The Commentariat -- April 3, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' criticism of Charles Snelling, the former manager of Dulles & Reagan airports who killed his Alzheimer's-stricken wife Adrienne and himself. In case you have forgotten what a snivelling creep Brooks is since the last time I wrote about what a snivelling creep he is, my column should refresh your memory. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Good comments to yesterday's Commentariat are definitely worth your review.

Scott Pelley of "60 Minutes" on NASA & Florida's Space Coast:

... CW: This reminds me of this video, which I embedded a few weeks ago:

... Adam Sorensen of Time: "'In the politics of the past, to get your vote in the Space Coast, I’d come here and promise hundreds of billions of dollars,' Romney told voters on Cape Canaveral back in January. 'I know that's something that's very attractive, very popular, but it's simply the wrong thing to do.'"

Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times decries the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to allow police to strip-search people they have arrested for minor crimes & misdemeanors and even, as in the case before the Court, no crime at all. Thanks to reader Janice K. for the link. See also yesterday's News Ledes. CW: I wonder what percentage of Occupy protesters will be strip-searched. ...

... Charles Pierce: "In case you were wondering  when the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court was going to stop pleasuring America's corporations and get back to enabling whatever police powers come before it, this is your day. By the usual 5-4 majority, Anthony Kennedy being his usual swinging self, and writing the opinion personally, the Court decided that local police can pretty much strip-search anyone they want, for whatever reason they can make up, even if the guy they picked up never gets charged with anything because the whole thing was the result of a bookkeeping glitch, and even if the arrest was for something that isn't even a crime."

Here are the President's remarks -- made yesterday -- on the necessity and constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act:

... Here is the full press conference with President Calderon & PM Harper:

Kevin Drum: "... overturning Obamacare could end up mobilizing movement liberalism in the same way that the Warren Court mobilized movement conservatism four decades ago." CW: You'll have to read the whole post to appreciate his argument; Drum doesn't see a big public outcry against the Court, but he does see an outcry among the liberal base. ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic presents a number of conflicting views. He adds, "... the effect of narrow, seemingly partisan decisions can be cumulative. A decision striking down the health care law might seem more alarming precisely because it's part of a pattern that started with Bush v. Gore and Citizens United. The liberal base will certainly see it that way." ...

Steve Benen: right-wing pundits are gleefully mocking "the nearly impenetrable parochialism of American liberals." But (1) "we don't yet know the outcome," and (2) --

It wasn't just 'the left' that expected the justices to reject conservative arguments. Conservative federal judges upheld the health care law before the case reached the Supreme Court; Reagan administration officials saw the dispute as a no-brainer unworthy of the justices' time; and experts, analysts, and former Supreme Court clerks all helped form a consensus within the legal community: it was simply hard to imagine a court majority striking down the law....

So why do the predictions look ridiculous? Because the legal community -- analysts, scholars, journalists, attorneys, former clerks -- appear to have wildly overestimated the extent to which conservative justices give a damn about precedent, the facts of the case, the court's traditions and respect for restraint, lower-court rulings, the integrity of the institution, and the justices' avoidance of activism.

Another Obama ad attacks Willard for attacking Obama:

Right Wing World

... Michael Shear of the New York Times gets real with Romney on energy policy: "For several weeks, Mitt Romney has seized on the rising cost of gasoline to attack President Obama and his environmental aides for what Mr. Romney calls their misguided desire to see higher energy prices.... But Mr. Romney ... has in the past appeared much more open to the notion that rising energy costs could be good for the American economy. In his 2010 book, 'No Apology,' Mr. Romney described a gradual increase in the cost of energy as the kind of market-based incentive that conservatives could embrace." ...

... AND Steve Benen points to this post by Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: as governor of Massachusetts, Romney hiked the state's gas tax by 400 percent.

I'll leave it to Charles Pierce to inform you of the latest quote from campaign juggernaut (according to Politico) Ann Romney. If you want to avoid a spit-take, do not read while imbibing a beverage. ...

... Joe Klein of Time whacks Mitt Romney on his latest lies about President Obama, this time vis-a-vis immigration reform. Will the real Mitt Romney please get back in his pants?

Don't Confuse Him with the Facts. The economy is simply the product of all the nations’ businesses added together. -- Mitt Romney

There is more to the economy than business. It also consists of such things as the public sector and workers. The distinction is important because during the last business cycle, which coincided with the George W. Bush presidency, corporate profits rose sharply while the median income failed to rise at all.... To define the fate of the economy solely as the product of business is wrong. Not just morally wrong but factually wrong. -- Jonathan Chait, New York magazine

This is another instance where Romney shows how out-of-touch he is with ordinary Americans. He just does not see workers, let alone government workers like teachers, as contributing to the nation's economy. This is the crux of his view that workers are expendable, unions are counterproductive and gross income inequality is justifiable. For all of his self-proclaimed business expertise, Mitt Romney doesn't understand the economy. -- Constant Weader

Don't Confuse Him with the Facts. I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught. -- Rick Santorum

Of the 10 UC system schools, just one (San Francisco) doesn’t offer American history courses. But that’s because it doesn’t offer any humanities courses at all — it’s a medical school. Meanwhile, Berkeley, Irvine, Davis, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz all offer numerous American history courses. All require students to take U.S. history before they can graduate. -- Alex Seitz-Wald, Think Progress

Local News

Kent Jones of the Rachel Maddow show has a funny post on Rebecca Kleefisch, the Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor who is the first looey ever subjected to a recall vote. She is seriously upset at the unfairness of democracy. With video.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Stocks on Wall Street traded sharply lower on Wednesday, despite data showing employers are continuing to hire, as investors digested minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting that suggested further monetary stimulus action is unlikely."

The New York Times liveblog of the Republican primaries is here. Romney has been declared the winner of the Maryland primary. Update: Romney wins Wisconsin with about 42% of the vote, Santorum with 38%. Oh, yes, and Romney won D.C., where Santorum wasn't on the ballot. Ho hum. ...

... More primary news from the Times here. Here's one tidbit, from Nate Silver: "Despite the fact that no presidential candidates are on the Democratic ballot except for Barack Obama (although Maryland Democrats can cast an uncommitted vote instead), Democratic turnout has actually outpaced Republican turnout there so far. As of 8:31 p.m., Mr. Obama had 30,152 votes in the Democratic primary, or about 91 percent of the total cast. Mr. Romney, meanwhile, had 11,768 votes in the Republican primary...."

... Reuters: "Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney appeared set to defeat his chief rival Rick Santorum in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, according to a Public Policy Polling survey." ...

... US News: "Mitt Romney is poised to pick up more wins in the Republican presidential primary race Tuesday when voters hit the polls in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The former Massachusetts governor is widely expected to dominate competitors in Maryland and his closest rival..., Rick Santorum, failed to even qualify for the D.C. ballot."

AP (via the NYT): "In an election-year pitch to middle-class voters, President Barack Obama is denouncing a House Republican budget plan as a 'Trojan horse,' warning that it represents 'an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country' that would hurt the pocketbooks of working families." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama opened a full-frontal assault Tuesday on the budget adopted by House Republicans, condemning it as a 'Trojan horse' and 'thinly veiled social Darwinism' that would greatly deepen inequality in the country.... The Republican budget, and the philosophy it represents, he said in remarks prepared for delivery, is 'antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who’s willing to work for it.'”

New York Times: "The United States has announced a $10 million reward for information leading to the capture of Hafiz Saeed, a Pakistani militant leader accused of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and who in recent months has emerged at the vanguard of a prominent anti-American political movement."

AP: "One man was wounded by gunfire early Tuesday in Lexington, numerous small fires were set and dozens were arrested as thousands celebrated Kentucky's win over Kansas to claim another NCAA title, authorities reported."

Guardian: James Murdoch will step down as BSkyB chairman. Liveblog.

The Commentariat -- April 2, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer, commenting on Bill Keller's New York Times column, asks the question, "Are Hate Crimes Worse than Other Crimes?" Most of you probably won't agree with my answer, but, hey, that's why they're called "opinions." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

** Paul Krugman: "... on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.... The trouble with the budget devised by Paul Ryan ... isn’t just its almost inconceivably cruel priorities, the way it slashes taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy. Even aside from all that, the Ryan budget purports to reduce the deficit — but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loopholes."

** E. J. Dionne: "Right before our eyes, American conservatism is becoming something very different from what it once was. Yet this transformation is happening by stealth because moderates are too afraid to acknowledge what all their senses tell them."

Jeff Toobin, who was the principal alarmist -- "a train wreck" -- about the Supremes' questioning of the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, now writes his commentary in the New Yorker: "Acts of Congress, like the health-care law, are presumed to be constitutional, and it is—or should be—a grave and unusual step for unelected, unaccountable, life-tenured judges to overrule the work of the democratically elected branches of government.... The awesome, and final, powers of the Justices are best exercised sparingly and with restraint. Their normal burdens of interpreting laws are heavy enough. No one expects the Justices to be making health-care policy any more than we expect them to be picking Presidents, which, it may be remembered, is not exactly their strength, either." Read the whole post.

Dan Barry, et al., of the New York Times write an extensive report on the killing of Trayvon Martin. If you've missed some of the particulars, this will bring you up-to-date.

Keith Laing of The Hill: "Transportation advocates are losing hope for passage of a highway bill before the election following Congress's decision this week to pass another short-term funding extension. Instead of approving the multi-year transportation bill that passed the Senate, lawmakers adopted a temporary extension of legislation that already funds road and transit projects. The short-term measure, signed Friday by President Obama, extends federal transportation funding until June 30." ...

... Brad Plumer of the Washington Post: "... a growing number of states — from California to Florida — have been bringing in private capital to bankroll their transportation needs. But is privatizing infrastructure really such a good idea?" Plumer reviews the pros & cons.

Susan Page of USA Today: "President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation's dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side.... Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points. The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group." ...

... Steve Kornacki of Salon: "This may be a case of history repeating itself. The last Democratic president to stand for reelection, Bill Clinton in 1996, owed his reelection to a massive and decisive gender gap.... But, as with Obama, his presidency provoked relentless, culturally-fueled conservative opposition that had particular resonance with white male voters, especially in the South and rural areas. The 'angry white male' phenomenon was key to the GOP’s 1994 midterm landslide...."

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "The burden of paying for college is wreaking havoc on the finances of an unexpected demographic: senior citizens. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent. As a result, consumer advocates say, it is not uncommon for Social Security checks to be garnished or for debt collectors to harass borrowers in their 80s over student loans that are decades old."

CW: I missed Glenn Greenwald's column on Saturday, but he makes an important point: as far as the media are concerned, all terrorism is Muslim, and in many quarters it's quite all right to make remarks or "jokes" about Muslims of a kind that no one would make about other ethnic groups.

Right Wing World

In a USA Today op-ed, Rick Santorum whacks President Obama and Mitt Romney for ObamaRomneyCare, which, as you know, "will take away your freedoms." CW: I'm too lazy to unpack the ldisinformation & misstatements in the op-ed. Here, PolitiFact takes care of the first misstatement.

Phil Rockstroh in TruthOut helps explain why poor white conservative men are totally screwed up. He uses as an example his old friend Vince: "... as the day-to-day humiliations exacted by the corporate state continue to inflict deeper, more emotionally debilitating wounds, the more Vince reacts like a wounded animal … lashing out at all but those who bestow him with the palliative of rightwing demagogic lies that distort the source of his suffering by means of directing his rage at a host of scapegoats i.e., phantom socialists (and, of course, their OWS dirty hippie dupes) whose, schemes, he insists, have denied him his rightful place among the serried ranks of capitalism's legion of winners." Read the whole thing. I think it helps explain the some of what Chris Mooney observed about The Republican Brain in the piece I linked in the Commentariat two days ago." Thanks to my friend Kate M. for the link.

[Romney] started this campaign in the aftermath of that tea party victory in 2010 when all the people on the far right of the Republican party actually believed a majority of the voters had embraced the specific things they were saying. So it created a horrible dilemma for Romney. And the poor man who got in trouble for the Etch-a-Sketch remark. That’s like the saying, ‘There is nothing more damaging in politics than telling the truth.’ I mean, the truth is, that’s what he’s gotta do. -- Bill Clinton ...

 ... CW: I skipped this New York Times op-ed by David Javerbaum because I am sick of reading about Mitt Romney, but the article is pretty good. Jeverbaum explains Romney's movable policy positions in terms of quantum physics (I guess -- I don't really speak quantum physics). ...

... More Bouncing Protons. Tamara Keith of NPR: Romney used to be pretty sensible about conserving energy; he isn't anymore. With audio. ...

... Greg Sargent: "... the Obama-allied Priorities USA Action is going up with a new ad in seven swing states hitting back hard at a spot being run by an outside conservative group attacking the President over high gas prices":

News Ledes

Washington Post: Martha Johnson, "the chief of the General Services Administration, is resigning and two of her top deputies have been fired amid reports of excessive spending at a training conference at a luxury hotel that featured a mindreader, a clown and a comedian.... Four GSA employees who organized the four-day conference have been placed on adminstrative leave pending further action. The resignations come as the agency’s inspector general prepares to release a scathing report on the training conference, held at a luxury hotel outside Las Vegas in October 2010."

ABC News: "A gunman who opened fire at Oikos University, a Christian school in Oakland, Calif., this morning, killing at least seven people and wounding three others, may be in custody, police said." The college focuses on teaching nursing; the suspect is a former student.

AP: "In the thick of political contests in both the United States and Mexico, [President] Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon traded unusually direct claims about the cause and effect of the drug violence that has consumed a swath of northeastern Mexico."

ABC News: "Immigration & Customs Enforcement [ICE] said today it arrested 3,168 criminal aliens and fugitives in a six-day nationwide sweep in every state including Puerto Rico and The District of Colombia. The operation dubbed 'Cross-Check' included more than 2,834 individuals who had prior criminal convictions. ICE officials noted that 50 gang members and 149 convicted sex offenders were nabbed. Although ICE has run similar operations..., ICE Director John Morton said this was the largest to date."

New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs but also public health and information about gang affiliations."

ABC News: "Former President Bill Clinton said ... the killing of Trayvon Martin should cause a re-thinking of the 'Stand Your Ground' law." With video.

New York Times: a new study of twins shows that "While sequencing the entire DNA of individuals is proving fantastically useful in understanding diseases and finding new treatments, it is not a method that will, for the most part, predict a person’s medical future."

Guardian: "Satellite images of a North Korean rocket launch site show a mobile radar trailer and rows of what appear to be empty fuel and oxidiser tanks, evidence of ramped-up preparation for what Washington calls a cover for a long-range missile test. An analysis of images that the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies gave to Associated Press on Monday shows Pyongyang 'has undertaken more extensive preparations for its planned April rocket launch than previously understood'. The images were taken on Wednesday."

AP: "A major donor to President Barack Obama has been accused of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official.... The New York donor, Abake Assongba, and her husband contributed more than $50,000 to Obama's re-election effort this year, federal records show. But Assongba is also fending off a civil court case in Florida, where she's accused of thieving more than $650,000 to help build a multimillion-dollar home in the state — a charge her husband denies."

AP: "A Pakistani court on Monday convicted Osama bin Laden's three widows and two of his daughters of illegally entering and living in the country and sentenced them to 45 days in prison, with credit for time served, their lawyer said.The five women have been in detention since last May...."

Guardian: "Bashar al-Assad has been warned to implement a UN-backed peace plan to end more than a year of violence in Syria, amid growing scepticism at the lack of international resolve to tackle the bloodiest crisis of the Arab spring. Hillary Clinton ... issued the threat at a conference of the Friends of the Syrian people in Istanbul on Sunday, but there was little evidence of coherent international action if he does not comply."

Guardian: "Aung San Suu Kyi has hailed 'the beginning of a new era' in Burma's politics after her party claimed a spectacular 43 out of 44 parliamentary seats in Sunday's historic byelection. Speaking to thousands of red-clad supporters outside the headquarters of her opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), the Nobel laureate called the election 'a triumph of the people' and said: 'We hope this will be the beginning of a new era.'"

AP: The Census Bureau will release its 1940 records today; 21 million Americans whose personal data appear in the records are still living, raising privacy issues.

AP: "A credit card processor says that a recent data breach may affect less than 1.5 million cards in North America. Visa and Mastercard announced Friday that they had notified users of the potential for identity theft and illicit charges because of the breach. The card processor, Global Payments put a number on those who could be affected late Sunday."

The Commentariat -- April 1, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Ross Douthat's little screed about health care costing too much and how Obama & Congressional Democrats managed to hide the true costs. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. ...

... AND do read this funny, short takedown of Tom Friedman by Hamilton Nolan of Gawker. Nolan perfectly captures Friedman.

New York Times Editors: "For anyone who still thought legal conservatives are dedicated to judicial restraint, the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the health care case should put that idea to rest. There has been no court less restrained in signaling its willingness to replace law made by Congress with law made by justices.... A split court striking down the act will be declaring itself virtually unfettered by the law. And if that happens along party lines, with five Republican-appointed justices supporting the challenge led by 26 Republican governors, the court will mark itself as driven by politics."

Nicholas Kristof persuades Goldman Sachs to get out of the sex-trafficking business.

Steve Hendrix of the Washington Post: "... in Libya, five months after the death of the man who managed to hold this country together by brute force, people are beginning to wonder whether there is any other way to do it."

Caroline Bankoff of New York magazine: George W. & Laura Bush's daughters, Barbara and Jenna, voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

CW: I read several posts in mostly respectable online journals & other media (PBS!) that highlighted this astounding figure: families earning less than $13,000 spend 9 percent of that income on lottery tickets. I too was shocked. So I read the study that generated all the foo-fah, which is here (pdf). I'll be darned if I can see where the study shows any such thing. Maybe you're a better reader than I.

Right Wing World

CNN: Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) no longer thinks it's a good idea to imply that the nation's top military brass are liars and perjurers when they claim cuts in defense spending are warranted.

Existential Dread, Right-Wing Style. Thanks to Jon Chait of New York magazine, I found out what conservatives are skeert of. Apparently the denizens of Right Wing World cite this passage often -- and even more often now that we have a black Muslim socialist in the White House:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. -- Anonymous (variously incorrectly attributed to de Toqueville & others)

CW: while I was mulching some giant crinum lilies today, my mind wandered to the Chris Mooney article I linked yesterday, & I came up with my own counter-theory about what's eating conservatives. I'm not ready to reveal it just yet, but I think I'll give it a whirl in polite company one of these days and see how many spit-takes it engenders. ...

     ... Update: just read the following. It feeds into my theory:

** "Stag Party." Frank Rich: "... the hostility toward modern women resurfacing in the GOP today was baked into the party before the religious right gained its power and before recriminalizing abortion became a volatile cause.... Unlike the angry Santorum, [Romney] has the smooth style of a fifties retro patriarch to camouflage the reactionary content [of his views about women]. In this sense, his war on women would differ from Rick’s — and Rush’s — only in the way prized by GOP spin artists like Noonan and Matalin. He would never be so politically foolhardy as to spell out on-camera just how broad and nasty its goals really are."

The way things are supposed to be in the marital realm.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The United States and more than 60 other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military, according to participants gathered here."

New York Times: "The party of [Nobel Peace Prize winner] Daw Aung San Suu Kyi declared that she had won a seat in Myanmar’s Parliament on Sunday, an unofficial result that may herald a new era for the country as it moves toward democracy after decades of oppressive military rule."

AP: More details emerge about Osama bin Ladin's life in Pakistan in the years before U.S. Navy SEALS killed him.