The Commentariat -- January 6, 2014

Internal links removed.

Most of the people I meet who are on unemployment are people who have had jobs for 25 years, lost them, they've been knocking on doors every week. I think it's a little insulting, a bit insulting to American workers when Rand Paul says that unemployment insurance is a disservice. They want to work, they don't want unemployment benefits. They're just hanging on with unemployment benefits, you cut them off, they may lose the house they paid for, take their kids out of college. So I would hope he would reconsider, past the three month extension. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on ABC's "This Week" Sunday ...

... Mike Lillis & Vicki Needham of the Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) remains open to an extension of emergency unemployment benefits even in the face of growing conservative opposition to such a move. The Ohio Republican maintains the position he expressed last month that Republicans would 'clearly consider' an extension of federal help for the long-term unemployed 'as long as it's paid for and as long as there are other efforts that will help get our economy moving once again,' Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Friday." ...

... E. J. Dionne sees a United States of America. The majority of Americans favor unemployment compensation and other New Deal-y programs; it is Congressional Republicans who are out-of-step. ...

... Alec MacGillis of the New Republic on the Boeing machinist union's forced capitulation to Boeing's demands. "But to really address the underlying trends will also mean taking on the more fundamental forces that lead to an outcome like we just saw in the Puget Sound: strengthening labor laws and unions in right-to-work states...; raising taxes on upper incomes and capital gains to slightly rebalance the equation...; and, perhaps most difficult of all, changing the norms for acceptable behavior by corporate titans, even if they've been named to the presidential exports council." This is an excellent piece, which P. D. Pepe linked in yesterday's Comments. MacGillis asks a question which demands -- and will not receive -- a federal answer: strengthening unions nationwide.

Brian Knowlton of the New York Times: "A debate over whether Edward J. Snowden deserves lenience or the strict treatment the Obama administration has demanded for divulging a vast array of national secrets drew sharply opposing views on Sunday from two prominent senators. Senator Rand Paul ... said he disagreed with those who have argued for the most severe penalties for Mr. Snowden.... Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, took a directly opposing view. 'I disagree with Rand Paul that we should plea-bargain with him prior to him coming back,' Mr. Schumer said." ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker disagrees with Fred Kaplan's required Reality Chex reading. Her major point sounds like a quibble to me: Kaplan wrote that Snowden "signed an oath ... not to disclose classified information, and knew the penalties for violating the oath." But Davidson says he did not sign an oath; instead, he signed "a contract in which the signatory says he will 'accept' the terms, rather than swearing to them." Her argument then is that breaking a contractual agreement is not as bad as breaking one's word. Okay. Of course, she writes much more than that. ...

... Gene Lyons, noted hyperbolist, takes down novice hyperbolist Ed Snowden. CW: Lyons get a lot right, but he gets some pretty important stuff wrong, too: ferinstance, Snowden is probably not -- by the Constitutional definition -- a traitor, as Lyons claims, unless Snowden has been sending stuff to Al Qaeda & North Korea." Thanks to Barbarossa for the link.

Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors.... The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups.... Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations." ...

... Matea Gold: "The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics identified a coalition of allied conservative groups active in the 2012 elections that together raised at least $407 million, backed by a donor network organized by the industrialists Charles and David Koch." Gold lists the coalition's current members. A graphic here shows how the organizations interact.

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "On the 50th anniversary of LBJ's initiative, [the War on Poverty,] Marco Rubio says it failed.... But the policies did succeed -- Democrats are just afraid to say so.... We have not, of course, been fighting any kind of serious war on poverty for five decades. We fought it with truly adequate funding for about one decade.... By 1981, Ronald Reagan's government was fighting a war on the war on poverty. The fate of many anti-poverty programs has ebbed and flowed ever since. But at the beginning, in the '60s, those programs were fully funded, or close. And what happened? According to Joseph Califano, who worked in the Johnson White House, 'the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century.' That's a staggering 43 percent reduction. In six years." ...

... Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Half a century after Mr. Johnson’s now-famed State of the Union address, the debate over the government’s role in creating opportunity and ending deprivation has flared anew, with inequality as acute as it was in the Roaring Twenties and the ranks of the poor and near-poor at record highs."

Larry Summers, in a Washington Post op-ed, uses terms like "secular stagnation" to say that if the economy keeps going as it is, bubbles will grow & burst, & one way to avert that is to have the federal invest in infrastructure. I don't know if the guy really cannot communicate with the average reading public or if he can't help showing off. In any event, he's a terrible writer.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Ben Protess of the New York Times: JPMorgan Chase "plans to reach as soon as this week roughly $2 billion in criminal and civil settlements with federal authorities who suspect that it ignored signs of Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme, according to people briefed on the case."

Linda Greenhouse on the Fair Sentencing Act: When new laws call for more leniency, shouldn't that leniency apply retroactively? ...

... CW: Luckily for me, my own excellent Congressman Trey Radel (RTP-Fla.) is as white as, well the driven snow, & he will be going back to doing the people's work today now that his cocaine bust is behind him.

Jordan Sargent of Gawker: "Republican congressman Aaron Schock -- who represents Illinois' 18th congressional district -- is known for one thing: being pretty and probably-almost-certainly gay. Schock is anti-gay on the record and he's frequently affirmed his straightness, but he may be feeling a gust of air this morning thanks to a sledgehammer wielded by journalist Itay Hod." ...

... Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic objects to Hod's methods, which are at best sophomoric.

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "After a two-week vacation on the windward side of Oahu, ensconced with his family in a private beachfront rental, President Obama prepared on Saturday to return to the chillier clime -- both politically and weather-wise -- of the nation's capital."

Politico publishes an adaptation of a portion of a new book by CIA attorney John Rizzo. In this section, Rizzo recalls the decision-making process that allowed the CIA to use waterboarding & other "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" like sleep deprivation.

Another Right-Wing Senator Sues Instead of Legislating. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.): "On Monday, Jan. 6, I am filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America. By arranging for me and other members of Congress and their staffs to receive benefits intentionally ruled out by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the administration has exceeded its legal authority." ...

... ObamaCare is Doomed! ObamaCare Is a Scandal! Jonathan Chait: "... the nature of [Republican] opposition [to ObamaCare] will ... slowly morph. Gleeful predictions of imminent collapse will give way to bitter recriminations at the nefarious tactics used to make the law work. Obamacare will cease to be the something certain to destroy Obama and become something Obama has gotten away with." CW: Chait cites some recent Republican potshots at the law. Johnson's is another one. ...

... Noam Scheiber of the New Republic is optimistic: he says "ObamaCare actually paves the way to single-payer." CW: Despite the way Scheiber frames his post, he is actually saying pretty much the same thing Michael Moore said in a NYT op-ed; Scheiber is just providing more examples of how he thinks politicians will be forced to morph ObamaCare into a single-payer system.

A climate denier studies global warming.Eric Holthaus of the Daily Beast explains to climate deniers why scientists theorize that global warming is causing this week's (and others, of course) deep freeze. I don't think people who keep their ears covered in all weather conditions while yelling "La La La" & shutting their eyes tight will get this.

Here's Mitt Romney's response to the Melissa Harris-Perry segment. I think he did fine. Chris Wallace, however, couldn't let it go:

Bob Schieffer has had about enough of Peggy Noonan -- which does make you wonder why his producers book Our Lady of Las Contras:

... Lest you have forgot why Peggy Noonan should know who was a Sandinista & who was not, David of Crooks & Liars reminds you of why she should know. ...

... Save the Children! Charles Pierce recaps Sunday show highlights. It turns out that almost everybody on these shows -- with the exception of Republican Steve Schmidt -- is a David Brooks clone, as if you didn't already know. ...

... Save the Children! Driftglass recaps Sunday show highlights. It turns out that almost everybody on these shows is a David Brooks clone, & the evidence suggests Greggers has a contractual obligation to recite Brooks verbatim.

Senate Race

Buh-bye to a Daughter of a Dick. John King & Peter Hamby of CNN: "Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday." CW: Worth Noting: Enzi himself is a Son of a Bitch. ...

... Brent Logiurato of Business Insider: "There was little public polling conducted on the race, but each public and partisan poll showed Enzi with wide leads." ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Liz Cheney announced early Monday morning that she is withdrawing from the Wyoming Republican Senate primary, bringing an abrupt end to her unsteady challenge to the incumbent, Michael B. Enzi. 'Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign,' Ms. Cheney said in a statement. 'My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority.'" Cheney didn't say what the health issues were. ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "On the plus side, thanks to her public feud with her lesbian sister over gay marriage, Liz now knows she's Dick and Lynne Cheney's favorite daughter."

Presidential Race 2016

Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Publicly, [Hillary] Clinton insists she's many months away from a decision about her political future. But a shadow campaign on her behalf has nevertheless been steadily building for the better part of a year -- a quiet, intensifying, improvisational effort to lay the groundwork for another White House bid. Some of the activity has the former first lady's tacit approval. Some involves outside groups that are operating independently, and at times in competition with one another, to prepare a final career act for the former senator and secretary of state, whose legacy as the most powerful woman in the history of American politics is already secure." ...

... CW: Since Haberman's story is about a shadow campaign, not a shadowy candidate, this photo that accompanies the piece is a low blow:

AP photo.

Local News

** AP Brief: " The Supreme Court has put same-sex marriages on hold in Utah, at least while a federal appeals court more fully considers the issue. The court issued a brief order Monday blocking any new same-sex unions in the state."

     ... Update. Adam Liptak of the New York Times has a fuller story.

Alex Altman of Time: "The early success of pot's pilot program [in Colorado] was ushered in by a phenomenon almost as rare: a government working as it should."

News Ledes

Live Science: "A blast of Arctic air pushing south as far as Atlanta has caused air temperatures across the United States to plunge, creating a massive 140-degree Fahrenheit (77 degrees Celsius) temperature difference between the chilly Dakotas and balmy Florida yesterday (Jan. 5)."

New York Times: "Iran could improve its chances of playing at least a limited role in the upcoming peace conference on Syria if it persuaded President Bashar al-Assad to stop the bombardment of Aleppo and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged towns and cities, senior State Department officials said on Monday."

It Isn't Fair

He deserves to live in this country in as much peace as Orlando Bosch did, and with as many career opportunities as have been afforded Elliott Abrams and Ollie North, who did not release information for free but, rather, some missiles to terror states for money. – Blogger Charles Pierce, arguing that the U.S. should bring no charges against Edward Snowden, Friday

I suddenly had the thought that Snowden is the black guy caught for smoking pot while Cheney and his Bush, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are the white pot smoking college students. Who of the above killed more people and who of the above faces the most severe penalties? I don't condone Snowden; I sure as hell don't think he should suffer worse than those guys. – Reality Chex Contributor Citizen 625, Saturday

“It isn't fair.” Every toddler has said it. If that toddler is not fully socialized, he will keep on making the same complaint all his life, insisting that he should have more as others have less. He will become a conservative. If, on the other hand, he is properly integrated into the community, he will be able to empathize with others who, for one reason or another, do not receive equal treatment. He will become a liberal who wishes to live in a society governed by laws and rules that treat everyone with impartiality and fairness.

“It isn't fair” is the sentiment that underlies Charles Pierce's and Citizen 625's analogies. I get that. I feel it myself. But the "reasoning" is facile and illogical. As I wrote in response to Pierce's post, “This is the 'two wrongs make a right' fallacy.... 'George Zimmerman beat a murder rap so every murderer should get off scot-free.'” Friday, several contributors elaborated on my comment. Nonetheless, we did not dissuade Citizen 625 from making essentially the same argument Pierce made.

Pierce's examples of bad guys who got away with murder are particularly inapt. Bosch was never convicted of the major crime of which he was accused, he denied responsibility, and the Venezuelan government held him in jail for four years awaiting trial. Abrams is Pierce's best case, but it should be remembered that Abrams, like North, was working in and with the government rather than against it. Bush I pardoned Abrams and Bush II gave Abrams a job because Abrams was playing on their team. North was fired (by Reagan), prosecuted and convicted. He received a suspended sentence, probation, a substantial fine and a community service stint, some of which he did before ACLU lawyers got his conviction vacated. I don't feel sorry for any of these guys, but North did pay a price for his perjury and destruction of evidence and Bosch paid a price, too.

Citizen 625's analogies, though faulty for the same reason as Pierce's, are at least marginally better than Pierce's. It was, after all, the same Justice Department – Obama's – that decided not to prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz but has brought charges against Snowden. Yet again the situations are not analogous. Not only were Citizen 625's bad guys all working on the side of the U.S. government, they were the government. In addition, their attack on Iraq had overwhelming Congressional support. Would it be possible to find these guys individually guilty of war crimes? Maybe. But they had a helluva a lot of help. Are you going to charge Hillary Clinton, too? What about John Kerry? He was for it before he was against it, ya know. Better toss in most of the Bush administration's senior national security staff. And definitely George Slam-Dunk Tenet. Jailing (or executing!) American leaders who take the nation into ill-advised wars and who violate human rights in carrying out those wars would arguably lead to untenable governmental instability. There are, after all, good arguments against almost every war effort. For strictly pragmatic reasons, Obama's DOJ was probably right in not prosecuting – or threatening to prosecute – officials of the prior administration.

The war in Iraq -- stupid, unjustified, outrageous though it was -- was a lawful political action, sanctioned and carried out by those who had the Constitutional power and political backing to take the country to war. Ed Snowden does not enjoy that cover of law.

Is it “fair” that Dick Cheney spent Christmas in Wyoming shilling for his despicable daughter while Ed Snowden spent Christmas in Russia trying to get the hell out of there? Probably not. But our system of government is designed to protect Cheney and to prosecute Snowden. Cheney knew that when he did whatever he did that might have been war crimes. Snowden knew that, too, when he did what he did. Their situations are not analogous.

But even if their crimes were analogous, even if they were just alike, one systemic failure or miscarriage of justice does not justify another. Failures of the past certainly do not mandate that the system fail in perpetuity, as both Pierce and Citizen 625 suggest. Even when the relative outcomes are not fair.

P.S. Do not comment on this post, please, unless you have read Fred Kaplan on clemency for Snowden. Also, kindly spare us from Reductio ad Hitlerum in your commentary. Thank you.

The Commentariat -- January 5, 2014

Ben Hubbard, et al., of the New York Times: "... for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region's sectarian hatreds. Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in both Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries' conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism. Behind much of it is the bitter rivalry of two great oil powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rulers -- claiming to represent Shiite and Sunni Islam, respectively -- cynically deploy a sectarian agenda that makes almost any sort of accommodation a heresy."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: The idea of amnesty for Edward Snowden "won widespread attention last month when Richard Ledgett, who leads an N.S.A. task force evaluating damage from the disclosures, said on the CBS News program '60 Minutes' that it was 'worth having a conversation about' it to prevent further revelations. That position won further attention in the last week with editorials in The Guardian and The New York Times urging clemency.... Debates about the idea played out on CNN, ABC and elsewhere, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, posted a message on Twitter in favor of clemency. But inside the White House and the Justice Department, Mr. Ledgett's suggestion has been met with stony opposition. The administration has made no move to reach out to negotiate any kind of deal and makes clear that it has no plans to." ...

... CW: I'm really sorry I missed this segment, which aired about two weeks ago. It seems to me both Greenwald & Toobin get stuff wrong. To their credit, both of these often-over-the-top commentators behave themselves:

Michael Hiltzig of the Los Angeles Times: "Here's a business practice likely to keep booming in 2014: corporate extortion.... By the estimate of the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, state and local tax incentives funnel $50 billion in tax revenue into corporate coffers every year. On a national basis, ITEP says, this is worse than a zero-sum game: The incentives are 'much more likely to reshuffle investment between geographic areas than ... to spur genuinely new economic activity.' The trendsetter for the coming year may turn out to be Boeing. The aerospace company has been dangling the prospect of a big airliner production facility in front of several states, including California, since mid-November. That's when union machinists in Everett, Wash., rejected its demands for big concessions on pension and healthcare benefits. The process started only days after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed the biggest state tax break in history into law -- a package that will give Boeing up to $8.7 billion in benefits through 2040." ...

... Scott Hamilton of CNN: "A standoff between Boeing and thousands of unionized workers based in Washington state came to an unexpected end Friday after workers voted in favor of a contract to build the company's new commercial jet. The deal keeps economic activity worth billions inside the state, and means hundreds of thousands of jobs will be retained."

Frank Bruni writes a moving column about a dying man who just received an honorable discharge from the Marines after having been given a "less than honorable" discharge in 1956 when his superior learned he was gay. "... now that the military accepts gays, there is also a process that permits those who were dishonorably discharged to appeal for reclassifications of those dismissals as honorable. A military spokesman said last week that he didn't know how many veterans had sought to take advantage of it, or with what success." CW: I hope Bruni's column leads to more affected ex-servicemen & women learning of the new policy & taking advantage of it.

Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "More than 100,000 Americans who applied for insurance through HealthCare.gov and were told they are eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remain unenrolled because of lingering software defects in the federal online marketplace.... To try to provide coverage to these people before they seek medical care, the Obama administration has launched a barrage of phone calls in recent days in 21 states, advising those who applied that the quickest route into the programs is to start over at their state's Medicaid agency."

Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's inspector general will investigate a federal agency whose mission is to exterminate birds, coyotes, mountain lions and other animals that threaten the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers. The investigation of U.S. Wildlife Services is to determine, among other things, 'whether wildlife damage management activities were justified and effective.' Biologists have questioned the agency's effectiveness, arguing that indiscriminately killing more than 3 million birds and other wild animals every year is often counterproductive. Reps. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) and John Campbell (R-Irvine) requested the review, calling for a complete audit of the culture within Wildlife Services. The agency has been accused of abuses, including animal cruelty and occasional accidental killing of endangered species, family pets and other animals that weren't targeted."

Salon republishes a portion of A Neurobiography of the Brain by D. F. Swaab. In this section, Swaab discusses the religious brain & the evolutionary advantages of religion.

TBogg, in a funny piece in the Raw Story, predicts how Mitt Romney will address the Melissa Harris-Perry hoohah: "Unless Ann Romney is on with him, because Ann will cut a bitch, Mitt will probably be firm but gracious and will talk about the importance of family and about love being color blind and he will say that it is time to move on and maybe he'll make a little joke and will smile that uncomfortable-with-human-emotions grimace-smile of his and will end up kind of laughing this whole nothing-burger off. HA HA HA HA HA HA." CW: We'll learn later in the day if TBogg is an oracle. ...

     ... Update: Katie Glueck of Politico: "Mitt Romney said on Sunday he's forgiven MSNBC after a host and other panelists on the network made comments about his adopted black grandchild. Speaking on 'Fox News Sunday,' the former Republican presidential candidate said he accepted the apology of MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, who a day earlier offered an emotional on-air walk-back." CW: Sounds as if Mitt was gracious. Wait for the video.

Local News

Susan Craig & Jesse McKinley of the New York Times: "Joining a growing group of states that have loosened restrictions on marijuana, [New York] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York plans this week to announce an executive action that would allow limited use of the drug by those with serious illnesses, state officials say."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Australian officials have asked an American icebreaker to help with the rescue of Chinese and Russian vessels that are surrounded by ice floes off Antarctica...."

AP: " U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that America would support Iraq in its fight against al-Qaida-linked militants who have overrun two cities in the country's west, but said the U.S. wouldn't send troops, calling the battle 'their fight.'"

AP: "Two warring factions from South Sudan held direct peace talks on Sunday for the first time since conflict began roiling the country last month, sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing for safety."

AP: "The deep freeze expected soon in the Midwest, New England and even the South will be one to remember, with potential record-low temperatures heightening fears of frostbite and hypothermia. It hasn't been this cold for decades...."

Yahoo! News: "A Delta jet skidded off the runway at John F. Kennedy International airport shortly after landing, the Federal Aviation Administration said. There were no immediate reports of injuries but the New York airport is now closed due to ice and snow, airport officials said."