The Commentariat -- August 22, 2012
Paul Krugman has a fascinating post, which is mostly about Niall Ferguson's fact-challenged Newsweek cover story and types of economic "errors," but which also gives a window into how the Times fact-checks his columns. I wonder why they don't fact-check Tom Friedman?
Presidential Race
The bottom line is that Romney is proposing to take more money from seniors in higher premiums and co-pays and hand it over to private insurance companies and other providers in the Medicare system. -- Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) ...
... ** Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney's promise to restore $716 billion that he says President Obama 'robbed' from Medicare has some health care experts puzzled.... Paul D. Ryan, included the same savings in his House budgets. The 2010 health care law cut Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and insurers, not benefits for older Americans, by that amount over the coming decade. But repealing the savings, policy analysts say, would hasten the insolvency of Medicare by eight years.... To restore them in the short term would immediately add hundreds of dollars a year to out-of-pocket Medicare expenses for beneficiaries. That would violate Mr. Romney's vow that neither current beneficiaries nor Americans within 10 years of eligibility would be affected by his proposal to shift Medicare to a voucherlike system.... Henry J. Aaron, an economist and a longtime health policy analyst..., called Mr. Romney's vow to repeal the savings 'both puzzling and bogus at the same time.' ... Restoring the $716 billion in Medicare savings would increase premiums and co-payments for beneficiaries by $342 a year on average over the next decade; in 2022, the average increase would be $577." ...
... Paul Krugman has more.
... CW: Romney has devoted a lot of attention to & taken a lot of heat for his promise to "restore" the $716 billion, a campaign promise on which he would obviously have to renege immediately. Either the whole "President Obama is robbing Medicare" is a 100-percent lie or Romney has no fucking idea what he's doing. I think "no fucking idea" is a factor. And, BTW, Paul Ryan, Principled Policy Wonk, must knows this -- & he ain't telling. Venial or mortal sin? ...
... CW: Over & above the fact that my taxes will go up, too, so that Romney's and Ryan's can go down, these extra Medicare premiums come directly out of my pocket. You high-minded purists who avail yourselves of Reality Chex but plan to sit home & not vote because Obama is such a "disappointment" to you -- please have the courtesy to find another venue & take your fucking "principles" with you. You aren't welcome here.
Mary Bruce of ABC News: "President Obama kicked off a two-day campaign swing through Ohio and Nevada [yesterday] by shifting the focus of his attacks from Medicare and taxes to education, slamming the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan plan to cut student aid." ...
... A new Obama-Biden ad, which Greg Sargent says is running in Ohio & Virginia. Sargent's "Morning Plum" is particularly rich today. Of Jackie Calmes' NYT article (linked above), Sargent says, "For some reason, Jackie Calmes of the New York Times decided it might be a good idea to call up a range of experts and ask them if Romney's claim is, you know, true."
Dylan Byers of Politico: "In an in-house interview yesterday, Newsweek executive editor Justine Rosenthal said [Niall] Ferguson's controversial and heavily criticized cover story about President Obama was an opinion piece and did not reflect the opinions of Newsweek. 'This is not the opinion of Newsweek, this is the opinion of Niall Ferguson,' Rosenthal said." With video.
Julie Pace of the AP: "Mitt Romney claims he's got a winner with his criticism that President Barack Obama is giving welfare recipients a free ride. Never mind that aspects of his argument against the Democrat are factually inaccurate.... It could open Romney up to criticism that he is injecting race into the campaign.... [Bill] Clinton is among those who have called Romney's welfare attacks dishonest and false." CW: this isn't news to Reality Chex readers, but it's helpful when the AP puts out stories like this (albeit this one is way too he-said/she-said), because the stories often appear in local papers.
Gutless Wonder. "This Is What a Romney Presidency Would Look Like": Steve Kornacki of Salon: "When news of Akin's 'legitimate rape' comment broke Sunday, the Romney campaign’s initial response was [a] very tepid statement.... It was only the next day, when ... Republicans with more credibility with the party's conservative base began rebuking Akin, that Romney made a more forceful statement.... And it was only when just about everyone who's anyone in the Republican Party had called on Akin to quit that Romney finally did the same late yesterday.... His response ... shows that Romney is willing to stand up to a member of his own party -- but only if just about everyone else in his party is already doing it." ...
... Alexander Burns of Politico: "... one could argue that Romney would have an easier time distancing himself from his party's problems in Missouri if his running mate shared his own, somewhat more lenient views on abortion." CW: Yes, one could. But, hey, Paul Ryan was a brilliant choice. ...
... Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "So ... there’s no Ryan 'bounce' -- except maybe in Wisconsin. (According to 538′s Nate Silver, the average VP bounce is around four points.)" CW: But, hey, Paul Ryan was a brilliant choice.
"Drawbridge Republicans." Matt Miller in the Washington Post: before now "we've never had two wealthy candidates on a national ticket whose top priority is to reduce already low taxes on the well-to-do while raising taxes on everyone else -- even as they propose to slash programs that serve the poor, or that (like college aid) create chances for the lowly born to rise. Call them the Drawbridge Republicans ... Republicans who have no qualms about pulling up the drawbridge behind them.... If Romney and Ryan actually win on their Drawbridge agenda, the United States will have crossed a scary new Rubicon for a supposedly advanced democracy."
Paul Harris of the Guardian: "The Sensata plant in Freeport, [Illinois,] is profitable and competitive, but its majority owner, Bain Capital, has decided to ship jobs to China -- and forced workers to train their overseas replacements.... As Sensata strips out costs by sacking American workers in favour of Chinese ones, the value of Romney's own investments could rise, putting money into the pockets of a Republican challenger who has placed job creation in America at the heart of his bid for the White House." Thanks to a reader for the link.
He's Not a Wonk, He's an Ideologue. Ben Adler of the Nation: "Ryan's obsession with inflation and preventing the Federal Reserve from rescuing our economy puts him in the kooky fringe of right-wing politics.... He is therefore impervious to evidence.... On economics conservatives have become as willfully ignorant as they are on matters of science. Ryan, who is being celebrated as an intellectually serious policy maker, is the economic equivalent of a climate change denier." CW: hmm. Where does Ryan stand on climate change? ...
... Mary Ellen Harte in the Huffington Post: "While Mitt Romney has expressed uncertainty over whether global warming is occurring or not, his vice-presidential pick, Congressman Paul Ryan, is a virulent denier of climate science, with a Congressional voting record to match...." CW: just a crazy man.
Joe Conason of the National Memo: Paul Ryan "may come to regret his flippant response to Carl Cameron last Saturday, when the Fox News reporter asked how he would respond to critics who question his weak national security resume. '... I voted to send people to war.' What Ryan cites as his chief qualification to serve as commander-in-chief is a series of votes that represent the most fateful, expensive, inexcusable error in recent American history. For him to cite that vote to draw a contrast with President Obama, who got the Iraq issue right, is startling."
Kaili Gray of Daily Kos: "As one of the most fervent anti-woman Republicans in the House, [Paul Ryan] must be aching to come to the defense of his bestest bud Todd Akin. After all, they've voted together 93 percent of the time, so they see eye-to-eye on pretty much everything -- including whether there are different types of rape that are not as bad as real rape and whether it's ever okay for women to have abortions. (Spoiler alert: Yes and no.) But because Ryan is now Mitt Romney's running mate, he has to keep a lid on the crazy. The campaign even forced Ryan to sit down for an interview to disavow Akin's claims and pretend that he's shocked and offended by Akin articulating exactly what Ryan also believes."
Congressional Races
Jonathan Weisman & John Eligon of the New York Times: "Representative Todd Akin said definitively on Tuesday that he would not leave the race for the Senate in Missouri, saying on Mike Huckabee's radio show that 'there's a cause here' and that an outpouring of grass-roots support would propel him to victory without the support of the Republican establishment." ...
... AND Akin Digs the Hole Deeper. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Arguing that he misplaced the word 'legitimate,' Akin explained -- during a follow up interview with Dana Loesch -- that he meant to argue that women sometimes lie about being raped.... Since he first made the comments over the weekend, Akin claimed that he meant to say 'forcible,' rather than 'legitimate' rape." ...
... The Constitution Be Damned. John Eligon: Akin says he must run to bring God back into the public forum.
Maureen Dowd: "Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.... Mitt..., in his last presidential bid went after the endorsement of Dr. John Willke, a former president of the National Right to Life Committee and father of the inanity about rape victims being able to turn back sperm if they put their mind and muscles to it."
Todd Akin is creepy AND grammar-challenged.
Mark Warren in Esquire: "What is it with these people who would so casually invalidate the results of an entire election just because their spectacular nominee went and accidentally told the truth -- as he sees it, anyway -- and in so doing publicly exposed the mindset of a large swath of his party? Why even bother having elections and pretending that you care what people think, if they can so easily be thrown away? And since when is being an idiot a disqualifying condition?"
Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: "Rep. Steve King [RTP-Iowa] ...told an Iowa reporter he's never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.... A 1996 review by the Guttmacher Institute found 'at least half of all babies born to minor women are fathered by adult men.' ... King's office said that King didn't mean he had never heard of pregnancy resulting from statutory rape or incest but that he had no direct, personal knowledge of such instances." With video. You decide.
Joe Klein of Time: "... the Akin-King statements and, indeed, the Akin abortion amendment that Paul Ryan supported (and which made a distinction between 'forcible' and other sorts of rape) point to a larger Republican problem: it has become a party that, at the grass roots, celebrates ignorance.... Todd Akin is not an outlier. He is a symptom of the disease."
Washington Post Editors: "It is scary that someone so ill-informed could hold elective office or have a chance of becoming a senator.... Unfortunately, Mr. Akin's remarks are not the first, nor are they likely to be the last, in a long-running effort to downplay the horror of rape as a way to restrict access to abortion."
Josh Barro in Bloomberg News: "The reason Akin walked into this mess is that he lives inside a right-wing bubble, where people believe in false but politically convenient 'facts' about science and history.... Todd Akin's problem is that a view that's acceptable within his bubble is despicable to people who understand that, in fact, rapes can and do lead to pregnancy. And the conservative movement's problem is that a strategic decision to believe in falsehoods will cause its politicians to appear, and to be, stupid."
Why It's Hard to Be a Massachusetts Republican. (Ask Willard). Scott Brown Campaign: "Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who yesterday was the first sitting senator to call on Todd Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race, is now urging his party to take a more lenient stance on abortion in its national platform. In a letter this afternoon to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Brown expresses concern that the official Republican platform is set to include 'language opposing a woman's right to choose and supporting a constitutional amendment banning abortion. I believe this is a mistake because it fails to recognize the views of pro-choice Republicans like myself.'"
Right Wing World *
Dana Milbank: "By their own logic, Republicans and their conservative allies should be concerned that [Hurricane] Isaac is a form of divine retribution. Last year, Rep. Michele Bachmann, then a Republican presidential candidate, said that the East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene -- another 'I' storm, but not an Old Testament one -- were attempts by God 'to get the attention of the politicians.' In remarks later termed a 'joke,' she said: 'It's time for an act of God and we're getting it.' ... Even if you don't believe God uses meteorological phenomena to express His will, it's difficult for mere mortals to explain what is happening to the GOP just now." CW: I might find this funnier if I weren't in the eye of the storm.
* Where god is totally paying attention.
News Ledes
The Hill: "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday warned the economy will enter a recession next year if the country goes over the so-called fiscal cliff."
New York Times: "Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develop autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday, in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study found."
New York Times: "The nation is heading toward the worst outbreak of West Nile disease in the 13 years that the virus has been on this continent, federal health authorities said Wednesday."
New York Times: "The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission had wanted to bring her vision for regulating money-market mutual funds to a vote, as early as next week, but two of the five members of the commission opposed it. Luis Aguilar, the commissioner seen as the swing vote, said on Wednesday afternoon that he would feel comfortable voting only after significant further study of the industry and the limited regulations that were adopted in 2010. Mary L. Schapiro, the chairwoman, said in a statement on Wednesday evening that she was calling off the vote."
New York Times: "A former family court judge in Syracuse should be barred from returning to the bench, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct ruled Wednesday, after an investigation into an act of sexual misconduct 40 years ago with his niece, 13 years before he became a jurist."
ABC News: "Federal agents in Washington state have arrested an armed man accused of making threats against President Obama."
AP: "Forecasters cast a wary eye Tuesday on Tropical Storm Isaac, which was moving west in the Atlantic Ocean and poses a potential threat to Florida during next week's Republican National Convention in Tampa."
AP: "U.S. officials are investigating possible violations of sanctions against Iran by Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain's Financial Times reported Wednesday."
Space.com: "After more than two weeks of sitting still, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is finally set to roll out on the Red Planet with its debut drive on Wednesday...."
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