;)
The Commentariat -- March 2, 2015
Internal links removed.
Mike DeBonis & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "House Republican leaders will face a familiar dilemma this week when they try again to approve funding to keep the Department of Homeland Security functioning through the end of September: They know their party is too divided to resolve the crisis on its own but fear the political fallout if they rely on Democrats to get them out of the jam." ...
... Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "House speaker John Boehner on Sunday dismissed reports that conservative rivals are planning to oust him following a deal to avert a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), amidst rumours that he promised a vote on a 'clean bill' on the issue next week." ...
... Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Sunday rejected rumors that GOP leaders struck a deal with Democratic leaders to bring a 'clean' Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill to the floor for a vote this week. 'There is no such deal and there's no such bill,' Scalise said on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'On Friday, there was a bill on the House floor to pass a clean funding bill. We rejected that because we said we're fighting the president on what he's doing illegally on immigration.'"
NEW. Peter Baker & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday opened his high-profile visit to the American capital by playing down any personal dispute with President Obama, but he said that he had a 'moral obligation' to warn against the dangers of an American-brokered nuclear deal with Iran." ...
... Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Sunday addressed perceived tensions between the Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insisting that the two parties are committed to working together on international security." ...
... Ruth Eglash & William Booth of the Washington Post: "Hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set off Sunday for Washington, a group of 180 retired Israeli generals and former top security officials warned that his upcoming address to a joint meeting of Congress on Iran's nuclear program will cause more harm than good." ...
... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "So far, 30 Democrats -- four senators and 26 representatives -- have said they will not attend the speech. Nearly half are African-Americans, who say they feel deeply that Mr. Netanyahu is disrespecting the president.... But a half-dozen of those Democrats planning to stay away are Jewish, and represent 21 percent of Congress's Jewish members." ...
... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly has a roundup of U.S. commentary on Bibi's Big Ploy. ...
... Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Switzerland to meet again with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister who earned a Ph.D in international law and policy from the University of Denver, to try to negotiate the very accord that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel arrived in Washington that same day to denounce." CW: As I said last week, if Iran has any intention of ever signing an agreement, now would be the moment to do it. Bibi might do a Rumpelstiltskin & rend himself in two in front of the U.S. Congress. ...
... Julia Edwards of Reuters: "President Barack Obama would veto a bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate allowing Congress to weigh in on any deal the United States and other negotiating countries reach with Iran on its nuclear capabilities, the White House said on Saturday." ...
... Mark Langfan of Israel National News: "The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma'an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran. Following Obama's threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack. According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran's nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel's back."
** Workers Are People, My Friend. Paul Krugman: "... extreme inequality and the falling fortunes of America's workers are a choice, not a destiny imposed by the gods of the market. And we can change that choice if we want to."
Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "This week, the Court will hear arguments in a momentous case, King v. Burwell.... But, in contrast to other landmarks in Supreme Court history, the King case is notable mostly for the cynicism at its heart. Instead of grandeur, there is a smallness about this lawsuit in every way except in the stakes riding on its outcome." ...
... Digby: "Also too: these same lawyers [who brought the King suit] heavily lobbied the Republican states not to build exchanges." ...
... Nicholas Bagley, in a New York Times op-ed, makes the case that the four confederate justices who dissented in the 2012 ACA case made the same argument in that case that the government is making in King; that is, that removing a major element of the ACA (in 2010, it was the individual mandate, not the tax credits) would impose "such unexpected burdens -- for example, leaving millions of people without health insurance -- 'would be in absolute conflict with the design' of the law and 'would pose a threat to the nation that Congress did not intend.'" ...
... CW: AND, here's an interesting tidbit -- which Bagley doesn't mention -- for Roberts watchers: It was Chief Justice Roberts himself who wrote the dissent that contains that language. Only at the last minute did Roberts change his mind & side with the more liberal justices to save the ACA. If he knew that then, he knows it today. And so do the four dancing justices who signed that 2012 dissent as co-authors. ...
... "Provable Fiction." Steven Brill for Reuters: "Congressional intent will be hotly debated in the U.S. Supreme Court this Wednesday in King v. Burwell.... 'Congress could not have chosen clearer language to express its intent to limit subsidies to state exchanges,' the plaintiffs, represented by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, argue in their brief. That is fiction. Provable fiction.... I interviewed 21 congressional staffers and members last year in my effort to reconstruct the day-by-day narrative of how Obamacare happened. None ever mentioned the possibility that the subsidies did not apply to the states in the federal exchange. On the contrary, everything they told me -- and all of the contemporaneous emails and other internal documents I reviewed -- assumed that the federal exchange would simply be a substitute for a state exchange if a state decided not to launch its own, and that the same rules would apply." ...
... Sens. Orrin Hatch, Lamar Alexander & John Barasso (R, R & R) in a Washington Post op-ed: "We have a plan for fixing health care." CW: And we wrote it on the back of a napkin! And there's not a chance in hell this plan to put millions of Americans in a fix would ever get past the wingnuts in the House. But, hey, it's a "plan." ...
... As Greg Sargent points out, the main purpose of this advertised "plan" is "transparently designed to make it easier for conservative Justices to side with the challengers." ...
... David Morgan of Reuters surveyed state governors & legislatures to see how they might deal with the loss of subsidies for residents of their states. Though spokespeople, the governors of five states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and Wisconsin -- said, "Let 'em die!" (Paraphrase.) "State government officials in Georgia, Missouri, Montana and Tennessee -- a mix of Republicans and Democrats - said that opposition by majority Republican state legislators could make it all but impossible to set up a new exchange."
E. J. Dionne: "The absurdity of going to the wire on funding the Department of Homeland Security tells us that many in the party, particularly right-wingers in the House, do not care how their inability to govern in an orderly fashion looks to citizens outside the conservative bubble."
Charles Blow: "There remains in the Republican Party, as evidenced by the speakers at [CPAC], a breathtaking narrowness of vision and deficit of creative thought.... [At CPAC, there] was too much rhetoric about defending, defeating, defunding, deauthorizing. There was so much anti-Obama and anti-Hillary obsessing that the 'pro' alternatives -- to the extent that a case could be made -- were obscured." ...
... Brian Schatz of Mother Jones: "Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican who recently became the chair of a key congressional subcommittee on science and technology, didn't vaccinate most of his children, he told a crowd at his first town hall meeting last week.... 'I believe it's the parents' decision whether to immunize or not.... Most of our children, we didn't immunize. They're healthy.' Loudermilk's comment sparked sharp criticism, including from Rick Wilson, a prominent Republican strategist who called for the congressman's resignation. Having 'healthy,' unvaccinated kids does not mean that they aren't at risk, or that they won't put others at risk later...." CW: Sorry I forgot to link this last week. Don't worry; I'm sure Loudermilk is still stupid.
Perversion of the Principle of Eminent Domain. Josh Israel & Katie Valentine of Think Progress: "... the groups that usually are vocal proponents of property rights, including the Institute for Justice, have been silent when it comes to [Keystone XL's seizure of private property]. 'I have not seen a single group that would normally rail against eminent domain speak up on behalf of farmers or ranchers on the Keystone XL route,' said Jane Kleeb, founder of the anti-Keystone group Bold Nebraska.... Oil pipelines like Keystone XL are often classified as common carriers -- both in Texas and in other states.... The pipeline, [environmentalists] say, is an example of ... 'private to private' transfer -- it's a privately-owned pipeline that will use private land to transport oil, and that oil will end up benefiting private interests." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.
"Elected by the People." Garrett Epps of the Atlantic on the language of the Seventeenth Amendment. Where it isn't clear, expect legislators & governors to abuse it.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Tape Debunks O'Reilly's JFK Tale. Tom Kludt of CNN: "... phone recordings indicate that [Bill] O'Reilly learned of the suicide second-hand and was in a different location at the time. Years later, however, O'Reilly would repeatedly claim to have been at the scene. In his 2012 book 'Killing Kennedy,' O'Reilly wrote that he knocked on the door of a South Florida home when suddenly he 'heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide' of George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian immigrant who knew Lee Harvey Oswald. While promoting the book, O'Reilly said on Fox News that he 'was about to knock on the door' when de Mohrenschildt 'blew his brains out with a shotgun.'" CW: Kludt has produced a good-quality audio tape in which an investigator informs O'Reilly of the suicide. It is clear that O'Reilly had no first-hand information & that he was not in Florida at the time de Mohrenschildt killed himself; O'Reilly doesn't even know the town where de Mohrenschildt died. ...
... Digby: "... at what point does Fox have to deal with this? Ever? Isn't it time for people to start asking the allegedly straight reporters Brett Baier, Ed Henry and Chris Wallace what they think about this?"
Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch's media holdings in Britain, acquitted last year on charges related to the phone hacking scandal, is likely to return to News Corporation to focus on new avenues for digital and social media, people familiar with the company's plans said."
Presidential Race
Now He's Severely Confederate. Leigh Munsil of Politico: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says his views have changed on immigration -- and he doesn't support amnesty for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S." CW: Because Obama.
Beyond the Beltway
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "The Justice Department has nearly completed a highly critical report accusing the police in Ferguson, Mo., of making discriminatory traffic stops of African-Americans that created years of racial animosity leading up to an officer's shooting of a black teenager last summer, law enforcement officials said. According to several officials who have been briefed on the report's conclusions, the report criticizes the city for disproportionately ticketing and arresting African-Africans and relying on the fines to balance the city's budget. The report, which is expected to be released as early as this week, will force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department or face being sued by it on civil rights charges."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The Iraqi military, alongside thousands of Shiite militia fighters, began a large-scale offensive on Monday to retake the city of Tikrit from the Islamic State, a battle that could either become a pivotal fight in the campaign to reclaim north and west Iraq or deepen the country's bloody sectarian divide."
Daily Beast: "In less than 12 hours, there were two separate attempts to penetrate the White House grounds."
Los Angeles Times: "The video-recorded fatal shooting by Los Angeles police of a homeless man on skid row Sunday night has investigators looking for additional footage that could shed light on the deadly confrontation."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-have-a-plan-for-fixing-health-care/2015/03/01/e0925502-becc-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html
There it is, folks, your alternative GOP health care plan, just in time for when the SCOTUS rips up the ACA due to the four words at issue in King v. Burwell.
And, unlike the original Pelosi Plan (1200 plus pages and you'll know what it is after you vote for it), the Hatch-Barrasso-brownhaired guy who's not Hatch or Barrasso Plan is short and clear. Basically, "Don't worry, the GOP will take care of you, better care, more choice, less money" -- sort of like the PapaJohn's of health care.
These people will print and sign anything -- except meaningful legislation.
"These people will print and sign anything -- except meaningful legislation."
Take the case of Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon, who is extremely conservative and who is throwing his hat in the Republican circle for that big brass ring. He has called Obamacare "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery." He has, however, come up with no plans for alternative healthcare, at least none that I know of. We took notice of Carson when he gave the key note address at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, where eggs and ham mix with Jesus and fishy fables. With Obama sitting within feet of him, Carson had the chutzpah––or perhaps insensitivity would be a better word––to castigate America's weak leadership and bemoaned its "moral decay" and "fiscal irresponsibility." This man presents well–-has an easy, comfortable way of speaking while trying to draw you into in his net of radical ideas such as his thinking people who pay no net federal tax––that's the famous 47percenters––should not be given the right to vote and determine what other people are paying. This coming from a black man that grew up poor in Detroit. Wonder why Clarence Thomas looms large in my mind as I write this.
RE: Scott Walker: Norman Mailer once wrote a book called "Advertisements for Myself"; it appears that Walker's book, "Unintimidated: A Governor's Story and a Nation's Challenge" is, according to Michael Tomasky, an advertisement for himself, "a kind of auto-bildungsroman about his his victory over the forces of darkness in passing Act 10, as the anti-union bill was known...he compares himself to Ronald Reagan." Meanwhile Wisconsin burns underneath all their very white snow.
An interesting story about a police department's reaction to a study showing they were profiling:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2015/2/23/kalamazoo-police.html
Confronted with data that didn't feel right, they nevertheless changed their practices because the data were right.
What Krugman has to say about choice seems so, so reasonable that its revolutionary contents might be missed. Didn't have time to read the comments his Sunday night elicited so don't know if anyone noticed just how revolutionary it was, but Marx and Engels stand not far behind his central premise. Human beings are in fact responsible for how they treat other human beings and hiding behind so-called economic principles in order to shirk that responsibility is no more or less than self-serving moral cowardice.
Our local progressive radio show repeatedly makes the point that the economic choices we make are indeed choices. As Krugman's example suggests, it's when the workers, Marx's masses, that is the majority, treat purported economic principles like Lasalles's Iron Law of Wages, which claims wages will slump to the lowest level necessary to keep the peons alive, as if they were revealed religion, and vote accordingly that workers always lose.
The language of "choice" when speaking about economic arrangements points to a deliciously ironic intersection with the language of political and religious fundamentalists like Phyllis Schafly, whose best-selling book of the 1960's "A Choice, Not an Echo" was on my father's book shelf. Economic fundamentalists, those who say that the iron law of whatever is indeed the iron law, are saying that there really is no choice. The Market is in charge and people are mere commodities, like paperclips, food or TVs.
The irony here us that the Shaflys of the world who so vociferously demand a choice are choosing a world in which there is no choice at all. God or the Market tells you what to do.
And the further and larger implied irony is that those same people who claim most loudly to desire "freedom" are the ones that fear it most.
After all, with freedom comes responsibility...and who in the world would want that?
BTW, not mad, just off the net for most of the next month...
I'm so relieved to read that Bibi doesn't mean anything by coming to address (Republicans in) Congress and trying to fuck with American foreign policy, without any input or invitation from the White House. He really, really, really respects the president and the office of the presidency.
At least that's what he swore to AIPAC.
It's like the asshole who lives across the street from you, who is always coming over to borrow stuff but never bringing it back, then constantly bad mouthing you to the other neighbors, who one day, on his way to a drunken party with other assholes at the house next to yours, stops to give you a wave and a big shit-eating grin while pissing on your rose bushes.
But he swears he respects you.
Just not today.
Seems to me that Scott Walker has been taking lessons from Bill O in ways to boost his personal macho quotient.
Lesson one: Lie
Lesson two: Lie some more.
Lesson three: If anyone calls you on it, attack them.
So, Walker cowering under his desk while protesters show up to demonstrate their disapproval of his vicious attacks on the citizens of Wisconsin, becomes Brave Scottie standing up to 100,000 terrorists, all by himself.
That's right up there with Loofah Boy seeing Irish terrorists kill and maim with bullets and bombs when in fact, he was looking at pictures in a book.
By that logic, I saw John Jacob Astor on the Titanic, just a couple of days before it sank. I was walking down that road in Vietnam next to a little girl who had just been napalmed. I sat in Adirondack chairs with Pentagon brass to watch the test of the first atomic bomb, and I was with the Marines who hoisted the flag on Iwo Jima. Just out of camera range, of course, which is why you don't see me. I was busy laying down suppressing fire that allowed those guys to put up the flag.
I guess they can't help it. Congenital liars, all of them.
O'Reilly, in one of his rants designed to shut up a caller, and to question that caller's manhood, ran down the list of his macho war experiences, declaring--you can practically hear his monkey paws beating on his chest--that if the caller had ever been in combat, like he had, he might be able to have an opinion, cuz Bill had "checked the boxes": Falklands War, check. El Salvador, check; Northern Ireland, check.
Think Fox will be asking him to uncheck those boxes?
But even after it's clear that he's been lying through his false teeth (nothing about him is real), the Washington Post is still ready to give him somewhat of a pass by referring to his lies as "bloviation", or mere exaggeration. Sorry, they're lies. Exaggeration is "Yes, I witnessed a building in Northern Ireland being blown up by a terrorist bomb, but I was several blocks away and in no real danger."
Seeing pictures of a bombing and claiming to have been there is lying.
Today’s fun read: Gary Legum at Wonkette. Happy birthday, Tea Party!
Wonder if Aaron Schock enjoyed last night's Downton Abbey finale? You know, the show payed for by viewers (you're welcome, asshole) and a pittance from the government which Schock has voted several times to kill? Or maybe his new public relations team (paid for by us, no doubt, you're welcome again, asshole) told him it wouldn't be a great idea.
I'm thinking we should hire Lord Sinderby's acerbic, knife twisting butler and send him to work for Schock. He'd dig up a lot more dirt.
I'm also wondering if Thomas (could Thomas be Aaron's fave character? Hmmmm?) eventually comes to the states and builds up a political dirty tricks operation that sets the stage for Nixon's plumbers and Breitbart's "reporters". Although I admit it was a pleasure seeing him work his evil machinations for a good cause for a change.
Also, congrats are in order for Carson and Mrs. Hughes, although I'm thinking Carson is getting the better of that deal.
And finally, kids, raise your hands if you went right up to the last few minutes expecting Lord Grantham to clutch his chest and keel over, especially after that entirely unexpected and quite surprising demonstration of holiday bonhomie.
Lady Mary has yet another beau with a love of fast cars (oh, God!). She should just forget the guys and start up a lesbian affair with Anna.
Aaron Schock would love it.
Ken,
Excellent point about the way so many on the right invoke "The Rules" especially in things like economics, over which they have no control. One just has to let the shekels fall where they may, and if the rich get richer, and the poor go under, well, that's just Adam Smith's invisible pinky.
But rules, for the right, or at least consistency, are not binding if political and ideological expediency require a bit of jettisoning.
Take the Keystone pipeline. As mentioned in the link above, for a party keen on states' rights, allowing the Kochs and their oil industry kin to ram a gigantic pipeline, with it's necessary land takings, across a thousand miles of the US seems a bit unusual, not to say completely hypocritical. Will we see Sean Hannity interviewing Cliven Bundy on this issue?
And how about the Party of Defense and National Security, playing dice with the DHS? They can easily put aside their long-stated interest in protecting 'merica, if there's a chance of sticking it to Obama.
Rules are for lesser people as we see demonstrated every day by confederates. But Rand Paul, by Scott Walker, by Bill O'Reilly, by Boehner, McConnell, Cruz, Palin, the lot of 'em.
Why should they treat economics any differently?
It's always been a toss-up for who is the most irritating person on CNBC? Rick Santelli or Larry Kudlow? Larry Kudlow and the Failure of the Chicago School ...and I found the best answer from Paul Krugman in his blog today when he polished off "KD's royal smugness" with mention of Jonathan Chait's excellent take...and then at the column end Krugman delivered this great summing up line:.
"... I don’t think it’s an accident that Kudlow still dresses like Gordon Gekko after all these years.."
Kudlow, always so FULL of himself!
Boy, oh boy. That Rick Perry. Whaddaguy.
He may not have remembered which three departments he was going to close, if he becomes president, but he's got plenty of hot stuff goin' on nonetheless. And well thought out stuff it is, too.
After enjoying his week of CPAC Hillary bashing, Perry is questioning Clinton's loyalty to the good ol' US of A. Why? Algeria gave money to the Clinton Foundation (which has nothing to do with Hillary's potential campaign operation) to help Haiti after the earthquake there a couple of years ago.
"DISLOYAL!" Screams Perry. I know...don't try to make it make sense. It doesn't. Still, Steve Benen at Maddowblog points out that Perry is the last person to try to make hay even on the most specious claim of disloyalty being as he has gone on record espousing secession, taking the state of Texas out of the union.
Is that his way of demonstrating loyalty?
Oops.
Who could be surprised that the Georgia crackpot congressman and his wife, who refuse to vaccinate their kids, are Christian homeschoolers?
Ah yes. Fundamentalist homeschooling, where you can teach your kids your very own set of facts. Where science is the work of the devil and government is evil. This bodes well for the future, doncha think?
In a recent piece on Salon, Frank Schaeffer, who was instrumental in starting the movement but since has developed a brain (who knew?), states that "... the evangelical schools and home school movement were, by design, founded to undermine a secular and free vision of America and replace it by stealth with a form of theocracy."
So is it any wonder that disinformation is the order of the day in Wingnut Valley?
I did spot this story last week, but really, there's only just so much crazy you can deal with at any one time, and the right churns it out at an ungodly rate.
The King v. Burwell oral argument happens Wednesday. Ian Millhiser has an interesting rundown on the likelihood of the respective justices to uphold the subsidies that are being challenged.
He accords swing vote status to Roberts and pegs it at 50% likely to uphold the law (too close for my taste). He views Alito as the least likely to sustain the subsidies, and characterizes such a vote thusly:
"Odds Justice Alito votes to uphold Obamacare: he is more likely to be struck by lightning while committing in-person voter fraud."
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/03/02/3628103/justice-likely-vote-case-obamacare/
I would characterize the chance that Boehner would successfully push a fix through the House should one be necessary at even less than the chance that Alito would uphold the ACA.
A word on the champion ass wipe of the week--actually, maybe of the year: Bibi Netanyahoo. His arrogant, uninformed, self-serving, slimy AIPAC speech may be just a preamble to his congressional address tomorrow--which Johnny Boner says is "Sold Out!" Indeed, they have that in common--"Sold Out," but these two bozos have something more they share. Boner and Bibi both are more than a few ants short of a picnic.
@Ak: Re: the Downtons: Was thinking this morning about last night's last episode and having to wait until next year to see what happens when everyone will have to adjust to the chhhha- changing (trying a David Bowie thing here) times in a much more difficult economic situation for the castle elites. This series has such heart at the heart of it and your post about it made me laugh––and no, I didn't think Lord Grantham would keel over from a heart attack, I thought he would be diagnosed with a cancer like Isis, his dog. But I did get to thinking about the life styles of the women: they don't cook, they don't have a profession, they don't dress themselves, they don't even change their children's nappies or seem to spend a whole lot of time with them (except of course for Edith who, if she had her druthers, would be much more involved) and I wonder––how do they spend the bulk of their day? We know how Mrs. Hughes operates––as you once said, she is the soul of the place––-and yes, Carson is indeed getting the best end of the bargain here, but his face when proposing was so love punchy you had to think he's gonna love her well.
P.S. One could not wish for a better butler for someone like Aaron Schock than Lord Sinderby's butler who on some dark, stormy night after indulging in one too many takes a saunter up the stairs to the bedroom of Lord Schock and...