CNBC: “The U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in September, pointing to a vital employment picture as the unemployment rate edged lower, the Labor Department reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls surged by 254,000 for the month, up from a revised 159,000 in August and better than the 150,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, down 0.1 percentage point.”
To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
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Public Service Announcement
Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."
Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion —reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.
Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”
New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~
~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”
New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”
Click on photo to enlarge.
~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Bill Keller of the New York Times: "Nelson Mandela, who led the emancipation of South Africa from white minority rule and served as his country’s first black president, becoming an international emblem of dignity and forbearance, died Thursday. He was 95."
Sudarsan Raghaven & Lynne Duke of the Washington Post: Nelson Mandela, the former political prisoner who became the first president of a post-apartheid South Africa and whose heroic life and towering moral stature made him one of history’s most influential statesmen, died Thursday, the government announced. He was 95.
The Guardian's story, by David Smith is here. The Guardian's obituary of President Mandela, by David Beresford, is here.
The Johannesburg Mail & Guardian front page is here.
The New York Times has a slideshow here. The Washington Post slideshow is here.
President Obama speaks on the life of Nelson Mandela:
The Washington Postis liveblogging remarks by world leaders & others.
NEW. Lydia Polgren & Alan Cowell of the New York Times: "Across South Africa, people paid tribute to the man they hail as the father of their nation — a secular saint whose commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation gave birth to a nonracial democracy from a country so long riven by segregation. Indeed, people around the world paid homage, including laying flowers at a statue of him in front of the British Parliament in London. After the long months of vigil as Mr. Mandela weakened, far from public view, many ... rose to mourn and praise him and to ponder his legacy. There were few overtly critical voices."
Josh Eidelson of Salon: "Thousands of fast food workers plan to walk off the job in 100 U.S. cities today, a major escalation in labor's strongest-ever challenge to an industry that's become ever more central to the present and future of U.S. work." ...
... Mother Jones writers put together charts & graphs to show why fast-food & other low-wage workers need raises. ...
... Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: "President Barack Obamaprodded Congress to raise wages and secure the social safety net as he issued an overarching appeal Wednesday to correct economic inequalities that he said make it harder for a child to escape poverty. 'That should offend all of us,' he declared. 'We are a better country than this.' Focusing on the pocketbook issues that Americans consistently rank as a top concern, Obama argued that the dream of upward economic mobility is breaking down and that the growing income gap is a 'defining challenge of our time.'" CW: Video of the speech is at the top of yesterday's Commentariat. Elections matter. Think what kind of speeches Mr. Forty-Seven Percent would give about inequality. ...
... New York TimesEditors: "The emphasis on cutting taxes and spending that began in the Reagan years is a direct cause of economic insecurity now. It has led, for example, to education cuts that have harmed children in low-income school districts. Reversing those decisions can still have an enormous impact. Mr. Obama did not reveal a sheaf of new ideas in his speech. But he did remind listeners of the many good ideas he has proposed about inequality over the years, most of which have been blocked by Republican opposition." ...
... Greg Sargent: "... experts who see inequality as one of the most urgent moral, political and economic long term challenges facing the country will see it as one of the most important speeches of the Obama presidency -- more ambitious than his similar 2011 speech in Kansas." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "It's a symptom of all sorts of political and media dysfunction that a major presidential speech on one of the overriding topics of the day is being treated as a 'distraction' or an effort to 'change the subject' from obsession over the president's polling numbers or the likely-to-be-forgotten travails of HealthCare.gov." CW: Thanks, Ed. This lazy journalistic practice has been bugging me, too. ...
You owe it to the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you're against. -- President Obama, to Republicans ...
... Washington Post conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is no fan of President Obama's -- she compares him to Baghdad Bob who reported all was well as bombs exploded in the background -- but she opines that Obama's positive messages about healthcare reform sure beat Republican never-ending, solution-free negativity. ...
... Luke Johnson of the Huffington Post: "A Monday op-ed by the centrist think tank Third Way railing against economic populism has sparked a liberal counterattack, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) calling on big banks to disclose their financial contributions to think tanks and progressive groups calling on Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Penn.), who is running for governor, to drop her affiliation with the group." CW: See yesterday's Commentariat for just how "centrist" the Third Way is.
Steve Holland of Reuters: "More people signed up on the government's new health insurance website on the first two days of December than in the entire first month of the launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform, sources familiar with the numbers said on Wednesday. The sources said about 29,000 people enrolled on Sunday and Monday, surpassing nearly 27,000 for all of October when the opening of the HealthCare.gov website was beset by glitches that led to a public apology by the president and a retooling of the portal." ...
... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "... the comparison [of Healthcare.gov] to commercial websites should come with two very important caveats. One is an acknowledgment of the huge, fundamental difference between what the two types of systems must do.... [Commercial sites are] engaging consumers, producers and retailers in a series of relatively straightforward transactions ... using technology that, for the most part, has been around for a long time. Healthcare.gov, by contrast, must perform a whole series of complex transactions.... The second caveat: ... we should also compare [Healthcare.gov] to the process of buying health insurance before Obamacare came along.... If healthcare.gov's consumer interface isn't yet living up to the standards of Amazon, it's already surpassed the standards of buying insurance before the Obamacare came along. That's progress."
... Jeffrey Jones of Gallup: "Most Americans who currently lack insurance say they are likely to get it for next year, as required by the 2010 Affordable Care Act.... But a substantial minority, currently 28%, say they are more likely to pay the government fine imposed for not having insurance. The percentage planning to pay the fine has changed little in the last month.... The biggest differences appear by party identification -- 45% of uninsured Republicans plan to pay the fine, compared with 31% of independents and 15% of Democrats."CW: There's your evidence that the GOP sabotage program is working, & a certain number of vulnerable yahoos will get sick & die because of it. ...
White House photo.... CW: Kevin Drum has my back (see December 3 Comments in which I appear as "a dickhead, female version"): "Anyone who's worked in or around government for more than a few years knows that big IT projects are black holes. They're always late. They never work. And surprisingly often, they're epic catastrophes, projects so screwed up they literally have to be completely abandoned after years of work.... Like it or not, this means that everyone should have known that the website was a ... highly likely point of failure. You don't need to have a background in IT to know that, just a background in watching projects like these over the years. And since the website was obviously so central to the overall success of Obamacare, that means it should have gotten lots of presidential mindshare.... So yeah, this is a huge black mark on Obama." ...
... AND this somber note from Ed Kilgore: "... if the GOP wins back the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016, the ACA will almost certainly be repealed (as it would have been, in large part, had Republicans won the Senate and the White House last year)." ...
... Your Illness, Your Fault. Jim Galloway & Daniel Malloy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: In a speech before a Republican women's group, Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens (RTP) said that people with pre-existing health conditions were "the exact same thing" as drivers who caused auto accidents.... Hudgens already earned national attention for his pledge to do 'everything in our power to be an obstructionist' against the law known as Obamacare." CW: Evidently Hudgens' pre-existing condition is OCDS -- ObamaCare Derangement Syndrome. ...
... Sy Mukherjee of Think Progress: "Consumer Watchdog singled [Hudgens] out in a 2011 report on insurance commissioners' relationships with the industry they regulate. It found that private insurers were Hudgens' top supporters for his 2010 race, donating just under $150,000 to his campaign."
** "Contempt for Congress." Jeff Shesol in the New Yorker: “'It is not our job,' [Chief Justice John] Roberts wrote in his haughtiest passage, 'to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.' But in the name of restraining Congress, his court is doing exactly that: second-guessing regulation of the health-insurance market (the A.C.A. opinion, which crippled Medicaid expansion), overriding ninety-eight senators' judgment that federal protection of the right to vote is still required (Shelby County), and perceiving, despite every expression of congressional intent, only naked self-interest behind campaign-finance reform (Citizens United and its progeny, McCutcheon v. F.E.C., argued in October)."
We Know Where You Are & Who's with You. Barton Gellman & Ashkan Soltani of the Washington Post: "The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals -- and map their relationships -- in ways that would have been previously unimaginable. The records feed a vast database that stores information about the locations of at least hundreds of millions of devices, according to the officials and the documents, which were provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. New projects created to analyze that data have provided the intelligence community with what amounts to a mass surveillance tool. The NSA does not target Americans' location data by design, but the agency acquires a substantial amount of information on the whereabouts of domestic cellphones 'incidentally,' a legal term that connotes a foreseeable but not deliberate result." A graph of "how the NSA is tracking people right now" is here. An overview video is here. Soltani discusses how the NSA collects cellphone locational info in this video. ...
... Nicole Perlroth & Vindu Goel of the New York Times: "In the era of Edward J. Snowden..., [Internet] companies are competing to show users how well their data is protected from prying eyes, with billions of dollars in revenue hanging in the balance. On Thursday, Microsoft will be the latest technology company to announce plans to shield its services from outside surveillance. It is in the process of adding state-of-the-art encryption features to various consumer services and internally at its data centers."
Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lewwill assert on Thursday that the Obama administration's vast overhaul of the financial system is close to accomplishing its goal of shielding society from the dangers posed by giant banks. In a broad policy speech intended to signal the administration's views on financial regulations, Mr. Lew will also make it clear that more measures may be needed to strengthen the global system. In comments that will most likely upset foreign governments, he will call on overseas regulators to make their rules tougher."
Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Despite ... violations and poor performance, Navy contracting officials kept giving the contractor [Glenn Defense Marine Asia] more lucrative business to resupply ships and submarines in the [Southeast Asia] region.... Today, Glenn Defense Marine and its president, Leonard Glenn Francis, are principal characters in one of the biggest contracting fraud investigations in the Navy's 238-year history.... In addition to salacious evidence of sailors selling secrets for sex, cash and other favors, the investigation has pinpointed systematic weaknesses in the Navy's worldwide contracting bureaucracy."
Dana Milbankgets booted from ALEC "policy summit" meetings in Washington D.C., where corporations tell state legislators what to do. The business-funded, right-wing "research" organization has fallen on hard financial times, partly thanks to public exposure it received for writing stand-your-ground laws. Here's the Guardian article, by Ed Pilkington, which Milbank mentions. ...
... Suzanne Goldenberg & Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: ALEC "is mobilising to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels -- casting them as 'freeriders' -- in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy.... Over the coming year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) will promote legislation with goals ranging from penalising individual homeowners and weakening state clean energy regulations, to blocking the Environmental Protection Agency, which is Barack Obama's main channel for climate action." CW: This effort really exposes what ruthless, despicable people the Kochs, et al., are. There is absolutely no public policy upside to this & obvious, giant downsides; the purpose is to keep the country in the grips of the fossil fuel barons.
Nuke 'Em! Ben Armbruster of Think Progress: Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) "said on Wednesday that if the United States ends up using military force against Iran's nuclear program, it should do so with nuclear weapons." ...
The preventative, first-use of nuclear weapons against Iran would have a devastating impact on US national security and dismember US power and standing in the world. That a senior Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee is even suggesting such a possible course of action is the height of reckless irresponsibility and so far out of bounds it is astonishing. -- Kingston Reif of the Center for Arms Control ...
... Mark Thompson of Time castsHunter as Barry Goldwater 2.0.
Style over Substance. John Bresnahan & Anna Palmer of Politico: "The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it's meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say -- or not to say -- on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman. Speaker John Boehner's ...top aides met recently with Republican staff to discuss how lawmakers should talk to female constituents. 'Let me put it this way, some of these guys have a lot to learn,' said a Republican staffer who attended the session in Boehner's office."
** Jon Stewart on the War on Christmas -- an excellent piece:
... CW: If you want to check out that Fox "News" War on Christmas map which Collins highlights, it's here. AND it's high-tech interactive! Click on the icon pointing to Wyoming & you'll learn that Breitbart reports that Jackson has limited its town square holiday displays to a mere 14-day period. Pretty horrifying. I suspect next year's big holiday function will be a bible-burning bonfire on the Jackson town square followed by a marathon reading of Mao's Little Red Book.
Presidential Race 2016
Noah Bierman of the Boston Globe: "Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose political future has been the subject of intense speculation, pledged Wednesday that she would not run for president in 2016, her most ironclad statement yet. 'I pledge to serve out my term,' which ends in January 2019, Warren said, when pressed during a news conference in Boston with Mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh."
News Ledes
New York Times: New York City "Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio on Thursday morning namedWilliam J. Bratton to lead the New York Police Department."
New York Times: "Sister Mary Nerney, a Roman Catholic nun who was a nationally known advocate for female convicts, in particular those who were survivors of domestic violence, died on Nov. 27 in Manhattan. She was 75."
The President delivered a major speech this morning on his economic vision:
... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama leaves the White House on Wednesday for one of the capital's most struggling neighborhoods to talk about the economy, not simply to divert attention from his troubled Affordable Care Act but to explain how that law, for all of its flaws, fits into his vision for Americans' economic security and upward mobility. It is a vision of partnership between government and citizens that Mr. Obama has described since he was a state senator in Illinois, and it draws on the legacies of three Republican presidents -- Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower." ...
... Michael O'Brien of NBC News: "President Barack Obama said his signature health care reform law is going nowhere as long as he's in office, and he'll spend the remainder of his presidency fighting to make it work if necessary":
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: " White House officials ... are under mounting pressure from Democrats and close allies to hold senior-level people accountable for the botched rollout of President Obama's signature domestic achievement and to determine who should be fired.... The possible targets include Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary; Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services; Mike Hash, the head of the health and human services health reform office; Michelle Snyder, the chief operating officer at Medicaid and Medicare; Henry Chao, the chief digital architect for the website; Jeanne Lambrew, the head of health care policy inside the White House; David Simas, a key adviser involved in the rollout; and Todd Park, the president's top adviser on technology issues.... Robert Gibbs, a former press secretary for Mr. Obama, said Tuesday what many Democrats were saying privately: Someone has to go." ...
... Jason Cherkis & Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post on why ObamaCare is going to work: "With the website now quasi-functional, there are good reasons to believe that the Affordable Care Act will catch on. Quite simply, there are tens of millions of uninsured people who want health insurance, a law in place to help them obtain it, and advocates on the ground making sure they know how to do it. For on-the-ground organizations, Obamacare represents a once-in-a-generation organizing opportunity. By signing someone up for health insurance, they are delivering a tangible benefit, something that person will value for years to come, and winning loyalty along the way. Nonprofits, as well as mayors and governors, have an intense incentive to make Obamacare work." ...
... CW: What Cherkis & Grim don't take into account is that for most people, the "tangible benefit" will seem to be going to the health insurance industry. Yes, the individuals may be glad to have health insurance, but they're also glad they have electricity. That doesn't mean they're thrilled about paying the monthly bills for these services. Except for people who could not otherwise obtain insurance that met their healthcare needs, I don't think most people will see the ACA as a "benefit." ...
... Kevin Drum: "Aside from the tea partiers who object on the usual abstract grounds that Obamacare is a liberty-crushing Stalinesque takeover of the medical industry, it's going to be hard to gin up a huge amount of opposition. And that's doubly true since, as Sargent says, the Republican Party will have no credible alternative for a benefit that lots of people will already be getting." ...
... Au contraire, says Paul Krugman: Right-wing outrage at ObamaCare is only going to get worse as Healthcare.gov gets better. "On both the healthcare and inflation fronts, what you have to conclude is that there are a large number of people who find reality -- the reality that governments are actually pretty good at providing health insurance, that fiat money can be a useful tool of economic management rather than the road to socialist disaster -- just unacceptable. I think that in both cases it has to do with the underlying desire to see market outcomes as moral imperatives. And I suppose there have always been such people out there. What's new is that these days they control one of our two major political parties." ...
... CW: My guess is that Krugman is right & Drum is wrong. Drum is operating on the assumption that voters are rational. Remember the "death panels"? There was no such thing (the proposed ACA bill required coverage for end-of-life counseling), but we are still stuck with the Republican Congress & Republican state legislatures which we got in part because of that hoax. And Sarah Palin is still claiming "the death panels are in there," even tho Democrats removed the requirement to cover end-of-life counseling in respose to the hoax. ...
... The Ghost of Scott Brown Haunts ObamaCare. Alec MacGillis of the New Republicexplains the numerous lawsuits challenging the tax subsidy that makes the Affordable Care Act, um, affordable. MacGillis describes the arguments made Tuesday in one of the cases. Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link. ...
... CW: These suits don't just challenge the law on an unjustified premise, IMHO. They are flat-out mean-spirited. The intent is to disallow tax subsidies to people who live in states whose Republican leaders haven't set up exchanges &/or accepted the Medicaid expansion. Residents of those states would be hit with a double-whammy: no Medicaid/no subsidy. I suppose if the plaintiffs are successful, there is the possibility of a silver lining: the effect might be to force those states to get with the program, as tens of thousands of their residents -- some of them "influential" -- would demand the subsidies. ...
... All Hat. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: Speaker John "Boehner and other top Republicans held a news conference at which they said they espoused a 'patient-driven' approach to health care rather than Obamacare.... John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday declined to commit to allowing a vote on a GOP-drafted health-care plan next year." ...
... CW: Really, all Boehner thinks it necessary for Congress to do about securing health insurance to Americans is to stand in the well of the House & yell --
... Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review in Politico Magazine: It wasn't just President Obama who had no idea Healthcare.gov wasn't going to work. The media made no effort to find out, either. Most journalists also were unaware that millions of Americans would lose their current policies. But, as crack journalist Chuck Todd opined, educating the public is not the media's job.
Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "With the jobless rate hovering just over 7 percent, congressional Republicans said Tuesday that they are ready to let emergency unemployment benefits lapse on Dec. 31, immediately cutting off checks to more than a million recipients." CW: I gather from the story, which is about a pending budget deal, that cutting of emergency benefits is part of Paul Ryan's initiative to encourage the unemployed to raise themselves up by their own damned bootstraps. Nice start to his Pope Francis imitation. ...
... Ryan's Dilemma. Joan Walsh of Salon: "TPM and Politico both report that Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murrayare within sight of [a mini-budget] deal, though Politico cautions 'there remains a distinct possibility that the effort will flounder, as so many budget deals have.... But if Ryan is serious about running for president in 2016, and there are early signs he is, it's hard to imagine him inking any kind of deal to restore social-program sequester cuts and increase government fees in a climate where the Tea Party still holds disproportionate power in the nominating process.... Would Ryan risk a presidential bid to rescue the country from another government shutdown? I've never seen him stand up to that kind of ideological pressure from the right, but there could be a first time."
Richard Cowan of Reuters: "U.S. immigration reform supporters, reeling from their failure to get legislation enacted this year, saw a new ray of hope on Tuesday as House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner announced he had hired a long-time immigration specialist to advise him." ...
... Emmarie Heutteman & Julia Preston of the New York Times: "A longtime labor leader and two other advocates of an immigration overhaul ended their water-only fasts on Tuesday in a tent on the National Mall, the 22nd day of an effort to press the House to take up legislation on the issue. In a ceremony choreographed to evoke the civil rights and farmworker movements of the 1960s, the labor leader, Eliseo Medina, 67, took a bite of bread and a sip of apple juice. Looking tired, Mr. Medina did not speak during the event. Afterward, he rose and walked away, leaning on the arm of another advocate."
The GOP's Latest Strategy -- Impeachment! Dana Milbank: "... on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary met to consider the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama. They didn't use that word, of course. Republican leaders frown on such labeling because it makes the House majority look, well, crazy.... They've proposed [impeachment] as the remedy to just about every dispute or political disagreement...."
Thanks for your support, Chuck. -- Constant Weader
Chuck Schumer wants us to stop picking on Wall Street.... It seems odd that Schumer is trying to start an internecine war at this very moment, particularly with a tough 2014 up ahead. And as the number three Democrat in the Senate, his words carry outsized weight. But it's clear that the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party is feeling the heat from its resurgent populist wing: the Warrens, Baldwins, Browns and Merkleys. -- Markos Moulitsas ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "The obsessive centrists of the punditverse were abuzz [Tuesday] with praise for supposed centrist Democratic organization Third Way and their grumbling op-ed condemnation of Democratic liberal populism in abstract and 'economic populists' like Sen. Elizabeth Warren in particular. But why would the Third Way, a very reasonable and centrist organization that just wants both parties to get along and agree to cut Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs be so very worked up about Elizabeth Warren, Wall Street reform, and the mere thought of breaking up large banks? ... Oh, I see":
... Markos Moulitsas: "Hmmm, so far [Tuesday] we've seen that Third Way op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and Sen. Chuck Schumer's comparing us to the teabaggers. Then there is DLC dinosaur Al From with a new book and rhetorical embrace of Hillary Clinton, unreconstructed racistRichard Cohen's blasting of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Fox News 'Democrats' Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell in Politico are back for another stab at that whole 'radical center' nonsense.... It's a coordinated counterattack by Wall Street Democrats spooked by the party's embrace of politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin and Jeff Merkley."
... CW: I'd have to look at the actual research (which is too much trouble because one has to register to access it) to see how the researchers define each of their categories, but most liberals would agree that the guy in the White House (who likes Ike, as Jackie Calmes notes in the NYT story linked above) & most elected Democrats are moderates, not liberals. So we already have a centrist president & Senate. The moderate revolt Edsall says can't happen is in fact well-represented within the government now.
Nick Hopkins & Matthew Taylor of the Guardian: "The Guardian has come under concerted pressure and intimidation designed to stop it from publishing stories of huge public interest that have revealed the 'staggering' scale of Britain's and America's secret surveillance programmes, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper has said. Giving evidence to a parliamentary committee about stories based on the National Security Agency leaks from the whistleblower Edward Snowden, Alan Rusbridger said the Guardian 'would not be put off by intimidation, but nor are we going to behave recklessly'." ...
... Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "As [Rusbridger] testified before a Parliamentary committee on national security, he faced aggressive questioning from lawmakers, particularly those of the ruling Conservative Party. Some asserted that The Guardian had handled the material irresponsibly, putting it at risk of interception by hostile governments and others. Others said the paper had jeopardized national security.... After Mr. Rusbridger's testimony, a senior British police officer, Cressida Dick, refused to rule out prosecutions as part of an investigation into the matter."
Maureen Dowd is robophobic. "Experts say there may be as many as 30,000 unmanned private and government drones flying in this country by 2020, ratcheting drones into a $90 billion industry, generating 100,000 jobs.... Of course, for the robophopic, there is already a way to get goods almost immediately: Go to the store." ...
... Alistair Barr & Elizabeth Weise of USA Today: "The drone economy is booming abroad and an underground version is growing fast in the U.S. The FAA plans to draw up regulations by 2015, but that's not quick enough, according to drone entrepreneurs."
Annie Gowen of the Washington Post: "Once a town whose bright stars were government leaders, the nation's capital has become a moneyed metropolis where entrepreneurs whose wealth is often amassed by doing business with the government are the new elite." Includes a slide show of Hickory Hill, the Robert Kennedy family's former home in McLean, Virginia, which is now owned by a tech entrepreneur. The entrepreneur, Alan J. Dabbiere, who purchased the property for $8.2 million, is gutting the place.
Moving on to less important matters, Joe Biden is on a mission to prevent World War III. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Shuttling from one feuding neighbor to the other, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived [in Beijing] from Tokyo on Wednesday to appeal to China's leaders to show restraint in policing a new air defense zone in the East China Sea that has ignited tensions with Japan."
Gubernatorial Races
Greg Sargent: "Democrats are currently using a major pillar of the health law -- the Medicaid expansion -- as a weapon against Republican Governors in multiple 2014 races. Many of these Governors opted out of the expansion or have advanced their own replacement solutions, and many are facing serious challenges." Major targets: Govs. Rick Scott of Florida, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania & Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
That Scott Walker campaign aide who urged Walker's followers to give to his campaign rather than give Christmas presents to their children? Walker fired her. But not for the Scrooge stuff. Instead, for anti-Hispanic tweets she sent a couple of years ago. As Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, "For the second time in less than four months, Gov. Scott Walker has fired an aide for making demeaning comments about Hispanics on social media."
Senate Race
Family Values. Margaret Hartmann of New York: Dick Cheneywas "surprised" his daughter Mary & her wife Heather Poe "launched an attack against Liz" -- who's carpetbagging a run for the U.S. Senate -- on Facebook & said the disagreement should have been dealt with "within the family." "Cheney doesn't care if Liz was 'looking at' Mary, pulled her hair, or declared on a national news program that her marriage shouldn't be legal -- he will not tolerate fighting in this family."
Local News
Nathan Bomey, et al., of the Detroit Free Press: "The city of Detroit today officially became the largest municipality in U.S. history to enter Chapter 9 bankruptcy after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes declared it met the specific legal criteria required to receive protection from its creditors. The landmark ruling ends more than four months of uncertainty over the fate of the case and sets the stage for a fierce clash over how to slash an estimated $18 billion in debt and long-term liabilities that have hampered Detroit from attacking pervasive blight and violent crime."
Ray Long & Monique Garcia of the Chicago Tribune: "The Illinois General Assembly today narrowly approved a major overhaul of the state government worker pension system following hours of debate on the controversial plan strongly opposed by employee unions. The House voted 62-53 to approve a measure that aims to wipe out a worst-in-the-nation $100 billion pension debt by reducing and skipping cost-of-living increases, requiring workers to retire later and creating a 401(k) option for a limited number of employees. The measure needed a minimum of 60 votes to pass the House.... Moments earlier, the Senate voted for the measure 30-24. The bill needed at least 30 votes.... The measure now goes to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who has said he'll sign it. The vote is a major victory for Quinn as he heads into a re-election bid next year."
Mike Deak of the Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press: "A waitress who alleged that one of her customers wrote an anti-gay message on a receipt has been suspended from her job pending the completion of an investigation into the incident. On Friday, Gallop Asian Bistro posted on its Facebook page that waitress Dayna Morales 'is currently not on our employee schedule while (we) are still working to complete our investigation.' ... On Monday, WNBC reported that Morales had been discharged dishonorably from the Marines." ...
... Last week Fox "News" published a piece detailing claims by acquaintances of Morales that suggest she is a serial liar who has made various grandiose claims about her military experience that are untrue.
News Ledes
New York Times: Connecticut officials released audio of the 911 calls re: the Sandy Hook killings. "The Hartford Courant has excerpts of the audio here. Partial transcripts are here.
New York Times: "Chinese leaders pushed back at visiting Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday over what they assert is their right to control a wide swath of airspace in the bitterly contested East China Sea. But the Chinese also indicated they had not decided how aggressively to enforce their so-called air defense identification zone, which has ignited tensions with Japan."
New York Times: Hassane Laqees, "a major player in the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah from its inception three decades ago to its current intervention in Syria's civil war," was shot dead in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday. "Over the years, he survived several assassination attempts."
Bloomberg News: "Companies boosted payrolls in November by the most in a year, a sign that U.S. employers were optimistic about demand after the end of a government shutdown a month earlier, a private report based on payrolls showed today. The 215,000 increase in employment exceeded the most optimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey and followed a revised 184,000 gain in October that was larger than initially estimated...."
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