The Commentariat -- January 7, 2014

Internal links removed.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "A Democratic push to extend unemployment benefits that have expired moved forward in the Senate on Tuesday morning, barely avoiding a Republican filibuster. The 60-to-37 vote to take up a three-month extension of benefits passed with no room to spare, which will set off negotiations to try to pass the bill later this week. Even some of the Republicans who voted yes want the cost of the extension set off by cuts elsewhere in the budget." CW: The six Repubicans who voted for the bill were Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), Dan Coats (Indiana), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nevada), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) & Rob Portman (Ohio).

Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "The Senate confirmed Janet L. Yellen as the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve on Monday, marking the first time that a woman has led the country's central bank in its 100-year history.... Ms. Yellen was confirmed 56 to 26, with many senators kept away from the Capitol due to inclement weather. Nearly one dozen Republicans -- including Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma -- crossed the aisle in support of Ms. Yellen. Ms. Yellen will be the first Democratic nominee to run the Fed since President Jimmy Carter named Paul Volcker as chairman in 1979. Still, it is the thinnest margin of Senate approval for a Fed chairman in the central bank's history." ...

... The President's statement is here.

David Espo of the AP: "The Senate plunged into an election-year session Monday that promises to be long on political maneuvering and less so on accomplishment, beginning with a slow-motion struggle over legislation to renew lapsed jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. 'I'm optimistic, cautiously optimistic, that the new year will bring a renewed spirit of cooperation to this chamber,' said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the first remarks of the year on the Senate floor. Within moments, he pivoted, accusing Republicans of 'never ending obstruction' to President Barack Obama's proposals over the past five years." ...

... Burgess Everett of Politico: "The chances of the Senate moving forward with legislation that would restore expired unemployment benefits dimmed Monday. The bill's fate hung in the balance all day as Democrats desperately sought Republican votes to advance the bill. In a sign of how seriously the White House is taking the issue, President Barack Obama personally worked the phone lines." ...

... "Where Have All the Democrats Gone?" Dana Milbank: "It's hard to imagine a better gift falling into their laps: Republicans have just thrown 1.3 million unemployed Americans out into the cold and are prepared to cut off 3.6 million others who are out of work.... But in the two hours the Senate spent debating unemployment insurance Monday afternoon, only three Democrats showed up to talk: Harry Reid (Nev.), the soft-spoken majority leader, read a brief yet somniferous speech. Patrick Leahy (Vt.) offered a few words -- on immigration. Jack Reed (R.I.) delivered a professorial 20-minute lecture in support of extending jobless benefits. And then the chamber went silent for the next hour and 20 minutes -- in a quorum call because nobody else wanted to talk."

Charles Pierce has some thoughts on the "two freaking unaccountable guys" -- a/k/a David & Charles Koch -- who, with the help of the Supreme Court, have created a labyrinth of organized money that "has bought virtual plutocracy in state governments from Wisconsin to North Carolina. It has bought itself the single worst Congress in the history of the Republic. And it is growing in strength, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it, because Citizens United was decided in such a way as to choke off any regulatory solutions, and then Shelby County came along as the hook off the jab and what electoral remedies could not be buried under the floodtide of money could be washed away by the state legislatures in those virtual plutocracies."

Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson filed a lawsuit Monday in an attempt to block the federal government from helping to pay for health care coverage for members of Congress and their staffs. Johnson's filing further stirred a rift within his own party over how Republicans should attack the health care law. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a fellow Wisconsin Republican and ardent Obamacare critic, said Monday he personally appealed to Johnson on Friday to not file the lawsuit.... Sensenbrenner, who even before Johnson filed his suit called the litigation 'an unfortunate political stunt' that 'focuses on trivial issues,' amplified his criticism Monday." And there's this: Johnson "plans to raise money through his campaign account to fund the lawsuit. Johnson, who put nearly $9 million of his own money into his 2010 run for the Senate, said he may also use personal funds for the litigation." ...

... CW: When Jim Sensenbrenner, best know for impeaching Clinton & remarking on Michelle Obama's "big butt," is the voice of reason in your party, your party sucks. Also worth emphasizing: Johnson is a multi-multimillionaire. Many Congressional staffers earn in the $50K/year range. These are the people he wants to prevent from receiving assistance in paying for their health insurance. The suit is not just a political stunt; it's a nasty political stunt. ...

... Ryan Cooper of the Washington Post notes that Johnson's lawsuit is part of the "Benghazi-fication of ObamaCare."

Dan Williams of Reuters: "Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden has more secrets to reveal that relate to Israel..., [Glenn Greenwald] said on Monday ... in an Israeli television interview."

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "... on a night nearly 43 years ago, while Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier bludgeoned each other over 15 rounds in a televised title bout viewed by millions around the world, burglars ... broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation office in a suburb of Philadelphia, making off with nearly every document inside. They were never caught, and the stolen documents that they mailed anonymously to newspaper reporters were the first trickle of what would become a flood of revelations about extensive spying and dirty-tricks operations by the F.B.I. against dissident groups." The statute of limitations has long expired, and the burglars are now going public; Betty Medsger, who first reported on the contents of the files for the WashPo, has written a book about the break-in & discoveries.

Joe Nocera writes a worthwhile column on the digital economy -- how digital networking has helped to gut the middle class & how it could be revolutionized to enhance it. "'If Google and Facebook were smart,' [Jaron Lanier, the author of Who Owns the Future,] said, 'they would want to enrich their own customers.' So far, he adds, Silicon Valley has made 'the stupid choice' -- to grow their businesses at the expense of their own customers."

National Review Editors: "Launching 17 million 'Rocky Mountain High' jokes, Colorado has become the first state to make the prudent choice of legalizing the consumption and sale of marijuana, thus dispensing with the charade of medical restrictions and recognizing the fact that, while some people smoke marijuana to counter the effects of chemotherapy, most people smoke marijuana to get high -- and that is not the worst thing in the world." CW: David Brooks, whose first job was with the National Review, must be devastated.

It's a Cold Day in America. Which means it's time for Jim Inhofe (RStupid-Okla.) to take to the Senate Floor to scoff at the crazy notion of climate change. Besides not understanding that climate change helps explain the extremely cold weather we're having (and, yes, Jimbo, there is a difference between climate & weather), Sen. Science there doesn't seem to know the difference between the North & South Poles. This is entirely appropriate because in Right Wing World down is up and up is down. ...

... Andy Borowitz: "The so-called polar vortex caused hundreds of injuries across the Midwest today, as people who said 'so much for global warming' and similar comments were punched in the face."

** Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "When not attempting to shame their enemies on trumped-up charges of racism, the conservative movement busies itself appealing to actual racists." CW: Coates' post is part of our continuing effort to try to distinguish the behavior norms of left versus right. Coates get it just right in regard to racism. His regard for Harris-Perry, however, is somewhat overblown. I don't think, as does Coates, that Harris-Perry is "America's foremost public intellectual." ...

     ... Nor is David Brooks (see link below re: boutique hotels), whom actual intellectuals mistake for a public intellectual, suggesting that actual intellectuals hold the "public" ones in low regard. (In this interview, Brooks essentially describes himself as better than America's foremost public intellectuals. He talks to presidents! while the lowly intellectuals haven't the access he has.)

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) explains in a Politico essay how the House GOP's use of "closed rules" "has excluded most House members from full participation in the legislative process [and] ... has also empowered the most extreme members of the House to pursue narrow policy goals at all costs, triggering a government shutdown, debt-limit brinksmanship and partisan stalemates that are seemingly the new norm."

GOP to Go All Out for Anti-Woman Vote. Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "The Republican National Committee (RNC) will make accommodations to its official schedule this month to allow members to participate in the March for Life, a national anti-abortion protest held on each anniversary of Roe v. Wade.... In addition to modifying the RNC's schedule, [RNC Chairman Reince] Priebus is also arranging for buses to transport members to and from the March for Life activities." ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: " Rescheduling your annual political meeting so that your party members can be seen parading around demanding that abortion be banned is a dramatic statement, but perhaps not as dramatic as choosing to first shop the story to the Washington Times. Good gawd, Reince, did you have to deliver it in crayon?"

Ken Belson & Alan Schwarz of the New York Times: "The N.F.L. and lawyers for the more than 4,000 former players who said the league hid from them the dangers of repeated head hits have agreed on the details of a $760 million settlement that could determine how retirees with head trauma are compensated."

Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "An eruption of violence in Iraq is threatening to undo much of what U.S. troops appeared to have accomplished before they withdrew, putting the country's stability on the line and raising the specter of a new civil war in a region already buckling under the strain of the conflict in Syria."

Completely ignoring the mass-bashing of his last column on the Evils of Weed, David Brooks has turned to an important op-ed topic: boutique hotels. Honest-to-god. Boutique hotels. "A basic rule of happiness," Brooks writes, "is don't buy things; buy experiences." CW: No doubt the subtext here is a not-too-subtle message to his (ex)wife: "I am getting laid, Sarah or Jane or whatever your name is now, and this is happening in edgy, boutique hotels where my 'cultural discernment' shines." I do not think I can get through the Brooks divorce.

Congressional Races 2014

Larry Sabato in Politico Magazine: "Republicans Really Could Win It All This Year."

Todd Purdum in Politico: Liz "Cheney's campaign -- notable for its vocal (and seemingly newfound) opposition to gay marriage, which soured her relations with her own openly gay sister, Mary -- was as ham-fisted as it was polarizing. A University of Chicago-trained lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush-era State Department, Cheney had virtually no experience in the policy areas that matter most in Wyoming: public lands and grazing rights; minerals and mining; oil and gas extraction. She made one unforced error after another, from claiming 10-year residency on her application for a state fishing license (she only moved to the state from Virginia in 2012), to opposing taxes on Internet retailers just as local Wyoming merchants were gearing up for the recent Christmas sales season." ...

... Evan Osnos of the New Yorker with more on the Cheney debacle.

Presidential Election 2016

Dave Weigel of Slate interviews "former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the Democrat most likely to challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016." CW: Just a hoot.

Local News

Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog has an excellent post explaining the Supreme Court's decision to temporarily block gay marriages in Utah.

Jason Meisner of the Chicago Tribune: U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang "today declared Chicago's ordinance banning the sale of firearms in the city unconstitutional. The ruling is the latest legal blow to the city, which has lost a series of court challenges by the National Rifle Association since the Supreme Court forced the city to rewrite its blanket ban on handguns three years ago.... Chang delayed his ruling from taking effect to allow the city time to appeal." CW: Chang is an Obama appointee.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Two ships immobilized by ice floes near Antarctica broke free on Tuesday, news agencies reported."

AFP: "The United States said Tuesday it would send another 800 troops to South Korea as the allies warned North Korea against any provocation, amid deepening worries over the regime's stability. Amid concern after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un executed his uncle, Secretary of State John Kerry met in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se and said there was 'not a sliver of daylight' between the two countries."

Guardian: "At least four people have been killed after a US military helicopter crashed during a training exercise near a Royal Air Force base close to the north Norfolk coast."

Guardian: "South Sudanese rebels and a government delegation started peace talks on Tuesday to try to end fighting that has left the world's newest state on the brink of civil war."

CNN: "The historic freeze that proved too cold for polar bears in the Midwest is spreading, dropping temperatures in the eastern third of the country about 20 degrees below normal for Tuesday, forecasters said. Meanwhile, much of the Deep South is frozen solid, with hard freeze warnings in effect Tuesday from eastern Texas to the Florida Panhandle."

Washington Post: 'The Justice Department announced Tuesday a $1.7 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase to resolve allegations that the behemoth bank did not warn the government of Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Federal prosecutors say JPMorgan, which served as Madoff's bank for two decades, failed to comply with a federal law that requires banks to file a 'suspicious activity' report when a transaction raises alarm. The nation's biggest bank reported its suspicions of Madoff's business to British authorities in 2008 but did not alert anyone in the United States."

Reuters: "Iran on Monday appeared to rule out participation in Syrian peace talks later this month, dismissing a U.S. suggestion that it could be involved 'from the sidelines' as not respecting its dignity."

AP: "The U.N.'s human rights office has stopped updating the death toll from Syria's civil war, confirming Tuesday that it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July."

Comments

[cowichan's opinion]

Calgary Herald reports outbreak of strange disease.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/canada/Canadians+overcome+urge+throw+boiling+water+cold/9356119/story.html

[Ken Winkes]

For PD Pepe and others, Stan Sorscher, a Labor Representative for the Society for Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, in yesterday's Huffington Post had this to say about about our democracy's fractured future. Though trained as a physicist, he's a decent historian and here also displays his chops as a futurist, that is if you like dystopias.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-sorscher/a-history-lesson-from-20-_b_

And on the Boeing machinist vote last week to which PD recently referred, it was close (51 percent in favor) and may over time further divide the union into two camps and not just camps of nay or yea. Word is, it was the younger workers with no institutional memory of what the older workers had fought for and won, who narrowly tipped the balance to acceptance. It is the young who seem to accept less as the new normal. And, like trade deals that are tearing us apart at the economic seams, that generational division does not bode well for our future either.

I remember when it was the young who rebelled.

[Akhilleus]

A Truly Happy New Year.

Republicans smugly suggest, as they count the money in their re-election coffers, that if bleeding heart Democrats want to help those undeserving unemployed loafers, they take the money from some other programs. Mitch McConnell sniffs haughtily that he might agree to extend unemployment benefits for a couple of weeks if the president agrees to kill Obamacare forever. How nice of him. Fucking douchebag.

Okay, assholes, here's a drop-dead serious proposal as to how the country can pay for unemployment benefits and put food back on the tables of poor Americans Republicans swiped it from.

End corporate subsidies.

Not for everything, mind you. Just for three, ahh...make that four industries: Big oil and gas, Agribusiness, Big banks, and Organized Religion. American taxpayers subsidize these industries, most of which have been making enormous profits and still gouge taxpayers. What we hand out to Big Oil in subsidies every year--to a handful of CEOs--could likely pay for years of food stamps GOP Scrooges just took away from millions of families.

The fossil fuel industry has been raking in record profits all while gouging Americans at the pump. But we still hand them up to $41 billion annually in walking around money. And then the wingnuts complain that there just isn't any money for the undeserving poor or out of work Americans, so please shut the fuck up and go away already.

But this is nothing compared to another favorite Republican industry: The God Business.

It may surprise you to know (I was shocked) that taxpayers--all taxpayers, believers or not--subsidize religious institutions to the rousing gospel tune of $71 billion. A year. Every year. On the face of it, it seems a tad unconstitutional, don't it? I mean, freedom of religion doesn't necessarily have to mean freedom from taxes just like the rest of us. Especially when so many of those religious institutions use that money to force their beliefs onto the rest of us in the form of national policies and laws.

The Religion Subsidy Scam

So when smug pieces of shit like Mitch McConnell whine about not having money to pay for unemployment benefits to people who are out of work, mostly because of Republican policies, and take food off the table of the poor to hand that money over to industries that keep getting them elected, the facts tell a much different story. There is puh-lenty of money. Shitloads of money. It just doesn't go to those who really need it.

In fact, according to the Cato Institute (the fucking Cato Institute! Not exactly pinko lefty activists), American families pay, on average, $6,000/year to fund corporate welfare. It works out to over $100 billion a year to corporations, some of whom have doubled their profits and cut millions of jobs into the bargain (accounting in no small part for those out of work Americans Republicans are now booting in the face--for being out of work!).

Cato report on corporate welfare

Republicans want to be smart asses about taking food off tables, money out of pockets, hope out of hearts, all to make sure the Kochs and their filthy ken enjoy another year free from worry and free from paying their fair share, all at the expense of American taxpayers?

Okay. Fine.

Let's kill those subsidies and put the money back into helping Americans who really need it. Plus with the hundreds of billions we hand out to the GOP's buddies, we can repair our infrastructure, create jobs (real jobs), and start to regain some of the immense losses this country has suffered since the Reagan Revolution put the rich up on pedestals, picked our pockets to further enrich them, then put the boot to the rest of us to bow and scrape before them as they step on our backs to climb into their limos.

Now that would be a Happy New Year. Truly.

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

My thoughts exactly.

If you look at history, at least of modern times, it has been the job, if you will, of young people, to try to change things, to try to push for progress. Things might change as they age, at least for some of them (but not all--look at some of us). But if you're a reactionary, anti-union, go-along-to-get-along putz when you're 21, what the hell will you be when you're 40?

An unemployed reactionary, anti-union, go-along-to-get-along putz.

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes & Akhilleus: I understand why the younger machinists went for the contract. First, they don't care as much about pensions -- which Boeing made less generous -- as do older workers who worked for those pensions & will be getting stiffed sooner rather than later.

Second, the workers will receive a $10K signing bonus now & another $5K in 2020. Older workers, if they've been prudent, are less likely to need that $10K windfall, whereas younger workers see it is partial down payment on a house, a new car, whatever. In any event, $10K looks like a lot more money when you're 25 than when you're 50.

In addition, some of the older workers might have been willing to take early retirement if the new contract fell thru, since they still have their pensions. That is, they needed their jobs less than the younger workers did.

Finally, odd as it sounds, it might be more of a hardship on younger machinists to move to another state because it is more likely that they have spouses who also hold down good jobs; some of the wives of older workers probably don't work or have crappy jobs that they don't mind giving up or could get elsewhere if forced to move.

Any way you look at it, though, Boeing sucks. And Boeing sucks because our laws allow big corporations to suck. State laws -- especially anti-labor laws -- & taxpayer-funded incentives make bidding wars attractive. Conservatives have knocked themselves out to defang the NLRB (specifically in relation to Boeing, too). All this means corporate honchos & stockholders make more & more gains at the expense of workers & taxpayers.

I'm not sure if we live in a plutocracy or a corporatocracy, but something has to change. However, as Charles Pierce points out, the change will probably be to the benefit of the richie-riches. I can't see how to turn things around because the voters -- all ginned up on gun rights & crazy Kenyan conspiracy theories -- are too fucking stoopid to throw the bums out.

I've been watching a teevee series that's set in Sweden. I think I'll get back to it.

Marie

[Diane]

I think people who support unions in their workplace generally have an understanding of the specific work culture and a comfort level with challenging management. That comes with some longevity. From an anecdotal standpoint, the union leaders where I worked always lamented the inability of young workers to take a longer view of working conditions and benefits.

The younger workforce look at work differently than us baby boomers. Most of us sought some stability and could find it. Attitudes about work have shifted and adapted over time to a much more volatile work reality. They are often maneuvering without a net. I think for younger workers, moving on from poor environments and moving up in pay and status are more important than investing in improving a work environment over time. I'm sure there are lots of contributing factors, but the ongoing inequality and shrinking of the middle class makes people more focused on individual accomplishment rather than collective betterment.

Interesting Forbes article about younger workforce. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2012/08/14/job-hopping-is-the-new-normal-for-millennials-three-ways-to-prevent-a-human-resource-nightmare/

[Marie Burns]

@Diane. Excellent points. Those older machinists see themselves retiring from Boeing. The older ones -- quite accurately -- don't think they'll still be Boeing machinists at the end of their working lives.

Marie

[Tommy Bones]

On the machinists.
BUT the day will come when these younger workers will find that they have been so fucked by the richie-riches. I just hope that they will wake up and realize how they played into the hands of these vultures.

And Marie, I could not agree more with your statement "I can't see how to turn things around because the voters -- all ginned up on gun rights & crazy Kenyan conspiracy theories -- are too fucking stoopid to throw the bums out."

[Akhilleus]

Marie, Diane, and Tommy,

Regarding younger workers fending for themselves.

Isn't this the plan? Divide and conquer. Create a working environment without protection, without benefits, without stability. That way you can screw the unions and scare anyone who might think of challenging management or maybe has an idea that there should be some consideration for employees other than how long they can be used before being disposed of.

As the new rules become set in stone it's clear that everyone has to fend for themselves. To hell with banding together to help the group, and to hell with what's coming down the road. I need a job and I need it now. I know I can lose this job at any time for almost any reason. I can't offend the masters.

The nurturing of this world of employment fear and anxiety which in turn denudes workers of all protection is a great triumph of the right and of unbridled capitalism. And it is in fealty to this world that Republican water carriers seek to continue the pogrom against workers, workers' rights, employment protection, unemployment benefits, healthcare benefits, retirement, you name it.

And it's been phenomenally successful.

Even the right-wing Supreme Courtiers have rushed to the battlements to protect the corporate droit du seigneur. So, Tommy, you're correct when you prophesy that, whether or not they realize it, younger workers are already royally fucked along with most everyone else.

And if there's any wavering in support of their rights, corporate lords and masters have only to pick up the phone and call their congressional lackeys.

"Sit. Roll over. Fetch. Attaboy."

[Akhilleus]

Thinking of the success the right has had in the drastic diminishment of unions and workers' rights, it seems as if the actions of Crystal Lee Sutton, jumping up on a table on the floor of a North Carolina garment factory with a hand lettered sign reading UNION, must have taken place in another universe even though it was 1975. Sutton was fired but her fellow employees organized and voted in the union.

Today Ms. Sutton would be vilified by every right leaning media outlet (about 95% of all media are now under right wing control or in deathly fear of the right) and cast as a no good commie bitch for espousing the cause of workers making 2.65 an hour.

Can't you just hear Ted Cruz and Rand Paul fulminating over it?

Another galaxy, long ago and far away.