;)
The Commentariat -- Dec. 16, 2013
In his column, Paul Krugman follows up on his recent blogpost on economic inequality: "... inequality is rising so fast that over the past six years it has been as big a drag on ordinary American incomes as poor economic performance, even though those years include the worst economic slump since the 1930s. And if you take a longer perspective, rising inequality becomes by far the most important single factor behind lagging middle-class incomes." ...
... Larry Summers sees inequality as one of the reasons for "stagflation": "Consumption may be lower because of a sharp increase in the share of income held by the very wealthy and the rising share of income accruing to capital." CW: IMHO, this is a poorly-written, jargonistic, meandering column, unsuitable for a general readership. Summers may be accustomed to being the smartest guy in the room, but I doubt he's often the best writer in the room. ...
... Kay, in Balloon Juice, on a New York Times op-ed by American Enterprise Institute "public intellectual" Arthur Brooks: "If [conservatives are] defending on income inequality, and they are, they know it's a political problem. That's good news. Shifting blame for income inequality to public schools and public school teachers means they think they have to explain income inequality away somehow, and they are casting around for an excuse that doesn't implicate conservatives, conservatism, or anyone who is at all wealthy or powerful in government or the private sector.... You have to love the logic that says a problem that was partially caused by the deliberate and careful dismantling of any rights, protections or leverage for workers will be solved if we take away rights, protections and leverage from the small group of middle class workers who retain them, like teachers."
Kathleen Geier of the Washington Monthly: Unemployment has a "catastrophic effect on personal happiness," studies find.
Noam Scheiber of the New Republic attempts to define populism & deprive anti-populists of their broadsides against it. "... when powerful economic interests are involved, the burden of proof should fall on self-interested elites rather than popular opinion, whereas Third Way proposes something akin to the opposite. That's not a trivial difference. It's the schism that's increasingly defining the Democratic Party."
Everything Bad Is Obama's Fault, Ctd. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldiver & Jennifer Agiesta of the AP: "An Associated Press-GfK poll ... found a striking level of unease about the [Affordable Care Act] among people who have health insurance and aren't looking for any more government help.... Employers trying to control their health insurance bills have been shifting costs to workers for years, but now those changes are blamed increasingly on 'Obamacare' instead of the economy or insurance companies."
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times on the do-nothing Congress, which this year was way worse than usual. ...
... Do-Nothing Congress to Continue Doing Nothing in 2014. Reid Wilson of the Washington Post: "After the Senate reconvenes in January, observers say, the coming year is unlikely to yield significant legislative action. Democrats will probably advance measures intended to draw political contrasts with Republicans -- including a proposal to raise the minimum wage and a number of smaller bills that they say would boost jobs and strengthen the economy. None of those measures are likely to win Republican votes or spur action in the GOP-controlled House."
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the second-ranking Senate Democratic leader, said Sunday that Republicans jockeying for the White House in 2016 and Tea Party challengers in 2014 have imperiled the budget deal. Durbin estimated that Democrats will lose three members of their caucus on the vote, which means they'll need at least eight Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with them. The challenge Democratic leaders face in trying to round up the vote has been compounded by the outspoken opposition to the deal from Republicans weighing presidential bids and a slew of Republican primary races in 2014." ...
... NEW. Brian Beutler of Salon has an excellent piece on the Senate dynamics vis-a-vis the budget bill. ...
We also don't want to have shutdown drama so we can focus on replacing Obamacare, so we can focus on showing better ideas and what this is coming in. 'Cause we don't think people like this law and we don't think it's gonna get any more popular. -- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), on why Republicans think the budget deal he cut is so great ...
... Wait. It Gets Worse. Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal: "House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) signaled that Republicans would not raise the debt ceiling next year without some sort of concessions from Democrats, saying lawmakers were still crafting their strategy. 'We, as a caucus, along with our Senate counterparts, are going to meet and discuss what it is we want to get out of the debt limit,' Mr. Ryan said on Fox News Sunday. 'We don't want "nothing" out of the debt limit. We're going to decide what it is we can accomplish out of this debt limit fight.'" ...
... CW: I hope you see what Ryan is threatening here. Congress passes legislation that requires expenditures. It passes appropriations bills that do not cover those expenditures. Then Ryan says Congressional Republicans should "get something" for failing to pay their own bills. If Democrats do not reward them for their profligacy, they'll damage the government's credit & threaten world markets. This kind of sabotage is qualitatively similar to Snowden's. Both men are proud of their dirty tricks; both are self-aggrandizing saboteurs. The main difference is that Snowden didn't target any particular Americans, while Ryan intends to help the rich & hurt the poor.
... Update. Ed Kilgore: "... the White House and congressional Democrats are ... going to have to be willing to look Paul Ryan in the eye and ... say: 'We'll see you in Hell, Granny-Starver, before we give you a thing in exchange for a debt limit increase.' ... You don't say 'Ho-Ho-Ho' to a man threatening to blow up the economy if he isn't allowed to liberate more people from the terrible affliction of government assistance with trifles like food and shelter."
John Miller of CBS "News" goes inside the NSA & delves into "the Snowden Affair," Parts 1 & 2:
He was taking a technical examination for potential employment at NSA. He used a system administrator privileges to go into the account of the NSA employee who was administering that test, and he took both the questions & the answers & used them to pass the test. -- Rick Ledgett, head of the Snowden task force
So, if true, a despicable little fraud from the git-go. -- Constant Weader
... Greg Mitchell of the Nation has a good rundown of the criticisms of Miller's story. ...
... NEW. Dylan Scott of TPM: "... the Daily Beast and Huffington Post have reported in recent days that Miller was under consideration for a job at the NYPD in an intelligence or counterterrorism role. On Monday, the New York Post's Page Six reported that Miller was on the verge of taking such a job. Miller, who had previously worked for new NYPD chief Bill Bratton in New York as a spokesperson and Los Angeles as counterterrorism chief, did not mention any pending career move during the segment." Thanks to James S. for the link.
Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "Suspected Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was tormented by voices in his head, according to the Boston Globe, which published the results of a five-month investigation into the attack on Sunday.... According to the 18,000-word report, Tsarnaev brothers were coequals in planning the twin bombings that killed four and wounded more than 260 others. And despite suspicions that Tamerlan made contact with Islamist radicals during a 2012 visit to Kyrgyzstan, the paper concludes the brothers' violence was 'more likely rooted in the turbulent collapse of their family and their escalating personal and collective failures.'" The Globe report is here.
** Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "The oxymoronic quest for humane executions only accentuates the absurdity of allowing the death penalty in a civilized society. It's understandable that Supreme Court Justices have tried to make the process a little more palatable; and there is a meagre kind of progress in moving from the chair to the gurney. But the essential fact about both is that they come with leather straps to restrain a human being so that the state can kill him. No technology can render that process any less grotesque." Toobin writes a brief history of U.S. methods of execution.
Mark Thompson of Time: "President Obama nominated Vice Admiral Michelle Howard for a fourth star Friday, becoming the first woman in Navy history to attain the rank -- assuming Senate approval -- of full admiral. She currently serves as deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans, and strategy. She has been tapped to serve as vice chief of naval operations, the Navy's second-ranking officer, and a single step below the chief of naval operations, the service's top officer."
James Carroll has the cover story for the New Yorker on Pope Francis's first year as pontiff. "'Who am I to judge?' With those five words, spoken in late July in reply to a reporter's question about the status of gay priests in the Church, Pope Francis stepped away from the disapproving tone, the explicit moralizing typical of Popes and bishops. This gesture of openness, which startled the Catholic world, would prove not to be an isolated event. In a series of interviews and speeches in the first few months after his election, in March, the Pope unilaterally declared a kind of truce in the culture wars that have divided the Vatican and much of the world." ...
Pope Francis appears to be a decent fellow -- a mensch -- and a sincere advocate of goodwill and peace on Earth. But who am I to judge? -- Barry Blitt, who drew the New Yorker cover
Local News
In my oath it says I'll uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Colorado. It doesn't say I have to uphold every law passed by the Legislature. -- Sheriff John Cooke of Weld County, Colorado, on why he doesn't have to enforce Colorado's new gun safety laws ...
... Colorado -- Where the Wild West Is Still Wild. Erica Goode of the New York Times: "Some [Colorado] sheriffs ... are refusing to enforce the [new gun] laws, saying that they are too vague and violate Second Amendment rights. Many more say that enforcement will be 'a very low priority,' as several sheriffs put it. All but seven of the 62 elected sheriffs in Colorado signed on in May to a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statutes."
Justice Robert's pen & Obamacare has done more damage to the USA then the swords of the Nazis,Soviets & terrorists combined. -- North Carolina State Sen. Bob Rucho, in a tweet ...
... Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Rucho was a primary sponsor of a bill this year to prohibit North Carolina from setting up a health insurance exchange or participating in the Medicaid expansion. About 377,000 North Carolinians would be eligible for Medicaid coverage if the state were not refusing to take part." ...
... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "This is Rucho's most controversial tweet to date, though not for lack of trying. Since joining the site in October, Rucho has asked what the president is 'smoking' and marked the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination by declaring 'JFK could have been the founder and leader of the Tea Party. The real democrat party has been hijacked.'"
The Dumbest Bush Is Yet to Come. Will Weisert of the AP: "George P. Bush, Jeb Bush's 37-year-old son..., is launching his political career by running for Texas' little-known but powerful land commissioner post. But rather than campaigning on the mainstream Republicanism embodied by the family name, Bush says he's 'a movement conservative' more in line with the tea party. As if to underscore the point, he says he draws the most inspiration not from the administrations of his grandfather, George H. W. Bush, or his uncle, George W. Bush, but from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who engineered the 1994 Republican takeover of that chamber." CW: What this country needs is a Newt clone.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Ray Price, who was at the forefront of two revolutions in country music as one of its finest ballad singers and biggest hit makers, died on Monday at his home in Mount Pleasant, Tex. He was 87."
NBC News: John C. Beale, "the EPA's highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change, deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job, say federal prosecutors."
AP: "An official Chinese newspaper on Monday accused the U.S. Navy of harassing a Chinese squadron earlier this month, shortly before a near collision that marked the two nations' most serious sea confrontation in years."
AP: "The bogus sign language interpreter at last week's Nelson Mandela memorial service was among a group of people who accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires placed around their necks, one of the interpreter's cousins and three of his friends told The Associated Press Monday. But Thamsanqa Jantjie never went to trial for the 2003 killings when other suspects did in 2006 because authorities determined he was not mentally fit to stand trial, said the four."
Boston Globe: "Four buildings at Harvard University have been evacuated and police from five different agencies are on the Cambridge campus, some of them with bomb-sniffing dogs, to investigate 'unconfirmed reports' that explosives had been hidden in the buildings. No detonations of explosives have been reported." ...
... Update: "The bomb scare at Harvard University today was triggered by an e-mail warning that explosives had been planted in four buildings at the heart of the storied campus, according to a law enforcement official. At 2:44 p.m., the university announced that the the Science Center, the last of the four buildings, had been deemed safe."
Guardian: "The United Nations has launched an appeal for $6.5bn (£4bn) for Syria and its neighbours to help 16 million people in 2014, many of whom are hungry or homeless victims of a 33-month-old Syrian conflict that has no end in sight."
Guardian: Former Chilean President "Michelle Bachelet has promised major tax and education reforms to help ease Chile's social divisions after sweeping back to power with a huge majority in presidential elections on Sunday. The centre-left candidate won with about 62% support, the highest share of votes for any presidential candidate since the country returned to holding democratic elections in 1989."
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Reader Comments (17)
As usual, Krugman has it right. Inequality, not government largesse, is killing both the economy and democracy.
Both polls and their behavior tell us the austerians, as Krugman calls them, short-term I-got-mine thinkers that they are, just don't care. Why not? Though Krugman doesn't say, in addition to the moral component, their arrant selfishness, I would add their woeful ignorance of history. Since the country's inception, government, tho' not always deliberately and not always calling the shots clearly, has been at the center of the common citizens' opportunity. Today we think of government hand-outs in terms of the safety net, of public schools, of corporate subsidies, but our history is laden with much larger give-aways that made it possible for ordinary people to gain a firm economic footing, the one that is now turning to sand under their feet.
Think first of all the land, the succession of migrations from the east to the west, first beyond the Appalachians, then across the Mississippi, then on to California and Oregon. Though private speculators promoted the first wave into what became Ohio and Kentucky, not one of them made any money. Many settlers went broke, but there was always more land to be had, another place to pierce the soil and take root, all opened to them by the government.
Then there was that wealth of resources to be plundered, its share seldom equitably distributed, but enough to actually trickle down (back when that was minimally possible in reality, not just in rhetoric) in large enough measure to benefit millions, all virtually given away (after it had been taken away from the original inhabitants) by, what else? the government. Government also largesse extended to the infrastructure, think canals and railroads, that made extracting and transporting that wealth possible.
And how about the Depression and two big wars whose economics and politics made us all more equal than we were before?
Ignored or not, there's all that history that brought us to today, which the austerians have learned nothing from. They act as if the whole country arose out of nothing just a few years back, created just for them.
History has other lessons they might want to consider. Bastille Day comes to mind.
Law enforcement declines:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/us/sheriffs-refuse-to-enforce-laws-on-gun-control.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0
IMHO Paul Ryan would be committing treason if he and the rethugs refuse to raise the debt ceiling with no strings attached. That would put him in the same category as Snowden.
As Marie pointed out when the Snowden Affair first broke, for a supposedly super secret agency, the NSA is remarkably sloppy with their personnel practices.
Re: Snow(den) job; I made it through six minutes of the 60 Minutes show piece on the NSA. If Snowden is a "despicable little fraud"; the Miller piece is a despicable big fraud. Miller's questions are chub on the water for the sharks of the NSA. Each are carefully crafted to allow the "experts" on our security to repeatedly assure the watchers that the NSA is "even now" protecting our freedoms.
The blue lit "stand-up" meeting with the mad general of cyberworld nattily dressed in his four-stared pea jacket belongs in a bad TeeVee movie.
The whole piece, or the half of the whole piece I could stand watching, was a fluff job. The NSA, making America secure, check us out on Facebook, we'll like you.
@JJG: Now that I've tortured you with the "we nevah spy on Americans" party line, watch the second part. Then get back to me.
Marie
From Poynter:
“But although Miller says the show approached critics in Congress and privacy advocates to craft its questions, he didn’t ask Alexander why he said in 2012 the United States doesn’t hold data on its citizens.”
And later:
“Circa’s Anthony De Rosa collected reactions to the broadcasts, writing Sunday night he was still looking for positive reports. Some representative tweets (the first is, of course, by a guy who has some skin in this game)… “
Samples:
[Via Twitter] Glenn Greenwald: “60 Minutes forgot to ask about how James Clapper & Keith Alexander routinely lied to Congress & FISA courts - just ran out of time.”
[Via Twitter] Ryan Lizza: “Wow, the 60 Minutes piece about the NSA was just embarrassing. Kudos to the NSA communications staff. You guys should get a raise.”
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/233681/60-minutes-reporter-didnt-want-nsa-story-to-be-a-puff-piece/
@ James Singer & JJG: When a "report" leads with terms like "unprecedented access" & "exclusive," expect a puff piece. From there, you look for the interesting stuff, tho of course you have to weigh the credibility of the puffer. That's why I qualified my condemnation of Snowden's cheating with "if true." I won't be surprised to hear soon from Snowden or his enablers that the test-cheating claim is a lie.
But, yeah, this was "60 Minutes" carrying on the Lara Logan/Charlie Rose ("Wow, Jeff Bezos, love those drones") tradition. Nobody objects when the puff pieces are to their liking -- Ed Bradley interviewing Lena Horne, Harry Reasoner's segment on the Tuskegee Airman, etc. But trashing patriot Ed Snowden? Oh noes!
Marie
The story that just won't quit. From TPM:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/60-minutes-nsa-host-nypd-job
Re; OK; finished watching all 27 minutes of "Millertime". Hard to swallow the bit about giving teenagers around the country summer jobs cracking the unsolved mystery codes. "We do background checks on the little darlings... and are they smart!" Rightttt; teenagers never betray a confidence.
The implication that 9-11 could have been avoided if we had the current eavesdropping abilities is possible; 9-11 could have also been avoided if the FBI had paid any attention to more than one report suggesting something was wrong with young Arabic men wanting to learn how to fly jets but not to land them.
As for Snowden stealing the questions and answers to the test that got him the job; isn't that the whole purpose of the NSA? Get useful information that you can use to your advantage without being caught. He should be running the place.
@JJG: "As for Snowden stealing the questions and answers to the test that got him the job; isn't that the whole purpose of the NSA? Get useful information that you can use to your advantage without being caught. He should be running the place." -- JJG
Couldn't disagree more. Snowden was able to cheat because he was in a special position to cheat. He gave himself unfair advantage over all the other applicants, perhaps none of whom were systems administrators. What you're advocating for is libertarian/anarchist "every man for himself" stuff -- a culture in which there are no rules. It's totally anti-social. Really pretty horrifying.
Marie
re Rick Ledgett assertion: How does a potential employee get system administrator status? Kinda like giving an applicant for a job as bank teller being given the combination to the vault. A sign of goodwill on part of the potential employer?
Re: I'm shocked; "a culture in which there are no rules. It's totally anti-social. Really pretty horrifying."
Spying is anti-social.
There are no ethics in spycraft.
I'm not saying I like it or condone it. But we would have a pretty poor intel. community if rules were involved.
Let's all face it; "We can't handle the truth." In fact, I don't know if we want to. Somebody has to do the dirty work.
Again, I don't like it, I do not think there is enough oversight or balance in what the data collection industry is engaged in today.
If there where rules, that 60 minute piece would have come with a disclaimer stating the "following program is sponsored by the wonderful folks at the NSA."
If that wasn't a example of MSM force feeding us pap, what is?
@cowichan: I'm going to assume your question is a serious one & answer it. You can follow Snowden's career path here. He held several positions within the NSA, although I think he was always working as a contractor, not directly as a federal employee.
@JJG: Bullshit. Snowden's job did not involve spying. He was a systems administrator, not a spy. His job was to ensure the security of NSA systems. He was hired to be a technician, not Mata Hari. And evidently he didn't think he knew enough to be a technician -- or else he wouldn't have found it necessary to cheat on the test.
When I read comments like these, I wonder why the fuck I waste my time on this site. I'm sure not helping people get any smarter.
Marie
My heart go's out to you Marie. I'm sure it's exhausting and frustrating to put the time and energy that you do into RC and not be able to convince us dunderheads that your's is the one and true way to see the world. I know it would piss me off.
However, contrary to how you may feel, you are helping a whole lot of us get smarter. Of course, I may see it differently 'cause I'm starting from a lot further back in the pack than most of the posters on here.
@Marie, I respectively disagree. Spies these days don't wear cloaks and carry daggers. What does one call someone who collects, manipulates, transfers or organizes massive bytes of information on others who are unaware of that person's actions?
It could be argued that Snowden's epiphany came when he realized he was indeed a spy. Spying on his own fellow citizens.
As to making me smarter; you can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead. Don't let ruin your day.
@JJG: "What does one call someone who collects, manipulates, transfers or organizes massive bytes of information on others who are unaware of that person's actions?" -- JJG
Maybe capital letters will make this easier to understand. THAT ISN'T WHAT SNOWDEN DID. It isn't what he was hired to do. It wasn't part of his job. That may be what some spies do, but it is not what Snowden did.
His job was to make sure the data which the "real spies" were collecting & interpreting was good. It's the difference between Danica Patrick & her crew. When Patrick wins a race, they don't give the trophy to the guy who changed her tire in the 9th lap, even tho she would have come in 9th had the tire-changer dawdled.
Snowden was the tire-changer. He didn't just dawdle; he stole the fucking spares.
When I was in college, I applied for a summer gummit job. The CIA practically begged me to come work for them. I thought it was because I did so well on the typing test -- a test on which I did not cheat, BTW. I learned years later it was because my uncle was a "real spy," & that gave me an advantage.
Had I taken the CIA job I would not have been a real spy like my uncle. And it would have been unethical for me to steal pencils, much less tell a seductive counterspy what I had typed that day. To pretend that people in & around the spying business aren't supposed to have ethics is ridiculous. Their bottom-line ethic is that they work for their own team. And broadly speaking, the spies' supervisors are supposed to know what they do in the course of that work. If they employ methods (waterboarding) that the supervisors decide is not ethical, the supervisors will tell them to cut that out. Unless there's a wink & a nod, the real spies are supposed to cut that out.
In every line of legitimate work, there are ethics & there are rules. Well-intentioned employees more-or-less know what those rules are & follow them. They do so because they have ethical standards, whether they're spies or grade-school teachers.
Edward Snowden is a rotten specimen of humanity. He should not be applauded for cheating on a test.
Marie
CW: I am relatively familiar with Snowden's CV.
My company had permanent staff and contract staff. The contract staff were both self-employed and those hired thru agencies like Booz-Allen. In all cases prospective employees were given interviews before being accepted. I take the Ledgett quote as accurate, to wit "prospective employment at NSA". This then would be about a test administered before Snowden was hired, given security pass, or came anywhere near a password for systems administration. My company's business was nowhere near as security critical as the NSA's but even so system administrator was the most security conscious position we had. The idea of a "prospective employee" coming within a mile of the necessary password for access to the computer system was preposterous. I'm sorry but this article also reads to me as preposterous. If it is true then every employee above the rank of cleaning staff needs replacement and the top ten should be shot.