The Commentariat -- Dec. 10, 2013

Lydia Polgreen, et al., of the New York Times: "In an outpouring of praise, memory and celebration, scores of leaders from around the world, including President Obama, joined tens of thousands of South Africans in vast rainswept soccer stadium on Tuesday to pay common tribute to Nelson Mandela. Huge cheers greeted Mr. Obama as he rose to speak." ...

... ** President Obama is introduced at about 20 min. into the video:

     ... Here is the text of Obama's remarks, as prepared. ...

... The Washington Post has a photo gallery of those honoring Mandela today.

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "For more than 16 hours, Mr. Obama hosted former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton aboard Air Force One -- part of a global pilgrimage that is expected to bring as many as 100 world leaders to South Africa." ...

... Anthony Castellano & Mary Bruce of ABC News: "President Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro today at a memorial service for the late Nelson Mandela in South Africa." CW: That deafening roar you hear is not cheers for Mandela or Obama but wingnuts winging out at the handshake. ...

... Steve M. of NMMNB: "The right is going to howl, but all that means is that the right will have temporarily substituted 'Obama Kowtows to Commie' for 'Obama Wants to Kill Us All with Socialized Medicine and Benghazi.... The problem is the middle -- not the Fox/Limbaugh audience, but the audience for Washington Post pundits and CNN bloviators. This will be discussed Very, Very Seriously for a day or two by all of these people."

Ben Protess & Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "Federal regulators are poised to approve a tougher-than-expected version of the so-called Volcker Rule, adopting a harder line in recent weeks against Wall Street risk-taking.... The rule, which comes to a vote on Tuesday, is a symbol of the Obama administration's post-financial-crisis crackdown on Wall Street. In particular, it bans banks from trading for their own gain, a practice known as proprietary trading. In doing so, the Volcker Rule takes aim at the sort of risk-taking responsible for a $6 billion trading blowup last year at JPMorgan Chase."

Jonathan Weisman & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "House and Senate negotiators reached a final agreement Monday on a Pentagon policy bill that would strengthen protections for military victims of sexual assault and keep the prison facility at Guantánamo Bay open over President Obama's strenuous objections, as Congress rushed to wrap up work in its last full week of the year.... It was a loss for champions of a more sweeping response to sexual assault in the military, a group led by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York."

Redistribution! Socialism! Communism! Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "Republicans aren't wrong when they say Obamacare amounts to redistribution. But they seem to have a distorted view of how that redistribution works.... It's certainly fair to say that a majority of people getting money from Obamacare are in the lower half of the income scale. But that includes an awful lot of people that qualify as 'working class' or 'middle class.... The majority of funding in the law is money paid by -- or given up by -- either the wealthy or parts of the health care industry.... In the old days, before Obamacare, just about anybody could end up without health insurance, which meant just about anybody could end up ruined because of medical bills. The simplest way to describe Obamacare is as a transfer from the lucky to the unlucky. And when it comes to health, you don't have to be poor to be unlucky." ...

... Ryan Cooper of the Washington Post: Congressional Republicans "are shocked to discover the health care system sucks." CW: This is not a Borowitz report; this is wealthy members of Congress suddenly "discovering that premiums are higher than they would have expected, having previously enjoyed the protection of government benefits that essentially shielded them from reality.... Five decades of skyrocketing health price inflation didn't inspire so much as a peep when Republicans held all three branches of government. But now that Republicans have derped themselves onto the exchanges, they're shocked, shocked at how expensive things have gotten." ...

... Kelli Kennedy of the AP: Insurance agents say the ACA & Healthcare.gov are stiffing them because of both software glitches & purposely built-in barriers. CW: I'd guess the ACA is still a bonanza for agents, even with the glitches & limits the law places on commissions. Nonetheless, If the anecdotal tales are true, it seems the agents have a real beef. If they help a consumer obtain coverage, they should get a commission.

Lourdes Medrano of the Christian Science Monitor: "Facing intense pressure from immigrant advocates who want the president to do more to limit deportations, the Obama administration has quietly issued a directive [on November 15] to help undocumented immigrants who are closely related to military personnel stay in the country. The effort is called 'parole in place,' and it aims to end rampant confusion among immigration officials about how to treat the parents, spouses, and minor children of those in active duty as well as veterans and reservists. Under parole in place, these relatives no longer have to leave the country to apply for legal US status -- a situation that often resulted in the applicants being barred from reentering the US for years."

Obama 2.0 Fixer? Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama, after a rocky year that leaves him at the lowest ebb of his presidency, is bringing into his White House circle the longtime Democratic strategist John D. Podesta, a former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton."

Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "Senior figures behind efforts to curtail the powers of American spy agencies have seized on the decision by the world's largest tech companies to call for radical surveillance reform, saying the unexpected intervention is a potential 'game-changer'.... Tech giants usually leave public lobbying to the dozen or so industry associations in Washington. It is unprecedented for the major tech giants to put their names to a single political statement of this kind." ...

... Matthew Taylor & Nick Hopkins of the Guardian: "More than 500 of the world's leading authors, including five Nobel prize winners, have condemned the scale of state surveillance revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden and warned that spy agencies are undermining democracy and must be curbed by a new international charter.... They have urged the United Nations to create an international bill of digital rights that would enshrine the protection of civil rights in the internet age."

CNN: "The Senate voted unanimously on Monday to renew a 10-year ban on guns that cannot be picked up by metal detectors commonly found in airports, court houses and government buildings. The law, which prohibits firearms made mostly of plastic, was set to expire at day's end.... The House acted last week, and now the measure goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. A White House official said the President is expected to sign the legislation. But the Obama administration and congressional Democrats had been pushing for an extension to also deal with potential loopholes for 3-D-printer guns, which the congressional legislation does not do."

Monica Potts of the American Progress on David Vitter's mean-spirited amendment: denying food stamps to ex-offenders. The amendment to the farm bill "applies retroactively, meaning it would kick poor senior citizens who have served their time in prison, and who may not have committed violent crimes in years, off assistance. The amendment also prohibits these ex-offenders from being counted as members of their families when benefits are determined.... If that ex-offender has a job, however, his or her income is counted and reduces his family's benefits accordingly. States can't opt out of this provision." The Senate voted for the amendment by voice vote & there's similar language in a House bill, tho the House version is not retroactive. Potts runs down the reasons this provision isn't just nasty; it's counterproductive. ...

... Because there's nothing that makes America safer than a bunch of starved ex-criminals roaming the streets. -- Jason Sattler of the National Memo in the Huffington Post

... CW: Potts is too nice to say so, but I would add that there's a sickening irony in all this. The Vitter amendment "bars anyone who has been convicted of murder, sexual assault or sexual abuse, child pornography, and similar state offenses from receiving food stamps." Vitter himself famously engaged in criminal sexual behavior -- repeatedly soliciting prostitutes -- but, as David Dayen of Salon noted parenthetically in May. when Vitter introduced the amendment, "(cannily, the crime of soliciting prostitutes is exempted from this ban)." Dayen also wrote.

The amendment was clearly created as a wedge issue, a perennial Republican effort to get Democratic senators to vote for something that can get used against them later in attack ads.... No senator would vote to 'give' violent offenders federal benefits, and in this case they didn't have to. Rather than put the amendment up for a vote, the manager of the farm bill, Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Sen. Debbie Stabenow, merely accepted the amendment into the base bill. The amendment was agreed to by unanimous consent, which is to say that nobody objected to it on the floor. In reality, it's unlikely that most senators even knew the amendment's contents.

... CW: Vitter, BTW, was never convicted for his crimes, nor was he even prosecuted, though when exposed, so to speak, he admitted to the solicitations, which he described as "a sin." Yeah, & a crime.

... Dylan Scott of TPM: "The emerging deal on food stamp spending, part of the House and Senate's ongoing negotiations over the farm bill, would include dollar savings, but would not kick anybody off the program -- a far cry from the bill passed by the House GOP this fall. The framework of the deal is a dramatic comedown for Republicans, especially in the House, which already passed $40 billion in cuts to the food stamp program in September. The total cuts in the new deal would likely come in less than $10 billion -- Roll Call reported $8 billion as a possible figure Monday. It's a slight come-up for Senate Democrats, who passed a bill with $4 billion in cuts in the summer. The bulk of the spending cuts would come from an administrative fix, according to sources familiar with the talks." CW: Really? What about Vitter's ex-felons?

Tom Krishner of the AP: "The U.S. government ended up losing $10.5 billion on the General Motors bailout, but it says the alternative would have been far worse. The Treasury Department sold its final shares of the Detroit auto giant Monday, recovering $39 billion of the $49.5 billion it spent to save the dying automaker at the height of the financial crisis five years ago.... The company now is sitting on $26.8 billion in cash and is considering restoration of a dividend." CW: Seems to me the Obama administration could have cut a better deal. ...

... Jon Perr in Daily Kos: "... the $10.5 billion loss on paper obscures the massive total return on investment for the U.S. economy overall and American taxpayers in particular. As a new analysis from the Center for Automotive Research found, had GM and Chrysler failed altogether, the result could have been 4.1 million jobs lost across the U.S. economy in 2009 and 2010, with federal transfer payments and $105 billion in lost income and payroll tax revenue for the U.S. Treasury." CW: Yeah, yeah, I get that. I'd still like my $10.5 billion back. ...

... Matt Yglesias explains why, from a macroeconomic POV, how much the government makes or loses from its loans is irrelevant. CW: But I still want GM to pay for the incompetence that almost caused the loss of a million-plus jobs.

Tal Kopan of Politico: "Rep. Sander Levin said Monday that Sen. Rand Paul's position that extending unemployment benefits does a 'disservice' to Americans looking for work is wrong, and said letting those benefits expire would be a 'disservice to humanity.'"

Alex Seitz-Wald argues in the National Journal that the Newtown massacre of last December "set in motion a cascade of events that led the White House to burn through its only real window to accomplish its goals."

Part 2 of the New York Times series by Andrea Elliott on Dasani, a preteen homeless girl.

** Stanley Fish attends three Noam Chomsky lectures.

John Bresnahan of Politico: "... House Democrat Alan Grayson lost $18 million as part of a criminal scheme run by a Virginia man that bilked more than 100 investors out of more than $35 million, according to federal court documents. William Dean Chapman, 44, of Sterling, Va.,was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison on Friday. Chapman pled guilty to one count of wire fraud in May, according to the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which oversaw the case.... It appears from the court documents that Grayson's losses occurred several years ago, around 2007." CW: Kind of explains why Grayson went into a new line of work -- politics.

Senate Race

CNN: "Republican Rep. Steve Stockman is launching a primary challenge against fellow Texan Sen. John Cornyn.... Stockman, a tea party favorite, told WND that he decided to challenge Cornyn in part because he 'undermined' fellow Texan Sen. Ted Cruz's fight to derail Obamacare." CW: Stockman belongs to the Impeach Obama wing of the party & is generally horrible or "weird," as the Houston Chronicle once put it.

Local News

Craig Gustufson & Greg Moran of the San Diego Union-Tribune: Former San Diego Mayor Bob "Filner completed a stunning fall from grace Monday when a judge sentenced him to three months of home confinement and three years of probation, closing the criminal probe into the inappropriate sexual behavior toward women that ended his brief stint as San Diego's 35th mayor. His legal woes will continue as he and the city still face a civil lawsuit from a former aide."

Steve Bousquet of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times: Florida "Gov. Rick Scott has staked his political future on his ability to bring jobs to Florida, but the first comprehensive review of his efforts shows few successes and hundreds of unfulfilled promises." ...

     ... Charles Pierce: "The Tampa paper has some terrific anecdotal evidence of how well this works. Over and over, we see one truth clearly demonstrated -- that governments should be more skeptical of business interests than they are of their citizens who happen to be on public assistance. Over and over, we decline to learn from this.

James Hohmann of Politico: "Three Democratic state lawmakers called Monday for the state chairman of Virginia's Republican Party to resign over comments he made attacking President Barack Obama and Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe.... The chairman, Pat Mullins..., at a weekend GOP retreat ... on Saturday ... he accused Obama of lying to the American people on [a number of] issues.... 'Our president was elected on a series of lies,' Mullins said. 'The American people are finally seeing the emperor without his clothes ... Obama is so close to death (emphasis added) that Terry McAuliffe is about to buy a life insurance policy on him.' The latter part of the comments, which drew laughs and scattered applause, referred to the revelation in the home stretch of the governor's race that the Democratic nominee received $113,000 from an investment in a death-benefits scheme that preyed on the terminally ill." A party spokesman said Mullins "misspoke" & meant to say "ObamaCare," not "Obama" was close to death. CW: If that's true, Mullins' remark is a classic Freudian slip. I'd like to see the Secret Service question Mullins in a most uncordial way.

Jeff Weiner & Rene Stutzman of the Orlando Sentinel: "George Zimmerman's defense lawyer has asked a judge to allow him to see his girlfriend, who has recanted the domestic violence allegations which led to his arrest last month, new court documents show. The apparent about-face by Zimmerman's girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, throws his latest criminal case into doubt, leaving prosecutors to reassess whether or not to pursue charges. 'I want to be with George,' Scheibe says in a sworn statement which accompanies a new motion.... Chris White, lead prosecutor in Seminole County, said he learned of Scheibe's change of heart Monday. He said his office would evaluate her affidavit and decide later this week whether to push forward with the case or abandon it." CW: I'm so surprised that someone idiotic enough to hook up with Zimmerman would pull such a stunt.

News Ledes

AFP: "Uruguay is to give a green light Tuesday to making marijuana legal, in a social experiment that countries plagued by drug-related crime worldwide will watch."

Washington Post: "Hundreds of heavily armored police swarmed past barricades into [Kiev's] Independence Square ... early Wednesday morning, breaking up the encampment of protesters who have defied President Viktor Yanukovych for more than two weeks."

Reuters: " Israel's parliament has moved to ensure African migrants who enter the country illegally can be held without charge, despite a Supreme Court ruling that had struck down a previous detention law. Legislation approved late on Monday set a maximum detention period of one year for new illegal migrants, a change from a term of up to three years stipulated in a previous law annulled by the court in September." CW: Guess the Knesset didn't get the "spirit of Mandela" message. ...

... Time: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled plans to attend memorial events for the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, citing travel and security costs, Israeli media reported Sunday." CW: Seems appropriate.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 9, 2013

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "House and Senate negotiators were putting the finishing touches Sunday on what would be the first successful budget accord since 2011, when the battle over a soaring national debt first paralyzed Washington. The deal expected to be sealed this week on Capitol Hill would not significantly reduce the debt, now $17.3 trillion and rising. It would not close corporate tax loopholes or reform expensive health and retirement programs. It would not even fully replace sharp spending cuts known as the sequester, the negotiators' primary target. After more than two years of constant crisis, the emerging agreement amounts to little more than a cease-fire." CW: Still up-in-the-air: extended unemployment benefits, but it doesn't look good. ...

... Erik Wasson of the Hill: "Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that he hopes extended jobless benefits will be part of the budget deal, but Democrats are not at this point insisting on it.... Durbin's soft position echoes that of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who appeared last week to say no deal would be possible without the extension of jobless benefits expiring Jan. 1, but then walked the ultimatum back." ...

... Test Question. Explain Rand Paul's logic. Kevin Robillard of Politico: "Democratic attempts to extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million workers were a 'disservice' to the unemployed, Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday. Paul said a study had shown employers were less likely to hire the long-term unemployed like those who have been on 99 weeks of benefits." ...

     ... Paul Krugman takes a stab at the test question: "... the G.O.P. answer to the problem of long-term unemployment is to increase the pain of the long-term unemployed: Cut off their benefits, and they'll go out and find jobs. How, exactly, will they find jobs when there are three times as many job-seekers as job vacancies? ... Employment in today's American economy is limited by demand, not supply.... The odds, I'm sorry to say, are that the long-term unemployed will be cut off, thanks to a perfect marriage of callousness ... with bad economics. But then, hasn't that been the story of just about everything lately?" ...

     ... Digby: "It's this twisted Randroid sanctimony that really gets to me. It's bad enough that this creep thinks the unemployed are parasites and moochers. But he has the brass balls to adopt a disgustingly unctuous 'compassionate' tone to suggest that he's following Christian teachings by throwing them out on the street." ...

... Khalil AlJajal of Mlive: "Democrats responded in a variety of ways to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's Friday visit to Detroit. The Kentucky Republican was in town helping the GOP effort to start reaching out to minorities in Michigan and to introduce his 'Economic Freedom Zones' plan. Paul plans to introduce legislation next week that would turn zip codes with unemployment rates over 1.5 times the average into zones where federal income taxes would be reduced to 5 percent, capital gains taxes would be eliminated and other incentives would be offered to potential residents and entrepreneurs." ...

... Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Is there anyone out there who honestly believes that Sen. Rand Paul wasn't going to continue his father's racket of pretending he actually wants to be president in order to raise lots of money from their gullible followers?"

"It's a Godsend." Abby Goodnough, et al., of the New York Times interview Americans who are glad to be getting insurance under the ACA. "... for all those problems, people are enrolling. More than 243,000 have signed up for private coverage through the exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and more than 567,000 have been determined eligible for Medicaid since the exchanges opened on Oct. 1. For many, particularly people with existing medical conditions..., the coverage is proving less expensive than what they had. Many others are getting health insurance for the first time in years, giving them alternatives to seeking care through free clinics or emergency rooms -- or putting it off indefinitely."

** Ta-Nehisi Coates: On Nelson Mandela, Newt Gingrich gets it right & challenges wingers who are attacking Mandela in death. And not for the first time. Here's Newt's full post. CW: This might be the first time I've embedded remarks by Newt Gingrich with which I agree:

... Worth keeping in mind, of course, is the point Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars makes: "... I might be more willing to accept [Newt's alleged shock at conservatives' hateful remarks about Mandela] if Newt didn't play into racist dogwhistles all the time."

Thomas McGarity, in the New York Times: "... there's a crucial dimension the president left out [of his speech on inequality]: the revival, since the mid-1970s, of the laissez-faire ideology that prevailed in the Gilded Age.... It's no coincidence that this laissez-faire revival -- an all-out assault on government regulation -- has unfolded over the very period in which inequality has soared to levels not seen since the Gilded Age." ...

... Case on Point. Matthew Goldstein & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Even as five regulatory agencies prepared to vote Tuesday on a regulation that seeks to rein in risk-taking on Wall Street -- an effort known as the Volcker Rule -- lawyers and lobbyists were gearing up for another round of attacks against it. In recent letters and meetings with financial regulators, lobbyists for Wall Street banks and business trade groups issued thinly veiled threats about challenging the Volcker Rule in court, people briefed on the matter said. The groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are hinting that they could use litigation to either undercut or clarify the rule, which is intended to bar banks from trading for their own gain and limit their ability to invest in hedge funds."

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies conducting criminal investigations collected data on cellphone activity thousands of times last year, with each request to a phone company yielding hundreds or thousands of phone numbers of innocent Americans along with those of potential suspects. Law enforcement made more than 9,000 requests last year for what are called 'tower dumps,' information on all the calls that bounced off a cellphone tower within a certain period of time, usually two or more hours, a congressional inquiry has revealed. The little-known practice has raised concerns among federal judges, lawmakers and privacy advocates who question the harvesting of massive amounts of data on people suspected of no crime in order to try to locate a criminal.... The inquiry, by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), into law enforcement's use of cellphone data comes amid growing scrutiny of the bulk collection of geolocation data overseas and of Americans' phone records in the United States by the National Security Agency." ...

... Mark Mazzetti & Justin Elliott of the New York Times: "American and British spies have infiltrated the fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft and Second Life, conducting surveillance and scooping up data in the online games played by millions of people across the globe, according to newly disclosed classified documents.... The spies have created make-believe characters to snoop and to try to recruit informers, while also collecting data and contents of communications between players, according to the documents, disclosed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden." ...

... Edward Wyatt & Claire Miller of the New York Times: "Eight prominent technology companies, bruised by revelations of government spying on their customers' data and scrambling to repair the damage to their reputations, are mounting a public campaign to urge President Obama and Congress to set new limits on government surveillance." The Guardian story, by Dan Roberts & Jemima Kiss, is here. ...

... Ryan Lizza has a lo-o-o-ng piece in the New Yorker on NSA overreach. CW: The bit of it I've had time to read is excellent. ...

... NSA-Speak. Amy Davidson of the New Yorker gives a short lesson on how to tell when NSA leaders are lying.

Saymour Hersh, in the London Review of Books, points to intelligence evidence that the Syrian government was not necessarily responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21. "... in recent interviews with intelligence and military officers and consultants past and present, I found intense concern, and on occasion anger, over what was repeatedly seen as the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague, called the [Obama] administration's assurances of Assad's responsibility a 'ruse'."

Andrea Elliott, in the New York Times, explores the life of Dasani, an 11-year-old Brooklyn girl, whose family is homeless. With photographs. This horror story has received some extra attention because the Las Vegas Sun, apparently inadvertently, ran it before the Times uploaded it on its own site.

Katherine Boyle of the Washington Post: "This year, the Kennedy Center honored actress Shirley MacLaine, opera singer Martina Arroyo, musician Carlos Santana -- who beamed while sitting next to first lady Michelle Obama -- and two piano men: Herbie Hancock and Billy Joel. If the honorees had performed together, it would have been a dream collaboration -- but as is the 36-year custom, they sat, smiled and watched others pay tribute to lives lived on stages and screens." ...

... The Post has extended profiles of the recipients: MacLaine, Arroyo, Santana, Joel and Hancock. There's a photo gallery here and short videos here. ...

Now, when you first become President, one of the questions that people ask you is what's really going on in Area 51. When I wanted to know, I'd call Shirley MacLaine. I think I just became the first President to ever publicly mention Area 51. How's that, Shirley? -- Barack Obama, at the reception for Kennedy Center honorees

... White House: "President Obama delivers remarks at a reception celebrating the 2013 Kennedy Center Honorees":

CW: This is predictably awful, & therefore smile-inducing. And at least it's accurate:

Local News

Gallop Asian Bistro, Bridgewater New Jersey: Dayna "Morales and Gallop Asian Bistro have made a joint decision that Ms. Morales will no longer continue her employment at our restaurant. We wish her well in the future." CW: The comments are withering.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Bill Porter, an Oregon door-to-door salesman who plied his trade for decades despite having severe cerebral palsy, and whose story inspired an Emmy-winning television film starring William H. Macy, died last Tuesday in Gresham, Ore. He was 81."

Washington Post: "Eleanor Parker, an actress of patrician beauty nicknamed 'the woman of a thousand faces' for the range of parts she played, from a terrified prisoner in 'Caged' to the icy baroness in 'The Sound of Music,' died Dec. 9 at a medical facility near her home in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 91." ...

     ... Update: The New York Times obituary is here.

Reuters: "China expressed 'regret' on Monday that South Korea had extended its air defense zone to partially overlap with a similar zone declared by Beijing two weeks ago that has raised regional tensions."

Reuters: "Cuba has temporarily reopened consular services in the United States after its bank postponed closing the accounts of its diplomatic missions in Washington and New York, it said in a statement released to media on Monday."

AP: "A plodding storm that dumped heavy snow on the unsuspecting Mid-Atlantic region threatened to make roads dicey in the northeast corridor for Monday's commute while travel disruptions continued to ripple across the country days after the same system first began wreaking havoc in the skies. The seemingly never-ending storm that coated parts of Texas in ice struck with unexpected force on the East Coast, blanketing some spots in a foot of snow and grinding highways to a halt." ...

     ... Reuters Update: "A deadly winter storm kept a tight grip on much of the United States on Monday as cold, snow and ice spread across the East Coast, snarling traffic and knocking out power to thousands. As much as 5 inches of snow were forecast for Monday night into Tuesday as much of the area from Virginia to coastal New England were under winter weather advisories...."

New York Times: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the country's top military officer Monday, hoping to improve one of Washington's most complicated relationships -- one marked by agreement on the dangers of terrorism but also by deep differences over how to counter the threat."

Reuters: "Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved parliament on Monday and called a snap election, but anti-government protest leaders pressed ahead with mass demonstrations in Bangkok seeking to install an unelected body to run the country. Police estimated about 160,000 protesters converged on Yingluck's office at Government House, but there was none of the violence and bloodshed seen before the demonstrations paused last Thursday out of respect for the king's birthday."

Guardian: "Cordons of riot police moved into central Kiev early on Monday afternoon in what appeared initially to be preparations by the Ukrainian government to regain control of Independence square and Kiev city hall, occupied by anti-government protesters for the past week."

Santa Cruz Sentinel: American Merrill Newman said he was well-treated during his North Korean detention.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 8, 2013

** David Simon, creator of "The Wire," on the "horror" of "two Americas." An extract, published in the Guardian, of a speech he delivered on the growing divide between rich & poor. CW: His take jibes perfectly with my own views.

Ezra Klein: "Obamacare’s real promise: if you lose your health-care plan, you can get a new one." Klein goes thru the list of ways Americans are vulnerable to losing their plans. "Virtually the only people whose health coverage is reasonably safe are those on fee-for-service Medicare and some forms of veterans insurance. And even there, enrollees are only safe until the day policymakers decide to change premiums or benefit packages." Thanks to contributor Ken W. for the link. ...

... BUT/AND. This is refreshing. Spero News: "Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said universal health care should be available to all Americans [sic.]. He was speaking at a charity event for prostate cancer survivors in Seattle. Powell told the audience that countries in Europe, Canada and South Korea offer universal, single-payer health care and said he often asks why the United States has not implemented the same system. 'Whether it's Obamacare, or son of Obamacare, I don't care,' Powell said. 'As long as we get it done.'" ...

... Chad Terhune of the Los Angeles Times: "Raising concerns about consumer privacy, California's health exchange has given insurance agents the names and contact information for tens of thousands of people who went online to check out coverage but didn't ask to be contacted." ...

... Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval ... is the only Republican governor whose state is both running its own health insurance exchange this year and expanding its Medicaid program under the health law. He's arguably doing more to put the Democrats' signature law into place than any other Republican.... Even after sticking his neck out on Obamacare -- which few others in his party would consider amid fear of a conservative backlash -- Sandoval is overwhelmingly popular in Nevada. State lawmakers backed his Obamacare approach on a bipartisan basis, and he's cruising toward reelection next year with no formidable opponent in sight." ...

Donkey Hotey.... Robert Farley of FactCheck.org: "House Speaker John Boehner says his premiums will double, and his deductible will triple, under the Affordable Care Act. That's true, but it is misleading to compare Boehner with the 'many Americans seeing their costs go up,' as his spokesman Brendan Buck has put it. Boehner's experience with the Affordable Care Act is extremely atypical compared to most Americans. His rates -- which include the cost of insuring his wife -- are doubling because of the couple's age and high income, and a special provision in the law that forced members of Congress out of their employer-sponsored plans.... Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas -- who is 25 years younger than Boehner -- will pay about half of what he is now paying."

Another Big Pharma Rip-off. Peter Whorisky & Dan Keating of the Washington Post explains how pharmaceutical company Genentech, a division of the Roche Group, is raking in more than $1 billion a year for a drug that is nearly identical to one of their own drugs that sells for 1/40th of that price. "Roughly 80 percent of U.S. sales are paid for by Medicare and its beneficiaries."

** Alec MacGillis of the New Republic: "Those media hysterics who said Obama's presidency was dead were wrong. Again.... this has been an especially inglorious stretch for Beltway hyperventilators. First came the government shutdown and the ensuing declamations about the crack-up of the Republican Party. Then, with whiplash force, came the obituaries for the Obama presidency. The Washington press corps has been reduced to the state of the tennis-watching kittens in this video":

Bradley Klapper & Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Barack Obama said Saturday he believed the chances for a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran are 50-50 or worse, yet defended diplomacy as the best way to prevent Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons."

AP: "The National Security Agency on Friday said its tracking of cellphones overseas is legally authorized under a sweeping U.S. presidential order. The distinction means the extraordinary surveillance program is not overseen by a secretive U.S. intelligence court but is regulated by some U.S. lawmakers, Obama administration insiders and inspectors general."

Maureen Dowd reflects on President Woodrow Wilson, sexy lover & confirmed racist.

Thomas Bishop of Media Matters has an excellent rundown of right-wing criticisms of Pope Francis. Many are likening him to Satanic cult leader Barack Obama. Can't get worse than that. The ever-tasteful Rush Limbaugh shrieked, "The pope, ripping Ronaldus Magnus. The pope, ripping trickle-down economics. And Obama's having an orgasm. Jeremiah Wright is beside himself. Jeremiah Wright thought he was Obama's preacher, now [the] pope somehow has co-opted Obama." ...

... Steve Benen: "In the larger context, note that when the Obama administration moves the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See closer to the Vatican, the right deems it 'anti-religion.' When conservative[s] slam the pope's economic views, that's fine."

Senate Race

Separation of Church & State? Not in Arkansas. This is perhaps the most cringe-worthy ad ever by a major Democratic candidate -- beating out Joe Manchin's shot at the cap-&-trade bill:

... The National Republican Senatorial Committee criticized Pryor by pointing to a remark he made last year: "The Bible is really not a rule book for political issues. Everybody can see it differently." The NRSC asks, "So is the Bible Mark Pryor's compass...? Or is it really not a good rule book for political issues and decisions made in the Senate? Guess it depends on which Mark Pryor that you ask." Via Tal Kopan of Politico. ...

... CW: In a humorous twist, the spokesman for GOP senatorial candidate Tom Cotton shot back: "That is an incredibly bizarre and offensive email from the NRSC's press secretary. We should all agree that America is better off when all our public officials in both parties have the humility to seek guidance from God." Yeah, it's always a good idea to argue about religion. ...

... Frank Bruni: "... while it's tempting to attribute this silliness to a Southern politician's need to appeal to the Christian fundamentalists prevalent in that region, the Arkansas episode is indicative of how thoroughly Americans from coast to coast let religion permeate public life."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Protesters in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, toppled the city's main statue of Lenin on Sunday and then pounded it into chips with a sledgehammer as a crowd chanted and cheered. The destruction of the statue was a cathartic moment in the biggest day of demonstrations so far against President Viktor F. Yanukovich's turn away from Europe."

AP: "A powerful storm system that spread hazardous snow, sleet and freezing rain widely across the nation's midsection rumbled toward the densely populated Eastern seaboard on Sunday, promising more of the same. Forecasters said the potent system already blamed for numerous power outages and thousands of weekend flight cancellations elsewhere, has Virginia and other Mid-Atlantic states in its icy sights before the Northeast is up next."

New York Times: "Atomic experts representing the United Nations nuclear watchdog landed in Tehran on Saturday to inspect a plant recently opened to them, after access was denied for years."

AFP: "South Korea Sunday declared an expanded air defence zone that overlaps with one announced by China and covers a submerged rock disputed by the two countries, as tensions rise over competing territorial claims."

AFP: Israeli "Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday proposed that Israel annex parts of the West Bank under its full military control where most Jewish settlers live."

AP: "Thailand's main opposition party resigned from Parliament on Sunday to protest what it called 'the illegitimacy' of a government with which it can no longer work. The move deepens the country's latest political crisis one day before new street demonstrations that many fear could turn violent."