The Commentariat -- June 12, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Forget Democracy"; it's a comment on David Brooks' column. The NYTX front page is here.

** "The Rent-Seekers." Joe Stiglitz in Politico: No, most of the richest Americans have not earned their wealth through their innovations & other great contributions to society. "The U.S. is headed down the path that so many dysfunctional societies have traveled -- divided societies in which the rich and poor live in different worlds.

Economics Profs. Ben Polak & Peter Schott in the New York Times of "America's Hidden Austerity Program": "... there is something historically different about this recession and its aftermath: in the past, local government employment has been almost recession-proof.... The United States has ... seen unprecedented austerity at the level of state and local governments, and this austerity has slowed the job recovery." ...

... Paul Krugman: First, Mitt Romney ridiculed Obama for saying that we need more public employment: "He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message in Wisconsin?" Afterwards, some commentators wondered, couldn't he have chosen different professions to ridicule? And the answer is no. When we talk about public workers, that's pretty much who we're talking about." With a chart! ...

... Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The recent economic crisis left the median American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve said Monday."

"There's broad agreement on platitudes." Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: top Senators from both parties are starting to stir up efforts to stave off another fiscal crisis.

Kevin Drum on why President Obama caved on national security -- among other things, Congressional Democrats would not support less draconian measures.

Fareed Zakaria in Time: the U.S.'s "broken & obsolete" immigration laws have caused the country to lose its "exceptionalism" to more progressive countries like Canada & Australia, who welcome talented immigrants who can't get U.S. visas.

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic on why the voluntary reforms some healthcare providers & insurers are making are not nearly as significant as reforms required by the Affordable Care Act.

Jonathan Karl, et al., of ABC News: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) takes a tiny step toward ending the Norquist Reign of Terror.

There's a special election today in Arizona's 8th Congressional District for the seat Gabby Giffords vacated. The Democratic candidate, Ron Barber, whom Giffords endorsed, was ahead by 12 points in the most recent PPP poll. Caitlin Huey-Burns of Real Clear Politics has the story.

Presidential Race

The Secret Life of Willard Romney. Kasie Hunt of the AP: "Keeping his secrets, Mitt Romney tends to lift the veil on his finances and campaign only if the law says he must. The Republican presidential candidate refuses to identify his biggest donors who 'bundle' money for his campaign. He often declines to say who's meeting with him or what he's doing for hours at a time. He puts limits on media access to his fundraisers. And he resists releasing all of his tax returns, making just a single year public after facing pressure to do so."

Today, government at all levels consumes 37 percent of the total economy or GDP. If Obamacare is allowed to stand, government will reach half of the American economy. — Mitt Romney, economic speech, June 7, 2012

... it makes little sense and is frankly a bit foolish -- especially for a candidate whose signature legislative achievement as Massachusetts governor was to enact a health care law that at the state level included insurance exchanges, Medicaid expansion, an individual mandate and other provisions that he now claims extends the 'reach' of government. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post

Vouchers! Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "... as president, Mr. Romney would seek to overhaul the federal government's largest programs for kindergarten through 12th grade into a voucherlike system. Students would be free to use $25 billion in federal money to attend any school they choose -- public, charter, online or private -- a system, he said, that would introduce marketplace dynamics into education to drive academic gains.... Mr. Romney's policy seems closely inspired by a pro-voucher report issued in February by the conservative Hoover Institution. Five of eight members of a task force that produced the report are among the 19 education advisers the Romney campaign named last month." CW: in case you were wondering, this is all about undermining public schools while giving your tax dollars to for-profit corporations whose lobbyists have the GOP in their pockets.

Right Wing World

BuzzFeed: "Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said [Monday] that both Ronald Reagan and his father George H. W. Bush would have had a difficult time getting nominated by today's ultra-conservative Republican Party.... Bush called the present partisan climate 'disturbing. It's just a different environment left and right,' he said of 'this dysfunction.' And Bush also blamed President Obama for much of the conflict." ...

... Jonathan Chait of New York magazine: "Bush is clearly engaged in an effort to position himself as the next leader of the Republican Party."

"Justifiable" Homicides. Joe Palazzolo of the Wall Street Journal: "While the overall homicide rates in those states [with "stand-your-ground" laws] stayed relatively flat, the average number of justifiable cases per year increased by more than 50% in the decade's latter half. In a new study..., Professor Mark Hoekstra and Cheng Cheng, use state-level crime data from 2000 to 2009 to determine whether the laws deter crime. The answer, they conclude, is no. In fact, the evidence suggests the laws have led to an increase in homicides." ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "The bill passed in Florida [before any other state], and was immediately signed by Gov. Jeb Bush. Yes -- that would be the same Jeb Bush who is running around today bemoaning radical Republicans. You know, the same 'moderate' Jeb Bush who signed the laws giving him permission to insert himself into Terri Schiavo's marriage. They are all radicals." ...

... As John Nichols of The Nation noted in March: Jeb Bush "quickly signed the measure into law -- despite explicit and repeated warnings that this law would encourage shootings of innocents like Trayvon Martin. And despite explicit and repeated warnings that people of color and young people would be unreasonably and disproportionately harmed by the law."

Local News

AP: "Florida filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Washington D.C., demanding that the state be given the right to check the names of its registered voters against an immigration database maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit came the same day that the U.S. Department of Justice announced its plan to ask a federal court to block the state from pushing ahead with removing potential non-U.S. citizens from the voter rolls. Authorities contend that the state's effort violates federal voting laws."

News Ledes

Arizona Daily Star: "Democrat Ron Barber has a 9-point percentage lead on Republican Jesse Kelly, the first 154,000 votes counted in the Congressional District 8 special election show. The votes, which are early ballots, represent 37 percent of registered voters." ...

     ... Update: "The Associated Press has called the special election to replace Giffords for Barber...."

New York Times: "Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday strongly criticized the recent decision by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to appoint two United States attorneys to investigate recent disclosures of classified national security information, saying that the move was not enough and that he should appoint a special prosecutor."

New York Times: "George Allen brushed aside three conservative Republican rivals in the Virginia primary [for U.S. Senate], setting up a fall battle to regain the seat he lost in 2006.... Allen's victory sets up a November clash with another former Virginia governor, Tim Kaine, in a campaign closely tied to the presidential race in a battleground state both parties consider vital for victory." Washington Post story here.

AP: Former Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary testified against Jerry Sandusky today.

Orlando Sentinel: George Zimmerman's wife Shellie Zimmerman has been arrested on perjury charges in connection with her testimony at her husband's bondhearing.

The Guardian is liveblogging the Leveson Inquiry.

Washington Post: "The first witness in the Jerry Sandusky trial said the veteran football coach plucked him from a broken home at age 13 and turned him into an unofficial Penn State mascot.... But the good things came at a price, he said. Sandusky groped him in the shower during 'soap battles,' repeatedly forced him to perform oral sex and treated him like 'his girlfriend,' the witness said."

New York Times: "The Bronx district attorney's office said Monday that it was interested in hearing any reports of sexual abuse of students at the Horace Mann School, regardless of when they occurred, in an effort to address the rising concern about faculty behavior at the prestigious private school... after an article in The New York Times Magazine chronicled accounts of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior more than a generation ago by three teachers, all of whom are now dead."

Washington Post: "Outrage escalated on the historic University of Virginia campus Monday over the abrupt ouster of President Teresa Sullivan by a governing board that offered few new details about why it had acted or what exactly had gone awry.... Sullivan learned of the board's wishes late Friday, after an annual executive retreat.... Sullivan had no inkling that her job was even in jeopardy...."

Guardian: "Syrian government forces and militia loyal to the Assad regime are killing and sexually abusing children and using them as human shields, the UN says, amid fears that the conflict is intensifying."

Politico: "The Federal Election Commission on Monday night unanimously voted to allow Americans to make political donations via text message, making Androids, iPhones and BlackBerrys the newest weapon in the battle to raise unprecedented amounts of money."

New York Times: "A controversial judicial commission has ruled that Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States, [Husain Haqqani,] secretly approached the Obama administration last year requesting help to stave off a possible military coup.... The court then issued an order for Mr. Haqqani, to return to Pakistan from the United States, where he has returned to a teaching job at Boston University. Legal experts said the former ambassador could face treason charges."

New York Times: ten thousand "demonstrators gathered in a drenching rain in central Moscow on Tuesday" in response to government efforts to crack down on protest demonstrations.

AP: "The dingo really did take the baby. Thirty-two years after a 9-week-old infant vanished from an Outback campsite in a case that bitterly divided Australians and inspired a Meryl Streep film, the nation overwhelmingly welcomed a ruling that finally closed the mystery. A coroner in the northern city of Darwin concluded Tuesday that a dingo, or wild dog, had taken Azaria Chamberlain from her parents' tent near Ayers Rock...."

Comments

[Jack Mahoney]

I'm not sure where to start with Brooks's column today. He's on the verge of a nervous breakdown because our inability or unwillingness to be worthy followers has adversely affected our ability to build appropriate monuments to those who led us and died for us back when we were worth caring about. I can just see him throwing up his hands about our fecklessness and commissioning Charles Murray to write yet another tome about how the lower orders have lost that sense of gratitude for those like Brooks who could spend his days shooting tethered quail in Cleveland Park but instead devotes his time to our betterment. I look forward to your take on this as well as Moral Hazard's.

[PD Pepe]

Yes, Jack, or as our old pal Gemli posted this morning: "I can't imagine what provoked this spasm of outrage against people who don't recognize greatness in their midst, Perhaps Mr. Brooks was snubbed by a waiter."
After reading Brooks I read Michael Lewis' piece that David gives us a link to. A most interesting read whose main thrust was about the art of monuments: "Allegory requires an imaginative act, and is literary, whereas our culture is uncomfortable with figurative language." Our Mr. Brooks turns this on its head telling us how we pay homage to victims rather than leaders and says our main problem is our "inability to think properly about how power should be used to bind and build." Really? Lewis wrote a piece worth reading and pondering about––his questions are worth the ponder; Brooks wrote a column, supposedly inspired by Lewis, but veered off in another direction and if someone can tell me why, I'd be most grateful.

[Ken Winkes]

Late to yesterday's Douthat roast I know but wanted to add one thought. Not only does Douthat's Catholicism automatically place him and his cohort at the right hand of God, a position of superiority it took no effort on their part to attain (a neat enough religious parallel to Stiglitz' comments on inherited wealth) , but it also neatly absolves him of any responsibility for his own sins of omission or commission, because whatever happens--the random collection of genes that became a Douthat, for instance-- it's part of God's plan.

Catholics have, as have many religions, always had trouble with the tussle between determinism and free will. When it comes to individual responsibility, they indulge in a lot of hedging, and puzzled as I also am by my own responsibility's reach, I can understand and even sympathize. But among other things, when it comes to sex, what I cannot understand or accept is the self-serving shape their anti-choice argument takes.

Let's see now. I'm responsible for the consequences of my behavior--or at least that's the pretense when I quaff the sacramental elixir of Confessional absolution-- but when it comes to procreation--the most fun most people have ever had-- I'm pleased to participate in a lottery over which I have no control. I can't use birth control; I can't abort defective fetuses; I have to bear the offspring whose seed my father or brother planted in my unwilling womb. If I end up living in a world of seven plus billions competing for increasingly rare resources, that, too, is an act of God, which I guess is OK because He's my buddy and it is He who is looking out for me.

And whew! I don't have to think at all. All I have to do is talk trash about all those other irresponsible people and if it--like I obviously am--is part of God's plan, I can even make a good living at it. What a God-ordained country in which to live!

[Marvin Schwalb]

@Ken Winkes, I am still trying to understand how having someone else die for your sins promotes morality.

[JJG]

Marvin Schwalb; No,no,no; you misunderstood; having someone else die for your sins delays mortality. And so the sheep will inherit the earth.