The Commentariat -- Nov. 15, 2014

Cartoon & related text removed.

Emily Clark of ABC (Australia) News: President Obama's "speech at the University of Queensland in Brisbane today, ahead of the official opening of the G20 leaders' summit, roused much applause from the capacity crowd, especially when it came to his comments on climate change and gender equality":

Juliet Eilperin & Steve Mufson of the Washington Post: "Even as the House passed legislation Friday authorizing construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline by a decisive vote of 252 to 161, President Obama is signaling he is increasingly skeptical of the project." ...

... ** Jim Avila, et al., of ABC News: "Asked about pending legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline [at a news conference in Myanmar], the president said his position on the issue has not changed and that the ongoing evaluation should be allowed to continue. In some of his strongest language yet, Obama pushed back against the Republican argument that the pipeline is a 'massive jobs bill for the United States.' 'Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. It doesn't have an impact on US gas prices,' he said, growing visibly frustrated. 'If my Republican friends really want to focus on what's good for the American people in terms of job creation and lower energy costs, we should be engaging in a conversation about what are we doing to produce even more homegrown energy? I'm happy to have that conversation,' he continued." ...

... Video of the full press conference is here.

Scott Wong, et al., of the Hill: "Conservative House Republicans say they're willing to shut down the government to prevent President Obama from carrying out what they see as unconstitutional actions on immigration. Tea Party lawmakers emboldened by the GOP's big midterm gains say they will insist on attaching a policy rider to legislation keeping the government open that would block funding for agencies carrying out Obama's promised executive actions limiting deportations. If the Democratic Senate or Obama rejects the rider, the government could shut down. A current measure funding the government expires on Dec. 12.... Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) called the plan to block the executive action through the government-funding bill 'a great idea.'" ...

     ... CW: YoHo Knows. Some of Yoho's Other Great Ideas: Drinking Yoo-Hoo through a straw in his nose. Licking the cookie off the Oreo frosting. Playing strip Yahtzee. Buying a ghost town in Ohio (or Iowa) & naming it after himself. Serenading the ladies with "Yo Ho Ho & a Bottle of Rum." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "The kooks will not be going quietly." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein explains the utility of "John Boehner's Magic Expanding Lawsuit." Both funny & true. ...

... Brian Beutler: "There are three tools Republicans can use to stop Obama [from reforming immigration], but toxic Republican politics preclude the only one -- a pledge to vote on comprehensive reform -- that would actually work. That leaves the spending and impeachment powers." CW: So why doesn't Boehner have the balls to take the easy way out? (The Senate already passed a satisfactory immigration reform bill & the House apparently has the votes to pass one, too.) ...

... Jim Avila, et al.: "Speaking to reporters alongside famous opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President Obama was adamant that, [same story linked above] despite mounting GOP objections, he will move forward and take executive action to reform the immigration system by the end of the year because reforms are 'way overdue.' 'I gave the House over a year to go ahead and at least give a vote to the Senate bill. They failed to do so and I indicated to Speaker Boehner several months ago that if, in fact, Congress failed to act, I would use all the lawful authority that I possess to try to make the system work better, and that's going to happen,' he said." ...

... Julia Preston of the New York Times: "When President Obama announces major changes to the nation's immigration enforcement system as early as next week, his decision will partly be a result of a yearslong campaign of pressure by immigrant rights groups, which have grown from a cluster of lobbying organizations into a national force. A vital part of that expansion has involved money: major donations from some of the nation's wealthiest liberal foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Open Society Foundations of the financier George Soros, and the Atlantic Philanthropies. Over the past decade those donors have invested more than $300 million in immigrant organizations, including many fighting for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally."

Gail Collins: Congress is not going to pass a tax reform package.

Robert Pear, et al., of the New York Times: "The Obama administration on Friday unveiled data showing that many Americans with health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year -- in some cases as much as 20 percent -- unless they switch plans. The data became available just hours before the health insurance marketplace was to open to buyers seeking insurance for 2015. An analysis of the data by The New York Times suggests that although consumers will often be able to find new health plans with prices comparable to those they now pay, the situation varies greatly from state to state and even among counties in the same state." ...

... It's Working. Frank Newport of Gallup: "Over seven in 10 Americans who bought new health insurance policies through the government exchanges earlier this year rate the quality of their healthcare and their healthcare coverage as 'excellent' or 'good.' These positive evaluations are generally similar to the reviews that all insured Americans give to their health insurance." ...

... Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "More than half of uninsured Americans say they plan to sign up for health coverage, a promising sign as the open enrollment period for obtaining health insurance through state and federal exchanges opens. Specifically, 55% of Americans who currently lack insurance say they plan to sign up for coverage while 35% of the uninsured say they will not get insurance and instead pay the fine as required by the Affordable Care Act...." ...

... Neil Irwin of the New York Times explains what Jonathan Gruber's repeated "stupidity" remarks were all about: the Congressional Budget Office has rules which determine what types of private spending constitute a tax -- and thus go into the federal budget -- and what do not. "So the Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats who were writing the [healthcare] law had strong political incentives to ensure that the individual mandate they proposed would fit the C.B.O.'s definition of things that don't have to be counted on the federal government budget. What's slightly curious about Mr. Gruber's comments is that the versions of Obamacare that received public discussion and debate never broke from that goal. The same could not be said of the Clinton administration's failed 1993 health reform effort, which stumbled in part on just this issue. But it's also the case that this wasn't some obscure debate in which no one at the time knew what was going on. There was clear public guidance from the C.B.O. on how the individual mandate had to be devised in order to not move trillions of dollars of health care expenditures onto the federal budget...." ...

     ... Shorter Irwin: Prof. Gruber has no idea how Congressional staffers work with the CBO. ...

     ... CW: Irwin's post also explains all the hoo-hah back in 2010 on how the CBO would "score" the various proposed ACA bills. This hoo-hah was hardly secret or obscure, as Gruber claims; all the major news outlets carried stories about it, & bloggers wrote hundreds of posts discussing the scoring. If Republicans in Congress can't even read the news, the hearings the GOP is mulling to bring Gruber's "devious plot" into the light should center on their own inability to pay attention. While GOP MOCs were demagoging phony death panels, Democratic staffers were writing an actual bill, and the details of that actual bill were readily available to members of Congress, & to an unusual extent, to the public.

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The Democrats' widespread losses last week have revived a debate inside the party about its fundamental identity, a long-running feud between center and left that has taken on new urgency in the aftermath of a disastrous election and in a time of deeply felt economic anxiety. The discussion is taking place in postelection meetings, conference calls and dueling memos from liberals and moderates. But it will soon grow louder, shaping the actions of congressional Democrats in President Obama's final two years and, more notably, defining the party's presidential primaries in 2016."

Joe Nocera has never heard of Ted Cruz: "Is there anybody out there who opposes net neutrality?" Nocera asks. He then goes into a discourse on the various laws under which the FCC could regulate ISPs like Comcast.

CW: One of the great things about being a Republican politician is that you don't have to make any sense at all. Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "Defending his fellow Republican governors’ decision to block Medicaid expansion in their states, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Friday suggested that denying health coverage to additional low-income Americans helps more people 'live the American Dream' because they won't be 'dependent on the American government.'" CW: Because you spendthrifts earning $7.25/hour, which Scottie thinks is a fine minimum wage (if one must have a minimum wage at all), should be buying your own insurance in the freeeee market with all the spare cash you're wasting on beer & Cheetos. Congratulations, Cheeseheads. This guy is Your Fault.

Your History Lesson for Today. Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "... this week, Atlanta became the site of a historical marker annotating [Gen. William] Sherman folklore to reflect an expanding body of more forgiving scholarship about the general's behavior. One of the marker's sentences specifically targets some of the harsher imagery about him as 'popular myth.'... To that end, the marker in Atlanta mentions that more than 62,000 soldiers under Sherman's command devastated 'Atlanta's industrial and business (but not residential) districts' and talks of how, 'contrary to popular myth, Sherman's troops primarily destroyed only property used for waging war -- railroads, train depots, factories, cotton gins and warehouses.' Sherman’s aggressiveness, the marker concludes, 'demoralized Confederates, hastening the end of slavery and the reunification of the nation.'"

Your Greek Lesson for Today. Charles Pierce Robert Bateman of Esquire defines "Molon labe." If only the U.S. could be more like Sparta.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Seniors, Sex & Foxy "News." Paul Waldman explains why Fox "News" -- where the median age of viewers is 68.8 -- shows way more shots of mostly-naked girls than do the other "news" channels. For instance, top Fox journalist Sean Hannity did a week-long "exposé" of Fort Lauderdale Spring Break. Pretty funny. ...

... In related video, a "Daily Show" segment of unknown (to me) vintage:

Poor, Poor Pitiful Peggy. Ed Kilgore ruined his afternoon by reading Peggy Noonan's column titled "The Loneliest President Since Nixon." (Hint: the column is not about Ronald Reagan): "Best you can tell from her columns, her impressions of politics come from a rare and uncontextualized glimpse of real life (e.g., briefly seeing a lot of Romney yard signs in Florida in 2012), and talking to people who are almost exactly like her.... Data? History, other than her hoarded treasures from the Golden Age of Ronnie? Nah. Why bother? She provides all the partisan B.S. the market can bear, which turns out to be an awful lot. And so she drifts along in the isolated splendor of a public figure inhabiting a world of her own imagining, which makes her concern trolling about Obama's 'loneliness' particularly ironic."

November Election

Nate Cohn of the New York Times: "The Democrats invested millions of dollars in a vaunted field operation to mobilize the young and nonwhite voters who do not usually participate in midterm elections. Yet it was not enough to save Democrats from a Republican landslide.... The Democratic field effort was probably a success.

Presidential Race

Steve M. "One GruberGate bright spot: Romney's 2016 dreams are toast.

News Ledes

Guardian: "Russia has denied reports president Vladimir Putin is leaving the G20 early, after pressure from Western nations to withdraw troops from Ukraine and forthright hostility from some leaders, including Canada's Stephen Harper. Brisbane's Courier Mail, which two days ago demanded Putin say 'sorry' for the downing of MH17 over Ukraine, reported that Putin would skip a working G20 breakfast and leave Brisbane early for meetings in Moscow."

AP: "World leaders on Sunday prepared to release details of a plan aimed at injecting life into the world's listless economy, with infrastructure investment and the lowering of trade barriers flagged as key components of the initiative."

AP: "The pioneering lander Philae completed its primary mission of explorin the comet's surface and returned plenty of data before deplete batteries forced it to go silent, the European Space Agency said Saturday."

CNN: "A surgeon diagnosed with Ebola in his native Sierra Leone arrived Saturday afternoon in the United States, where he will undergo treatment at The Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha."

AP: "America's top military leader arrived Saturday to Iraq, state television reported, his first visit to the country since a U.S.-led coalition began a campaign of airstrikes targeting the extremist Islamic State group. The visit by Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was not previously announced. It came just two days after he told Congress that the United States would consider dispatching a modest number of American forces to fight with Iraqi troops in the campaign against the Islamic State group, which controls about a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 14, 2014

Internal links removed.

Peter Baker & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "In the 10 days since 'we got beat,' as [President Obama] put it, by Republicans who captured the Senate and bolstered control over the House, Mr. Obama has flexed his muscles on immigration, climate change and the Internet, demonstrating that he still aspires to enact sweeping policies that could help define his legacy.... The back-to-back moves have reinforced Mr. Obama's desire to assert himself in a period when his poll numbers and political capital are at their lowest ebbs.... Advisers said that he feels liberated. He can now pursue his long-term agenda, they said, without being tethered to the short-term electoral concerns of his party's leadership in Congress." ...

... Michael McAuliff of the Huffington Post: "'I've been very disturbed about the way the president has proceeded in the wake of the election,' [Mitch] McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill soon after his caucus voted to keep him as its leader when Republicans take control of the Senate in January." ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker on "Obama's Unexpectedly Good Week.... Insomuch as there was any analysis of what the [election] results would mean for the next two years, it tended to dwell on when the President would recognize the error of his ways. In the narrative promulgated by the panjandrums of the Washington commentariat, this would involve publicly acknowledging his grave character flaws, disassembling the tight-knit circle of aides that surrounds him, inviting over some Capitol Hill bigwigs (and possibly some media bigwigs) for whiskey-and-poker evenings, and generally being less of an arrogant, aloof jerk.... During his first week of living in reduced circumstances after the midterms, Obama showed that he is capable of exceeding expectations, and he isn't done yet." ...

... (From yesterday's News Ledes.) Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Obama will ignore angry protests from Republicans and announce as soon as next week a broad overhaul of the nation's immigration enforcement system that will protect up to five million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide many of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have direct knowledge of the plan." ...

... Ted Barrett of CNN: Harry Reid asked President Obama to wait to announce his executive order on immigration until after December 11, by which time Congress is supposed to have approved a continuing resolution to fund the government. CW: So Feliz Navidad, I guess, although Reid may not care if Obama holds off; he may just want to appear to be nice to Mitch, who is, you know, disturbed. ...

... MEANWHILE. Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Wary that President Obama might back away from vows to ease deportations unilaterally, House Democrats on Wednesday sought to hold the president's feet to the fire. On the first day of Congress's return to Washington after the midterm elections, the lawmakers pressed Obama to act swiftly and decisively to reduce deportations, even in the face of Republican warnings that sidestepping Congress could undermine immigration reform legislation and sink the confirmation of Obama's pick for attorney general."

... If you like to think of politics as a game, with people as helpless pawns, here's Chris Cillizza's analysis of the Immigrants Game. ...

(Contributor Nancy found this piece by Brett Line & Linda Poon, published in June 2013 in National Geographic, on how some other wealthy countries approach immigration. Denmark is awful.)

... Remember the Lawsuit! Robert Costa & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) is considering expanding a proposed federal lawsuit over President Obama's executive orders to include action on immigration." ...

     ... In a previous episode of the long-running sideshow "Remember the Lawsuit," it was revealed that Boehner's lawyers kept quitting. CW: I wonder why. ...

     ... NOW Look Who's on a Bumpy Ride. Update. Costa & O'Keefe: "Congressional Republicans have split into competing factions over how to respond to President Obama's expected moves to overhaul the nation's immigration system, which are likely to include protecting millions from being deported. The first, favored by the GOP leadership, would have Republicans denounce what House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has called 'executive amnesty' and use the party's new grip on Congress to contest changes to the law incrementally in the months ahead. The second, which has become the rallying cry for conservatives, would seek to block the president's decision by shutting down the government for an extended period until he relents." Read it and smirk.

Paul Kane & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Seeking ideological and regional balance, a chastened Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) expanded his leadership team Thursday, including the addition of liberal icon Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), to beat back internal critics.... Reid appointed Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a second-term senator close to many of the caucus's agitated members from then upper Midwest and Plains States, as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.... This came after Reid won another term leading the Democrats, over the objection of several centrist Democrats. Sens. Claire McCaskill and Joe Manchin told reporters afterward that they didn't cast a ballot for Reid or anyone else, a protest vote that was unusual simply by being held." ...

     ... The story has been updated with a new URL & new lede: "Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid faced the first internal opposition to his grip on power Thursday as at least six Democrats rejected his bid for another leadership term during an emotional meeting following last week's drubbing in the midterm elections." ...

... Digby explains in plain English: "Red state Dems have a little hissy fit inside the Democratic Senate caucus, hoping a Tea partier will give them a hug.... From what we're hearing about this lovely group of Quislings, they couldn't be happier to be free now to vote with the Republicans and pass some noxious shit that people who will never vote for them want. Again." ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times: Making Elizabeth Warren "a mere liaison" to the Democratic leadership " is not what the Democrats need right now.... If Ms. Warren is allowed to become the voice of Democratic opposition to the worst Republican policies, she may just help lead the party out of the wilderness." ...

... MEANWHILE, in the House. Billy House of the National Journal: "Rep. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who is expecting a baby in December, is being denied a request to vote by proxy in the House Democratic Caucus leadership and committee member elections next week -- even though her doctor advises she can't travel to Washington in the late stages of her pregnancy.... Democratic aides, speaking on the condition they not be identified, said they believe the decision to block Duckworth, 46, from doing so is related ... to the tight intra-party race for the party's top seat next session on the Energy and Commerce Committee. The seat is being vacated by retiring Rep. Henry Waxman." ...

... So, okay, expect a bumpy ride on the Democratic side, too. Brian Beutler: "... structural difficulties ... make it harder for Democrats than Republicans to be a united, rejectionist opposition party. Their coalition includes many moderates; isn't overwhelmed by ideological liberals; is in hock to big business; and, unlike Republicans, is invested in the idea that government should function well.... That the Democratic Party's favorables have just fallen below the Republican Party's favorables for the first time since the last Republican midterm blowout (and really for the first time in about a decade) compounds the problem -- Democrats don't want to become even more unfavorable, and they saw what obstruction did to the House GOP's approval numbers."

Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "Barack Obama will make a substantial pledge to a fund to help poor countries fight climate change, only days after his historic carbon pollution deal with China. In a one-two punch, America plans to pledge at least $2.5bn and as much as $3bn over the next four years to help poor countries invest in clean energy and cope with rising seas and extreme weather, according to those briefed by administration officials." ...

... Paul Krugman: "The agreement between China and the United States on carbon emissions is, in fact, a big deal. To understand why, you first have to understand the defense in depth that fossil-fuel interests and their loyal servants -- nowadays including the entire Republican Party -- have erected against any action to save the planet.... I don't expect the usual suspects to concede that a major part of the anti-environmentalist argument has just collapsed. But it has. This was a good week for the planet." ...

... Oh Yeah? Jim Inhofe in a USA Today op-ed: "This is a non-binding charade because as China's economy grows, so will its demand for electricity.... As Republicans take the majority in the new Congress, I will be working to ensure these rules do not become final or put at risk our economy and domestic energy expansion." CW: Again, significantly, Inhofe says nothing about climate change being a hoax. Is he giving up on that argument?

** Charles Pierce: "... there was no braver American amid the tumult of the 1960's and the 1970's than John Doar."

Annals of "Justice," Ctd.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Eric Holder! Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal: "The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations." CW: Firewalled; copy & paste a clause or two into a search engine. ...

... Kate Knibbs of Gizmodo: "This is a huge deal. If the details in the WSJ are accurate, this program is as invasive and disturbing as the NSA surveillance programs exposed last year.... The fake phone tower signals used work even on phones with encryption, like the iPhone 6, so there's virtually no way phone makers could've prevented this from happening. The Justice Department has neither confirmed or denied the WSJ report."

CW: A number of posts I've linked in the past refer to the conservative justices' understanding of how the federal exchange is supposed to work as a substitute for state exchanges, as expressed in their dissent in the big Business v. Sebelius case of 2011, which upheld the ACA over their objections. Scott Lemieux does a fairly good job of explaining the four justices' analysis -- as it appears in their joint dissent -- & why they would have to reverse their own analysis if the ruled for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell, the case the Court recently agreed to hear. Lemieux adds, "... these four justices, having made one argument in service of their political goal of destroying the ACA, [would now have to] make precisely the opposite argument in service of their political goal of destroying the ACA. The fact that [this is] probably right is pretty much all I have to say about these four gentlemen." ...

... CW: Fortunately, thanks to the "stupidity of the American voters," the conservative justices will easily get away with that. If Roberts joins them, there will be high fives all around the GOP for, as Lemieux puts it, "stripping millions of people of their health insurance, consigning some of them to needless suffering and death, and others to avoidable bankruptcy. If there's a better way of describing the Republican Party in 2014, I don't know what it is." ...

... E. J. Dionne: "Here's a hypothetical for you: First, the Supreme Court issues a ruling that installs a conservative president. Then, he appoints two conservative Supreme Court justices who then join with three of their colleagues to make mincemeat of the greatest achievement of a progressive president elected by a clear majority. If such a thing happened in any other country, would we still call it a democratic republic?" ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that, not only did Jonathan Gruber not play a significant role in drafting Obamacare, but that she doesn't even 'know who he is.'... Many have pointed out since then that Pelosi's office has cited Gruber's work in the past. That's notable, but it's very unlikely Pelosi herself wrote those press releases herself or even participated in their drafting." ...

... Sarah Kliff of Vox has an interesting rundown of Gruber's "contributions to the conversation" about ObamaCare....

... CW: What's interesting to me is that, assuming Kliff's reporting is accurate (and she has followed ACA developments closely), Gruber did not formally contribute much to the ACA; he only provided models for assessing the effects of various policy options. He was an "architect" of the ACA only in that the federal law has provisions similar to those of RomneyCare, which Gruber did do significant work on. I don't see how Gruber could get into Nancy Pelosi's head or read Max Baucus's mind; he apparently had little or no direct contact with them. He seems to be (a) projecting his own prejudices & (b) showing off by implying he has "insider" information). ...

... CW: Or maybe its just penis envy. Jake Tapper of CNN catches a talk Prof. Gruber gave in 2010 about high healthcare costs. "In the 1950s surgeons are middle class guys like professors.... Now they live on the Hamptons, the Cape, they're like investment bankers."

... Jonathan Chait explains what Gruber really meant about stupid people. Thanks to MAG for the link. ...

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "An intruder was able to climb a fence and enter the White House in September because of a succession of 'performance, organizational, technical' and other failures by the Secret Service, according to a damning review of the incident by the Department of Homeland Security. The review found that the Secret Service's alarm systems and radios failed to function properly, and that many of the responding officers did not see the intruder as he climbed over the fence, delaying their response.... The review has not been made public, but members of Congress were briefed on it Thursday. An executive summary was obtained by The New York Times."

Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "Russia has informed the United States that it is planning to reduce its participation next year in a joint effort to secure nuclear materials on Russian territory, a move that could seriously undermine more than two decades of cooperation aimed at ensuring that nuclear bomb components do not fall into the hands of terrorists or a rogue state."

Even conservatives peg Tailgunner Ted as a tool & an ignoramus on net neutrality. Thanks to James S. for the link. ...

... Here's Teddy the Tool, in a WashPo op-ed, explaining why those conservative techies are all wrong: see, "net neutrality" is just another way to "stifle freedom." Also, Obama has arranged for "the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Chinese President Xi Jinping [to] dictate what can be read, written, distributed, bought and sold on the Internet." CW: So the next time you try to log on, don't be surprised if Putin rears his head, or some dancing pandas sing quotations from the Little Red Book, or the Ayatollah just shuts you down. Thanks, Ted, for keeping us all informed of the impending doom.

CW: I will not be having loofah for lunch. See "Beyond the Beltway" in yesterday's Commentariat for context. Thanks to Akhilleus for sparing me the sponge:

November December Election

Dana Milbank: "... nobody predicted that the first legislation Congress would take up would be the Mary Landrieu Preservation Act of 2014."

Beyond the Beltway

Ken Ward of the Charleston, West Virginia Gazette: "Don Blankenship, the longtime chief executive officer of Massey Energy, was indicted Thursday on charges that he violated federal mine safety laws at the company's Upper Big Branch Mine prior to an April 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners. A federal grand jury in Charleston charged Blankenship with conspiring to cause routine and willful violations of mandatory federal mine safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch between Jan. 1, 2008, and April 9, 2010, U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said."

News Ledes

AP: "Jane Byrne became part of Chicago history when she was elected its first female mayor. She became part of city lore because of how she won: beating an incumbent who voters thought had bungled the reaction to a blizzard that paralyzed the streets.... She died Friday at age 81 at a hospice in Chicago, said her daughter, Kathy." Her New York Times obituary is here.

Washington Post: "On separate trips to the opulent presidential palace in Naypyidaw and to the stately Rangoon villa of Burma's most famous politician, [president] Obama played the role of de facto adviser to President Thein Sein and the Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains blocked by constitutional rules from seeking the presidency."

AP: "A surgeon working in Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and will be flown to Nebraska for treatment, according to a US government source. The surgeon, Dr Martin Salia, is a citizen of Sierra Leone but also a legal permanent US resident, an official with knowledge of the case told the Associated Press." Proposed Fox Headline: "Obama Ebola Epidemic Rages, Increases by 100 1,000 10,000 Incalculable Percent."

AP: "In an interview with authorities the night of his capture and in a letter to his parents, [alleged cop-killer Eric] Frein revealed himself to be deeply dissatisfied with the government and society, saying he hoped to foment a revolution to reclaim 'the liberties we once had,' said the documents, filed Thursday in support of terrorism charges against the sniper suspect."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 13, 2014

Internal links, comic strip removed.

Karen Tumulty & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "When his party got walloped last week in the midterm election, an unbowed President Obama declared that he would 'squeeze every last little bit of opportunity' to push his agenda in the waning years of his presidency. In the past few days, he has shown that he meant it." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "The failed Obamacare presidency continued not to fail this week. Twice. The first time it happened was on Tuesday morning, when Craig Spencer left Bellevue Hospital in New York..... Obama's other non-failure came late on Tuesday night, when, while traveling in Asia, he announced that he'd secured a major agreement on climate change with the Chinese."

Manu Raju & John Bresnahan of Politico: "The incoming Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, is engaged in private talks with [Elizabeth Warren,] the Massachusetts freshman, to create a special leadership post for the former Harvard professor, according to several people familiar with the matter."

Gail Collins on the lame-duck session of Congress as reality show. It has possibilities.

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "For the first time in the six-year fight over the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, both houses of Congress will hold a vote on the proposed project, giving each side in a Louisiana Senate election a chance to boost its candidate. The two lawmakers locked in the runoff contest, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) and Rep. Bill Cassidy (R), seized control of the congressional agenda Wednesday, extracting assurances from House and Senate leaders that votes will be held to bypass President Obama's authority and authorize construction of the pipeline."

Greg Sargent: "For House Republicans, their guiding fiscal and economic lodestar remains -- and will forever remain -- the hallowed Paul Ryan budget. In its various iterations, it would repeal Obamacare, radically restructure Medicare to the detriment of beneficiaries, block-grant Medicaid, and aim most of its draconian budget cuts at programs benefiting people with lower incomes. Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has said earlier versions would result in 'the largest redistribution of income from bottom to top in modern U.S. history.' So it's not surprising that House Republicans appear to be reading their big victory in the 2014 elections as a mandate to bring it back once again." (No link.)

The guy's awesome. -- Eric Cantor, on Joe Biden. Read the Cantor interview by Zeke Miller of Time.

Apparently serving 36 years in "the greatest deliberative body on Earth" is fairly good prep for handling Eric Cantor. -- Constant Weader

Daniel Drezner of the Washington Post on "the best APEC summit ever." ...

... Charles Pierce writes a brief history of political opposition to U.S. international treaties. Enter McConnell, Boehner & Inhofe, stage far-right. ...

... Christopher Flavelle of Bloomberg View: "By linking the EPA rules to Chinese action, President Barack Obama has taken the most compelling case against those rules and co-opted it overnight. For a lame-duck president, that's a pretty neat trick." ...

... Rebecca Leber of the New Republic: "Remarkably, the party that’s become synonymous with climate-change denial has avoided any mention of it this time.... Even Senator James Inhofe -- Congress' most vigilant climate-change denier -- neglected to mention what he really thinks of global warming."

Ezra Klein: "In September, the Kaiser Family Foundation looked at [48 cities] ... and found that ... on average, prices [for health insurance] are falling by 0.2 percent. 'Falling' is not a word that people associate with health-insurance premiums.... But this data [sic!] ... shows that Obamacare is doing a better job holding down costs than anyone seriously predicted.... Obamacare's competitive insurance marketplaces are actually doing what they promised to do: forcing insurers to compete for customers by cutting costs." ...

... BUT NEVER MIND ALL THAT ...

... "The Stupidity of the American Voter," Ctd. Robert Costa & Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Congressional Republicans seized Wednesday on controversial comments made by [Jonathan Gruber,] a former health-care consultant to the Obama administration, with one leading House conservative suggesting that hearings could be called in response as part of the GOP effort to dismantle the law in the next Congress and turn public opinion ahead of the 2016 election.... On Tuesday evening, Fox News' Megyn Kelly aired a second video, of Gruber calling voters stupid, also from 2013." ...

... Here's Kelly's segment, which suggested to me a more consequential scandal: Is Kelly wearing hair extenders? ...

... Dylan Scott of TPM scores a White House response to Gruber: "'Transparency is a key goal of the ACA: consumers now have more access to information about their health insurance than ever before,' White House spokesperson Jessica Santillo said in a statement to TPM. 'The Affordable Care Act was publicly debated over the course of 14 months, with dozens of Congressional hearings, and countless town halls, speeches, and debates. The tax credits in the law that help millions of middle class Americans afford coverage were no secret, and in fact were central to the legislation.... Not only do we disagree with [Gruber's] comments, they're simply not true.' [Emphasis added.] An administration official also noted to TPM that -- while Gruber is often described as an 'architect' of Obamacare because he was a key consultant to the administration and was heavily involved in developing the Massachusetts health reform law that served as a starting point for the ACA -- 'he did not work in the White House or play the same role in developing the Affordable Care Act.'" ...

... Reality Chek. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... while it's clear this is hardly Obamacare's proudest moment, the idea that Gruber's comments will suddenly swing public sentiment against Obamacare is wishful thinking. That's because, throughout the law's history, support and opposition have been pretty consistent." ...

... Brian Beutler: "The ObamaCare debate was one of the most transparent in recent memory.... The people who brought you the phony arithmetic of the Bush tax cuts and Medicare Part D and the self-financing Iraq war are upset about the ACA, which is genuinely fiscally sound. By any reasonable standard, ACA respected budgetary constraints much better than most other laws." (And, yes, Beutler typed "dupe the pubic." It happens to us all. ...

... "The Stupidity of the Republican Party." Steve M.: "Gruber is a blowhard, but no one held a gun to Republicans' heads and forced them not to read the bill, or to contradict any statement from Democrats they considered misleading. No one in the public was prevented from reading the bill. The structure of the bill was much discussed; if you wanted to know what was in it, you had every opportunity to find out. This hearing [proposed by Republicans], if it happens, is just one more GOP show trial, held only because there's an unpleasant Democrat to put in the dock, and meant, ironically, to make voters stupider, by persuading them that somehow a bill got passed the contents of which were unknowable." (Also, see Yastreblyansky's comment to Steve's post; you might label it "The Stupidity of the American Professor.") ...

... Okay, we're back to normal Ron Fournier: "... I have to admit, as a supporter, that Obamacare was built and sold on a foundation of lies."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled with the role race may play in drawing legislative maps. The issue was an old one, but the case had a novel twist: Wednesday's challenge came from black and Democratic lawmakers in Alabama who said the State Legislature had relied too heavily on race in its 2012 state redistricting by maintaining high concentrations of black voters in some districts." Here's a transcript of the oral arguments.

Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "The Supreme Court, with two Justices dissenting, on Wednesday afternoon cleared the way for same-sex couples to marry in Kansas -- the thirty-third state on the list. In a brief order, the Court voted to leave intact a federal judge's order nullifying the state's ban on same-sex marriages.... Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas noted only that they would have granted the delay sought by the Kansas attorney general.... There was no explanation, for the order or by the dissenters.... State officials are now under a federal court requirement to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Annals of "Justice," Ctd.

... Richard Wolf of USA Today: "... a media campaign being unveiled Wednesday ... targets the Supreme Court.... They don't publicize their schedules. They don't state their conflicts when recusing themselves from cases. They don't put their financial disclosures online. They don't bind themselves to a code of conduct. And they don't let cameras in the courtroom. 'The Supreme Court has taken on a larger role in American life in recent years. With that increased power comes the need for increased accountability,' says Gabe Roth, former manager of the Coalition for Court Transparency.... The new effort, to be called 'Fix the Court'..., opens Wednesday with a six-figure advertising campaign aimed at politically active fans of Fox and MSNBC, as well as online sites. Funding comes from the non-partisan New Venture Fund." The group's Website is here.

** Linda Greenhouse knocks the Supremes in a way this careful journalist has never done in public remarks (that I can recall). On the Court's agreeing to hear King v. Burwell: "There was no urgency. There was no crisis of governance, not even a potential one.... This is a naked power grab by conservative justices who two years ago just missed killing the Affordable Care Act in its cradle, before it fully took effect. There is, rather, a politically manufactured argument over how to interpret several sections of the Affordable Care Act There is simply no way to describe what the court did last Friday as a neutral act." Read the whole column. ...

... Rick Hasen in the Los Angeles Times: "... it seems entirely possible that [Chief Justice John] Roberts might focus narrowly this time on the snippet of the act extending subsidies only to those insured by exchanges 'established by the state.' One argument he might make in defense of that position is that Congress has the ability to go back and fix any unclear language through a revised statute. Roberts telegraphed his willingness to take such an approach in the 2013 Shelby County vs. Holder case, which struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.... Roberts' opinion for the majority ordered the provision struck because ... Congress, he reasoned, could simply [fix the problematic provision] ... if it wished to." ...

... CW: Hasen makes a good point. It is not completely unreasonable to tell Congress to fix the bill, especially when the fix is so simple. Certainly Roberts fully understands Congress wont' do that, just as he knew Congress wouldn't fix the Voting Rights Act, as Hasen points out. Gutting the VRA meant that GOP legislatures could deprive minorities of the right to vote. Gutting ObamaCare could mean that some millions of Americans would lose health insurance & some of those would get sick & die because of it. So the question may come down to this: is John Roberts more righteous than Congressional Republicans? Tune in next June to find out.

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The biggest business lobby group in the United States is not happy that President Obama is pressuring the Federal Communications Commission to impose stricter rules on broadband providers. Hoping to ward off regulations that would prevent companies like Comcast and Verizon from giving priority to some Internet traffic over others, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that such a move would slow innovation and job creation, and that it was 'strongly opposed.'" ...

... CW: At some point, just crying "jobs" every time you want to privilege the wealthy is not going to snooker even the "stupid" American voter (see Gruber, Jonathan).

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

David Edwards of Raw Story: Fox "News" hosts can't understand John Fogarty lyrics; bash Springsteen, Creedence Clearwater. Springsteen, Dave Grohl & Zack Brown's performance at Tuesday's Concert for Valor is here. ...

... Charles Pierce has a nice pictorial explanation of "Fortunate Son," which the Fox people should probably look at since they can't understand words.

Dylan Byers of Politico: "Fox News is reevaluating Mike Huckabee's status with the network following a new report that he is eyeing a 2016 presidential bid." See also the WashPo report under "Presidential Election" below. ...

... ** Steve M. notes how awkward a Huckabee run would be for the press's preordained "narrative." Steve cites a few of Huck's lunatic remarks, then contrasts them with the WashPo's characterization of Huckabee in the piece linked below:

An ordained Southern Baptist preacher with an easy-going demeanor, Huckabee presents himself as both a social conservative and an economic populist.... [2008 campaign manager Chip] Saltsman ..., said Huckabee would be a formidable opponent for the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in part because he has studied her since their shared Arkansas days. He said Huckabee's 'common touch' and his ability to talk about income inequality would contrast with Clinton.

     ... Not exactly, "Crazy Old Bigot & Nullification/Impeachment Kook Makes Another Quixotic White House Run." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "As for 'income inequality....' I'd be interested in hearing what if anything Huck has to say. He's sure not in favor of more progressive taxation; he's a big 'Fair Tax' guy, devoted to flattening tax rates and moving towards a consumption-based system that would inherently be more regressive. But more to the point, how media folk treat Huck may determine whether the 'economic inequality' debate in 2016 is real or entirely symbolic."

Presidential Election

Contributer P. D. Pepe flags this piece by Noam Scheiber of the New Republic. It is indeed a good summary of the Democrats' Dilemma, as also outlined in some of the posts linked under today's "November Elections": "Long story short, there's a coalition available to Democrats that knits together working class minorities and college-educated voters and slices heavily into the GOP's margins among the white working class.... It's ... possible that Hillary's extensive ties to the one percent will strangle the populist project before it ever gets going, in which case some of those unnamed lefty challengers the Times wrote off start to look pretty attractive. However you feel about it, though, it's the question for Democrats to consider once they realize they need a lasting majority, not just control of the White House."

Tom Hamburger & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who turned his stunning victory in the 2008 Iowa caucuses into a thriving talk-show career, is reconnecting with activists and enlisting staff to position himself in a growing field of potential Republican presidential candidates. This week, Huckabee is leading more than 100 pastors and GOP insiders from early primary states on a 10-day overseas trip with stops in Poland and England." ...

... CW: Anyways, I want Huck to tap Santorum as his running mate & I want the National Enquirer to catch the two of them in bed together in a motel room in Laconia, New Hampshire. Photos, please. Such are the dreams of the everyday liberal. ...

... Paul Waldman also is enthusiastic about a Huckabee run. No mention of Laconia.

Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader, in a Politico Magazine piece, looks at the failed but and enthusiastic efforts -- to curb Rand Paul's political career.

November Elections

Ed Kilgore takes a look at Iowa's exit polls & sees a serious problem for Democrats, one we discussed here yesterday: "non-southern non-college-educated whites" are voting Republican in higher numbers. ...

... ** New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in the Huffington Post: "This year, too many Democratic candidates lost sight of [the party's] core principles -- opting instead to clip their progressive wings in deference to a conventional wisdom that says bold ideas aren't politically practical. To working people, it showed Democratic weakness -- a weak commitment to the change desperately sought by struggling families, and a weak alternative to a Republican philosophy that has held America back. Bold, progressive ideas win elections. Just ask Senator Al Franken, who has fought fearlessly to rein in Wall Street, and won by a larger margin on Tuesday than President Obama did in Minnesota in 2012." ...

... Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Senior members of the Democratic Party say congressional leaders need to look in the mirror after a disastrous Election Day. Several former chairmen of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) say the party waged a tepid fight this year and hasn't had enough of an internal deliberation about what went wrong."

Jay Root of the Texas Tribune: "Consultants for Democrat Wendy Davis warned her campaign months ago that the Fort Worth senator was headed for a humiliating defeat in the Texas governor's race unless she adopted a more centrist message and put a stop to staggering internal dysfunction. The warnings are contained in two internal communications obtained by The Texas Tribune and written at the beginning of the year...."

Beyond the Beltway

Donna St. George of the Washington Post: "Christmas and Easter have been stricken from next year's school calendar in Montgomery County. So have Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Montgomery's Board of Education voted 7 to 1 Tuesday to eliminate references to all religious holidays on the published calendar for 2015-2016, a decision that followed a request from Muslim community leaders to give equal billing to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha. In practical terms, Montgomery schools will still be closed for the Christian and Jewish holidays, as in previous years, and students will still get the same days off, as planned."

     ... CW: If Bill O'Reilly doesn't run a segment titled something like, "Maryland Muslims Win War on Christmas," I'll eat a loofah for lunch.

Elicia Dover of KATV Little Rock: "Gov. Mike Beebe [D] says he will pardon his son, Kyle, for a felony crime from his past.... Kyle Beebe, now 34, was charged in 2003 with possession of a controlled substance, marijuana, with intent to deliver, a class C felony. He was given 3 years supervised probation and fines. Gov. Beebe was serving as the state's attorney general at the time. At the time of the arrest, Gov. Beebe was quoted in a local newspaper saying, 'If he broke the law, he needs to pay for it. He needs to be treated like everybody else-no better, worse.'"

News Lede

New York Times: "President Obama will ignore angry protests from Republicans and announce as soon as next week a broad overhaul of the nation's immigration enforcement system that will protect up to five million undocumented immigrants from the threat of deportation and provide many of them with work permits, according to administration officials who have direct knowledge of the plan."