The Commentariat -- March 10, 2014

Anthony Faiola & Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The head of Ukraine's new pro-Western government will meet with President Obama this week, the White House announced Sunday, as a defiant Russia took further steps to consolidate its hold on the Crimean Peninsula. The announcement of Wednesday's meeting in Washington with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk came as pro-Russia forces extended their reach in Crimea, surrounding a border post in the far west and blocking Ukrainian TV broadcasts to the heavily-Russian-speaking region.... There were reports of more troop movements into Crimea, with officials in Kiev estimating that 18,000 pro-Russian forces had fanned out across the region...." ...

... Tim Sullivan & Yuras Karmanau of the AP profile Sergey Aksyonov, Crimea's new prime minister: "'He wasn't a criminal big shot,' said Andriy Senchenko, now a member of Ukraine's Batkivshchyna party, which was at the forefront of the Kiev protests that led last month to the downfall of pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych. Senchenko described Aksyonov as a 'brigade leader' in a gang that was often involved in extortion rackets." CW: So he's a professional thug. The GOP should love this guy. ...

... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "When this crisis got underway two weeks ago, it seemed absurd that the United States and Russia might go to war over the fate of Ukraine. But both of their leaders have stumbled and bumbled so badly in the meantime, and the exit-ramp is so littered with bombs and barricades, nothing seems impossible." ...

... Kevin Drum: "... to suggest that [Putin] was motivated by weakness in US foreign policy is flatly crazy. He was motivated by fear; by shock over the speed of events in Kiev; by a sense of betrayal when the February 21 agreement collapsed; by nationalistic fervor; by domestic political considerations; by provocative actions from the new Ukrainian parliament; by an increasing insularity among his inner circle; and by just plain panic." ...

... Send in the Crazy. A critical reason for Putin's aggression has been President Obama's weakness. That Putin fears no retribution. Their policy has been to alienate and abandon our friends and coddle and appease our enemies. You better believe that Putin sees in Benghazi, four Americans are murdered and nothing happens, no retribution. You better believe that Putin sees that in Syria, Obama draws a red line and ignores it. -- Ted Cruz, on "This Week"

... Daniel Politi of Slate: "Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Fox News that there was little chance Ukraine would be able to get back control of Crimea. 'I do not believe that Crimea will slip out of Russia's hands,' Gates said in an interview on Sunday. 'You think Crimea's gone?' Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked. 'I do,' the former defense secretary replied. Gates also went on to defend Obama, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'invaded Georgia when George W. Bush was president -- no one accused George W. Bush of being weak or unwilling to use military force.'" CW: Could be good news for Ukraine. Gates, an expert on Russia, gets a lot wrong about Russia & other stuff.

Paul Krugman: "... moving American policies part of the way toward European norms [of reducing inequality] would probably increase, not reduce, economic efficiency.... What's good for the 1 percent isn't good for America."

Sadhbh Walshe of the Guardian on slavery today -- not uncommon, & hiding in plain sight. CW: I don't mean to minimize the misery of modern slavery, but it seems to me to be an extension of the way many "respectable" corporations -- like WalMart & (especially) Amazon -- treat their "non-slave" workers. Modern-day slavery in the U.S. is a matter of degree.

Erica Goode of the New York Times: "In a little-noticed outcome of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, jails and prisons around the country are beginning to sign up inmates for health insurance under the law, taking advantage of the expansion of Medicaid that allows states to extend coverage to single and childless adults -- a major part of the prison population."

E. J. Dionne: "If conservative rethinkers such as [Paul] Ryan have more than rhetorical and tactical differences with [Ted] Cruz, they have yet to prove it." ...

Canadians are so polite, mild-mannered, modest, unassuming, open-minded. Thank God my family fled that oppressive influence before it could change me. -- Texas Sen. Ted Cruz

More funny stuff from the annual Gridiron Dinner here.

... Charles Pierce did do a fine takedown of Sarah Palin. We should, of course, carry Palin's performance past Palin, as Pierce does: " She is in perpetual tantrum, railing against her betters, which is practically everyone, and volunteering for the job of avatar to the country's reckless vandal of a political Id. It was the address of a malignant child delivered to an audience of malignant children." Thanks to Rockygirl for the link.

David Dayen at the New Republic: The Federal Reserve gives a subsidy, which "comes in the form of a 6 percent dividend, paid on stock that over 2,900 banks purchase to participate in the Federal Reserve system. Very few places where ordinary Americans park their money offer such a risk-free benefit. In 2012 (the last year with available data), the Fed gave away $1.637 billion in dividends to banks, tax-free in the majority of cases. And the Fed has been doing this for the last 100 years. It's one of the many unknown ways the Fed extends special benefits to Wall Street."

How to Make a Billion Dollars. Short a company, then lobby for its demise. Michael Schmidt & others report for the New York Times on hedge fund billionaire William Ackman's extraordinary efforts to bring down the nutritional supplement fim Herbalife.

Greg Palast in TruthDig: "... under a new Post Office plan endorsed by [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren, the P.O. would team up with commercial banks to cash in on payday predation, exempting themselves from the Warren rules.... The Post Office projects it can suck $8.9 billion a year from America's poorest if they can just get into this payday loan racket." ...

... CW: If, as Palast claims (rather obliquely) at one point that the USPS would charge 34 percent interest, then obviously it's a ripoff. And he's right about this: "Instead of letting American Express run tests on us, Senator, why not let post offices partner with not-for-profit credit unions to offer real banking services, not usury, to the public?" David Dayen wrote in January why USPS banking services are a great idea. Michelle Chen, writing for Bill Moyers' Journal is all for it, too, though she does caution about the type of relationship the USPS might develop with big banks.

White Shoes & Handcuffs. James Stewart in the New Yorker: "Many law firms have failed over the years, but none as spectacularly as Dewey & LeBoeuf, the namesake 'global super firm' of the former Republican Presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey. On Thursday, Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan D.A., unveiled lengthy indictments charging Steven Davis, the firm's former chairman; Stephen DiCarmine, its executive director; and Joel Sanders, its chief financial officer."

Andrew Solomon of the New Yorker interviews Peter Lanza, the father of mass murderer Adam Lanza.

Sarah Posner in Politico Magazine: "Persecuted, which opens in theaters May 9, is a political thriller about an evangelist facing down a government threat to destroy religious freedom in America.... Persecuted screened this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D.C., and it couldn't have found a more sympathetic audience. The tribulations of the evangelist, not so subtly named John Luther, seem calculated to capitalize on conservative claims that a tyrannical government is infringing on their religious freedom." ...

     ... CW: You might want to read Posner's review in conjunction with the piece by Amanda Marcotte on the right's persecution fantasies, which I linked a couple of days ago.

Local News

Cowboys & Indians. The Sooners' Oklahoma land grab isn't over yet. Also, Jim Inhofe, always in there for anything despicable. David Rogers of Politico reports.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 deepened on Monday when a sweeping search failed to find any sign of the jetliner near its last known location, leaving experts to puzzle over how a Boeing 777 with 239 people aboard could have vanished without a trace. The search was set back by a number of false leads that seemed to underline how little investigators have been able to pin down about the progress of the flight." ...

... Guardian: "Confusion mounted on Monday over the identities of the two passengers travelling with stolen passports aboard missing flight MH370 after reviews of CCTV footage prompted a Malaysian official to describe them as resembling a black Italian footballer. Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that the men, who had been travelling on stolen Italian and Austrian passports, were 'not Asian looking' and may have been part of a stolen passport syndicate."

Washington Post: "Russia and its sympathizers seized control of more Ukrainian military bases and facilities in Crimea on Monday while Moscow issued threatening statements about eastern Ukraine that signaled Russia's intention to play a significant role in the country's future. At least four Ukrainian military bases, including one stocked with missiles, were overrun by armed men in uniforms who say they are members of local self-defense units, which are typically under the command of Russian military officers. The headquarters of the Ukrainian naval fleet had its electricity cut, and the director of a military hospital was ousted and a replacement installed by the pro-Russian militia that took over." ...

... AFP: "Russia has deliberately sunk three of its own ships to block Ukrainian navy vessels entering a lake off the Black Sea, officers say, highlighting Moscow's determination to wear down the morale of Kiev's forces in Crimea." ...

... Reuters: "Russian President Vladimir Putin defended breakaway moves by the pro-Russian leaders of Crimea on Sunday in a phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, according to the Kremlin."

The Commentariat -- March 9, 2014

 

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "President Barack Obama on Saturday spoke to world leaders including David Cameron of Great Britain and François Hollande of France about the continuing crisis in Ukraine. Also on Saturday, secretary of state John Kerry warned his Russian counterpart that any steps to annex the Crimea region would 'close any available space for diplomacy'." ...

... In a Washington Post op-ed, Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attributes the Ukraine crisis to the Obama administration's "reset" of relations with Russia. ...

     ... CW: What you see here is the shaping of the 2016 presidential campaign. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, we are going to hear again & again that she weakened the U.S.'s standing in the world, from emboldening the Russians to letting terrorists get away with murder (see Rand Paul/Benghaaaazi below). ...

... Historian Timothy Snyder in the New York Review of Books on Putin's takeover of the Crimea: "... propaganda is all that unites the tactics and the dream, and that unity turns out to be wishful. There is no actual policy, no strategy, just a talented and tortured tyrant oscillating between mental worlds that are connected only by a tissue of lies." ...

... David Remnick of the New Yorker on "Putin's pique."

Maureen Dowd sets up one her Diss-Obama columns, but she ends up criticizing everybody: Republicans, Democrats, pundits & Obama. Seems fair. ...

... Here's Obama, misspelling "RESPECT." CW: Sorry, I'm not shocked & horrified:

Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "One day after riveting a packed convention ballroom, tea party darling Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) topped the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, his second consecutive victory in the conservative confab's contest. Paul won 31 percent of the vote (compared with the 25 percent he won last year), beating a crowded field of more than two dozen names, including a number of potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders. He crushed second-place finisher Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who came in with 11 percent." ...

Oh, just listen:

... Here's proof of Bachmann's claim to an "intellectual movement":

... Missed this one: Aqua Buddha Despatches the Clintons. Alexandra Jaffe of the Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Friday knocked former President Clinton as a 'throwback to a sort of troglodyte time,' where men took advantage of women in the workplace.... He said, however, he doesn't believe Clinton's indiscretions should disqualify his wife from the presidency. However, 'not sending reinforcements into Benghazi should disqualify her,' he said."

Hillary Stout, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal safety regulators received more than 260 complaints over the last 11 years about General Motors vehicles that suddenly turned off while being driven, but they declined to investigate the problem, which G.M. now says is linked to 13 deaths and requires the recall of more than 1.6 million cars worldwide."

The First Amendment Meets the Second Amendment. Andrew Wolfson of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "In an effort its spokesman has described as 'outreach to rednecks,' the Kentucky Baptist Convention is leading 'Second Amendment Celebrations,' where churches around the state give away guns as door prizes to lure in nonbelievers in hopes of converting them to Christ." Via Steve Benen. ...

... Glenn Blain & Rich Schapiro of the New York Daily News: "An upstate [New York] pastor is planning to give away an unholy raffle prize at an upcoming service: an AR-15 assault rifle. 'We're honoring gun owners and hunters,' the Rev. John Koletas, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Troy, told the Daily News. 'And we're being a blessing and a help to people who have been attacked, viciously attacked, by socialists and anti-Christian people -- the politicians and the media.'" Also via Benen.

Congressional Race

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times on the special election -- to be held Tuesday -- to replace long-time Florida GOP Rep. Bill Young.

News Ledes

Guardian: "Vice-President Joe Biden has given a stark assessment of the ongoing unrest in Venezuela, accusing President Nicolás Maduro of widespread human rights violations and saying the situation reminded him of Latin America's troubled and violent past. In a written interview with El Mercurio of Chile, where Biden arrived on Sunday at the start of his seventh official visit to the region, he called the unstable situation in Venezuela 'alarming' and said the Caracas government lacked even basic respect for human rights."

Los Angeles Times: "At least a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns kidnapped by Syrian rebels near Damascus in December were released on Sunday, according to Syria's official news agency and Lebanese media reports."

Guardian: "... John Kerry on Sunday released a statement marking the seventh anniversary of the disappearance of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who went missing on an Iranian island and was last year reported to have been working for the CIA at the time."

Washington Post: "Vietnamese aircraft located possible debris from the vanished Malaysia Airlines plane late Sunday, including a rectangular object that could have been a door, but officials said it was too dark to confirm if they came from the airliner. Experts had been puzzled by the failure to find debris from the airliner nearly two days after it disappeared from radar screens in the Gulf of Thailand and was presumed to have crashed with 239 people on board."

New York Times: "... the discovery that two of the passengers [aboard the Malaysian airliner that disappeared over the Gulf of Thailand] were carrying stolen passports also raised the unsettling possibility of foul play." ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments.

The Commentariat -- March 8, 2014

Internal links removed.

** Steven Myers, et al., of the New York Times: "An examination of the seismic events that set off the most threatening East-West confrontation since the Cold War era, based on Mr. Putin's public remarks and interviews with officials, diplomats and analysts here, suggests that the Kremlin's strategy emerged haphazardly, even misleadingly, over a tense and momentous week, as an emotional Mr. Putin acted out of what the officials described as a deep sense of betrayal and grievance, especially toward the United States and Europe." ...

... CW: A good example, a la Dubya, of why a "leadership style" -- however much Giuliani, et al., admire it -- based on grievance & hurt feelings -- is bad for the world. Moreover, if Myers' reporting is right, then the right wing might STFU about Obama's failure to anticipate Putin's actions. Putin himself didn't anticipate them. ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments re: the Ukraine crisis. ..

... Steven Myers: "Russia signaled for the first time on Friday that it was prepared to annex Crimea, significantly intensifying its confrontation with the West over the political crisis in Ukraine and threatening to undermine a system of respect for national boundaries that has helped keep the peace in Europe and elsewhere for decades." ...

... Steve Mufson of the Washington Post debunks John Boehner's fantasy that "the United States can help Ukraine by approving more gas export terminals" in the U.S. ...

... Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is taking advantage of the rift between Russia and the United States over Ukraine to press ahead with plans to crush the rebellion against his rule and secure his reelection for another seven-year term, unencumbered by pressure to compromise with his opponents."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Edward J. Snowden ... said he raised his concerns to more than 10 officials, 'none of whom took any action to address them,' before he decided to give the documents to journalists. Mr. Snowden's comments, in written answers to questions by members of the European Parliament that were released on Friday, amplified previous assertions that he initially tried to raise concerns internally about surveillance collection he believed went too far.... The agency has previously said its internal investigation ... found no evidence that he had brought concerns to the attention of anyone." ...

... Christian Davenport of the Washington Post: "After years of focusing on outside threats, the federal government and its contractors are turning inward, aiming a range of new technologies and counterintelligence strategies at their own employees to root out spies, terrorists or leakers. Agencies are now monitoring their computer networks with unprecedented scrutiny, in some cases down to the keystroke, and tracking employee behavior for signs of deviation from routine. At the Pentagon, new rules are being written requiring contractors to institute programs against 'insider threats,' a remarkable cultural change in which even workers with the highest security clearances face increased surveillance."

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times on how the Justice Department got stuck investigating the Senate Intelligence Committee & the C.I.A., each of whom accuses the other -- probably rightly -- of spying on the other.

Gail Collins on women's reproductive health services, religious freedom (to impose your own beliefs on everybody else) & Texas.

Mattea Kramer in the Nation: "Washington is pushing the panic button, claiming austerity is hollowing out our armed forces and our national security is at risk.... Yet a careful look at budget figures for the US military -- a bureaucratic juggernaut accounting for 57 percent of the federal discretionary budget and nearly 40 percent of all military spending on this planet -- shows that such claims have been largely fictional." Kramer looks at the details & finds that the actual appropriations represent "a cut of less than 1 percent from Pentagon funding this year."

Charles Pierce: "There is no question that Aqua Buddha was the breakout star [at CPAC].... It was truly a stunning performance. A speech shot through with applause lines with almost no actual substance to it at all." ...

... CPAC, Where Reality Is Not Allowed in the Door. Dylan Scott of TPM: "Conservative radio host Michael Medved said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference that no state has ever banned gay marriage and any claim to the contrary is 'a liberal lie.' ... To be clear: 30 states have banned same-sex marriage in their state constitution, usually by legally defining marriage as between a man and a woman, according to the Human Rights Campaign." Other liberals lies: slavery used to be legal in the South, American women were not allowed to vote, and Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A. ...

... More Stupid Things Wingers Say. Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: "Top social-conservative strategist Ralph Reed compared President Barack Obama to segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference." CW: Let's add to Amanda Marcotte's list, linked below: "Making education fact-based & inclusive." ...

... More Stupid Things, Ctd. Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "The Department of Justice's public affairs staffers think Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) could use a history lesson on the civil rights movement. On Friday, the day after Jindal compared [AG Eric] Holder to segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace at the Conservative Political Action Conference, DOJ employees mailed Jindal a copy of a book by civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). They inserted a yellow sticky note on page 199, where Lewis writes about Vivian Malone, one of the first African-Americans to integrate the University of Alabama, who walked past Gov. Wallace that day. Malone is Holder's late sister-in-law...." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "Comparing legal objections to Louisiana's highly dubious voucher program -- which is extremely light on any sort of educational accountability for use of tax dollars at conservative evangelical madrassas, to efforts to bar African-Americans from public schools -- is precisely the sort of rhetorical jiu-jitsu we've come to expect from conservatives trying to parry accusations of (and historical association with) racism." ...

... CW: I find disturbing the bellicose language these "religious freedom fighters" invoke. Is it any wonder that a few wingers feel justified in harming the President when they listen to elected officials make speeches like this?:

... Carrying on with the Crazy, Amanda Marcotte of AlterNet, in Salon, notes the many ways evil secularists are persecuting American Christians. Includes filling out paperwork, taking money from gays & doing what they ask. CW: Look, these want to be persecuted so they can be more like Jesus. But secularists refuse to cooperate by actually persecuting them. That's just mean. In fact, you might call it a form of -- persecution. ...

... Digby: "They're getting so filled with contradictions they are pretty much reduced to speaking gibberish." Digby wrote this in response to Paul Ryan's fake story about the boy who lost his soul because he got a hot lunch instead of a bag lunch (see yesterday's Commentariat). But her observation of course has a much broader application. ...

... CW: To prove that I am one secularist who is good at persecuting, I commend you to watch the clip of Ryan's delivery:

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker: "Ryan later ... [said] in a Facebook post that he regrets 'failing to verify the original source of the story.' What he doesn't seem to regret, however, is the fact that in stealing Maurice [Mazyck]'s story, he and [Scott Walker sidekick Eloise] Anderson used it to shit on everything [Mazyck] stands for today. [Maczyk is cofounder of the No Kid Hungry campaign.] They divorced it from the kindness he received and accepted. Their honesty problem isn't about attribution; it's about exploitation." ...

... Dana Milbank: The CPAC convention (and its offshoot convention of ultra-ultra conservatives "The Uninvited") shows not that the Republican party is engaged in civil war but in chaos. ...

... MEANWHILE, Down the Road. Josh Glasstetter of the Southern Poverty Law Center: "The Family Research Council's executive vice president, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (retired), was caught on a 'hot mic' following a panel yesterday at the National Security Action Summit, which was held just down the street from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).... Boykin told [a] reporter that President Obama identifies with and supports Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and uses subliminal messages to express this support.... Now consider the fact that he once served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and is still viewed as a credible expert on terrorism by Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee." CW: Glasstetter reports an anti-Jewish comment by Boykin, but I think Boykin was being facetious.

Beyond the Beltway

Laura Vozzella & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Maureen McDonnell comes across as insecure and sometimes erratic in hundreds of pages of e-mail exchanges among staff members at the governor's mansion and two management consultants at Virginia Commonwealth University. The consultants were brought in to bring order to the seemingly dysfunctional workplace that was Virginia's executive mansion. The messages portray the governor as willing to devote high-level staff to helping his wife cope but reluctant to delve into the problems himself." ...

... The AP story is here.

Sometimes, in the interest of journalism, political reporters must watch porn movies. Nate Sunderland & Jeff Robinson of the Idaho Statesman report on Gov. Butch Otter's (R) performance in what became a soft-porn movie. CW: There's no reason to think Otter had anything to do with the porn bit, but since Gale Collins very much enjoys writing about Butch Otter, it was awfully nice of the Statesman to provide her some humorous material.

The President's Weekly Address

News Lede

New York Times: "A 12-mile-long oil slick spotted between Malaysia and Vietnam on Saturday afternoon is thought to be the first sign that a missing Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 people aboard went down in the waters between southernmost Vietnam and northern Malaysia, according to Vietnam's director of civil aviation."