;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 26, 2012
Brought forward from yesterday's Commentariat: My column for the New York Times eXaminer is elegantly titled "Pat Some Butts, Barry -- Maureen Dowd." Clearly, this is My Week of Going Classy. ...
... A Lesson for Maureen Dowd: Here Was a Hero. U.S. Airman Reis Leming, who saved Britons during a storm & flood in 1953, died November 4 at age 81.
Michael Shear of the New York Times: President "Obama's aides are trying to harness the passions that returned him to the White House, hoping to pressure Republicans in Congress to accept tax increases on the wealthy. The president's strategists are turning first to the millions of e-mail addresses assembled by the campaign and the White House."
John Schriffen of ABC News: Today is "Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year. Shoppers are expected to spend more than $1.5 billion today, up 20 percent from last year.... It has already been a big holiday weekend with a record $59.1 billion spent at U.S. stores and websites.... Online sales on Thanksgiving Day, traditionally not a popular day for online shopping, rose 32 percent from last year to $633 million.... And online sales on Black Friday were up 26 percent from the same day last year, to $1.042 billion. It was the first time online sales on Black Friday surpassed $1 billion."
Welcome to Your Newer, Friendlier GOP
Oink, Oink. In an appearance on Fox "News" yesterday, perpetual Sunday talkshow guest Sen. John McCain [R-Az.] hinted he would back off his attacks on U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Ian Millhiser of Think Progress reports. CW: it occurs to me that what really ticked off McCain was the fact that Rice appeared on all five major Sunday shows, probably pushing him out of his usual seat at a few of the network shows. He isn't a racist, sexist pig; he's a camera hog. ...
... Writing before McCain "softened his stance" on Rice, John Heilemann of New York predicted that President Obama would nominate Rice for Secretary of State & the Senate would confirm her. Heilemann listed five reason for his prediction. Reason 4. "Because McCain is being a jackass -- and Obama is sick of it." ...
... For the good of the country, it's time to fetch a butterfly net for McCain.... It's a measure of the fallen state of the GOP that this bitter, ever-more-incoherent hothead is now the party's only elected official with a voice on foreign affairs -- unless you count his boot-licking Sancho Panza, Lindsey Graham. -- Frank Rich
... Oh, and here's McCain urging his party to STFU on women's health issues: "There is no doubt whatsoever that the demographics are not on our side and we are going to have to give a much more positive agenda. [...] And as far as young women are concerned, absolutely. I don't think anybody like me, I can state my position on abortion, but, to -- other than that, leave the issue alone." Igor Volsky of Think Progress has the story. Volsky notes that Romney adviser Dan Senor conceded last week "that the GOP's focus on women's health hurt them in the election and criticized Republicans who pulled the party into 'a really idiotic debate' about contraception." CW: You'd almost think that all that crap high-minded talk about religious freedom was not really a principled stand but was rather an excuse to accuse President Obama of being a serial baby-killer. ...
... Anne Flaherty of the AP: "The White House could finally have its chance to close the books on its Benghazi public relations disaster, as key Republicans signal they might not stand in the way of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to become the next secretary of state.... One senior GOP Senate aide said Sunday that Republicans hadn't united against Rice and were not convinced she was worth going after." ...
... AND here we have Sen. Sancho Panza Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggesting "that he could conceivably abandon the [Grover Norquist] pledge as part of a deal to avoid going over the so-called 'fiscal cliff.'" Now, remember, this is all a ploy Republicans are using to gut the social safety net. Via Travis Waldron of Think Progress. ...
... So thanks, Dick, for falling into the trap. George Stephanopoulos of ABC News: "Sen. Dick Durbin said today that his Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate should be willing to address entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid in deficit reduction negotiations." ...
... So let's see what Paul Krugman says about the "fiscal cliff": "Now yet another organization, Fix the Debt, is campaigning for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, even while making lower tax rates a 'core principle.' That last part makes no sense in terms of the group's ostensible mission, but makes perfect sense if you look at the array of big corporations, from Goldman Sachs to the UnitedHealth Group, that are involved in the effort and would benefit from tax cuts. Hey, sacrifice is for the little people.... But if the U.S. government prints money to pay its bills, won't that lead to inflation? No, not if the economy is still depressed." ...
... Apropos of Krugman's column, contributor Calyban links to the overview of a report by the Institute for Policy Studies: "The Fix the Debt campaign has raised $60 million and recruited more than 80 CEOs of America's most powerful corporations to lobby for a debt deal that would reduce corporate taxes and shift costs onto the poor and elderly. This report focuses on the Fix the Debt campaign's corporate tax agenda and in particular the windfalls the campaign's member corporations would reap from a territorial tax system. We also analyze the savings the Fix the Debt campaign's CEOs have derived from the Bush tax cuts and how many of them received more in compensation last year than their corporations paid in federal income taxes." Download the report at the linked page. ...
... Criminal Journalists Practice Economics without a License & without a Clue. The geniuses at ABC "News" do not read Krugman. Digby digs up this graphic, which ABC "News" went to some expense to compile. They must have rooms-full of Very Serious Elves over there at the Owned & Operated by the Fantasyland Division of the Walt Disney Company ABC "News" who whiz around copying down what billionaire deficit hawk Pete Peterson says. Here's the top and the bottom of the chart,
... The whole scary graphic is worth a look. You're ruined! Here's what Digby has to say about it. Digby liberally borrows from ...
... Economist James Galbraith who explains to dummies -- who, needless to say, include the VSEs at the WDC's O&O ABC -- why "the fiscal cliff is a scam ... a mechanism for rolling back Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid." ...
... Robert Kuttner of American Prospect, writing in the Huff Post, has another good piece explaining conservatives' fiscal cliff ruse: "... so much the better for the Republicans if they can trick the Democrats into sharing responsibility for [cuts to popular social safety net programs]. A further piece of mischief is the premise that we somehow need a 10-year budget deal that reduces the projected deficit by something like $4 to $5 trillion. We don't.... If we get a recovery with something close to full employment, the deficit naturally comes down.... President Obama holds a very strong hand.... If the president is too determined to get a deal to appreciate what a strong hand he has, then it is up Democrats in Congress and the progressive community ... to make sure that Obama doesn't follow Republicans off their cliff."
... Fortunately for Pete Peterson, the New York Times and the White House are giving him a boost. The Times now has a special livebloggish thing titled "Debt Reckoning -- The Fiscal Deadline in Washington." In a scary entry by Peter Baker (at 6:11 am, Nov. 26) we learn "Americans could spend nearly $200 billion less next year on cars, clothes, furniture and other consumer products than they would otherwise if automatic tax increases take effect as currently scheduled, the White House warned in a report issued Monday morning.... The White House released it as part of an effort to turn up the pressure on Congress, which has barely a month to reach an agreement with President Obama on how to avoid the tax and spending changes or risk sending the nation back into recession." ...
... NEW. Robert Reich: "This kind of fear-mongering [by the White House] plays into Republican hands." ...
... There are billionaires & billionaires. Warren Buffett in a New York Times op-ed: "I support President Obama's proposal to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers. However, I prefer a cutoff point somewhat above $250,000 -- maybe $500,000 or so. Additionally, we need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes."
... BTW, Krugman backs up "Adam Davidson for some much-needed mythbusting about the supposed skills shortage holding the US economy back." CW: As I noted the other day, Davidson doesn't seem to get macroeconomics, but he does understand that if businesses won't pay highly-skilled workers decent wages, they should quit complaining that they can't find highly-skilled workers. ...
... And in pretty easy-to-understand terms, Krugman explains to us non-economists how economic modeling works -- or is supposed to work if the model isn't designed "to support a predetermined political or policy position." ...
... Just as a reminder that your Newer, Friendlier GOP is composed of the same old pre-election throwbacks, Republican Senators are so fit to be tied over tweaks to the filibuster rules by which they effectively shut down the Senate during much of Obama's first term that they're threatening to shut down the Senate over any changes to filibuster rules. Obstruction is what they do.
Astronomer Neil deGrasse discusses the End of the World on December 21, 2012 & people who didn't take enough science in school. Via Digby:
New York Times Editors: "There are now 166 men held at Guantánamo, 76 fewer prisoners than when Mr. Obama took office. Only a handful of those remaining have been charged with any crime or legal violation.... Civil liberties, human rights and religious groups are now urging Mr. Obama to veto the military authorization bill for the 2013 fiscal year if it contains any language that denies the executive branch the authority to transfer Guantánamo detainees for repatriation or settlement in foreign countries or for prosecution in a federal criminal court. They make a powerful case...."
Serge Kovaleski & Brooks Barnes of the New York Times: how a small-time crook & congenital liar made the film "Innocence of Muslims" that sparked riots in Islamic countries.
Rick Hertzberg is a bit late to the game with his commentary on the election, but reading Hertzberg is always a pleasure. Plus, I learned something I didn't know: that gerrymandering doesn't account for all of the Republicans' advantage in the House. And his report on the Wall Street Journal's takes on the elections of 2004 & 2012 is just precious.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Mary L. Schapiro, who overhauled the Securities and Exchange Commission after the financial crisis, announced Monday that she was stepping down as chairwoman of the agency.... Ms. Schapiro will also relinquish her position as one of the five members of the agency's commission.... The White House announced on Monday that President Obama was naming Elisse B. Walter, a commissioner at the S.E.C., as the new chairwoman.... Ms. Walter's appointment does not require Congressional approval because the Senate previously confirmed her as a commissioner."
The Never-Ending Story. Politico: "The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to examine the constitutionality of the health reform law's employer requirements and mandatory coverage of contraceptives without a co-pay. The move could open the door for President Barack Obama's health law to be back in front of the Supreme Court late next year."
New York Times: "Cracks appeared on Sunday in the government of President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, as he faces mounting pressure over his sweeping decree seeking to elevate his edicts above the reach of any court until a new constitution is approved. Mr. Morsi's justice minister began arguing publicly for a retreat. At least three other senior advisers resigned over the measure. And it has prompted widening street protests and cries from opponents that Mr. Morsi, who already governs without a legislature, was moving toward a new autocracy in Egypt...." ...
... The Guardian has a liveblog. Morsi will meet with judges to try to work out a compromise.
New York Times: "Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced Monday that he would soon 'leave political life,' after a half-century career in the military and government that included two years as prime minister. Coming days after the end of a weeklong air blitz on the Gaza Strip and eight weeks before Israelis head to the polls, Mr. Barak's move is the latest to show the disarray in Israel's center-left bloc."
Guardian: "UBS has been fined £30m [$47.5 million] by the UK's Financial Services Authority -- and could see its investment banking activities hampered by the Swiss regulator -- after the former trader Kweku Adoboli was jailed for fraud. Adoboli, a relatively junior City trader who almost destroyed UBS through increasingly reckless illicit deals, was jailed last week for seven years after being convicted of what police describe as the biggest fraud in UK history."
Al Jazeera: "The 18th United Nations climate change conference (COP18) has opened in the Qatari capital."
AP: "A natural gas explosion that injured more than 20 people and damaged 42 buildings in Springfield, [Massachusetts]'s entertainment district was blamed on a utility worker who accidentally punctured a high-pressure pipeline while looking for a leak. The president of the gas company involved says the employee followed proper procedure and protocol."
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Reader Comments (15)
There is hope. Allen West was defeated by Republican voters. Randy Schultz, an editor of the Palm Beach Post points out that voters in Martin county's portion of Congressional District eighteen sealed his fate.
Martin County is very wealthy and Republicans out number Democrat registrations almost two to one. Patrick Murphy received two thousand more votes than President Obama in Martin County District eighteen.
Allen West got almost five thousand fewer votes than George Romney in this Republican stronghold. Despite out spending Murphy four too one and spending seventeen million dollars, most of it from tea baggers from around the country, the gas bag lost. It is good to see that there are some moderate Republicans that will not elect a "nasty man."
Quickie question. Under the Affordable Care Act, how important/relavent is/are Medicare/Medicaid? Would they still be necesary? I'm sure this has been covered, but I haven't seen it...
Thanks,
alan
@ alan. The short answer is that expansion of Medicaid is the mechanism by which the ACA will cover millions of uninsured Americans who cannot afford to pay for all of their healthcare insurance. The fact that Republican-controlled states are balking at full participation is a problem, but the ACA has some built-in "fixes" that will at least partially override the Balkistanis. More here. The ACA also strengthens Medicare. More here.
It's a good question. Thanks for asking it.
Marie
The Institute for Policy Studies takes apart the corporate greed motives for the $60 million bogus "Fix The Debt" campaign. Turns out that 63 of the 80 corporate sponsors would get a $134 Billion gift from one of the FTD proposals for a territorial tax system. Also, the CEOs backing FTD personally received a combined $41 Million benefit from the Bush tax cuts, which of course, they want continued. Here's the link:
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/ceo-campaign-to-fix-the-debt
Apropos of our discussion a few days ago on sarcasm/putting someone in their place without criticizing them personally see Marie's responses to comments on her piece on Dowd yesterday in NYEX. For my money, she's a real pro at this––it takes restraint and a certain elegance I think.
And re: McCain as a camera hog: So many of our politicians love the limelight––must be a real high to know millions of people pay them mind––or so they imagine. Here's something Molly Ivins wrote in the Texas Observer in the 1970s:
"...when I would denounce some sorry sumbitch in the Lege [the legislature] as an egg-suckin' child-molester who ran on all fours and had the brains of an adolescent pissant, I would courageously prepare myself to be horse-whipped at the least. All that ever happened was, I'd see the sumbitch in the capitol the next day, he'd beam, spread his arms, and say, "Baby! Yew put mah name in yore paper!"
Re: Sports zeros; Marie has it right. People that go into burning buildings to save lives are heroes. Guys and gals that can run faster and jump higher than everyone else are athletes. Some are paid well for their feats. (and der hands) Some are good citizens, some go to jail.
Poor Ms. Dowd has "DCitis", which is a virus that is common to the Washington area every time the local football team gets a couple of wins.
RG3 has a great future if not concussed to an early retirement, a normal condition of the game but one the NFL still won't address.
Ms. Dowd's column did remind me of the interaction between one of my favorite sports action figures and the political world.
John Riggins, one tough running back for the Washington team, got fall down drunk at the Washington Press Club's "Salute to Congress" dinner and extolled Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day-O'Conner with pat on the back to "Come on Sandy baby, loosen up. You're too tight." He then passed out on the floor and stayed there for George Bush's speech. Now there's a sports hero.
The Fiscal Cliff graphic layout reminds me of those old, stark black & white posters that hung in the post offices & schools, etc. back in the 50's: "What to do in case of an atomic bomb." Despite the addition of color to this updated version of an alarmist message, its purpose seems intent to propagate confusion.
Notice that estate taxes could RISE 60% is set in BOLDFACE, LARGER POINT type...vs. lesser emphasis set in small plain type on what the average /median incomes MIGHT see as an increase. The block with the 'scissors' highlights three basically partisan talking points without offsetting considerations. Lots of maybes/mights/coulds in this incomplete piece.
These issues are smartly addressed in economist James Galbraith's column to which CW linked, and have been countered over-and-over again by Paul Krugman in his column and on his blog. I think Galbraith & Krugman need to design a poster!
We definitely overuse the word 'hero'. I am still trying to figure out how getting your plane shot down makes you a hero.
I'm with Marvin. Getting your plane shot down after a stupid decision to fly back over your target makes the whole hero meme suspect. Unfortunately, McCain's history of poor performance (judgement) has been well publicized. If he hadn't ended up as a POW, I suspect he would have faded into obscurity where he clearly belongs.
Its pretty common to overlook someone's culpability in a situation that leads to significant harm to the person. Ambassador Steven's decision to go to Benghazi on 9/11 may be an example.
A more personal example happened early in my career when I was a supervisor in a juvenile detention facility. A female staff member was beaten badly by a detainee in the middle of the night. Although the detainees were all locked in their rooms, after a headcall, one kid rigged his door so it didn't lock properly. After he knocked the staff out, he took her keys and let others out of their rooms and a few escaped. This was a unit of 16-17 yr old high security detainees, most of whom were being tried as adults. She left her belt alarm on the counter contrary to training and was unable to summon help. As well, she did not check doors properly during the required room checks. Staff in the control area, monitoring the unit, realized there was something wrong. They responded quickly and the attack wasn't as bad as it could have been. However, she was unable to return to work - ever - based on psychological trauma. She eventually sued the county and received lifetime medical and a large settlement. The lawyers were clear that she should have been disciplined for major safety/ security violation. Its difficult to balance compassion with failure to act properly.
CW,
A take on Chambliss similar to your own, with some Akil thrown in:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/
"I don't care if Saxby Chambliss dresses in fatigues,
grows his hair into a floor-length ponytail,
and runs a drum-circle in his local Occupy Peckerwood
encampment for the next 30 years,
it still won't make up for the indecent campaign he ran
against Max Cleland in 2002. I think that campaign
marked him as a penis in a necktie for the rest of his life...."
Anyone else think norquist threatening Senators might just be a tad illegal?
That seems to be norquist's answer to ole boy Lindsay the bootlicker. I paraphrase Grover: He won't raise taxes cause he likes being senator...
mae finch
Mae,
Regarding Grover (soon to be "Groveling") Norquist's illegal threats, I'd have to say they're not much worse than the threats of various billionaires to lay off employees should Obama win (a threat which prompts several questions which, admittedly, come from a rational place, a locale that does not appear on any GOP maps: one being how would these geniuses know which of their employees voted for Obama and two being how they determined that it was those particular votes that accomplished the despised deed. Like I said...irrational past the point of bizarre).
But concerning Saxby Chambliss, unrepentant chicken hawk pig boy, a public official in name only, who besmirched Max Cleland, a wounded veteran who served in a war both Chambliss and the leaders of his party sleazily elided, and who was very likely aided by a GOP vote stealing scam in order to grease his oily way into the Senate Chamber, thereby adding to the increasing right-wing stench, there is much to revile.
Also, let it no go unremembered that Chambliss was aided in his battle to destroy the reputation of Sen. Cleland by his party's character assassination machinery, notably Fox and company who spread rumors that Cleland was drunk when he lost his limbs in Vietnam and thereby no hero, a vicious fairytale spread by scumbags who wouldn't be able to pull the pin on a toy grenade. And don't forget who came to his aid when Cleland supporters balked at such nastiness, that other great war hero (in GOP minds) and man among mice, George W. (deserter during time of war) Bush.
May whatever unhallowed ground he be sunk into, after a painful death, be defiled on a routine basis by incontinent forest creatures.
Even though they haven't won a presidential election since 1988 (you can't count the Dubya Debacle, the wingers on the Supreme Court stopped the official election and appointed deserter-in-time-of-war Bush president, and you can't count 2004 because that election was stolen), Republicans demonstrate that they are still adept at controlling national narratives.
Case in point, the Fiscal Cliff. Such a wonderfully evocative, deviously deficient descriptive. It says everything and nothing. It tells you nothing at all about what's happening but does it in such a colorfully empty way that citizens and the chatterers can create whatever they want with it.
Actually, it's not much more than a budgetary speed bump, albeit a big one, but that description lacks the kind of supercilious audacity beloved by GOP hacks. And it doesn't look nearly as cool on things like that despicable ABC graphic.
Once again, let's scare the shit out the public. But now they have help from the hated MSM. You know, those diehard liberals who want to chain Republicans to trees, invite every non-white criminal in the world to take up residency in the US with a lifetime guarantee of money, food, and housing in a mansion, and install abortion clinics on every corner. THAT MSM.
But don't forget that Ben Bernanke is the guy who coined (pun very much intended) that lucrative GOP phrase.
Now with their pretend desertion of rectal cavity Grover Norquist, they can use the Fiscal Cliff threat to make themselves appear almost reasonable when they demand that things like Social Security and Medicare be shrunk down to the size of Newt Gingrich's brain pan.
Fiscal Cliff? Fistful of Shit is more like it.
It remains to be seen whether or not the president calls them on their latest canard.
Charlie's back! And in rare form today.
Pierce takes on 'Dancing Master" David Brooks as well as David Gregory, and Carly Fiorina —among others from the Sunday show.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/worst-meet-the-press-ever-112612
Thanks MAG, for Charlie's reconstruction of the "Dancing Master's" Sunday's Show of Shows. I had a good laugh–-especially his portrait of Fiorina–-if she were a funeral director no one would dare to die. As I've said before I do not watch these programs for fear of starting out my Sundays full of malice with a penchant for destruction. How much better to read an aftermath of said program days later by someone who is so good at slicing and dicing.