The Commentariat -- Nov. 9, 2013

The President's Weekly Address. President Obama commemorates Veterans Day:

Kevin Hall & Anita Kumar of McClatchy News: President "Obama insisted anew Thursday that the problem is limited to people who buy their own insurance. 'We're talking about 5 percent of the population who are in what's called the individual market. They're out there buying health insurance on their own,' he told NBC. But a closer examination finds that the number of people who have plans changing, or have already changed, could be between 34 million to 52 million. That's because many employer-provided insurance plans also could change, not just individually purchased insurance plans." CW: What Hall & Kumar don't say explicitly is that the employees are being shifted in new plans, which may or may not cost them &/or the employers more than the old plans. If you've been employed at a large corporation with good benefits for any length of time, you are aware that pre-ACA employers regularly changed plans or offered a new mix of plans to employees. So the McClatchy report isn't exactly shocking news. But you can bet that employers who are so inclined will blame ObamaCare when they shift plans. ...

... Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: " The Obama administration is considering a fix to the president's health care law that would expand the universe of individuals who receive tax subsidies to help buy insurance.... Such a fix would address the issue of 'sticker shock....'" ...

... Paul Waldman: "... as long as we're going to start proposing fixes, how about we let everyone who got a threatening letter from an insurance company buy in to Medicare? If Republicans are going to take the opportunity to demagogue the issue, why not take the opportunity to expand our extremely popular socialized medicine program?" CW: Two other advantages to Waldman's suggestion: (1) it might just shut up Republicans because they don't give a damn about the people whose premiums are increasing, & (2) it might make insurance companies think twice about their bait-&-switch tactics. ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times tries to get a handle on the dynamic inside the White House re: the ACA crises. Depends upon whom you ask. CW: Got a kick out of the comment by Bill Daley, who I will admit is a jerk. ...

... As some of you may have noticed, Reality Chex was down for awhile Friday evening on account of "issues with site access." Shit happens. Of course nobody loses health insurance when my site crashes. ...

... Matt Fuller of Roll Call: "House Republicans have handed out an internal GOP playbook on how to best score political points against Obamacare, the White House and Democrats in general. The memo obtained by CQ Roll Call, titled 'House Republican Playbook: Because of Obamacare ... I Lost My Insurance,' is a manual for House Republicans on how to highlight the recent issues with the health care law and how to best 'communicate in your district about the disastrous Obamacare rollout.'" The playbook is here. ...

Brought to you by the authors of death panels, a guide to mislead the American people and discourage their own constituents from getting access to affordable health care. -- Drew Hamill, spokesperson for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

... Another Bogus "ObamaCare Victim" Claim Debunked. Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org: "Conservative groups are highlighting the case of an Arizona man with leukemia whose insurance plan was canceled because it didn't comply with the Affordable Care Act. A news report quoted the man as saying he would need to pay $26,000 to keep the same doctor. It turns out, he was able to get a new plan, which has his doctor in its network, for a lower premium and a lower out-of-pocket maximum than his old plan." The "victim"'s story was highlighted by the Heritage Foundation & Americans for Prosperity. CW: Both are funded by the Koch brothers, who really don't want us peons to have health insurance. ...

... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "... many of the poor people who rely on safety-net hospitals ... will be doubly unlucky. A government subsidy ... is being sharply reduced under the new health law. The subsidy, which for years has helped [hospitals] defray the cost of uncompensated and undercompensated care, was cut substantially on the assumption that the hospitals would replace much of the lost income with payments for patients newly covered by Medicaid or private insurance. But now the hospitals in states like Georgia will get neither the new Medicaid patients nor most of the old subsidies, which many say are crucial to the mission of care for the poor.... Hospitals are trying to get Congress to delay the subsidy cuts by amending the health law, but House Republicans in Washington have thus far refused." CW: Bear in mind that the Georgia legislature's & governor's cruel decision to reject the Medicaid subsidy is part of the GOP's war on the poor. John Boehner & his Tea Party caucus are playing along. It's working. The poor are losing.

Donna Cassata of TPM: "The third-ranking House Republican told immigration advocates that lawmakers won't vote this year on the issue, confirming what many had long assumed. California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the majority whip, said in a meeting with immigration proponents that there weren't enough days left for the House to act and he was committed to addressing overhaul of the nation's immigration system next year."

Shahien Nasiripour of the Huffington Post: William Dudley, "the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said Thursday that some of America's largest financial institutions appear to lack respect for the law, a potentially explosive charge against an industry already roiling from numerous government investigations into alleged wrongdoing."

Humor Break. The Plagiarist, Ctd. Dana Milbank: "Speech(1) by Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky accepting the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, as prepared for delivery. (1) Source: Wikipedia." CW: Some of Paul's "speech" may sound familiar to you. ...

... Sean McElwee & Jenny Kutner of Salon: "Salon has discovered more examples of plagiarism in the work of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). In his speech at the Value Voters Summit on October 11, Paul appropriated written material from the Gatestone Institute, a think-tank chaired by John Bolton. The transcript of the speech has been removed from Paul's web site -- as have the transcripts from numerous other speeches while Paul battles an ongoing plagiarism scandal." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead.

Apparently Ryan has more tender relationships with catfish than Collins lets on. Yes, he will respect them in the morning. This picture is not photoshopped. Ryan tweeted it to followers during the 2012 campaign. He is exceptionally weird.After she gets through some nonsense about Paul Ryan's fist-fucking fish, Gail Collins makes an important point: "By far the biggest argument between the House and Senate on the farm bill is about the food stamp program, which the House Republicans want to slash by $39 billion, mainly through new screening programs to guarantee that every single recipient is working, drug-free, needy and in general totally and completely worthy of government assistance. Even if that means inadvertently emptying a lot of deserving cupboards along the way. This would be in the same bill that includes crop insurance subsidies that make no attempt whatsoever to screen out the undeserving rich."

Benghaaaazi! CBS News Duped by Typical Right-Wing Conspiracy Claim. Bill Carter & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "As it prepared to broadcast a rare on-air correction Sunday for a now-discredited '60 Minutes' report, CBS News acknowledged on Friday that it had suffered a damaging blow to its credibility. Its top executive called the segment 'as big a mistake as there has been' in the 45-year-old history of the celebrated news program. The executive, Jeff Fager, conceded that CBS appeared to have been duped by the primary source for the report, a security official who told a national television audience a harrowing tale of the attack last year at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. On Thursday night it was disclosed that the official, Dylan Davies, had provided a completely different account in interviews with the F.B.I., in which he said he never made it to the mission that night." ...

     ... On Thursday, Carter & Schmidt reported, "Dylan Davies, a security officer hired to help protect the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, gave the F.B.I. an account of the night that terrorists attacked the mission on Sept. 11, 2012 that contradicts a version of events he provided in a recently published book and in an interview with ... '60 Minutes.' Mr. Davies told the F.B.I. that he was not on the scene until the morning after the attack.... Mr. Davies ... has disavowed the incident report, saying in an interview last week with ... The Daily Beast that he did not write it and had never even seen it.... CBS News had extensively defended Mr. Davies this week, suggesting ... that he was the object of a campaign by State Department officials to quiet continued questioning about the events in Benghazi. CBS also publicly vouched for the authenticity of Mr. Davies's account on '60 Minutes.'" ...

... The November 2 Commentariat has links to a couple of earlier stories on the fanciful CBS report. CW: I wonder how Fox "News" is covering the CBS retraction, if at all. ...

... Kevin Drum: "Something isn't right here.... CBS needs to investigate what happened, and they need to do it with the same thoroughness that they investigated Dan Rather and Mary Mapes five years ago when they got snookered on the George Bush National Guard story that they obviously wanted to believe just a little bit too badly. Something like that seems to have happened here too." ...

... ** You gotta read Digby on "quote-unquote journalism." Also, she finds out what isn't right about Lara Logan's quote-unquote journalistic integrity. CW: I'll add this about Logan: she is a sucker for sensational stories. When she can, she puts herself in the middle of them. I don't think she's trustworthy. ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... Digby says pretty much everything there is to say about the missed opportunities to ask obvious questions, and the compromised relationship between CBS and its dubious, book-promoting 'source.' And she even identifies a motive: the reporter, Lara Logan, has long expressed righteous anger that the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens hasn't been avenged. So Logan had a personal agenda that nicely merged with her personal interest in getting a big 'scoop.'"

... Ben Dimiero & Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "From 'Proud' To Pulled: A Timeline Of 60 Minutes' Benghazi Trainwreck." ...

... Al Sharpton discusses the Benghazi story with David Brock of Media Matters:

... Need More Evidence CBS "News" Sucks? AP: "The 50th-anniversary coverage of the Kennedy assassination on CBS News won’t include the recollections of its longtime anchor Dan Rather, further proof of the lingering bitterness following Rather's messy exit and subsequent lawsuit against the network. Rather helped organize CBS' plans for President John F. Kennedy's visit to Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, and as a young reporter was a key component of assassination coverage. Now 82, with his own show on AXS-TV, he's one of the few reporters on the story that day who's still active in journalism. Rather, who later became CBS News' top anchor for 24 years, will appear on NBC's Today show on Nov. 22 this year. 'I held off doing anything for anybody else for a while, thinking I may be asked to do something (for CBS),' Rather said. 'I can't say I had any reason for that hope.'" ...

... As Charles Pierce writes of CBS "News," "... an act of towering chickenshit." Pierce has a few choice words for Sen. Aqua Buddha, too.

The morning light shone harshly on Romney's fitful reverie. -- A real sentence from the nearly spoof-proof Double Down by Mark Halperin & John Heilemann ...

Mitt was perfectly happy to strafe the speaker until he was a human colander. -- Ditto

... Michael Kinsley reviews Double Down for the New York Times. He concentrates on the authors' idiotic prose style.

... ** Reporter Colin Woodard in Tufts Magazine on the 11 "nations" of North America -- a sensible rejoinder to Barack Obama's "United States of America." Via Reid Wilson of the Washington Post.

Joe Nocera on the firing of Dick Metcalf, who wrote a mild defense of mild gun control in a column for Guns & Ammo, & the resignation of the magazine's editor: "If you want to understand why so few gun owners are willing to stand up to the National Rifle Association, even though the majority disagree with the N.R.A.'s most extreme positions, here was a vivid example. Straying from the party line leads to vilification and condemnation that would give anybody pause."

Alissa Rubin of the New York Times: "The United States lost its vote at Unesco on Friday, two years after cutting off its financial contribution to the organization over the admission of Palestinians as full members. The move undermined America's ability to exercise its influence in countries around the globe through the United Nations agency's educational and aid programs, according to Western diplomats and international relations experts."

Mary Klas & Lesley Meklas of the Miami Herald: "President Obama arrived in Miami Friday afternoon to headline three Democratic Party fundraisers hosted by the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and, in a surprise move met with Cuban dissidents. Florida's newest high-profile Democrat, former Gov. Charlie Crist, was spotted at the Segovia Tower in Coral Gables at a $32,000-a-head fundraiser...." ...

... AFP: "The United States must continue to update its policy towards communist Cuba, President Barack Obama said late on Friday, speaking at the home of a prominent Cuban-American activist. Freedom in Cuba will come from the work of activists, Obama said, but the United States can help in 'creative' and 'thoughtful' ways."

Local News

Treena Shapiro of Reuters: "Hawaii's House of Representatives approved a bill on Friday to legalize same-sex marriage in the overwhelmingly Democratic state popular as a wedding and honeymoon destination, paving the way for anticipated final passage in the Senate next week. The measure cleared the House in a late-night vote of 30-19, with six of the chamber's seven Republicans joining 13 Democrats in opposing the legislation. Two Democrats were absent for the vote. Governor Neil Abercrombie [D] has indicated he would swiftly sign the measure into law...."

November 2013 Election

Antonio Olivo & Ben Pershing of the Washington Post: "Fairfax County, [Virginia,] election officials said Friday that they believe nearly 2,000 votes went uncounted after Tuesday's elections, a technical error that could affect the outcome of the still unresolved race for Virginia attorney general.... The extra votes, which come from an area that leans heavily in favor of Democrats, could affect the outcome of the attorney general's race, which appears headed for a recount. As of Friday afternoon, state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg) was leading state Sen. Mark R. Herring (D-Loudoun) by 1,272 votes, or about 0.06 percent of the 2.2 million votes cast, according to the State Board of Elections' Web site."

News Ledes

Reuters: "The Washington state legislature on Saturday passed a measure to extend nearly $9 billion in tax breaks for Boeing through 2040 in an embattled effort to entice the company to locate production of its newest jet, the 777X, in the Seattle area. Lawmakers acknowledged, however, that their efforts would likely be undermined if the airplane maker's key machinists union votes down a proposed labor contract due to go before the membership on Wednesday."

AP: "Iran's refusal to suspend work on a plutonium-producing reactor and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium was standing in the way of an interim agreement to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for easing of sanctions, France's foreign minister said Saturday. A Western diplomat in Geneva for the talks told The Associated Press that the French were holding out for conditions on the Iranians tougher than those agreed to by the U.S. and France's other negotiating partners, raising doubts a final deal could be struck Saturday." ...

     ... New York Times Update: " Marathon talks between major powers and Iran failed on Sunday to produce a deal to freeze its nuclear program, puncturing days of feverish anticipation and underscoring how hard it will be to forge a lasting solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions."

Reuters: "One of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall devastated the central Philippines, killing more than 1,000 people in one city alone and 200 in another province, the Red Cross estimated on Saturday, as reports of high casualties began to emerge." ...

     ... AP Update: "The Philippine Red Cross estimated that more than 1,000 people were killed in the coastal city of Tacloban and at least 200 in hard-hit Samar province when one of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall slammed into the country." ...

     ... AP Update 2: "The death toll from one of the strongest storms on record that ravaged the central Philippine city of Tacloban could reach 10,000 people, officials said Sunday after the extent of massive devastation became apparent and horrified survivors spoke of storm surges as high as trees and winds sounding like the roar of a jumbo jet."

AP: "A Miami Herald journalist was being held for a second night by Venezuelan authorities after he was detained by security forces while reporting on the country's economic crisis. Jim Wyss, the newspaper's Andean bureau chief, was detained Thursday by the National Guard in San Cristobal, a western city near the border with Colombia that is the center of a vibrant black market by Venezuelans seeking to circumvent rigid currency controls." The Herald story is here. ...

     ... Miami Herald Update: "After almost 48 hours in custody, Miami Herald Andean Bureau Chief Jim Wyss was released Saturday to U.S. Embassy officials, who confirmed that the journalist was in good health and had not been mistreated."

AFP: "Two Russian cosmonauts on Saturday took the Olympic torch on its first-ever spacewalk after stepping out of the International Space Station three months ahead of the Sochi Winter Games."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 8, 2013

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday approved a ban on discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity, voting 64 to 32 in a bipartisan show of support that is rare for any social issue. It was the first time in the institution's history that it had voted to include gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the country's nondiscrimination law. Despite initial wariness among many Republicans about the bill, 10 of them voted with 54 members of the Democratic majority to approve the measure.... Speaker John A. Boehner has repeatedly said he opposes the bill...."

One party in one house of Congress should not stand in the way of millions of Americans who want to go to work each day and simply be judged by the job they do. Now is the time to end this kind of discrimination in the workplace, not enable it. -- President Obama, in a written statement

... Kate Nocera of BuzzFeed: "As the Senate passed the Employee Non-Discrimination Act on Thursday, just one Republican senator -- Indiana's Dan Coats -- took to the floor to oppose it. The silence from the Senate Republican caucus stunned social conservatives, who have been arguing that the legislation, which provides workplace protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees, will undermine religious liberty." CW: As far as I can tell, they're arguing that discrimination & gay-bashing in the workplace is protected by the First Amendment's establishment clause. ...

... Daniel Horowitz of Red State calls the Republican senators who voted for the bill "undocumented Democrats.... With leadership that refuses to fight on anything, leaves the carcass of the fractured conference to Democrat scavenging, and completely surrenders on even the most bedrock social/liberty issues, what is left of the GOP in the Senate?"

** Jackie Calmes & Robert Pear of the New York Times: " The Obama administration on Friday will complete a generation-long effort to require insurers to cover care for mental health and addiction just like physical illnesses when it issues long-awaited regulations defining parity in benefits and treatment.... In the White House, the regulations are also seen as critical to President Obama's program for curbing gun violence by addressing an issue on which there is bipartisan agreement: Making treatment more available to those with mental illness could reduce killings, including mass murders. In issuing the regulations, senior officials said, the administration will have acted on all 23 executive actions that the president and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced early this year to reduce gun crimes after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre.... The parity law does not apply to Medicare, according to Irvin L. Muszynski, a lawyer at the American Psychiatric Association." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama bowed Thursday night to mounting criticism that he misled the American people about the health care law, apologizing to people who were forced off their health insurance plans by the Affordable Care Act despite 'assurances from me':

We, in good faith, have been trying to take on a health care system that has been broken for a very long time. And what we've been trying to do is to change it in the least disruptive way possible ... everybody is acting as if the existing market was working ... the average increase on premiums in this individual market for somebody who kept their health care for awhile, the average increase was double digits. If they actually got sick and used the insurance, they might find the next year their premiums had gone up. Or the insurer might have dropped them altogether, because now they had a preexisting condition. -- President Obama, in the Todd interview (via Greg Sargent)

     ... Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "What Obama isn't offering is an apology for the cancellation notices themselves. Eliminating certain health plans from the market -- ones that the White House thinks are too skimpy -- is a feature, not a bug, of the Affordable Care Act." ...

     ... Zeke Miller of Time: "For the second time in as many months, President Barack Obama has dramatically changed his communications strategy for coping with the troubled rollout of his signature legislation." ...

... Brett Norman of Politico: "The Obama administration again called out states that have refused to expand Medicaid on Thursday, calling it a 'reckless' play to undercut Obamacare at the expense of their constituents' health. The White House held a conference call featuring officials in Florida and Louisiana who made the case for expanding the program and attacked those holding it up. President Barack Obama is traveling to the two states tomorrow on unrelated business, but the messaging is part of a larger drive to draw attention to the states that have refused to cover low-income people...." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: Yes, some people -- it's impossible to say how many -- will have to pay more for equivalent insurance under the ACA than they did in the good ole days. "The truth is that, until now, people in this situation have been among the few, fortunate souls for whom American health insurance is a bargain. They've been relatively healthy, and they've had relatively good incomes, making it possible to buy comprehensive policies at prices they could afford. But the practices that made insurance cheap for them made it expensive -- and in many cases unavailable -- for others. Their good fortune was the by-product of bad fortune for many others. As one ends, so must the other." ...

... Eugene Kiely of FactCheck.org: "Sen. Rand Paul says the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion may 'bankrupt' rural hospitals in Kentucky. But state health care leaders say its hospitals stand to benefit, since the expansion would provide insurance to those who otherwise wouldn't be able to pay their hospital bills." CW: This demonstrates why plagiarism is such a useful tool for Li'l Randy. He's more apt to get things right if he copies somebody else's work word-for-word. ...

It annoys the hell out of me. I feel like if I could just go to detention after school for a couple days, then everything would be okay. But do I have to be in detention for the rest of my career? ... I'm being criticized for not having proper attribution, and yet they are able to write stuff that if I were their journalism teacher in college, I would fail them.-- Sen. Rand Paul, reacting to press reports of his serial plagiarism (via Bob Costa of National Review; read the whole post)

... The Plagiarist, Ctd. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Several more sections of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's 2012 book Government Bullies appear to be plagiarized from articles by think tank scholars, BuzzFeed has found. As BuzzFeed previously reported, more than three pages of the book were plagiarized from The Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute, and another section of the Kentucky senator's book was plagiarized from a Forbes article. As was the case with the other cut-and-pasted jobs, Paul included links to the works in his book's footnotes but made no effort to indicate that the words themselves had been taken from other sources." ...

... Dave Weigel of Slate: Twenty-four hours after the Washington Examiner fired suspended Li'l Randy for plagiarizing one of his weekly Examiner columns, that bastion of journalistic integrity "Breitbart.com announced it would pick up the column. Its official announcement made no mention of the copied-text scandal...." Perfect. ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: Paul's move to Breitbart "further demonstrates how little the actual sitting senator Paul knows or cares about journalistic or editorial ethics or anything we other inhabitants of the planet might recognize as shame.... He's just moving his regular output of writing from the racist-coddling, conspiracy-mongering Washington Times to an ideological burrow that has even fewer ethical restrictions on his work. And that is freaking hilarious."

... James Carroll of the Louisville Courier-Journal in USA Today: "Sen. Rand Paul's handling of recent plagiarism charges adds doubts about his readiness for a presidential campaign, some observers said Wednesday." ...

... Count Mike Huckabee Out of the Doubters Club. Huckabee is "appalled" that "liberals who have nothing better to do" are picking on Rand about "this nutty thing." ...

... Humor Break. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "The campaign website of a Republican candidate for the United States Senate in North Carolina, Greg Brannon, who[m Rand] Paul supports, includes descriptions of various policy positions that match those of Mr. Paul's 2010 campaign website word for word.... A spokesman for Mr. Brannon did not respond to a emails about the similarities between the two sites Thursday, and Mr. Paul's office had no comment." CW: So, honor among thieves. Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link.

Charles Pierce: Coming up on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Ted Cruz warns President Obama he shouldn't have come to Dallas.

Catherine Thompson of TPM: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Thursday introduced legislation that would ban abortions nationwide for women more than 20 weeks pregnant, the senator's office announced." CW: If you can think of any senator who knows less about women's health issues than Graham, do tell.

Donna Cassata of the AP: "The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is pressuring the House to act on immigration legislation before the end of the year, calling the issue 'a matter of great moral urgency' that cannot wait. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said in a letter to Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Thursday that he was troubled by reports that immigration reform is delayed in the House since lawmakers have a responsibility to resolve the issue. Writing on behalf of the 450-plus U.S. cardinals and bishops, Dolan said they respectfully request that the House address the immigration issue as soon as possible."

Kim Severson & Winnie Hu of the New York Times: "...for millions of poor Americans who rely on food stamps, reductions that began this month present awful choices.... And for many, it will mean turning to a food pantry or a soup kitchen by the middle of the month.... The reduction in benefits has affected more than 47 million people.... It is the largest wholesale cut in the program since Congress passed the first Food Stamps Act in 1964 and touches about one in every seven Americans.... The cuts are also hurting stores in poor neighborhoods. The average food stamps household receives $272 a month, which then passes into the local economy." ...

     ... CW: I don't know why it is so seldom mentioned, but programs like SNAP & Medicaid are so costly because these programs effectively subsidize employers who pay their workers less than a living wage. As Media Matters reported last year, "41% [of SNAP recipients] lived in a household with earnings from a job -- the so-called 'working poor.'" (Almost half of SNAP beneficiaries are children & eight percent are 60 years old or more.) Case in point: Wal-Mart: "Walmart's employees receive $2.66 billion in government help every year.... They are also the top recipients of Medicaid in numerous states." Now, get this: "One of the major beneficiaries of the nation's food-stamp program is actually a hugely profitable company: Walmart. Americans spend about 18 percent of all food stamp dollars at Walmart...." ...

... Catherine Rampell & Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The White House has thrown its weight behind a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $10 an hour.... The legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Tom Harkin of Iowa and in the House by George Miller of California, both Democrats."

... Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Lost work: 6.6 million days. Back-pay costs: $2 billion. Private-sector jobs lost: 120,000. Those are just some of the costs of the 16-day partial government shutdown that ended last month, the Obama administration said in a detailed report released Thursday." ...

... Paul Krugman: The weak economy is costing the U.S. $1 trillion a year -- for years. Krugman aptly blames deficit scolds. "It's really a terrible story: a tale of self-inflicted harm, made all the worse because it was done in the name of responsibility. And the damage continues as we speak."

Mark Hosenball & Warren Strobel of Reuters: Edward "Snowden may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii to give him their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator, a second source said. The revelation is the latest to indicate that inadequate security measures at the NSA played a significant role in the worst breach of classified data in the super-secret eavesdropping agency's 61-year history."

Second Amendment, Sí. First Amendment, No. Andrew Kirell of Mediaite. "Guns and Ammo Magazine, the 'world's most widely read firearms magazine,' has fired contributing editor Dick Metcalf after the publication received immense backlash for its December 2013 issue featuring his editorial advocating for gun control." After apologizing for running Metcalf's column, Guns & Ammo editor Jim Bequette "announced his own resignation earlier than anticipated." ...

... Hamilton Nolan of Gawker: "In Metcalf's column, which is extremely basic and mild by 'sane person' standards, he gently notes that it is not true that any regulation of guns is automatically an infringement of the Second Amendment.... Ad Age characterizes the backlash as 'stiff.' I might characterize it as 'indicative of the scary insanity present in the minds of many of those Americans who also, unfortunately, own guns." Nolan cites a few examples of said backlash, with commentary on each. "Thank god everyone involved in this is heavily armed."

Oh, My God! Sarah Posner in Mother Jones: "Next week, former President George W. Bush is scheduled to keynote a fundraiser in Irving, Texas, for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute, a group that trains people in the United States, Israel, and around the world to convince Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. The organization's goal: to 'restore' Israel and the Jews and bring about about the second coming of Christ.... Last year, Glenn Beck was the star of the group's fundraiser.... Rabbi David Wolpe of Los Angeles' Sinai Temple, whom Newsweek has called the most influential rabbi in the country, tweeted, 'This is infuriating.'" ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... it sure appears W. is going back to the hard-core well of support from those who thought the invasion of Iraq was a divinely blessed first-step towards Armageddon."

New York Times Editors: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit erred badly last week when it stayed the remedies ordered by Judge Shira Scheindlin of Federal District Court to correct the civil rights violations associated with New York City's stop-and-frisk policy, including an independent monitor to review police practices. It also unjustly damaged Judge Scheindlin's reputation when it removed her from the case. A motion filed on Wednesday by Judge Scheindlin's lawyers seeks to have her removal vacated. The motion offers a strong argument that the three-judge panel moved with unseemly haste, acted on a skewed reading of the evidence and violated a court rule that gives judges accused of misconduct the opportunity to defend themselves."

Local News

Rosalind Helderman & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the wealthy benefactor who is at the heart of a federal investigation into Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, is stepping down as chief executive of Star Scientific Inc., the dietary supplement maker announced Thursday.... A criminal probe [of the McDonnell-Williams transactions] is ongoing." ...

... More Bad News for Bob. Helderman & Leonnig: "Home renovations and landscaping were performed at Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's Richmond area home last year by the brother of [Jonnie R. Williams, Sr.].... Two people familiar with the criminal probe said Donnie O. Williams, 56, was interviewed about the work by federal prosecutors in recent weeks.... Donnie Williams, a former sheriff's deputy, told prosecutors that he believed he was doing the work at the McDonnells' home for free last year, at the request of his brother, the two people said. Williams eventually was paid for the work." ...

... Emily Schultheis of Politico: "As the possibility of a federal indictment swirled around scandal-plagued Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell this summer, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli was planning a 'dramatic' break from the sitting governor in which he would use the Virginia state Constitution to try to remove McDonnell from office, a prominent state political analyst reported Thursday. According to Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, Cuccinelli planned to employ a never-before-used section of the state Constitution to deem McDonnell unfit to govern." The Sabato (et al.) report is here. ...

... John Harris & Anna Palmer of Politico: "The old saying about victory having a thousand fathers while defeat is an orphan turns out not to be quite right. The paternity suit over Cuccinelli's narrow loss is vigorously under way."

AP: "Betsy Hodges, a Democratic member of the Minneapolis City Council, emerged as the winner of the race for mayor of Minnesota's largest city Thursday night. Hodges received the most votes of the 35 candidates but fell shy of an outright majority. Minneapolis uses a ranked-choice system, which allowed voters on Tuesday to make up to three choices of candidates on their ballots. Ballots were reassigned as candidates were deemed out of contention." The Minneapolis Star Tribune story is here.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Two U.S. admirals -- including the director of naval intelligence -- are under investigation as part of a major bribery scandal involving a foreign defense contractor, Navy officials announced Friday night. Vice Adm. Ted Branch, the service's top intelligence officer, and Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, the Navy's director of intelligence operations, were placed on leave Friday and their access to classified material was suspended, the Navy said in a statement."

Bloomberg News: "Payrolls in the U.S. increased more than forecast in October, a sign that employers were optimistic the world's biggest economy would weather the effects of the federal government shutdown. The addition of 204,000 workers followed a revised 163,000 gain in September that was larger than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today.... The median forecast of 91 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 120,000 advance. The jobless rate rose to 7.3 percent from an almost five-year low."

Reuters: "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and fellow big power foreign ministers headed to Geneva on Friday to help clinch an interim nuclear deal with Iran and ease a decade-old standoff, with Israel warning they were making an epic mistake." ...

     ... The New York Times has an updated story here. ...

... New York Times: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes the interim Iranian nuclear program deal being negotiated in Geneva.

AP: "Syria's main Western-backed opposition group has refused to participate in talks in Moscow with Syrian government organizations on resolving the country's humanitarian crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry and opposition figures said Friday."

New York Times: "Standard & Poor's on Friday cut its credit rating on France by one notch, saying the government's current policy initiatives did not appear capable of addressing impediments to economic growth."

Washington Post: Federal prosecutors have obtained evidence that with the help of high-ranking U.S. Naval officers, Glenn Defense Marine has been bilking the U.S. government for years. "The case is shaping up as the biggest corruption scandal to hit the Navy in years. Two Navy commanders have been arrested ... and charged with feeding inside information to Francis, as has a senior agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In addition, a Navy captain who has not been charged but is under investigation was relieved of his ship's command last month. Court papers suggest that still more officers could be implicated."

Reuters: "Egypt will hold parliamentary elections 'between February and March', to be followed by a presidential vote in early summer, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said on Friday."

AP: "The strongest typhoon this year slammed into the central Philippines on Friday, setting off landslides and knocking out power and communication lines in several provinces. At least four people died."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 7, 2013

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: In Dallas, President Obama ... sought to pressure Gov. Rick Perry to expand Medicaid in Texas, the largest of the Republican-led states that have refused to participate in his Affordable Care Act.... 'There's no state that actually needs this more than Texas,' Mr. Obama said [to a group of ACA volunteers]. 'Here in just the Dallas area, 133,000 people who don't currently have health insurance would immediate get health insurance without even having to go through the website' if Texas would just expand Medicaid. He noted that neighboring states have taken action because 'this is a no-brainer.' Arkansas, he said, cut the number of uninsured by 14 percent in the last month by expanding Medicaid." ...

... Nedra Pickler of the AP: President "Obama invited Senate Democrats facing re-election next year to the White House to discuss the problem-plagued health care rollout that could affect their races. The White House confirmed Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with 16 senators to describe fixes that are being made to the website for Americans to sign up for insurance under his signature health care law." ...

... Justin Sink of the Hill: "In a meeting at the White House, Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough asked insurance executives to explain to customers who are losing their plans what new options are available under ObamaCare and what new subsidies they might qualify for." ...

... Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said Wednesday that the government needed to fix hundreds of problems with the website for the federal health insurance marketplace, but she categorically rejected bipartisan calls to delay parts of the new health care law. She made her comments at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee hours after the Obama administration disclosed that the chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [Tony Trenkle] would retire. His office supervised the creation of the troubled website." ...

... Sam Hananel of the AP: "The Obama administration appears ready to give some labor unions a break from costly fees under the new health care law, a move that drew criticism from Republicans who say it unfairly favors a key White House ally. In regulations published last week, the administration said it intends to propose rules that would exempt 'certain self-insured, self-administered plans' from the requirement to pay the fees in 2015 and 2016." ...

... Don't give up on Stewart. Watch the whole segment:

... Brian Beutler of Salon: In the Virginia gubernatorial election, Ken "Cuccinelli's anti-women positions were far more disqualifying than [Terry] McAuliffe's pro-healthcare stance," but Republicans have a need to blame ObamaCare for everything. "It was fun ... witnessing the various ways Republicans across the spectrum are contorting themselves to argue that Obamacare was the one thing preventing Terry McAuliffe -- World's Most Likable Democrat™ -- from winning an off-year landslide in a statewide race in Virginia." ...

... A Reality Chek from Paul Waldman: "Things could hardly have gone worse [for the ACA] in this stage of the rollout, and guess what: Americans' opinions about the law are, by all indications, exactly what they were before.... I think Republicans haven't been able to translate the problems of the last month into a change in opinion because their warnings were so apocalyptic that even what has gone wrong hasn't lived up to their hype. They used to say, 'This law will destroy every last shred of our freedom!' and now they're saying, 'The website should be working better!'" ...

... Matt Miller in the Washington Post: "Politicians and pundits who bash Obamacare should have displayed under their talking head or byline the source of their own coverage. Let's caption Ted Cruz in flashing neon that reads, 'Enjoys Gold-Plated Health Coverage from Goldman Sachs Spousal Plan.' Let's have the subtitles for John Boehner and Eric Cantor read, 'Has Never Worried About Going Broke From Illness A Day in His Life Thanks To Federal Government Insurance.' And let Obamacare supporters begin their response to absurd claims that 'Obamacare is the enemy' with this simple line: 'Spoken like a Very Well-Insured Person.'" ...

... Dana Milbank: Senators demonstrate how to govern by anecdote. "Using props to make policy may be unreliable, but it's apparently irresistible."

Cash & Slash. Billionaires v. Hungry Kids. Billionaires Win. Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "The federal government paid $11.3 million in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies from 1995 to 2012 to 50 billionaires or businesses in which they have some form of ownership, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research organization.... The Working Group said its findings were likely to underestimate the total farm subsidies that went to the billionaires on the Forbes 400 list because many of them also received crop insurance subsidies. Federal law prohibits the disclosure of the names of individuals who get crop insurance subsidies, the group said. The report is being issued as members of the House and Senate are meeting to come up with a new five-year farm bill." (CW: Why are crop subsidies doled out in secret? Taxpayers have a right to know which millionaires & billionaires they're subsidizing.) ...

... David Dayen of the American Prospect writes that Democrats are as much to blame for the food stamp crisis as are Republicans. They've been treating the program like an open cookie jar since President Obama took office. ...

... Susan Heavey of Reuters: "The number of poor people in the United States held steady at nearly 50 million last year, but government programs appear to have lessened the impact, especially on children and the elderly, federal data released on Wednesday showed. The Census Bureau, using an alternative measure to the government's main poverty gauge, said the figure was virtually unchanged from a year earlier with the overall poverty rate stuck at 16 percent."

... Here's the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial that Maddow cites. The editors do concede their U.S. Senator is "not a thief in the sense of Clyde Barrow or Willie Sutton...." ...

... The Plagiarist Is Holier than Christ(ie). Arlette Saenz of ABC News: "During a Senate committee hearing on post-Sandy recovery efforts, [Sen. Rand] Paul asked Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan whether it was appropriate to use federal relief funds for television ads, a clear jab at the New Jersey Republican [Gov. Chris Christie ]who starred in ads touting the Jersey Shore":

Some of these ads, people running for office put their their mug all over these ads while they're in the middle of a political campaign. In New Jersey, $25 million was spent on ads that included somebody running for political office. Do ya think there might be a conflict of interest there? That's a real problem. And that's why when people who are trying to do good and trying to use taxpayers' money wisely, they're offended to see our money spent on political ads.

Joan Biskupic of Reuters: "When the U.S. Supreme Court talks about religion, all hell breaks loose. A dispute over an upstate New York town's prayer before council meetings produced an unusually testy oral-argument session on Wednesday that recalled the decades of difficulty Supreme Court justices have had drawing the line between church and state.... Overall, the justices' remarks were more pessimistic than positive regarding a possible consensus. They voiced frustration with the lawyers who appeared before them and with each other as well." ...

... Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog has an excellent recap of the arguments in the case.

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company's vast database of phone records, which includes Americans' international calls, according to government officials. The cooperation is conducted under a voluntary contract.... AT&T has a history of working with the government."

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "National Security Council officials are scheduled to meet soon to discuss the issue of separating the leadership of the National Security Agency and Cyber Command, a shift that some officials say would help avoid an undue concentration of power in one individual and separate entities with two fundamentally different missions: spying and conducting military attacks. The administration is also discussing whether the NSA should be led by a civilian."

AFP: "A group of lawyers, journalists and privacy advocates in the Netherlands is taking the government to court to prevent Dutch intelligence using phone data illegally acquired by the US National Security Agency. Five individuals, among them a prominent investigative journalist and a well-known hacker, and four organisations filed the case before The Hague district court on Wednesday, according to their lawyer...."

Brian Fung of the Washington Post: commercial cable companies spend big bucks & use a variety of techniques to prevent municipalities from installing public fiberoptics communications systems.

As contributor Diane pointed out yesterday, I plumb forgot MoDo & the Bobbleheaded Twins. In this episode, MoDo & the Boys remark on the Obama clan's mistreatment of Loyal Uncle Joe. Stay tuned. There is sure to be another chapter. ...

... MEANWHILE, Charles Pierce (again, thanks to Diane) plots to confiscate MoDo's remote. AND he is sure he'll enjoy the well-wrought urn that is Double Down. (I'd recommend he down a double first.)

Election Returns 2013

Jeremy Peters & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Leaders of the Republican establishment, alarmed by the emergence of far-right and often unpredictable Tea Party candidates, are pushing their party to rethink how it chooses nominees and advocating changes they say would result in the selection of less extreme contenders. The party leaders pushing for changes want to replace state caucuses and conventions, like the one that nominated [Ken] Cuccinelli, with a more open primary system that they believe will draw a broader cross-section of Republicans and produce more moderate candidates. Similar pushes are already underway in other states, including Montana and Utah, and last week Mitt Romney said Republicans should consider how to overhaul their presidential nominating process to attract a wider range of voters." ...

     ... CW: No use being "alarmed" by the quality of your candidates while John Boehner & Mitch McConnell cater to the every whim of the winners, at the expense of the nation and of the party.

... Marc Fisher & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "If lessons emerged from Tuesday's vote, they were almost instantly lost in the volley of finger-pointing that began even before the polls closed. Republican Ken Cuccinelli II's narrow loss, despite what opinion surveys had consistently called a comfortable lead for [Terry] McAuliffe, left the candidate's camp accusing national party organizations of abandoning their man in the closest major race in the nation this year. Party officials said it was Cuccinelli who had failed to raise money from mainstream Republican sources skeptical of his hard-line rhetoric and uncompromising conservatism."

Julie Davis & John McCormick of Bloomberg News: "Republicans cite their 2.5-point defeat in the Virginia governor's race as proof that Ken Cuccinelli would have reversed his fortunes if he'd hammered earlier and longer on Obamacare.... Democrats argue Terry McAuliffe's narrow Nov. 5 victory amid a glitch-plagued rollout of the insurance program shows they can navigate politically around public opposition to the law.... Geoff Garin, McAuliffe's lead polling expert, said in the closing days of the race that Cuccinelli's focus on the health-care measure had 'actually been counterproductive,' even with voters who disapproved of the law. It solidified their view that he was an ideological candidate with a national agenda that had nothing to do with Virginia, said Garin."

Frank Rich on "the National Circus": "... if you tune in to the unofficial headquarters of the Christie '16 campaign, Morning Joe at MSNBC, [Chris] Christie is not only the front-runner, he's his party's savior, and is within a step of two of measuring the drapes for the White House." Unless the GOP bosses scrap all the primaries, which they won't, the real race, Rich says, is between Tailgunner Ted & Li'l "Genuine Hair" Randy.

Maya Rhodan of Time: "Who won this election cycle? Union leaders say they did. Across the country, candidates backed by unions triumphed over their counterparts, while ballot measures broke in favor of the unions that had campaigned for them as well."

Rick Lyman of the New York Times: election watchers on both sides of the Texas voter ID controversy say the law had little effect at the polls Tuesday. CW: But halfway through the story, Lyman lets the Texas League of Women Voters make the obvious point: "... voters who do not have the proper documentation at all ... might stay away from the polls altogether as a result." If you know you don't have proper ID to vote & can't afford or don't have time to obtain it, you're going to stay home. There is no way to guess how many Texans made that "choice."

Gail Collins discusses Tuesday's results, with only 790 days to go till the Iowa caucuses.

Driftglass: "... Chris Christie is 'centristy' when compared to the rest of the Teabagger Legion of Doom only in the same sense that a cinderblock is 'edible' when compared to a stick of dynamite, so why pretend otherwise?"

Senate Race

Blue Texas Pipe Dreams. Steve M. of NMMNB: "Public Policy Polling conducts a survey on the 2014 Texas Senate race and finds that if GOP incumbent John Cornyn loses a primary, Republicans could hold the seat even if Cornyn's replacement on the ticket is ... Louie Gohmert.... Julian Castro, rising star and potential Democratic VP candidate, loses by 9 points in his home state to Louie freaking Gohmert.... If Louie freaking Gohmert runs that well statewide, do yourself a favor and don't bet the rent money on Wendy Davis winning the governorship. Or on a Democrat winning any statewide race in Texas in the next twenty years."

Gubernatorial Race

Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Democratic state Sen. Jason Carter will challenge Gov. Nathan Deal next year in a move that catapults the gubernatorial contest into the national spotlight and tests whether Georgia's changing demographics can loosen the Republican Party's 12-year grip on the state's highest office. Carter's decision, which he announced Wednesday in an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is another step along the trail forged by his famous grandfather Jimmy Carter, who was elected to the state Senate and then the Governor's Mansion before winning the presidency."

Local News

Amel Ahmed of Al Jazeera: "Following Al Jazeera America's exclusive report on Oct. 30 revealing that California state Sen. Ronald Calderon (D-Montebello) is the subject of a federal investigation for having solicited bribes, California's Democratic majority leader asked the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday to strip Calderon of all his committee assignments pending the outcome of the investigation."

News Ledes

AFP: "In a landmark move, US Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Geneva Friday to join nuclear talks with US arch-foe Iran, fuelling hopes a historic deal may be in sight."

New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday proposed measures that would all but eliminate artificial trans fats, the artery clogging substance that is a major contributor to heart disease in the United States, from the food supply."

New York Times: "On its inaugural day of trading, Twitter managed to avoid the missteps that marred Facebook's initial public offering last year, even as Twitter's lofty stock market valuation added pressure on the company to turn a profit soon."

New York Times: "In a surprise choice that bodes poorly for proposed peace talks, the Pakistani Taliban on Thursday appointed as their new leader the hard-line commander [Mullah Fazlullah, who is] responsible for last year's attack on Malala Yousafzai, the teenage Pakistani education activist."

Being an Ex-King Is a Bummer. AFP: "Belgium's government ruled out any increase Thursday in the 923,000-euro allowance paid to King Albert II since his July abdication, despite reports he sees it as too little to live on." Also, he has to pay taxes. Also, a natural daughter filed suit to be officially recognized. Just rough all around.

Washington Post: "Federal prosecutors arrested a third senior Navy official in a widening bribery scandal Wednesday, charging that he delivered classified and other sensitive information to a major defense contractor in exchange for prostitutes, luxury travel and more than $100,000 in cash. Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez, 41, was arrested in Tampa on charges that he gave classified information about ship movements to Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a Singapore-based contractor that has resupplied and serviced Navy ships and submarines in the Pacific for a quarter-century."

AP: "Pakistan has freed former President Pervez Musharraf from his months-long house arrest, days after he received bail in a case related to the death of a radical cleric...."