The Commentariat -- Dec. 17, 2012

Brought forward from yesterday afternoon's Commentariat: "My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Praise the Lord & Pass the Ammunition," & is a critique of Ross Douthat's & David Brooks' responses to the Newtown massacre.

In the coming weeks, I'll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens -- from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators -- in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have? We can't accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? -- President Barack Obama, in Newtown, Connecticut Sunday evening. Full transcript here.

** Joseph Califano, in a Washington Post op-ed, urges President Obama to draw "from the experience of Lyndon B. Johnson -- the last president to aggressively fight for comprehensive gun control -- ... Demand action on comprehensive gun control immediately from this Congress or lose the opportunity during your presidency."

** Michael Moss & Ray Rivera of the New York Times: "... recent efforts by the [Newtown, Connecticut] police chief and other town leaders to gain some control over the shooting [in woodsy areas] and the weaponry turned into a tumultuous civic fight, with traditional hunters and discreet gun owners opposed by assault weapon enthusiasts, and a modest tolerance for bearing arms competing with the staunch views of a gun industry trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which has made Newtown its home."

Ann Flaherty of the AP: "Democrats say meaningful action in the wake of the school shootings in Connecticut must include a ban on military-style assault weapons and a look at how the nation deals with individuals suffering from serious mental illness. Several Democratic lawmakers and Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman said it was time to take a deeper look into the recent spate of mass shootings and what can be done to prevent them." ...

... AND How about This? Kevin Robillard of Politico: "West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin -- who has an 'A' rating from the NRA and is a lifetime member of the pro-gun rights group -- said Monday that it was time to 'move beyond rhetoric' on gun control. 'I just came with my family from deer hunting,' Manchin said on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.' 'I've never had more than three shells in a clip. Sometimes you don't get more than one shot anyway at a deer. It's common sense. It's time to move beyond rhetoric. We need to sit down and have a common-sense discussion and move in a reasonable way.' ... All 31 senators with an 'A' rating from the NRA declined to appear on Sunday's 'Meet the Press' to discuss gun control, according to host David Gregory." CW: apparently the nation's leading tough-guy he-men are not brave enough to stand up to D. Wussy Greggers without their firearms. Here's a Manchin 2010 campaign ad:

... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: (Dec. 16, at 9:54 pm ET) "New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, joining Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and other elected officials, called on Sunday for Congress to pass tougher gun laws in the wake of the Newtown shootings."

E. J. Dionne: "If Congress does not act this time, we can deem it as totally bought and paid for by the representatives of gun manufacturers, gun dealers and their very well-compensated apologists.... What, minimally, might 'meaningful action' look like? We should begin with: bans on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons; requiring background checks for all gun purchases; stricter laws to make sure that gun owners follow safety procedures; new steps to make it easier to trace guns used in crimes; and vastly ramped-up data collection and research on what works to prevent gun violence, both of which are regularly blocked by the gun lobby.... We must act now to curb gun violence, or we never will."

Michael Grunwald of Time doesn't think gun control legislation will pass with Republicans controlling the House & effectively controlling the Senate with their filibuster: "... politics is more than gaffes and memes. It's life and death. And if this massacre really is different, if Americans decide they really do want to do something about guns, they'll need to elect different politicians to Congress."

Let's Play "Ask a Philosopher." Firmin Debrabander in the New York Times: "... an armed society ... is the opposite of a civil society."

... Ben Armbruster of Think Progress: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) "suggested that had the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary been armed with assault rifles, they could have prevented Friday's massacre and saved lives.... Pressed by ["Fox 'News' Sunday"] host Chris Wallace on why ordinary citizens need semi automatic weapons that shoot 5 bullets per second, Gohmert said that any restrictions on fire arms could lead to the slippery slope of full prohibition and said that American amass weapons to protect themselves from the government." With video. ...

... Robert Parry on why "Republicans -- and particularly Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush -- hold primary responsibility for the kinds of horrors that have claimed innocent lives in places like Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Columbine, Virginia Tech and so many other locations whose names will long be associated with butchery."

This story, compiled by Josh Marshall of TPM, on Nancy Lanza's motives for stockpiling guns & ammo -- if the elements are true -- is pretty illuminating. What I found most revealing with the interview of the sister-in-law, which is in the embedded video. She appears to be comfortable with the survivalist thing & parrots the NRA talking points. It appears to me these people were reinforcing each other's fears, likely with a little assist from the National Geographic Channel. (No, I'm not kidding.)

According to NextGov.com, "A petition asking the White House to immediately press Congress for tighter restrictions on gun ownership became the most popular ever posted to the White House's We the People website after less than 48 hours online Sunday." CW: at 9 am ET today, the petition has 140,287 signatures. There should be more. If you haven't signed, please do so here.

Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John A. Boehner has offered to push any fight over the federal debt limit off for a year, a concession that would deprive Republicans of leverage in the budget battle but is breathing new life into stalled talks over the year-end 'fiscal cliff.' The offer came Friday, according to people in both parties familiar with the talks.... Boehner's offer signals that he expects a big deal with sufficient savings to meet his demand that any debt limit increase be paired dollar-for-dollar with spending cuts." ...

... Jonathan Weisman & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times (Dec. 16 at 3:52 pm ET): "Speaker John A. Boehner's latest offer to President Obama to allow tax rates to rise on incomes over $1 million has already changed the terms of negotiations to avert a fiscal crisis in January, and both sides on Sunday expressed new optimism that a deal could be reached this week." ...

A ONE TRILLION DOLLAR Deficit! Paul Krugman: "Federal debt was higher at the end of the Clinton years than at the beginning -- that is, the deficits of the Clinton administration's early years outweighed the surpluses at the end. Yet because gross domestic product rose over those eight years, the best measure of our debt position, the ratio of debt to G.D.P., fell dramatically, from 49 to 33 percent.... You should recognize all the hyped-up talk about the deficit for what it is: yet another disingenuous attempt to scare and bully the body politic into abandoning programs that shield both poor and middle-class Americans from harm."

Nicholas Confessore & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "Where the big-spending conservative groups active in this year's presidential race had little to show for their millions of dollars, the state efforts were strikingly successful. While Mr. Obama was winning onetime red states like Virginia and swing states like Michigan and Ohio, Republicans made large gains in state offices in many of the same battlegrounds. Starting next year, Republicans will have one-party control in almost half of the state capitals in the country."

CW: I'm pretty sure John Kerry would be great at posing with his hand on his nipple.A New Cabinet Just Like the Oldest Cabinet. David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Obama is leaning strongly toward naming John Kerry ... as secretary of state, according to administration officials and friends of Mr. Kerry. But the announcement will be delayed, at least until later this week and maybe beyond, because of the Connecticut school shooting and what one official called 'some discomfort' with the idea of Mr. Obama's announcing a national security team in which the top posts are almost exclusively held by white men."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, who went to Washington at the birth of his state in 1959, dominated public life in the Hawaiian islands for more than 50 years and became a quiet voice of national conscience during the Watergate scandal and the Iran-contra affair, died on Monday in Bethesda, Md. He was 88. A statement by his Washington office said he died of respiratory complications at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. His last words were 'Aloha,' the statement said." The Washington Post obituary is here. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser obit is here. President Obama's statement is here.

AP: "South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is announcing a replacement for U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint ... at noon Monday...." ...

     ... Update: "South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley picked U.S. Rep. Tim Scott to be the state's next U.S. senator Monday, making him the only black Republican in Congress and the South's first black Republican senator since Reconstruction."

Guardian: "A bomb dropped by a Syrian air force jet killed and wounded scores of Palestinians on Sunday in the largest refugee camp in Damascus, sending thousands of residents fleeing for other areas of the capital now besieged by civil war."

Guardian: "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has claimed victory in the first round of the country's bitterly divisive constitutional referendum, with opposition forces complaining of large-scale rigging and violations."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 16, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled "Praise the Lord & Pass the Ammunition," & is a critique of Ross Douthat's & David Brooks' responses to the Newtown massacre.

An SNL cold open like no other:

Byron Tau of Politico: "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- an outspoken advocate for stricter gun laws -- said Sunday that dealing with gun violence should be at the top of President Barack Obama's agenda.... 'If he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns. That is roughly the number of Americans killed in the whole Vietnam War,' Bloomberg told host David Gregory. Bloomberg said that Obama doesn't need Congress' cooperation of everything -- he can simply enforce current law."

** Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "After the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and others in early 2011, the Justice Department drew up a detailed list of steps the government could take to expand the background-check system in order to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of mentally ill people and criminals. Most of the proposals, though, were shelved at the department without action against the backdrop of the election campaign and the politically charged Congressional investigation into the Operation Fast and Furious gun trafficking case...." CW: I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't a big piece of what the Fast & Furious phony outrage was all about.

Nicholas Kristof: "What do we make of the contrast between heroic teachers who stand up to a gunman and craven, feckless politicians who won't stand up to the N.R.A.?" Thanks to contributor Calyban for the link.

Nate Cohn of The New Republic: "... even though the public might not overwhelmingly favor gun control, there's reason to believe that Democrats can again feel comfortable fighting for gun control after a decade of keeping it on the back-burner. After all, they're less reliant on rural, gun-owning voters than at any time in the history of the party.... Pro-gun voters are lost to Republicans, and probably for good.... Perhaps the tragedy in Newtown will prompt [Democrats to make] an overdue reassessment." ...

... ** David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "American gun deaths are unique in their inability to generate political action: no one seemed to care much about the politicization of the deaths at Pearl Harbor or the World Trade Center.... What actually drives the desperate need to own high-priced killing machines. There is a vast, festering paranoia in conservative circles about the 'looters' and 'parasites' coming to take their hard-earned material possessions in the supposed coming debt-fueled collapse of society. There is continual worry about some dark-skinned assailant attempting to enter their home and potentially steal their property.... What this functionally means is that we as a nation are openly allowing thousands of our children to die every year so that certain segments of the population can role-play racist murder fantasies." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the pro-gun fanatics are basically the kind of people who think that Obama is a Kenyan socialist atheistic Islamist, and the urban hordes are coming for their property any day now. People, in other words, who already vote 100 percent Republican -- and lose elections."

Patrick Keefe of the New Yorker suggests some gun control legislation that might pass Congress if the powers-that-be went against type & showed the tiniest bit of gumption.

CW: I won't be linking to many profiles of the killer & his victims. But here's one by Matt Flegenheimer & Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times on Nancy Lanza, Adam's mother & his first victim: "She was 'a big, big gun fan' who went target shooting with her children, according to friends. She enjoyed craft beers, jazz and landscaping. She was generous to strangers, but also high-strung, as if she were holding herself together."

In a comment on yesterday's Commentariat, contributor citizen625 wrote that on PBS's "News Hours," David Brooks said, "with a straight face," "Second, oddly -- and I'm not sure why -- I don't have any explanation for this -- support for gun control laws has dropped significantly over the last 20 years. I'm not sure why that is." I thought I must have misunderstood the comment. I didn't. You can check it out here at about 11 min. in. citizens625 writes, "The NRA has bought the media." That's the only plausible explanation for stunning Brooks' remark. ...

... citizens625 hit on the 2nd thing that moron Brooks said in the PBS discussion. Let's look at Brooks' first point, too: "First, gun ownership is way down." Really??? According to a report by Mark Follman of Mother Jones, assembled after the Aurora shootings, "... the increase in firearms has far outpaced population growth." Follman produces stats to back up his assertions. Brooks relies on data from Right Wing World's Fantastic Fact-Fucking Factory.

Cliff Notes

Thomas Ferraro & Steve Holland of Reuters: "President Barack Obama is not ready to accept a new offer from the Republican leader of the U.S. the House of Representatives to raise taxes on top earners in exchange for major cuts in entitlement programs, a source said late Saturday. The shape and details of Boehner's offer were uncertain Saturday night, as was the exact reason the president was prepared to reject it."

Teresa Tritch of the New York Times: "... Mr. Obama needs a [Treasury] secretary who will champion and execute an agenda in which the interests of Wall Street give way, at long last, to the public need for broad and shared prosperity.... The Treasury's main client would no longer be Wall Street..., [but] must be the low- and middle-income working Americans who last saw any real income gains in the 1990s; the 12 million Americans who can't find work; the 8.2 million who can find only part-time jobs; the 12 million borrowers who are underwater on their mortgages."

In Saturday's Ledes, I linked to a story which reports that Secretary of State Clinton sustained a concussion when she fell after fainting caused by dehydration brought on by stomach virus. As an afterthought, I wrote, "cue the conspiracy theorists." Aah, they're way ahead of me. ...

... Here's Ann Althouse, a right-wing law professor: "I'm sorry if she's really sick and that she hurt herself, but I do not accept her weaseling out of the Benghazi hearings.... I can only think of 2 reasons why her people would let us hear this story that she fainted, addled her pate, and can't face up to Congress on Benghazi: 1. She's not going to run for President, or 2. What she would have to say about Benghazi is more damaging than this effort to avoid testifying."

Jim Sterba in the Washington Post: to cut down on the whitetail deer population, we need to shoot some of them.

Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Packed into hand luggage and tucked into jacket pockets, roughly hewed bars of gold are being flown out of Kabul with increasing regularity, confounding Afghan and American officials who fear money launderers have found a new way to spirit funds from the country."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Japan's voters handed a landslide victory to the Liberal Democratic Party in national parliamentary elections on Sunday, giving power back to the conservative party that had governed Japan for decades until a historic defeat three years ago."

AP: "... details emerged suggesting that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre but was stopped short." ...

... AP: as some information about the Newtown, Connecticut killings becomes available, Sandy Hook school staff are being hailed for their acts of heroism. ...

... NBC News Connecticut: "President Barack Obama will attend an interfaith memorial service Sunday in Newtown and meet with victims' families and first responders. The vigil is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. at Newtown High School."

New York Times: "Millions of Egyptians voted peacefully on Saturday in a referendum on an Islamist-backed draft constitution, hoping that the results would end three weeks of violence, division and distrust between the Islamists and their opponents over the ground rules of Egypt's promised democracy."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 15, 2012

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... a reiteration of what he said yesterday, Obama includes the remark about "meaningful action ... regardless of politiics."

We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent tragedies like this, regardless of the politics. -- President Barack Obama, December 14, 2012

I think we have to be careful about new, suggesting new gun laws. -- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington), highest-ranking House Republican woman

We ask why there's violence in our schools but we've systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? -- Mike Huckabee

David Remnick of the New Yorker: "Obama told the nation that he reacted to the shootings in Newtown 'as a parent,' ... but what we need most is for him to act as a President, liberated at last from the constraints of elections and their dirty compromises -- a President who dares to change the national debate and the legislative agenda on guns."

Mark Landler & Erica Goode of the New York Times: so what is "meaningful action," Mr. President?

Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "A search of the 489 members of Congress on Twitter reveals just four members who even mentioned the word 'gun.' Virtually every lawmaker has put a statement on Twitter expressing their condolences, but only a tiny handful of Democratic House members have dared address the public policy question of how to prevent another tragedy like this."

Juan Cole: "questions I asked myself about the Connecticut school shooting."

Paul Waldman of American Prospect: "ten arguments gun advocates make, and why they're wrong."

Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress: "I really want someone who advocates against gun control to balance the scales for me, to go ahead and try to explain to me why the inconvenience suffered by gun owners and prospective gun owners under much tighter restrictions on the purchase of guns and ammunition outweighs the death of children in their classrooms...."

Gail Collins: "We have come to regard ourselves -- and the world has come to regard us -- as a country that's so gun happy that the right to traffic freely in the most obscene quantities of weapons is regarded as far more precious than an American's right to health care or a good education. We have to make ourselves better."

Natalie Jennings of the Washington Post: on "the White House's 'We the People' online petition site..., [this is now a] petition calling on the White House to 'Immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress.' ..." . The petition has more than 39,000 signatures as of 8:15 pm ET. You can sign here.

Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "On Thursday, one day before the tragedy in Connecticut where at least 29 people were killed at an elementary school, the Republican-controlled Michigan legislature passed a bill that would allow people to bring guns into schools." ...

     ... Melanie Dorsey of the Detroit Free Press has a follow-up, post-Newtown-massacre story, in which various legislators reiterate what a great idea the bill is & how "just one" armed teacher could have haved the children of Newtown. Dorsey reports that Gov. Right-to-Work Snyder hasn't decided whether he'll sign the bill.

Elspeth Reeve of the Atlantic: "The NRA is winning."

Lee Fang in the Nation: "Despite the grassroots façade, there is much evidence to suggest that corporations that profit from unregulated gun use are propping up the NRA's activities.... The Violence Policy Center has estimated that since 2005, gun manufacturers have contributed up to $38.9 million to the NRA.... And like other industry fronts, the NRA is quick to conceal its pro-gun industry policy positions as ideological commitments."

Paul Barrett of Business Week: "If I were running a school or a movie theater or a house of worship, I would hire the highest-quality licensed, armed security available. No Second Amendment issue there." CW: how to pay for additional security? Tax the hell out of guns & ammo. No Second Amendment issue there. We tax gasoline to pay for roads & plane tickets to pay the TSA. No reason not to tax gun owners to pay police.

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The Obama administration said Friday that more than half the states had rejected its pleas to set up their own health insurance exchanges, dealing a setback to President Obama's hopes that Republicans would join a White House campaign to provide health insurance to all Americans."

Cliff Notes

When Mitch McConnell Is the "Reasonable One." Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "A split developing between House Republican leaders and some Senate counterparts who are increasingly open to extending the expiring Bush-era tax cuts only for the middle class is adding to pressure on Speaker John A. Boehner to cut a deficit reduction deal with President Obama."

Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: AARP "angered many of its own last year when it opened the door for the first time to the possibility of accepting modest cuts in Social Security benefits. Chastened, AARP now appears to have veered back to a hard-line position of opposing any cutbacks in Medicare or Social Security and is seeking to keep those programs off the bargaining table altogether."

Right Wing World

Looking for something else, I came upon this citation from Jim DeMint, who is escaping from the Evil Empire:

America works -- freedom works -- when people have that internal gyroscope that comes from a belief in God and Biblical faith. Once we push that out, you no longer have the capacity to live as a free person without the external controls of an authoritarian government. I've said it often and I believe it -- the bigger government gets, the smaller God gets. As people become more dependent on government, less dependent on God. You cannot have a free society that way.

      ... Rick Hertzberg has an expanded quote. Hertzberg & I have slightly different interpretations of DeMint's worldview. But it's no wonder DeMint left the government because he sees it as the enemy of god. And it is certainly no wonder that he has done all he could to undermine government. DeMint is an object lesson in why governments fall from within.

News Ledes

Washington Post has published the names of the victims of the Newtown shooting here, with brief bios of or remarks about a few of them. The New York Times has the names on the front page at 8:00 pm ET. ...

... New York Times: "All of the children killed by the gunman during a massacre at a Connecticut elementary school were shot multiple times, the state chief medical examiner said Saturday.... The principal and the school psychologist were shot as they tried to tackle the gunman 'in order to protect her students,' the school superintendent said Saturday.... Adam Lanza, 20, had forced his way into the school, which had a security system requiring visitors to be buzzed in." ...

... AP: "As the world joined Americans in mourning the school massacre in Connecticut, many urged U.S. politicians to honor the 28 victims, especially the children, by pushing for stronger gun control laws. Twitter users and media personalities in the U.K. immediately invoked Dunblane -- a 1996 shooting in that small Scottish town which killed 16 children. That tragedy prompted a campaign that ultimately led to tighter gun controls effectively making it illegal to buy or possess a handgun in the U.K."

Chicago Sun-Times: "President Barack Obama has chosen Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to be the next secretary of state, a source has told Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed. His replacement as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be Sen. Robert Menendez...."

New York Times: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered a concussion early last week after fainting and striking her head, the State Department disclosed on Saturday.... Mrs. Clinton will not testify as scheduled before a Senate committee investigating the attack on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in September.... William J. Burns and Thomas R. Nides, both deputy secretaries of state, will testify in place of Mrs. Clinton." CW: cue the conspiracy theorists.

Here's the Hartford Courant story on the Newtown school killings. ...

... The New York Times "The Lede" is here. An official says the gunman's mother was neither a teacher at the school nor a substitute teacher.

New York Times: "Nelson Mandela, South Africa's ailing former president, had surgery to have gallstones removed on Saturday as he began his second week of hospitalization, the government said."