Citizen Cartwright

Media hysteria over the Republican presidential race

“The Republican Party’s implosion over Donald Trump’s candidacy has arrived,” says a Washington Post headline.

And the headline of an article by the Post’s Chris Cillizza: “Donald Trump is remarkably dangerous to the Republican Party. Here’s why.”

I’ve spent considerable time this morning looking for — and not finding — Associated Press, Reuters and other media items that might more composedly assess what’s going on.

Of course, media get online clicks and sell papers with these kinds of headlines. But I’m beginning to be concerned that Trumpian hyperbole is infecting the media that cover it.

And so, it’s a comfort to see that the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, is providing some context, below.

Warren Buffett says candidates’ talk of U.S. decline is wrong

In his annual letter to shareholders, the billionaire investor says the view that children today won’t live as well as their parents is “dead wrong.”

Candidates who have been painting a picture of economic woe are doing so to win votes, not because it accurately reflects the nation’s challenges, he says. (Buffett has endorsed Hillary Clinton.)

“For 240 years it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start,” he writes. “America’s golden goose of commerce and innovation will continue to lay more and larger eggs.”

He does say that while the “pie to be shared by the next generation will be far larger than today’s,” the way it is divided will “remain fiercely  contentious.” Many of the negative effects of innovation and greater efficiency tend to harm the worker, he says.

Buffett says there’s really only one enduring danger that he can’t fix: the threat from cyber, biological, nuclear or chemical attack on the United States.

“ ‘Innovation’ has its dark side,” he says.

‘Goodnight, and good luck,’ says Al Jazeera America as it shuts down

The value of getting a variety of perspectives can’t be overstated, so I personally am sorry to see the demise of Al Jazeera America online after just three years.

Also in the news

First Iranian vote after nuclear deal gives reformers momentum

China expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in coal and steel industries

Hillary Clinton, ’smart power,’ and the fall of Libyan dictator Qaddafi

Senate takes up opioid abuse this week; Democrats are demanding emergency funding

Hillary Clinton’s big win in South Carolina suggests Super Tuesday sweep in the South

In ‘major blow’ to Cruz, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions endorses Trump

Alliance of Chris Christie and Donald Trump: What each side gets

In effort to pressure Trump, Rubio and Cruz release past five years of tax returns

Federal efforts on data privacy moving slowly

Key feature seen in successful workplace teams: Psychological safety

Banks’ overdraft practices continue to gut customers’ accounts

Study: Risk-takers may be more susceptible to fraud when they’re seniors

In a world of Zika and terrorism, how to be safe when traveling

Ways advertising promotes expensive drugs and treatments you may not need

In ‘rowdy’ debate, Rubio and Cruz go all-out against Trump

The two senators “finally unleashed all their opposition research on the race’s front-runner,” says Politico.

Rubio, in particular, was unrelenting in keeping the pressure on Trump Thursday night, say Fox News and The New York Times.

“Neither Rubio nor Cruz has relished going after Trump in the past, perhaps fearing the blowtorch counterattacks that were leveled at others who are now on the political sidelines,” says Dan Balz of The Washington Post. “But by Thursday night, they had no choice.”

“The question is whether any of it will change the minds of Republican voters ahead of two critical weeks in March in the Republican race,” Balz says.

“From here on, every Trump victory adds to his luster as the front-runner,” says Balz.

For his part, Trump called Rubio a “choke artist” and Cruz a “liar.”

Here is a fact-check of the debate, from The Associated Press.

Plans to put U.S. advisers on front lines against Boko Haram

The Pentagon is poised to send dozens of Special Operations advisers to the front lines of Nigeria’s fight against the West African militant group, according to military officials, in the latest deployment in conflicts with the Islamic State and its allies.

The deployment is a main recommendation of a recent confidential assessment by the top United States Special Operations commander for Africa, Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc. If it’s approved, as expected, by the Defense and State Departments, the Americans would serve only in noncombat advisory roles, military officials say.

About 50 American commandos already are advising fighters battling the Islamic State in eastern Syria. And scores more in a new, secret kill-or-capture unit are hunting Islamic State militants in Iraq, says The New York Times. The Pentagon has offered to send U.S. advisers with Iraqi brigades on the battlefield instead of restricting them to bases inside Iraq.

And dozens of American commandos are conducting surveillance missions in Libya and counterterrorism missions in Somalia.

More sharing of NSA intercepts said to be in the works

The Obama administration is on the verge of allowing the National Security Agency to share with other U.S. intelligence agencies more of the private communications it intercepts — without first applying any privacy protections to them, The New York Times reports.

The change would ease longstanding restrictions on access to the contents of phone calls and email the NSA vacuums up around the world, including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners as they cross network switches in the United States, and messages acquired overseas or provided by allies, the Times says.

The point is to let more experts across American intelligence gain direct access to unprocessed information, increasing the chances that they will recognize any possible nuggets of value.

Civil liberties advocates say the change would weaken privacy protections.

Also in the news

U.S., China agree on proposal for tougher North Korea sanctions

U.S. test-fires ICBMs in show of power to Russia, North Korea

Putin finds much to celebrate about Russia’s role in Syrian truce

House conservative leaders want to break last fall’s spending deal

Nevada GOP Gov. Sandoval says he’s not interested in Supreme Court seat

Cleveland surgeons perform U.S.’ first uterus transplant

Study: Premature babies may face long-term anesthesia risks

Trump, Paul Ryan said to be on a ‘collision course’

On nearly every significant issue, Donald Trump is in opposition to Republican orthodoxy and his party’s policy prescriptions — the very ideas that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., “has done more than anyone else to form, refine or promote over the last decade," says The New York Times.

Ryan also is chairman of the Republican National Convention.

“Trump is not a Republican,” says Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who dropped out of the presidential race in December. “I have no idea how we reconcile a Donald Trump agenda with a Republican agenda. How do we write a [party] platform?”

“All of the Republican presidential candidates would be better than Hillary Clinton,” says AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan. “And Speaker Ryan would be able to work with any one of them.”

Ways Trump still could stumble on his way to the nomination

His path to the Republican nomination looks wider than ever, but it still could contain pitfalls and roadblocks, says The New York Times.

Among them:

— While top Republican donors have shied away from confronting Trump, at some point the party’s bankrollers may “get serious about saving it from a man they view as a catastrophe.”

— If the number of candidates dwindles to one or two, perhaps after Super Tuesday, it would test the breadth of Trump’s support as never before.

— His opponents have a window to catch up with him, or at least to deny him the majority he needs, by making a stand in big states like Florida and Ohio, where Trump victories might make him truly inevitable.

— Trump could commit a “monumental blunder.” For many Republican leaders, the question is whether Trump’s eventual self-immolation comes before he wins the nomination, or in November, the Times says.

Meanwhile, as media run items like this on how Trump might be stopped, he’s picked up his first two endorsements from lawmakers.