;)
The Commentariat -- Jan. 23, 2014
Amie Parnes & Justin Sink of the Hill: In his State of the Union address, President Obama "will include a 'healthy dose' of the income inequality message the White House has focused on in recent weeks, according to one senior administration official familiar with the text."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency's program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only 'minimal' benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release by Thursday..., that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational. The report is likely to inject a significant new voice into the debate over surveillance...." ...
... Linda Greenhouse takes on the question of the applicability of analog precedent in a digital age. ...
... Paul Waldman: "... it doesn't take a totalitarian regime" to deprive us of privacy. "The ability to be anonymous has been receding for decades as documentation and record-keeping has advanced, like a picture of each of us coming more into focus with each passing year."
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The company that conducted a background investigation on the contractor Edward J. Snowden fraudulently signed off on hundreds of thousands of incomplete security checks in recent years, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The government said the company, U.S. Investigations Services, defrauded the government of millions of dollars by submitting more than 650,000 investigations that had not been completed.... In addition to Mr. Snowden, the company performed the background check for Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old military contractor who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard last year.... The lawsuit highlights not just how reliant the government is on contractors to perform national security functions, but also how screening those contractors requires even more contractors."
Jason Millman of Politico: "More than 6.3 million people have been determined eligible for Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program coverage since the October start of open enrollment, the Obama administration announced Wednesday -- but it's still impossible to say how many are newly insured because of Obamacare. At least 2.3 million people were found eligible for Medicaid and CHIP in December alone, the same month that enrollment in private health plans also spiked sharply, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. These determinations include people who renewed coverage or were previously eligible for coverage but had not enrolled. However, the Medicaid numbers just released don't include eligibility determinations made through federal-run exchanges in 36 states, meaning the total could be higher."
Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama on Wednesday marked the 41st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision with a statement calling on the nation to 'recommit' to the principle 'that every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health. We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to protecting a woman's access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy, including the right to reproductive freedom,' Obama said." The full statement is here. ...
... Dana Milbank: According to the sponsors' own theory, it would appear an Angry God put a chill on the March for Life on the Mall in Washington. "The temperature was 12 degrees at the start of the annual antiabortion event, the wind chill below zero, and participants were trudging about in snow and ice from the previous day's storm.... Long before they make abortion illegal, Republicans will make themselves irrelevant, by choosing abortion bills over jobs bills and by validating Democratic claims of a GOP 'war on women.'" ...
Mrs. Pearce holds the book that condemns her to submit to her lord and master.... War on Women, Ctd. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Rep. Steve Pearce's (R-N.M.) ... says in a recently released book that a wife is to 'voluntarily submit' to her husband, but that it doesn't make her inferior to him." Because the Bible tells us so. Pearce is extremely upset that the Post has accurately quoted him. Thanks to Julie L. for the link. ...
... War on Women, Ctd. Emily Goodman of the Nation on oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the Massachusetts law that provides a "buffer zone" of 35 feet for reproductive healthcare facilities. "Anti-choicers allege they are being denied access to public sidewalks and that their free speech rights are being infringed.... Respondents -- those defending the law -- focused at oral argument on the law's impact on public safety and crowd control at reproductive health facilities." ...
... Dean Obeidallah in the Daily Beast visits a new Jersey abortion clinic where he was met by a "sea of people screaming, counseling and praying" to prevent women from entering the clinic. Thanks to contributor Victoria D. for the link & raising this important matter.
Jake Sherman of Politico: "Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday, saying the 'best course of action would be for Congress to 'raise the nation's debt limit 'before February 7 to ensure orderly financing of the government.' At the latest, Lew writes, Congress must lift the cap by the end of February.... Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner, hinted in an email that Republicans will again demand concessions from Democrats to raise the borrowing limit." Emphasis added.
Gail Collins: "It's way easier to be pope" than POTUS.
CW: George Will has noticed that the Supreme Court has a conservative majority, I'll wager, so he has decided, with a little help from a libertarian writer, that judicial activism is a very good thing. "America's defining value is not majority rule but individual liberty.... Conservatives' advocacy of judicial restraint serves liberalism by leaving government's growth unrestrained." Will makes his point by citing a ridiculous state regulation which prevented a poor Louisiana woman from earning a living as a floral designer. His new judicial philosophy will also liberate George, in a manner of speaking, as he is now free to cheer on the increasingly activist Roberts Court.
Uri Friedman of the Atlantic: "In 2013, for the eighth year in a row, more countries registered declines in political rights and civil liberties than gains. Even as the number of electoral democracies in the world increased, nations like the Central African Republic, Mali, and Ukraine suffered devastating democratic setbacks. Thirty-five percent of the world's population, living in 25 percent of the polities on the planet, found themselves in countries that aren't free." CW: The report, by a Washington, D.C.-based organization, lists the U.S. as "free." I think we can all agree that voter suppression laws & the Supreme Court's ruling striking down most of the Voting Rights Act have made the U.S. less free than it was in, say, 2008.
Senate Race
** McConnellCare. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is out with a new campaign ad touting his success in securing free preventive health care services for Kentuckians. The spot, titled 'Cares,' tries to paint the Senate Minority Leader as a compassionate Republican who carries a moral obligation to provide sick people with access to government-sponsored health care." Uh, like ObamaCare. ...
... ** Jason Cherkis of the Huffington Post: The ad buy is based on a horrifying lie, the same lie he ran with during his 2008 campaign. ...
... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "But ... the context in which this ad will be received is the context in which tens of thousands of previously uninsured Kentuckians now have health insurance thanks entirely to Obamacare. And ... Mitch McConnell ... wants to repeal Obamacare completely.... McConnell can't simply walk away form his hardline position against Obamacare without exposing himself to attacks from [Tea Party challenger Matt] Bevin, his new ad shows that he and his political operation are acutely aware that being against Obamacare has a major political downside." ...
... Burgess Everett of Politico: The Koch-funded Tea Party astroturf group "FreedomWorks endorsed Mitch McConnell's primary challenger Matt Bevin on Wednesday, marking another conservative group that is standing against the Senate minority leader. FreedomWorks' PAC praised Bevin as the more fiscally sound choice and criticized McConnell for 'helping the Democrats' fund Obamacare during the fall. The GOP leader opposed a strategy backed by conservative favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to vote down any spending bill that did not defund the law. That tactic fueled a weekslong government shutdown that McConnell ended by cutting a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)." ...
... Presidential Election 2016
The news is better for Kentucky's junior senator. Peter Beinert in the Atlantic: "Don't laugh.... Rand Paul Is the 2016 Republican Frontrunner.... He has built-in advantages in Iowa and New Hampshire, a party moving in his direction, and formidable fundraising potential."
Beth Reinhard of the National Journal: "The Republican National Committee is poised this week to enact its toughest crackdown yet on states that try to infringe on the special, first-in-the-nation status afforded to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. Florida, this means you." ...
... Gubernatorial Race
Frank Rich: "If there's a unifying lesson to be learned from the double-header of the McDonnell-Christie scandals, it's only that dubious character is hardly a bar to running for governor. Yesterday, the Republican senator David Vitter, best known for turning up in the phone book of the 'D.C. Madam' in 2007, announced he would seek Louisiana's state house in 2015. Somewhere, perhaps, Rod Blagojevich is laughing.' Thanks to MAG for the link.
Sean Sullivan & Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Sen. David Vitter's announcement Tuesday that he will run for governor of Louisiana in 2015 marks the latest chapter in a remarkable comeback story for a politician who was once embroiled in a high-profile prostitution scandal."
Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: Vitter is "America's Most Contemptible Senator."
Local News
Elections Matter. Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring will announce Thursday that he believes the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and that Virginia will join two same-sex couples in asking a federal court to strike it down, according to an official close to the attorney general with knowledge about the decision. The action will mark a stunning reversal in the state's legal position on same-sex marriage and is a result of November elections in which Democrats swept the state's top offices. Herring's predecessor, Republican Ken Cuccinelli II, adamantly opposes gay marriage and had vowed to defend Virginia's constitutional amendment banning such unions, which was passed in 2006 with the support of 57 percent of voters." CW: Herring won election by only a few hundred votes among more than a million cast.
Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has admitted he used 'poor judgment' in taking luxury gifts and loans from a prominent businessman, but federal prosecutors will face difficult challenges in proving a crime was committed. The government must show persuasively that McDonnell and his wife struck a corrupt bargain with the Richmond business owner, agreeing to use his powerful state office to help the company in exchange for the executive's largess." ...
... Laura Vozella of the Washington Post: The McDonnells' "Restoration Fund, established in July to bankroll the governor's legal team, had less than $2,000 in contributions, according to its Web site. Although it's unclear how comprehensive the list is, the amount shown is not enough to pay a high-dollar lawyer for even a day's work. McDonnell may not have the personal resources to pay for his defense."
Paul Egan, et al., of the Detroit Free Press: "A settlement of Detroit’s bankruptcy that would protect city retirees and the collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts appeared closer Wednesday after Gov. Rick Snyder pledged $350 million to a growing rescue fund designed to bring all the major parties together in a grand resolution. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes also put his weight behind a grand bargain Wednesday, saying in a separate hearing that he might not allow DIA artwork ever to be sold to satisfy city debts."
Lawyering Up in Jersey:
... Shawn Boburg of the Bergen Record: "The Christie aide who wrote the now infamous message -- 'Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee' -- has hired a hard-charging and prominent defense attorney to represent her as several investigations move forward. Michael Critchley confirmed Wednesday that he was representing Bridget Anne Kelly, of Ramsey, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, who was fired after her message surfaced...."
... Jason Grant of the Star-Ledger: "Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer is poised to hire prominent New Jersey lawyer Gerald Krovatin to represent her, as federal prosecutors investigate her claims that Gov. Chris Christie's office withheld tens of millions of dollars in Sandy-related funds from Hoboken because Zimmer refused to push for a Christie-connected real estate development. Hoboken's city council plans to vote tonight on whether to appoint Krovatin as the city's as 'special legal counsel.' Krovatin has defended Dawn Zimmer in civil court in the past."
News Ledes
Reuters: "Lawmakers in one of the largest cities in Washington state have said no to marijuana businesses, the latest in a series of backlashes by municipalities against a voter-approved recreational pot market in the northwest state.... The Yakima City Council on Tuesday voted 6-1 in favor of banning pot growers, processors and retailers from operating within its borders."
AP: "A massive highway pileup being blamed on whiteout conditions killed at least two people and injured scores of others Thursday afternoon in northwestern Indiana, police and a coroner said."
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Reader Comments (13)
Marie,
Thanks for the information about Mr. Joshua Black being visited by the appropriate authorities after his tirade about killing the president. I was pretty sure that was SOP. Glad someone is doing their job.
I know that Black is black. But crazy is also crazy. I never meant to suggest that his lunacy towards the president tagged him as racist, only to point out that it appears we are reaching (if we haven't already) a critical mass of loons. Loons who are being listened to by other loons and, no doubt, by aspiring loons, and a generation of little loons who will all be able to vote (and run for office themselves) in a few years.
We've always had kooks who spout off like this. FDR had his share of psychos as has every other president. And some of those psychos have been supported or encouraged by equally psychotic fringe groups. But today is different. Now we have the most despicable rhetoric and dangerously violent talk being supported by corporate entities like the Kochs and major media outlets like ClearChannel, the Washington Times, and the WSJ, and Fox who, if they don't personally point the unhinged in the direction of malevolence (although often they do), they certainly encourage it either economically or through daily doses of high voltage inflammatory ranting.
People like Joshua Black used to be looked at with alarm and avoided when passed on the street. Now they run for, and sometimes, win, public office. Even if he doesn't win, the fact that his call to hang the president gets far more than Andy Warhol's famous fifteen minutes is an extremely bad sign. Ted Nugent, fer crissakes, is just as crazy and he's considered a bona fide hero on the right!
Karl Rove has been running around the country waving money at slightly less crazy potential candidates in hopes of preventing those completely off the chain from gumming up his works. He only wants electable psychos. But just the fact that he has to work so hard to accomplish this is a terrible omen. It means that people not quite as deranged as Joshua Black are being taken seriously enough to win elections (Louie Gohmert?) and get to make state, local, and national policy.
But he and the other GOP masterminds are to blame for this dangerous state of affairs. They encouraged the undead to get involved and they did. Now they're out for blood. Literally. The Republican Party and their media echo chamber are to blame when calls to hang the president get such national play.
It's one thing when kooks are being egged on by the voices in their head. Quite another when other voices from TV and radio agree with them.
Re: Angry God; "The temperature was 12 degrees at the start of the annual antiabortion event, the wind chill below zero, and participants were trudging about in snow and ice from the previous day’s storm...." Dana "Devil Boy" Millbank
Not so fast Devil Boy, in keeping with the participant's theories of "every little sperm is sacred" the event welcomed the freezing temperatures because sperm doesn't do well in heat. As most marchers were male I'm guessing literally millions of of the little egg seekers were saved from a scorched death. Remember; "Keep your eggs cool and your sperm damn near frozen."
This week saw a case before the Supreme Court seeking to overturn Massachusetts law which sets up a zone of privacy around people entering clinics that provide abortions. Justice Scalia took an aggressive stance, dismissing the idea that these people were aggressive protesters, and characterizing them as kindly "counselors" who presumably deserved complete First Amendment protection (meaning no limits as to how close they could get to patients entering clinics).
Dean Obeidallah decided to take a look at the situation at a clinic in New Jersey, which has no zone of protection laws.. A sample of his observations:
"[A] group of men had formed an angry gauntlet in front of the clinic. They held signs bearing photos of dead babies, Biblical verses, and allegations that baby-killing was taking place at this facility.
I can’t even imagine what a woman who is likely emotionally distraught over the prospect of having an abortion is feeling as she approaches this group of men. In fact, to be brutally honest, I felt anxious as they glared at me when I neared the clinic’s entrance."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/22/the-loud-truth-about-abortion-protesters.html
@JJG: "... most marchers were male...." Not as far as I can tell. One news report, which mentioned Pope Francis's supportive tweet, described a crowd of "men, women and children." I looked at quite a few photos of the march, and it appeared to me that there were more-or-less the same number of women and men, though I couldn't find any reports that made direct assertions about the male/female ratio. If you know better, do tell.
Marie
Re: Frozen March participants. A couple years ago I had the misfortune of scheduling a sightseeing day in DC on the same day as the forced-birth rally. To my naked eye (from the train ride in to the seeing people at the march) the vast majority appeared to be middle school aged children, many proudly carrying their parochial school banners. It was sickening.
If only women would behave.
So sayeth Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), a Vietnam veteran, explains in his book that families, like the military command, need a leadership structure in which every person has a role. He says the wife's role, according to the Bible, is to be obedient to her husband.) "The wife is to voluntarily submit, just as the husband is to lovingly lead and sacrifice," he writes. "The husband’s part is to show up during the times of deep stress, take the leadership role and be accountable for the outcome, blaming no one else."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/01/22/gop-congressmans-book-the-wife-is-to-voluntarily-submit-to-her-husband/
Interesting piece by Molly Ball on the Atlantic site. She interviews lie-smith, GOP apparatchik, and Fox regular, Frank Luntz who is having an existential moment realizing that the noxious shit he's been spreading over the political landscape for several decades has sprouted poisonous weeds, and boy, is he surprised!
Another example of how toxic GOP tactics over the last generation have produced unexpected results and given plenty of ammunition, comfort, and support to the crazies. Rove is surprised that people won't follow his orders anymore? Luntz is astounded that he can't come up with enough new lies to twist people's brains toward GOP power centers and away from that awful, terrible, divisive, lying Barack Obama.
This guy is just self-deluded enough to have imagined that he, and only he, could speak for The People. That he knew what they wanted and told his Republican political clients what and how to say things that The People wanted to hear. Never mind actual leadership. Never mind the public trust and the public good. Luntz's goal, like Rove's has always been to say and do anything, no matter how evil, how venomous, how untrue, in order to win. But now Luntz is whining that people aren't nice. They scream at each other. They don't listen to HIM anymore. And who's to blame? Give you one guess.
Obama!
Yep. This is the Frank Luntz who created a list of insulting and demeaning words for Newt Gingrich to pass around to his Contract on America toadies to use against their Democratic opponents. Remember? "Sick, shallow, corrupt, hypocrites, traitors, decay, bizarre, disgraceful, incompetent..." Yeah, that Frank Luntz. He's also the guy who encouraged Republicans to refer to the ACA as a "government takeover of healthcare". But now he's amazed that people are actually talking like that. AND he's just self-absorbed enough to need to blame someone else.
Well, Frank, thanks for the memories. Hope you recover from your existential crisis right around the time the GOP puts a moratorium on using your tactics.
You rat bastard.
Frank Luntz, master of mendacity and dissimulation, is amazed that there's no straight talk anymore. Blames Obama.
@Victoria D. Thanks for the link. One thing that the respondents don't seem to have mentioned (I haven't read the amicus briefs; I'm just going on the reporting) is the privacy of the women who are seeking health services. I know for certain that I don't want my health concerns -- whatever they may be -- made public. If I were a young woman having an abortion, or seeing a doctor for some other reproductive concern, that would be doubly true. I think that's why we have laws designed to ensure doctor-patient confidentiality in most circumstances.
I live in a large community, so when I go to the doctor, I don't often see people I know in the waiting room. When I do, I'm a little embarrassed, not for myself, but for my neighbors or acquaintances, because I think they may feel that just my seeing them in a doctor's office would cause me to think there was "something wrong with" them. I feel that, through no fault of my own, I am to some degree violating their privacy just by being aware they are seeking medical treatment.
I wonder what Scalia would think if I approached him as he was going to see his doctor, asked him what "was wrong with him," then advised him he should get some other treatment or see some other doctor. Wouldn't he think I was violating his right to medical privacy? I think he would.
Obviously, few people will go to the doctor's office with bags over their heads, and a whole host of medical & insurance personnel will find out why you're there. But to the extent possible, the privacy of individuals seeking medical attention should be preserved. Subjecting women to a gauntlet of noisy, abusive, sometimes violent objections to their (assumed) treatment is a violation of that presumed right to confidentiality.
Marie
Victoria,
If I remember correctly, the Massachusetts buffer zone law was enacted (by a Republican adminstration!) after a right-to-life type burst into a Planned Parenthood clinic and murdered people. At his trial it came out that this guy, John Salvi, had information on how to contact other right-to-lifers planning similar assaults on other women's health clinics. Does anyone think these types have disappeared? These people consider Salvi a saint!
It would be no problem for the court to allow Massachusetts, and any other state concerned about the safety and the ability of citizens to seek what they have determined to be the best course of action for their own personal health without harassment and threats of violence, to determine, as they have before, that free speech has limits.
If women seeking abortions or information about their choices (while they still have them) want other opinions, they are free to solicit them on their own. What do you think Scalia would say about Occupy Now protesters surrounding investment banks and brokerage firms and screaming at investors or potential investors as they approached the front door? You can bet your mortgage they'd discover the limits of free speech quicker than Sam Alito can roll his eyes.
If free speech is their goal, why was Dubya allowed to enforce "free speech bubbles" thousands of feet from wherever he was to pass or speak, into which police herded anyone protesting his policies?
The hypocrisy stinks like an abattoir at low tide.
@Akhilleus: Don't worry. There's hope for Luntz yet. He has upended his life and moved to a condo overlooking the Las Vegas strip to give him a "chance to be intellectually challenged again." I can't think of a better venue for inspiring intellectual renewal.
Marie
Re: Another retraction; As reported erroneously in a earlier comment; "marchers were mostly male" should have been "most of the marching sperm were under male ownership". We apologize for the error.
Not quite sure what I think this means:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/23/1272033/-Conservative-commentator-Dinesh-D-Souza-indicted-for-illegal-campaign-contributions
But on the tail of the McDonnell and Christie probes, it may mean the Dems are getting serious about shutting down the electoral bullshit ahead the 2014 midterms. At least I"d like to hope so.
Doesn't the Supreme Court have their own "free speech bubble" in front of the court?