The Commentariat -- November 21
Economist Dean Baker in Firedoglake on why the Congress should not cave to catfood commission plans to cut Medicare & Society Security benefits. Baker lays out the economic & political reasons the plans are stupid.
** Sabotage. Steve Benen: "We're talking about a major political party, which will control much of Congress next year, possibly undermining the strength of the country -- on purpose, in public, without apology or shame -- for no other reason than to give themselves a campaign advantage in 2012.... [The Republicans'] general approach has shifted from hoping conditions don't improve to taking steps to ensure conditions don't improve. We've gone from Republicans rooting for failure to Republicans trying to guarantee failure." ...
... CW: commenters to the New York Times, myself included, have been saying this for more than a year. Why have main-streamish pundits taken so long to smell the stench? Indeed, the title of Benen's post is "None Dare Call It Sabotage." Oh, yes, we do.
... Update: here's a case in point: my comment on Paul Krugman's column last week; it's at the top of the page, probably the most popular Times comment in a few weeks. It isn't just people who take the trouble to write comments who recognize the Republican Plot against America; people who read agree that Republicans are American saboteurs. ...
... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones disagrees with me: "... my own view isn't that Republicans are consciously trying to sabotage the economy. Rather, I think it's really easy to convince yourself of things that are in your own self-interest, and that's mostly what they've done. A bad economy is in their self-interest, so they've convinced themselves that every possible policy to improve things is a bad idea. Of course, excuses like that from mushballs like me are the reason the liberal noise machine is sort of anemic in the first place." ...
... Digby: in the new media world, "strategy is considered a moral value in itself," so sabotage -- if it proves a winning strategy -- becomes a virtue.
Vice President Joe Biden in a New York Times op-ed: "The United States must also continue to do its part to reinforce Iraq’s progress. That is why we are not disengaging from Iraq — rather, the nature of our engagement is changing from a military to a civilian lead."
Deborah Solomon of the New York Times interviews Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the magazine.
I sat next to her once. Thought she was beautiful. And she's very happy in Alaska, and I hope she'll stay there. -- Barbara Bush, on Sarah Palin
Jeff Sommer of the New York Times: Based on the facts at hand right now, Mr. Obama is likely to win the 2012 election in a landslide. That, at least, is the prediction of Ray C. Fair, a Yale economist and an expert on econometrics and on the relationship of economics and politics. What’s the basis of this forecast? In a nutshell: 'It’s the economy, stupid.'”
Julie Pace of the AP: President Barack Obama has asked security officials whether there's a less intrusive way to screen U.S. airline passengers than the pat-downs and body scans causing a holiday-season uproar. For now, they've told him there isn't one, the president said Saturday in response to a question at the NATO summit in Lisbon. 'I understand people's frustrations,' Obama said, while acknowledging that he's never had to undergo the stepped-up screening methods." ...
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the new TSA security procedures. Clinton herself, as Jeff Zeleny of the Times reports, does not have to go through the TSA gauntlet when she travels: "cabinet members if they are escorted by agents or law enforcement officers ... are allowed to go around security":
... The TSA Won't Touch His Junk. Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "Representative , the soon-to-be Republican speaker, pledged recently that he would fly commercial airlines back home to Ohio, passing up the military plane used by the current speaker, , a Democrat. But that does not mean he will endure the hassles of ordinary passengers.... [At] National Airport..., there was no waiting for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the identification-checking agents, the metal detectors and the body scanners, and whisked directly to the gate."
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone comments on the reported federal probe of insider-trading: "... there is a mounting pile of evidence suggesting a sort of widespread culture of insider trading in which a few players (specifically the major banks and a few of the biggest and best-connected hedge funds) have milked a seemingly endless stream of exclusive information, not occasionally or opportunistically but as an ongoing commercial strategy."
Shahien Nasiripour of the Huffington Post on oversight of the Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP. HAMP is subsidizing financial institutions even when the institutions can't provide paperwork proving they own properties & when they back out on homeowners because they say the individuals haven't provided proper paperwork.
"7,000 Ways to Fix the Deficit." David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "... the online you-fix-the-deficit puzzle that accompanied a Week in Review article last Sunday ... [received] more than one million page views, and more than 11,000 posted Twitter messages about the puzzle, most including their own solution. The Times analyzed those solutions, each of which cut at least $1.345 trillion from the 2030 deficit, to get a sense of readers’ choices." You can still play with the budget here.
Republican Judges to Party of No: "Say Yes." Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: in an "exceptionally rare" plea, "... seven Republican-appointed federal judges [joined Democratic appointees &] co-signed a letter [to the Senate leadership] warning of the consequences of the GOP’s systematic obstruction of President Obama’s judges: "We respectfully request that the Senate act on judicial nominees without delay." The full letter is here (pdf).
Local News:
Ana Valdes of the Palm Beach Post: Florida's "Republican Gov.-elect Rick Scott is giving no indication he intends to bow to Christian protesters' demands that he give up his investment in a Spanish-language social networking site they consider immoral because it partners with Playboy Mexico and allows users to share provocative photos and messages." CW: isn't it stunning that these "Christian protesters" didn't mind voting for Scott even tho they knew he ran a multi-million-dollar fraud against the U.S. taxpayer (the firm of which he was CEO settled for a $1.7 billion fine), but now they're outraged because he has an indirect investment in an enterprise that publishes "provocative photos and messages"? The real porn is the Medicare fraud, you idiots.
Down & Out in Fort Myers, Florida. Washington Post: a photo essay. Chris Walker used to make $100,000 a year as a nursing home executive. She has been out of work for a year-and-a-half. Story by Wil Haygood.
Thoughts on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from the Folks Back Home. From the Editors of the Lexington Herald-Tribune: "Despicable sounds like a better fit [than 'cynical'] for someone willing to sacrifice American lives in the pursuit of winning and keeping political power." AND McConnell's acquiescence to a moratorium on earmarks was merely a symbolic exercise & a way to avoid a showdown with tea party Republican Senators-elect; it will have little or no effect on the deficit -- or on creating jobs & improving the economy, which is what Americans really want. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the links.
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