The Commentariat -- Nov. 12, 2013

CW: Evidently, you can't post a comment today. I just tried, & my test comment disappeared. I'll contact my host to see what's wrong this time. ...

     ... Update: Oh, thank goodness -- it's a "known issue."

Tom Tomorrow for Daily Kos.Reed Abelson, et al., of the New York Times: "Some major health insurers are so worried about the Obama administration's ability to fix its troubled health care website that they are pushing the government to create a shortcut that would allow them to enroll people entitled to subsidies directly rather than through the federal system. The idea is only one of several being discussed in a frantic effort to find a way around the technological problems that teams of experts are urgently trying to resolve." ...

... Amy Goldstein & Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "Roughly 40,000 Americans have signed up for private insurance through the flawed federal online insurance marketplace since it opened six weeks ago, according to two people with access to the figures. That amount is a tiny fraction of the total projected enrollment for the 36 states where the federal government is running the online health-care exchange, indicating the slow start to the president's initiative." ...

... Caroline Humer of Reuters: "President Barack Obama's healthcare reform has reached only about 3 percent of its enrollment target for 2014 in 12 U.S. states where new online health insurance marketplaces are mostly working smoothly.... States with functioning exchanges have signed up 49,100 people compared with the 1.4 million people expected to be enrolled for 2014, according to the report by healthcare research and consultancy firm Avalere Health." ...

... Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: "The underdog of government health care programs is emerging as the rare early success story of President Barack Obama's technologically challenged health overhaul. Often dismissed, Medicaid has signed up 444,000 people in 10 states in the six weeks since open enrollment began, according to Avalere Health, a market analysis firm that compiled data from those states. Twenty-five states are expanding their Medicaid programs, but data for all of them was not available.... A big reason for the disparity [in enrollment]: In 36 states, the new private plans are being offered through a malfunctioning federal website that continues to confound potential customers. And state-run websites have not been uniformly glitch-free."

Julie Pace of the AP: " President Barack Obama's hopes for a nuclear deal with Iran now depend in part on his ability to keep a lid on both hard-liners on Capitol Hill and anxious allies abroad, including Israel, the Arab Gulf states and even France."

Tony Barboza of the Los Angeles Times: "Climate change will disrupt not only the natural world but also society, posing risks to the world's economy and the food and water supply and contributing to violent conflict, an international panel of scientists says. The warnings came in a report drafted by the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The 29-page summary, leaked and posted on a blog critical of the panel, has been distributed to governments around the world for review. It could change before it is released in March."

Dina Cappiello & Matt Apuzzo of the AP: "... the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today. As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found. Five million acres of land set aside for conservation ... have vanished on Obama's watch.... The government's predictions of the benefits [of ethanol] have proven so inaccurate that independent scientists question whether it will ever achieve its central environmental goal: reducing greenhouse gases. That makes the hidden costs even more significant." CW: Also, ethanol has wrecked three of my lawnmowers. Waaahh!

Obama 2.0. Julie Pace & Marcy Gordon of the AP: "President Barack Obama is nominating a top Treasury Department official to run the independent agency that regulates the futures and options market. The White House says Obama will announce the nomination of Timothy Massad to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday. For the past three years, Massad has overseen the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bank rescue plan known as TARP Obama is expected to use Massad's nominating ceremony to call on Congress to fully fund the CFTC, one of the smallest and most thinly funded U.S. agencies."

Josh Eidelson of Salon: "Four days after the end of a Southern California strike, Seattle-area Wal-Mart workers plan to mount their own walkout this morning. The one-day strike is the latest in the lead-up to a larger day of strikes and protests planned for Black Friday, the high-profile post-Thanksgiving shopping day at the end of this month.... Sub-contracted Twin Cities janitorial workers who clean stores for Target and other corporations plan to announce today that they're prepared to strike that day as well."

Andrew Dugan of Gallup: "With momentum building at the federal and state level to increase hourly base pay, more than three-quarters of Americans (76%) say they would vote for raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour (it is currently $7.25) in a hypothetical national referendum, a five-percentage-point increase since March. About one-fifth (22%) would vote against this."

Paul Buchheit of Alternet in Salon on four ways capitalism is robbing us & making us sick.

Michael Shear of the New York Times: " President Obama pledged Monday that Americans 'will never forget' the sacrifices made by the country's military veterans, and promised that his administration would continue pushing for money to support the men and women home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan":

Steve Benen: Everything President Obama does is "worse than Watergate."

Paul Waldman of the American Prospect on "maybe the most ridiculous Obamacare 'victim' story yet": whiney California psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb wrote a New York Times op-ed complaining that her health insurer cancelled her policy & offered her a more expensive one & it's too much trouble to check out other options on the California exchange. Also her FaceBook "friends" care more about millions of poor people than they do about her inconvenience. CW: I didn't link Gottlieb's op-ed yesterday, & I ain't linking it now. However, I highly recommend Waldman's sarcastic retort. ...

... Tom Scocca of Gawker: "Psychotherapist Is Unable to Understand What Medical Insurance Is."

Kreepy Koch Keggers. Juliet Lapidos of the New York Times: "Generation Opportunity, the Koch-funded group behind the Creepy Uncle Sam ads, is throwing tailgate parties to 'educate' undergraduates about the exchanges. Read: To convince young people to forgo health insurance. The group's communication director, David Pasch, wrote an email to The Tampa Bay Times describing a drunken event at Saturday's University of Miami-Virginia Tech football game." ...

... Sy Mukherjee of Think Progress: "This won't be the last time Generation Opportunity throws this kind of event, either. The group is touring 20 different campuses this fall in a $750,000 effort to convince college students that they're better off being uninsured than getting health coverage through Obamacare." The Tampa Bay Times story, featured in the appropriately-titled blog "The Buzz," is here. ...

... Chris Moody of Yahoo! News: "The group hired models with bull horns who walked around with anti-Obamacare petitions. Organizers said 'hundreds' of students signed a pledge not to enroll in health insurance exchanges.... Welcome to the strange new front in the war over Obamacare." A picto-report worth viewing.

November 2013 Election

David Nir of Daily Kos: "According to the [Virginia] State Board of Elections' official count as of Monday afternoon, Republican Mark Obenshain now leads Democrat Mark Herring by just 17 votes ... out of over 2.2 million cast. As local election officials throughout Virginia have been reviewing their results, Obenshain's edge had continued to narrow. And on Monday, following a retabulation in the heavily Democratic city of Richmond -- where votes from a previously uncounted voting machine were incorporated for the first time -- Herring appeared to unofficially take the lead." ...

... Abby Phillip of ABC News: "Virginia's Attorney General race could be decided by the smallest margin in U.S. history, and Twitter might be able to claim some of the credit. More than 2.2 million ballots were cast in a statewide election last Tuesday, and it has all come down to 17 votes as of Monday morning -- though ballots are still being counted. Republican Mark Obenshain's razor thin lead over Democrat Mark Herring came about because days after the election, one eagle-eyed math whiz on Twitter found a significant ballot discrepancy in one of the state's largest counties." ...

... Both Nir & Phillip feature Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report in their posts. To get the latest on the tight race, Nir recommends Wasserman's Twitter feed. ...

... Also Phillip writes, "The liberal blogosphere exploded over the weekend with a story -- now known to be unfounded -- that Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli had authorized a rule change that would make it harder for provisional ballots to be counted in Fairfax County." CW: Since I perpetuated that rumor by linking to a HuffPost story on it, I'd like to set the record straight, but I can't find a more definitive refutation that Phillip's report. ...

     ... Update: Richard Hasen, who has more election expertise than Phillip -- or most anybody else -- clarifies. And, no, the story is not unfounded, but it hasn't fully played out. Phillip seems to have been engaging in the standard "both sides do it" journalism as she also cited an actual bogus rumor coming from Right Wing World.

David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "Yes, your vote does matter." ...

... Also, your "personal" decisions matter. Julia Joffe of the New Republic: "I've got whooping cough.... So thanks a lot, anti-vaccine parents. You took an ethical stand against big pharma and the autism your baby was not going to get anyway, and, by doing so, killed some babies and gave me, an otherwise healthy 31-year-old woman, the whooping cough in the year 2013."

Presidential Race 2016

Ben White & Maggie Haberman of Politico: "There are three words that strike terror in the hearts of Wall Street bankers and corporate executives across the land: President Elizabeth Warren. The anxiety over Warren grew Monday after a magazine report [by Noam Scheiber of the New Republic, linked here yesterday] suggested the bank-bashing Democratic senator from Massachusetts could mount a presidential bid in 2016 and would not necessarily defer to Hillary Clinton -- who is viewed as far more business-friendly -- for the party's nomination. And the fear is not only that Warren ... might win.... It is also that a Warren candidacy, and even the threat of one, would push Clinton to the left in the primaries and revive arguments about breaking up the nation's largest banks, raising taxes on the wealthy and otherwise stoking populist anger that is likely to also play a big role in the Republican primaries." ...

... Alex Bolton of the Hill: "Liberal leaders want Hillary Clinton to face a primary challenge in 2016 if she decides to run for president. The goal of such a challenge wouldn't necessarily be to defeat Clinton. It would be to prevent her from moving to the middle during the Democratic primary." ...

... Ezra Klein argues that Elizabeth Warren would have a hard time differentiating herself from Hillary Clinton because "... broadly, they agree: Clinton, like Warren, believes in higher taxes on the rich and universal health care and higher-education costs and universal pre-k and so on." CW: Klein may be right, but I think Democrats associate Clinton with Wall Street & Warren with Occupy. I don't like the saying "Perception is reality," but in this case, I'd say perception matters a great deal. ...

... David Dayen, in Salon. It isn't all about 2016. "Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- in many ways the avatar of a new populist insurgency within the Democratic Party that seeks to combine financial reform and economic restoration -- will speak later today in Washington at the launch of a new report that marks a key new phase in this movement. Released by Americans for Financial Reform and the Roosevelt Institute -- and called 'An Unfinished Mission: Making Wall Street Work for Us' -- the report is a revelation, because it finally invites fundamental discussions about these issues."

Now, for a Rare Reality Chex Topic:

What Is Sarah Palin Saying Now? *

Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China. When that money comes due -- and this isn't racist, but it'll be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to beholden to the foreign master. -- Sarah Palin, at an Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition fundraiser ...

... Here is a free tip. There is no phrase or sentence which is made better by the inclusion of this isn't racist, but. -- Hunter of Daily Kos

The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health-care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there's more competition, there's less tort reform threat, there's less trajectory of the cost increases, and those plans have been proposed over and over again. And what thwarts those plans? It's the far left. It's President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care. -- Sarah Palin, "explaining" her alternative to the ACA ...

... Thirty-five seconds of word salad. -- Dan Amira of New York

'Doctor-patient relationship links'??? I think she's talking about a Website -- sort of e-Harmony.com where sick people meet medicos. Yes, a free-market Website linking doctors & patients would solve all our healthcare problems. Especially one designed by Sarah Palin who can't even link words in the form a sentence. -- Constant Weader

I would never put my faith and hope in any one individual politician. Not any of them. There is no Ronald Reagan on the scene today. If he were on the scene, that's who I would put my faith in. New Jersey, a blue state, has a Republican governor. Right on; it beats the alternative. -- Sarah Palin, on whether or not Chris Christie would be a good presidential candidate

* With apologies to those who come to Reality Chex for actual news & reasoned opinions.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Under intense American, British and European pressure, the coalition [of Syrian rebels] voted early Monday, after two days of debate, that it would attend peace talks sponsored by the United States and Russia in Geneva if certain conditions were met, including full access for delivery of humanitarian aid and the release of prisoners."

AFP: "Rightwing firebrand Avigdor Lieberman took his oath of office in front of the Israeli parliament on Monday, returning as foreign minister after he quit to fight corruption allegations. The 120-member house confirmed his reappointment by a vote of 62 to 17 almost a year after he resigned to fight the charges which he was cleared of last week."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 11, 2013

Molly Hooper of the Hill: "The GOP wants to rebuild its political capital and public credibility by solving ObamaCare's implementation problems. This pivot comes after Republicans took major hits in polls following the government shutdown. The House this week will vote on a measure called, 'Keep Your Health Plan Act.' It aims to do what the president promised years ago: If you like your health plan, you can stay on it. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for a vote in their chamber. That measure has already attracted Democratic support." CW: Hooper presents this as a shift in GOP policy. In fact, it's just one more means to rail against the law. "Solving ObamaCare's implementation problems"? Ha! You know that is the last thing on their minds.

CW: If you'd like to know what a Very Serious Person would do to "salvage" Obama, you need look no further than Bill Keller. Sadly, I think President Obama is only too willing to take all of Keller's advice. ...

... Andrew Rudalevige in the Washington Post: President Obama soon tired of the "team of rivals" structure of advisor input, which probably explains why he never seems to know WTF is going on in his own administration.

Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "In the case being argued [before the U.S. Supreme Court] on Wednesday, Unite Here Local 355 vs. Mulhall, an employee of Mardi Gras Gaming in Florida sued Unite Here, asserting that its neutrality agreement with the company was illegal. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled in his favor, finding that the agreement was a 'thing of value' that federal labor law bars employers from giving to any union or union official.... Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor law at Harvard Law School, said the case ... was potentially 'the most significant labor case in a generation.'"

Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "A growing number of Afghan interpreters who worked alongside American troops are being denied U.S. visas allotted by Congress because the State Department says there is no serious threat against their lives. But the interpreters, many of whom served in Taliban havens for years, say U.S. officials are drastically underestimating the danger they face. Immigration attorneys and Afghan interpreters say the denials are occurring just as concerns about Taliban retribution are mounting due to the withdrawal of U.S. forces." CW: Really shortsighted & mean. Not only did these interpreters serve the U.S., they also speak English!

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry heads home Monday to defend a proposed nuclear deal with Iran in testimony before doubting lawmakers, as the Obama administration is moving to head off rising criticism from Israel. Kerry has already begun making the case that an Iranian agreement to temporarily freeze elements of its nuclear programs in exchange for a partial easing of Western sanctions would be a viable step toward negotiating a permanent end to Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions." CW: While you're here, why not stop in at that State Department review panel (see Kevin Sieff's report above) that is denying visas to Afghan interpreters & tell them to accept those applications -- or be reassigned to Taliban territory.

Bryon Tau of Politico: "Secretary of State John Kerry is declining to further elaborate on his belief that the assassin of President John F. Kennedy was part of a broader conspiracy. Pressed in an interview aired Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press' to explain his beliefs that JFK's death was part of a bigger plot, Kerry said: 'I just have a point of view. And I'm not going to get into that. It's not something that I think needs to be commented on, and certainly not at this time.'"

"The Plot against France." Paul Krugman: "S.& P.'s [downgrading France] needs to be seen in the context of the broader politics of fiscal austerity.... For the plot against France ... is one clear demonstration that in Europe, as in America, fiscal scolds don't really care about deficits. Instead, they're using debt fears to advance an ideological agenda. And France, which refuses to play along, has become the target of incessant negative propaganda.... France has committed the unforgivable sin of being fiscally responsible without inflicting pain on the poor and unlucky. And it must be punished."

Kat Stoeffel of New York has a brief post on women getting "all the bad jobs.... According to the National Women's Law Center, 60 percent of women's job gains during the first four years of the recovery came in the ten largest low-wage jobs, versus just 20 percent of men's gains. You are hereby authorized to roll your eyes next time you encounter the term mancession."

Nice post from Charles Pierce on "This Weekend in Responsible Gun Ownership." CW: BTW, I did see a story on this over the weekend & didn't post it, mostly because gun nuts intimidating ordinary citizens -- especially in Texas -- is just not news. But Pierce is right about the Hooters thing.

"Mistakes Were Made"

Adam Martin of New York: "After finally retracting its inaccurate report on the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, 60 Minutes offered [a brief] apology in its Sunday night broadcast.... Many media critics share the impression that Logan's televised apology was thin":

... The New York Times report, by Brian Stelter & Bill Carter, is here. ...

... Jack Mirkinson of the Huffington Post: "Predictably, [Logan's] Sunday mea culpa offered little insight into why Davies was chosen as the key source for the report, and why '60 Minutes' had so fervently defended him, even amid mounting evidence of his unreliability. Also unmentioned was what role, if any, corporate ties played in placing Davies at the heart of the piece. A conservative imprint of Simon and Schuster, which is also owned by CBS, had published a book about Benghazi by Davies. That book has since been recalled." Includes critical tweets from media watchers. ...

... Steve M. of NMMNB: " Logan's report was tied to the publication of a book by the now-discredited witness -- a book that was published, two days after the report aired, by Threshold Editions, a right-wing imprint of Simon & Schuster, which is part of CBS, Inc., and which was founded by former Dick Cheney aide Mary Matalin. (The book has since been withdrawn.)" ...

... Jeremy Holden of Media Matters: "Logan's slippery apology glosses over a key question that remains unanswered: why did 60 Minutes&fail to inform its audience during the initial segment that its key eyewitness had told two contradictory accounts of what he did the night of the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks? ... How CBS News came to the decision to believe his current story is critical since a CBS subsidiary had a clear financial interest in the version of events 60 Minutesaired." ...

... ** Josh Marshall of TPM: "In a narrow sense, Lara Logan did say she was 'sorry.' But the entire 90 seconds was aimed at obfuscating what happened. Logan said 60 Minutes had found out Thursday that they had been 'misled and it was a mistake to include him in our report.' Include him in their report? He was the report. And even in conceding that her team had been 'misled', Logan tiptoed around the real news, which is that it seems clear that Davies' entire story was a fabrication." .

... Media watchdog Jay Rosen grows more outraged with each update to his post -- first written before the lame Logan "apology." ...

... Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post lists some serious, unanswered questions, which -- according to the New York Times report linked above -- are going to remain unasked & unanswered. ...

... CW P.S.: I fully expected Logan to end with, "Why don't you come up & see me some time, Big Boy?" instead of the anodyne promise, "We'll be back next week." The tight knit dress, hands-over-crotch, the breathless, little-girl voice ... laughably obvious. AND/OR one explanation of why Logan is not getting the Dan Rather treatment.

... Simon Maloy of Media Matters: "Following the collapse of CBS News' 60 Minutes report on the 2012 Benghazi attacks, Fox News, which cited 60 Minutes' now-discredited 'eyewitness' for some of its Benghazi coverage, is standing by the accuracy of its reporting. CBS News' withdrawal of the story has been largely ignored by Fox News, even though Fox enthusiastically promoted the 60 Minutes story and boasted that it validated the network's own reporting on Benghazi."

November 2013 Election

George Packer of the New Yorker: "It took a long time for the Republican Party to fall into the hands of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, and it won't easily extricate itself, as Cuccinelli's near-victory shows. But 2013 might turn out to be the high-water mark of Republican extremism, the year the polarization line finally levelled off." CW: Also, Packer elaborates on the theme Dave S. expresses in today's Comments: that the Christie "mandate" isn't all it's cracked up to be as the majority of voters stayed home. Swooning liberals, take note: ditto for New York City. However, polls showed that the results of both of these elections were nearly foregone conclusions, so I wouldn't make as much as Packer does of low turnout in an off-year election in which one candidate was all-but-certain to win. People who did vote may have done so because they had an interest in some down-ticket candidate or issue.

New Rules. Shades of Bush-Gore. Chris Gentilviso of the Huffington Post: "Already shaping up to be one of the closest races in state history, a last-minute rule change is stirring up the recount to decide who will become Virginia's next attorney general.... According to a report by WTOP radio, the Virginia State Board Of Elections decided Friday to change rules relevant to Fairfax County, banning legal representatives from helping count votes, unless the associated voter was actually present. The board changing the rules is dominated by Republicans. Fairfax County's Electoral Board said Saturday that the modification affects hundreds of voters.... Secretary Brian Schoeneman and Board Chairman Seth Stark expressed disagreement with the ruling."

Congressional Race 2014

Enough with the Tea Party. Alexandra Jaffe & Kevin Bogardus of the Hill: "Business leaders are plotting to take down Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) as part of a broader effort to punish lawmakers over the government shutdown. In a letter obtained by The Hill, prominent Michigan donors request financial backing for Amash's primary challenger, Brian Ellis. Seven individuals, including prominent Michigan businessmen..., signed the fundraising plea. They argue that Amash 'and others have effectively nullified the Republican majority in the U.S. House.'"

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: Some GOP Congressional primary challenges are coming from business-backed candidates, some from Tea Party adherents. "How such contests resolve themselves could leave the House Republican caucus either more uncompromisingly conservative in 2015 or more committed to governance and compromise. 'It's an offshoot of the decline in competitive districts because of redistricting,' said David Wasserman, a House analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. 'There are fewer fights to pick with the other party, so there are going to be more fights within your party.'"

Presidential Race 2016

** Noam Scheiber of the New Republic has a terrific piece on Elizabeth Warren -- the soul of the Democratic Party & a potential challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Thanks to Julie L. for the link.

Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says Time magazine's depiction of him as an elephant doesn't bother him. 'If I'm bothered by jokes about my weight, it's time for me to crawl up into a fetal position and go home," Christie said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos' on Sunday. 'The fact is, that, you know, if they think it's clever, great for them.' ... Some critics called it a cheap shot." ...

... Jeff Zeleny of ABC News: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas credited Chris Christie for his re-election in New Jersey, but he pointedly questioned whether the 22-point victory by Christie held any greater meaning for the Republican Party. 'Is a conservative in New Jersey a conservative in the rest of the country?' Perry said in an interview with 'This Week.' 'We'll have that discussion at the appropriate time.'"

Everybody gets to go out and do their thing. That's his thing. My thing is governing. -- Rick Perry , on Ted Cruz's role in the federal government shutdown ...

... Katie Glueck of Politico: "Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Rick Perry are both angling to run for president. And the prospect of a clash between the two Texas-sized egos who represent different eras of the GOP -- and who aren't openly rivals but haven't betrayed warm fuzzies for one another, either -- has tongues wagging." CW: This story is characterized as an analysis of a "clash of the Titans." Probably "Titan" is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Perry or Cruz (also the spawn of Zeus did overthrow the mythological Titans).

Local News

Rick Hertzberg on New York City's mayors: "Mike Bloomberg has been unlike any mayor we have ever had. He has governed New York (ruled it, really) less as a standard elected official, a grubby pol beset by grubbier pols, than as a Roman consul or a Roman emperor -- one of the better emperors, too: a basically public-spirited type like Augustus or Vespasian, as opposed to a Nero or a Caligula." CW BTW: As far as I know, New York City still does not have Vespasians (street toilets), which is a bummer.

Nick Madigan in the New York Times: "In the most dire predictions, South Florida's delicate barrier islands, coastal communities and captivating subtropical beaches will be lost to the rising waters in as few as 100 years... Four counties there -- Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach, with a combined population of 5.6 million -- have formed an alliance to figure out solutions. Long battered by hurricanes and prone to flooding from intense thunderstorms, Florida is the most vulnerable state in the country to the rise in sea levels."

News Ledes

The New York Times has a list of charitable organizations that are assisting in aid to the Philippines, with links to the sites where they are accepting donations.

New York Times: "After an avalanche of criticism at home and abroad, the German government announced late Monday it will establish a task force to investigate, 'as quickly and as transparently as possible,' the provenance of a cache of more than 1,400 artworks that are suspected of being traded or looted during the Nazis' reign and that are now in the hands of authorities in Bavaria."

New York Post: "A musician furious over being thrown out of a rock band extracted bloody revenge in an early morning attack in Brooklyn Monday -- using a military-style rifle to fatally shoot three people believed to be bandmates, wound another person and then take his own life, law enforcement sources said."

Washington Post: "To accommodate [Amazon.com]..., the Postal Service said it will for the first time deliver packages at regular rates on Sundays."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 10, 2013

Juliet Eilperin & Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The White House is increasing its reliance on insurers by accepting their technical help in efforts to repair the problem-ridden online health insurance marketplace and prioritizing consumers' ability to buy plans directly from the carriers. The Obama administration's broader cooperation with insurers is a tacit acknowledgment that the federal insurance exchange ... might not be working smoothly by the target date of Nov. 30, according to several health experts familiar with the administration's thinking. White House officials reject the idea that the strategy represents a contingency plan in the event that the online system continues to falter." ...

... Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Susanne Craig of the Washington Post: "To the list of problems plaguing President Obama's health care law, add one more -- fraud."

Mark Felsenthal of Reuters: "White House national security adviser Susan Rice on Saturday urged Congress to allow the United States to regain its vote at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, which it lost for not paying dues."

** Eli Saslow of the Washington Post: The food stamp diet will make you sick before it kills you. Legislators & lobbyists are making sure it stays that way.

Maureen Dowd interviews comedian Sarah Silverman. Silverman has interesting things to say. Here's the voter ID video Silverman cut last year:

Mark Sherman of TPM: SCOTUSblog wants a Supreme Court press pass.

Nate Raymond & Jonathan Stempel of Reuters: "The U.S. government urged that Bank of America Corp pay $863.6 million in damages after a federal jury found it liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit. In a filing late Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the government also asked for penalties against Rebecca Mairone, a former midlevel executive at the bank's Countrywide unit who the jury also found liable, 'commensurate with her ability to pay.'"

Dylan Byers of Politico has a damning piece on Lara Logan's Benghaaaazi! report, which Logan & others worked on for "more than a year," according to CBS "News" chairman Jeff Fager. ...

... Phony "Reporting" Has Consequences. Sort of. Leigh Munsil of Politico: "Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] says he still plans to use Senate holds on President Barack Obama's nominees until he gets answers on the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.... Despite his hold threat following a CBS '60 Minutes' report based on an eyewitness account that proved to be false, Graham wouldn't take it back when pressed by CNN host Candy Crowley." CW: So the basis for his holds is fake, but he's still going with them to jerk around the administration. Seems reasonable.

The Plagiarist, a/k/a the Cookie Monster. CW: Friday I got an e-mail from Sen. Rand Paul titled, "This Week in News for Senator Rand Paul." In it I learned that Paul had introduced some legislation, met with some constituents & been on the teevee. Oddly enough, there was not one word in "This Week in News for Senator Rand Paul" about the several incidences of Paul's plagiarism which bloggers uncovered this week. There was nothing in it about the Washington Examiner firing him or about his moving his excellent borrowed copy to Breitbart.com. There was nothing in it about the "haters & hacks" picking on him. The only teevee appearance linked in "This Week in News for Senator Rand Paul" was one in which he bashed Healthcare.gov. No mention of the Real News of the Week for Senator Rand Paul -- the only news that put him on the front pages of his home-state papers and the New York Times. Funny that. ...

     ... You might wonder how it happens that I got on Rand's mailing list. I didn't sign up for it. I didn't give him my e-mail address. But I did go to his official Website to check out those speeches he suddenly footnoted. Lo & behold, Senator Libertarian -- who says that the right to privacy comes from God -- grabbed my little cookies & used them to access my e-mail account & send me unsolicited mail. If the right to privacy comes from God, Sen. Aqua Buddha is on Satan's side.

Local News

New York Times Editors: "For what may be the first time on record, a former prosecutor in Texas is going to jail for failing to turn over exculpatory evidence in a murder trial. The 10-day jail sentence for the prosecutor, Ken Anderson, is insultingly short -- the victim of his misconduct, Michael Morton, spent nearly 25 years in prison. But because prosecutors are so rarely held accountable for their misconduct, the sentence is remarkable nonetheless.... In addition to receiving the jail sentence, [Anderson] was disbarred and stripped of his law license." The underlying AP story is here. The Innocence Project's page on Michael Morton's case is here.

Black Like Me. Doug Miller of KHOU Houston: "As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed overwhelmingly against [Dave Wilson]. Then he came up with an idea, an advertising strategy that his opponent found 'disgusting.' If a white guy didn't have a chance in a mostly African-American district, Wilson would lead voters to think he's black. And it apparently worked. In one of the biggest political upsets in Houston politics this election season, Wilson -- an anti-gay activist and former fringe candidate for mayor -- emerged as the surprise winner over 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin. His razor thin margin of victory, only 26 votes, was almost certainly influenced by his racially tinged campaign." ...

... Speaking of a white former fringe candidate, Dan Amira of New York has listened to all 4-1/2 hours of the audio tape of Sarah Palin's new theological treatise on the annual war on Christmas: "The book is part tribute to the joys of Christmas, part how-to guide for oppressed Christians looking for ways to fight back against whiny and litigious secularists, and part manifesto on the general superiority of Christianity over atheism. Palin, throughout, appears incapable of fathoming why a business catering to people from all walks of life may prefer to use inclusive holiday-season language in promotional items, or why a non-Christian may not appreciate a government institution expressing a preference for Christianity over other religions." The magazine made a dandy little interactive graphic allowing you to click on "some of the books more memorable lines." CW: Recommended for a laugh. Via Steve Benen.

President Kennedy Assassination

Meghan Keneally of the Daily Mail: "John Kerry has revealed that he does not believe that President Kennedy's assassin worked alone as the government claimed in their official finding.... 'To this day, I have serious doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,' Kerry told NBC's Tom Brokaw in an interview...."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Rescue workers struggled to reach ravaged towns and villages in the central Philippines on Monday as they tried to deliver aid to survivors of a powerful typhoon that killed an estimated 10,000 people and displaced more than 600,000. The United Nations said some survivors had no food, water or medicine. Relief operations were hampered because roads, airports and bridges had been destroyed or were covered in wreckage...." ...

... AP: "Corpses hung from trees, were scattered on sidewalks or buried in flattened buildings -- some of the thousands believed killed in one Philippine city alone by ferocious Typhoon Haiyan that washed away homes and buildings with powerful winds and giant waves." ...

... AFP: "Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in Vietnam early Monday, meteorologists said, days after it left thousands feared dead and widespread devastation in the Philippines."

AFP: "Conservative US leaders, fond of finger-pointing at France in recent years, lavished praise on Paris Sunday for blocking an agreement between Western powers and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program. 'Vive la France!' tweeted Senator John McCain, an outspoken voice on national security issues."