;)
Tuesday
Apr092013
The Commentariat -- April 10, 2013
It's cherry blossom time in Washington. What could possibly go wrong in such a beautiful setting?
Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "President Obama plans Wednesday to unveil a $3.77 trillion spending plan that proposes modest new investments in infrastructure and education, major new taxes for the wealthy and significant reforms aimed at reducing the cost of Social Security and Medicare.... The White House plans to make the full document available on its Web site at 11:15 a.m." ...
... Update: here it is. ...
... Josh Lederman of the AP: "Liberal lawmakers from both chambers of Congress and a coalition of like-minded groups rallied outside the White House on Tuesday, voicing frustration at the Democratic president they say has let them down by proposing cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Organizers from more than 15 groups stacked nine file boxes in front of the White House that they said contained more than 2 million signatures on petitions urging Obama to reverse course on cuts included in the budget he will unveil Wednesday. Many of the groups, including the AFL-CIO and the National Organization for Women, played an active role in fueling Obama's re-election last year." ...
... Dana Milbank: Obama loves to have liberals protest his budget; he thinks our ire strengthens his hand (CW: as I said last week.) Obama's budget "is perhaps the most brazen attempt at triangulation in the Democratic Party since Bill Clinton (whose adviser Dick Morris popularized the term) defied liberals on welfare reform."
Aaron Blake & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The Senate will hold the first key procedural vote on a bill to curb gun violence Thursday as more than a half-dozen Republicans announced that they will join with Democrats to stop any attempt to block popular legislation drafted in response to a deadly shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. The vote would formally start the the most wide-ranging and ambitious battle over gun control in 20 years." ...
... John Bresnahan & Reid Epstein of Politico: "Sen. Joe Manchin says he is on the verge of a bipartisan deal to expand background checks for gun sales, an agreement that could lead to the biggest change in U.S. gun laws in nearly 20 years." ...
... Update: "Sens. Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey will unveil a bipartisan deal to expand background checks for commercial gun sales at a news conference Wednesday morning. The agreement could give political cover for enough Republicans to vote Thursday and exceed the 60-vote requirement needed to allow the Senate to proceed to what would be an emotional floor debate on gun control legislation." ...
... Greg Sargent: "As of now, seven Republican Senators have now confirmed that they oppose the hard right bloc and will support moving to debate [on the gun safety bill]. They are: John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Tom Coburn, Johnny Isakson, Dean Heller, Kelly Ayotte, and Susan Collins. Collins also says she's encouraged by the emerging compromise being negotiated by Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey.... [MEANWHILE], Senator Max Baucus [ConservaDem-Montana] confirmed today that he has not made up his mind on whether to support allowing the gun proposals to go to a debate. In other words, he isn't preparing to rule out joining [the filibuster]...." ...
... Philip Rucker & Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post: "When she returns home [to Chicago] Wednesday to deliver a speech on gun violence, first lady Michelle Obama will be making a rare foray into the politics of the day that could presage a more activist role during her husband's second term."
Jeff Toobin, in the New Yorker: "The next Supreme Court confirmation hearing begins on Wednesday afternoon, April 10th. Technically, Sri Srinivasan is just a candidate for the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but few are misled. The stakes in this nomination are clear: if Srinivasan passes this test and wins confirmation, he’ll be on the Supreme Court before President Obama's term ends." ...
... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "With a coordination and an energy that echo a Supreme Court nomination fight, the Obama administration is pushing for the confirmation of [Sri Srinivasan,] a senior Justice Department lawyer, to the country's most prestigious appellate court. If the effort fails, it could lead to a confrontation with the Senate over the long-simmering issue of judicial nominees." ...
... Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "In a sign that President Obama's judicial nominees may be gaining momentum, the Senate voted 64 to 34 to seat Magistrate Judge Patty Shwartz on the 3rd Circuit on Tuesday. The vote -- which came 397 days after the Senate Judiciary Committee initially approved Shwartz's nomination -- came as the White House has stepped up efforts to install several of its nominees on the federal bench."
Micah Cohen of the New York Times: "The two most unpopular governors up for re-election in 2014 are Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, an independent, and Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, a Democrat. But the remaining eight governors with net negative job approval ratings are Republicans, including four who rode the Tea Party wave to power in blue and purple states in 2010 and now appear to be in some danger: Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Gov. Paul LePage of Maine and Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan." ...
... Get out Your Hankies. Nate Silver on the woes of Bobby Jindal. CW: Silver compares Jindal to Romney, who was also an unpopular governor. Silver does of course note that Romney was unpopular in a blue state, whereas Jindal is unpopular in a red state. But what Silver doesn't mention, when talking about conservatives' impressions of Jindal, is this -- they could consider it a plus that Taxachusetts libruls didn't like Romney, but how can it be anything but a negative if Jindal isn't popular in a conservative state? I believe I'll have my jam on Jindal toast.
Stroganoff for All. Maureen Dowd tries to weave a common thread among the lives of three women who died this week: Margaret Thatcher, Lilly Pulitzer & Annette Funicello. The CW verdict: utter failure. What they had in common was their sex. Period. Next question: would Dowd write a similar column about three unique men who died during the same week? I doubt it. There's a furtive girls-are-all-alike sexism here that I find even more grating than the overt sexism of Douglas Martin's obit of scientist Yvonne Brill. If you disagree, say so. I'd like to hear some defense of Dowd. I can't think of one.
How a Law Becomes a Mashed-Potato Sandwich. Haley Edwards of the Washington Monthly: "Barack Obama's biggest second-term challenge isn’t guns or immigration. It’s saving his biggest first-term achievements, like the Dodd-Frank law, from being dismembered by lobbyists and conservative jurists in the shadowy, Byzantine 'rule-making' process." This article is as long as a novella, but without the sex. I read the first of 10 pages, & the only sex I found is a reminder that Nino Scalia, who may or may not have one foot in the grave, will not go quietly into that good night; he has cloned himself 9 times over, the most prominent clone being Eugene Scalia, a lawyer for the Street who easily has his way with the conservative D.C. Circuit Court. (See Srinivasan above.) Via Charles Pierce. ...
... Pierce, meanwhile, has noticed what I remarked on last week: "It turns out there is a red America and a blue America. It turns out that there is a conservative America and a liberal America. It turns out that the things that divide us are stronger than the things that unite us." ...
... If you want to read a 10-page "news" story that surely does have sex (of a sort) in it, then Jonathan Van Meter's piece, which will appear in the New York Times Magazine this Sunday, on Anthony Weiner & Huma Abedin should fill the bill. I'll pass.
Robert Redford: "It is not in our nation's best interest to pipe tar sands across our fields and aquifers so that the oil industry can reach the higher prices of overseas markets. How many red flags do we need before we realize that the solution is to stop tar sands expansion and say no to tar sands pipelines?"
Congressional Races
Rick Pearson & Bill Ruthhart of the Chicago Tribune: "Democrat Robin Kelly claimed victory tonight in a low-turnout contest to decide the successor to former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in a 2nd Congressional District with a history of scandal-plagued representation. With 77 percent of precincts counted, the former state lawmaker had about 73 percent of the vote to about 19 percent for Republican Paul McKinley, an unemployed political activist and ex-convict."
Making a Federal Case of It. Sarah Wheaton of the New York Times: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was looking into allegations by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky that political opponents bugged his campaign headquarters.... 'They were bugging our headquarters, quite a Nixonian move,' Mr. McConnell said Tuesday at a news conference. ... Without revealing the source, [Mother Jones] said, 'It is our understanding that the tape was not the product of a Watergate-style bugging operation.' ... On Tuesday, the [McConnell] campaign solicited cash and volunteers to 'stand with Senator McConnell against illegal wiretapping.'" (See yesterday's Commentariat for background & commentary.) ...
... Steve Benen: "... the hysterical reaction isn't helping McConnell's case. The Republican senator's office initially blamed 'the Left' for 'bugging' McConnell's campaign headquarters. Then McConnell aides blamed Mother Jones magazine. Then Team McConnell blamed a local liberal group called ProgressKY. Then McConnell sent out a fundraising letter arguing that 'the liberal media' is responsible.... With Team McConnell pointing at a new culprit every hour or so, they're starting to sound a little unhinged.... There' no evidence that anyone ... bugged McConnell's office." ...
... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post has an interesting piece on U.S. law re: publishing illegally-obtained materials. Conclusion: "... the United States is an excellent place to practice journalism. Yes, reporters, you may accept clandestine recordings from law-breaking scumbags. Just don't help them do their work." ...
... Local News
Alaska GOP chair Debbie Brown. CW Note: if, like Brown, you are still sporting the same hairdo you had in 1972, consider an update.Things Are about Normal in Alaska Republican Party. Craig Medred of the Alaska Dispatch: "With the Alaska GOP set to meet Monday evening to decide the fate of party chairwoman Debbie Brown of Kasilof, she has seized the Republican headquarters in Anchorage and is threatening to arrest anyone who tries to enter the building." ...
... Charles Pierce: "There's going to be a lot more of this as those several states in which the devotees of Crazy Uncle Liberty (!) achieved enough actual political power to let their unique brand of sanctified paranoia run free.... Every stupid petty squabble is Lexington. Or Concord. It's a profound betrayal of the principles of freedom against which we must all man the barricades. Or, in this case, the place by the dump." ...
The Place by the Dump on Fireweed Lane and the Site of Brown's Last Stand. Courtesy of Google Earth, via Esquire commenter John Emery.
Bob McDonnell's Catering Caper. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has said his daughter and her husband paid for their own wedding. So a $15,000 check from a major campaign donor to pay for the food at the affair was a gift to the bride and groom and not to him and therefore did not have to be publicly disclosed under the law, the governor says. But documents obtained by The Washington Post show that McDonnell signed the catering contract, making him financially responsible for the 2011 event. The governor made handwritten notes to the caterer in the margins. In addition, the governor paid nearly $8,000 in deposits for the catering. When the combination of the governor's deposit and the gift from the donor resulted in an overpayment to the caterer, the refund check of more than $3,500 went to McDonnell's wife and not to his daughter, her husband or the donor."
Max Fisher of the Washington Post: "... when the popular Chinese Web portal Sina posted an eight-minute segment from the ['Daily] Show' discussing the latest North Korean provocations, it racked up an astounding 2.8 million views and counting, as well as tens of thousands of comments, many of them praising the show. That appears to make it one of the most-watched 'Daily Show' clips ever. It also raises questions about whether China's flagging support for North Korea might reflect popular sentiment as well as Beijing's own geopolitical calculus." Here's the segment, which aired last week:
News Ledes
New York Times: "A heavily armed man is dead after the police stormed his suburban Atlanta home to rescue four firefighters taken hostage when they responded to a 911 call for medical attention to the house on Wednesday, officials said at the scene in Suwanee, Ga." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution story is here.
New York Times: "Robert G. Edwards, who opened a new era in medicine when he joined a colleague in developing in vitro fertilization, enabling millions of infertile couples to bring children into the world and women to have babies even in menopause, died on Wednesday at his home near Cambridge, England. Dr. Edwards, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his breakthrough, was 87."
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Reader Comments (8)
Reid needs to dump a big dose of liquid plummer (i.e. end filibusters) into the clogged Judicial pipeline. The effects of having a plethora of seats on the Federal Bench unfilled is a big f-in problem potentially for decades. SCOTUS is very much in play given the age of several of the Justices. The next 3 years may present big opportunities for Obama. Scalia and Thomas may have heart attacks subsequent to a right wing fit, not to mention the Appeals Bench needs some help too.
Obama needs to kick it in the ass with the # of his nominations too.
Diane. I agree... but I doubt either Obama or Reid have the cajones to do anything about it. We spent our electoral coin on wimps, not leaders.
Jeff Merkley is not giving up on filibuster reform. He is working to get enough Democrats to join him. If he is successful, they will as a group pressure Harry Reid, more than before, to grow a pair and put a rule in place. Even without a vote.
I would so like to see this happen, so we could get some of Obama's judges in place. Merkley is particularly insistent on getting Reid not to allow filibustering of judicial nominees. Send him some white light--Merkley, I mean Maybe a bit of testosterone for old Harry.
What a feast! It's early morning, but already there are so many tasty dishes to choose from: Jam on Jindal toast (love it), stroganoff (with wet noodles?) and that perennial favorite, mashed potato sandwich (the kind that sticks to your ribs.)
Maureen reaches for the stars and comes off merely baying at the moon.
The (sort of) connection between Funicello, Pulitzer, and Thatcher could be that no matter when these women were at their peaks of success, they were totally disconnected from what was actually happening in the popular culture which surrounded them. Like: Funicello was wearing a hairdo from the late '50's when everyone else was at the long hair and beads phase; Pulitzer was wowing the rich folks with lime green and pink when millions were in tie dye and bell bottoms; and Thatcher's hair, OMG: who else would tolerate that? And all of them seemed to have no comment at all about the amazing changes women were going through at each of their times.
I think that the connection Dowd made with the three was that each of them got rich, interesting, story-worthy obituaries, in various publications, and it was pretty easy to just mash that material together to meet a column deadline. Some phrases in Dowd's piece come almost verbatim from some of the obits.
Interestingly, I never heard of Lilly or her dresses. But then, I'm not a beach person, and certainly not a Palm Beach person.
Charlie's take on the budget:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_President_And_His_Crystal_Ball
About that Dowd character with the Times: she like Brooks and Friedman mails it in regularly. If the Peter Principle is that people get promoted into jobs they can't handle, all three are incompetent. The Times has enough institutional inertia to carry on no matter how middling and disconnected its columnists are from the masses. The status of the Times reminds me of how people still listen to Bobby Trump (or whatever his name is), the multiply bankrupt tv clown: they each have their own inertia of sponsorship no matter their irrelevance in the lives of most of their audience.