The Commentariat -- November 20
President Obama's closing remarks at the NATO summit:
President Obama makes opening remarks at his press conference in Lisbon:
... Highly recommended: this C-SPAN video, which includes the Q&A session. (Supersize it if you don't want to watch on a teeny-tiny screen.)
More News from the NATO Summit
Washington Post: "Nations on the front lines of the old Cold War divide made clear [in Lisbon] Saturday that they want the Senate to ratify the new U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, and said that Republican concerns about their well-being were misplaced. In an unannounced group appearance at the end of an administration background briefing on Afghanistan, six European foreign ministers took the stage with a message for Congress. 'Don't stop START before it's started,' Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov said."
Politico: "Speaking to reporters in Lisbon, [President] Obama stressed that the plan to begin the 'transition' of [Afghan] security forces in July 2011 and end in 2014 was endorsed by NATO partners and was proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself."
AP: "Russia was receptive but stopped short of accepting a historic NATO invitation Saturday to join a missile shield protecting Europe against Iranian attack, the alliance's chief announced. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to involve technicians in development plans, but did not make a commitment for his nation to be linked to it if it becomes operational, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced." ...
... Washington Post: "Russia agreed Saturday to cooperate with NATO on erecting a U.S.-planned anti-missile network in Europe as part of what was described as a new era in security relations between the former Cold War enemies. The accord, announced at a NATO summit in Lisbon, symbolized a conclusion by the United States and its main European allies that Russia is not a threat to be protected from but a potential ally in girding the continent against possible ballistic missile attacks from Iran or elsewhere."
New York Times: " leaders began talks on Saturday over an exit strategy from Afghanistan, pledging to remain in the country to assist with training, logistics and advising even as troops are withdrawn, said NATO Secretary General ." ...
... Washington Post Update: "The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan formally adopted a transition plan Saturday designed to turn over control of the war to Afghan security forces by 2014 but continue heavy financial and military support for the indefinite future." ...
... BUT, according to the AP: "NATO nations formally agreed Saturday to start turning over Afghanistan's security to its military next year and give local forces full control by 2014. The U.S. and its allies appeared to disagree on when NATO combat operations would end. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he did not expect NATO troops to stay in the fight against the Taliban after 2014. Later, a senior Obama administration official said the U.S. had not committed to ending its combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014."
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Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "... the Congressional Oversight Panel [published] a thoughtful and thorough report last week on the mortgage documentation mess. It argued that ... paperwork problems may have significant implications for banks, investors and the stability of the financial system.... It also questions the view, held by some overseeing the ’s effort, that mortgage documentation errors have no impact on the program."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Republicans seem to have entered a post-post-9/11 era, in which national security is no longer a higher priority than their interest in undermining President Obama." Milbank backs the New START treaty AND the new TSA security patdowns. CW: at least he's half-right. ...
... Mary Beth Sheridan of the Washington Post: "An unusual split has opened between conservative Republicans and the American military leadership over the U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, with current and former generals urging swift passage but politicians expressing far more skepticism.... Seven of eight former commanders of U.S. nuclear forces have urged the Senate to approve the treaty." CW: Sheridan accepts Republican anti-treaty talking points as if their "objections" were serious concerns. They aren't. This is strictly a political ploy to damage the Obama Administration. That disapproval of the treaty will also compromise national security is of no concerns to these callous, traitorous partisans.
Michael Shear of the New York Times: the American Values Network, "a group backing the ratification of a new arms treaty with Russia, has created a version of [President Lyndon] Johnson’s famous 'Daisy' ad.... The commercial ... is scheduled to run on cable television in states whose senators will be key to passage of the new treaty":
Here's the original ad, which aired only once:
The main reason so many in Congress oppose letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire is that they are the wealthy. The President's proposal of allowing tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or more per year would raise the taxes of most members of Congress. Half of them are millionaires, and with a base salary of $174,000, a majority likely have reportable incomes of at least $250,000 a year. -- Constant Weader ...
... Forty "Patriotic Millionaires" ask the Congress to let the tax cuts for millionaires expire. Link via Joe Conason.
Another Setback for Average Americans. Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times: "Organized labor appears to be losing an important battle in the Great Recession. Even at manufacturing companies that are profitable, union workers are reluctantly agreeing to tiered contracts that create two levels of pay.... Managers of some marquee companies are aiming to make this concession permanent. If they are successful, their contracts could become blueprints for other companies in other cities, extending a wage system that would be a startling retreat for labor."
Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Empowered by their election gains, Congressional Republicans are giving little ground to and weakened Democrats in the final weeks of the 111th Congress, imperiling Democratic efforts to pass major tax and spending legislation, unemployment aid and a nuclear nonproliferation treaty among other issues."
Dan Eggen & T.W. Farnam of the Washington Post: Democratic strategists are deciding to "fight fire with fire by encouraging the formation of counterweights to the GOP-leaning independent groups that dominated the airwaves this fall."
Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post: "Leaders of the effort to reform the filibuster in the Senate are pushing forward despite the election outcome, working to gather support within the Democratic caucus while reaching out to Republicans."
Tobin Harshaw, who writes "The Thread" for the New York Times, has a very good compilation of posts & articles about the TSA's new security procedures, instituted just in time for the busiest travel day of the year....
... CW: despite the fact that many observers see this issue on the conservative-liberal continuum largely because of the privacy issue, people of every political persuasion who have actually undergone the searches cite reasons to find them unwarranted. I am persuaded by this observation by conservative lawyer Ann Althouse:
Someone, at some level of the Obama administration, decided that the only way to channel people into the see-you-naked machines was to make the alternative more offensive to nearly everyone. Personally, I’d take the grope over being seen naked, but I did a poll yesterday, and I see that the scanner is significantly more popular than the grope.... I suspect that if too many people choose the grope over nakedness, the plan is to intensify the grope until they get the scanner acceptance rate they need. -- Ann Althouse
... That was in fact, exactly the experience that another conservative, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, had at Baltimore-Washington International, where TSA employees taunted him for choosing the groping over the X-ray machines. ...
... Goldberg was hardly alone. Susan Stellin of the New York Times reports, "In the three weeks since the began more aggressive pat-downs of passengers at checkpoints, traveler complaints have poured in. Some offer graphic accounts of genital contact, others tell of agents gawking or making inappropriate comments, and many express a general sense of powerlessness and humiliation.... On Tuesday, two pilots filed a lawsuit against the and the Transportation Security Administration, claiming that the new screening procedures violate Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure." At least one other party has filed a similar suit. ...
... The New York Times Editorial Board: "... there is no excuse for the bumbling, arrogant way the Transportation Security Administration has handled questions and complaints.... Nothing in the Constitution permits power-happy or just downright creepy people from abusing their uniforms and the real need for security." ...
... CW: my friend Karen Garcia writes in a New York Times comment (#4),
Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man."Whenever I see those nude body scans of passengers, I am reminded of the famous DaVinci drawing of the 'Vitruvian Man' - multiple limbs spread-eagled in perfect geometric formation. I can envision the $10-an-hour TSA workers making a fortune marketing those things. Even though they are so not saved! We should know by now that nothing computer-generated ever truly disappears. Those plastic gloves the Gestapo-lites use to pat us down will never disappear either. They'll be sitting in a landfill, unchanged, a thousand years from now, forever sanitized for our protection.
But, having read Karen's comment, along with reports that a huge percentage of Americans approve of the new TSA policy (though as Nate Silver points out, few in this huge percentage have actually been subjected to it), the image I'm seeing looks more like this, minus the fig leaf, of course:
The Seventeenth Commandment: "Thou shalt not recall U.S. Senators." Eugune Volokh recounts a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision re: a planned recall of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, & explains why a recalling Senators is unconstitutional.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. -- U.S. Constitution, Sixth Amendment...
... Brian Palmer, in Slate, on the definition of "speedy."
"Celebrating Girls and Women." Federal Judge Kimba Wood is well-known for other things, but I like her for this recent "ruling." The attorney in question, Bennett Epstein, is a misogynistic jerk.
You sit there, just looking stupid.... It is a juvenile spectacle, and I resent being called upon to give it dignity. -- Justice Antonin Scalia, on the State of the Union address
... CW: the State of the Union address, as Scalia well knows, is a Constitutional requirement. Attendance by the Justices, however, is not. David Ingram of BLT has more on Justice Scalia's observations, delivered at the annual dinner of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society’s national convention.
Louis Sahagun of the Los Angeles Times: "California's Latino and Asian voters are significantly more concerned about core environmental issues, including global warming, air pollution and contamination of soil and water, than white voters, according to the latest Los Angeles Times/USC poll. For example, 50% of Latinos and 46% of Asians who responded to the poll said they personally worry a great deal about global warming, compared with 27% of whites. Two-thirds of Latinos and 51% of Asians polled said they worry a great deal about air pollution, compared with 31% of whites."
CW: the slug for Alex Pareene's review of Sarah Palin's new book was pretty funny: "The reality show star is outraged that everyone in the press is contributing to her publisher's marketing campaign." The review, which is short, is even funnier. But the LOL bit comes from Palin herself in the form, naturally, of a tweet, which perfectly captures her signature self-absorbed petulant ignorance: *
* Update: actually, Gawker, she's right, if you post whole pages of the book. Numbskulls.
... Sam Stein & Lisa Shapiro of the Huffington Post post some brief excerpts of the Palin book & provide a short synopsis.
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