The Commentariat -- January 4, 2014

Internal links removed.

The President's Weekly Address. White House: "In this week's address, President Obama says Congress should act to extend emergency unemployment insurance for more than one million Americans who have lost this vital economic lifeline while looking for a job":

     ... The New York Times story, by Peter Baker, is here. ...

... Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "The US economy is losing up to a billion dollars a week because of the 'fiscally irresponsible' decision to end long-term unemployment benefits, a Harvard economist said on Friday. Professor Lawrence Katz based his assessment on official forecasts of the impact to the economy of 1.3 million jobless Americans losing benefits." ...

... Amy Goodman in the Guardian: "The long-term unemployment rate is at the highest it has been since the second world war, while the percentage of those receiving the benefits is at its historic low.... On the other end of the economy, a year-end stock market rally is expected to boost the massive bonuses Wall Street is preparing to hand out." Alexis Goldstein of the Other 98% "points out the bonuses are essentially publicly financed because Wall Street banks obtain funds from the Federal Reserve at very low rates. These banks also can afford huge bonuses, she says, because 'they continue to commit crimes that are very profitable'." ...

... Jeff Mason of Reuters: "President Barack Obama will ratchet up his administration's push for an extension of emergency unemployment benefits on Tuesday with an event at the White House attended by people whose benefits have expired."

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Friday reflected on his eight-year tenure at the helm of the nation's economy, celebrating the central bank's accomplishments but also highlighting what he called 'uncompleted tasks.' ... Bernanke saved his toughest critiques for Washington. Since federal stimulus spending ended in 2010, the government has been a drag on economic growth, he said. After the 2001 recession, government employment rose by 600,000. During the current recovery, he said, it has declined by 700,000 jobs. 'Although long-term fiscal sustainability is a critical objective, excessively tight near-term fiscal policies have likely been counterproductive,' he said. 'Most importantly, with fiscal and monetary policy working in opposite directions, the recovery is weaker than it otherwise would be.'" The text of the speech is here. C-SPAN has the video here.

Whiney Little Sisters. AFP: "The US Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to throw out a challenge from a nuns' group against a birth control mandate in the Obamacare health reform law. The Little Sisters of the Poor had asked the US high court to exempt it from the controversial birth control clause, saying that providing birth control was contrary to its religious beliefs. The US government, in its written response..., argu[ed] that the provision does not apply to the nuns anyway. The Little Sisters' lawsuit is 'not about the availability or adequacy of a religious accommodation,' the Justice Department brief said. Instead, the nuns group wants to 'justify its refusal to sign a self-certification that secures the very religion-based exemption the objector seeks.'" (Emphasis added.) ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "As a new round of religion-based challenges to President Barack Obama's health care law head to the Supreme Court, advocates on both sides of the issue say the administration's arguments are likely facing a chilly reception." CW: Okay, then: universal health insurance is the answer.

Jenna Johnson & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "Maryland lawmakers are expected to pass legislation as soon as next week to assist the hundreds of people -- or, possibly, thousands -- who tried to sign up for health insurance through the state's new exchange program, encountered problems and were left uncovered when the new year began."

Brady McCombs & Paul Foy of the AP: "Legal arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court about Utah's overturned same-sex marriage ban have focused heavily on whether gay and lesbians can be suitable parents.... Lawyers for the state set the tone for the debate in a 100-page filing with the high court this week that made several references to their belief that children should be raised by straight couples. An attorney for same-sex couples says the state's argument has no scientific backing and that denying gays and lesbians the right to marry actually causes severe harm to their children. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is considering Utah's request to put an immediate halt on gay marriages in Utah."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that the Obama administration may continue to withhold a Justice Department memo that apparently opened a loophole in laws protecting the privacy of consumer data. The memo establishes the legal basis for telephone companies to hand over customers' calling records to the government without a subpoena or court order, even when there is no emergency, according to a 2010 report by the Justice Department's inspector general. The details of the legal theory, and the circumstances in which it could be invoked, remain unclear." ...

... Bernie Sanders: "U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials." ...

... ** I firmly disagree with the New York Times' Jan. 1 editorial ('Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower'), calling on President Obama to grant Snowden 'some form of clemency' for the 'great service' he has done for his country. -- Fred Kaplan, in Slate

Kaplan's piece is REQUIRED READING for Reality Chex readers who support clemency, a pardon or hugs. kisses & the Nobel Peace Prize for Ed Snowden. Any contributors who write in support of letting Snowden off the hook will be quizzed on Kaplan's column! -- Constant Weader

... Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will file a class-action lawsuit against the National Security Agency 'soon,' his office confirmed to The Hill. Paul had been gearing up for months to lead a suit against the agency, charging that the surveillance program gathering metadata on U.S. citizens has violated people's Fourth Amendment rights. He will file the papers in the D.C. District Court as a private citizen." ...

     ... CW: Besides being a private citizen, Paul is a U.S. Senator. He could sponsor a bill that limited the NSA's activities. Then again, maybe doing his boring day job is not what Li'l Randy has in mind. As Trujillo reports, "Paul's Senate campaign website already encourages individuals to 'please sign below and join my class-action lawsuit and help stop the government's outrageous spying program on the American people.' The solicitation, which asks for individuals' names, email addresses and zip codes, also asks for a donation to help 'stop Big Brother from infringing on our Fourth Amendment freedoms.'" ...

... Update: Grace Wyler of New York has more on the pending suit, including the name of Paul's legal advisor -- Ken Cuccinelli. CW: Last year Paul campaigned for Cuccinelli, who thinks women and gays should be subject to all kinds of unreasonable searches and seizures. (In fairness to Cuccinelli, he did warn Gov. Bob Transvaginal Probe off said probe on Fourth Amendment grounds.) Thanks to MAG for the link.

** The Ghost of Decisions Past. Dana Milbank: "John Roberts ... invoked both Scrooge's ghosts and George Bailey's guardian angel in the first sentence of his annual report on the federal judiciary ... in which he begged for more money for the courts.... I agree with Roberts on the merits.... But ... Roberts and his fellow jurists are being starved by a system that they, in large part, created.... His conservative majority has made the Roberts Court the most pro-business court since the 1930s, and he and his fellow justices have done a great deal to expand the rights of the wealthy and the powerful -- most notably by allowing them to spend unlimited sums to purchase lawmakers and to sway elections. The wealthy and corporate interests have responded by buying a Congress determined to shrink government and to weaken its reach -- including that of the courts.... Roberts may see his fellow jurists as victims of a Dickensian system. But they are the authors of this Christmas carol." Read the whole column.

** Eric Lipton of the New York Times exposes one way in which Last Year's Member of Congress becomes This Year's Lobbyist, making a mockery of so-called House ethics rules -- and federal criminal law. Featured in Lipton's piece -- last year's Ohio Congressman (and John Boehner BFF) Steve LaTourette & the two lobbying groups he runs. One, the Main Street Partnership, is a ha-ha "tax-exempt social welfare" group with secret corporate benefactors.

New York Times Editors: "... the current practice of contracting out vast swaths of government work indefinitely -- with little or no attempt to develop the needed technical and managerial expertise within the government or to enforce labor standards -- has created a bloated federal-contractor sector in which the public good is often subservient to profit."

New York Times Editors: "Rebuffed by Congress on stronger gun safety laws, President Obama is wisely using use his executive powers in a more focused attempt to bar mentally ill people from eluding federal watch lists and purchasing firearms. Two sensible changes proposed for the background check system would allow states and mental health providers more discretion than they have now in reporting information about potentially violent people." ...

... Here's the White House statement on the executive action gun safety measures.

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "South Sudan is in many ways an American creation, carved out of war-torn Sudan in a referendum largely orchestrated by the United States, its fragile institutions nurtured with billions of dollars in American aid. But a murky, vicious conflict there has left the Obama administration scrambling to prevent the unraveling of a major American achievement in Africa."

The Chair Recognizes the Gentleman from Canada. AP: "U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz vowed months ago to renounce his Canadian citizenship by the end of 2013, but the Calgary-born Republican is still a dual citizen.... Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration attorney, wonders what's taking so long. Kurland said Friday that unless there's a security or mental health issue that hasn't been disclosed, renouncing citizenship is a simple, quick process."

New Yorker: "On this week's Political Scene podcast, Mattathias Schwartz and Patrick Radden Keefe join Curtis Fox ... to discuss American drug policy at home and abroad":

... "Ruth Marcus, David Brooks & Reefer Madness." Dave Weigel of Slate: "Marcus and Brooks sound like perfect parodies of clueless Acela Corridor pundits who think a lot about 'society' without bothering to explore it.... We've been waiting for the prohibitionist backlash to follow a legalization experiment like Colorado's, and it seems relevant that the lashers have started with such thin and logically lazy arguments. That's all they've got, as people in the rest of the country keep getting arrested?" ...

... Charles Pierce: "Laws against marijuana certainly have molded our culture, especially profoundly, if you happen to be young and black." CW: One day when I was young and white (also female and cute), two LAPD came to my apartment to ask me about a burglary that occurred across the hall. While one of them was asking me what-all I had seen or heard, the other was pocketing the little bag of weed I had left on the kitchen counter. I'm pretty sure the "white" part was important. ...

... Michelle Goldberg of the Nation: "Somehow, [Brooks has] written a whole column about the drug war that doesn't once contain the words 'arrest' or 'prison.' It's evidence not just of his own writerly weakness but of the way double standards in the war on drugs shield elites from reckoning with its consequences.... A recent ACLU report tells us that between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million marijuana arrests in the United States, 88 percent of them just for possession. The vast majority of these arrests, of course, are not of those in Brooks's cohort. White people and African-Americans smoke pot at similar rates, but the latter are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested." CW: Contributor Safari also did a good job of covering this in yesterday's Comments. ...

... The Libertarian Argument Against Brooks & Marcus. Matt Welch of Reason: "The absence of prohibition is not the presence of government sanction. There are a countless number of perfectly legal activities I may find personally abhorrent ... but keeping them legally permissible is not a case of my values being trampled by the state. If anything, the opposite is true: The more government uses laws to shape behavior, the more it is likely to offend your core values, whatever they may be." ...

... In Another Confessional, Jeffrey Goldberg, in Bloomberg News, does a great job of explaining to Brooks why legalization is a good idea. Also, the post is uncharacteristically funny. ...

... Update. The next two pieces come via Driftglass who contributes the image below, and much more:

Artwork by Driftglass.... I should have known: Matt Taibbi says it best, and makes the same point I made in today's Comments: "The Brooks column is particularly infuriating because in just a few hundred words it perfectly captures why marijuana needs to be legalized. Here's this grasping, status-obsessed yuppie who first admits that that he smoked an illegal drug without consequence in his youth, then turns around and tells us, as a graying and bespectacled post-adult, that it would be best if the drug remained illegal for the masses." ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress: "'Is this a great fucking country or what?' Gary Greenberg, the psychotherapist who had unintentionally convinced journalists around the country that he had grown up toking up with a New York Times columnist, was having a good day. Greenberg's essay, a takedown of David Brooks' anti-pot confessional column written as if Greenberg and Brooks were childhood smoking buddies, had become easily the most popular piece ever published on Greenberg's personal blog. He had gotten interest from (among others) The Atlantic, The Washington Examiner, and The Huffington Post." Except it was a parody. ...

     ... Warning to journalists. Headlines of other likely parodies:

Burns gets advance copy of Brooks' Yale class syllabus.
American Economics Association honors David Brooks.
David Brooks enters monastery, takes vow of silence.
I had sex with David Brooks.

... More on Drugs. The New York Times gives Mike Tyson plenty of space to explain why he has had so many problems with drugs & alcohol. Like Brooks, he wants to be sober to be a better person.

Ben Goessling of ESPN: "The Minnesota Vikings announced Friday they will retain two local attorneys to conduct an independent review of the allegations former punter Chris Kluwe made against the team Thursday."

Another Excellent Reason Not to Watch the Sunday Shows. According to Matt Wilstein of Mediaite, Mitt Romney is expected to address Melissa Harris-Perry's controversial "comedy" segment in which she highlighted the fact that one of Romney's grandchildren is black when he appears on "Fox 'News" Sunday."

News Ledes

AP: "The leader of an al-Qaida-linked group that carried out attacks across the Middle East before shifting its focus to Syria's civil war died on Saturday while in custody in Lebanon, the army said. In a short statement, the Lebanese army said Majid al-Majid 'died this morning while undergoing treatment at the central military hospital after his health deteriorated.'"

AP: "The death toll from the latest violent clashes in Egypt between Islamist protesters and security forces has risen to 17, a security official said Saturday. Friday's protests were the deadliest in months, coming less than two weeks ahead of a key referendum on an amended constitution."

Reuters: "President Vladimir Putin has eased restrictions on demonstrations in the Black Sea Winter Olympics venue of Sochi, his latest bid to burnish Russia's image ahead of the Games."

The Los Angeles Times' full obituary of Phil Everly is here.

Comments

[Marie Burns]

I have to admit I actually learned something from Brooks' insipid column (I didn't read Marcus). I didn't know of the ill effects of pot (other than the getting arrested, convicted & incarcerated part). This new (to me) information doesn't change my "position" on smoking dope; I always thought it was fine in moderation, & I still think so. Plus, I've always thought cannabis should be legal more-or-less in the limited ways alcohol & tobacco are legal.

I'm unaware of any valid argument against legalization. Brooks makes the argument that legalization will bring down the price of weed, making it more readily available:

"By making weed legal, [Colorado & Washington] are creating a situation in which the price will drop substantially.... As prices drop and legal fears go away, usage is bound to increase.... Colorado and Washington, in other words, are producing more users."

So what Brooks is actually objecting to is the democratization of weed. In his view, dope should be so expensive that it is readily available only to an elite group of wealthy people and their spawn. Only these elites have the inherent good sense to appreciate "the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature."

As for proof of the rectitude of Brooks' belief, we need only turn to Saturday's Times editorial page, wherein Mike Tyson, a man of riffraff lineage, writes a long confessional on how he abused drugs & alcohol because of the bad element in his milieu.

Marie

[MAG]

Topping the list of really strange bedfellows, we have (per Grace Wyler's story for more on Paul's NSA suit @ New York magazine online):

"Paul will also be getting an assist from Ken Cuccinelli, the failed 2013 Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate who will be out of his job as state attorney general next week. Sources say that Cuccinelli plans to join Paul's team as a legal advisor for the NSA suit, reprising his role as the Tea Party's most litigious firebrand."

What a lovely couple of _________________ (fill in the blank).

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/01/rand-paul-is-suing-the-nsa.html

[Ophelia M.]

Thank you so much for the Everly Brothers tribute. It was sad to notice Phil smoking - likely what led to his death from COPD.
Tremendous musicians & lyricists whose "tight" harmonies were
gorgeous and groundbreaking. From NYC - Ophelia M.

[Ken Winkes]

Rubbing two thoughts together, one the NYTimes take on private contracting, the other Marie's reaction to the Whiney Little Sisters and her solution, universal health care, leads me to wonder if allowing third parties to deliver essential services is another practice that invites perfectly predictable problems. Once another party or institution stands between the government and the people it serves, motives and behaviors that have nothing to do with the common good are bound to intervene.

The Times remarks on one such: Profit, a bugbear of military and government procurement as early as the Revolutionary War, as inefficient and corrupt then as it remains today.

The other on today's plate is whim, aka religion, where a group of woman who have decided to copulate with no one but Christ, one presumes only in their dreams, seek to impose their minority view of proper sexual practices on the majority of women who don't share their cracked vision of reality.

There's a lot of wacky out there ready and willing to provide services according to their own proclivities and rules, I say let-er rip!

How 'bout contracting out construction and maintenance of our interstate highway system to the Amish, the National Institute of Health to the Church of Christ, the Scientist, or NASA to the Flat Earth Society?

Makes as much sense.

Heck, we already have for-profit schools and health insurance and let produce and meat packers inspect their products themselves. All that works out well, doesn't it?

[PD Pepe]

I did the Required Reading cited by C.W. not because I have EVER been in favor of giving Snowden pardon, posies or a pat on the head, but out of curiosity. Good piece and it affirmed my thoughts about this whole messy issue. I especially liked the half-baked arguments some have made tying one thing not like another to make their points. (see the excellent discussions in yesterday's comments between our R.C. philosophers.)

Our Mr. Brooks will be by now, I imagine, choking on his All-Bran. What a piece of work! The last paragraphs of Matt's article is perfect:

"This career path is allowed in places where the police are not encouraged to go rampaging through dorm rooms or asked to do random pocket checks of all pedestrians as a matter of course – you'll never see a stop-and-frisk in the Hamptons. Therefore people who grow up in these environments tend to look at the legalization issue solely through the lens of, "Well, all we're doing by making it legal is telling kids that it's okay."

"No, actually, by making it legal, we're deciding that letting people get high is a lesser evil compared to a person's life being derailed forever by a pointless and intrinsically hypocritical marijuana arrest. But Brooks/Brown/Scarborough wouldn't know anything about that, apparently".

I, myself, have lovely memories of a young lad named Henry who would come to my apartment with his little green pipe and we'd smoke some hashish while munching on oranges and slices of green pepper and we'd write poems together or dialogue for plays and once we made angels in the snow, as white as we both were. It was a sweet time.

And Ken, your description of those nuns copulating in their dreams with Jesus –––shocking! But wait––I think you may be right because during a brief interview with one of those little ladies she said, "When we look into those faces [human beings] we always see Christ." you betcha.

[Diane]

Kaplan's column is BAM, on point exactly. Kaplan indicates that any damage from already released intelligence has not been verified. That's a good thing in my mind. There is a point at which too much information endangers individuals and could compromise greater US security. Currently, the effect to relationships with other countries is at the expected outrage level. We're embarrassed and got hypocritical scoldings for getting caught spying on others - not spying just getting caught.

Snowden's PR crew, led by the perpetually angry Greenwald (whose immaturity and self importance surpass Snowden's), have made it clear that further pilfered information will be held as blackmail material.

I hope Kaplan is correct - that Snowden spends a long time abroad in one of those countries he so reveres as models of human rights advocates.

I'd really like to see Sister Simone Campbell and her bus full-o-nuns make a visit to her little sisters. They need a talkin' to.

[citizen625]

I suddenly had the thought that Snowden is the black guy caught for smoking pot while Cheney and his Bush, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are the white pot smoking college students. Who of the above killed more people and who of the above faces the most severe penalties?
I don't condone Snowden; I sure as hell don't think he should suffer worse than those guys.

[James Singer]

Have to agree citizen625. I've grown weary of the kill the messenger tribunal.