;)
Saturday
Apr202013
The Commentariat -- April 20, 2013
The President's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here.
I've added links to some stories regarding the Boston Marathon bombing suspects to yesterday's post titled "Bedlam in Boston."
Mark Drajem & Jack Kaskey of Bloomberg News: "The Texas plant that was the scene of a deadly explosion this week was last inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1985. The risk plan it filed with regulators listed no flammable chemicals. And it was cleared to hold many times the ammonium nitrate that was used in the Oklahoma City bombing. For worker- and chemical-safety advocates who have been pushing the U.S. government to crack down on facilities that make or store large quantities of hazardous chemicals, the blast in West, Texas, was a grim reminder of the risks these plants pose..... There are no federal rules mandating that such plants be located away from residential areas, and the current company safety plans aren't always shared widely with residents nearby.... The company [that owns the West, Texas, plant] has been cited for a series of violations over the past few years.... In Texas, OSHA conducted 4,448 inspections in the last fiscal year, a pace that would mean it would visit every workplace in 126 years...." ...
... Joshua Schneyer, et al., of Reuters: "The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate - which can also be used in bomb making - unaware of any danger there." ...
... Bill Minutaglio in a New York Times op-ed: "The explosion in West, which killed at least 14 people, is now entering a dark pantheon of events in Texas, ones that will surely lead to debates in the state about government regulation and oversight -- or the lack thereof.... It is finally time for this pathological avoidance of oversight to end in Texas." ...
... Here's the video Minutaglio mentions in his op-ed. As of this morning it has had almost 17.5 million views:
... CW: It is worth noting that many more people died & were injuried in the Texas fertilizer explosion than were victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. (And, no, pointing this out does not diminish the values of the lives of the Marathon victims.) In Boston, we saw how government and the people worked together to solve a crime. In Texas, we saw how government doesn't work when people -- and their elected representatives -- oppose sensible, lifesaving industrial oversight. From the beginning of human civilization, the primary purpose of government has been to protect those citizens. Nobody likes red tape; nobody likes "some bureaucrat telling me what to do." But a well-regulated nation is an infinitely safer nation.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. -- Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
... Those primordal screams about "Second Amendment rights," BTW, might abate if the screamers paid a little more attention to the "well-regulated" part of the Amendment. We are, by nature, individuals first, but we are citizens second. As citizens, we have a fundamental obligation to cooperate with each other in furtherance of those Constitutional objectives. Part of that cooperation is voluntarily subjecting ourselves to reasonable regulation and demanding that others -- including gun owners and those vaunted "jobs creators" -- do the same.
Stupid Quote of the Week. ... being shot in the head by a lunatic does not give one any special grace to pronounce upon public-policy questions.... Her childish display in the New York Times is an embarrassment. -- Kevin Williamson of the National Review, commenting on form Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Times op-ed
... Timothy Johnson of Media Matters: "The argument by conservative media that former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and other survivors of gun violence who supported a failed Senate compromise to expand background checks on firearms sales are 'props' of the Obama administration is both hypocritically partisan and logically flawed.... Logical flaws aside..., presidents routinely evoke the experiences of victims in advocating for policies that would prevent future tragedies. In 1991, former President Ronald Reagan evoked his own experience of being shot by a would-be assassin, as well as the experiences of others wounded in the 1981 attack in order to advocate for background checks on gun sales." ...
... Same Subject, Better Quote. Who would design a system in which a President recently reëlected by a margin of almost five million votes could not move a piece of legislation supported by some ninety per cent of the country through even one chamber of the Congress -- even when a majority of legislators in that chamber voted for it? -- Ryan Lizza in "Four Reasons Why the Gun-Control Bills Failed"
... CW: but, hey, Larry Summers says the federal legislative system does not have a "structural problem," and the gridlock built into our Constitutional (and, now, extra-Constitutional) structure isn't always a bad thing. ...
... Rick Hertzberg & John Cassidy of the New Yorker elaborate on minority rule:
... "Filibuster Delenda Est." Jonathan Bernstein: "... it is wrong to say that insisting on 60 is threatening a filibuster. The demand is the filibuster, under the conditions -- which hold now, and have held for decades -- that the way a filibuster is conducted is by notifying people of the demand for 60. And so, whenever 60 is demanded, and however that is resolved, the press should report that a measure has been filibustered, and if it fails -- again, however it is resolved -- they should report that it has been defeated by filibuster." (CW: Title, thanks to Ed Kilgore.)
Carrie Brown of Politico: "... when Democrats got a look at the 844-page [proposed immigration] measure, they discovered that their negotiators extracted more concessions than they thought possible. Those include an expansive version of the DREAM Act and subtle but meaningful tradeoffs on all the major pieces of the system, from family reunification to legalization and border security."
Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "The Boy Scouts of America are calling for an end to their ban on homosexual members, while maintaining the ban for adult leaders. The organization is proposing a resolution stating that 'no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.' The change still must be approved by the group's roughly 1,400 national council members at a meeting the week of May 20."
"Tailgunner Ted." Dana Milbank: "Democrats see a potential bogeyman in [Sen. Ted] Cruz [RTP-Texas] because of his outrageous pronouncements, and reporters love his inflammatory quotes. Republican leaders, however, don't know how to control this monster they created." A good read. I'll bet Ted Cruz read it, too. And smiled smirked.
Pete Williams, Trending. Dylan Byers of Politico: "On Wednesday, while CNN was self-destructing after falsely reporting that a suspect has been taken into custody, [NBC's Pete] Williams rightly reported otherwise. Through Thursday, he reported what was known, while resisting the temptation to speculate on what he did not. Then, in the early hours of Friday morning, Williams was among the first to report on the ongoing developments of the search for the suspects -- including that one of the suspects was dead and that both suspects were legal residents with foreign military training.... When the dust from Boston Marathon bombing clears, viewers will remember two things about the cable news coverage of this historic event: that John King blew it, and that Pete Williams got it right." ...
... AND when New York Post editor Col Allan refused to apologize for the paper's egregious "coverage" of the Boston Marathon bombings, the group Animal stepped in & did it for him. Via Dan Amira of New York:
Right Wing World
Every Bad Thing Is the Government's Fault. Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch: "The Family Research Council is joining many of its fellow right-wing groups in celebrating Wednesday's Senate filibuster of a bill that would have expanded background checks on gun sales. In an email to supporters [Thursday], the group claims that gun violence prevention legislation isn't needed because it wouldn't have stopped the Boston marathon bombing. What is to blame for recent mass murders, the group claims, is 'the government's own hostility to the institution of the family' compounded by Congress' supposed encouragement of 'abortion, family breakdown, sexual liberalism, or religious hostility.'"
News Ledes
John Miller on the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:
Boston Globe: "Russian authorities warned the FBI in early 2011 that suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have been a follower of 'radical Islam,' a revelation that raised new questions in Congress on Saturday about whether the Boston Marathon attacks that killed three and wounded more than 170 could have been prevented." ...
... Reuters: "Runners at the London Marathon on Sunday will wear black ribbons and observe a 30-second silence to honour the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, under the watchful eyes of increased numbers of police deployed to reassure the public." ...
... Politico: "President Barack Obama met Saturday with his national security council to discuss the investigation of the bombings in Boston and terrorism threats." ...
... ABC News: "A hospital spokesperson said early this morning that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was still alive, however the FBI asked they give no updates on his condition." ...
... AP Update: "Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Saturday afternoon that Tsarnaev was in serious but stable condition and was probably unable to communicate. Tsarnaev was at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where 11 victims of the bombing were still being treated."
... Reuters: "The Federal Public Defender Office said Saturday it will represent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, once charges are filed. Miriam Conrad, head of the Boston office that represents criminal suspects who cannot afford a lawyer, said via email that 'we have been informed that we will be appointed after charges are filed.'" ...
... New York Times: "the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings turned on Saturday to questions about the men's motives, and to the significance of an overseas trip one of them took last year." ...
... AP: "Police say three people have been taken into custody for questioning at a housing complex where the younger marathon bombing suspect may have lived. New Bedford Police Lt. Robert Richard says a private complex of off-campus housing at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth was searched by federal authorities Friday evening." ...
... NPR: "Watertown, Mass., resident David Henneberry's name was on many people's lips Saturday, as the hero who called police to say bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might be hiding in his back yard." ...
... ABC News: people want to help Henneberry get a new boat, since his is apparently riddled with bullets.
Guardian: "Giorgio Napolitano, an 87-year-old political veteran who had been planning to embark on a well-earned retirement within weeks, has become the first Italian president to be re-elected to serve a second term, after squabbling and discredited party leaders who had failed to agree on his successor begged him to stay on 'in the higher interests of the country'."
Reuters: " A strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit a remote, mostly rural and mountainous area of southwestern China's Sichuan province on Saturday, killing at least 156 people and injuring about 5,500 close to where a big quake killed almost 70,000 people in 2008."
AP: "Iraqis braved the fear of violence on Saturday to vote in the first election since the U.S. military withdrawal, though delayed voting in some parts of the country and an apparently lackluster turnout elsewhere has cast doubt about the credibility of the vote." ...
... Reuters: "A dozen small bombs exploded and mortar rounds landed near polling centers in Iraq on Saturday, wounding at least four people during voting in the country's first provincial elections since the departure of U.S. troops."
AP: "A Pakistani judge on Saturday ordered former military ruler Pervez Musharraf be held in custody for two weeks until the next hearing in a case related to his 2007 decision to sack and detain several judges. The police then declared Musharraf's lavish country residence a jail, paving way for him to be taken and held there under what is essentially house arrest."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (6)
Thinking today about that 19 year old holed up under a tarp for hours and hours, bleeding from an apparent gun shot wound, cold, terrified, knowing his life would be either over soon or captured and brought to justice. If he had been a hardened criminal he might have forced his way into the house on Franklin Street holding the occupants hostage, maybe forcing them to drive him out of state and once safely out kill them both and make his escape. Instead this young man, really just a boy, makes his way to a house with a boat. We look at all the photos of him, a sweetness there, listen to his classmates tell us what a neat guy he was, quiet, but not displaying anything that would raise red flags. His father calling him an angel. Could his older brother have had such influence on him that he goes along with a heinous act? And why THIS heinous act that resulted in the loss of lives and limbs? We will eventually get answers and perhaps the pieces will fit. Somehow, though, I think not all.
PD,
I was thinking along similar lines last night. Without forgetting his culpability for the deaths and injuries at the marathon, last night he was a kid, bleeding, cold, and alone.
Was he considering the path that had led him there or had he been hardened past that point? Whatever the situation, the events of this past week provide a perfect illustration of how violence begets violence, whether through kids radicalized by Chechen terrorists who were themselves terrorized by Russian troops or suicide bombers in Iraq who grew up under the pall of shock and awe or gunmen committed to atrocities and given comfort and assistance in their murderous ventures by the NRA and their sycophantic, cowardly acolytes in congress.
It has been a week that has shown average Americans at their best, who refuse to bow to terror and fear and so-called leaders who lie submissively, their bellies in the dirt, cowering at the feet of the gun lobby.
I'm just trying to wrap my head around Governer Perry's request for federal aid in a situation where it looks as if a company was negligent, causing a preventable disaster. He wants my tax dollars to mop up after a corporation's many-layered mistake? Where is the "personal" responsibility?
On another front, a NY State Senator, Greg Ball, tweeted: "So, scum bag #2 in custody. Who wouldn't use torture on this punk to save more lives?" So much wrong in so few characters.
A sad New Yorker.
As was pointed out earlier in the week, a bombing in Israel is cleaned up in a few hours and not given much news value. Very different than USA.
The Chechens have been at war with Russia with much of the world paying little notice, except to major events, such as the theater hostage taking in Russia several years ago.
This week Chechnya got several days of world wide notice and will get many more in the weeks to come as commentators and analysts speculate, ad infinitum, about the "motivations" of the bomber brothers.
Right Wing World in the Halls of Government:
United States Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain want to label the Boston bombing suspect as an "enemy combatant" and try him in a military tribunal. (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/boston-enemy-combatant_n_3123163.html). Since he is an American citizen and entitled to the protections of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, I wonder what provision of the Constitution would allow for the procedure that the esteemed senators urge? The Sixth Amendment provides specifically:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
How could those express provisions not apply to this case? Why would the esteemed senators not understand the clear and express provisions of the Constitution that they pretend to worship and are sworn to defend?
I am glad to read that others of you have some compassion (and questions) about the 19 year old bomber. And do not want to see him tortured or abused. I am inclined to see him with Stockholm Syndrome--since he seemed so much influenced and under the sway of his much older brother. In turn, older brother may have been under the radicalizing influence of another much older crazoid. And I am guessing the boys' father is a major player in all of this.
We shall see.