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The Commentariat -- Dec. 1, 2014
Photo removed.
Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "Sales, both in stores and online, from through the weekend were estimated to have dropped 11 percent, to $50.9 billion, from $57.4 billion last year, according to preliminary survey results released Sunday by the National Retail Federation. Sales fell despite many stores' opening earlier than ever on Thanksgiving Day. And though many retailers offered the same aggressive discounts online as they did in their stores, the web failed to attract more shoppers or spending over the four-day holiday weekend than it did last year, the group said. The average person who shopped over the weekend spent $159.55 at online retailers, down 10.2 percent from last year." ...
... Dear Retailers (and Other Corporate Bigwigs): Maybe if you paid your employees a living wage, they would splurge on stuff they don't need. -- Constant Weader
Kendall Breitman of Politico: "President Barack Obama is holding three meetings on Monday to discuss issues relating to unrest in Ferguson, Missouri."
Carl Hulse & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "As Congress returns from recess on Monday facing a Dec. 11 deadline for funding the government, Mr. Boehner and his fellow Republican leaders are working to persuade the rank and file -- furious over President Obama's executive action on immigration -- that engaging in a spending confrontation is the wrong way to counter the White House. That would set the wrong tone, they argue, as Republicans prepare to take over Congress and fulfill promises to govern responsibly." ...
... Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Inside Republican leadership, senior aides and lawmakers freely admit that the executive order -- no matter how unpopular it is -- will likely stand and there's little Congress can do about it. So Boehner, McCarthy and Scalise need to craft a process that will allow conservatives to vent, but prevent a shutdown." ...
... Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Republicans in and out of Congress are urging GOP leaders to move quickly on immigration reform in response to President Obama’s executive actions." CW: Love the photo the Hill decided to go with this story. ...
... Peter Shane -- a Constitutional scholar -- in the Washington Monthly: "The President's actions [on immigration] respect, even advance, the rule of law in at least five ways."
David Atkins: Congressional Republicans, following their "intellectual" leader Paul Ryan, are determined to introduce "fantasy-based budgeting." We'll be hearing more of this. CW: I'm wondering if the CBO will revolt.
Brian Beutler is thankful for a Republican Congress. He lays out six reasons why.
Peter Schroeder of the Hill: "President Obama's nomination of Antonio Weiss to serve as the Treasury Department's top domestic finance official is drawing fire from ... his fellow Democrats. Liberal lawmakers like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have been quick to oppose Weiss, a major investment banker with Lazard.... An underlying thread to the Democratic opposition is a fatigue with filling top-ranking administration spots with officials that have spent significant time working for or on behalf of Wall Street titans." ...
... Juan Williams in the Hill: "The 2014 winner of my annual award for 'Member of Congress of the Year' goes to the politician who had such a good year she now defines her party's future -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)."
E. J. Dionne: President "Obama and progressives should spend the next two years accomplishing as many useful things as they can, blocking regressive actions by Congress, and clarifying the choices facing the nation's voters. And they'll get much further by doing all three at once." ...
... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "From the wreckage of his party's defeat, a president appears to have been reborn. This is a president who bears much more in common with the firebrand elected in 2008 on a message of hope and change than the frustrated figure who had governed ever since."
Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "A year after the Obama administration temporarily shelved an unfinished part of HealthCare.gov intended for small businesses, it has opened with reports of only modest technical flaws -- but with doubts that it will soon benefit the millions of workers at little companies with inadequate health insurance or none at all.... In the two weeks since the marketplace's health plans went on sale for 2015, interest within the niche they are intended to help seems scant."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Peggy Young v. UPS. Young was laid off without pay from her job as a delivery person when she became pregnant & could not lift heavy packages, a task that was not part of her normal duties. She sued UPS under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act & lost in the lower courts. ...
... New York Times Editors: Young's "case, which has implications for millions of American women and their families..., is an opportunity for the court to strike a blow against discriminatory treatment and the resulting economic harm that are too often imposed on women who get pregnant -- as the vast majority of women entering the work force eventually do. Although many women can work through an entire pregnancy without job modifications, some -- especially those in low-wage jobs requiring long hours, prolonged standing and heavy lifting -- may require temporary help to safeguard their own health and their pregnancies." ...
... CW: Oops, the Times editorial board said the wrong thing. The conservatives on the court are dedicated to making life harder for the working poor -- so they'll know their place. The Times should have argued that ruling for Young would somehow help rich, white men.
Kathianne Bonniello of the New York Post: "Shopping at a Washington, DC, bookstore Saturday, President Obama spotted a copy of 'Meet the Press' host Chuck Todd's new book about his presidency. 'Oh, Chuck Todd!' Obama exclaimed. 'Let's see what Chuck has to say here!' 'How is he writing a book already?' asked his 16-year-old daughter, Malia. 'Sad.' 'He's just sad,' the president joked in response. Obama's off-the-cuff pan was no surprise, considering what Todd thinks of the president. The book, titled 'The Stranger,' blasts Obama as a flip-flopping policymaker whose detached temperament has prevented him from implementing his ideas." ...
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "On the subject of the Obama girls’ supposedly disrespectful behavior at the Thanksgiving turkey pardoning: not even close to unpardonable.... I thought the girls did fine.... If there was a soupcon of eye-rolling and a stretch of get-me-outta-here arm-crossing, well -- they were props at a turkey pardoning, for heaven's sake." ...
... Andy Borowitz: "Republican congressional aide Elizabeth Lauten said on Sunday morning that she 'deeply regretted' her attack on Sasha and Malia Obama because it 'completely overshadowed the vicious insults I hurled at their parents.'" ...
... CW: Here's what Lauten said about Barack & Michelle Obama: "... your mother and father don't respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I'm guessing you're coming up a little short in the 'good role model' department." She never did mentioned she was sorry for that. BTW, I should have highlighted this: Lauten used to work for former Rep. Joe Walsh, "a tea party freshman noted for calling President Obama a 'tyrant' and engaging in legal battle over his child support payments." (Via Adam Weinstein, in Mother Jones, September 2012.) Compared to refusing to feed your own children, dissing someone else's kids doesn't seem so bad. ...
... ** UPDATE. Erin Ryan of Jezebel: "Elizabeth Lauten, the Republican Congressional staffer who over the weekend found herself in hot water over comments she made about the Obama girls looking like bar floozies with bad attitudes, has announced today that she's resigning." CW: What a shame. But now she'll have time to pursue her dream of writing an advice column for teens.
Paul Krugman: Europe is an economic disaster, & it's Germany's fault.
Stanley Kutler in the (Madison, Wisconsin) Capital Times: "The Pentagon has hijacked the history of the Vietnam War, magically transforming it into a memory to honor and cherish. George Orwell never imagined better. The Pentagon omits any discussion of the deception and misdirected policies which sucked us into that quagmire. It ignores failures of both civilian and military leaders. The widespread breakdown of military command and discipline is glossed over and the military effort was led only by medal winners. The rending of the American social and political fabric which marked the 1960s and '70s is not acknowledged. Most of all, the Pentagon is unwilling to face the painful truth: We lost. The Pentagon has launched a 50th anniversary commemoration of the war to provide 'historically accurate materials' for schoolchildren. Get 'em young." ...
... Charles Pierce: "... in concocting an elaborate historical deceit to mark the 50th anniversary of the bloodiest foreign-poiicy blunder in the country's history, and the most divisive period of domestic politics since the Civil War, the Pentagon is accidentally memorializing Vietnam much better than it realizes." ...
... Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times (October 9): "... the extensive website, which has been up for months, largely describes a war of valor and honor that would be unrecognizable to many of the Americans who fought in and against it. Leading Vietnam historians complain that it focuses on dozens of medal-winning soldiers while giving scant mention to mistakes by generals and the years of violent protests and anguished debate at home.... The glossy view of history has now prompted more than 500 scholars, veterans and activists -- including the civil rights leader Julian Bond; Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers; Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan; and Peter Yarrow of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary -- to join [Tom] Hayden in demanding the ability to correct the Pentagon's version of history and a place for the old antiwar activists in the anniversary events."
Marie's Sports Report
Ken Belson of the New York Times: "N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell did not lie. That was the message that Jeff Pash, the league's general counsel, relayed to team executives Friday after an arbitrator overturned the indefinite suspension of Ray Rice, the onetime Baltimore Ravens running back who was caught on video knocking out his fiancée in a hotel elevator. On Friday, Barbara S. Jones, a former federal judge who heard Rice's appeal of his suspension, ruled that Rice had not misled Goodell about his confrontation with his fiancée, Janay Palmer, who is now his wife." CW: Um, I guess Goodell just "misunderstood" Rice. Maybe he doesn't know what "I punched her" means. I don't know.
Lindsey Bever of the Washington Post: Kosta Karageorge, an Ohio State wrestler & football player, apparently killed himself, likely as a result of concussions he suffered.
Dan Good of ABC News: "The St. Louis Police Officers Association was 'profoundly disappointed' after players with the Rams entered the field Sunday with their arms raised, showing support for nearby Ferguson, the association said in a statement. Players Jared Cook, Kenny Britt, Stedman Bailey, Chris Givens and Tavon Austin stopped near the tunnel and raised their hands during introductions Sunday, acknowledging the fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. A grand jury declined to indict Wilson in the shooting one week ago.... Despite that intention, the St. Louis Police Officers Association released a statement Sunday night decrying the players' display. 'The SLPOA is calling for the players involved to be disciplined and for the Rams and the NFL to deliver a very public apology,' the statement read in part." ...
... CW: I wish there had been more than five players joining in the protest.
Beyond the Beltway
Paige Cunningham of Politico: "... the GOP victories in the statehouses and governor's mansions ... are priming the ground for another round of legal restrictions on abortion."
White Supremacists Explain Ferguson:
(1) Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "... former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said on Sunday that the black community is more responsible for the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police than the officers themselves."
(2) Heather of Crooks & Liars: Rich Lowry of National Review: "If you look at the most credible evidence, the lessons are really basic. Don't rob a convenience store. Don't fight a policeman when he's stopped you and try to take his gun and when he yells at you to stop with is gun drawn, just stop and none of this would have happened."
(3) Manny Fernandez & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "... the Oath Keepers ... who are sometimes described as a citizen militia -- but do not call themselves that [have taken up armed positions on rooftops [in Ferguson] on recent nights.... But on Saturday, with the county police said to be threatening the Oath Keepers with arrest, the volunteers decided to abandon their posts and instead protest against the authorities." Sam Andrews, who organized the Oath Keepers in Ferguson, says, "... we have a moral obligation to protect the weakest among us. When we see these violent people, these arsonists and anarchists, attacking, it just pokes at you in a deep place." ...
... A Better Explanation:
Wilson's answer [to the Ferguson police department's 'relationship with the residents'] is an excuse. An excuse for the failure to protect victims in that neighborhood. An excuse for not providing the same level of services and respect and protection that other communities receive. And he does it through guilt by association. He conflates the community and the residents with so-called gangs. And once he does that it's as if we're being told that his excuse for not treating Michael Brown as a child and a resident and someone who he is paid by the taxpayers to protect and care for instead that he's entitled to conflate Michael Brown because of the color of his skin and the neighborhood in which he lives with known criminals. In our system of criminal justice, you're supposed to be innocent until you're proven guilty.... The idea that Wilson wouldn't even consider Michael Brown to be one of his charges and one of his constituents and instead immediately associate him with criminals goes to the heart of why we see incidents like this occur. -- Alexandra Natapoff, Loyola Law School
Irresponsible Father-to-Be Walks Off Job, Loses Severance. Alan Zagier & Jim Salter of the AP: "The mayor of Ferguson, Missouri, says police Officer Darren Wilson will not receive a severance package as part of his resignation from the police force."
AP: "The Republican party county chair who came under fire for comments about Muslims on his Facebook page has resigned. Big Stone County [Minnesota] GOP Chair Jack Whitley called Muslims 'parasites' and wrote 'FRAG 'EM!' when they travel to Mecca.... Those comments were condemned by Muslim community leaders and [Minnesota] GOP party Chairman Keith Downey. Whitley told the Associated Press Friday he had no plans to resign but was asked to do so by other board members. His resignation was effective Friday. Whitley was also fired from his hardware store job in Ortonville."
Frank Rich interviews Chris Rock about everything.
Presidential Election
CW: As Kate M. & I Always Say.... Paul Waldman: "Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, there is probably no single issue you ought to be more concerned about in the 2016 campaign than what the court will look like after the next president gets the opportunity to make an appointment or two. The implications are enormous."
No Clinton. No Bush. We Can Dream. Steve Rose in the Kansas City Star: "Charlie Cook, one of the most respected political experts in the country, believes Hillary Clinton has only a 25-30 percent chance of running for president, and in any case he thinks she is either 'rusty' or 'she has lost her fastball.' He bases that on her disastrous book tour, in which she said some very inappropriate things and also did not sell many books. The author of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report newsletter for almost 30 years also disappointed a local audience when he did not give Jeb Bush much of a chance of gaining the Republican nomination." ...
... Update. Wake-up Call. Steve Yaccino of Bloomberg Politics: "Columnist Steve Rose did not specify exactly when or where the private vent took place, but said Cook knew he was in attendance and that the statements were on the record. But Cook, who could not be reached by phone or e-mail for comment, took to Twitter and denied making the claim."
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Larry McQuilliams had 'let me die' written in marker across his chest when he fired more than 100 rounds in downtown Austin[, Texas,] early Friday morning. McQuilliams, who Austin Police officials called a 'homegrown American extremist' with ties to a Christian identity hate group, was shot dead on Friday by a police officer outside the department's headquarters. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo told reporters on Monday that officers who searched the gunman's home found a map with 34 targets, including two churches. McQuilliams had fired bullets into Austin police headquarters, a federal courthouse and the Mexican consulate in downtown Austin on Friday. He also tried to set the Mexican consulate building on fire." ...
... Washington Post: "Police in West Virginia said on Monday night that the suspect in a series of fatal shootings has been found dead. The body of Jody Lee Hunt, a 39-year-old man from Westover, W.V., was discovered in his truck, hours after a shooting spree left four people dead and prompted police to launch a manhunt."
New York Times: "Pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong suffered a setback on Monday, when their attempt overnight to besiege government offices collapsed and the police thrust into the protesters' biggest street camp. The reversal came after a night of seesaw clashes in the political heart of the city, ending weeks of anxious calm at the protesters' main street camp...."
New York Times: Officials in Eastern European countries believe Russia & its state-controlled energy behemoth Gazprom are behind anti-fracking protests.
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