world moves toward the Paris climate change conference this December. Revelations that the company has known about climate change for decades and still denied it have been particularly harmful to Exxon. ALSO: Bill McKibben notes in a blog post at Daily Kos that the Exxon scandal has brought together a coalition of civil rights groups, indigenous groups and other progressive campaigns. AND: David Sirota writes at the International Business Times that Hillary Clinton’s “call for an investigation [of Exxon] comes only months after the company decided to stop sponsoring her family’s foundation.”
This year’s monster storm –> Cyclone Chapala, a storm equivalent to a category 4 hurricane, is headed for Yemen, where it could dump as much rain in two days as the country may see in eight years. The widespread flooding that could result would be disastrous for the arid country, which is also home to an Al Qaeda insurgency, writes Eric Holthaus for Slate. As of this morning, thousands have been evacuated, reports Emirates 24/7.
New top emitter –> Alex Morales at Bloomberg News reports that out-of-control forest fires in Indonesia, created in part by the palm oil industry’s slash-and-burn farming, are spewing huge amounts of CO2 into the air, temporarily placing Indonesia at the top of the list of countries contributing to climate change. A grim coincidence: Dry conditions created by El Niño, which is itself affected by climate change, helped fuel the fires.
Sith Lord “a direct threat to democracy” –> A guy calling himself Darth Vader ran for Mayor of Odessa in Ukrainian local elections. “But the real story,” writes Erik Herron at The Washington Post‘s The Monkey Cage, “is how the fake Vader represents the actual dark side of Ukrainian contemporary politics: election fraud and manipulation.”
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