The Commentariat -- Feb. 24, 2013

New York Times Editors: "... a focus on mass murder, while critical, does not get at the broader issue of gun violence, including the hundreds of single-victim murders, suicides, nonfatal shootings and other gun crimes.... Focusing on the mentally ill, most of whom are not violent, overlooks people who are at demonstrably increased risk of committing violent crimes but are not barred by federal law from buying and having guns. These would include people who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors including assaults, and those who are alcohol abusers. Unless guns are also kept from these high-risk people, preventable gun violence will continue."

Mark Felsenthal of Reuters: "The White House has moved to make the results of federally funded research available to the public for free within a year, bowing to public pressure for unfettered access to scholarly articles and other materials produced at taxpayers' expense. 'Americans should have easy access to the results of research they help support,' John Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote on the White House website.... The White House move ... came some six weeks after the suicide of Internet openness activist Aaron Swartz, who was renowned for making a trove of information freely available to the public." Here's Holdren's response to a We the People petition. Here's a pdf of his memo on the subject to department & agency heads.

On a week when the White House called out David Brooks for making up stuff, Margaret Sullivan -- the Times' public editor -- writes on how much editing the Times' "star columnists" get. Let me just say that Sullivan was about as informative as Brooks, whose major boo-boo she didn't even hint at. What a bore! ...

... On the other hand, Paul Krugman writes today, apropos of absolutely nothing,

Suppose that some pundit who has spent his whole career calling for bipartisanship, a compromise between the extremes of left and right, were to admit the plain fact that Obama is very much a centrist, who is in particular proposing deficit reduction through exactly the kind of mix of tax hikes and spending cuts 'centrist' pundits demand -- and that the GOP, by contrast, is an extremist organization whose extremism is almost solely responsible for the bitterness of the partisan divide. A pundit making that admission would in effect be saying that everything he has said and done for the past several years was not just useless but harmful, actively misleading readers about the state of the debate. He just can't do it. ...

    ... Whoevah could he mean, Tom Friedman, David Brooks?

"Our Kind of Guy." Wherein Krugman Compares Alan Simpson to Bernie Madoff: "Simpson is, demonstrably, grossly ignorant on precisely the subjects on which he is treated as a guru, not understanding the finances of Social Security, the truth about life expectancy, and much more. He is also a reliably terrible forecaster, having predicted an imminent fiscal crisis -- within two years -- um, two years ago. Yet he remains not only respectable among the Beltway crowd; as Ezra says, he's lionized in a way that looks from the outside like a clear violation of journalistic norms.... And think about what it says about them that their kind of guy is this cantankerous, potty-mouthed individual, who evidently feels not a bit of empathy for those less fortunate."

Steve Peoples & Ken Thomas of the AP: "Governors from both parties are warning of the damaging economic impact if the White House and Congress fail to reach a deal to stave off across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect Friday."

One thing I didn't notice in reading Bob Woodward's "It's Obama's Fault" column -- linked yesterday -- is that Woodward also claims that "when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts." As Brian Beutler says more nicely, Woodward is an ignoramus: "Obama and Democrats have always insisted that a balanced mix of spending cuts and higher taxes replace sequestration. It's true that John Boehner wouldn't agree to include new taxes in the enforcement mechanism itself, and thus that the enforcement mechanism he and Obama settled upon -- sequestration -- is composed exclusively of spending cuts." Get that? The sequester, as written, in Boehner's baby. And, to reiterate, the only reason there ever was a sequester in the first place was that Boehner couldn't herd his cats -- the ones who were threatening to default on the nation's debt & cause worldwide chaos. ...

... Joe Wiesenthal, a Republican like Woodward, of Business Insider, calls Woodward's column "nonsense on stilts." BTW, he says, "the sequester was a great idea compared to a 2011 default." ...

... Update: Jackie Calmes of the New York Times has a fairly balanced report on the finger-pointing.

Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog has a summary of the government's brief in the DOMA case -- U.S. v. Windsor. If the Court buys the government's argument -- ha ha -- "some observers" say "not one of the state denials of marriage to same-sex couples can survive constitutionally. Such denials have come in thirty-nine states." ...

... Joan Biskupic of Reuters on the voting rights challenge before the Supreme Court. Conservatives on the Court are likely to gut the Voting Rights Act. CW: all this would be moot if U.S. citizens had a Constitutional right to vote. We don't. ...

... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) was one of the earliest supporters of rigging the Electoral College.... Republican state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi was one of the leading supporters of election-rigging the and late this week, he -- along with a dozen other co-sponsors -- introduced a new plan to rig the Electoral College votes in ... Pennsylvania" making it effectively impossible for a Democratic presidential candidate to win the state, even though Pennsylvania has voted for the Democrat in every election since 1992.

Aviva Shen of Think Progress: "Though the Senate passed another bipartisan VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] reauthorization over a week ago, House Republicans may derail passage once again. On Friday, House GOP leaders released their own VAWA bill, stripping protections for LGBT individuals and adding a loophole for Native American victims." CW: Read the update. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is exactly right. And I would add, House Republicans are cruel SOBs.

** Tabassum Zakaria of the AP: "Former American diplomat Thomas Pickering said what struck him most during a review of last year's attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, were the frequent personnel changes, second-guessing on security upgrades, and dismissive attitude toward dozens of security incidents."

It takes Maureen Dowd a long time to get to it, but at the end of her description of Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg's "cause," Dowd writes, "Sandberg may mean well, and she may be setting up a run for national office. But she doesn't understand the difference between a social movement and a social network marketing campaign. Just because digital technology makes connecting possible doesn't mean you're actually reaching people.... Sandberg has co-opted the vocabulary and romance of a social movement not to sell a cause, but herself. She says she's using marketing for the purpose of social idealism. But she's actually using social idealism for the purpose of marketing."

Best First Lady Ever!

Ali Soufan in a New York Times op-ed: "I watched 'Zero Dark Thirty' not as a former F.B.I. special agent who spent a decade chasing, interrogating and prosecuting top members of Al Qaeda but as someone who enjoys Hollywood movies. As a movie, I enjoyed it. As history, it's bunk.... The creators of 'Zero Dark Thirty' attempted to document the greatest global manhunt of our generation. But they did so without acknowledging that their 'history' was based on dubious sources. The filmmakers took the 'firsthand accounts' of a few current and former officials with an agenda and amplified their message worldwide -- suggesting to Americans in cinemas around the country, and regimes overseas, that torture is effective and helped lead to Bin Laden." CW: if you wonder why I didn't put Soufan's essay in Infotainment, read it.

Here's the Time article on medical bills by Steven Brill which contributor Calyban recommends. None of it is news to anyone who has ever read her/his hospital and doctor bills, but far down the story Brill does make a good case for lowering, not raising, the Medicare eligibility age. Contributor Janice's pithy observation on this topic is exactly right.

Local News

Okay, So Lex Luthor, True to Form. National Memo: Rick "'Scott's hospital company, Columbia/HCA, pleaded guilty to criminal charges and paid a total of $1.7 billion in fines related to Medicare fraud,' according to PolitiFact. 'Even though Scott had resigned by the time the case settled, prosecutors said the widespread fraud occurred while he was at the helm.'This history would make many reluctant to let Scott anywhere near taxpayer money. However..., Florida will be allowed to privatize its Medicaid program that currently covers about three million residents. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agreed to this even though Scott and Florida's GOP had already been experimenting with Medicaid privatization to disastrous results. Nearly half of the 200,000 residents signed up to the program had been dropped by the private provider because they didn't offer a big enough profit margin." Thanks to Barbarossa for the link.

Ian Millhiser: "A bill introduced by Montana state Rep. Steve Lavin would give corporations the right to vote in municipal elections.... This bill was tabled shortly after it came before a legislative committee, so it is unlikely to become law.... According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Lavin was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) now defunct Public Safety and Elections Task Force. Last year, pressure from progressive groups forced ALEC to disband this task force, which, among other things, pushed voter suppression laws." CW: wonder if Lavin's bill included a special carve-out to suppress the vote of minority-own corporations. Thanks to James S. for the link.

News Ledes

AP: "Raul Castro announced Sunday that he will step down as Cuba's president in 2018 following a final five-year term, for the first time putting a date on the end of the Castro era. He tapped rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel as his top lieutenant and first in the line of succession." CW: or they could have an election?

New York Times: "The Afghan government on Sunday banned elite American forces from operating in a strategic province adjoining Kabul, citing complaints that Afghans working for American Special Forces have killed and tortured villagers in the area."

AP: "At least 33 fans were injured Saturday during a NASCAR race when a car flew into the fence at Daytona International Speedway, hurling a tire and large pieces of debris into the stands."

AP: "Police are seeking a 26-year-old man as the prime suspect in last week's pre-dawn shooting and crash on the Las Vegas Strip that killed three people and injured several others The black SUV used as a getaway car was found Saturday as police named Ammar Harris in connection with the shooting and six-vehicle chain-reaction carnage Thursday on the neon-lit boulevard near the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Bally's and Flamingo resorts." Story includes a mugshot of Harris.

Reuters: "The United States condemned a Syrian army Scud missile attack that killed dozens of people on Friday in the city of Aleppo, and invited the Syrian opposition for talks on finding a negotiated settlement to the conflict."

Reuters: "Italians voted on Sunday in one of the most closely watched and unpredictable elections in years, with pent-up fury over a discredited elite adding to concern it may not produce a government strong enough to lead Italy out of an economic slump."

Reuters: "Cypriots voted on Sunday in a runoff to elect a president who must clinch a bailout deal before the island nation plunges into a financial meltdown that would revive the euro zone debt crisis."

Reuters: "Pope Benedict, speaking in his last Sunday address before becoming the first pope in some six centuries to step down, said he was following God's wishes and that he was not abandoning the Roman Catholic Church." ...

... Butt Out, Mahony. Reuters: "Roman Catholic activists on Saturday petitioned a U.S. cardinal to recuse himself from taking part in selecting a new pope so as not to insult survivors of sexual abuse by priests committed while he was archbishop of Los Angeles. The activists delivered a petition with nearly 10,000 signatures to the North Hollywood church where Cardinal Roger Mahony resides."

AP: Carl Pistorius, "the brother of Olympic star Oscar Pistorius, is facing a culpable homicide charge for a 2008 road death, compounding problems for the family after the double-amputee runner was charged with premeditated murder in the Feb. 14 shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 23, 2013

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... Here's the transcript.

Since everyone, including the White House, was dissing David Brooks today, I thought I might as well pile on. My New York Times eXaminer column is here. ...

... MEANWHILE, Ed Kilgore takes on Peggy Noonan, which he admits is as easy as "shooting magic dolphins in a barrel." His whole post is funny. Here's the heart of it:

Allow yourself a few minutes of chuckling over the spectacle of Peggy Noonan wandering around a Walmart -- something she apparently does every few years to get in touch with the peasantry -- and focus on what she's saying here. Fiscal uncertainty has made the scene at Walmart 'tired' and 'frayed.'

Now there's a much less ethereal explanation for Walmart's troubles: the payroll tax increase that Republicans accepted without a peep on January 1 took a bite out of purchasing power, aside from the fact that Walmart shoppers tend to be folk struggling to get along. The overall phenomenon is called 'sluggish consumer demand,' which means low-to-moderate income families don't have enough money. That's a slightly more tangible and immediate problem than any emotional or spiritual crisis Walmart customers might experience from reflections on the failure of Barack Obama to reach out to Republicans for long-term federal spending cuts, which is what Noonan talks about in the remainder of her column.

Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker speaks with George Packer & James Surowiecki about income inequality, wage stagnation & the sequester:

Jonathan Weisman & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama privately told Democratic governors that his public campaign against Republicans was not producing results.... In a session at the White House complex, the president and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. tried to enlist the Democratic governors to reach out to their Republican counterparts at a National Governors Association meeting this weekend to push Congressional leaders to the table.... On Friday, Republicans remained adamant that they would accept no tax increases to head off the cuts." ...

... Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "States are increasingly alarmed that they could become collateral damage in Washington's latest fiscal battle, fearing that the impasse could saddle them with across-the-board spending cuts that threaten to slow their fragile recoveries or thrust them back into recession." CW: here's a place where "uncertainty" actually is a factor; there's a certain irony, of course, that some of the states that will be hardest hit by the sequester cuts are those that vote Tea Party & hate President Socialist. ...

... Keith Laing of The Hill: "Airline passengers will face major delays if Congress allows across-the-board cuts to the budgets of agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned Friday. LaHood, speaking to reporters at Friday's White House press briefing, predicted chaos at the nation's busiest airports because thousands of FAA employees -- including air traffic controllers -- will be furloughed to save money. 'This is very painful for us because it involves our employees, but it's going to be very painful for the flying public,' LaHood said." ...

... Matthew Wald of the New York Times: "Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has told Congress that most of the Federal Aviation Administration's 47,000 employees would face a day of furlough per two-week pay period, meaning on average about 10 percent fewer workers on any given day.... To handle such a major staff shortage but still maintain safety, federal aviation officials said they would accept fewer airplanes into the system.... As a result, passengers may sit on tarmacs and endure delays as they wait for planes to push back from the gate.As a result, passengers may sit on tarmacs and endure delays as they wait for planes to push back from the gate." ...

... Stan Collender of Capital Gains & Games: "The Obama White House ... clearly is not reluctant in the slightest about making it clear that flights will be canceled or seriously delayed ... or both if the sequester happens.... This is why I keep saying that the politics of the sequester will change almost immediately after it starts. Slowdowns at U.S... airports, national parks closed one day a week, slower-than-usual tax refunds -- all of which are likely to happen starting on March 1 -- almost change how voters view the situation and the pressure on members of Congress to deal with it."

... Tracie Cone of the AP: "As America's financial clock ticks toward forced spending cuts to countless government agencies, The Associated Press has obtained a National Park Service memo that compiles a list of potential effects at the nation's most beautiful and historic places just as spring vacation season begins.... In Yosemite National Park in California, for example, park administrators fear that less frequent trash pickup would potentially attract bears into campgrounds." ...

... Gail Collins explains the sequester to dummies. Actually, her dummy sounds pretty smart. It's the answers that are dumb, dumb because the Congressional decisions she is describing are dumb. ...

... Wherein Bob Woodward Tries to Cover His Ass by Covering up an Inconvenient Fact. In today's Washington Post, Woodward writes a longish piece "proving" that the sequester was Obama's idea. Key points:

My extensive reporting for my book 'The Price of Politics' shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of [Jack] Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors.... Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011.... Key Republican staffers said they didn't even initially know what a sequester was....

     ... Well, maybe you're right, Bob. But then how is it that just 4 days later -- July 31 -- Boehner distributed a PowerPoint presentation, developed with the Republican Policy Committee, in which "it's clear as day in the presentation that 'sequestration' was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending"? According to Lew's account, the sequestration idea was based on a 1984 Graham-Rudman plan, but Boehner's Power Point presentation says sequestration is the "same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement." Moreover, Lew says he wasn't "pushing" it. It seems that both Boehner's & Obama's teams were trying to come up with a way to kick the can down the road -- on account of Boehner's inability to get his Tea Party members behind anything -- & they both hit on sequestration. Since the Tea Party caucus was Boehner's problem, Boehner "pushed" sequestration. (Boehner's office has since told Newsweek that his Power Point slide "was simply Boehner's attempt to explain the president's plan to the Republican caucus.") Woodward never mentions the Power Point presentation. Get over it, Bob.

Lawrence Hurley of Reuters: "The Obama administration outlined its argument on Friday why the U.S. Supreme Court should strike down a federal law that defines marriage as between a man and woman. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli filed a brief with the court saying that section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, expanding on the administration's approach to the controversial 1996 law, which it has formally opposed since February 2011."

Friday Afternoon News Dump -- Drones R Us. Eric Schmitt & Mark Sayare of the New York Times: "Opening a new front in the drone wars against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, President Obama announced on Friday that about 100 American troops had been sent to Niger in West Africa to help set up a new base from which unarmed Predator aircraft would conduct surveillance in the region."

Tara Bernard of the New York Times: "... when it comes to paid parental leave, the United States is among the least generous in the world, ranking down with the handful of countries that don't offer any paid leave at all, among them Liberia, Suriname and Papua New Guinea. The American situation hasn't materially improved since the landmark Family and Medical Leave Act was signed into law 20 years ago this month by President Clinton.... While the United States takes great pride in its family values, it is the only high-income country that does not offer a paid leave program.... The National Partnership for Women and Families..., together with the Center for American Progress, has been working with lawmakers to draft legislation that would provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave for the arrival of a new child or for a parent's serious illness or that of a family member. The costs would be split between workers and their employers...."

"I Have Here in My Pocket...." Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: "Two and a half years ago, [Ted] Cruz gave a stem-winder of a speech at a Fourth of July weekend political rally in Austin, Texas, in which he accused the Harvard Law School of harboring a dozen Communists on its faculty when he studied there.... Cruz made the accusation ... at a conference ... sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit political organization founded and funded in part by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. Cruz ... soon launched an impassioned attack on President Obama, whom he described as 'the most radical' President 'ever to occupy the Oval Office.' Charles Fried, who taught Cruz at Harvard Law & "who served as Ronald Reagan's Solicitor General from 1985 to 1989," disputes all of Cruz's claims about the school." ...

... Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches: "Cruz's communist conspiracy theories pre-date his Tea Party associations; in 2009..., Cruz made the same accusation about Obama and Harvard" to Christian conservative professor & publisher Marvin Olansky. "In the WORLD interview, Cruz took care to point out that he 'was raised a Christian and came to Christ at Clay Road Baptist Church in Houston.'"

John Hooper of the Guardian: "A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom -- the report said -- were being blackmailed by outsiders. The pope's spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report, which was carried by the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica." CW: Thanks to contributor Patrick Barbarossa for the link. (Oops Update: thanks to Patrick for "being there.") La Repubblica is probably the major Italian daily. I'm not saying La Repubblica is right, but I am saying it is not a sensationalist newspaper. In any event, it looks as if maybe Pope Noble the Resigner is not so Noble. ...

... Barbie Latza Nadeau of Newsweek : "The existence of a gay-priest network outside the fortified walls of Vatican City is hardly news, and many are wondering if it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of sex scandals." Sounds like something Ted Cruz would say. ...

... Nicole Winfield of the AP: "The Vatican lashed out Saturday at the media for what it said has been a run of defamatory and false reports before the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, saying they were an attempt to influence the election. Italian newspapers have been rife with unsourced reports in recent days about the contents of a secret dossier prepared for the pope by three cardinals who investigated the origins of the 2012 scandal over leaked Vatican documents. The reports have suggested the revelations in the dossier, given to Benedict in December, were a factor in his decision to resign. The pope himself has said merely that he doesn't have the 'strength of mind and body' to carry on."

News Ledes

Reuters: "New England braced for its third snowstorm in three weekends on Saturday, putting crews to work sanding roads and trimming trees ahead of the snow, sleet and freezing rain moving in from the Midwest. The storm blanketed states from Minnesota to Ohio earlier this week, dumping more than a foot of snow in Kansas on Thursday, forcing airports to cancel hundreds of flights and leaving motorists stranded on highways." ...

... BUT meteorologist David Epstein writes in the Boston Globe: "The bottom line is that the big storm isn't going to happen. What we will have is a period of rain and snow that could accumulate up to a few inches, especially across the Worcester hills between tonight and Sunday night."

Reuters: "Days before resuming talks over its disputed atomic program, Iran said on Saturday it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations. State news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) which said the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had trebled the amount outlined in previous estimates."

AP: Nobel laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, "a key opposition leader, called Saturday for a boycott of [Egypt's] upcoming parliamentary elections, saying he will not take part in a 'sham democracy.' President Mohammed Morsi's Islamist party, the Muslim Brotherhood, shot back that the opposition was running away from the challenge and wants power without contesting elections."

Spams a Lot, Etc.

I don't know what's going on with Reality Chex hosting. I complained to my host this morning about the fact that commenters are getting spammed all the time; more than a third of the comments today went to the spam file. So maybe the host is working on it -- which so far means readers are apparently getting scary messages like "This site will destroy your computer, or something." I just notifed my host about this, so we'll see what happens next. ...

... UPDATE. ONE PROBLEM SOLVED (I think). Two readers wrote to me yesterday indicating they had got a message something like the one below -- I think that is probably the one they got. My guess, based on what my host wrote, is that they tried to open Reality Chex in hypertext-secure = https, instead of in plain ole http. So if you get a message like the one below in opening this or any other site, check your URL:

In Internet Explorer, the message would look like this:

AND in Google Chrome, like this:

Those are the only browsers I have loaded; I would assume if you're using another browser, it would produce a similar message. I suspect you might get a similar message if you had your security set at the highest level, either internally or in a virus protection add-on program.

The spam problem continues. I've suggested to my host that I at least get a notification when the spam filter snags a comment, so I'll see if they'll do that.

In the meantime, if you submit a comment that doesn't go up immediately, you can e-mail me at this link & write "spammed" either in the title or text. If I'm around I'll de-spamify the comment right away. I'm checking the spam file much more often now that it's such a problem, but still.

Sorry for the glitches.