The Commentariat -- March 22, 2014

Internal links removed.

Claire Miller of the New York Times: "... tech companies abroad, from Europe to South America, say they are gaining customers that are shunning United States providers, suspicious because of the revelations by Edward J. Snowden that tied these providers to the National Security Agency's vast surveillance program.... Tech executives, including Eric E. Schmidt of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, are expected to raise the issue when they return to the White House on Friday for a meeting with President Obama." ...

... The Guardian story, by Dan Roberts & Dominic Rushe, is here.

Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "... roughly one-third of American households -- 38 million of them -- are living a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. These are families who hold little to no liquid wealth.... But a staggering two-thirds of these households are not actually poor...; they own substantial holdings ($50,000, on average) in illiquid assets.... The wealthy hand-to-mouth are older, more educated and have substantially higher incomes than their poor counterparts.... While the poor hand-to-mouth tend to stay that way for long periods of time, wealthy-hand-to-mouth status is transient, lasting an average of only 2½ years."

Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "The White House has added meetings with the leaders of China and Japan to Barack Obama's visit to Europe and Saudi Arabia next week, as it seeks to use the six-day trip to build an international coalition and isolate Russia over its annexation of Crimea." ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The White House cast doubt Friday on the Kremlin's claims that thousands of troops massing on the border of southeastern Ukraine are merely involved in training exercises, deepening fears that Russian aggression will not end in Crimea. 'It's not clear what that signals,' the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, said to reporters in a briefing at the White House. But she added, 'Obviously given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism.'" ...

... Steven Myers & Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: "American and European sanctions rattled Russia's economy on Friday, with Moscow's stock indexes opening sharply lower, rating agencies threatening to reduce the country's creditworthiness, and hints of trepidation coming from Russia's tycoons as they concluded an annual conference here. But if the aim of the sanctions is to put economic pressure on the wealthy allies crucial to President Vladimir V. Putin's continued grip on power, there were few signs they would succeed, largely because those targeted were among the new generations of oligarchs who owe their fortunes and loyalties to Mr. Putin." ...

... Steven Myers, et al., of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday formally completed the annexation of Crimea, signing into law bills passed by Parliament reclaiming the contested province from Ukraine.... As he cemented Russian control of Crimea, Mr. Putin declared a temporary cease-fire in a tit-for-tat battle of economic and political sanctions between Moscow and the West."

... Please click on Bolling's Daily Kos page so he gets a click credit for the 'toon. Thanks.

Charles Blow: "By suggesting that laziness is more concentrated among the poor, inner city or not, we shift our moral obligation to deal forthrightly with poverty. When we insinuate that poverty is the outgrowth of stunted culture, that it is almost always invited and never inflicted, we avert the gaze from the structural features that help maintain and perpetuate poverty -- discrimination, mass incarceration, low wages, educational inequities -- while simultaneously degrading and dehumanizing those who find themselves trapped by it." ...

(CW: A few days ago, I ID'd the guest host of Lawrence O'Donnell's show as Ari Berman. For some reason, the same guy calls himself Ari Melber. Maybe I'll start calling him that, too. My apologies to both men.)

... Jelani Cobb has an excellent essay in the New Yorker about black aspiration. CW: I completely disagree with his conclusions. If I get around to it, I'll explain why in the Comments section. ...

... Here's Ta-Nehisi Coates, continuing along the same line (Cobb links to an earlier Coates post).

Scott Kaufman of the Raw Story: "Although black children only represent about 18 percent of the students enrolled in preschool, according to a study released on Friday by the Department of Education's Civil Rights division, more than half of students suspended on multiple occasions are black. The study -- which includes 15 years of data collected from all of the nation's 97,000 schools -- indicates that the pattern of race-based inequality that begins even earlier than previous studies have suggested."

White House: "In this week's address, President Obama highlights the importance of making sure our economy rewards the hard work of every American...":

New York Times Editors: "... a proposed National Women's History Museum..., foiled by largely Republican opposition for years, suddenly started to gain traction when the House Republican majority leader, Eric Cantor, unexpectedly told The Hill that a vote would be permitted this year on a study commission for the museum." The museum would be entirely funded by private donors. ...

We already have, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know how many museums for women all over the country, they are called malls.... Hey, I could have said brothel but I didn't. -- Rush Limbaugh

Republican obstruction of the National Women's History Museum was never about the money. It was always about the low regard in which the GOP holds women, combined with Fear of Rush. The reason for Cantor's change of heart? It's an election year. That's what Rush says. And I agree with Rush Limbaugh. -- Constant Weader

Rick Warren is praying that God will ensure that American workers do not get the health care they need if their bosses claim a religious objection. ...

     ... CW: The question is this: are the conservatives on the Court so thoroughly corporatist that they will find this additional corporate cudgel to be fine & dandy, or will they have an iota of sense & realize that disallowing contraceptive coverage here means disallowing all kinds of necessary treatment for millions of employed Americans elsewhere? If history tells us anything, I'd guess the former rather than the latter. The conservatives on the Court are not particularly concerned with the obvious consequences of their rulings (although Scalia will sometimes predict the "dire consequences" of liberal-leaning decisions). I suppose, however, they might split the baby & grant corporate leaders the right to "reasonable religious objections." This would be very good for the legal profession, because hundreds of lawsuits later, we'll find out what "reasonable" means.

Charles Pierce on presidential hopeful Rand Paul's amazing popularity, as outlined by Sam Youngman in Politico Magazine: "So he can appeal to Jeebus fanatics, tricorn-wearing crackpots, and the wealthier members of the supply-side cult. That certainly covers the gamut from A to A-minus. I get that he can be the nominee, but that is because the Republican party is insane at its base."

Danielle Ivory & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Federal authorities' nascent investigation into General Motors is looking in part into whether the automaker committed bankruptcy fraud by not disclosing defects that could lead to expensive future liabilities, a person briefed on the inquiry said on Friday. The question is whether G.M. knew about the defect -- a faulty ignition switch -- when it filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and failed to fully disclose the problem, while realizing that it could lead to a cascade of liability claims."

... Michael Ruane of the Washington Post: Paul Taylor of Columbia, Maryland, may have found lost or forgotten photos of Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York City. "If Taylor is right, scholars say he has identified rare photos of Lincoln's marathon funeral rites, as well as images that show mourners honoring the slain chief executive. Plus, it appears that the photographs were taken from an upper window of the studio of famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, which was across the street from [Grace C]hurch.... The digital photographs were made from some of the thousands of Brady images acquired by the federal government in the 1870s and handed down to the National Archives in the 1940s."

CW: I missed the obituary of Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh. New York Times: "Lawrence E. Walsh, a former federal judge and a mainstay of the American legal establishment who as an independent counsel exposed the lawbreaking in the Reagan administration that gave rise to the Iran-contra scandal, died on Wednesday at his home in Oklahoma City. He was 102." ...

... Charles Pierce has a remembrance. And then some.

Beyond the Beltway

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "A federal judge Friday struck down Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage, saying the state failed during a two-week trial to justify a prohibition that he said violates the equal protection rights of gays. U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman dismissed the state's contention that Michigan voters adopted the ban on the premise that heterosexual married couples provided the optimal environment for raising children." ...

... The Detroit Free Press story, by Tresa Baldas, et al., is here. The judge's decision is here.

Congressional Races

** David Atkins explains progressive voters to dummies, the dummies being Democratic elected officials, beginning with the President: "For a young voter or voter of color, voting for Democrats isn't a matter of hope for a better future. It's basically a defensive crouch to prevent the insane sociopaths from taking over. To provide real hope, Democrats would have to start pushing for a $15 minimum wage, for basic universal income, for single-payer healthcare, for a green jobs Apollo Program, for student loan forgiveness, and similar policies.... But there's no way Democrats are going to solve their midterm problem without providing a real, positive vision for the country. If even hardcore activists like me see voting as a defensive rather than an offensive weapon, it's no surprise that many more apolitical people can scarcely be bothered to care."

Right Wing World

Dylan Scott of TPM: "It seems conservative monolith Matt Drudge is taking some pride in paying the penalty for not purchasing insurance under Obamacare.... There's just one problem: Americans don't pay a penalty for not having health insurance until they file their 2014 taxes -- in 2015. So either Drudge is lying or he paid a huge penalty a year earlier than he needed to." In response to Scott's story, Drudge claimed he was talking about the penalty he has to pay as a small business owner. "If Drudge was referring to the employer mandate, it only applies to companies with more than 50 employees.... But companies with less than 100 employees are exempt from any penalty until 2016. Drudge has never revealed the full extent of his staff, but the Huffington Post characterized it as 'small' in a 2012 article about two new hires." ...

... CW: So not only is Drudge lying, what catches him out is his amazing ignorance of the law against which he's been railing for lo these many years. Ignoramus.

Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "The Creationist group Answers In Genesis, which was already incensed about Neil deGrasse Tyson's revival of Cosmos, is now complaining that the show lacks scientific balance because it fails to provide airtime for evolution deniers."

CW: Despite their many hangups & obsessions, you might think the one type of sex wingers would favor was consensual sex between married adults (or at least between heterosexual married adults). But no. Scott Keyes of Think Progress reports that Massachusetts State Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Ross (R) has introduced (and re-introduced) a bill making it illegal for married couples with children who have filed for divorce to have sex in their own homes without a court order permitting it. Under Ross's bill the couples could not even have dinner or a drink together in the home. In an update, Keyes writes that Ross claims that the bill was a constituent's idea & that he (Ross) doesn't support it.

Argumentum ad Hitlerum. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters: "Clinging to persecution fantasies that seem to grow darker each year, conservative voices continue to hype doomsday scenarios in which President Obama is scheming to confiscate firearms, socialize American medicine, silence his critics through brute political force, and wage violent class warfare.... The result? Wallowing in self-pity and convinced of the dark forces moving against them, conservatives launch attack after attack, insisting they're fighting forces at home akin to Hitler's Nazi storm troops."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "On Saturday, Pope Francis named [seven] people to a new panel to help the Catholic Church combat sexual abuse of minors by clerics."

Reuters: " Russian troops forced their way into a Ukrainian airbase in Crimea with armored vehicles, automatic fire and stun grenades on Saturday, injuring a Ukrainian serviceman and detaining the base's commander for talks. A Reuters reporter said armored vehicles smashed through one of walls of the compound and that he heard bursts of gunfire and grenades."

Washington Post: "Michelle Obama became an ambassador for cultural exchange Saturday, taking her goodwill tour of China to the Stanford Center at Peking University to discuss the importance of study abroad and the free exchange of ideas. In a 15-minute speech she delivered before a mix of American students studying at Peking University and Chinese students who have studied in the United States, she called on young people to be 'citizen diplomats' and stressed the importance of the free flow of ideas over the Internet and through the media."

AP: "A satellite image released by China on Saturday offered the latest sign that wreckage from a Malaysia Airlines plane lost for more than two weeks could be in a remote stretch of the southern Indian Ocean where planes and ships have been searching for three days."

Reuters: "The United States on Friday said it was disappointed at the lack of an apology from Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon for his criticism of U.S. policies in a speech on Monday."

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

How appropriate that Paul Ryan uttered his thoughtless analysis on the shortcomings of inner city culture on Mr. Bennett's radio show.

As the Reagan Secretary of Education, Bennett also spewed the same drivel, locating education's problems in "culture" and thinly-disguised, sometimes not-so-thinly, references to race.

At base (and "base" is for at least three reasons very much the right word) both Ryan and Bennett's remarks make sense only if we see them for what they are: apologies for an economic system that when unregulated is incapable of distributing the fruits of labor equally, a system that in fact measures its success by the degree that it creates and perpetuates inequality. While capitalism's rising tide may lift all boats, it does not lift them equally; it cannot for is it not capitalism's purpose to do so.

As the Melber video makes clear, as do whole libraries of research and generations of common experience, the numbers do not bear out either Ryan or Bennett's premise. Poverty, a simple lack of money across generations (see Ingraham above), not "culture" is the driving force in most of education's "failures," just as it is the creator and perpetuator of inner city blight. But since the Right refuses to recognize that obvious and verifiable truth, (neither its ideological blinders nor its handlers will allow it) they need another explanation.

One as simple as black and white.