The Commentariat -- Jan. 31, 2014

Internal links removed.

David Sanger & Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "The Obama administration announced Thursday that it would nominate Vice Adm. Michael S. Rogers to become the new director of the National Security Agency and the commander of the new Pentagon unit that directs the country's offensive cyberoperations, according to senior administration officials. Admiral Rogers, a cryptologist by training who has quietly risen to the top of naval intelligence operations, would become the public face of the N.S.A. at a moment that it is caught in the cross hairs of the roiling debate about whether its collection of information about American citizens and foreign leaders has exceeded legal constraints and common sense."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "The House Republican leadership's call on Thursday to provide legal status for 11 million undocumented workers, and possible citizenship for those brought to this country as children, caused sharp division within the party even as it provided a starting point for negotiations with Democrats on overhauling the nation's immigration system. Many Republicans rejected the one-page 'standards for immigration reform' outright, and others said now was not the time for a legislative push on a number of contentious issues in an election year with trends going their way." ...

... Seung Min Kim & Jake Sherman of Politico: "The House Republican leadership is trying to sell their colleagues on a series of broad immigration principles, including a path to legal status for those here illegally. Speaker John Boehner's leadership team introduced the principles at their annual policy retreat here. Top Republicans circulated a tightly held one-page memo titled 'standards for immigration reform' toward the tail-end of a day that include strategy conversations about Obamacare, the economy and the national debt." ...

... Rebecca Leber of Think Progress: "House Republicans have used a variety of excuses -- citing Obamacare, sequestration, Syria, or the drug war -- to explain their reasons for not passing a comprehensive immigration bill. But a Republican congressman cited one reason for the stalemate the GOP won't admit publicly. The Southern congressman told BuzzFeed it is a matter of race. 'Part of it, I think -- and I hate to say this, because these are my people -- but I hate to say it, but it's racial,' said the lawmaker, who remained anonymous. 'If you go to town halls people say things like, "These people have different cultural customs than we do." And that's code for race.' Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) noted that race and demagoguery has always been a factor when it's come to U.S. immigration policy, and it certainly is one now. 'There's nothing new going on today that's gone on before,' Graham said. 'This isn't the first time that there's been some ugliness around the issue of immigration.'"

** Tim Egan on Cathy McMorris Rodgers: "Her district, poorer than the west side of the state, with much of the broken-family, broken-promise poverty of white rural America, is in real trouble. But the policy prescriptions of McMorris Rodgers have nothing to offer these people. Through her, you can see what happens when biography trumps substance in politics.... McMorris Rodgers voted to drastically cut food aid last year, and joined her party in resisting emergency benefits to the unemployed. She has been a leading strategist in the unrelenting Republican attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act.And yet, in her district, people are flocking to Obamacare -- well beyond the national average." ...

... Hannah Rosin in Slate: "... she is in fact, day to day, the kind of woman who not all that long ago would have made Republicans distinctly uncomfortable. That is she's a woman who works nonstop and has limitless ambitions, all while tending to three children under the age of 7.... The social values and the workaholic lifestyle sometimes make for a confusing message. McMorris Rodgers says she supports the 'traditional family,' but in front of women's groups she sometimes sounds like an overeager feminist.... But in public policy terms, the swaggering-woman rhetoric translates into 'don't ask for handouts.' McMorris Rodgers has voted like a standard conservative, for cuts to nearly every social service. She voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and in favor of cutting funding for birth control. Last year, she supported a version of the Violence Against Women Act that excluded gay, immigrant, and Native American women." ...

... Ann Friedman in New York: "The supermom archetype is perfect for a party whose policies send the message that if you're not getting ahead, it's because you aren't working hard enough." ...

... The GOP Response to the SOTU Was a Sham. David Wasson of the Spokane Spokesman-Review: "The woman described only as 'Bette in Spokane' during a nationally televised address by U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Wednesday she had no idea her frustrations ... would become part of the Republican attack on health care reform.... But the 'nearly $700 per month' increase in her premium that McMorris Rodgers cited ... was based on one of the pricier options.... The carrier also offered a less expensive ... option.... And, [Bette] acknowledged the couple probably could have shaved another $100 a month off the replacement policy costs by purchasing them from the state's online portal..., but they chose to avoid the government health exchanges.... McMorris Rodgers' office provided no explanation Wednesday on what steps were taken to verify the figures." CW: No kidding. ...

... Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: "According to [Cathy McMorris] Rodgers, Bette ... had 'hoped the president's healthcare law would save her money -- but found out instead that her premiums were going up nearly $700 a month.' The lesson, according to Rodgers: 'This law is not working.' ... Unsurprisingly, her story is much different from the sketchy description provided by Rodgers.... A ... plan ... actually is available from Washington's insurance exchange for much less -- and with a deductible far lower than the $10,000 [Bette] was paying under the old plan and broader coverage, though lacking a provision for four free doctor visits a year provided by her old plan.... Her plight has nothing to do with Obamacare. It's a product of her own apparently flawed decision to refuse even to look into [the ACA plans]. And it's another sign of how threadbare the GOP criticism of the Affordable Care Act has become." ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "Yes, on the very same day that the Republican House voted on yet another anti-abortion bill, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers actually said: 'Republicans believe health care choices should be yours, and not the government's.' Unless, obviously, the you she is talking to has a uterus falling somewhere in the age range of 10 to 55.... [The bill] would prohibit the government of the District of Columbia from spending any local, public funds to provide abortion care for low-income women. It would not allow insurance companies participating in the exchanges to offer any abortion coverage. (By the way, 80 percent of private insurance plans cover abortion now.) It would take tax credits away from small businesses offering health insurance to their employees, if that insurance covered abortion." ...

... Amanda Marcotte in Slate: "After Tuesday, it became clear that the Republican strategy is now to send positive messages of support for working women while doubling down on the attacks on reproductive rights."

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The Air Force said Thursday that it had now suspended 92 officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base -- nearly half of the nuclear launch crew there -- in a cheating scandal, and it acknowledged a 'systemic problem' in the culture of the team that is entrusted to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Air Force secretary, Deborah Lee James, said a 'climate of fear' that was pervasive in the ballistic missile force might have encouraged launch officers to share answers to monthly proficiency tests. She said the nation's nuclear arsenal remained safe." ...

... Which Brings to Mind ... Matt Ballinger of the Los Angeles Times: "'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' was released 50 years ago this week." ...

... Eric Schlosser in the New Yorker: "Half a century after Kubrick's mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of 'our precious bodily fluids' from Communist subversion, we now know that American officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on their own. And despite the introduction of rigorous safeguards in the years since then, the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation hasn't been completely eliminated."

Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times: "Rep. Henry A. Waxman, whose legislative record has made him one of the country's most influential liberal lawmakers for four decades, announced Thursday that he will retire from his Westside seat, the latest in a wave of departures that is remaking the state's long-stable congressional delegation."

Goldman Sachs Just Wrecked Another Country. Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "When Denmark gave the global financial giant Goldman Sachs the go-ahead on Thursday to buy a stake in its state utility..., [it] so divided ... the Socialist People’s Party that it withdrew its ministers from the country's governing coalition. Some party members said the deal ceded too much power to Goldman. Annette Vilhelmsen, the party's leader, who supported the deal, stepped down from her leadership role since she could not reach agreement within her party. The party's withdrawal from the coalition left the government of Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the prime minister, with a tenuous grip on power. That so many Danes have been aghast at the idea of giving Goldman Sachs a prominent role in the country's energy future reflects how far the damage to the investment bank's reputation has spread since the financial crisis."

Paul Krugman explains "secular stagnation," by way of Turkey. CW: Like "quantitative easing," "secular stagnation," IMHO, is a stupid term. If you asked me what "secular stagnation" meant, I'd say, "Religious fundamentalism is surging, & the non-theists are giving up!" That would not be what Krugman & Larry Summers mean, however. As for "quantitative easing," I think that's when I have to let out my waistbands a few inches. Check that with Bernanke or Yellen, will you? Maybe one reason economics is so hard for laymen to grasp is that economists don't really understand English, so their jargon, besides being jargon, is nonsensical.

Thanks to James S. for reminding us that today is the anniversary of the day "Ida May Fuller, a resident of rural Vermont...., became the first beneficiary of a recurring Social Security payment.... After working for decades as a teacher and legal secretary, and contributing to Social Security for almost three years, she filed her retirement claim in November 1939. The check she received two months later for $22.54 (roughly $350 in today's dollars) bears the historic number 00-000-001. Fuller lived to be 100 and died on the 35th anniversary of receiving her first check, on Jan. 31, 1975. In her three years of contributing to the program, the accumulated taxes on her salary were $24.75. She collected $22,888.92 in benefits." -- Kristin Aguilera in Bloomberg News

Local News

Lisa Schencker of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts -- a move that shocked and angered parents."

News Ledes

Inside Job. Reuters: "Target Corp said on Wednesday that the theft of a vendor's credentials helped cyber criminals pull off a massive theft of customer data during the holiday shopping season in late 2013. It was the first indication of how networks at the No. 3 U.S. retailer were breached, resulting in the theft of about 40 million credit and debit card records and 70 million other records with customer information such as addresses and telephone numbers."

AP: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel hinted Thursday at growing U.S. impatience with Afghan President Hamid Karzai for his refusal to sign an accord permitting American troops to remain in his country after the U.S. combat mission ends in December."

AFP: "The United States on Thursday rebuked China over its treatment of foreign media following the departure of a New York Times reporter after authorities did not renew his visa. A White House statement said the United States was 'very disappointed' that reporter Austin Ramzy was obliged to leave China and that Beijing's actions 'stand in stark contrast with US treatment of Chinese and other foreign journalists.'"

AFP: " Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych scrapped controversial anti-protest laws Friday but faced calls from the military to take 'urgent steps' to ease the ex-Soviet nation's worst crisis since independence."

Comments

[James Singer]

Today is Ida May Fuller Day. On this date in 1940, Ms Fuller received the first ever Social Security check. The amount was $22.54.

[Patrick]

The last line of the GOP Immigration paper says:

" Finally, none of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented to fulfill our promise to the American people that from here on, our immigration laws will indeed be enforced. "

Run that through the GOPese-to-English translator, and it reads: "None of this will ever happen. Except maybe some parts we like. Like citizenship for persons brought in as children who grow up to serve in the military. They have a good chance of potentially voting GOP."

[Jack Mahoney]

I don't usually do this (as I post comments to The Times nearly every day), but today I'd really like you guys to weigh in on pushing the idea of saving the world through taxation. Thanks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/opinion/krugman-talking-troubled-turkey.html?comments&_r=0#permid=11061126

[MAG]

@ James S: According to the CPI calculator, today Ida May Fuller's payment would have the buying power of $375.06.

I wondering, maybe that $22.54 actually went a lot further back then! Though tried the calculations on my first weekly paycheck of $50.00 back in 1959 and today its buying power is $400.27. That $50.00 for a 6-day workweek covered gas (approx. $ .28 a gallon) for the car, monthly parking ($4.00) at a nearby lot, clothing, and eating lunch at the local 'five-and-dime counter." Thank goodness I was still a parasite living at home!

[Diane]

Many of the ACA horror /failure stories, endlessly trotted out by the GOP, are easily discredited. However, those stories aren't aimed at people who question the truth of the narrative in the first place. Its not only other ACA haters who embrace these stories as truth, its that huge swath of the populace who have been conditioned by the TV to accept the latest soundbite and pass it on. It stops with the first contact and like racoons seeking a shiny object, off to the next faux outrage. I think its only a small group of us who pay attention to the follow up. So those stories are quite effective in damaging the perception of the ACA.

Meanness, lack of curiosity and lazy thought processes are not good signs for our culture. Quite predictable though. Our educational system is turning out idiots. We have to fight with shit-for-brains in charge who insist on anti-science claptrap in textbooks whose greatest fear is anyone with a deeper intelligence than an earthworm.

[Patrick]

Diane, I agree with you about the problem of public awareness and engagement in political issues, but add that most people don't have the time to engage in study and fact finding on their own, even if they had the inclination. "The news" should give them useful, pertinent and accessible information, but that is now problematic -- the citizen has to now figure out which of the babbling voices is worth paying attention to, which is work in itself. And, people still think of "politics" as "something politicians do," as opposed to that thing citizens do to improve their lives and avoid being screwed. It all adds up to an opportunity for charlatans to gull the busy and ignorant, which we are seeing every day. I thought Jon Stewart's piece on GOP Bullshit (Wednesday night) was one of the most effective expositions on how that works that I have ever seen -- but you would never see that on "60 Minutes" etc.

[Ken Winkes]

Jack,

If I understand you correctly, you're asking if taxation, artfully applied, could moderate the boom and bust cycles that Krugman describes and which he predicts will become even more common as cash continues to flow instantaneously across borders, seeking instant increase.

I have no doubt that the right kind of taxation could act as a governor, a kind of fly wheel on the economic engine, that would calm the racing international economic engine. The large problem is, of course, who would levy it and in whose interests such taxation would be applied.

If the UN had the power to levy taxes, there might more hope for a rational response to the evident problems with our economic system. But it does not, and I don't expect individual countries to do much about the problem, which is often, not here, but somewhere "over there." As long as money has no borders while people and nations do, we will do little to control its flow.

Your question, though, makes me think about money and its power. Seems that money, like any power source, has its own characteristics, its own physical properties that human beings can control only if they act in accordance with that power's intrinsic rules. Water flows downhill; electricity moves from negative to positive (if I have that right) and radioactive elements have the urge to fission. Each, in other words has a nature, almost a mind of its own. Maybe money, likewise, if not in itself, as an extension of its possessor's urgency to expand, to increase his or her sway, cannot simply sit still. It has to be up and doing something, going somewhere, seeking more of its own kind. In fact inactive money may be a contradiction in terms and fundamentally anti-economic in the sense that if all money sat quietly on the sidelines there would be no economy at all.

Our problem with money is that its nature is so closely tied to our own that we do a much poorer job of controlling it than we do with purely physical sources of power like electricity and water (I note, though, we're having a little trouble with fossil fuels, tied as directly as they are to the health of each nation's economy). To control it, we'd actually have to recognize it for what it is, that is an extension of ourselves, of our desires and needs, good and bad, and act on what that self-examination reveals. A tough task for a human being.

So no immediate answers, but there's some thinking out there that suggests we are beginning to figure it out.

In the meantime, in case you missed it, as I posted the other day, I thought Keller's recent Times piece worth a look.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs-democracy.html?hp&rref=opinion

It's relevant to your question.

[Jack Mahoney]

Thanks Ken. I think it's something that we should discuss. Your link is to an Edsall (not a Keller) column. Was that the correct link?

[Akhilleus]

Patrick,

No, you wouldn't be likely to see an exposition, humorous or not, on how GOP schemers hoodwink the public on 60 Minutes. Or 20/20. Or Fox and Friends. (I know, I know.)

You're much more likely to see a story about BENGHAAAAZI that indulges in its own brand of bamboozling.

The abdication of responsibility to the public interest by the lion's share of the fourth estate is one of the great tragedies of our age. But not one you're likely to see reported on by 60 Minutes or Meet the Press or Nightly News. Corporations with a lot of money at stake own all the major news outlets and we see only what they allow us to see.

I read an interesting piece on Salon last week about a writer who, as an experiment in media immersion, restricted his news consumption to Fox and only Fox for three hours a day for a month. At the end of his experiment (in addition to having lost 50 IQ points) he was more aware of the things Fox chose not to show than what they did show. The other major news outlets are not quite as horrible as Fox at ideologically coloring the things they do cover, but they all decide on what stories are "important" and what stories (income inequality, immigration, civil rights, loss of voting rights, chronic Republican intransigence, etc), in their grandiloquent opinion, are not.

And because of the bread and circus factor (Don't worry about immigration. Here's Kim Kardashian's ass!), and the addition, thanks to Fox, of the necessary ingredient of manufactured outrage (War on Christmas, War on Christians, War on America, usurper, blah people stealing your money), we're much more likely to hear more stories of the BENGHAAAAZI variety than we are about how Wal Mart abuses its employees, or the disgraceful treatment of poor people, or how the Koch brothers and their billionaire buddies purchase preferred political outcomes.

No film at 11.

Mother of mercy! Fox for a month! Where's the scotch?

[Ken Winkes]

Jack, You're correct. Edsall, not Keller. My brain, it seems, can no long cut and paste reliably.

Thanks for the correction.