The Commentariat -- Nov. 14, 2012

CW: re: a discussion contributor Diane & I had yesterday, Byron Tau of Politico reports today, "Massachusetts leaders say there are no discussions about a change the state's Senate succession laws in the event that President Obama nominates Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) to his cabinet."

Jon Stewart on the inevitable fallout from the election results:

... AND he has some advice for Greedy Bastards:

Sam Stein & Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "President Barack Obama will enter high-stakes budget negotiations firmly committed to seeing the tax rates for high-income earners rise to pre-George W. Bush levels, he assured a gathering of progressive and labor leaders on Tuesday.... 'It was a very, very positive meeting,' said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka." ...

... Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "Progressive activists are now preparing to turn the firepower they marshaled to reelect the president against him if he looks like he’s backing down on his mandate, as they see it, to preserve the social safety net and raise taxes on the wealthy."

Actor-comedian Rob Delaney proves a person need not be an expert to have good ideas. In a Salon opinion piece, he writes, "President Obama should junk the Race to the Top plan immediately. It is a deeply flawed reworking of George W. Bush's test-based, pro-charter school No Child Left Behind Act. Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan should change course dramatically and publicly admit Race to the Top doesn't and can't work and then craft a new plan that doesn't treat education like an industry and coerce teachers to 'teach to the test,' while marching toward education privatization."

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "The Kaiser Family Foundation polled Americans last week, right after the election, asking what they want to see happen next with the health-care law. Most notably, they saw support for repeal plummet to an all-time low.... This isn't exactly Americans gravitating toward the health-care law: Support for expanding the law or keeping it as is held steady at 49 percent. Those who no longer support repeal seem to have drifted into the 'don't know' category, about what should happen next."

The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race. -- Paul Ryan, explaining GOP election losses

We did everything we could to discourage the blah people from voting. We never thought those lazy takers would stand up against us makers. -- CW translation ...

Too many black people voted. -- Neetzan Zimmerman (of Gawker) translation

... Michael Shear & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times write that it isn't just urban (read minority) voters who rejected the Republican ticket. ...

... ** Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly: "... this habit of thinking of 'the urban vote' as being a policy-indifferent mob that is simply turned out to neutralize the 'big choices' being made by civic-minded folk, making the election results meaningless in terms of the direction of the country, certainly bears the pungent whisky-and-brimstone aroma of Old Dixie politics. Ryan would be well advised not to use this sort of terminology to support the no-mandate-election spin of his party." ...

... Paul Krugman: "Asians and Jewish households are much more Democratic than you might expect given their relatively high incomes, presumably because they see the GOP as believing fundamentally in a white Christian nation from which they will forever be outsiders." Krugman wonders if "over time Southern whites will finally become culturally assimilated, and start voting like the rest of their fellow citizens." ...

... Ryan Takes a Stand: Ideology before Party. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The House's Republican leaders would dearly like to elevate Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington to lead the House Republican Conference, putting a female face into the pantheon of the white male Republican leaders. But standing in their way is Representative Tom Price of Georgia, one of the most conservative members of the House, who has lined up some big guns in his quest for the fourth-ranking post in the House Republican conference. The most important of those guns, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin..., showed no sign of retreat Tuesday in a letter sent to colleagues endorsing Mr. Price." ...

... The People Have Spoken. So We'll Do It My Way. John Parkinson of ABC News: "Despite a devastating loss last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan rejected Democratic claims of a mandate to raise tax rates on the wealthy. Asked whether President Obama has a mandate on taxes, Ryan told ABC News' senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl that the House Republican majority is proof that the president does not." CW: see my remarks in today's Comments section. ...

... NEW. Dan Amira of New York explains Ryan's Rules of Mandates: "If Ryan wins, it's a mandate. If Obama wins, his party also needs to control the House of Representatives -- otherwise, no mandate. What if Ryan and Romney won, but the Democrats still gained two seats in the Senate? Unclear, but we're guessing it's a mandate." CW: I'd file Ryan's Rules of Mandates as a subcategory under Sociopaths' Rules for Living.

NEW. Patrick Keefe in the New Yorker: "the Electronic Communications Privacy Act..., originally passed in 1986..., considers any e-mail that is over a hundred and eighty days old to be 'abandoned,' meaning that the author of the e-mail no longer has any reasonable expectation that it would remain private. So to obtain access to this e-mail, the F.B.I. doesn't need a court order; it just needs to ask your e-mail provider."

... Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "The FBI is making a new push to determine how ... Paula Broadwell obtained classified files, part of an expanding series of investigations in a scandal that also threatens the career of the United States' top military commander in Afghanistan. Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from the North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell ... marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession.... The surprise move by the FBI follows assertions by U.S. officials that the investigation had turned up no evidence of a security breach -- a factor that was cited as a reason the Justice Department did not notify the White House before last week that the CIA director had been ensnared in an e-mail inquiry."

... Maureen Dowd: David Petraeus's "fall started as Sophocles and turned sophomoric.... It features toned arms, slinky outfits, a cat fight, titillating e-mails, a military more consumed with sex than violence, a plot with more inconceivable twists than 'Homeland,' and a Twitter's-delight lexicon: an 'embedded' mistress named Broadwell, a biography called 'All In,' an other-other woman of Middle East ancestry who was a 'social liaison' to the military, a shirtless F.B.I. agent crushing on the losing-her-shirt-to-debt Tampa socialite, a pair of generals helping the socialite's twin sister with a custody case, and lawyers and crisis-management experts linked to Monica Lewinsky, John Edwards and the ABC show 'Scandal.'” Dowd blames Petraeus for "So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians ... killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That's the real scandal." ...

... Vernon Loeb, who covers the Defense Department for the Washington Post & wrote All In with Paula Broadwell, writes in the Post that he had no clue about her affair with David Petraeus. ...

... Massimo Calabresi of Time argues that the Justice Department had a duty to tell the President or the investigation into Gen. Petraeus' affair with Broadwell. CW: I would argue that Gen. Petraeus himself had a duty to tell the President when he found out about the investigation. He didn't. Or so we are led to believe. ...

... The Family Khawam. Christina Ng, et al., of ABC News: "Jill Kelley, 37, is a Tampa socialite who ... forged tight friendships with top brass. Her sister, Natalie Khawam, also became friendly with major players, including both Gen. Petraeus and Gen. John Allen.... A U.S. official described Kelley as a 'nice, bored, rich socialite' who drops 'honorary' from her title and tells people she is an ambassador. ... Kelley and her husband Scott ... have been sued at least nine times. Court records indicate that the Kelleys owe more than $2 million on an office building and face foreclosure.... Natalie Khawam, who now lives with her sister and brother-in-law in Tampa, is deeply in debt and filed for bankruptcy in Florida in April 2012.... Khawam has also been embroiled in a child custody battle.... In November 2011, the D.C. Superior Court ruled that Khawam's husband would get sole legal and primary custody of the child. The judge wrote that Khawam 'has exhibited an utter disregard for the child's interest' in maintaining a meaningful relationship with his father, that she 'has extreme personal deficits in the areas of honesty and integrity,' and that she has exhibited a 'willingness to say anything, even under oath, to advance her own personal interests at the expense' of her husband, the child, and others.'" ...

... Jason Cherkis & Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post: "... Jill Kelley ... founded a questionable charity for cancer patients with her surgeon husband, Scott Kelley.... While the origins of the seed money used to start the charity in 2007 are unclear, financial records reviewed by The Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money not on research, but on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees. By the end of 2007, the charity had gone bankrupt, having conveniently spent exactly the same amount of money, $157,284, as it started with...." ...

... Adam Estes of The Atlantic: "Frustrated by the media attention, Jill Kelley's taken to calling 911 multiple times a day. On one of these calls a couple of days ago, the socialite told the dispatcher..., 'You know, I don't know if by any chance, because I'm an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability, so they should not be able to cross my property,' she said. 'I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well.' ... Jill Kelley is an honorary consul of South Korea. (Who knew?) A diplomatic official confirmed her status to Foreign Policy.... He went on to clarify, however, that it's nothing more than a symbolic title and comes with no special treatment or protection. 'She does not work as a real consul,' the official said." ...

... Here's a screengrab from an ABC News Denver affiliates story on the Petraeus Affair, via John Aravosis of AmericaBlog:

     ... The station later ran an apology, which read, in part, "... when the 7NEWS reporter went on the Internet to get an image of the book cover, the reporter mistakenly grabbed a Photoshopped image that said, 'All Up In My Snatch.' 'It was a mistake,' said KMGH-TV News Director Jeff Harris." Via Crooks & Liars. ...

... CW: the other day I mentioned in the Comments section a mindblowing flow chart created for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Gen. Petraeus's predecessor in Afghanistan, whose career was also brought low by a little too much public exposure. Now it seems certain media outlets are creating "Pentagon of Love" flowcharts to try to get a handle on the complicated interrelationships in the Petraeus Affair. Joe Coscarelli of New York magazine has one here. Here's another from Max Read of Gawker:

Local News

Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who has pushed aggressively for cutting and capping taxes in New Jersey during his three years in office, said Tuesday that people who lived in towns destroyed by Hurricane Sandy were likely to pay higher taxes to help rebuild.... Mr. Christie said he expected the federal government to do as much as it had done for victims of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast to help rebuild New Jersey. And he said that municipalities would be allowed to raise property taxes more than the 2 percent limit that he signed into law in 2010 to cover costs brought on by the storm."

Right Wing World

Dominique Mosbergen of the Huffington Post: "A petition for Texas secession has qualified to receive a White House response. As of Tuesday evening, the petition -- which asks for the peaceful withdrawal of the state of Texas from the union -- had racked up more than 81,000 signatures. (Only 25,000 are needed to elicit an official response from the Obama administration.) ... Residents in more than 40 states have filed secession petitions to the Obama administration's 'We the People' program, which is featured on the White House website, in the last few days." ...

... Kevin Robillard of Politico: "

Gov. Rick Perry, who famously mused about secession in 2009, doesn't support an effort by some Texas residents who are petitioning to leave the United States. 'Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it,' Perry spokesman Catherine Frazier told the Dallas Morning News. 'But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government.'" ...

... The Houston Chronicle rebuts a popular misconception about Texas's "right" to secede (thanks to historian/genius Rick Perry for popularizing that one) -- and related facts/fictions. ...

NEW. You know your party is in trouble when -- Erick Erickson is the voice of reason: "We here at RedState are American citizens. We have no plans to secede from the union.... Too many people have spent the past four years obsessed with birth certificates. Now they are obsessed with voter fraud conspiracies, talk of secession, and supposed election changing news stories if only we had known."

News Ledes

New York Times: New York state "Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman's office has issued subpoenas to the Long Island Power Authority and Consolidated Edison as part of an investigation into whether the utilities violated state laws in their response to Hurricane Sandy.... [New York] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Tuesday that he had named a commission with subpoena power to investigate the handling of the disaster by utility companies."

New York Times: "Congressional investigators took aim on Wednesday at a former colleague, Jon S. Corzine, blaming the onetime senator's risk-taking at MF Global for accelerating the brokerage firm's demise."

Washington Post: "Surprising virtually no one, Sen.-elect Angus King (I-Maine) said Wednesday that he plans to caucus with Senate Democrats, because 'affiliating with the majority makes the most sense.' King won a decisive election last week to succeed retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and throughout his year-long campaign refused to say with which party he would caucus once he arrived in Washington."

Guardian: "Hamas's military commander has been killed in an Israeli air strike in a move likely to herald a dramatic rise in violence in Gaza. Ahmed al-Jaabari, the head of the Islamist organisation's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, died when his car was struck in Gaza City by a missile after Israel warned it may step up targeted assassinations, having endured almost a week of intense rocket fire from Gaza. Reports suggested three other Palestinians were also killed."

The Hill: "Former CIA Director David Petraeus will voluntarily testify before congressional panels investigating the September terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said.... The precise timing of Petraeus's visit to Capitol Hill hasn't been finalized, Feinstein said, though his appearance could be as early as Friday."

New York Times: "Syrian authorities ordered airstrikes for a third consecutive day close to the tense Turkish border on Wednesday, and said a French decision to recognize and consider arming a newly formed Syrian rebel coalition was an 'immoral' act 'encouraging the destruction of Syria.'"

Politico: "The president is scheduled to do his first press conference in months on Wednesday, at 1:30 p.m. EST in the East Room." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama on Wednesday declared that he would not extend tax cuts at upper income levels but that Congress should quickly do so for the middle class, and he praised David H. Petraeus's record while saying that national security had not been compromised during the intelligence official's affair with his biographer." The transcript is here.

Politico: "At a 10 a.m. news conference, [House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi] will answer ... whether she'll remain minority leader through 2014 -- or release her 10-year, ironclad grip on the Democratic Caucus." C-SPAN will no doubt carry the presser live, but I'm not sure exactly where.

     ... Update: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will remain in charge of the Democratic Caucus for the 113th Congress, the California Democrat announced on Wednesday morning. Pelosi revealed her decision before a room full of cheering Democrats, many of whom had privately lobbied her in recent days to stay put." CW: um, I thought the caucus had to vote on their leadership. I didn't realize they could crown themselves, a la Napoleon.

AP: "Pakistan freed several Taliban prisoners at the request of the Afghan government Wednesday, a move meant to facilitate the process of striking a peace deal with the militant group in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. The release of the prisoners -- described as mid- and low-level fighters -- is the most encouraging sign yet that Pakistan may be willing to help jumpstart peace talks that have mostly gone nowhere, hobbled by distrust among the major players involved, including the United States."

Reuters: "The United States announced an extra $30 million in aid to those affected by the war in Syria on Wednesday and called the formation of a new opposition coalition an important step that would help Washington better target its help. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement after talks in Perth..., [Australia]."

AP: "President Hu Jintao stepped aside as ruling party leader Wednesday to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take China's helm as part of only the second orderly transfer of power in 63 years of Communist rule.In a possible break from tradition, Hu may also be giving up his post as head of the commission that oversees the military, which would give Xi greater leeway to consolidate his authority when he takes over."

AP: "With rampant unemployment spreading misery in southern Europe and companies shutting factories across the continent, workers around the European Union sought to unite in a string of strikes and demonstrations on Wednesday."

AP: "The chief operating officer of a utility company heavily criticized for its response to Superstorm Sandy is stepping down. The Long Island Power Authority announced Tuesday that Michael Hervey had tendered his resignation, effective at the end of the year.... LIPA has come under withering criticism since Sandy knocked out power to more than a million of its customers on Oct. 29, both for how long it was taking to get power restored and for poor communication with customers."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 13, 2012

Kimberly Dozier & Pete Yost of the AP: "CIA Director David Petraeus was shocked to learn last summer that his mistress was suspected of sending threatening emails warning another woman to stay away from him, former staff members and friends told The Associated Press Monday. Petraeus told these associates his relationship with the second woman, Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, was platonic...." CW: this is a very long report that includes a useful timeline. ...

... Martha Raddatz, et al., of ABC News: "The FBI withheld its findings about Gen. David Petreaus' affair from the White House and congressional leaders because the agency considered them the result of a criminal investigation that never reached the threshold of an intelligence probe, law enforcement sources said today. The sources said agents followed department guidelines that generally bar sharing information about developing criminal investigations." ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "The FBI team spent weeks (months?) tracing email metadata, which requires court permission. Once they figured out the emails had come from Broadwell, they began tracking her movements. Then they went to court to get a warrant to read her email. Then they apparently got a warrant to monitor a second email account belonging to someone Broadwell was having an affair with. It turned out to be Petraeus. Wow. What kind of juice does Kelley have? This sure seems like a helluva lot more than your ordinary FBI attention to some harassing emails." CW: it is. I once asked that very same office -- which is the closest FBI office to Fort Myers -- to register the theft of items on which they maintain a database, & they couldn't be bothered to even respond, much less register the stolen items. Apparently name-dropping is required. ...

... Update. Scott Shane & Charlie Savage of the New York Times seem to answer the question: "... law enforcement officials insisted on Monday that the case was handled 'on the merits.' The cyber squad at the F.B.I.'s Tampa field office opened an investigation, after consulting with federal prosecutors, based on what appeared to be a legitimate complaint about e-mail harassment. The complaint was more intriguing, the officials acknowledged, because the author of the e-mails, which criticized Ms. Kelley for supposed flirtatious behavior toward Mr. Petraeus at social events, seemed to have an insider's knowledge of the C.I.A. director's activities. One e-mail accused Ms. Kelley of 'touching' Mr. Petraeus inappropriately under a dinner table." Read the whole article. That film about the Petraeus Affair? It's going to have to be a screwball comedy. ...

... Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Wall Street Journal have more detail on the shirtless FBI agent & his pivotal role in this hilarious caper. ...

... A bit more from gossip columnist reporter Michael Daly of Newsweek. ...

... Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "On Monday night, the FBI was searching Broadwell's North Carolina house. Agents entered the residence in Charlotte carrying boxes around 9pm (2am GMT). There was no sign that Broadwell or members of her family were at the house during the FBI search." CW: this bit is recounted in a few other news stories, too.

... OR, as Kevin Drum puts its, "This is pretty rich. If you connect the dots, it seems as if this whole thing got started by a smitten FBI agent; would have been closed without charges; but then got reenergized by some Benghazi-fueled (?) concerns that Petraeus was covering up for Obama. Or something. In the end, Petraeus was undone by the wingnuts." ...

... BUT WAIT, there's more. Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times: "Gen. John Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is under investigation for what a senior defense official said early Tuesday was 'inappropriate communication' with Jill Kelley.... General Allen is now in Washington for what was to be his confirmation hearing as commander in Europe. That hearing, the official said, will now be delayed." ...

     ... Here's the Washington Post's story on the Allen Angle, by Craig Whitlock & Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

... CW: various writers have been wondering on paper why Kelley needed to lawyer up with top Washington attorney Abbe Lowell. For instance, here's John Cook of Gawker: "It's not clear why she would need a lawyer at all, given the fact that she is a victim in this situation.... Even if Kelley simply found it prudent to keep a lawyer handy -- why Lowell? It's like hiring David Boies because your friend got a speeding ticket. Lowell is the quintessential Washington power broker. He represented Clinton before the Senate during his impeachment trial. He specializes in disgraced political figures, including John Edwards. He's the kind of guy you hire when you're seriously fucked." CW: People may be stupid, but their motives are always explicable, in one way or another. Here, it looks as if Kelley's relationship with Gen. Allen may be the explanation. ...

Bmaz of emptywheel has a plausible, novel theory: "... the handful of emails Paula Broadwell sent to Kelley reportedly did not mention Petraeus by name. This latest report at least raises the possibility Broadwell was referring to an inappropriate relationship between Kelley and Allen, and not Kelley and Petraeus. I am not saying such is the case, but it is also arguably consistent with the currently known substance of Broadwell's emails to Kelley...." ...

... General Sexcapades. Thom Shankar of the New York Times: "... a worrisomely large number of senior officers have been investigated and even fired for poor judgment, malfeasance and sexual improprieties or sexual violence -- and that is just in the last year." ...

Jon Stewart discovers he's "the worst journalist in the world":

...

... BUT, fortunately, Stewart has a sensible take on the whole story, or that is, the whole story up till 6 pm last night -- unlike the genius conspiracy theorists at Fox "News":

... Bernard Finel in Balloon Juice: "The reality is that even before Petraeus and Broadwell slept together, their relationship was a tangled web of conflicts of interest. He was one of her dissertation advisors, and her dissertation was largely about him! He managed to get her access as a 'reporter' in Afghanistan, even though she has no journalism background, and in reality was more of a personal publicist for Petraeus. But she was also a reserve officer in the Army, making her, at least sometimes, his subordinate." ...

... Finel's concerns didn't seem to bother Petraeus. Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "... two longtime military aides to Petraeus said that he did not intend to resign until it became clear that his extramarital affair with Broadwell would become public after the first phase of the FBI investigation of his e-mail accounts."

... AND now, for our Snapshot of the Day:

... With a bonus tweet from Friend Rupert:

... The above is courtesy of Karoli of Crooks & Liars, who has a complicated conspiracy theory in the works. ...

... CW: The lamebrains at Fox "News" Nation call Don Imus' interview of Paula Broadwell "awkward," but I think she comes across as composed, articulate & knowledgeable. Video, with partial transcript.

Frank Rich on the Petraeus Brouhaha & takeaways from the election. Thanks to MAG for the link. ...

... John Sides: the 2012 election was not a realignment, or great shift in the makeup of the parties.

CW: I think we all know this, but it doesn't hurt that Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic reminds us that the Republicans' excuse that Democrats only win because they give "free stuff" to moochers is perfectly balanced by Republicans' promises to give free stuff to their base of old folks -- and Cohn doesn't say so -- but really rich people.

Karen DeYoung & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "President Obama is considering asking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to serve as his next defense secretary, part of an extensive rearrangement of his national security team that will include a permanent replacement for former CIA director David H. Petraeus. Although Kerry is thought to covet the job of secretary of state, senior administration officials familiar with the transition planning said that nomination will almost certainly go to Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. John O. Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, is a leading contender for the CIA job if he wants it.... Officials cautioned that the White House discussions are still in the early stages and that no decisions have been made."

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who built and then lost the largest Democratic majority in a generation, is considering ending her historic 10-year reign as Democratic leader after the second disappointing election in a row for her caucus."

CW: I missed Jim Fallows' "morning-after" thoughts on the election, but they still hold up. Give them a read. ...

... Paul Krugman did. He adds, "... the Democrats now look like the natural party of government." BUT, he warns, "... you know what could really produce the kind of dispirited base that was supposed to doom Obama in 2012? A sellout on key Democratic values as part of a Grand Bargain. If, say, Obama raises the retirement age in return for vague promises on revenue (promises that would be betrayed at the first opportunity); if he appoints a deficit scold to a major economic post; it could all fall apart." CW: I hope Krugman builds his next column on this. Obama needs to read it. ...

... AND pay no attention to former Treasury Secretary, former Obama advisor, former Wall Street wheeler-dealer & perpetual megarich guy Bob Rubin, who writes in a New York Times op-ed: "Fiscal cliff ... blah, blah ... Simpson-Bowles ... good work ... blah, blah ... entitlement reforms ... blah, blah ... I was right ...." CW: this seems more like Obama's opening argument than an independent opinion. It is, of course, discouraging.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "With both parties positioning for difficult negotiations to avert a fiscal crisis as Congress returns for its lame-duck session, Democrats are latching on to an idea floated by Mitt Romney to raise taxes on the rich through a hard cap on income tax deductions.... The cap -- never fully detailed by Mr. Romney -- is similar to a longstanding proposal by Mr. Obama to limit income tax deductions to 28 percent...."

CW: I missed this important report from CNN: "Less than 48 hours after Mitt Romney lost the presidential election, a shop at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. has already knocked down the price of its Romney merchandise -- by 60%."

Jake Miller of CBS News: "... almost a week after the election, it is now becoming clear just how lopsided President Obama's victory was in some cities: in dozens of urban precincts, Mitt Romney earned literally zero votes."

Time to return to ...

Right Wing World

Adios, Y'all. Neetzan Zimmerman of Gawker: "In the aftermath of last week's presidential election, residents in at least nineteen states have put up petitions on the government's 'We the People' petitioning website seeking the right to secede from the rest of the country." ...

... David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "Here's the thing about that: Red states, by and large, are moochers. They can't sustain themselves. If California were to secede, the state would have a balanced budget (or nearly balanced.) If Alabama were to secede, it wouldn't be able to pay for its stop signs."

Paul Waldman of American Prospect: whether or not it's good for the Republican party, right-wing media are going to continue to spew the usual stuff because that's what they audiences want, & the media are in business first, politics second.

Congressional Races

AP: "Former Democratic state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has been elected to represent a new Phoenix-area congressional district, emerging victorious after a bitterly fought race that featured millions of dollars in attack ads. Sinema becomes the first openly bisexual member of Congress.... One other congressional race remains undecided in Arizona. Rep. Ron Barber, the hand-picked successor to Gabrielle Giffords, had a lead of a few hundred votes over Republican Martha McSally in the Tucson-area district."

Local News

CW: As a proud Floridian, I am happy to say that --

Arizona is Worse than Florida. Ryan Reilly of TPM : "Hundreds of thousands of ballots have yet to be counted in Arizona nearly a week after Election Day, a majority of which appeared to come from Maricopa County. Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett's said Saturday that approximately 486,405 ballots still have to be counted across the state, representing more than a quarter of the 1.8 million votes cast." The ACLU & other groups are protesting lack of transparency & racial discrimination. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division may investigate. ...

Doktor Zoom at Wonkette: "To the surprise of absolutely no one, the mess appears to be at least in part a result of the state's efforts to suppress minority voting enhance ballot security, resulting in a large number of provisional ballots that must be verified by hand.... Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has pledged to ensure a fair tally of the uncounted ballots by launching an investigation into Barack Obama's college transcripts."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A military prosecutor on Tuesday said the evidence against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, presented over the last week here in a pretrial inquiry into the killings of 16 Afghan civilians, was so damning that the case should go forward as a capital crime."

New York Times: "France announced Tuesday that it was recognizing the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and would consider arming the group, seeking to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition that would hasten the end of a stalemated civil war that has destabilized the Middle East."

AP: "President Barack Obama opens a new campaign Tuesday to build pressure on Congress to cut the federal debt the way he sees fit, meeting with labor leaders who want lawmakers to raise taxes on the wealthy and guard against slashing health benefits for seniors. Obama was kicking off a series of meetings this week with labor officials, business executives and congressional leaders aimed at pushing Congress to avert the so-called 'fiscal cliff' and find consensus on a plan to prevent more financial hardships next year. The week will include a tone-setting news conference Wednesday...."

Al Jazeera: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Australia for talks on security and strategic talks. Clinton, who arrived on Tuesday, will be joined by Leon Panetta, US defence secretary, for the talks with counterparts Bob Carr and Stephen Smith on Wednesday that are expected to focus on regional security and greater US use of Australian facilities. It comes after the arrival of US Marine and Air Force units to northern Australia, seen as evidence of an American 're-balance' towards the Pacific after a decade of ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

AP: Abu Qatada, "a radical Islamist cleric described by prosecutors as a key al-Qaida operative in Europe, was freed from prison Tuesday after a court ruled he cannot be deported from Britain to Jordan to face terrorism charges." Guardian story here.

Al Jazeera: "Work has begun to open the grave of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ahead of an exhumation of his body for a murder probe, a source close to his family said."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 12, 2012

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "As he prepares to meet with Congressional leaders at the White House on Friday [to discuss the federal budget], aides say, Mr. Obama ... will travel beyond the Beltway at times to rally public support for a deficit-cutting accord that mixes tax increases on the wealthy with spending cuts. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama will meet with corporate executives at the White House.... Though many of them backed Mitt Romney, scores have formed a coalition to push for a budget compromise similar to the one the president seeks. He hopes to enlist them to persuade Republicans in Congress to accept higher taxes on the assurance that he can deliver Democrats' votes for future reductions in fast-growing entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid." ...

     ... CW: they are not "entitlement" programs! And cutting them -- except for inefficiencies -- is stupid, counterproductive policy. People are still going to get sick, & if they can't get medical care, they're going to get sicker. "Let's Have More Sick People" is not an economy-boosting plan.

What's going to happen on January 1? ... The deficit is going to dramatically reduce. There will be this intense austerity squeeze.... Washington is so obsessed with the debt and deficit, and right now they are freaking out, and markets are freaking out, about the spectre of an automatic, massive reduction in the deficit. No one actually cares about the deficit. -- Chris Hayes ...

... Paul Krugman: "The fiscal cliff poses an interesting problem for self-styled deficit hawks. They've been going on and on about how the deficit is a terrible thing; now they're confronted with the possibility of a large reduction in the deficit, and have to find a way to say that this is a bad thing." ...

... ** In his column today, Krugman builds on the blogpost linked above. Oh, and he implicitly backs up my disdain for the Let's Have More Sick People plan. Plus this: "Appointing [deficit scold Erskine Bowles to replace Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary], or anyone like him, would be both a bad idea and a slap in the face to the people who returned President Obama to office."

It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires. It really won't, I don't think. I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer. -- Bill Kristol, Editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard, speaking on Fox "News" Sunday ...

... Meghashyam Mali of The Hill: "Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Sunday said Democrats were prepared to allow the expiration of all George W. Bush-era tax rates if Republican lawmakers objected to raising taxes on the wealthiest." ...

... Matt Yglesias of Slate: "The American political system is full of checks and balances, and the way the game works is that tie goes to the status quo. And in this case, the status quo is that the [Bush] tax cuts expire. Conservatives can perhaps console themselves with the realization that the expiration isn't an underhanded liberal trick. It's their own trick.... The House Speaker has no leverage on the Bush tax cuts. We should stop taking him seriously." CW: Yglesias suggests Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is stupid because he doesn't get this. Schumer is not stupid; he is the Senator from Wall Street. He is also the #3 man in the Senate, & he will try to lead Senate Democrats to "concede" to Republican demands, as if he's performing some heroic act of bipartisanship. Chuck Schumer is looking out for Chuck Schumer.

Ian Millhiser & Josh Israel of Think Progress: Ohio's GOP Secretary of State, the now infamous Jon Husted, has a plan to rig Ohio's vote in the Electoral College in 2016, one that he borrowed from an aborted plan proposed by Pennsylvania's Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. Under Husted's plan -- had it been in effect this year -- Romney would have received the bulk of Ohio's Electoral College votes. CW P.S. As Millhiser made clear in a post I linked yesterday, gerrymandering matters. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

"Huge Clusterfuck." Sean Gallagher of Ars Technica has an excellent write-up of all that went wrong with the Romney campaign's vaunted "ORCA" GOTV system, one that a Romney spokesperson boasted was far superior to the Obama campaign's "Narwhal" system. Thanks to Lisa for the link.

John Cassidy of the New Yorker has a pretty readable post on polling & forecasters of the presidential race.

Greg Sargent: "Republicans have long been mystified by Obama's ability to retain his bond with voters in defiance of conditions that self-evidently seemed to doom him. If they just prevented Obama from succeeding, he'd surely sink under the fundamentals.... The ultimate irony is that this miscalculation may have led Republicans themselves to unwittingly conspire in creating the narrative that enabled Obama to survive." ...

... Thanks for the memories, Orange Man:

... CW: I don't know who wrote this post in the National Memo, but it's one of the best I've seen of Monday-morning quarterbacking the presidential election: "Why did Mitt Romney lose? It couldn't be because the GOP is wrong on taxes, health care, women's rights, immigration, education, marriage, regulation, diplomacy, climate change, evolution, science, polling, jobs numbers, fashion, sex, Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, Meat Loaf. No, it had to be Hurricane Sandy, ORCA, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, mean ole Barack Obama actually daring to release negative ads, one New Black Panther, a mural in one polling place'."

Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian on the Petraeus Affair(s): "... the relationship between the now-former CIA Director and his fawning hagiographer should be studied in journalism schools to see the results reliably produced by access journalism and the embedding process." Read the whole column. Greenwald notes, "Thomas Ricks, formerly of the Washington Post, argued that Obama should not have accepted [Petraeus's] resignation.... Like most people in the media, Ricks has long been an ardent admirer of Petraeus, even turning his platform over to Paula Broadwell in the past for her to spread her hagiography far and wide." Thanks to contributor cowichan for the link. ...

... Maybe Ricks has had a sudden change of heart. In a New York Times op-ed, he writes: "Our generals actually bear much of the blame for the mistakes in the [Iraq & Afghanistan] wars. They especially failed to understand the conflicts they were fighting -- and then failed to adjust their strategies to the situations they faced so that they might fight more effectively. Even now, as our wars wind down, the errors of our generals continue to escape public investigation, or even much internal review." CW: but, hey, we scrutinize their sex lives! ...

... Michael Crowley of Time: as Petraeus goes, so goes his military doctrine, not that he hadn't pretty much abandoned it anyway. ...

... Scott Shane & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "High-level officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department were notified in the late summer that F.B.I. agents had uncovered what appeared to be an extramarital affair involving the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David H. Petraeus, government officials said Sunday. ...

... The Washington Post story, by Karen DeYoung & Sari Horwitz, is here. ...

... Eli Lake of Newsweek: Paula Broadwell "gave a speech last month asserting otherwise unreported information about the Benghazi attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.... The CIA Sunday denied her claim that prisoners were held at the annex, which has not been reported elsewhere. As her answer continued, Broadwell seemed to speak on behalf of Petraeus." With video.

... Jayne Mayer of the New Yorker examines the time line of who knew what when, & finds unanswered questions about motivations of key political players, including Petraeus. ...

     ... CW: I've believed from the get-go there is a plausible explanation for Petraeus's resignation, and that "Had an affair; no security breached" ain't it. BTW, since House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) knew the contours of the story before the election, it would have been political malpractice for him not to have slipped word to Romney &/or Ryan, & nobody has every accused Eric Cantor or excessive propriety. And I'd be damned surprised if Eric Holder didn't give the President a heads-up, especially as he was likely aware -- via FBI Director Mueller -- that Cantor was in the loop. This was an October Surprise that didn't happen, either because Romney couldn't see the profit in it or because he couldn't figure out how to leak it in a way that wouldn't have his fingerprints all over it. ...

... Okay, Andy Borowitz has located a fellow who has that plausible explanation I was seeking: "The scandal involving former C.I.A. director David Petraeus took a startling twist today, as a leading right-wing conspiracy theorist claimed that Gen. Petraeus initiated his affair with author Paula Broadwell last year to avoid testifying about Benghazi this week."

A picture being worth a thousand words & all: Natalie Khawam (Jill Kelley's identical twin sister), David Petraeus, Scott Kelley, Jill Kelley & Holly Petraeus in Tampa, Florida. Photo by the Tampa Bay Times, via the New York Daily News.Adam Goldman, et al., of the AP, re: David Petraeus: "A senior U.S. military official identified the second woman Jill Kelley, 37, who lives in Tampa, Fla., and serves as the State Department's liaison to the military's Joint Special Operations Command, where among other duties, secret drone missions are worked on.... The military official ... said Kelley had received harassing emails from Broadwell....A friend of Kelley and Petraeus ... also said the two saw each other often, but the nature of their friendship was unclear." ...

... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The woman who reported to the F.B.I. that she had received threatening e-mails from a woman romantically linked to David H. Petraeus ... is a friend of Mr. Petraeus and his wife, Holly, who lives in Tampa, Fla.... The woman, Jill Kelley, 37, is 'a very well-known person of influence in the Tampa community,' active in community organizations that support military causes.... Tampa is the home of the military's Central Command, which Mr. Petraeus headed before serving in Afghanistan and then as C.I.A. director. It was during the Petraeuses' time in Tampa that they became friends with Ms. Kelley and her husband, Dr. Scott Kelley." ...

... Bill Hutchinson of the New York Daily News: Kelley is "the unpaid social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base." ...

... Matthew Solan, et al., of the Daily News have a lot more here. And it's a New York tab, so you know it's all tasteful. ...

... Five factoids about Jill Kelley & her family from Nina Strochlic of Newsweek. ...

... Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: neighbors in Charlotte, North Carolina, say Paula Broadwell is a good neighbor-soccer mom who dines by candlelight.

David Remnick of the New Yorker: "The effort [to halt climate change] should begin with a sustained Presidential address to the country, perhaps from the Capitol, on Inauguration Day. It was there that John Kennedy initiated a race to the moon -- meagre stakes compared with the health of the planet we inhabit."

Annie-Rose Strasser of Think Progress: "Zane Tankel, the CEO of Applebee's New York Franchise, Apple-Metro, is so dedicated to not spending money on his employees that he's refusing to hire anyone new. Why? Because he might have to provide them health care.... Studies have shown that a company that provides health care has a higher retention rate for its employees, reports more employee satisfaction, and draws the best employees to the job." ...

      ... CW: Tankel is as stupid as he is heartless. Most large employers will have to provide health insurance, so the playing field will be more-or-less level. People are not going to stop eating at restaurants (though you couldn't get me inside an Applebee's except by force), and if Applebee's has to raise the price of nachos by 50 cents to cover healthcare costs, so does everybody else. You can't make guys like Tankel give a shit about the health & well-being of their employees, but now they'll have to provide insurance or pay a penalty. Some people won't be decent human beings unless the law requires it. Now the law requires it.

The Half-Enlightenment Dawns upon Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.):

News Ledes

New York Times: "Israeli tanks made a direct hit on Syrian artillery units on Monday, the army said, responding to mortar fire that fell near an army post in the Israeli-held Golan Heights. It was the second consecutive day that Israel confronted fire along its border with Syria<."

New York Times: "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo plans to ask the federal government for at least $30 billion in disaster aid to help New York City and other affected areas of the state recover from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy...."

AP: "The BBC's news chief and her deputy have 'stepped aside' while the broadcaster deals with the fallout from a child abuse scandal that forced its director-general to resign, the broadcaster said Monday. Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news and current affairs, and her deputy, Stephen Mitchell, have handed over their responsibilities to others for the time being 'to address the lack of clarity around the editorial chain of command,' the corporation said."