The Commentariat -- November 18

The President Gets a Scolding, Scolds Back. Glenn Thrush of Politico: "After joining Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other Democratic congressional leaders at the White House this morning, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi told a closed-door meeting of House Democrats that she informed Obama 'our caucus feels strongly about the $250,000 tax cut threshhold ... and the president is very much aware of the Democratic caucus's position.' ... In turn, Obama told Reid ... that he is willing to let them pursue their own compromise ideas, provided they secure enough votes to pass.... Reid and Pelosi ... both pressed Obama ... to adopt a tough bargaining stance with the GOP and avoid the muddled messaging that has characterized some administration pronouncements. Obama ... responded by reminding the leaders that they bore the burden of passing any compromise." CW Note: this story has been modified & expanded. Also see Thrush story on the meeting linked in November 19 Commentariat.

President Obama on New START treaty:

     ... Here's a transcript of the President's remarks.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: some Democrats say the President must change strategies &, in the face of the same old Republican obstruction -- only more so -- rely more on his executive powers to get things done. ...

... Here's a Strategy Change. Josh Gerstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama took steps on Wednesday to force a Senate vote on legislation that would begin to dismantle the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy banning openly gay service members during the ongoing lame-duck legislative session, hosting a second White House strategy session with gay rights advocates and personally lobbying a key lawmaker who favors repeal of the ban." ...

... Maybe This Is Why. Sam Stein: "At a private meeting on Tuesday afternoon, George Soros, a longtime supporter of progressive causes, voiced blunt criticism of the Obama administration, going so far as to suggest that Democratic donors direct their support somewhere other than the president":

We have just lost this election, we need to draw a line. And if this president can't do what we need, it is time to start looking somewhere else. -- George Soros

Glenn Greenwald cuts through the hyper-rhetoric on the verdict in the Ahmed Ghailani terrorism "show trial." A jury convicted Ghailani "on one count of conspiracy to blow up a government building, a crime which entails a sentence of 20 years to life, but acquitted him on more than 280 charges of murder and conspiracy relating to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."

Mark Landler of the New York Times: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expects to play more of a role as lobbyist for American foreign policy "as the White House girds for a more hostile Congress bent on challenging or even blocking the Obama administration’s foreign policy agenda, whether arms control, the Middle East peace process, the war in Afghanistan or the tentative outreach to Cuba." ...

... Sen. Jon Kyl -- Friend of Rogue Nuclear Nations. New York Times Editorial Board: "After months of negotiations with the White House, [Kyl] has decided to try to block the lame-duck Senate from ratifying the New Start arms control treaty. The treaty is so central to this country’s national security, and the objections from Mr. Kyl — and apparently the whole Republican leadership — are so absurd that the only explanation is their limitless desire to deny President Obama any legislative success.... We can only hope that other senators in the party will decide that the nation’s security interests must trump political maneuvering."

Worse than a Banana Republic. Nicholas Kristof. "The top 1 percent of Americans owns 34 percent of America’s private net worth... The bottom 90 percent owns just 29 percent. That also means that the top 10 percent controls more than 70 percent of Americans’ total net worth."

CNN: "Only a third of all Americans think Bush-era tax cuts should be extended for families regardless of how much money they make, according to a new national poll." CW: and that one-third is stupid as shit.

Even with the help of what was presumably a pricey speechwriting team, [Sarah] Palin’s ignorance of monetary policy is difficult to repress. -- Noam Scheiber ...

... Noam Scheiber of The New Republic on the dangerous marriage of the rich & populists: "... the Tea Party is generating a formidable attack on the Fed’s monetary-policy prerogatives by fusing longstanding critics of easy money (the Pauls) with the people who just want to rail against elites." CW: Scheiber is talking principally about monetary policy, but this trend is more pervasive than that, as the midterm results illustrate.

Dear Mitch & John, If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk. You cannot enroll in the very kind of coverage that you want for yourselves, and then turn around and deny it to Americans who don't happen to be Members of Congress. Love, Four Liberal Democratic Congressmembers

Art from Oleg Volk.Jordy Yager of The Hill: John Pistole, "the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), offered on Wednesday to have airport screeners come to Capitol Hill to give senators a pat-down so they could fully understand the mechanics of the newly deployed, controversial technique.... Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has gotten a pat-down," as his Pistole. ...

... There is no evidence these new body scanners make us more secure. But there is evidence that former [Bush] Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff made money hawking these full body scanners.... These body scanners are a violation of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. -- Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas)

Amanda Terkel of the Huffington Post profiles the conservative Federalist Society. ...

... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In decisions on questions great and small, the [Supreme] Court often provides only limited or ambiguous guidance to lower courts. And it increasingly does so at enormous length."

Brian Stelter of the New York Times: Sen. Jay Rockefeller wants the FCC to "end" Fox News & MSNBC because they're not letting him conduct business-as-usual in the corridors of power. Stelter points out the FCC has little or no power over cable station content because cable doesn't use the public airwaves. CW translation: I'm a fucking Rockefeller & a U.S. Senator, I'm the creme de la creme, & these loudmouthed peons from Nowhere, U.S.A., are not showing proper respect. Surely the First Amendment doesn't apply to those people. Here's Sen. Superior now:

... Speaking of Really Rich Senators ... The Poor Get Poorer, and the Congress Gets Richer. Open Secrets: "Despite a stubbornly sour national economy congressional members’ personal wealth collectively increased by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to a new study by the Center for Responsive Politics of federal financial disclosures released earlier this year." The Center's full report begins here.

President Obama awards the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House:

President Obama drops by a meeting with leading equal pay advocates in the Roosevelt Room of the White House:

... in the United States Senate ... the Paycheck Fairness Act died when a vote to move the bill forward failed by just that count -- 58 to 41, two votes short of the 60 votes required.  It is the very same bill that passed in the House with bipartisan support in January 2009. Today, only Democratic senators voted to support Paycheck Fairness for women -- not a single Republican voted to allow the Senate to move forward. It is notable that the first vote after the election in which the American people sent a clear message that they want Washington to work better, the Republicans blocked a common sense measure aimed simply to help ensure that women get the pay they deserve. -- Valerie Jarrett

The Commentariat -- November 17

Sewell Chan of the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve, faced with more criticism than its leaders anticipated, stepped up its counteroffensive on Wednesday as leading Republican lawmakers continued to attack its plan to spur the recovery.... Ben S. Bernanke, met with 11 members of the Senate banking committee to explain the decision to inject $600 billion into the banking system.... In a speech on Wednesday, Eric S. Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston ... said the plan could reduce the unemployment rate by a little less than half a percentage point by the end of 2012." CW: Congressional Republicans refuse to do anything to create jobs; now they're criticizing the Fed for doing what it can to create jobs.

Robert Draper writes a feature piece on Sarah Palin & her inner circle for the New York Times Magazine.

Greg Sargent: "... from Richard Wolffe's new book on the Obama White House... The President seemed to acknowledge that in pursuing bipartisan support for health reform, he and Democrats got snookered by a previously-thought-out GOP strategy to delay the process for as long as possible.... If Obama believes this ... you have to wonder why he keeps heaping blame on himself for failing to change the tone in Washington."

Politico reports on Robert Gibbs' off-camera morning gaggle. Gibbs comments on (1) Ailes, (2) Kyl (see below) & the postponed meeting with the GOP (see below).

Steve Benen on Sen. Jon Kyl's inexplicable decision to pull the plug on ratification of the New START Treaty: "

Kyl wouldn't even give the White House the courtesy of a phone call to let them know he was betraying them and the nation's national security needs. Worse, the dimwitted Kyl, with the future of American foreign policy in his hands, couldn't even give a coherent rationale for why he'd made the decision -- his office would only say 'there doesn't appear to be enough time' in the lame-duck session. This is what happens when serious officials try to negotiate in good faith with Republicans -- they refuse to take 'yes' for an answer, they don't have intellectual capacity to explain why, and the entire country has to suffer the consequences.

       ... Here's the New York Times' backstory.

... Max Fisher of The Atlantic on how Kyl's craven move could weaken U.S. foreign policy: "If New START fails then heads of state ... and negotiators from around the world will ... think twice before making a difficult deal with the U.S. They will have to consider the possibility that any political sacrifices they make in the course of negotiating could very well be wasted." ...

... Greg Sargent Adam Serwer: "Voting on START means making a choice between indulging the reflexive hatred of the [Republican] base or acting in the U.S.'s basic national security interests. The decision shouldn't be hard."

Dana Milbank: "Responding to [complaints by] junior Democratic members..., Majority Leader Harry Reid ... has given broad new authority over Senate Democrats' floor strategy to Chuck Schumer, with an eye toward making it a more politically savvy operation. Schumer's ... ascension is an indication that the Democrats are preparing for two years of hard-nosed politics.... Expect to see a Clintonian focus on popular (though not pathbreaking) middle-class issues and regular votes designed to split and embarrass Senate Republicans. Schumer's rise should come as a warning to the White House, as well: With 23 of their seats on the ballot in 2012, Senate Democrats are going to start looking out for themselves rather than for the president."

Glenn Thrush of Politico: "The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama dominated a GOP meeting in Baltimore to deliver a humiliating rebuke of House Republicans." Earlier Politico story here. CW: basically, Republicans don't want to meet with President Obama because he showed them up. Nobody wants to look dumb, corrupt & hypocritical. Can you blame them for postponing while they try to dream up cover stories for their insupportable policies? ...

... Washington Post backstory: President "Obama had summoned congressional leaders from both parties for a gathering Thursday to ... focus on economic concerns, particularly the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 that are set to expire at year's end. But the White House said in a statement Tuesday night that the meeting had been rescheduled 'at the request of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner due to scheduling conflicts in organizing their caucuses.' The meeting will instead be held on Nov. 30, the White House said." Politico backstory here....

... Josh Marshall of TPM with the way it really happened: the Republicans invited the President to their caucus so they would have the home court advantage. "Only it didn't work out according to plan. The president came, talked, took questions.... The Republicans came off looking kind of stupid, unable to make their arguments when the president was there to point out the holes in their arguments."

In a popular New York Times op-ed, billionaire Warren Buffett thanks the federal government for saving Americans from "economic meltdown." He gives kudos to Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Sheila Bair & George W. Bush."

The New York Times Editorial Board on the tea party's "Earmarks Victory": "More transparency. Less corruption. And fewer bridges to nowhere. Those are all laudable goals to embrace. But they won’t fix the country’s economic problems. Representative Boehner, Senator McConnell and President Obama need to stop posturing and tell the voters their real plans for getting the economy growing again and then cutting the deficit." ...

... Isn't it great that the tea party, which by and large opposes the President, has unwittingly (and so much of what the tea party proposes is wit-free) forced Republican hypocrites to turn over their earmark pork to the Obama Administration? Thank you, Dick Armey & the Brothers Koch. Maybe the OED will add you as a footnote to their definition of 'Pyrrhic victory.' -- Constant Weader ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "... the renewed push against earmarks highlighted a potential conflict between the calls to eliminate the spending items and demands by many Tea Party supporters for greater fidelity to the Constitution. It is the Constitution, after all, that put Congress in charge of deciding how to spend the taxpayers’ money. In pledging not to let individual lawmakers designate federal money for local purposes, the anti-earmark contingent is in effect ceding more power to the executive branch over how taxpayer dollars are spent, presumably not the outcome desired by the new crop of grass-roots conservatives."

Stupidest. Plan. Ever. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: a deficit reduction plan, proposed by a bipartisan group headed up by former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) & Alice Rivlin, President Clinton's budget director, "calls for a one-year holiday from Social Security payroll taxes to encourage hiring and for a national sales tax to reduce deficits." Wait'll you read the details. CW: Paul Krugman, of all people, recently embraced the VAT tax, a regressive tax that will eat up a huge chunk of the incomes of the poor & lower-middle-class, while simply annoying the rich. Everything about this idea sucks. ...

     ... Domenici & Rivlin tout their plan in a Washington Post op-ed.

Washington Post: "Airline passengers who object to any type of physical screening are not going to fly anywhere, the head of the Transportation Security Administration told a congressional committee Tuesday." ...

... "See You Soon." Joel Johnson of Gizmodo: "At the heart of the controversy over 'body scanners' is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.... Fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique.... That we can see these images today almost guarantees that others will be seeing similar images in the future":

... Jane Hamsher on the new TSA "porno scanners" & "groping techniques," which "the Airline Pilots Association describes as 'sexual molestation'": "... constant threats of 'terror' are used to create new markets for products nobody needs. The public is then intimidated into compliance in the name of 'national security,' when in reality they’re sacrificing their dignity, their civil liberties and their tax dollars for the sake of enormous profits." Hamsher links to passenger John Tyner's site, which includes videos of his experience at San Diego International Airport. Tyner is now the subject of a TSA investigation; Hamsher is urging readers to petition Congress to investigate the TSA instead....

... The San Diego Tribune has more on Tyner's TSA encounter & the ensuing events. ...

... Digby writes, "Welcome to the Police State."

Tom Friedman congratulates CNN's Anderson Cooper on popping the $200 million/day Obama Asia trip myth perpetuated by Rep. Michele Bachmann, Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh & Glenn Beck:

When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, we have a problem. It becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues ... let alone act on them.... But the carnival barkers that so dominate our public debate today are not going away — and neither is the Internet. All you can hope is that more people will do what Cooper did — so when the next crazy lie races around the world, people’s first instinct will be to doubt it, not repeat it.

Drew Armstrong of Bloomberg: "Health insurers last year gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health-care overhaul law.... The expenditures reflect the insurers’ attempts to influence the bill after Democrats in Congress and the White House put more focus on regulation of the insurance industry."

Washington Post: "State attorneys general and the country's biggest lenders are negotiating to create a nationwide fund to compensate borrowers who can prove they lost their home in an improper foreclosure, state and industry officials said."

New York Times: "The first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court was acquitted on Wednesday of all but one of more than 280 charges of conspiracy and murder in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.... The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. He was acquitted of six counts of conspiracy, including conspiring to kill Americans and use weapons of mass destruction.... Mr. Ghailani faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison."

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "I read 'Decision Points,' and it turns out that [George W.] Bush is the Edith Piaf of fiscal policy: He regrets nothing." ...

... Even Sinatra had a few regrets:

Evidently the Palin family will not be cutting an anti-bullying video anytime soon. TMZ has caught 16-year-old Willow Palin repeatedly using homophobic slurs to discredit a fellow student who gave a bad review to "Sarah Palin's Alaska" on Facebook. According to TMZ, a "source close to the Palin family ... [said] it was the baby bear defending Mama Grizzly." Includes link to pdf of Facebook pages. CW: the real Sarah Palin's Alaska appears to be downright disgusting.

Forgot to post this yesterday. "Republicans miss the feel-good 90s when a universally respected President Clinton reigned over an eight-year bipartisan love fest" :

Tina Fey accepts the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (sorry, this really belongs in Infotainment, but I can't resize the video):

 ... Hollywood Reporter: here's the Sarah Palin joke PBS cut:

And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women - except, of course --those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape 'kit 'n' stuff, But for everybody else, it's a win-win. Unless you're a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years - whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know - actually, I take it back. The whole thing's a disaster. -- Tina Fey