The Commentariat -- Nov. 6, 2013

** George Packer of the New Yorker: "Our democracy's unnecessary stupidities."

Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News: "President Obama will use his time in Dallas on Wednesday to ramp up pressure on Gov. Rick Perry to expand Medicaid, aides said -- a step that could lop 1.4 million Texans off the rolls of the uninsured. The president will call on Perry to join 'reasonable Republican governors in states like Ohio and Michigan and Arizona' who already have agreed to such an expansion...." CW: Yup. Jan Brewer (Az.) is reasonable. ...

... MEANWHILE. Robert Garrett of the Dallas Morning News: Texas "Attorney General Greg Abbott hinted strongly Tuesday that Texas may impose additional training and background checks on 'navigators' hired under federal grants to help people sign up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act." CW: Sabotage by any other name still stinks. ...

... Robert Pear of the New York Times: Inexplicably, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rules that the ACA is not subject to a "law that ban rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare." Let the circus begin!

** Juan Williams of Fox "News": "Taking crocodile tears to a new level, ObamaCare opponents are now rushing to their defense and calling the president a liar. These critics include Republican politicians who did not vote for ObamaCare; these are Republican governors who refuse to set up exchanges to reach their own citizens; these are people oppose expanding Medicaid to help poor people getting better health care; these are people who have never put any proposal on the table as an alternative fix for the nation's costly health care system that leaves tens of millions with inadequate medical coverage and tens of millions more totally uninsured.... If you are one of the estimated 2 million Americans whose health insurance plans may have been cancelled this month, you should not be blaming President Obama or the Affordable Care Act. You should be blaming your insurance company because they have not been providing you with coverage that meets the minimum basic standards for health care." CW: Read the whole post. This is an amazing piece coming from a conservative commentator on Fox "News." A-Mazing! ...

... Dana Milbank: "No, the Obamacare pratfall is not Obama's Iraq: The magnitude is entirely different, and the problems -- Web site malfunctions and a wave of policy cancellations -- are fixable. But the decision-making is disturbingly similar: In both cases, insular administrations, staffed by loyalists and obsessed with secrecy, participated in group-think and let the president hear only what they thought he wanted to hear." ...

... Brian Beutler of Salon on the arc of health insurance "rate shock" stories: "... it's really striking how long it's taking reporters to realize that these stories are incomplete, and probably inaccurate, unless and until they and their subjects have a handle on all of the relevant information.... The truth is the Affordable Care Act isn't blameless -- not, as its critics suggest, because it imposes too much regulation on the individual insurance market, but because it doesn't impose enough." ...

... CW: Beutler faults the insurers for much of the brouhaha: "The transition period between the old individual market and the new, better one, provides them one last chance to use the power of inertia and fear of the unknown to feed their consumers into expensive plans and shunt the blame for the price hike onto Obamacare." This brings to mind a comment in yesterday's thread: citizen625 noted that the president of UnitedHealth Group received nearly $49 million in compensation last year according to Forbes. "Next time some someone says whats wrong with the healthcare system and blames Barry O and the Democrats, trot that number out as a representative drain on non-medical costs of healthcare," citzen625 writes. ...

     ... Worth Noting: United HealthCare had to rebate premiums to many policyholders because the company failed to meet "the ACA's 80/20 rule that requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of their premium dollars on medical care or quality improvements and no more than 20 percent on administrative costs and overhead." (Sen. Al Franken put the rule in the bill.) In North Carolina, for instance, this UHC "accounts for ... nearly two-thirds, of all rebates" due that state's policyholders." United HealthGroup companies also accounted for the most rebates in Florida. In 2012, insurers had to pay out about $1.1 billion for failing to meet the ACA requirement. In 2013, that figure was down to about $500 million. More importantly, the Obama administration estimated that "the 80/20 standard contributed to $3.4 billion in lower premiums for 77.8 million consumers because health insurance companies charged less up front." Obviously, United HealthGroup was one of the companies that missed that boat. Surely overcompensating their CEO contributed to their being one of the minority of health insurers who couldn't meet the 80/20 standard. (There's an 85/15 standard for group insurance.)

     ... It isn't just the insurers. From-the-Heartland adds: the highest paid U.S. CEO on the Forbes list "is John Hammergren of McKesson at $131,190,000.00 for the year (McKesson delivers medicines, pharmaceutical supplies, information and care management products and services) and #6 is George Paz of Express Scripts at $51,520,000.00 for one year (Express Scripts is a pharmacy benefit management company). These are all obscene salaries that we are paying for through our insurance premiums or cost of care if uninsured." F-t-H recommends single-payer insurance, which would largely cut private health insurers out of the picture. Beutler agrees. Jonathan Chait, below, explains why single-payer didn't happen. ...

... ** Jonathan Chait: "The point is that [the ACA] represents the least-disruptive, least-painful way to clear the minimal threshold of any humane reform. The preferred alternatives of both right and left would impose an order of magnitude more dislocation -- creating not a few million 'victims,' but tens of millions. What's on display at the moment is a way of looking at the world that sanctifies defenders of the horrendous status quo and places all the burden upon those trying to change it."

Donna Cassata of the AP: "Invoking the Declaration of Independence, proponents of a bill that would outlaw discrimination against gays in the workplace argued on Tuesday that the measure is rooted in fundamental fairness for all Americans. Republican opponents of the measure were largely silent, neither addressing the issue on the second day of Senate debate nor commenting unless asked. Written statements from some rendered their judgment that the bill would result in costly, frivolous lawsuits and mandate federal law based on sexuality.... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said a final vote in the Senate is possible by week's end."

Ed Kilgore: "Unions and progressive activists are uniting around Tom Harkin's bill to boost benefits by $70 a month for all Social Security recipients (and more for those heavily dependent on benefits for retirement security), increase (rather than decrease, as the 'chained CPI' tentatively accepted by the White House...) the cost-of-living adjustment formula, and pay for it all by eliminating the regressive payroll tax cap for the program.... The ... 'expand Social Security' message may be less about ... changing the playing field than the simple fact that voters, and particularly the older voters on which the Republican Party so heavily relies, are likely to support higher benefits however they feel about 'entitlements' as an abstraction.... The broader subject of rapidly eroding retirement security is long-overdue for serious public debate."

Niels Lesniewski of Roll Call: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he plans to have two more test votes on nominations to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals by the end of the week. The move is intended to determine whether Republicans will follow through on their threat to filibuster judicial picks Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins. If they do, as seems likely, the Nevada Democrat has said he may revive his own threat to end the minority's ability to filibuster nominations through the so-called nuclear option."

John Boehner -- Democrats' Secret Weapon. Steve Benen: "The Democratic coalition is stable, but not unbreakable. By refusing to govern, Boehner and House Republicans are strengthening that coalition, boosting Democratic fundraising, helping Democratic recruiting efforts, and motivating the Democratic base."

But you know, I think that the president should take ownership not just of what he's said and what he's promised the American people on Obamacare. But I think he should take ownership over this divisive culture that he has created, this KKK analogy you saw Trey (sic) Grayson roll out. And no Democrat is out there in any sort of organized fashion denouncing this. Now you got Harry Belafonte making the same allegation. -- Reince Priebus, RNC Chair

Priebus's high dudgeon is awfully precious considering his party is littered with folks who have done nothing but coarsen this nation's political discourse with nary a peep of condemnation from him or anyone of any stature in the GOP.... There are sitting Republican members of Congress who have openly talked about impeaching the president because they continue to believe he was not born in the United States.... And there were winks and nods on this issue from Speaker John Boehner and other so-called leaders of the party. No wonder a protester felt comfortable unfurling a Confederate flag in front of the White House last month. If anyone 'should take ownership over this divisive culture' it's Priebus. -- Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post

Charles Pierce: With respect to Chris Christie, Democrats are following "the same ghastly strategy that aided and abetted the rise of C-Plus Augustus in Texas."

The Plagiarist, Ctd. Jim Rutenberg & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "While maintaining the defiance he has shown since the claims of plagiarism were first made last week, [Sen. Rand] Paul ... said he was putting in place a more diligent system within his office to footnote and attribute material, part of what he called a restructuring on his staff. He said there would be no firings. But, in an interview at his Senate office complex, Mr. Paul said he resented implications from those he termed 'haters' that he had sought to dishonestly take other people's work as his own." ...

What we are going to do from here forward, if it will make people leave me the hell alone, is we're going to do them like college papers. We're going to try to put out footnotes.... We have made mistakes..., but [they have] never been intentional. This is coming from haters to begin with, because they want the implication to be out there that you're dishonest. -- Rand Paul ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "While Sen. Rand Paul is off challenging people to fisticuffs or worse, one of his senior advisers has finally admitted the obvious: Yes, there's been a bucketload of copying going on in the Paul camp.... Now the word has come down; it's the fault of unnamed staffers, and it's more the fault of you, the reader, for not being able to magically discern when Rand Paul and his staff are speaking their own words and when they're lifting entire pages of content from somewhere else...." ...

... How Not to Regard Having Your Work Stolen. Dan Stewart of the Week, who was one of the writers Paul plagiarized, doesn't care: "In fact, I'm rather flattered." CW: Nice, libertarian notions here about the "anachronism" of "the concept of intellectual property." But I don't think Stewart would be so nonchalant if his employer decided not to pay him but published his stuff anyway because his right to be paid for an "intellectual product" was an "anachronistic concept." ...

... Right-Wing Paper Fires the Plagiarist. Jim McElhatton of the Washington Times: "The Washington Times said Tuesday that it had independently reviewed Mr. Paul's columns and op-eds and published a correction to his Sept. 20 column in which the senator had failed to attribute a passage that first appeared in Forbes. The newspaper and the senator mutually agreed to end his weekly column, which has appeared each Friday since the summer." ...

... The Nut Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree: Crazy Coot & Cooch. James Hohmann of Politico: "Headlining the final rally of Ken Cuccinelli's underdog campaign for Virginia governor, Ron Paul suggested the 'nullification' of Obamacare on Monday night." If that wasn't enough of a reprisal of the Civil War, Paul flirted with talk of open rebellion: 'The Second Amendment was not there so you could shoot rabbits,' he said. 'Right now today, we have a great threat to our liberties internally.'" CW: Not sure if Ron Paul -- unlike his son -- writes his own stuff or if he copies it from John C. Calhoun & Jefferson Davis speeches. ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... can you imagine a statewide Democratic candidate anywhere, much less in a 'purple state,' associating himself or herself so conspicuously with such ravings? No, you can't. If you want a fresh example of what 'asymmetric polarization' is all about, just consider that this is how the Republican Party of Virginia chose to conclude a statewide campaign."

Cruzing YouTube, Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch finds another anti-gay, anti-choice rant by Ted Cruz's father & political surrogate Rafael Cruz.

Apartheid, U.S.A. Thomas Edsall of the New York Times: "The Republicans who now control the legislatures and governorships in the deep South are using the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 to create a system of political apartheid. No state demonstrates this better than Alabama.... Once Alabama Republicans gained control of the levers of power, they wasted no time using the results of the 2010 Census to reinforce their position of dominance. Newly drawn lines further corralled black voters into legislative districts with large African-American majorities, a tactic political professionals call 'packing and stacking.' ... In that famously vicious political blood sport, redistricting, they will exploit their ability to deploy the cloak of civil rights to maintain and strengthen a politically advantageous segregation of the races."

Spy Rules Kaput? Steve Holland & Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "The United States is working to improve intelligence cooperation with Germany but a sweeping 'no-spy' agreement between the two countries is unlikely, a senior Obama administration official said on Tuesday."

Patricia Zengerle of Reuters: "Senior U.S. senators revived a push on Tuesday to ratify a treaty to protect people with disabilities from discrimination, almost a year after Republican lawmakers blocked approval of the international pact. Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called a hearing to address concerns about the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, during which some Republican lawmakers made strong appeals for more support from members of their party.... A Senate attempt to approve ratification in December 2012 failed by a vote of 61-38, five votes short of the 66 needed for ratification."

Digby: It appears that "anal rape by instrumentality" is now part of "our basic moral fabric."

Local News

Monique Garcia & Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune: "The [Illinois] General Assembly today narrowly approved a gay marriage bill, clearing the way for Illinois to become the 15th state to legalize same-sex unions. The bill got 61 votes in the House, one more than the bare minimum needed to send the measure back to the Senate, which quickly signed off. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has said he would sign the bill into law should it reach his desk."

Presidential Election 2016

Isaac Chotiner of the New Republic: "If [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie can somehow be considered the front-runner for the 2016 nomination, however, it is only because of a dearth of strong Republican candidates. His political shortcomings are much more acute than people realize.... The big problem for Christie is that ... two ostensibly separate concerns -- his temperament and his problems with the base -- are likely to merge in unpleasant ways."

News Ledes

New York Times: "On the eve of a new round of talks between world powers and Iran, a senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that the United States was prepared to offer Iran limited relief from economic sanctions if Tehran agreed to halt its nuclear program temporarily and reversed part of it."

AFP: "Secretary of State John Kerry reaffirmed US opposition to Israeli settlements on Wednesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of creating 'artificial crises' over the issue. Kerry spent all day shuttling between the Israelis and Palestinians and after a late dinner with Netanyahu the two dismissed their teams and again huddled alone for private talks."

New York Times: "On Wednesday, Twitter set the price of its initial public offering at $26 a share, valuing the company at $18.1 billion. Twitter shares are set to begin trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange."

AP: "City councilors called on Toronto's deputy mayor to 'orchestrate a dignified' departure for Mayor Rob Ford, who was greeted by angry protesters on his first day of work after acknowledging he smoked crack. Deepening the crisis, Ford's long-time policy adviser Brooks Barnett resigned, continuing an exodus from his office that started in May when news reports emerged of a video showing the mayor smoking what appears to be crack. Police announced last week they had a copy of the video, which has not been released publicly." CW: Maybe somebody should explain to Ford what "dignified" means.

AP: "A court in Egypt upheld Wednesday an earlier ruling that banned the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets confiscated, the state news agency reported. The decision moves forward the complicated process of the government taking control of the Islamist group's far-reaching social network and its finances."

AP: "Swiss scientists have found evidence suggesting Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned with a radioactive substance, a TV station reported Wednesday, prompting new allegations by his widow that the Palestinian leader was the victim of a 'shocking' crime. Palestinian officials have long accused Israel of poisoning Arafat, a claim Israel has denied. Arafat died under mysterious circumstances at a French military hospital in 2004, a month after falling ill at his Israeli-besieged West Bank compound."

Reuters: "A former U.S. militant who hijacked a plane to Cuba almost 30 years ago flew home to the United States to face air piracy charges on Wednesday and was taken into FBI custody in Miami, an FBI spokesman said. William Potts was scheduled to appear before a U.S. judge in Miami on Thursday, FBI Special Agent Michael Leverock said."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 5, 2013

Paul Kane & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The Senate cleared a critical hurdle Monday on legislation banning discrimination against gays in the workplace, demonstrating the latest shift in a dramatic transformation of political views toward gay rights over the last decade. Seven Republicans joined 54 members of the Democratic caucus Monday evening in a vote to formally begin consideration of the bill -- virtually guaranteeing passage later this week -- on legislation that would prohibit discrimination in the workplace against gays." ...

... Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) speaks in favor of ENDA:

... Benjy Sarlin of NBC News: "Not a single Republican Senator delivered a speech opposing its passage." ...

... Thomas Ferraro of Reuters: "House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Monday opposed a bill to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, dimming the chances of the White House-backed measure becoming law." ...

... Sarlin (linked above) explains why Boehner's opposition to ENDA is a BIG MISTAKE for the GOP. ...

... "Barack Obama Is a Terrible Blogger." Jonathan Chait: "Not long ago, Barack Obama gave a highly publicized speech in which he disparaged bloggers as a class of people who, along with lobbyists and talk-radio hosts, ought to be ignored. Just what Obama holds against bloggers was never entirely clear.... Today, Obama has a blog item of his own in the Huffington Post, urging Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. A consideration of its polemical merits makes clear the source of his mysterious resentment of bloggers: rank envy.... He resents bloggers because he is a failed blogger himself. Obama should not quit his day job. Whatever that is." Obama's post is here.

I can't always quote everything perfect. I'm not perfect. I do make mistakes. In the book in fact we made a mistake, it should have been blocked off or indented to show that it was a quotation. It was footnoted at the end. We didn't try to pass off anything as our own. And they're coming up with these absurdities. -- Sen. Rand Paul, to Sean Hannity Monday night ...

I can't always quote everything perfect. Look, adverbs and adjectives confuse me. And 'they' expect me to indent? -- CW Rough Translation

... The Plagiarist, Ctd. Linguakleptomania. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Sections of an op-ed Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote on mandatory minimums in The Washington Times in September appear nearly identical to an article by Dan Stewart of The Week that ran a week earlier. The discovery comes amid reports from BuzzFeed that Paul plagiarized in his book and in several speeches. Paul also delivered testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 16, 2013, that included the copied sections.... Paul's office did not return a request for comment." ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who in recent weeks has had to explain how Wikipedia entries came to be incorporated into his speeches with no attribution, faced charges of direct plagiarism on Monday night.... Aides to Mr. Paul declined to comment about the apparent plagiarism, which was first reported by BuzzFeed." ...

... NEW. UPDATE. Wait, Wait, There's More! Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "A section of Rand Paul's 2012 book Government Bullies appears to be plagiarized from a Forbes article from earlier in that year. BuzzFeed had previously reported that more than three pages plagiarized from The Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute were the only instances of copying in the book. As was the case with cut-and-pasted sections from The Heritage Foundation and a Cato scholar, Paul included a link to the Forbes article in the book's footnotes, but made no effort to indicate that not just the source, but the words themselves, had been taken from Forbes." ...

... MEANWHILE. David Edwards of Raw Story: Paul's staff has been "scrubbing transcripts" from his Website to eliminate evidence of plagiarism.

The first time I came here to Cape Town I almost got in a fight with the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, because he was refusing to let AIDS be treated.... That's the closest I've come to getting into a fist fight with a head of state. -- President Jimmy Carter

The Real Reason the Cancer Patient Writing in [Monday's] Wall Street Journal Lost Her Coverage," a terrific piece by Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "The [insurance] company, [United Healthcare,] packed its bags and dumped its beneficiaries because it wants its competitors to swallow the first wave of sicker enrollees only to re-enter the market later and profit from the healthy people who still haven't signed up for coverage." CW: We are all really fortunate to have bloggers like Volsky & Tommy Christoper of Mediaite to debunk &/or give nuance to these MSM stories. ...

... AND Steve M. of NMMNB finds convincing evidence -- some of it in the WSJ op-ed writer's own words from earlier pieces -- that the ObamaCare "victim" isn't telling the truth about her current health insurance. CW: Mind you, I feel great sympathy for anyone who is enduring a severe illness, but illness is still a poor excuse for trying to make oneself a minor celebrity. ...

... "The Memo that Could Have Saved ObamaCare." Ezra Klein on woulda, shoulda, (maybe) coulda on ACA implementation. They wuz warned. ...

... Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post emphasizes a key point: "What the GOP gleefully calls a train wreck was a self-fulfilling prophesy courtesy of Republican sabotage.... The federal exchange that Republicans said wouldn't work ended up not working because it was starved of the money needed to help make it work.... The federal exchange that Republicans said wouldn't work ended up not working because the GOP pressured Republican governors to not form their own state exchanges. This made the federal task more complex and difficult, thus ensuring its failure." CW: Which is more likely to get a rock to the top of a hill? -- Pushing it up the hill with help from the neighbors or pushing it uphill while the neighbors throw stones at you? ...

... Amy Goodnough of the New York Times: Kentucky demonstrates how ObamaCare was supposed to work. CW: You won't be hearing this story from Goodnough's report on Fox "News":

The woman, a thin 61-year-old who refused to give her name..., had come to the public library here to sign up for health insurance through Kentucky's new online exchange. She had a painful lump on the back of her hand and other health problems that worried her deeply ... but had been unable to afford insurance as a home health care worker who earns $9 an hour. Within a minute, the system checked her information and flashed its conclusion on [an ACA navigator's] laptop: eligible for Medicaid. The woman began to weep with relief. Without insurance, she said as she left, 'it's cheaper to die.'

... CW: A Washington Post headline writer is a liar. The headline, which is attached to a Sarah Kliff video: "Kliff Notes: Will Obamacare cancel my plan?" If Kliff wrote the headline, & she may have, no one knows better than she that the headline is misleading. "ObamaCare" can't cancel a policy; only an insurance company can. The ACA mandates that health insurance policies provide certain basic benefits. This forces carriers to enhance substandard policies, not to cancel them.

Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail. -- Secretary of State Henry Stimson, 1929 ...

... Pew Research Center: "In the wake of reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been listening to phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other heads of state, a 56% majority of Americans say it is unacceptable for the U.S. to monitor the phones of allied leaders, while 36% say the practice is acceptable. There are virtually no partisan differences in these opinions."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "The Obama administration has told allies and lawmakers it is considering reining in a variety of National Security Agency practices overseas, including holding White House reviews of the world leaders the agency is monitoring, forging a new accord with Germany for a closer intelligence relationship and minimizing collection on some foreigners. But for now, President Obama and his top advisers have concluded that there is no workable alternative to the bulk collection of huge quantities of 'metadata,' including records of all telephone calls made inside the United States."

New York Times Editors: "Secretary of State John Kerry's trip to Egypt, included in his Middle East itinerary at the last minute, served only to add to the confusion over the Obama administration's policy toward this critically important Arab nation. Mr. Kerry was the highest-ranking American official to visit Cairo since Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, was deposed in July. Mr. Kerry seemed to go further than necessary or prudent to make common cause with the authoritarian generals who led the coup and are now running the country." CW: The U.S. has a long, inglorious history of bolstering Middle East tyrants. Let's call Kerry a traditionalist!

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "In an important, if likely temporary, victory for abortion rights, the Supreme Court took a major abortion case off its docket on Monday. The Court's brief order does not explain the justices’ reason for doing so -- it simply provides that '[t]he writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.['] Nevertheless, it is likely that the justices decided that a recent Oklahoma Supreme Court decision muddied the issues presented by the case to such an extent that it made sense to wait to decide an important question regarding the ability of states to restrict the use of medication abortions.... the fact that the justices turned aside an opportunity to uphold the very broad Oklahoma law may offer a small ray of hope to supporters of abortion rights. For the moment, the justices seem uninterested in endorsing an expansive ban on medication abortions, even if there may be five votes to uphold a narrower ban like the one in Texas." CW: See also Local News below re: Texas anti-abortion law. ...

Local News

Matt Sloane of CNN: "On Monday abortion-rights groups filed an emergency motion asking the Supreme Court to block Texas from enforcing part of the [anti-abortion] law, which is considered among the most restrictive in the country. Justice Antonin Scalia has given the state until November 12 to respond.... The motion comes four days after a federal appeals court reinstated a key part of the law -- a provision that requires doctors to obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic at which they're providing abortion services. The appeals court's decision allowed that provision to remain in place, but Monday's motion asks the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling." ...

... Jesse Wegman of the New York Times: "On Monday morning, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia allowed the charade to continue for at least another week when he declined to grant an emergency request by the law's challengers to stay the appeals court's ruling, and ordered the state to file a response by Nov. 12. (Justice Scalia hears all emergency-stay applications out of the Fifth Circuit.)

Already we have lost 14 states in this union to the most corrupt group of citizens I've ever known. They make up the heart and the thinking in the minds of those who would belong to the Ku Klux Klan. They are white supremacists. They are men of evil. They have names. They are flooding our country with money. They've come into to New York City -- they are beginning to buy their way in to city politics. They are pouring money into Presbyterian Hospital to take over the medical care system. The Koch brothers, that's their name. -- Harry Belafone, at a campaign event in Harlem for mayoral candidate Bill De Blasio

Seth Masket of Pacific Standard on the Northern Colorado secessionist effort. "Secession is the conservative equivalent of moving to Canada.... It represents a rejection of representative democracy. It's a refutation of the idea that if you're losing, you make better arguments, recruit better candidates, and run better campaigns until you win." Via Jonathan Bernstein.

He's No Twit. I don't twit. I only walk. I don't email. I don't Facebook.... I'm an old-school politician. I return calls. I know neighborhoods. I know Mrs. Lopez. -- Newark Mayor Luis Quintana, who replaced newly-elected Sen. Cory Booker

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "Democrats and unions, fearful that a landslide victory by Gov. Chris Christie will reshape New Jersey's political landscape, have poured tens of millions of dollars into a record-breaking outside spending campaign that has transformed the state's election season. The effort, designed to preserve Democrats' dominance of the State Legislature and complicate Mr. Christie's plans to build a record of legislative achievement as he considers a presidential bid in 2016, has inundated some legislative districts with millions of dollars in negative ads on a scale never before seen in New Jersey." ...

Guns, Governors & Angry White People

Emily Schultheis of Politico: "New polling finds that the gun control issue favors Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor's race." ...

... Ben Pershing of the Washington Post: "How McAuliffe became the frontrunner: 8 turning points in the race for Virginia governor." CW: Not sure any of these is a "turning point"; let's call them "significant events."

Tom Jacobs of Pacific Standard: "A research team led by Kerry O'Brien of Monash University in Australia reports a high score on a common measure of racial resentment increases the odds that a person will (a) have a gun in the house, and (b) be opposed to gun control. This holds true even after other 'explanatory variables,' including political party affiliation, are taken into account." ...

... Charles Pierce: "The obviously coded subtext of a great deal of the NRA and general gun-mongering propaganda concerns scaring white people about black criminals.... The election of a black president, I suspect, acted merely as what the arson squad would call an accelerant. The fire already was lit and, frankly, the NRA didn't light it."

CW: Yesterday I was applauding Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine), a candidate for governor, for coming out of the closet, albeit for practical political reasons. But now -- via Charles Pierce -- I learn that he may be all for his own sexual rights, but for women, not so much. Republican Sherry Huber elaborates in the Portland Press Herald.

An Angry White Man. Darryl Isherwood of NJ.com: "Gov. Chris Christie's official Facebook page is awash in comments attacking him for his treatment of a teacher during a campaign stop this weekend.... Accounts differ, but [teacher Melissa] Tomlinson said the governor snapped at her, telling he is 'tired of you people.'" CW: Accounts may differ, but here's a snapshot of Christie during the exchange with the teacher. You be the judge:

How Not to Run for President. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie chats up a New Jersey schoolteacher. He's a shoo-in for the masochist vote. ...

... CW Update: Contributor Patrick credibly argues that the picture doesn't tell a thousand rants because "... the off-kilter framing gives the viewer the initial impression that CC is leaning into, towering over, his interlocutor. Straighten the frame and he is not so intimidating.... With that canted frame, it also appears that CC is gesturing aggressively...." See Patrick's full comment below. Here are two more photos taken by Dave Weigel of Slate, who also posted the one above (I wasn't certain about this earlier, so didn't give proper credit):

Ah, you put the proper angle on your pic & Christie looks like a real sweetheart.... Weigel writes, "... here's what I saw. After the rally, Christie made his way back to his campaign bus, flanked by low-key security guards. Tomlinson, who had been carrying a sign and handing out fliers from her Badass Teachers Association, asked Christie why he'd called New Jersey schools 'failure factories.' Christie rounded on her, blurting out that he was sick of 'you people.'" Weigel goes on to the report the entire exchange he overheard. CW: I've found Weigel, a libertarian, to be a fair reporter. I'll go with his first-hand report. This is a confrontation, not a conversation. Contrast Christie's response to the schoolteacher with Romney's response to hostile, jeering fair-goers -- "Corporations are people, my friend" -- & you realize that even Mitt Romney is a better politician than Christie -- unless you have a fondness for boors.

... Presidential Election 2016

Paul Waldman of the American Prospect on the coming (brief) "explosion of Christie mania." CW: Read it & enjoy. ...

... Charles Pierce: "If anything drives me out of political blogging before my time, it [will be] ... a full two-years of fiery bro-love among the media for Chris Christie, not merely among Republicans looking for a winner, but for Democrats who are prepared once again to fall for a straight-talkin', two-fisted man o' the people who you'd like to have a beer with.... Chris Christie's only claim to being a Republican 'moderate' is that he condescended to accept the president's help when half of Christie's state had been blown out to sea. Beyond that, he's a rich guy who will do what richer guys than he is want him to do. He has a gender gap wider than the Dardenelles."

CW: So far the GOP's top choices for its 2016 presidential nominee include a megalomanic (that would be Tailgunner Ted), a zombie-eyed granny starver (see Charles Pierce), an unrepentant kleptomaniac & a serial bully. On the Democratic side, we have Hillary Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton. I am not at all convinced she can beat each & every one of the deranged boys on the other team.

Congressional Race

Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "The long-running battle for the heart and soul of the national Republican Party will play out [in Alabama] on Tuesday in the form of a nasty little House special-election primary, pitting business-oriented establishment Republicans against angry and energized tea party insurgents who have become a dominant voice in the GOP. Dean Young is the insurgents' candidate. Bradley Byrne is the establishment choice."

News Ledes

Another Day in the Land of the Free. New Jersey Star-Ledger: "Hours after a volley of shots were fired in Garden State Plaza, trapping customers and store workers for hours as police searched for the gunman, the suspect was found dead inside a construction zone within the mall, authorities said this morning." ...

... Star Ledger: "The sound of shots fired inside one of New Jersey's largest shopping malls just before closing last night triggered a lockdown and frantic evacuation, as police launched a massive manhunt to find the apparent lone gunman. Police preliminarily identified the suspect in the shooting at the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus as Richard Shoop, 20, of Teaneck...."

Washington Post: "Roughly one in every five sunlike stars is orbited by a potentially habitable, Earth-size planet, meaning that the universe has abundant real estate that could be congenial to life, according to an analysis of observations by NASA's Kepler space telescope. Our Milky Way galaxy alone could harbor billions of rocky worlds where water might be liquid at the surface, according to the report, which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and discussed at a news conference in California."

Reuters: U.N.-Arab League "Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met U.S. and Russian officials on Tuesday to discuss convening long-delayed Syrian peace talks this year despite disputes over President Bashar al-Assad's future and whether his ally Iran can attend. Hours earlier, Damascus reiterated that Assad will stay in power come what may, casting doubt on the political transition that is the main focus of the proposed 'Geneva 2' conference."

AP: " India on Tuesday launched its first spacecraft bound for Mars, a complex mission that it hopes will demonstrate and advance technologies for space travel."

Guardian: "A court in Bangladesh has sentenced 152 people to death for their actions in a 2009 border guard mutiny in which 74 people, including 57 military commanders, were killed.... Human rights groups have criticised Bangladesh for the mass trial.... New York-based Human Rights Watch last week said at least 47 suspects have died in custody while the suspects have had limited access to lawyers, and to knowledge of the charges and evidence against them."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 4, 2013

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "A major test of how carefully Republicans can navigate the perilous intraparty politics of sexuality will come on Monday, when the Senate holds a crucial vote on a bill to outlaw workplace discrimination against gay men, lesbians and transgender people."

Reed Abelson & Katie Thomas of the New York Times: "Millions of people could qualify for federal subsidies that will pay the entire monthly cost of some health care plans being offered in the online marketplaces set up under President Obama's health care law, a surprising figure that has not garnered much attention, in part because the zero-premium plans come with serious trade-offs.... The bulk of these plans are so-called bronze policies, the least expensive available. They require people to pay the most in out-of-pocket costs, for doctor visits and other benefits like hospital stays." ...

Ariana Cha & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: Americans who face higher ­insurance costs under President Obama's health-care law are angrily complaining about 'sticker shock,' threatening to become a new political force opposing the law.... The growing backlash involves people whose plans are being discontinued because the policies don't meet the law's more-stringent standards.... If the poor, sick and uninsured are the winners under the Affordable Care Act, the losers appear to include some relatively healthy middle-income small-business owners, consultants, lawyers and other self-employed workers who buy their own insurance. Many make too much to qualify for new federal subsidies provided by the law but not enough to absorb the rising costs without hardship. Some are too old to go without insurance because they have children or have minor health issues, but they are too young for Medicare. Others are upset because they don't want coverage for services they'll never need or their doctors don't participate in any of their new insurance options." ...

People who are afraid of the ACA should be much more afraid of the insurance companies who will exploit their fear and end up overcharging them. -- Donna, an individual policyholder whose insurance company substantially raised her premium & didn't tell her about the healthcare exchange ...

... Dylan Scott of TPM: "Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies' own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces -- which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended.... The extreme lengths to which some insurance companies are going to hold on to existing customers at higher price, as the Affordable Care Act fundamentally re-orders the individual insurance market, has caught the attention of state insurance regulators." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic talked to Dianne Barrette, the Florida woman who was the media's favorite ObamaCare "victim" until Greta Van Susteren & others checked out a few facts. Barrette's current plan is a hope-you-don't-get-sick plan that doesn't even cover hospitalization & pays $50 for an MRI (which costs $1,000 or more here in Florida). Cohn examined Barrette's options -- she's eligible for a hefty tax credit -- & shared his findings with her. Now Barrette thinks "losing" her junk plan just might be "a blessing in disguise." ...

All of that is well and good, but if the Web site doesn't work, nothing else matters. -- President Obama, often, after staff meetings on the progress of ACA implementation ...

... Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post on why Healthcare.gov is such a collossal failure: "... the project was hampered by the White House's political sensitivity to Republican hatred of the law -- sensitivity so intense that the president's aides ordered that some work be slowed down or remain secret for fear of feeding the opposition. Inside the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the main agency responsible for the exchanges, there was no single administrator whose full-time job was to manage the project. Republicans also made clear they would block funding, while some outside IT companies that were hired to build the Web site, HealthCare.gov, performed poorly." CW: Goldstein & Eilperin dig deep; an interesting report. ...

... Hunter Schwartz of BuzzFeed: "The Oregon healthcare exchange website, CoverOregon.org, was 'built and tested for use with Internet Explorer,' and may 'not work properly' if used on other browsers, according to the site.... Internet Explorer ... was discontinued on the Mac platform a decade ago." ...

... E. J. Dionne: "The administration has never adequately defended the law or explained why government will inevitably have to play a larger role in guaranteeing health insurance to all our citizens -- as the public sector does in every other wealthy democracy. Now, everyone is paying attention. The way to still the noise is to challenge opponents of Obamacare. Can they really make the case that the country would be better off without it? And what would they do instead?" ...

... CW: The current brouhaha is a result of unforced errors. (1) The most technologically-savvy administration ever did not know how to develop a complicated Website, & (2) the President repeatedly made a false claim: "If you like your current insurance, you can keep it." Incompetence & false presidential bromides undermine Americans' confidence in government nearly as much as any Tea Party yahoo does. ...

... Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "... [Mitt] Romney said the Affordable Care Act, and the immediately troubled rollout of its federal exchange website, had 'undermined the president's credibility in the hearts of the American people'." CW: Sadly, Romney is right. ...

... AP: "Mitt Romney isn't including tea party favorite Ted Cruz among the Republicans' most electable potential presidential candidates in 2016. Who does the 2012 GOP nominee put on his list of 'very capable people?' His ex-running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But Romney says New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie 'stands out as one of the very strongest lights.'" CW: You heard it here first. My pick would be Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Besides being governor of the swing state, he was a member of the House for 18 years, where he was something of a pragmatist. AND he's a Fox "News" alum, so he might be able to pull in the crazy vote. His recent criticism of the GOP for not caring about the poor is a sure sign he's running for something & maybe not just re-election.

... Digby: Bullyboy Chris Christie likes to abuse teachers. "He did it again, just this weekend."

The Plagiarist, Ctd. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "A speech on Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's website has been updated to include footnotes linking to Wikipedia following reports by BuzzFeed, Politico, and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow the senator had plagiarized several speeches from the Internet encyclopedia."

Nicholas Lemann of the New Yorker profiles SEC Chair Mary Jo White.

Brendan Sasso of the Hill: "Senior military officials are leaning towards removing the National Security Agency director's authority over U.S. Cyber Command, according to a former high-ranking administration official familiar with internal discussions. Keith Alexander, a four star general who leads both NSA and Cyber Command, plans to step down in the spring."

Michelle Martin of Reuters: "In 'A Manifesto for the Truth' published in German news magazine Der Spiegel on Sunday, [Edward] Snowden said current debates about mass surveillance in many countries showed his revelations were helping to bring about change." ...

... Brian Knowlton of the New York Times: "If Edward J. Snowden believes he deserves clemency for his disclosures of classified government documents because they provoked an important public debate about the reach of American spying, he has failed to sway the White House and at least two key members of Congress," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) & Mike Rogers (R-Michigan). ...

... Andrew Osborne of Reuters: "The British government's response to leaks of intelligence information by former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden has eroded human rights and press freedoms, rights groups said on Sunday. In an open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron published in Britain's Guardian newspaper, 70 different press advocacy and rights groups from 40 countries said they were alarmed at the way his government had reacted, saying it had invoked national security legislation to try to suppress information of public interest." The letter is here.

Paul Krugman: "German officials are furious at America, and not just because of the business about Angela Merkel's cellphone. What has them enraged now is one (long) paragraph in a U.S. Treasury report on foreign economic and currency policies. In that paragraph Treasury argues that Germany's huge surplus on current account -- a broad measure of the trade balance -- is harmful, creating 'a deflationary bias for the euro area, as well as for the world economy.'... Treasury was right, and the German reaction was disturbing." CW: In case you are of the impression that the interests of the U.S. & our ally Germany are exactly the same, look no further than Krugman's column.

Tom Kutsch of Al Jazeera: "Since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. government agencies have weakened traditional ethical injunctions against the infliction of intentional harm by medical professionals in its policies of holding detainees as a part of the war on terror, a new report argues. The assessment came from The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers, a team of experts from legal, medical, military and ethical backgrounds with funding from the Open Society Foundations and the Institute on Medicine as a Profession." The Guardian report, by Sarah Boseley, is here.

Gubernatorial Races

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "PPP's final Virginia poll finds Democrats leading in all three statewide races. In the Governor's race Terry McAuliffe has the advantage with 50% to 43% for Ken Cuccinelli and 4% for Libertarian Robert Sarvis." CW: Based on previous polling, it appears Cuccinelli scraped off half of Sarvis's vote. Cooch & I agree on this: if voter turnout is really low, he could still win.

Philip Elliott & Josh Lederman of the AP: "President Barack Obama cast Republican Ken Cuccinelli on Sunday as part of an extreme tea party faction that shut down the government, throwing the political weight of the White House behind Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the final days of a bitter race for governor." Here's a clip:

Presidential Race 2012

Peter Hamby of CNN reviews Double Down for the Washington Post. The review is filled with fun dirt. ...

... New York has an excerpt from Double Down. It's about Obama's debate prep & is pretty interesting -- if you can stomach the purple prose. ...

... Rick Hertzberg has a short, funny piece about Double Down. With a quiz!

Local News

** Terry Evans & Anna Tinsley of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Former House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office.... The legendary Texas political figure says that he has worked things out with DPS and that he will get a state-issued personal identification card in time for him to vote Tuesday in the state and local elections. But after the difficulty he had this weekend getting a proper ID card, Wright, 90, expressed concern that such problems could deter others from voting and stifle turnout. After spending much of his life fighting to make it easier to vote, the Democratic Party icon said he is troubled by what he's seeing happen under the state's new voter ID law." ...

... Missed this one. AND HaHaHaHaHa. Aviva Shen of Think Progress: "As early voting begins in Texas, the state's new, strict voter ID law has thus far flagged a judge, gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, and another state senator as potentially illegitimate voters. Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), voter ID's most strident defender, was also flagged as a suspicious voter under his own law's strict criteria. Abbott was flagged because his license lists his name as 'Gregory Wayne Abbott' while his voter registration record simply calls him 'Greg Abbott.' ... Thanks to an amendment added by Wendy Davis, voters who clearly have 'substantially similar' names can still cast a regular ballot by signing an affidavit affirming their identity. If the law had gone through unmodified as Abbott originally supported, he would have disenfranchised himself." ...

     ... CW: The determination of "substantially similar names" is subjective. The dumb-as-doornails partisans who man polling places are almost certainly going to "suspicion" that "Willie Brown" and "William Brown" (D) are not the same guy whereas "Gregory Wayne Abbott" & "Greg Abbott" (R) are one & the same. Brown won't be able to cast a regular vote; Abbott will.

Gubernatorial Race

Yeah, So? Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "Rep. Mike Michaud, a Maine Democrat, told residents of the state he is hoping to govern that he is gay on Monday in op-eds running in newspapers across the state":

... I wasn't surprised to learn about the whisper campaigns, insinuations and push-polls some of the people opposed to my candidacy have been using to raise questions about my personal life. They want people to question whether I am gay. Allow me to save them the trouble with a simple, honest answer: 'Yes I am. But why should it matter?' -- Mike Michaud

News Ledes

New York Times: "... on Monday, federal prosecutors announced that ... SAC Capital Advisors, had agreed to plead guilty to insider trading violations and pay a record $1.2 billion penalty, becoming the first large Wall Street firm in a generation to confess to criminal conduct. The government has also forced SAC to terminate its business of managing money for outside investors."

New York Times: "As Egypt's new military-led government consolidates its power, Mohamed Morsi, the deposed president, went on trial on Monday in a makeshift courtroom, facing charges of inciting the murder of protesters. But soon after the trial opened, news reports said..., state television said the case was adjourned until Jan. 8."

New York Daily News: "A high-powered U.S. Navy officer faces charges he traded secrets for prostitutes, luxury travel arrangements and tickets to a Lady Gaga concert. Commander Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz is accused of running the alleged pay-to-play scheme along with a Navy investigations special agent and the CEO of a private defense company who was milking hundreds of millions of dollars from military contracts."