The Commentariat -- Jan. 24, 2013
My column in the New York Times eXaminer calls out New York Times business columnist Eduardo Porter for writing a column founded on phony facts. ...
... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "Given our current trajectory, it's safe to say that even by 2016 the biggest increase in [federal] spending, by far, will have come during the Bush years." With a chart to prove it.
Daily Kos has a petition urging Harry Reid to pass powerful filibuster reform with only Democratic votes. They will email the signatures to Reid's office Thursday morning.
Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Democratic lawmakers plan to formally reintroduce a bill Thursday that would ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, the most ambitious -- and politically risky -- element of proposals unveiled by President Obama to limit gun violence. The 'Assault Weapons Ban of 2013' is similar to one passed in 1994 that expired with little protest in 2004. The measure will be unveiled Thursday morning by a slate of Democratic co-sponsors, led by longtime gun control advocates Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (N.Y.), who have pushed for the ban before in part because of their personal histories with gun violence." ...
... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "If there is a path to new gun laws, it has to come through West Virginia and a dozen other states with Democratic senators like [Sen. Joe] Manchin [ConservaD-W.Va.] who are confronting galvanized constituencies that view any effort to tighten gun laws as an infringement."
Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Reelected and unconcerned about ever having to face voters again, [President] Obama seems determined to push a far-reaching agenda -- on guns, climate change and gay rights, among other topics -- that looks toward his presidential legacy. [Harry] Reid (D-Nev.), significantly more encumbered, must worry about how to protect 20 Democratic-held Senate seats that will be up for grabs in 2014, while Republicans are defending only 14 spots. For some Democrats up for reelection next year, supporting the president will be politically treacherous terrain, and no issue may capture that disconnect better than gun control."
House Republicans Surrender, Declare Victory. Jed Lewison of Daily Kos has the details.
Gail Collins writes a moving column on military women serving in combat positions. ...
... "Misconceptions." Linda Greenhouse on the history of abortion rights. Her commentary on the "real reason" the Justices ruled for Roe is eye-opening.
** Jesse Eisenger of ProPublica, in the New York Times: "We are never going to have a full understanding of what bad behavior bankers engaged in in the years leading up to the financial crisis. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have failed to hold big wrongdoers to account." But a few private lawsuits, like one brought against Morgan Stanley, "are explosive. Hundreds of pages of internal Morgan Stanley documents, released publicly last week, shed much new light on what bankers knew at the height of the housing bubble and what they did with that secret knowledge.... The documents suggest a pattern of behavior larger than this one deal: people across the bank understood that the American housing market was in trouble. They took advantage of that knowledge to create and then bet against securities and then also to unload garbage investments on unsuspecting buyers."
Jill Lawrence of the National Journal: "President Obama says he's very concerned about income inequality. If he wants to elevate that issue in his second term, he should consider naming Jennifer Granholm as his next Labor secretary. The Current TV host and former two-term Michigan governor would be a highly symbolic choice, given that her Republican successor recently signed a law making Michigan -- birthplace of the organized labor movement -- a right-to-work state."
There Is Plenty the Matter with Kansas. John Eligon of the New York Times: "This month, the largest tax cut in Kansas history took effect, and most of its Medicaid system was handed over to private insurers. [A] bill introduced this week would pare taxes further, with the goal of eventually eliminating the state's individual income tax. [Gov. Sam] Brownback [RTP] has already slashed the state's welfare roll and its work force. He has merged government agencies and is proposing further consolidation. He is pushing for pension changes, to change the way judges are selected and for altering education financing formulas." State taxes on the poor are rising as services decline; taxes on the rich have gone down.
Thomas Edsell in the New York Times: "... much of the Republican electorate, as presently constructed, is profoundly committed -- morally and ideologically -- to 'traditional values.' You're asking groups of people to change who were brought together by their resistance to change. Their opposition to change is why they are Republicans." AND here are maddening facts Edsell includes,
In North Carolina, Bloomberg news found that Democrats won 2.22 million votes to 2.14 million cast for Republican candidates, but Republicans won 9 of the state's 13 House seats. Similarly, in Pennsylvania, Democrats won 2.7 million votes to the Republicans' 2.6 million, but Democrats ended up with only 5 of the state's 18 districts.
Ryu Spaeth, writing in The Week on the President's inaugural address. "Throughout his speech, Obama subtly argued that the Constitution and other founding documents do not have all the answers; that wisdom and foresight is not exclusive to a group of men from the 18th century; and that it is up to a new generation, confident in its own hard-won knowledge and abilities, to chart a path forward." CW: Spaeth is right. The philosophical chasm between Obama & Sir Nino Scalia could not be wider. It is not for nothing the Supreme Martyr looked as furious as funny. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "Obama chose to embrace an old but often-forgotten tradition of closely associating liberalism with the 'positive freedoms' necessary to make 'negative freedoms' meaningful.... In particular, Obama made the long-lost liberal case that collective action is necessary to the achievement of individual freedom, instead of implicitly conceding that social goals and individual interests are inherently at war." ...
... Kenneth Baer, a former member of the Obama administration, in a Washington Post op-ed: the concepts Obama expressed were "firmly mainstream." And Newt Gingrich didn't think it was very liberal. ...
... E. J. Dionne: Obama's role model is Ronald Reagan. "Like Reagan, Obama hopes to usher in a long-term electoral realignment -- in Obama's case toward the moderate left, thereby reversing the 40th president's political legacy. The Reagan metaphor helps explain the tone of Obama's inaugural address, built ... on a philosophical argument for a progressive vision of the country rooted in our history."
Jamelle Bouie: the Republican plan to rig the presidential election "would take the existing malapportionment of our political system -- rural states have more representation relative to their populations -- and amplify it by an incredible extent.... If implemented on a large scale, this scheme would result in mass disenfranchisement, and rival Jim Crow in the number of people it (effectively) removed from the electoral process.... A large number of those disenfranchised would be African Americans." ...
... Ari Berman of The Nation: "Election reform should be a top priority of the new Congress." CW: yes, it should. And good luck with that.
The Cowardly, Lyin'. Paul Krugman has a takedown of Paul Ryan that is not to be missed. ...
... BUT Krugman's arch-rival, Jon Stewart, does him one better. Pretty much everything you need to know about Lyin' Ryan:
Secretary Clinton in one of the finer moments during her testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee answering the intelligence-challenged Ron Johnson (RTP-Wisconsin):
... Dana Milbank seems to have a lot more respect for Clinton today than he did back in the day he reserved a bottle of Mad Bitch beer for her. ...
... Steve Benen wrote a great post on Sen. Johnson back in November when Johnson said Americans were too damned dumb to appreciate the conservative message. In the same news conference, he announced he would tutor his new Senate colleague Tammy Baldwin (Big D-Wis.) on fiscal matters because of his superior knowledge of the federal budget. Johnson was elected to public office for the first time in 2010. Baldwin, a mathematician, "has been in public office for two decades" and in the House since 1999. Benen noted,
For the record, Ron Johnson believes affordable contraception is easily distributed over the Internet, thinks 'sunspot activity' is responsible for global warming, believes the Great Recession ended before President Obama took office; and sees public investment in alternative energy as roughly the same thing as 'the Soviet Union.'
CW: wouldn't it be fun to go to a meeting of the GOP Ignoramus Club? Here you have Louisiana State Sen. Mike Walsworth auditioning for club membership in remarks that leave the witness flabbergasted. Thanks to Phil Platt Plait of Slate, Zack Kopplin of Louisiana & Akhilleus for bringing us documentary evidence of a genuine specimen proving the existence of evolutionary throwbacks. Science Is Awesome:
Nicholas Kristof's column sort of irritated me. I'd like to know what you thought of it.
Mark Landler of the New York Times: Benjamin "Netanyahu's weakened position could set the stage for ... an improvement in his ties with [President Obama]."
Local News
Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "Rhode Island, the only state in New England that has not legalized gay marriage, began taking up the matter this week. The State House is expected to pass a bill Thursday that would allow anyone to marry 'any eligible person regardless of gender.'"
Grammar Lesson*
Merriam-Webster sez: "Farther and further have been used more or less interchangeably throughout most of their history, but currently they are showing signs of diverging. As adverbs they continue to be used interchangeably whenever spatial, temporal, or metaphorical distance is involved. But where there is no notion of distance, further is used 'our techniques can be further refined'. Further is also used as a sentence modifier 'further, the workshop participants were scarcely optimistic -- L. B. Mayhew', but farther is not. A polarizing process appears to be taking place in their adjective use. Farther is taking over the meaning of distance 'the farther shore' and further the meaning of addition 'needed no further invitation.'"
* See Comments.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The Rhode Island House of Representatives on Thursday handily passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, paving the way for a showdown in the State Senate in the only New England state where it is not allowed."
Christian Science Monitor: "A federal judge in Chicago sentenced an American citizen to 35 years in prison on Thursday for his role in providing surveillance information and videos laying the groundwork for the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, that left more than 160 dead and hundreds wounded. David Coleman Headley, a US citizen of Pakistani heritage, was arrested in October 2009. He agreed shortly afterward to cooperate with US investigators and intelligence officials, and he testified against one of his fellow co-conspirators."
New York Times: "As French forces fight Islamist rebels in Mali, the country has ramped up police and army presence at home and is sending special forces to help protect uranium production sites in Niger."
Reuters: "The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell to its lowest since the early days of the 2007-09 recession, a hopeful sign for the sluggish labor market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 330,000, the lowest level since January 2008, the Labor Department said on Thursday."
AP: "President Barack Obama will nominate Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, tapping an attorney with broad experience in prosecuting white-collar crimes to lead an agency that has a central role in implementing Wall Street reform. A White House official said the president would announce White's nomination during a ceremony in the State Dining Room Thursday afternoon. At the same event, Obama will renominate Richard Cordray to serve as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.... The president used a recess appointment last year to ... install Cordray as head of the bureau." ...
... New York Times Update: "In its choice of Ms. White and Mr. Cordray, the White House is sending a signal about the importance of holding Wall Street accountable for wrongdoing. Both picks are former prosecutors."
AP: "Democratic Sen. John Kerry, on a smooth path to confirmation as secretary of state, is likely to face friendly questioning when he testifies before the committee that he's served on for 28 years and led for the past four. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman will sit at the witness table Thursday when he appears before the panel.... The five-term Massachusetts senator is widely expected to win overwhelming bipartisan support...." ...
... Washington Post Update: "Sen. John F. Kerry, testifying before a Senate committee on his nomination to become secretary of state, said U.S. foreign policy is defined by much more than military intervention abroad and the fight against terrorism, and he called for consensus on promoting American leadership on matters ranging from food security to climate change."
Washington Post: "North Korea threatened Thursday to carry out a nuclear test as part of an 'all-out action' against the U.S., which it called the 'main player' behind recently adopted international sanctions."