;)
The Commentariat -- Jan. 12, 2015
Internal links, photo removed.
Rip Van Dems Awake! Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Senior Democrats, dissatisfied with the party's tepid prescriptions for combating income inequality, are drafting an 'action plan' that calls for a massive transfer of wealth from the super-rich and Wall Street traders to the heart of the middle class. The centerpiece of the proposal, set to be unveiled Monday by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), is a 'paycheck bonus credit' that would shave $2,000 a year off the tax bills of couples earning less than $200,000. Other provisions would nearly triple the tax credit for child care and reward people who save at least $500 a year. The windfall -- about $1.2 trillion over a decade -- would come directly from the pockets of Wall Street 'high rollers' through a new fee on financial transactions, and from the top 1 percent of earners, who would lose billions of dollars in lucrative tax breaks. The plan also would use the tax code to prod employers to boost wages...."
Roberto Ferdman of the Washington Post: "There is little empathy at the top. Most of America's richest think poor people have it easy in this country, according to a new report released by the Pew Research Center. The center surveyed a nationally representative group of people this past fall, and found that the majority of the country's most financially secure citizens (54 percent at the very top, and 57 percent just below) believe the 'poor have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.'"
Paul Krugman: "... what should be done about Keystone XL? If you believe that it would be environmentally damaging -- which I do -- then you should be against it, and you should ignore the claims about job creation. The numbers being thrown around are tiny compared with the country's overall work force. And in any case, the jobs argument for the pipeline is basically a sick joke coming from people who have done all they can to destroy American jobs -- and are now employing the very arguments they used to ridicule government job programs to justify a big giveaway to their friends in the fossil fuel industry."
Chad Terhune of the Los Angeles Times: "Uncle Sam could take a bigger bite at tax time for consumers who received too much government help last year with their Obamacare premiums. That may be just one of several surprises for millions of Americans in advance of the first tax deadline involving the Affordable Care Act. The majority of Americans who get their health insurance at work should see few changes when filing their taxes. Most will just need to check a box on their tax return indicating they had coverage in 2014. It stands to be more complicated for those individuals who purchased a private health plan in government-run exchanges or went without insurance at some point last year." ...
... CW: GOP Outrage Machine to run ads featuring single mom who got big promotion; formerly unemployed Midwest husband who got job, thus doubling family income. And maybe one with your typical starving Harvard professor. ...
... digby sees a real problem: "I think it's going to be a big story because people simply weren't adequately warned about it.... It could add up to some real money for middle class folks who made more than they expected. And it will feel as if they're being punished for doing better. It's unusual to have your bills increase just because you get a raise. ...
... CW: Yes, it is going to be a big story because Republicans are going to make it a big story. But it is not "unusual to have your bills increase just because you get a raise; the "bill" here is called a "tax," and your tax bill is supposed to go up just because you got a raise.
... Right now the Outrage Machine is otherwise occupied, gathering wrath because neither President Obama nor Vice President Biden attended the Paris march. CW: Gee, I wonder if their absence had anything to do with the high security threat posed by an open-air anti-terrorism march in streets surrounded by quirky six-storey buildings. Maybe the complainers would have been happy if Obama had deputized Bush & Cheney to represent the U.S. ...
... David McCabe of the Hill: "Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to France on Thursday and Friday, amid criticism that the Obama administration did not send a high-level representative to a Sunday solidarity march in Paris responding to two terrorist attacks." Kerry is in India ... Pakistan. ...
... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, the White House has scheduled an anti-extremism conference that was originally set for last October but was postponed without explanation. In a statement issued as many world leaders gathered in the French capital Sunday to express solidarity with France and to vow renewed efforts to fight violent Islamic radicalism, the White House announced that its summit on the issue of homegrown terrorism will take place next month." ...
... Elise Viebeck of the Hill: "Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday that the possibility of a Paris-style terrorist attack in the United States is very real and keeps him 'up at night.'... Holder spoke with four of the five Sunday political talk shows from Paris, where world leaders marched to honor the memory of 17 people in violence by terrorists there this week."
Annals of "Journalism," Nonpareil. Raf Sanchez of the Telegraph: Steve Emerson, "an American 'terrorism expert' on the right-wing Fox News channel, has declared that Birmingham is 'a totally Muslim' city 'where non-Muslims just simply don't go'.... 'In Britain, it's not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in,' he said.... 'Parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn't dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire,' he proclaimed, without giving examples. He described Birmingham as one of a number of European cities 'where sharia courts were set up, where Muslim density is very intense, where the police don't go in, and where it's basically a separate country almost, a country within a country.' Mr Emerson is a regular contributor to Fox News...." Thanks to safari for the lead. ...
AP: "Attorney General Eric Holder isn't saying whether he still will be on the job when the time comes to decide whether to bring charges in the investigation of former CIA Director David Petraeus. Holder, in several television news interviews on Sunday, steered clear of commenting directly on the investigation. But he told CBS' 'Face the Nation' that he expects that 'a matter of this magnitude' would be decided 'at the highest level' of the department." ...
... Poor, Pitiful Petraeus. Eric Bradner of CNN: "A top Senate Democrat defended David Petraeus on Sunday, saying the Justice Department erred in recommending charges against the former top Army general and Central Intelligence Agency director. 'This man has suffered enough in my view,' Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the former Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, told Gloria Borger, CNN chief political analyst on CNN's 'State of the Union.'" ...
... Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Someone please let me know if this woman has ever shown this much deference for ordinary citizens, or for journalists, or for Edward Snowden or anyone else who was not in her good graces that has leaked classified information?" ...
... Good question, Heather. ...
I don't look at this as being a whistleblower. I think it's an act of treason.... He violated the oath, he violated the law. It's treason. -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, on Edward Snowden, June 2013
... CW: The argument Petraeus's apologists have been raising is that, unlike Ed Snowden & other leakers, Petraeus did not leak secret documents for the purpose of publication. Really? He sent them to a woman who was writing a book, for Pete's sake. Most leakers are motivated by what they consider to be some high-minded moral purpose. Petraeus's high-minded moral purpose was to ensure Paula Broadwell portrayed him as a super-hero in her book, and/or to further his personal relationship with Broadwell. As for Feinstein's "suffered enough" rationale, poor Petraeus is struggling along as a public speaker & visiting professor to supplement his meager federal pension (about $230,000/year for his military service). Meanwhile, Snowden is exiled in Siberia Moscow, & some whistleblowers are wearing orange jumpsuits: Chelsea Manning, who was just a dumb kid, is behind bars for 35 years & was subjected to procedures defined as torture.
Neil Irwin of the New York Times: Barry Eichengreen's "new book, 'Hall of Mirrors' (Oxford University Press), accuses the global leaders of the 21st century of failing to heed the warning signs that a crisis might occur and then becoming too self-satisfied with the initial success they had at containing the worst effects of the banking crisis in late 2008 and early 2009. The reason the global economy is still in rough shape seven years later, in this telling, is that leaders in the United States and Europe drew the conclusions they wanted to hear from the Depression."
Shawn Cohen of the New York Post: "At precincts across [New York City], top brass are cracking the whip on summons activity and even barring many cops from taking vacation and sick days, The Post has learned." CW: Remember, this report comes from the Post, so it ain't necessarily so.
News Ledes
Washington Post: One person is dead, two are in critical condition, with 81 others taken to hospitals after smoke filled the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station in Paris in Washington.
... CW: Yipes! Sorry about that. The "article" was very sketchy -- bullet sentences, really -- at the time I read it; the station had a French name; I thought it was "le Métro," not "the Metro."
New York Times: "The Manhattan clinic where Joan Rivers went into cardiac arrest while being treated for a voice problem has failed to correct deficiencies implicated in her death and will be barred from having its services paid for by Medicare and Medicaid funds, according to a letter released Monday from the federal agency that oversees those two programs."
Guardian: "France is deploying 10,000 troops around the country to bolster security and sending almost 5,000 police to protect Jewish sites as it steps up the search for a likely accomplice to the attackers who killed 17 people last week."
Reuters: "Cuba has released all of the 53 prisoners it had promised to free as part of a deal with the US, senior American officials have said. The release of the remaining prisoners sets a positive tone for talks next week aimed at normalising relations after decades of hostility."
New York Times: "Indonesian Navy divers on Monday retrieved one of the so-called black boxes from the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea late last month and were trying to recover the other one amid strong underwater currents and limited visibility, officials said."
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Reader Comments (22)
Fox News fails again, when their "expert" claims the city of Birmingham is 'all-Mooslim'.
One of the Twitter responses is hilarious, reminding Americans that Worcesterchire sauce is actually pronounced "Worst-Sharia" sauce... #FoxNewsFact
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/birmingham-is-a-muslimonly-city-fox-news-expert-claims--lJzn5-g29x?utm_source=indy&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=i100
Re: Harvard profs. Like I said last Monday.
Re: digby. Glad I didn't get an ACA subsidy last year, must be one of the 15%.
So more than 40 leaders from around the world have made a commitment to deal with terrorism. And the plan is ..................
........................................
Maybe, Marie, Feinstein has what we call "a thing" for Petraeus––you know, that soft spot that when looking at him makes your clock stop. If I recall some time ago you were telling us about that "thing" for him yourself––you, of course would never let that get in the way of getting one's just desserts, but Dianne, on the other hand––well, we can only surmise.
Re Steve Emerson, I've come to learn that people who lace their remarks with the abusive use of 'actually' this and 'actually' that—don't ACTUALLY (snark) know what the hell they are talking about!
Meanwhile, the Birmingham I'm getting to know (via Netflix) is populated by a wicked bad group called Peaky Blinders.
The Steve Emerson story (thanks, safari) is simply delicious. To think this man is a "terrorist expert" just adds to its deliciousness. The responses––tweets–-that followed his faux pas are perfect making Steve, I would think, feel like a dunce and forced him into the apology that certainly had to be forthcoming.
Bravo van Hollen for getting the ball rolling––just hope it can do just that.
Two remarks jump out of the article in the WashPo concerning the Democrats "stark shift in messaging" reporting that they plan to introduce legislation that would provide a "big tax-break for the middle class."
First, of course, is "With Republicans in control on Capitol Hill, Democrats have little hope of pushing the plan through Congress."
The second gem reads "Van Hollen said that he has briefed senior administration officials and that they were receptive."
Someone like Tom Frank might discredit himself by suggesting that the plan comes "a bit late" and that the Administration's support sounds "a wee bit tepid." Or we might call it a bold, cagey strategy in preparation for 2016.
I'm among the Democrats (like Frank) who are much disappointed with Obama, do not buy the excuses that he and his apologists make for the various progressive policies he offered when campaigning but made no effort to deliver nor am I much impressed by his "muscular policies with broader appeal" that are now being rolled out.
Sorry Marie but the various excuses that I find on offer only make it that much more likely that the leaders of our party will continue to play these sorts of shell games IMO. So I recommend applause for critiques like Frank's without reservation.
Re; "Is the head dead yet..." Dirty Laundry " Don Henley
Terrorist expert spouts off on reality news show. (Wow, enough said.)
We watch, we respond, we react, we comment in ever larger circles of society. Who gains. Murdoch. The guy from down under (like Hades, but hotter) who parlayed tabloid rags specializing in soft porn and violent crime into the world's largest and sleaziest propaganda machine.
In classic construction lingo he is a "shit stirrer ". He is worse than normal though, he profits from stirring up the shit pot.
He doesn't care that his experts make up things, he only cares that it
sells. "Birmingham is populated by aliens!" along with the page three girls made him a rich man.
He applies the same profile the "respectable" information businesses he now owns. Conflict sells. Sensational conflict sells more. World wide sensational conflict as told by attractive talking heads sells best of all. And beheadings, nothing like a good beheading for the ratings.
A perfect "news" day for Mr. Murdoch would be live coverage of a foxnews expert, preferably a female in a revealing dress, being held hostage with the threat of beheading by female Islamic suicide terrorists clad in tight fitting burkas.
The promos scream, "Talking head still talking, live from Birmingham after these important messages from Johnson and Johnson, a family friendly corporation."...."Dirty laundry, ring around the collar? Try Biz, women around the world of all faiths rely on Biz to get out the toughest stains, even dried blood."
There is not enough Biz in the universe to wash the dirt from Murdoch's soul. He doesn't care.
A commenter at the Guardian suggested that perhaps Steve Emerson was thinking of Birmingham, Alabama. Makes sense to me, but then I didn't need a reason not to go there.
This just in on New York magazine:
Who is sorry now?
"Terrorism "expert" Steven Emerson is sorry for implying that whole British cities live under tyrannical Muslim rule on a Fox News program Sunday. He had painted a frightening image of British libertines forced to cover up whilst being chased by shalwar kameez–clad men in their hometowns — and one that is entirely false. Even British prime minister David Cameron called him "a complete idiot."
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/expert-sorry-for-making-up-facts-about-islam.html
Amidst all the faux outrage and puling by wingers trying to restart their Islamofascists-are-out-to-kill-us-all machine, I noticed, while channel surfing on Sunday morning hoping in vain for something more interesting than the Usual Blowhards, like maybe a four hour documentary on the history of the slotted spoon, an ongoing interview with newly minted chair of the oxymoronically named Senate Intelligence Committee, one Richard Burr, of North Carolina.
I'm sorry, folks, but I will never look at this guy and be able to tamp down hysterical laughter at the fact that he co-sponsored a bill against pigmen and mermaids. Save us, oh lord from animal-human hybrids! The Gorgons are coming! Don't look!
But now he wants us to have faith in his acumen and seriousness as the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Might as well appoint Benny Hill to that job. At least the theme music would be fitting.
My knee may be all slapped out by 2016. Might have to rent a new one.
This Steve Emerson "story" about places in London where religious police beat and wound strangers walking about not dressed according to Sharia Law, and entire British cities where non-Muslims dare not venture, is further evidence, none needed, actually, of wingnut journalism's prime directive, especially if no facts are abroad to bolster whatever snake oil special you're hawking that week.
Make.Shit.Up.
@Creegr wrote: "I'm among the Democrats (like Frank) who are much disappointed with Obama, do not buy the excuses that he and his apologists make for the various progressive policies he offered when campaigning but made no effort to deliver...."
Other than promising to close Guantanamo -- which Congress quickly made somewhere between extremely difficult & impossible -- exactly what "progressive policies" did Obama "offer ... but made no effort to deliver."
When I look at the "Promises Broken" list compiled by PolitiFact, I do see some minor promises that I think Obama could address by executive action. I make no excuses for his failing to do so, & he should get on 'em. However, the majority of the "promises broken" -- which are the biggies -- would appear to require Congressional action. You do know about Congress, don't you?
Freedom means never having to listen to reason.
Marie
P.S. Looking forward to your detailed reply. With footnotes.
The "Poor People Have it Easy" meme has been astonishingly successful; frightfully so.
In my red state, it is taken as a gospel fact (appropriate since there are no facts in the gospels) that poor people are just lazy moochers--all of them--who get everything handed to them by the government. They don't work, they laze around all day eating food paid for by the rest of us, calling their drug dealers with phones handed to them personally by Obama, driving brand new cars, living rent free, and now getting health insurance paid for by hard working 'mericans who don't have a tenth of what these poor people have.
Trying to inject facts into the conversation, such as asking them if they would prefer to live with their family of five on $15,000 a year--that's about $300/wk to pay for everything, is a hopeless attempt. Nope, that $300 goes for drugs. Obama pays for everything else, including their cars and insurance and healthcare and food.
Even if you wanted to spend money, the thinking goes, on educating them and helping them, it would be no good. They'd just blow that money and go back to getting high and making babies to increase their welfare checks. They're stupid and lazy. And they take our money to have a great ol' time for themselves.
This is often spoken with the rejoinder "I know what it's like to be poor" a statement that begins to break down when you ask if they've ever had their heat turned off in the winter (and not been able to turn it back on) or been evicted, or been homeless, or unable to feed their kids decent food. None of that matters. They KNOW what it's like to be poor and they, by god, pulled themselves up all by themselves to self-sufficiency. So why can't those damn poors do the same?
The idea is so pernicious, invidious doesn't even begin to describe its effect or affect. And the problem is, once a single example is produced, that family or person stands in for millions of people.
It's perhaps the most successful and durable lie since "Jews are to blame for everything" was codified and institutionalized about 1,500 years ago. Granted, it has a looong ways to go to catch up with that one, but at this rate, it might have a shot.
And not for nothin', but since when are Right Wing World doyens such Francophiles? Last I heard, they were lambasting John Kerry for exercising his high school French. The Decider ripped David Gregory, when he was NBC White House correspondent, for daring to speak a few words in French to....the French president. While in PARIS! Remember Freedom Fries? (Could you even gulp down something with that name?). But Obama doesn't send a delegation to Paris and it's "Mon Dieu!"
Fucking hypocrites.
Oh wait. There are Mooslims involved, right?
Never mind.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was named chair of the Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness so it's official, the world is coming to an end.
Marvin,
Taken out by a Cruz missile.
Today, on business, I had to drive through the neighborhood where the poor people live.
I passed four men on bicycles, all out for their leisurely mid-morning constitutional since they don't have to work. For some reason, all of them had bags or boxes of empty soda cans in their bicycle baskets. Odd.
Then I drove past a couple of well-dressed ladies armed with umbrellas as rain was expected. For some reason, these ladies of leisure stopped to sit down on the bench at a bus stop to pass the time of day since they had nothing better to do. I suspect my tax dollars paid for the bench. That kind of irked me because I never get to sit on that bench. I only see it when I'm driving by in one of my cars.
On the way back from my business appointment, it was raining, so there weren't many lazy poor people out and about. There was a young woman pushing a double baby stroller. I guess she didn't know enough to come in out of the rain. She had two children in the stroller. And for some reason, she had groceries in the back of it. I stopped & waited for her to cross the street even though I pay taxes to use the road, & the lazy stay-at-home mom probably does not. Kind of irked me having to wait for a poor person & her two little welfare tickets.
Yeah, those people are a bunch of lucky duckies. There but for fate go I.
Marie
P.S. Where were the drugs? In the soda cans? In the grocery bags? In the umbrella handles? These poor people are very tricky.
I didn't happen to catch the 60 Minutes hit job on the ACA last night, ("Obamacare Disaster!!") but I may watch it online if only to see exactly how badly wrong they got things. I'm sure the wingnuts will be pointing to this piece over the coming weeks.
As usual, it appears that 60 Minutes relies on a single primary source for their conclusions, someone, in this case who has a book to sell, Steve Brill (I was once a fan of Steve Brill some years back when he was publishing the magazine "Brill's Content", but I'm not currently up on the source or reason for his enmity toward the ACA which no one has ever said was perfect).
It apparently was so bad that Forbes, of all places, has risen to the defense of the ACA, especially in highlighting the (hit) piece's inability to accommodate the more nuanced aspects of either the law or health care in general, in 13 minutes and it's general journalistic negligence in leaving important questions not only unanswered, but unasked.
This once useful and informative news magazine has now become home for floggers of personal gripes and grasping, climbing celebrity "reporters" who allow personal motives to trump, in egregious fashion, any sense of journalistic integrity. This is the program, after all, that flaunted the abominable Benghazi stories last year, a showcase of lies and innuendo for which not a single producer lost their job.
I don't think Don Hewitt was the highwater mark of television journalism, but I also don't think he'd be loving the current incarnation of his baby. In 2013, Media Matters declared CBS, largely on the evidence of its 60 Minutes Benghazi bullshit, to be its Misinformer of the Year (sorry, couldn't get the Media Matters link to load), putting it up alongside such purveyors of prevarication as Fox, Beck, and Limbaugh.
Nice going.
The headline on today’s NYT profile of Loretta E. Lynch, Obama’s nominee to spell Eric Holder as AG, says “Nominee to Succeed Holder Is Seen as Less Activist.” Less than what? Does this mean she likely won’t even show up at the office?
More on Steven Brill about America's Bitter Pill.
From the Daily Show last week with an extended interview.
Two book reviews.
One in the NYT by Zephyr Teachout.
One in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is much more critical.
I haven't read the book yet so I can't offer any opinions about it. I'll have to pick it up and give myself a break from Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole series.
Hope & Change wasn't a finite list. My comment was intended to call out the Administration's response to the proposed legislation: "receptive." I do recall hearing Obama speeches that legislation like what was described in the WashPo article would be promoted aggressively asap but have no time to find the footnote.
However, your request for a list does remind me of the answer I have heard Obama offer (at least twice) when asked where he might have failed, why his supporters were expressing disappointment with his administration? His answer: "Well, I thought if we got the policy right everything else would fall into place. Maybe [sic] we could have done a better job of explaining our accomplishments."
When first offered roughly two years into his first term and then again quite recently, I found that answer dumbfounding. Aggressively promoting and defending policies and proposed policies that are being constantly and viciously attacked by the Republicans, FOX and the entire right-wing conservative establishment was not something he saw the need for? This from a guy who led the most high energy, professionally organized and effective campaign - especially in terms of communicating and staying on message with the electorate as a whole, gathering volunteer support and motivating voters - that I have ever observed! Ever, bar none; JFK was my first vote.
However, once in office - in a position to provide leadership and advocacy for those who had so enthusiastically embraced his "Hope and Change" business -, the vibrant energy and the extraordinary professional execution disappeared (think ACA roll-out), replaced by the lackadaisical sounding excuse "Well, I thought if we got the policy right.."
In this political environment, facing the opposition that he, his administration and Democrats generally have from day one, the need to aggressively and repeatedly explain, defend and advocate was overlooked?! Just get the policy right?! Incredible.
Early on John Stewart asked Obama, "But sometimes your manner seems a little, ah - timid?" No, no, no - you don't understand, was the answer. Etc.
Now, six years too late, admittedly with no chance of passage, a bold aggressive plan to assist middle and lower income citizens - which should have been list item #1! - is put forward, not by the President but Members of Congress, and the White House message managers shout back: receptive.
Meanwhile Republicans, FOX, et al attack, 24/7 from all quarters. Thankfully, secretly even, our side has the policy right!