The Commentariat -- March 30, 2013
The President's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here.
Stupid President Tricks. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting that President Obama is 'strongly considering' including cuts to social insurance program benefits in his budget. The budget is slated to be released on April 10, the same day Obama is having yet another charm offensive dinner with Senate Republicans." ...
... Digby: "Remember, SS doesn't contribute a dime to the deficit.... Let's be clear: this is deficit reduction on the backs of middle class workers, the elderly, the disabled and Veterans. Oh, and by the way, cutting vital programs in exchange for increasing taxes on the middle class and getting some temporary chump change from millionaires as a cover is not a balanced approach. And for those Democrats like me who backed the health care reform because of the Medicaid expansion, well we really are a bunch of suckers.... If he's looking to cut Medicaid now, I guess we can assume that the only part of that legacy he cares about is the one that benefits the private insurers." ...
... "If Only the Czar Knew." Susie Madrak wants you to call the White House. "The White House switchboard is 202-456-1414, the comments line is 202-456-1111." Read her post, too. ...
... Kevin Freking of the AP: "Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already. Government benefits are adjusted according to inflation, and President Barack Obama has endorsed using a slightly different measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits. Benefits would still grow but at a slower rate."
President Obama spoke about infrastructure & the economy yesterday:
The New Yorker's Jeffery Toobin & Margaret Talbot talk with Dorothy Wickenden about how the Supreme Court hearings on the gay marriage cases, how the Court might rule, and "what the decisions could mean for marriage equality":
Share Article The Commentariat -- March 29, 2013
Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "The Environmental Protection Agency will move ahead Friday with rules requiring cleaner gasoline and cars nationwide, despite fierce protests from the oil industry and some conservative Democrats, according to several individuals briefed on the matter. The proposed rules -- which had been stuck in regulatory limbo since December 2011 in the face of intense political opposition -- would cut the amount of sulfur in U.S. gasoline by two-thirds and impose fleetwide pollution limits on new vehicles by 2017."
Jon Chait of New York: Republicans are already forgetting they ever opposed gay marriage. ...
... E. J. Graff of the American Prospect writes movingly of her attendance at Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing of the DOMA case. ...
... David von Drehle in Time (cover story): gay marriage has already won. "The rise of same-sex marriage from joke to commonplace is a story of converging strands of history. Changes in law and politics, medicine and demographics, popular culture and ivory-tower scholarship all added momentum to produce widespread changes of heart." ...
... Matt Tunseth of the Chugiak-Eagle River Star: "U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski [R-Alaska] said Wednesday that her views on gay marriage are 'evolving' and that she's reviewing her stance on the issue 'very closely.'"
Michael Tomasky of Newsweek: "There is no question that it's a concerted strategy on Republicans' part to make sure that Obama leaves office having put zero judges on the [D.C. District] court." ...
... New York Times Editors: "Republicans clearly have no interest in dropping their favorite pastime [-- the filibuster --] but Democrats could put a stop to this malicious behavior by changing the Senate rules and prohibiting, at long last, all filibusters on nominations."
Paul Krugman: with the numbers refusing to back up deficit scolds, "talk of a fiscal crisis has subsided. Yet the deficit scolds haven't given up on their determination to bully the nation into slashing Social Security and Medicare. So they have a new line: We must bring down the deficit right away because it's 'generational warfare,' imposing a crippling burden on the next generation.... we're cheating our children.... by neglecting public investment and failing to provide jobs.... Our sin involves investing too little, not borrowing too much -- and the deficit scolds, for all their claims to have our children's interests at heart, are actually the bad guys in this story." ...
... Brad DeLong of UC-Berkeley: "... my conclusion is that I should stop calling the current episode the Lesser Depression. Yes, its shape is different from that of the Great Depression; but, so far at least, there is no reason to rank it any lower in the hierarchy of macroeconomic disasters." Via Greg Sargent.
Jordan Weissmann of the Atlantic: "Our food stamp rolls are eye popping, but they're not the problem. Poverty is."
President Obama spoke yesterday about saving the nation's children from gun violence:
... Jeremy Peters & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "With resistance to tougher gun laws stiffening in Congress, a visibly frustrated President Obama on Thursday implored lawmakers and the nation not to lose sight of the horrors of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn." ...
... Gene Robinson: "... it's hard for me to accept that the right to 'keep and bear arms' extends to the kind of arsenal that Adam Lanza -- and his mother, Nancy, whom he also killed -- assembled and kept in their home." See also yesterday's Ledes.
... Annie-Rose Strasser of Think Progress: "Minutes before President Obama delivered an emotional speech asking lawmakers to pass sensible gun safety measures in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, word came from Capitol Hill that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) had signed onto a letter pledging to block votes on any of Obama's proposals for gun legislation."
Kevin Drum: "... conservatives sure do seem to thrive on a continuing parade of weirdly invented, personality-driven scandalettes in a way that liberals don't."
Taylor Berman of Gawker: "In an interview with local radio station KRBD, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) recalled his father's ranch and the old fashioned way things were done on it.... 'My father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 or 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,' Young said in the interview.... Young apologized later, blaming the usage on his upbringing.... Looks like the GOP's effort to reach more Latino voters is going exactly as planned." ...
... Actually, Think Progress & the Alaska Daily News note that "Young stopped short of apologizing." ...
... Charles Pierce: "You know what was a term that was commonly used during my days growing up in Central Massachusetts? 'Dickhead.' But I mean no disrespect."
Local News
Tim Egan: California is back!
Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "At an emotional announcement Thursday inside Faneuil Hall, [Thomas M.] Menino slowly navigated his way up the center aisle with his wife, Angela, to the thunderous applause from official Boston as well as city workers and admirers from the neighborhoods. Over the loudspeaker, Frank Sinatra crooned his defiant anthem, 'My Way.' 'I am here with the people I love, to tell the city I love, that I will leave the job that I love,' Mr. Menino, 70, the city's longest-serving mayor, told the standing-room-only crowd of well-wishers. He said essentially that he was not up to the job, at least not the way he wanted to do it. After illnesses last year that left him hospitalized for two months, he said he could not keep up his schedule...." Boston Globe story here.
Little Kenny Is Still a Brat. Washington Post Editors: Virginia "Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) tried to take some of the credit for himself [for passage of Virginia's sweeping transportation bill].... It would be easier to credit Mr. Cuccinelli if he hadn't opposed the bill tooth-and-nail when the General Assembly considered it, condemning the legislation as a 'massive tax increase' and pushing for a right-wing alternative. It would be easier still if the attorney general didn't have a long history of opposing serious transportation policy in service to a no-tax creed.... If Mr. Cuccinelli wants to associate himself with the success of this transportation bill, he should endorse it first."
CW: In case you thought there could not be a legislator worse than Louie Gohmert or Michele Bachmann, there is -- or was -- and he's a Democrat. Laura Zuckerman of Reuters: "The Nevada State Assembly expelled Democratic Assemblyman Steven Brooks on Thursday after he was arrested twice this year, in the first time the chamber ousted a member in the history of the state legislature.... Brooks was arrested in February outside his Las Vegas home on suspicion of domestic battery and obstructing officers. Police said he had attacked a member of his family. In January, he was arrested on suspicion of leveling a death threat against the incoming Assembly speaker, Marilyn Kirkpatrick, a Democrat from North Las Vegas. Police say they found Brooks driving around with a handgun and 41 rounds of ammunition when they arrested him on January 19." ...
... Update: I guess Brooks is "disturbed." And trying to buy more guns.
News Ledes
New York Times: A Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury indicted former Atlanta district school superintendent Beverly Hall on charges of "racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements."
New York Times: "A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation's fruits and vegetables.... Beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor."
AP: "Prosecutors in the Colorado theater massacre case have rejected an offer from suspect James Holmes to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, saying the proposal can't be considered genuine because the defense has repeatedly refused to give them information needed to evaluate it. No plea agreement exists, prosecutors said in a scathing court document Thursday, and one 'is extremely unlikely based on the present information available to the prosecution.'"
Reuters: "The U.N. Security Council on Thursday approved the creation of a unique new combat force that is to carry out 'targeted offensive operations' to neutralize armed groups in conflict-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo."
Reuters: "Car bombs hit four Shi'ite mosques in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and another in Kirkuk just after prayers on Friday, tearing into crowds of worshippers and killing 17, police and witnesses said."
AP: "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned Friday that his rocket forces were ready 'to settle accounts with the U.S.,' unleashing a new round of bellicose rhetoric after U.S. nuclear-capable B-2 bombers dropped dummy munitions in joint military drills with South Korea." CW: bee extinction is a much greater threat to the U.S. than is North Korea.
Reuters: "The president of Cyprus said on Friday the risk of bankruptcy had been contained and the country had no intention of leaving the euro, in a speech laden with criticism of Europe's currency union for 'experimenting' with the island's fate."
AP: "A U.S. Army veteran, who boasted on Facebook of his military adventures with Syrian rebels, was charged Thursday with firing rocket propelled grenades as part of an attack led by an al-Qaida group against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Eric Harroun, 30, of Phoenix, was charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction -- specifically, a rocket propelled grenade launcher -- outside the U.S."
Reuters: Michael Steinberg, a portfolio manager at SAC Capital Advisors, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at his residence in New York City early Friday morning in connection with an insider trading investigation...."
The Commentariat -- March 28, 2013
** James Downie of the Washington Post: "The White House’s apathy [toward too-big-to-fail banks] is particularly bizarre when ending too big to fail is not just good policy but good politics as well." Read the whole post.
Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Obama wants to see the Supreme Court rule on the merits of the same-sex marriage arguments they heard this week, he said Wednesday, even though his solicitor general suggested that the court should not be considering one of the cases under review." ...
... ** Separate and Unequal. Ron Brownstein of the National Journal on why the Supremes should rule on the merits: "In the absence of national rules from Congress or the Supreme Court, the country often has let 'the states experiment' with inimical courses for a very long time on questions at least as weighty. The most obvious is slavery, which existed in the South until the Civil War ended it almost nine decades after Vermont first banned the practice in its colonial constitution. After the war, Tennessee in 1882 ignited a burst of laws across the South mandating racial segregation. Even after the Supreme Court upheld these 'separate but equal' laws in its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, few jurisdictions outside of the South followed.... The justices are waiting for a cavalry that won't arrive if they are hoping that the states will establish a common set of rules for same-sex marriage before the Court itself must act." ...
... ** Emily Bazelon of Slate: Paul Clement, who was defending DOMA for House Republicans had his "diciest moment [during yesterday's Supreme Court hearing] ... when Justice Elena Kagan ... said that 'for the most part and historically, the only uniformity that the federal government has pursued' is uniform recognition of marriages recognized by the states. Federal law has followed state law. 'This statute does something that's really never been done before,' Kagan continued, and the question is whether 'that sends up a pretty red flag.' Then she hoisted that flag.... 'I'm going to quote from the House report here: "Congress decided to reflect and honor collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality."' 'Does the House report say that?' Clement asked, before catching himself: 'Of course the House report says that. And if that's enough to invalidate the statute, then you should invalidate the statute.' Maybe that's the whole case right there." ...
... Richard Socarides of the New Yorker: "... the question of heightened scrutiny is the most important issue in [the DOMA] case. If the Court articulates a new and more forward-leaning standard of review in sexual-orientation-discrimination cases, as advocates hope, it would be truly transformative -- so much so that even if the Court decided not to rule in yesterday's Proposition 8 case, anti-gay-marriage laws would soon be doomed in any future litigation." ...
... Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "However the justices rule, what was perhaps most notable in the two days of oral arguments concerning these marriage equality cases is that the lawyers for those opposing gay rights believe their side will ultimately lose this battle -- if not in the courts, than in the political realm." ...
Kate M. sends along this image:
... AND that reminds me: the Court's conservatives need a history lesson. Tuesday in Court Justice Alito said, "Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years." Actually, no, as The Week staff illuminated last year: "the institution has been in a process of constant evolution." Alito's definition of "always" (as in "that's the way we've always done it ["it" being whatever], so it's morally wrong to change it") is "as long as I can remember." Alito ascribes to the egocentric "history begins with me" school of thought.
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "During Wednesday's Supreme Court arguments on same-sex marriage, Chief Justice John Roberts asserted that President Barack Obama's decision to keep carrying out the Defense of Marriage Act after concluding that it was unconstitutional indicated that he lacked "the courage of his convictions.' But Chief Justice John Roberts was involved in an arguably similar situation back in 1990, when the George H.W. Bush administration refused to defend a legislative rider on affirmative action even as the underlying federal agency continued to abide by it."
Ezra Klein: "Sorry, Justice Scalia, there's no evidence that gay parents aren't great parents.... According to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, 400,00 children are living in the United States without permanent families.... We should be begging gay couples to adopt children. We should see this as a great boon that gay marriage could bring to kids who need nothing more than two loving parents."
Profile in Courage. Greg Sargent: "As best as I can determine, there is only one Democrat in the Senate from a red or swing state right now who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act back in 1996: Sherrod Brown of Ohio." ...
... Profile in Weasly, Smarmy, Lying Cowardice: Bob Shrum in the Daily Beast: "I wrote in No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner about Bill Clinton's 2004 advice to John Kerry that he should consider supporting a ban on same sex marriage. I'm obviously not the only source: Newsweek independently reported the story eight years ago. My book came out six years ago and no one denied the accounts then or since then -- until now. A Clinton spokesman told The New York Times that the anecdote was completely false. But the story is true and I stand by it."
The oft-married, childless Rush Limbaugh says gay marriage is inevitable because of the influence of the "gay mafia ... has inflicted the fear of political death" on opponents. Guess he's giving up on the sanctity of serial "traditional" marriage.
Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: abortion is likely headed back to the Supreme Court as states purposely pass laws that are clearly unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade. "Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood..., said she thinks the Supreme Court will not take away women's right to choose. I hope she's right."
"Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three-Strikes Laws." Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose 'third strike' is not a serious crime, thousands of people -- the overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite -- remain imprisoned for a variety of offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders reads like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine."
Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times on CIA personnel moves described in yesterday's Washington Post: "A C.I.A. officer directly involved in the 2005 decision to destroy videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of two detainees who were members of Al Qaeda has ascended to the top position within the agency's clandestine service.... The decision about whether to keep the officer in the job presents a dilemma for John O. Brennan, the new C.I.A. director, who said during his confirmation hearing last month that he was opposed to interrogation methods used by the spy agency in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks." ...
... Charles Pierce: "Jesus, what do you have to do to lose a job over this? Show up wearing a necklace of disembodied fingernails?"
Brad Plumer of the Washington Post: "a big, newly revised paper by the University of Chicago's Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse finds that ... as the wealthy have gotten wealthier..., that's created an economic arms race in which the middle class has been spending beyond their means in order to keep up. The authors call this 'trickle-down consumption.' The result? Americans are saving less, bankruptcies are becoming more common, and politicians are pushing for policies to make it easier to take on debt.... Cornell economist Robert H. Frank has been making this case for years."
David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Both parties, it turns out, have made wide-ranging efforts to survey the public about smart ways to cut the budget. The public responded -- and then the politicians let most of the good ideas get away."
Senators McCain, Schumer, Flake & Bennet. If you get an outfit, you can be a Senator, too. I know the Senate is sometimes billed as "the world's most exclusive club," but I did not know the club had uniforms.... Cristina Silva of the AP: "A bipartisan group of senators crafting a sweeping immigration bill vowed Wednesday that they would be ready to unveil it when Congress reconvenes in less than two weeks after getting a firsthand look at a crucial component of their legislation: security along the U.S.-Mexico border. The four senators -- Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democrats Chuck Schumer of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado -- are members of the so-called Gang of Eight, which is close to finalizing a bill aimed at securing the border and putting 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship."
Gail Collins recalls a Senate Republican caucus full of "environmental worrywarts." Enter, right, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc.
"Evan Bayh in Drag." Charles Pierce: "Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota is rapidly moving to the top of the leader board for this year's Al From Trophy, which the blog hands out annually to its least favorite putative Democrat. (The scramble for the cup has become frenzied since the retirement of perennial contenders Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman, who were the Frazier and Ali of disreputable political sellouts.) Today, she pretty much told Michael Bloomberg to keep those (black) criminals in New York City in line before he spends all his (newyorkjew) money up in Jesusland to tell the people there what's what about their shootin' 'arns."
Chris Frates of the National Journal: "Republicans will continue to, as GOP Sen. John Barrasso put it, 'try to tear (Obamacare) apart.' And the GOP suspects it might get some help from moderate Democrats less concerned about protecting Obama's legacy than winning reelection. And much of that job falls to [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell, a brilliant defensive coordinator who will have to play flawless offense if he hopes to take control of the Senate next year."
Senate Races
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: "Actress Ashley Judd has decided not to pursue a bid for the Kentucky Senate race, according to two sources familiar with her decision."
Martin Finucane of the Boston Globe: candidates to replace John Kerry of Massachusetts debate. Blah blah.
Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "A Wisconsin man could face years in federal prison if he is convicted of helping hacker collective Anonymous< take down Koch Industries' website during protests in the state's capital in 2011, according to an indictment revealed this week.... Officials said Eric J. Rosol, 37, of Black Creek, Wis., participated in an Anonymous-organized shutdown of Koch websites www.kochind.com and www.quiltednorthern.com on Feb. 27 and 28 in 2011."
Right Wing World
Thomas Edsall of the New York Times: "The Republican Party has begun to move to the left on social and cultural issues, as well as on immigration. Despite the warnings of mass defections of white evangelical and born-again Christians, these shifts will not be as costly as some people ... claim. The fact is that on pretty much every noncultural issue -- government spending, taxes, the regulatory state and national defense -- the Christian right holds orthodox Republican views virtually identical to those of mainstream Republicans. Its members are unlikely to bolt the party."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Bob Teague, who joined WNBC-TV in New York in 1963 as one of the city's first black television journalists and went on to work as a reporter, anchorman and producer for more than three decades, died on Thursday in New Brunswick, N.J. He was 84."
New York Times: Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, "the most widely followed barometer of the United States stock market, rose to a new high on Thursday, exceeding its 2007 peak, while most of the rest of the world could only look on in envy."
New York Times: Newtown shooter "Adam Lanza lived amid a stockpile of disparate weaponry and macabre keepsakes: 2 rifles, more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition, 11 knives, a starter pistol, a bayonet, 3 samurai swords. He saved photographs of what appeared to be a corpse smeared in blood and covered in plastic. Strewn about was a newspaper clipping that chronicled a vicious shooting at Northern Illinois University."
AP: "The U.S military says two nuclear-capable B-2 bombers have completed a training mission in South Korea amid threats from North Korea that include nuclear strikes< on Washington and Seoul. The statement Thursday by U.S. Forces Korea is an unusual confirmation."
New York Times: "Former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa was readmitted to the hospital overnight because of a recurring lung infection, President Jacob Zuma said in a statement on Thursday, appealing to people around the world to pray for him."
Reuters: "Cypriots queued calmly at banks as they reopened on Thursday under tight controls imposed on transactions to prevent a run on deposits after the government was forced to accept a stringent EU rescue package to avert bankruptcy."
Guardian: "A Brazilian doctor who has been charged with the murder of seven patients is being investigated in almost 300 other cases, according to health authorities investigating what could prove one of the world's worst serial killings. Virginia Soares de Souza is accused of cutting the oxygen to people on life-support systems and administering lethal doses of muscle-relaxing drugs in the Evangelica Hospital of Curitiba. Soares, a director of the hospital, was arrested in February along with three doctors and a nurse, who are suspected of conspiracy. Three other hospital staff have subsequently been charged in the case."
Reuters: "Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who died in a mansion near London in unexplained circumstances last weekend, was found lying on the floor of the bathroom with a 'ligature around his neck', an inquest into his death heard on Thursday."
AP: "Oscar Pistorius can leave South Africa to compete in international track meets, a judge ruled on Thursday as he upheld the Olympic athlete's appeal against some of his bail restrictions."