The Commentariat -- January 4

Before we let Nino Scalia & Darrell Issa get us down, let us take a nonsense break:

Liz Goodwin of Yahoo News: "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in a recently published interview that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment does not prohibit discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.... The equal protection clause states:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1971 that the clause protected women from discrimination." [CW: emphasis mine] Here's the California Lawyer interview of the supremely excrable Scalia.

Hypocrisy Watch. Peter Beinart in the Daily Beast: the tea party's complete disinterest in foreign policy conflicts with (1) their stated reverence for the Constitution, which they interpret to give the President & central government hardly any power, and (2) their hatred of the deficit & big government, inasmuch as military & security spending accounts for more than half of the federal budget.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The incoming Republican majority in the House is moving to make good on its promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending this year, a goal eagerly backed by conservatives but one carrying substantial political and economic risks.... The reductions that would be required ... would be roughly 20 percent on average" for domestic programs. ...

... Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "The Senate's top Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), wrote incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday warning the new GOP House against advancing legislation that would undo the sweeping healthcare overhaul.... Democrats in the House, meanwhile, are already beginning to organize efforts to throw procedural wrenches into the repeal effort."

(1) Steve Benen: former House Majority Leader Tom "DeLay resigned in disgrace and was convicted on money laundering charges, but the new Republican leadership team has hired DeLay's old team to help run the chamber.... Corporate lobbyists have been brought on to shape policy; and the K Street project that Boehner swore to leave in the past is looking reconstituted. Given the spectacular failures of the last Republican majority, getting the old gang back together isn't exactly encouraging." ...

(2) ... Richard E. Cohen of Politico: "In another statement of the new House Republican majority’s commitment to the Constitution, aides to incoming Speaker John Boehner plan to take their oath of office Tuesday morning — a day before the same oath is administered to the 435 House members of the new Congress. At Boehner’s request, Chief Justice John Roberts will preside over the staff ceremony...."

(3) ... CW: so here you have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appearing to publicly endorse the continuity of Congressional Republican sleaze. Notice, too, how Cohen writes this little fluff piece about Boehner's "commitment to the Constitution" without irony.

Ken Vogel & Marin Cogan of Politico: incoming House freshman Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) will host a lavish fundraiser tonight from which some of the Repubican leadership is pretending to distance itself. Some conservatives are criticizing the event as inconsistent with stated Republican "austerity" goals. CW: no kidding.

Manu Raju of Politico: "The first day of the new Congress was supposed to mark the beginning of the end of how the filibuster has been regularly used to kill legislation on the Senate floor. But Democrats who have been complaining for two years about Republican obstruction are struggling to unite behind a single filibuster reform plan...."

Erik Wasson of The Hill: "Liberal groups say they are increasingly worried that President Obama will strike a [backroom] deal with Republicans on Social Security reforms in exchange for a 'yes' vote on increasing the nation's debt ceiling":

What I am really afraid of is another deal behind closed doors. At least with President Bush, he went around the country on a tour and presented his plan, and people didn’t like it. -- Nancy Altman of Social Security Works

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "President Obama’s legal advisers, confronting the prospect of new legal restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, are debating whether to recommend that he issue a signing statement asserting that his executive powers would allow him to bypass the restrictions."

Julianna Goldman & John McCormick of Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level White House post, possibly as his chief of staff...." ...

... Ben Smith of Politico: "A Daley appointment would be an early signal of Obama's confidence that the party's left will ultimately have no choice but to show up and vote for him in 2012." ...

... Update. Howard Fineman: "President Barack Obama is in what appears to be the final stages of choosing a new White House Chief of Staff from among the following candidates, in approximate descending order of likelihood, according to a very highly placed administration source: Acting Chief of Staff Pete Rouse, former Clinton Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle and -- a dark horse candidate -- Agriculture Secretary and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack." CW: Vilsack would be a great choice: he can flash-fire people, then say he's sorry he acted precipitously.

Law Prof. Geoffrey Stone in a New York Times op-ed: "THE so-called Shield bill, which was recently introduced in both houses of Congress..., would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any person ... to disseminate ... classified information.... Although this proposed law may be constitutional as applied to government employees ..., it would plainly violate the First Amendment to punish anyone who might publish or otherwise circulate the information after it has been leaked."

On December 26, the editors of the New York Times wrote, "... the many who are struggling have no progressive champion. The left have ceded the field to the Tea Party and, in doing so, allowed it to make history. It is building political power by selling the promise of a return to a mythic past." ...

... Ralph Nader responds: "... have your public editor look into why flagrant, often bigoted right-wingers are given so much time and space compared with fact-based progressive leaders committed to the 'equality and welfare' that your editorial espouses."

Miguel Helft of the New York Times: "With its $500 million infusion from Goldman Sachs and other investors, Facebook ... [now has] the financial muscle it needs to compete with better-heeled rivals like Google.... The deal ... [gives Facebook] the ability to delay an initial public offering. That would allow it to remain free of government regulation and from the volatility of Wall Street. It would also allow Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, to retain near absolute control over the company he co-founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004."

"All Politics Is Local"? Not Any More. Nate Silver: "... elections in the United States have become increasingly nationalized in recent decades."

"The Personality of an Oyster." Joshua Green of The Atlantic profiles Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in an article aptly titled "Strict Obstructionist." ...

... In case you just can't get enough of McConnell, here's an op-ed he wrote in the Washington Post advising Democrats to obey him or something. CW: I didn't read it.

Mark Thompson of Time remembers John Wheeler, a former Pentagon official & advocate for veterans, whose body was found in Delaware on December 31.

Michael Crowley of Time recommends Greg Jaffe's heartbreaking dispatch to the Washington Post on some troops fighting in Afghanistan. CW: instead of reading novels on his Hawaiian vacation, President Obama would have done better to read Jaffe's report on real life and death in Obama's war. Crowley also recommends the film "Restrepo" by Outpost Films. As part of the film project, this 14-minute video centers on the actions that led to Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta's receipt of the Medal of Honor. Giunta is the first living recipient since the Vietnam War:

... Read more about the Outpost documentary film, "Restrepo" by Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington.

The Commentariat -- January 3

Steven Davidoff of the New York Times: "Goldman Sach’s investment in Facebook once again raises the issue of whether the Securities and Exchange Commission will force the social networking company into an initial public offering. In particular, this issue arises because of the special purpose vehicle that Goldman plans to create in order to allow its clients to invest up to $1.5 billion in Facebook." ...

... Evelyn Rusli of the New York Times: "Goldman Sachs may have found a new friend in Facebook, but the financial firm isn’t finding much love from members of the social network." ...

... Related News Stories: "New York Times: "Facebook, the popular social networking site, has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor in a deal that values the company at $50 billion, according to people involved in the transaction. The deal makes Facebook now worth more than companies like eBay, Yahoo and Time Warner." AND "As part of a deal that values Facebook at $50 billion, Goldman Sachs is offering wealthy clients a chance to invest in the company without its going public." CW: so fucking egalitarian.

New Yorker art."Oh, Shut Up." Rick Hertzberg: "In the absence of the filibuster, the health-care law would offer a public alternative to private insurance, the financial reform would be strong enough to close off the likelihood of another meltdown, and the very rich (and their heirs) would pay something closer to their fair share of taxes. Nearly two hundred qualified nominees for executive and judicial offices would be on the job instead of in limbo. And a climate-and-energy bill, a bill to require corporations to be open about their political spending, the DREAM Act, and dozens of other worthy measures — all of which passed the House and had majority support in the Senate — would now be the law of the land."

Steve Kornacki of Salon takes the MSM approach to the Obama presidency & declares that 2010 wasn't a bad year for Obama after all. CW: I don't really agree with Kornacki, but his POV is worth considering.

Paul Krugman: "... what we’re looking at over the next few years, even with pretty good growth, are unemployment rates that not long ago would have been considered catastrophic — because they are. Behind those dry statistics lies a vast landscape of suffering and broken dreams. And the arithmetic says that the suffering will continue as far as the eye can see." ...

... Emily Kaiser of Reuters: "U.S. private employers have recorded 11 consecutive months of job gains, yet the number of people who are so discouraged that they have given up searching for work stands at an all-time high."

"Chewing Gum for Terrorists." Law Prof. David Cole in a New York Times op-ed: "Under current law, it seems, the right to make profits is more sacrosanct than the right to petition for peace, and the need to placate American businesses more compelling than the need to provide food and shelter to earthquake victims and war refugees." ...

... Glenn Greenwald has a different take on the Paris meeting, which David Cole references, in which "Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend ... appeared at a forum organized by supporters of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) -- a group declared by the U.S. since 1997 to be [a] 'terrorist organization' -- and expressed wholesale support for that group." Greenwald writes that, "The reason there isn't more uproar over these Bush officials' overt foreign-soil advocacy on behalf of a Terrorist group is because they want to use that group's Terrorism to advance U.S. aims." ...

... John Cook gives the story a Gawker flavor: "Rudy Giuliani & John Bolton Are Terrorists Now."

NEW. Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: Pennsylvanian "Patrick J. Toomey was elected to the Senate in November as part of the Republican revolution, with a big assist from Tea Party activists, an endorsement from Sarah Palin and the expectation that he would join with other antiestablishment conservatives to remake Washington. But as he prepared to take office this week, Mr. Toomey hardly sounded like a partisan rabble-rouser." ...

... "Lindsey Graham Joins the Loonies." Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "... Graham seems to grasp ... that default could be catastrophic. But that's not stopping him from making his demands." ...

... BECAUSE, as David Dayan of Firedoglake argues, "... the Democrats and the White House are talking about insanity, while the Republicans are banking on the responsibility of their opponents."

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in a New York Times op-ed: during the state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao, Presidents Obama & Hu should establish "a joint charter ... [which would], in effect, provide the framework not only for avoiding what under some circumstances could become a hostile rivalry but also for expanding a realistic collaboration between the United States and China."

Justin Elliott of Salon on the neo-imperialism of Sen. Lindsey Graham & amigos. With video.

Joe Klein of Time: President "Obama -- or his advisors -- undercut [Special Envoy Richard] Holbrooke from the very outset, which crippled our ability to push the Afghan government toward legitimacy and made Holbrooke's mission near-impossible." Here's Leslie Gelb's tribute to Holbrooke, which is the basis for Klein's post.

At the Diplomats' Bazaar. Eric Lipton, et al., of the New York Times: "United States diplomats were acting like marketing agents [for Boeing], offering deals to heads of state and airline executives.... This is the high-stakes, international bazaar for large commercial jets, where tens of billions of dollars are on the line, along with hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs.... To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of the sales force, according to hundreds of cables released by WikiLeaks, which describe politicking and cajoling at the highest levels." With links to related documents.

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: in anticipation of a WikiLeaks document dump, the Bank of America does some forensic sleuthing of its own transactions.

Jake Sherman of Politico: "Rep. Darrell Issa is aiming to launch investigations on everything from WikiLeaks to Fannie Mae to corruption in Afghanistan in the first few months of what promises to be a high profile chairmanship of the top oversight committee in Congress.... The House Oversight and Government Reform is also planning to investigate how regulation impacts job creation, the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis; recalls at the Food and Drug Administration and the failure of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to agree on the causes of the market meltdown." ...

... Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars has a terrific reprise of Darrell Issa's appearance yesterday on CNN's "State of the Union." Issa's interrogator -- Republican-friendly Ed Henry, of all people. As Belle writes, "It's amazing how ridiculous these GOP talking points are rendered when the media does their job even a little bit." With video. ...

... AND Some Big-Mouth Republicans Retreat. Alan Zibel of the Wall Street Journal: "Earlier this year, leading House Republicans proposed to privatize mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or place them in receivership starting in two years. Now, as Republicans prepare to assume control of the House next week, they aren't in as big a rush, cautioning that withdrawing government support in the housing market should be gradual." ...

... AND Carrie Johnson of NPR: the Justice Department gets ready for Republican attacks. Plus audio.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). New York Times photo.More Reasons to Miss Alan Grayson. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "He has zero faith in the incoming speaker of the House, John A. Boehner, whom he calls a 'tool of special interest.' He derides the Tea Party’s successes as 'bought and paid for by the enormously rich and the selfish.' And he can barely contain distaste for his Republican successor, whose views he sums up as 'bizarre fundamentalist.' Representative Alan Grayson ... is leaving office on Wednesday much as he entered it two years ago — as the pugnaciously partisan, verbal-bomb-tossing, liberal folk hero of the 111th Congress.... While surveying the wreckage of the November elections that cost him his seat and looking to the Congressional term ahead, Mr. Grayson posits that many Democrats have not been acting Democratic enough." Read the whole article.

Two Essays I've Been Meaning to Link:

(1) "According to most scientists, the sun rises in the east, although critics say...." Garrett Epps of The Atlantic on why lawsuits against the Affordable Care are crap & the judges who buy into the plaintiffs' arguments are dumb as posts. And journalists are not doing their jobs in explaining the crap cases, either.

(2) Sam Harris in the Huff Post: "... throughout the 1950's -- a decade for which American conservatives pretend to feel a harrowing sense of nostalgia -- the marginal tax rate for the wealthy was over 90 percent." Harris goes on to skewer just about every conservative economic myth. He then proposes a 21st-century American Renaissance, brought to you by our wealthiest countrymen.

Prisoners Go High-Tech. Kim Severson & Robbie Brown of the New York Times: "A smartphone hidden under a mattress is the modern-day file inside a cake."

Do give yourself a treat & read the blog post of Steven Lee Myers, et al., of the New York Times on the antiquities of Iraq. Update: a related story is here. Here's one of the videos incorporated into the post:

... Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post reports on a $5 billion U.S.-funded program that has done nothing but build new ruins: "investments under the plan -- known as the Commander's Emergency Response Program, have created no more than a temporary illusion of progress. They have also shown a lack of U.S. foresight and highlighted the shortcomings of an Iraqi government the Americans were trying to boost."

XO Movie Night. Anahad O'Connor of the New York Times: Navy "Capt. Owen Honors reportedly not only orchestrated the making of ... raunchy videos, but also starred in them and filmed them aboard the [U.S.S.] Enterprise with government equipment while the carrier was deployed during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The videos were splashed across the Internet over the weekend, and are now at the center of a Navy investigation. According to The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk..., Captain Honors made the videos in 2006 and 2007 to entertain and boost the morale of sailors aboard the carrier. The videos were filmed with cameras and equipment from the carrier’s public affairs office, and were shown at least once a week on closed-circuit television throughout the ship. Captain Honors at the time was the carrier’s executive officer..., but he later became its commanding officer." Here's the Virginia-Pilot story & video.

Local News

Noah Kristula-Green of the Frum Forum: Christine O’Donnell is responsible "for destroying and cannibalizing the Republican Party in Delaware. Despite the media’s continuing fascination with O’Donnell ... less attention has been paid to O’Donnell’s negative effect on the down-ticket races in Delaware, or to the fact that the damage she did will last for several election cycles. There has also been no attempt to hold accountable the conservative media figures who endorsed O’Donnell." Kristula-Green bashes Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin & Jim DeMint.

David Catanese of Politico reports that my Republican Congressman Connie Mack the Umpteenth, who is the son & grandson of senators of the same name,  husband of Mary Bono & otherwise a dimwitted cipher who seldom gets near Southwest Florida, will run for Sen. Bill Nelson's seat. I'm not that big a fan of Nelson's, but Mack isn't qualified to wipe Nelson's boots. Still, he could win. Here's an uncritical (Fort Myers) News-Press story about him.

The Commentariat -- January 2

For Slate, Mark Fiore looks back over "The Year that Wasn't":

"The Constitutional Option." In a New York Times op-ed, former Vice President Walter Mondale, who was also a Senator & President of the Senate, says, "Fix the Filibuster." Mondale makes several suggestions, but he also explains why Majority Leader Reid & Minority Leader McConnell's little scheme to require a super-majority to change the filibuster rules in unconstitutional:

A long-standing principle of common law holds that one legislature cannot bind its successors. If changing Senate rules really required a two-thirds supermajority, it would effectively prevent a simple majority of any Senate from ever amending its own rules, which would be unconstitutional. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states: 'Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings.' The document is very explicit about the few instances where a supermajority vote is needed — and changing the Senate’s procedural rules is not among them. In all other instances it must be assumed that the Constitution requires only a majority vote.

The Rich Are Held to a Lower Standard. Charles Bagli of the New York Times: "While a homeowner who lost a house to foreclosure would find it difficult to borrow for years, developers who defaulted on enormous loans have still been able to attract money. The reasons, experts say, are that there is still plenty of money floating around and that the market has a very short memory."

New York Times: "President Obama took time out of his Hawaiian vacation on Sunday to sign into law one of the surprise accomplishments of the lame-duck Congress: a measure covering the cost of medical care for rescue workers and others sickened by toxic fumes and dust after the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center."

Imtiwaz Delawala of ABC News: "President Obama's top economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, warned today against 'playing chicken' with raising the country's debt ceiling, saying it would cause 'a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008.' ... Some conservatives in Congress, especially new Tea Party members, have said they will vote against raising the debt limit again, saying government should drastically cut spending instead." Here's Jake Tapper's full interview of Goolsbee:

     ... Even George Will agrees with Goolsbee., saying that voting against raising the debt ceiling would be "suicidal." With video. ...

... Bridget Johnson of The Hill: Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz & Anthony Weiner introduce new Republican pontificator Rep. Mike Kelly (Penns.) to the real world on "Face the Nation." CBS News story & video here.

Washington Post: Darrell Issa, "the Republican congressman who is taking over responsibility for congressional oversight, called President Obama's administration 'one of the most corrupt administrations' on Sunday and predicted that the investigations he is planning over the next two years could result in about $200 billion in savings for U.S. taxpayers."

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), incoming chairman of one of the House committees that oversees health policy, said undoing the Democrats' health reform law would be a top priority for the new GOP-controlled Congress. Upton said on 'Fox News Sunday' that he believes there may be enough opposition in the new House to reach the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto. Short of that, he said House leaders will 'go after this bill piece by piece.'"

Republicons Beware! Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Just a month ago, Tea Party leaders were celebrating their movement’s victories in the midterm elections. But as Congress wrapped up an unusually productive lame-duck session last month, those same Tea Party leaders were lamenting that Washington behaved as if it barely noticed that American voters had repudiated the political establishment."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: Republican "legislative leaders in at least half a dozen states say they will propose bills similar to a controversial law to fight illegal immigration that was adopted by Arizona last spring, even though a federal court has suspended central provisions of that statute.... Legislators have also announced measures to limit access to public colleges and other benefits for illegal immigrants and to punish employers who hire them. Next week, at least five states plan to begin an unusual coordinated effort to cancel automatic United States citizenship for children born in this country to illegal immigrant parents. Opponents say that effort would be unconstitutional, arguing that the power to grant citizenship resides with the federal government, not with the states."

Norm Ornstein in a Washington Post op-ed: there are death panels, but they don't come from the Affordable Care Act. "They come from Republican administrations in states such as Arizona and Indiana.... The nightmares of conservatives bitterly opposed to health reform are coming true..., but with zero relation to the reform bill they opposed.... Things are about to get worse."

Daniel Gross of the Washington Post reviews All the Devils Are Here, a book the delves into "the hidden history of the financial crisis," by Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera. Gross concentrates on one of the devils -- a shady character named Roland Arnall, "the real subprime pioneer."

Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: the Mortgage Bankers Association, which successfully lobbied Congress last year to defeat a program to help foreclosure victims, "is once again standing in opposition to programs aimed at keeping families in their homes — this time by taking aim at what are known as mortgage mediation programs, which push banks to negotiate with borrowers before finalizing a foreclosure."

On Christmas Day, Pope Benedict XVI offered his "Thought for the Day," published in the Guardian, & recorded by the BBC; the link is to the transcript & video, the recording of which, the BBC notes, "followed months of negotiations between the BBC and the Vatican." Part of the pope's message:

And it was not a political liberation that he [Jesus] brought, achieved through military means: rather, Christ destroyed death for ever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross.

     ... CW: sounds like standard Christian fare to me, but it got Richard Dawkins in a lather about the implicit message, a central Roman Catholic tenet, of original sin. Dawkins calls the pope "Ratzinger":

Ratzinger has much to confess in his own conduct, as cardinal and pope. But he is also guilty of promoting one of the most repugnant ideas ever to occur to a human mind: 'Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness' (Hebrews 9:22). -- Richard Dawkins

Local News

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is sworn in (for a second time) & delivers his inaugural address:

New York Times: during his inaugural address today, New York Gov. Andrew "Cuomo said he would unveil an emergency financial plan this week — a month before his first budget proposal is due — and push aggressively for stronger ethics enforcement in Albany." Here's the full text of Gov. Cuomo's speech.

Danny Hakim of the New York Times on former Gov. Mario Cuomo, father of new New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. ...

... Elizabeth Harris of the Times on the Cuomo governors' housing in Albany's Wellington Hotel, which was "sort of a dump" back in the day & is an empty shell now -- and in the governor's mansion. ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the Times: "Andrew M. Cuomo flung open the doors of the Executive Mansion on Saturday, saying he wanted people to feel connected once again to their state government. But for some visitors, the real draw was ... Mr. Cuomo's girlfriend, Sandra Lee, the Food Network star, who for a time greeted guests alongside him in the mansion’s cavernous receiving hall...."

Elizabeth Stevens of the New York Times: four retirees from Livermore Labs "... have brought [suit] against the Regents of the University of California. The retirees, who received U.C. paychecks for decades, say the university unfairly cast them out of its retiree health care system shortly after the federal Department of Energy, which owns the lab, turned management over to a private company in 2007."