Monday
Mar172014
The Commentariat -- March 18, 2014
The Guardian is liveblogging events re: the Crimea catastrophe. Vladimir from the KGB is quite busy. ...
... Will Englund of the Washington Post: "Russia officially absorbed Crimea Tuesday afternoon, moments after President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia has no designs on any other parts of Ukraine. In a speech to a joint session of parliament, which he used to call for the 'reunification' of Crimea with Russia, he said that region has a special role in Russian history that makes it unique." ...
... Steven Myers & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia signed a decree on Monday formally recognizing Crimea as a 'sovereign and independent state,' laying the groundwork for annexation and defying the United States and Europe just hours after they imposed their first financial sanctions against Moscow since the crisis in Ukraine began." ...
... Antoni Slodkowski of Reuters: "Japan will suspend talks on investment pact and relaxation of visa requirements as part of sanctions against Russia after Moscow recognized Crimea as a sovereign state, top government spokesman said on Tuesday." ...
... Kirit Radia of ABC News: "Russia's deputy prime minister laughed off President Obama's sanction against him today asking 'Comrade @BarackObama' if 'some prankster' came up with the list. The Obama administration hit 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials with sanctions today as punishment for Russia's support of Crimea's referendum. Among them: aides to President Vladimir Putin, a top government official, senior lawmakers, Crimean officials, the ousted president of Ukraine, and a Ukrainian politician and businessman allegedly tied to violence against protesters in Kiev." ...
... Dick Durbin Will Not Be Visiting the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast: "U.S. senators, congressmen and top Obama administration officials are sure to be on Vladimir Putin's sanctions list; a response to the Obama Administration's announcement on Monday that 7 Russian officials and 4 Ukrainian officials would be barred from holding assets or traveling to the United States." ...
... Bill Richardson, the former Secretary of Energy & U.N. ambassador, in a Time op-ed: "... the most powerful response [to the Ukraine crisis] from the West must come in the form of transatlantic energy security."
AP: "President Barack Obama pressed visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Monday to help break the logjam to elusive Middle East peace talks, acknowledging with a deadline fast approaching that the task ahead is 'very hard, it's very challenging.'"
** Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The U.S. government has acknowledged that it swept up huge volumes of data from e-mails in the U.S. for several years without any court approval, based solely on the orders of former President George W. Bush. In a court filings on Monday, government lawyers said that the Internet program ran in parallel with a program gathering so-called metadata about telephone calls. The counterterrorism efforts operated under presidential authority before a judge approved them in July 2004, said a 2007 court filing made public Monday by the Justice Department (and posted here.) CW: Just waiting for the outrage from the likes of Rand Paul & Ken Cuccinelli, who are, after all, suing the Obama administration over NSA surveillance.
Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: ACA enrollment nationwide has reached "more than 5 million through the Federal and State-based Marketplaces since October 1st." ...
... Dean Baker: "The Washington Post told readers that the Republicans are putting together an alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Unfortunately it substituted Republican talking points for an actual description of the plan." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "Some more truth-squad work is also needed to point out the equally blatant contradiction between GOP complaints about high out-of-pocket costs in Obamacare plans and the eternal Republican commitment to MSAs, which are all about increasing the exposure of health care costs to consumers, which will allegedly increase 'individual responsibility.'"
Well, Maybe Everything Is God's Fault
Igor Bobic of TPM: "The stenographer who was carried off the House floor in October for an outburst in which she yelled into a microphone about God, Freemasons and a divided government explained in a video published Sunday that she acted on 'assignment' from the Holy Spirit. 'I did not have a breakdown,' Dianne Reidy said in the 38 minute long video, which also shows her husband. Identifying themselves as 'Bible-believing Christians,' Dan Reidy says the couple believes Dianne's voice was the instrument of a higher power." ...
... CW: The other day in a comment I complained that the Holy Ghost got short shrift. Apparently that's for the best. ...
... Continuing on with the supernatural theme, the MSM pitches in. Joe Coscarelli of New York: "After more than a week of wall-to-wall coverage on the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, much of it baseless speculation from vaguely defined experts, CNN today resorted to the most baseless of speculation from a certifiable non-expert about what supernatural' or conspiratorial explanations there could be for the disappearance." ...
Especially today, on a day when we deal with the supernatural, we go to church, the supernatural power of God. You deal with all of that. People are saying to me, why aren't you talking about the possibility — and I'm just putting it out there -- that something odd happened to this plane, something beyond our understanding? -- CNN host Don Lemon, interviewing the certifiable non-expert guy
Congressional Races
Vote for the Crook. Lauren McGaughy of the Times-Picayune: "Just three years after his release from federal prison, former Gov. Edwin Edwards is throwing his hat into the open race for Louisiana's 6th Congressional District.
Mitch McConnell Has a Sense of Humor! Jay Newton-Small of Time: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday he didn't mind a bit becoming the brunt of Internet jokes through the meme known as McConnelling. In fact, he found it amusing." ...
... But There Are Limits. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Mitch McConnell's campaign shrugged off an accusation by a Kentucky reporter who claimed he was barred from a campaign event and threatened with police action if he asked a question. Joe Sonka, an editor for Louisville alternative paper LEO Weekly, claimed on Twitter several times on Monday afternoon that the Senate minority leader's campaign manager, Jesse Benton, had barred him from a news conference held by McConnell."
Beyond the Beltway
Christopher Baxter of the Star-Ledger: "Records released today by a legislative panel investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closings link Gov. Chris Christie's chief political strategist to discussions about fallout from the scandal, and show that Christie's campaign manager was more in the loop than previously known. The emails and text messages were disclosed in a court filing by the committee in response to objections raised by the attorney for the campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who contended at a hearing last week that the committee had no evidence showing his client was involved in the closings." ...
... Ken Vogel of Politico: "A central figure in the George Washington Bridge scandal looming over New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie quietly accepted a job at a top Republican consulting firm late last month. Bill Stepien, who ran both of Christie's gubernatorial campaigns, signed on to help the phone-banking and data giant FLS Connect with sales and strategy on its voter contact products, according to a source with knowledge of the relationship."
Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "A candidate colludes with wealthy corporate backers and promises to defend their interests if elected. The companies spend heavily to elect the candidate, but hide the money by funneling it through a nonprofit group. And the main purpose of the nonprofit appears to be getting the candidate elected.... According to investigators, exactly such a plan is unfolding in an extraordinary case in Utah, a state with a cozy political establishment, where business holds great sway and there are no limits on campaign donations.... In Utah, the documents show, a former state attorney general, John Swallow [R], sought to transform his office into a defender of payday loan companies, an industry criticized for preying on the poor with short-term loans at exorbitant interest rates. Mr. Swallow, who was elected in 2012, resigned in November after less than a year in office amid growing scrutiny of potential corruption."
The Pro-Pollution Party. Mitch Weiss & Michael Biesecker of the AP: "Documents and interviews collected by The Associated Press show how Duke [Energy]'s lobbyists prodded Republican legislators to tuck a 330-word provision in a regulatory reform bill ... [that] allowed Duke to avoid any costly cleanup of contaminated groundwater leaching from its unlined dumps.... Passed overwhelmingly by the GOP-controlled legislature, the bill was signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory, a pro-business Republican who worked at Duke for 28 years.... The level of coordination between Duke and North Carolina's lawmakers and regulators had long been of concern to environmentalists. But when a Duke dump ruptured on Feb. 2 -- spewing enough coal ash to coat 70 miles of the Dan River with toxic sludge -- the issue took on new urgency."
News Ledes
NBC News: "The missing Malaysia Airlines jet's abrupt U-turn was programmed into the on-board computer well before the co-pilot calmly signed off with air traffic controllers, sources tell NBC News. The change in direction was made at least 12 minutes before co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid said 'All right, good night,' to controllers on the ground, the sources said."
New York Times: "United States Navy commandos seized a renegade tanker carrying illicit Libyan oil in the Mediterranean southeast of Cyprus on Monday, thwarting a breakaway militia's attempt to sell the oil on the black market. No shots were fired, no one was injured and the commandos captured three armed Libyans described by the ship's captain as hijackers."
New York Times: "Mary T. Barra, General Motors' chief executive, announced another round of wide-ranging recalls on Monday, a sign that the company was moving with a new sense of urgency on safety problems after it disclosed a decade-long failure to fix a defect tied to 12 deaths. The recalls, which cover 1.7 million vehicles worldwide for a variety of problems, come in addition to last month's recall of 1.6 million Chevrolet Cobalts and other models. In one of Monday's recalls, G.M. had alerted owners to the problem three years ago, but did not make a recall."
Los Angeles Times: "A 20-year-old student at a California community college, who authorities said had discussed an attack on the Los Angeles subway, has been arrested on a federal terrorism charge while trying to enter Canada for an eventual trip to the Mideast, where he planned to help a group wage holy war, officials said Monday. Nicholas Teausant, 20, of Acampo, Calif., was arrested at the border crossing in Blaine, Wash. He was planning to eventually join a terrorist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, according to Benjamin B. Wagner, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California...."
Guardian: "Best-selling American author Kevin Trudeau, whose name became synonymous with late-night TV pitches, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for swindling consumers through infomercials for his book about weight loss. As he imposed the sentence prosecutors had requested, district judge Ronald Guzman portrayed 50-year-old Trudeau as a habitual fraudster from early adulthood. So brazen was Trudeau, the judge said, he once even used his own mother's social security number during a scam. 'Since his 20s, he has steadfastly attempted to cheat others for his own gain,' Guzman said, adding that Trudeau was 'deceitful to the very core'." ...
... The Chicago Tribune story is here.
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Reader Comments (10)
I am sure many of you have been following Robert Parry's reports in Consortium on Ukraine. Here is the latest--involving our fast dissembling MSM (including the NYT)! How many people do ya think understand at all what is going on between Russia, Crimea and the rest of Ukraine. AND the folly of the U.S. poking our big nose once again into "none of our business." Thank you, Jeebus, that neither John McCrackers nor Mittens Romney is President at this critical time!
As Parry notes:
..."Yet, the danger of false narratives – as the American people saw in Iraq and almost revisited in Syria – is that policies, including warfare, can be driven by myth, not by fact. The real story of Ukraine is far more complex than the black-and-white caricature that the New York Times, the Washington Post and others are presenting. It is in the truthful grays that responsible policies are shaped and bloody miscalculations are avoided."
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/16/mainstream-us-media-is-lost-in-ukraine/http://consortiumnews.com/
http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2014/03/russia-economic-vulnerabilities/?utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EconoMonitor%20Highlights%3A%20High%20Alert
This link points out that Russia isn't as strong as it looks. They have severe economic problems and really can't afford a long foreign adventure.
@Kate: Couldn't access the link. Looked up Robert Perry but there are a slew of them–-not sure who you are citing. I'd be interested in how he thinks the media and NYT has not explained the situation in Russia and how he thinks that information should have gotten out.
@PD Pepe: You can read the Parry piece here.
Marie
So Crimea votes to secede and join Russia. This summer Scotland will vote on secession from Britain (English poobahs are threatening to take away the BBC if they break off; Scots remain unperturbed).
But anyway, it appears that everyone is doing it.
And so as not to miss out on all the fun I'm starting a movement to get my southern red state to secede (they want to anyway) from the US and join Luxembourg.
They have no navy, no air force, an army of fewer than 1,000 people, so no danger of wingnut adventurism, plus good beer and cool history. Not to mention that you could bike across the country in an afternoon if you wanted to. What's not to like? I contacted the PM and reviewed my plan. He sent back the Luxembourgish version of "Meh" which I read as saying "Sure, I guess so."
At first I was thinking of maybe going with the Netherlands so's I could get a front row seat at the Hague when Bush and Cheney are in the dock for war crimes, but I think I'll stick with Luxembourg. My only other choice was Cameroon but I burn easily. I'd need a boatload of SPF 5,000,000.
Nope. Luxembourg it is.
The federal government is locking up snake oil salesman Kevin Trudeau for making numerous false and misleading claims and appearing regularly on TV to make false statements even after his initial claims have been proven to be completely fraudulent.
Let's see now....smooth operator, presents himself as knowledgeable but is a total fraud, lies in his written materials then goes on TV to lie about it again.
Sounds like Paul Ryan!
Why isn't his ass in jail too?
@Marie: Thanks for the link. My take on this is that Perry made some good points, but thought his comparison of the Iraq debacle not comparable to this situation at all and his introduction to "Olga" the doctor who can decipher handwriting is pretty suspect at best. When we have US diplomats schooled in foreign policy and many so called Russian scholars disagreeing let's not be too harsh on journalists who aren't reporting as accurately as they ought or as Perry thinks they should have. Below is the transcript from Zakaria's interviews with Albright, Brzezinski, Cohen, et al. who all have a different take not only on Putin, but of the situation itself. And we, as lowly observers, are supposed to really know the skinny?
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1403/02/fzgps.01.html
PD,
I agree with you about the doctor (Olga). I didn't realize that handwriting and ballistics analysis are taught in medical school, but I could be wrong.
But Parry's larger point, that, for any given story, especially those outside the US, the ability of the press, not to mention politicians ensconced in the Beltway Bubble, ears up to the echo chamber, to make reasonable assessments of a situation is seriously compromised by lazy reporting, incomplete or non-existent research, or lack of basic knowledge about the background, the major and minor actors, the history, the motivations, and the vital consideration of "cui bono" connected to that or any other story.
Plus, when you add in players like John McCain who wants to bomb anything that moves no matter who, what, or where, and opportunistic pols who don't really much care what's going on as long as they can blame Obama for it, reason is easily supplanted by bombast and breathless "analysis" by people who, 3 months ago, couldn't find Simferopol on a map if you gave them 10 chances.
And today I'm wondering what sanctions will be imposed on us from without when the Texas legislature votes to secede from the union of "independent" states that has supported them for so long. Surely, surely, someone in the nation's capital, if not in the blue states, will object.
Will it be Mexico, who will have every right to worry about the new rogue state that then looms just across their border? And will Putin, that champion of ethnic independence, enter the fray and refuse to sell any more helicopters to the U.S. defense department, thus hitting us where it really hurts?
AK: Granted there is sloppy reporting but to quote our esteemed past president: "It was a dangerous world and we knew exactly who the "they" were. It was us versus them and it was clear who "them" was. Today, we're not so sure who the "they" are but we know they're there." And today we seem to be ensconced in the same situation. Thanks to the above esteemed president–-tongue firmly in cheek–– our Iraq invasion opened up a large can of worms that released thousands of motivated Islamic guerrillas, many of them veterans of the Iraq army the US dissolved whose guns and bombs are aimed against the Shia government the US helped put in place but against Syria's regime. All of this Russian advance is tied into this "patchwork quilt of ethnicity and sectarian identity" as Chris Hill put it some time ago. My point here is that even those that are schooled in foreign policies find it cumbersome and difficult to assess our recent debacles. We lay people, those of us who are eager for the "real stuff" probably aren't going to rely on the local news or even MSNBC or PBS, but search for and read other takes from those we think can give us a more concise picture. Good for Mr. Perry to complain, but I couldn't help feeling the toot of is own horn was a bit too loud.
By the way––I think it was either you or Marie that mentioned some time ago re: chemical weapons that during the Reagan era we had actually assisted Saddam by allowing shipments to Iraq these same chemicals plus supplied critical satellite intelligence to help Iraqis target the weapons more effectively. The irony of the reason we went to war was because Saddam was using these weapons on his own people still gives me chills. Another hat thrown into the Reagan dumpster for good measure.