;)
The Commentariat -- March 18, 2013
** Michael Luo of the New York Times: "The National Rifle Association and its allies are challenging states' efforts to take guns away from domestic violence offenders who have been served with civil protection orders.... In statehouses across the country, though, the N.R.A. and other gun-rights groups have beaten back legislation mandating the surrender of firearms in domestic violence situations.... Intimate partner homicides account for nearly half the women killed every year, according to federal statistics." Read the whole article. This is a situation where the NRA has persuaded state & federal legislators to effectively grant licenses to kill (mostly) women. ...
... Benjamin Goad of The Hill: "A growing number of states are moving forward with legislation to exempt them from new federal gun controls and, in some cases, brand as criminals anyone who tries to enforce them. While many of the bills are considered symbolic or appear doomed to fail, the legislative explosion reflects a backlash against legislative and regulatory efforts in Washington to tamp down on gun violence."
Paul Krugman: "The really striking thing, during the run-up to the [Iraq] war, was the illusion of consensus. To this day, pundits who got it wrong excuse themselves on the grounds that 'everyone' thought that there was a solid case for war. Of course, they acknowledge, there were war opponents -- but they were out of the mainstream.... What we should have learned from the Iraq debacle was that you should always be skeptical and that you should never rely on supposed authority. If you hear that 'everyone' supports a policy, whether it's a war of choice or fiscal austerity, you should ask whether 'everyone' has been defined to exclude anyone expressing a different opinion. And policy arguments should be evaluated on the merits, not by who expresses them...."
Obama 2.0. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama plans to announce Monday that he will nominate Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, to be the next secretary of labor, a choice that promises to provoke a debate with Republicans about voting rights and discrimination."
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "In Congress, Republicans are pushing an agenda that is almost identical to the one that their party lost with in November, with no regrets and few efforts to reframe it even rhetorically. The House will vote this week on the third iteration of Mr. Ryan's budget, which would again try to turn Medicare into a subsidy for private insurance purchases, slash the top income tax rate and cut deeply into programs the president campaigned to protect. On Wednesday, Senate Republicans forced a vote to eliminate financing for the president's health care law. The effort failed, 52-45, but it was at least the 54th time that one chamber or the other had voted on a proposal to repeal all or part of the law, which was enacted three years ago.... Which raises the question: What are elections for?" ...
... AND. Greg Sargent watched the Sunday shows: "The GOP position, with no exaggeration, is that the only way Republican leaders will ever agree to paying down the deficit they say is a threat to American civilization is 100 percent their way; they are not willing to concede anything at all to reach any deal involving new revenues to reduce the deficit, or to get the entitlement reform they want, or to avert sequestration they themselves said will gut the military and tank the economy But ... but ... but Obama needs to lead and prove he's Serious by offering still more entitlement cuts than he already has!"
... BUT -- Lipstick on an Elephant. AP: "The Republican National Committee will formally endorse immigration reform on Monday and outline plans for a $10 million outreach to minority groups -- gay voters among them -- as part of a multi-step roadmap designed to make the GOP more 'welcoming and inclusive' for voters who overwhelmingly supported Democrats in 2012." ...
... Update: the report is here. ...
... Zeke Miller of Time: "More than anything, [the report] is a rejection of the politics of 'arithmetic,' as RNC Chairman Reince Priebus will say when he announces the report's recommendations in a thinly veiled shot at Mitt Romney's 47 percent comments. 'The RNC cannot and will not ..write off any demographic, community, or region of this country.'"
... UH-OH. Alexander Burns of Politico: "An outside group aligned with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has commissioned a report that warns conservatives against adopting an all-spending cuts, all-the-time message, and suggests that leaders on the right put a heavier emphasis on less abstract issues such as education and gas prices. The poll, commissioned by the nonprofit YG Network and obtained by Politico, shows that even Americans concerned about deficits and debt are far more concerned with their own personal economic well-being."
Fire Ed DeMarco. Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Prominent state attorneys general are calling on President Obama to fire the acting director[ Edward J. DeMarco] of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and name a new permanent director, arguing that current policies are impeding the economic recovery. Under ... DeMarco, the F.H.F.A., which oversees the bailed-out mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has refused to put in place a White House proposal to reduce the principal on so-called underwater mortgages.... Led by Eric T. Schneiderman of New York and Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, the attorneys general argue that writing down the principal on underwater mortgages ... would aid the recovery. They note that write-downs were a central part of a multibillion-dollar mortgage settlement that 49 state attorneys general negotiated with five major banks a year ago."
I tend to agree with Glenn Greenwald's column, published last week, on President Obama's penchant for secrecy. ...
... BUT Driftglass's note of caution is worth heeding: "Mr. Greenwald does have the litigator's fetish for framing every sentence in the most aggressively dichotomous way possible down cold. Ordering dessert with him must be a bitch; 'Are you going to order the tiramisu or are you objectively pro-Hitler?' Because in Glennview there are always two-and-only-two acceptable positions on all issues: agreeing with Glenn 100% right down the line and worse-than-Cheney." Read all of Driftglass's post.
Charles Pierce responds to this BBC report, which I linked this past weekend & thought was a very big deal, but which received little attention here in the Good Ole U.S.A.: "There were 22,000 more Americans who died in Vietnam after Nixon sabotaged the peace talks in order to win an election."
CNN Feels Really Sorry for Rapists. David Edwards of Raw Story: "CNN broke the news on Sunday of a guilty verdict in a rape case in Steubenville, Ohio by lamenting that the 'promising' lives of the rapists had been ruined, but spent very little time focusing on how the 16-year-old victim would have to live with what was done to her":
... Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: "CNN continued with this awful slanted reporting throughout the afternoon ... even after a storm erupted on social media, condemning their coverage. The sheer contempt they showed for their audience, and for the victim of this terrible crime, was breathtaking." ...
... Mallory Ortberg of Gawker: "It's perfectly understandable, when reporting on a rape trial, to discuss the length and severity of the sentence; it is less understandable to discuss the end of two convicted rapists' future athletic and academic careers as if it were somehow divorced from the laws of cause and effect. Their dreams and hopes were not crushed by an impersonal, inexorable legal system; Mays and Richmond raped a girl and have been sentenced accordingly.... That isn't how rape trials ought to be discussed by professional journalists." ...
... Charles Pierce monitors the Sunday shows, including CNN's poor-little-rapists marathon.
Right Wing World *
Has-Beens Bickering. Sahil Kapur of TPM: Palin & Rove take swipes at each other. AND more from David Edwards of Raw Story.
E. J. Dionne asks if conservatives "believe in American greatness.... Conservatives ... need to consider where the strong America they honor came from in the first place."
"At CPAC, the Marriage Fight is Over." Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "Opponents of gay rights spoke to a nearly empty room, while supporters had a standing room-only crowd:"
Joe Coscarelli's story on the son of the New York City Fire Chief -- who is apparently in line to become an FDNY firefighter -- is not the type of local story I usually link, but it's disgusting enough to read. And you know the little Nazi (perfectly apt term here) is gonna get the job.
* Where there is sometimes good news.
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Reader Comments (11)
This just in: The GOP has announced its $50 million "Outreach to Schmucks" program, designed to appeal to self-described "credulous Americans."
I rarely disagree with Paul Krugman, but I vehemently dispute his assertion that:
"Bad economic policy isn’t the moral equivalent of a war fought on false pretenses, and while the predictions of deficit scolds have been wrong time and again, there hasn’t been any development either as decisive or as shocking as the complete failure to find weapons of mass destruction"
Millions needlessly unemployed for years? Lives wasted? Poor people denied medical care and assistance? How much more wanton destruction to human lives do we need to witness before we declare that the insane Republican determination to reduce the deficit and the debt on the backs of the poor and unemployed is indeed just as morally culpable as a war based on complete falsehood?
@Jack Mahoney. You scooped me on that one. But quite right. The likely outcome is that the All-Powerful Schmucks of the GOP won't get it. These are, after all, the guys who are at the Supreme Court this week spending your tax dollars to fight for DOMA & refusing to compromise on taxes or closing loopholes.
Marie
@Calyban. I agree. Tens of thousands of Americans have died because of our bad economic/social policy, and as you say, millions more have led needlessly difficult lives. I expect Krugman wrote what he wrote so he wouldn't be criticized for overplaying the importance of his own convictions. But in so doing, he diminished his convictions. Excess humility can dilute one's argument.
Marie
Re: No; it's worse; Calyban; It's war waged against one's own country and citizens.
Re: Get in early; Mr. Mahoney; Your future is secure, by selling "Schmucks products" door to door and recruiting your own group of salespeople to pyramid on you will reap all goodness that the Schmucks Party Products promises.
The first product we are offering is the "Schmuck de-greaser"; This righteousness in a can allows it's users to say or do anything all day long and come home, wash up with "Schmuck Slime-Away" and feel like baby Jesus in fresh diapers.
The Schmucks Party Products stands tall behind you and our products. Some restrictions apply. We'll tell you...
Wonderful to hear that the RNC is proposing to raise money to attract blahs, gays, and other personae non gratae to the ranks of the big Elephant Tent. And they think that $10 million will do the trick.
Cool.
Now all they have to do is raise that money by convincing the same people who have forked over HUNDREDS of millions to make sure blahs, gays, and personae non gratae stay that way.
It makes no difference that "those people" will never vote Republican any time in the near future specifically because those huge sums have purchased gigantic "Go Away, We Fucking Hate You" signs effectively planted in the yards of their core constituency. They just lost a huge race in which their ideology and hate have been roundly condemned by a large (and growing larger) majority of Americans, including blahs, gays, and assorted personae non gratae.
In other other news, experts at teabagging Ted Cruz and Lil' Randy announce that their side is winning! Hooray!
The Modern GOP.
Land of Magic(al thinking).
Does anyone else find it the height of absurdity that the New York Fire Commissioner is arranging for his punk kid--a racist scumbag--to jump to the head of the line for those waiting to join the FDNY through a program designed to enhance DIVERSITY?
Let's all try to guess which party this douchewad votes for, and they're glad to have him, by Himmler!
JJG, Can you send me a sample case? I would think that multi-level marketing and the Republican Party would be a marriage made in heaven (as long as it doesn't run afoul of DOMA).
If only Billy Mays were still alive he could succeed Reince as RNC Chairman.
@Marie: Loved your comment on Charlie Pierce's column. Why is it the person being exploited gets most of the blame?
I understand the new $10M outreach project of the GOP this way: There's a steaming stinky pile of poop lying in the middle of your best rug that is a stand-in for GOP policies aimed at diminishing everyone in the country except the top 1% earners. The 1% will donate money to buy many top of the line high capacity freezers. The aforementioned stinky piles of poop will be packaged into popsicle molds by some of the 99%ers who think they will be richly rewarded for their efforts by becoming 1%ers (they won't.Scott Walker comes to mind). The new repackaged poop will be placed in the freezers. The outcome will be that there will now be poopsicles to serve to the 99% but see - they won't stink as badly. Unfortunately, its still poop. As an added feature, they could be packaged in the famous Ryan dumbbell photo.
I'm actually quite encouraged by their new plan. The GOP does not have a clue nor do they want to have a clue about more vocal and rising constituencies of voters (young, people of color and women). The biggest flaw in the poopsicle plan is the GOP belief that they are so much more clever and intelligent than these influential constituencies. I sincerely hope self immolation comes sooner rather than later.
On Krugman's "illusion of Consensus": The constantly repeated "everybody knows we have a debt crisis" drives me absolutely crazy. I think a large portion of the blame lies with our media stenographers (i.e. reporters). I believe some of it is pure laziness and also some of these "reporters" don't actually know what their responsibilities are. I think a lot of them feel they've done a good job if they write an article on a popular topic of the day and it doesn't contain too many spelling and punctuation errors. Most of them (the younger ones?) seem to have made it through their journalism classes by showing up and maintaining a warmer body temperature than the classroom in which they are sitting. You know, we can't damage their self-esteem by making them think they are less than shinning stars. (Who the hell came up with all this self-esteem crap anyway?) Anyway, you all know the steps to the dance of "the oft repeated lie." I really believe it will be incredibly hard to overcome this insidious campaign of lies by the republicans, people being such sheep and all.