;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 8, 2012
Jonathan Weisman & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, striking a conciliatory tone..., said on Wednesday that he was ready to accept a budget deal that raises federal revenue as long as it is linked to an overhaul of entitlements and a reform of the tax code that closes loopholes, curtails or eliminates deductions and lowers income tax rates. Mr. Boehner's gesture was the most explicit offer he has made to avert the 'fiscal cliff' in January, when billions of dollars in tax increases and automatic spending cuts go into force. And it came hours after Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, offered his own olive branch, saying 'it's better to dance than to fight.'" ...
... CW: oh, for Pete's sake. Boehner isn't making a "conciliatory" move; they're positioning ploys. Boehner knows perfectly well the impending automatic expiration of the Bush tax cuts & the so-called "sequester" have him at a great disadvantage. This report by Wyatt Andrews of CBS News is more realistic:
... Gail Collins gets it right, and hilariously so: "by the end, it sounded as if the only cliff-avoidance Boehner was really interested in was one that raised new revenue through 'fewer loopholes, and lower rates for all.' We have already seen that plan. It was proposed by a man who, on Tuesday, lost the state in which he was born, the state in which he was governor, and the three states in which he owns houses.... The only candidate for president who lost his home state by a larger margin than Mitt Romney was John Frémont in 1856. And Frémont was coming out of a campaign in which the opposition accused him of being a cannibal." ...
... David Dayen: Democrats should sit tight & do nothing about the "fiscal cliff" this year but wait instead for the new, more liberal Congress to be seated. ...
... Bill Keller isn't as smart as Dayen, and he doesn't favor progressive fiscal policy, but he does see reason to hope the status quo -- which is what Americans voted for -- can still lead to change, especially if Obama has learned to schmooze and play hardball. ...
... New York Times Editors: "A newly energized Obama administration and Senate could have the effect of isolating the supply-side dead-enders in the House. John Boehner ... announced Wednesday that nothing had changed; he and his caucus still oppose higher tax rates for the rich and still want to pursue Mr. Romney's defeated goal of raising revenue by lowering rates and cutting unspecified loopholes.... The president's victory was decisive.... He now needs to use the power that voters have given to him to enhance and broaden his agenda."
Jon Chait of New York: "The [Republican] gamble was that by denying Obama any support, they would render his presidency wholly partisan at best, and a dysfunctional failure at worst. They would increase their own chances of denying him a second term, and that their return to power would allow them to claim a full and absolute break with the past. They shoved all their chips onto tonight's election. When the networks called it at 11:15 p.m., the totality of the right's failure was clear."
Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "To the extent that we are looking at a new Democratic governing majority, Obama didn't build that -- not by himself. He had a great deal of help from Republicans whose refusal to acknowledge a changing American electorate narrowed their political coalition. Because Republican intolerance played such a decisive role in the electorate that emerged Tuesday, it's hard to draw a broad conclusion about a long-term ideological shift in the United States, or to see Obama's coalition as a lasting one."
Jon Chait: "... the moderate wing [of the Republican party] won the nomination without winning an argument. Romney won essentially by default, and to the extent his pitiful opposition mounted any challenge, Romney positioned himself to their right. The moderates' best chance would have been to give the right wing the full run of the place for the cycle."
"The Defeat of the One Percent." Dana Milbank: "On election night in 2000, George W. Bush hosted an outdoor rally for thousands in Austin. In 2008, Barack Obama addressed a mass of humanity in Chicago's Grant Park. Then there was Romney's [election-night] fete -- for which reporters were charged $1,000 a seat. The very location set the candidate and his well-heeled supporters apart from the masses: The gleaming [Boston] convention center, built with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, is on a peninsula in the Boston harbor that was turned into an election-night fortress, with helicopters overhead, metal barricades and authorities searching vehicles." ...
... Nicholas Confessore & Jess Bidgood catch some of these same fatcats at the private air terminal of Boston's Logan Airport. "... on Wednesday, at least, the nation's megadonors returned home with lighter wallets and few victories." ...
... This report by Philip Rucker of the Washington Post on Willard's Wednesday was informative. Not surprisingly, those rich guys were pissed. Also, Romney told them he felt he would win. ...
... In fact, here are screenshots of his transition Website, now defunct. ...
... Julie Bykowicz & Alison Fitsgerald of Bloomberg News: "Rove, through his two political groups, American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, backed ... Mitt Romney with $127 million on more than 82,000 television spots.... Ten of the 12 Senate candidates and four of the nine House candidates they supported also lost their races.... The Election Day results showed Rove's strategy of bringing in huge donations from a few wealthy benefactors and spending that money almost completely on television advertising failed."
... CW: for anyone feeling really, really sorry for Sheldon Adelson & the Koch boys, et al., let me assure you that the Republican leadership in Washington & in the states will do their very best to give the biggest losers some very nice consolation prizes. ...
... John Judis of The New Republic: Democrats may have the majority of the electorate on their side, but Republicans have by far the better influence-peddling constituency.
This Pew Research report on the demographic makeup of the electorate is fascinating. For instance, "Fully 89% of Romney's [voters] were white non-Hispanics, compared with just 56% of Obama's supporters. Romney managed to better McCain's showing among whites by four percentage points -- and still lost the election."
** Adam Nagourney, et al., of the New York Times report on some of the deliberations & concerns that went on inside each presidential campaign.
Peter Beinart of Newsweek: "Four years ago, it looked possible that Barack Obama's election heralded a new era of Democratic dominance. Now it looks almost certain. In the early 20th century, the face of America changed, and only one party changed with it. In the early 21st century, that story has played itself out again. From the beginning, Obama has said he wants to be a transformational figure, a president who reshapes American politics for decades, another Reagan or FDR. He may just have achieved that Tuesday night." ...
... CW: one thing that is glaringly obvious -- Democrats need to get their "occasional voters" to come out for midterm elections. As long as Romney's 89-percenters are deciding midterm elections, Republicans will win. If you remember, Obama did almost no campaigning for Congressional candidates in 2010. Let's see if he does a better job in 2014.
How "the Rape Thing" Might Reform the Filibuster. Steve Benen: "It may seem hyperbolic, but the truth is, we'll have a more Democratic Senate because the GOP's far-right base elected unhinged and unelectable conservatives who said ridiculous things about rape." Sen. Claire McCaskill, "The year's most vulnerable Democratic incumbent, ended up winning by 16 points." With a more liberal Senate, "the likelihood of filibuster reform is real, and with Democrats expanding their majority, the party has a new motivation to help repair the dysfunctional chamber."
David Firestone of the New York Times fantasizes about how a more liberal Senate might actually lead to more liberal legislation that could be forced down the throats of the GOP House. CW: the only way to do this is to sell every single "big idea" to the public first. Teabagging Reps have to fear for their jobs before they'll reluctantly do the people's will.
Dan Friedman of the National Journal: "Maine Senate electee, Angus King, an independent former governor, looks likely to announce within weeks that he will caucus will Senate Democrats.... At a news conference Wednesday in Maine, King said he may make a decision on caucusing by the end of next week.... Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in his own news conference Wednesday, said he had 'several conversations in the last 24 hours' with King. Reid said he expected King would reach a decision soon."
Jay Weaver & David Ovalle of the Miami Herald: "... Miami-Dade County's ... beleaguered elections supervisor told reporters Wednesday night that her employees, still processing thousands of absentee ballots, won't finish until Thursday.... With the presidential race settled -- but Florida still too close to call -- Miami-Dade's lack of final results have left a much-mocked blank spot on the long-decided electoral map.... Obama won't lose the lead in Miami-Dade, where his campaign had a massive grass-roots operation. But how the final batch of ballots affects the overall number in Florida remains to be seen -- Obama leads by just over 46,000, according to the state election department's most recent numbers. The race could still be close enough to trigger a recount in Florida, unless it is waived by Romney...." ...
... Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times: "... in the end Obama probably will again win Florida, though his slim 237,000-vote margin in 2008 will be even slimmer, around 50,000 votes."
... Jon Stewart comments on, among other things, Florida's voter suppression campaign:
Separate but Equal, Still Legal. Benjy Sarlin of TPM: "A Hart Research study sponsored by the AFL-CIO found wait times were disproportionately longer for Democrats and Democratic-leaning demographics by huge margins in 2012. For example, 16 percent of Obama voters reporter lines longer than 30 minutes, versus just 9 percent of Romney voters.... An MIT survey of 10,000 voters in 2008 found that waits for African Americans were more than twice as long as those for white voters for both early and election day voting." CW: "Same difference," as we say in the South for Hispanics:
Paul Krugman: the attacks on pollsters by the outraged right only makes some kind of psychological sense if you consider that "the modern right-wing psyche ... is obsessed -- more than anything else -- with power.... They can't separate the two: they perceive anyone suggesting that maybe they aren't going to smash their opponents as a threat." ...
... ** Jon Stewart comments:
A Bad Day for Benjy. Jodi Rudoran of the New York Times: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "facing his own re-election fight on Jan. 22, did not directly acknowledge any missteps, but he rushed to repair the relationship [with President Obama]. He called the American ambassador to his office for a ceremonial hug. He issued a damage-control statement declaring the bond between the two nations 'rock solid.' He put out word to leaders of his Likud Party whose congratulatory messages had included criticism of Mr. Obama that they should stop."
@P. D. Pepe: because I can't see the difference between Charlie Rose & this:
News Ledes
New York Times: "Iranian warplanes fired at an unmanned American military surveillance drone in international airspace over the Persian Gulf last week, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday, saying that while the aircraft was not hit, Washington made a strong protest to Tehran. The shooting, which the Pentagon said occurred Nov. 1 ... was the first known instance of Iranian warplanes firing on an American surveillance drone. George Little, the top Pentagon spokesman, attributed the weeklong silence on the incident to restrictions on discussing classified surveillance missions. But it doubtless will raise questions about whether that silence had been meant to forestall an international controversy before the election."
New York Times: "With gas lines in New York City still stubbornly long and no relief for gas shortages in sight, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg imposed an odd-even gas rationing rule Thursday that goes into effect at 6 a.m. tomorrow. Identical rules are going into effect in Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island at 5 a.m. tomorrow."
ABC News: "Bradley Manning, the Army soldier accused of leaking more than a half million confidential U.S. documents to whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has offered to plead guilty to some charges during his ongoing pre-trial hearing. Pfc. Manning's civilian defense attorney, David Coombs, presented the plea in the preliminary hearing on Wednesday in Fort Meade, Md. No public copy of the plea offer is available yet."
AP: "The nor'easter that interrupted recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy pulled away from New York and New Jersey Thursday morning, leaving a blanket of thick, wet snow that snapped storm-weakened trees and downed power lines. Households from Brooklyn to storm-battered sections of the Jersey shore and Connecticut that had waited for days without power because of Sandy were plunged back into darkness in temperatures near freezing."
AP: Jared Lee Loughner, "the man who pleaded guilty in the Arizona shooting rampage, will be sentenced Thursday for the attack that left six people dead and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others." ...
... Arizona Republic Update: "U.S. District Judge Larry Burns on Thursday sentenced Tucson shooter Jared Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years, calling the sentence 'astronomical' and 'justified' because Loughner 'knew what he was doing' when he killed six and wounded 13 at a congressional event sponsored by then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. 'The facts show he traveled there with the purpose of shooting Ms. Giffords,' Burns said. Burns imposed the sentence after a long and dramatic hearing that included testimony from Loughner's victims." New York Times story here.
New York Times: "A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the man behind 'Innocence of Muslims,' the anti-Islam YouTube video that ignited bloody protests in the Muslim world, to one year in prison for violating parole."
New York Times: "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo< has dismissed [Steven Kuhr,] his chief of emergency management, after learning that he deployed government workers to clear a tree at his Long Island home during Hurricane Sandy."
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