The Commentariat -- April 18, 2015
Internal links removed.
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "As world leaders converge [in Washington, D.C.,] for their semiannual trek to the capital of what is still the world's most powerful economy, concern is rising in many quarters that the United States is retreating from global economic leadership just when it is needed most. The spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have filled Washington with motorcades and traffic jams and loaded the schedules of President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew. But they have also highlighted what some in Washington and around the world see as a United States government so bitterly divided that it is on the verge of ceding the global economic stage it built at the end of World War II and has largely directed ever since." ...
... CW: This should serve to remind Villagers that Republican "leaders"' shenanigans are a huge drag on our economy, not only in terms of their uniformly bad policies but also in the image we present to others around the globe. On Sunday, will Chuck Todd wring his hands at the economic turbulence Republicans have caused? Not a chance; instead, he & the bobbleheads at his roundtable will be assessing Scott Walker's "performance" in New Hampshire or something similarly inane.
White House: "In this week's address, the President described the historic understanding the United States -- with our allies and partners -- reached with Iran, which, if fully implemented, will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and will make our country, our allies, and our world safer":
Peter Baker & Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday directed his diplomats to use 'creative negotiations' to bridge a sharp divide with Iran over the fate of sanctions if it agrees to curb its nuclear program, signaling flexibility in hopes of keeping a tentative agreement from unraveling.... Mr. Obama said he was 'frankly surprised' that Russia had held back selling the weapons [to Iran] this long, but added that the decision buttressed his argument in favor of a deal because it showed that international solidarity could crumble."
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "African American and other civil rights leaders infuriated over the stalled confirmation vote on Loretta E. Lynch, the first black woman to be nominated for attorney general, are casting the delay as an issue with racial overtones.... Activists across the country are three days into a hunger strike over the Senate's failure to vote on Lynch. African American groups have also protested outside the offices of senators who oppose her leading the Justice Department.... In his strongest comments to date about the issue [[ and his most animated remarks during a press conference Friday with the Italian prime minister -- [President Obama] called the Senate's inaction a 'crazy situation.... There are times when the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far ... Enough. Enough. Call Loretta Lynch for a vote. Get her confirmed. Put her in place. Let her do her job. This is embarrassing, a process like that [sic.; this]'":
... CW: Do take the time to listen to the President's remarks. History will remember the moment when the POTUS finally said "Enough!"
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The immediate fate of President Obama's sweeping immigration overhaul now rests with a three-judge appeals panel after an intense legal clash on Friday between lawyers for the federal government and for a 26-state coalition that has challenged the executive actions."
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "On Wednesday, Justice Samuel Alito temporarily stayed a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upholding Obama administration rules expanding access to birth control. Alito's order is not particularly surprising, and it only stays the Third Circuit order pending further action by Alito or the Court.... Nevertheless, Alito's order is a warning that this issue will not remain in the lower courts forever."
Jaime Fuller of New York: "New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduced legislation on Wednesday that would recommend that the Treasury Secretary 'convene a panel of citizens' who would debate which woman could replace Andrew Jackson on the $20. A grassroots campaign, Women on 20s, has earned major buzz for pushing this idea — hundreds of thousands of people have voted on the group's website for which woman they would like to see on U.S. currency (Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks are favorites)." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sahil Kapur of TPM: "In a little-noticed radio interview, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) articulated the GOP's biggest fear if the Supreme Court wipes out Obamacare tax credits for millions of Americans who buy insurance from the federal HealthCare.gov exchange. The fear: President Barack Obama and Democrats will be ready with a one-page bill to restore the subsidies, as well as a slew of attack ads telling horror stories about 'individuals that have benefited from Obamacare on the backs of the American taxpayer' and lost their coverage, the Republican said." CW Translation: The only thing we have to fear is the truth itself.
Robin McKie of the Guardian: "... last week, one of the three UK scientists who discovered the hole [in the ozone over Antarctica] in 1985 warned that the real lessons of the story had still not been learned. 'Yes, an international treaty was established fairly quickly to deal with the ozone hole, but really the main point about its discovery was that it shows how incredibly rapidly we can produce major changes to our atmosphere and how long it takes for nature to recover from them,' said Jon Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey."
Emily Steel & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "The staff lawyers at the Justice Department reviewing 's proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable have raised concerns about the merger and are leaning toward recommending that it be blocked, according to a person with knowledge of the deliberations."
Presidential Race
Dan Roberts & Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "Jeb Bush and Chris Christie competed head-to-head to address their perceived character flaws before Republican activists in New Hampshire on Friday during the first big 'cattle call' of the party's presidential primary race. Speaking within minutes of each other in a small hotel in Nashua, the two heavyweights [(no pun intended) are] seen as closest to the party mainstream.... Inside the room, Christie's refusal to apologise for who he was appeared to go down better than Bush's studied humility. Every joke got a laugh. Every applause line landed. Christie spoke like a man enjoying every second, and when he was done the room leapt immediately to their feet. Bush, by contrast, seemed to speak to a spot about 10ft up the back wall. He wandered around the stage as if lost, settling about 5ft to the left of the podium, so the cameras caught him half-offscreen." CW: Maybe Juanito had difficulty because he wasn't speaking Hispanic. ...
... CW Award for This Week's Most Awkward Clause in Political Reporting: "... the room leapt immediately to their feet." Also, too, Chris & Jebbie did not "compete head-to-head" inasmuch as they were not in the room at the same time. ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Former Florida governor Jeb Bush on Friday once again defended his decision to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose death capped an intense national debate about ethics and politics, but also suggested that Medicare recipients should be required to outline end-of-life care plans before accepting the benefits." ...
... Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush indicated on Thursday night that President Obama's choice for attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch, ought to be confirmed -- putting him at odds with a number of Senate Republicans who've said they would try to block the nomination.... 'I think presidents have the right to pick their team,' Mr. Bush said, in response to a questioner.... 'If someone is supportive of the president's policies, whether you agree with them or not, there should be some deference to the executive,' Mr. Bush said. 'It should not always be partisan.' ... Mr. Bush made the comments in New Hampshire, at the 'Politics and Pie' town hall-style forum in Concord, N.H., where he seemed loose and engaged, joking with questioners and, at one point, getting hectored by over immigration reform." CW: Maybe he just likes pie. ...
... Get Back to Work, You Lazy Old Coots! Shane Goldmacher of the National Journal: "Jeb Bush grabbed one of the third rails of American politics on Friday, declaring that the retirement age for Social Security should be raised and 'in relatively short order.'"
Cezary Podkul of ProPublica and Allan Sloan of the Washington Post: In New Hampshire, Chris Christie has been touting his fiscal bona fides; back in New Jersey, in his actual budget proposals, "he has resorted to ... financial maneuvers...: reducing state payments to pension plans, shifting money out of trust funds dedicated for specific purposes and borrowing to patch chronic budget gaps. And despite overcoming a multibillion-dollar deficit that [former Gov. Jon] Corzine [D] left him, Christie has seen the nation's three biggest rating agencies downgrade New Jersey's credit a total of nine times on his watch." And much of his "balancing" the budget has come at the expense of the poor, unions & cash-strapped municipalities.
Marco's Excellent Healthcare Plan. Rachana Pradhan of Politico: "In 2008, while Democrats were declaring that the time was right for national health care reform, Marco Rubio, the speaker of the Florida House, had a ready response: Florida should build a market-based system.... Rubio pushed his no-mandate health insurance exchange, dubbed Florida Health Choices, through the state Legislature that year.... Florida Health Choices, which finally opened last year, now covers 80 people. [Emphasis added.] Obamacare, which Rubio wants to repeal, covers 1.6 million in Florida alone. And 93 percent of them are subsidized.... Rubio spokeswoman Brooke Sammon said the senator continues to support a 'true free-market exchange,' and she blamed Obamacare's subsidies for luring buyers away from Florida Health Choices." ...
... Charles Gaba: "Divide [those 80 enrollees] into the $2.4 million in taxpayer funding and the cost [of Rubio's program] per enrollee is now back down to a mere $30,000 apiece!" The cost for Healthcare.gov: "That works out to around $210 - $260 per HC.gov enrollee. Let's call it an even $250.... So basically, 7 years after getting started, Rubio and his GOP colleagues have managed to spend 120 times as much per person as the Big Gubm'nt Obamacare." Via Paul Waldman.
Mark Your Calendars. Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told Fox News Friday he would officially announce his presidential campaign plans May 5 in his -- and former President Bill Clinton's -- hometown of Hope, Ark. Speaking with reporters in Washington earlier in the day, Huckabee insisted he had not made a decision yet about running, although he said that 'things are progressing along' in his preparations. He sounded like an all-but-declared candidate, saying a super PAC has been formed to support his likely candidacy and touting his supporter network in Iowa, home to the nation's first presidential caucuses, which Huckabee won in 2008." ...
... John McCormack of the Weekly Standard: "As he gears up for another presidential campaign, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is making a big break with the Republican party on the issue of entitlement reform. Meeting with reporters at a hotel in Washington, D.C. [Friday] morning, Huckabee strongly criticized New Jersey governor Chris Christie's proposal to reform Social Security and said he would not sign Paul Ryan's Medicare reform into law if he were president. 'I don't know why Republicans want to insult Americans by pretending they don't understand what their Social Security program and Medicare program is,' Huckabee said in response to a question about Christie's proposal to gradually raise the retirement age and implement a means test.... 'That's not a reform,' he said. "... We are embracing a government that lied to its people -- that took money from its people under one pretense and then took it away at the time when they started wanting to actually get what they have paid for all these years.'" CW: Huckabee's stance on Social Security & Medicare is reason enough to be glad to see him enter the race. I am looking forward to seeing Huck whack his fellow candidates during debates.
Scooby-Two. Maggie Haberman: "Hillary Rodham Clinton's finance team will go on a fund-raising road trip next week, holding a series of meetings with hundreds of small donors on the East Coast as a way to engage supporters ahead of larger planned events aimed at those who are expected to bundle donations and collect a larger number of checks. The meetings -- in Washington, Virginia, Maryland and New York -- reflect the desire of the Clinton campaign to be inclusive and have a slow ramp-up, without major fund-raisers scheduled until May."
AND Donald Trump continues to be the most disgusting person pretending to run for president. CW: I'm going to have to keep linking to stories about this pig, but I plan to do so as sparingly as possible. If you think I've missed some "newsworthy" story about Trump, maybe I've just given it a pass, the way I so often do when Sarah Palin says something stupid enough to garner media attention.
Beyond the Beltway
Tom Dart of the Guardian: "Texas lawmakers are on the brink of passing 'open carry' gun legislation that critics say will put the public at risk. The Texas House voted 96-35 to provisionally approve the bill in Austin on Friday night. It will allow firearms owners in Texas who have concealed handgun permits -- some 850,000 people -- to openly carry their weapons in public in a hip or shoulder holster."
AP: "Oklahoma became the first US state to approve nitrogen gas for executions under a measure Governor Mary Fallin signed into law Friday that provides an alternative death penalty method if lethal injections aren't possible, either because of a court ruling or a drug shortage. Executions are on hold in Oklahoma while the US supreme court considers whether the state's current three-drug method of lethal injection is constitutional."
Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "Clarence W. Habersham Jr., the first officer to arrive on the scene after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man named Walter L. Scott, is drawing intense scrutiny both for the questions surrounding his response to the shooting and for what his role has illuminated about the pressures and expectations black officers face in largely white police departments."
Kathleen McGrory & Steve Bousquet of the Tampa Bay Times & Miami Herald: "Republican Gov. Rick Scott announced Thursday he will sue the federal government for allegedly coercing Florida to expand Medicaid.... '... it is difficult to understand how suing CMS on Day 45 of a 60-day session regarding an issue the state has been aware of for the last 12 months will yield a timely resolution to the critical health care challenges facing our state," Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, said...." ...
... Brian Beutler does an excellent job of explaining the background for the suit. Ultimately, "Scotts argument is transparently frivolous, but it underscores the extent to which the GOP's deranged resistance to Obamacare is boomeranging on itself.... Scott is suing the federal government to bail him out of a self-made crisis. This isn't an anomaly, but a pattern. Across the country, Republican governors are coping with the consequences of their own Obamacare intransigence -- staring into a future where their insurance markets get destroyed by virtue of their refusal to help implement Obamacare and their unwillingness to take on the right as it pursued litigation." ...
... From a Flip-Flop-Flip to the Absurd. Steve Benen: "This is actually one of the more amazing political fights in the country right now, and it's worth appreciating why.... The bottom line in this little farce is that Rick Scott is going to extraordinary lengths -- embracing and rejecting money, pitting the GOP-led state House against the GOP-led state Senate, dividing his allies, ignoring the needs of hundreds of thousands of his constituents, undermining his own state budget, even turning down tax cuts -- because he finds it necessary to be against 'Obamacare.' There's no real substance to any of this... The consequences are predictably absurd." ...
... OR, as Joan McCarter of Daily Kos succinctly explains, "Rick Scott says he'll sue to get federal money that doesn't have Obamacare cooties."
Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times makes the well-taken point that Gov. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) is using the poor as scapegoats for his terrible economic policies. CW: A person who blames the most vulnerable for his own failings is nothing but a bully.
Re: a comment by Akhilleus in yesterday's thread, here's Shirley Jackson's "The Daemon Lover."
News Lede
Washington Post: Thousands of families fleeing Iraq's western city of Ramadi choked checkpoints leading to Baghdad on Friday, after an Islamic State advance spread panic and left security forces clinging to control."
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Reader Comments (8)
So, it seems there is NOTHING ordinary citizens can do to force people like Mitch McConnell to behave as a responsible adult except vote? That's it? There must be something we as a people can do. This is more than embarrassing. It has to be unconstitutional (although that word has lost its meaning) and/or criminal. And please don't say write your congressman. Mine's worse than McConnell.
@Nancy: mine too. As long as he has R next to his name and he's white, spouts all the winger talking points and thumps the Bible, he's in--frequently unopposed.
"Activists across the country are three days into a hunger strike over the Senate’s failure to vote on Lynch. African American groups have also protested outside the offices of senators who oppose her leading the Justice Department..."
Hunger strikes? Protests outside senator's offices? Someone once said that real change comes from the people––well by god, here we have the people going not only that extra mile, but actually putting their lives on the line. Finally we have the President himself coming out and saying how embarrassing this is and in effect telling McConnell to stop being a shit and get his gears together. Pathetic.
Re: Rick Scott––I thought I'd play Ak's game of Assignment Editor and send someone down to cover Rick. Came up with a few, but they somehow didn't really fit and it's too nice a day to spend conjuring up a hypothetical––but may I add that I love the game idea. Back to Scott–-I've said this before ––I find there is something fey about this guy––he presents as someone other worldly–– a weird way of speaking and moving. His plan to sue the federal government is amazingly bizarre. The fact that many Floridians voted twice for this guy blows my mind as much as it did when Brownback was voted back in business. Mike Hiltzik's point about Brownback "using the poor as scapegoats for his terrible economic policies" reminds me of another Shirley Jackson, one of my favorites, "The Lottery."
PD,
I'm glad you like the game idea. I was thinking I might send Charles Ponzi to cover Rick Scott's latest scheme, and to illustrate the story, perhaps Salvador Dali.
A sleazy, lying, longtime con man like Scott deserves the attention of a guy whose scam still works on the gullible, the inattentive, the ignorant, and the GOP voting block. And who better than Surrealistic Sal to capture just the right blend of Confederate otherworldliness and eerie, almost but not quite human affect reflecting back from Scott's beady eyes?
I mean, wtf is wrong with Floridians who elected a well known and admitted chiseler to be their governor? They certainly couldn't have been expecting honesty and good government, right?
Ponzi and Dali will do him up right.
Marie,
I don't care if you never again link a single thing connected to Comb-over (the "blacks" like me) Birther Boy. In fact, the only newsworthy item I could think of (other than an obituary) about this royal schmuck would be that he got himself a real haircut and held a press conference to admit to the American public that he has been a divisive, dishonest, douchebag dilettante who was leaving public life to work in a soup kitchen. Otherwise his sad, mealy mouthed pronouncements have about as much news value as "Dick Cheney Still an Asshole".
PD,
Your connecting of the Brownback Black Magic Economic Plan with Jackson's "The Lottery" is right on the money (right down to the agrarian setting).
What we're seeing now is the total collapse of Confederate Ideology, held up for decades as a kind of black magic cure-all for everything ailing the country. "If only we could implement our ideas. Then they'd all see that we've been right all along!" the wingers have been moaning for years.
Well now they've had over 30 years to test their black magic. And, okay, there have been some abysmal failures. Supply side was so bad even Reagan and Poppy Bush were forced to reinstate and increase taxation in order to keep the place from falling apart. Then we had Clinton who was about as close to Republicanism as any Democrat could stand. But even so, wingers could complain that they still didn't get a pure test of their Mighty Magic. The Decider killed a lot of people, something wingers love, but he also had no clue what to do about paying the bills and so the balanced budget handed him by Clinton was quickly turned blood red by Bush's inability to admit that his war needed to be paid for somehow. Then they had Obama to deal with but their plan--just about as close to treason as any party's outright declaration has ever been in this country--to do whatever was needed to ensure that he was a one term president, even if it meant vivisecting wide swaths of the American public, still didn't allow for that purity of essence they craved (largely because the hated Kenyan usurper became particularly adept at rectally reaming them).
But then one of their most wild-eyed adherents, a former senator for whom reasonableness, rationality, and compromise were filthy, unclean concepts, was elected governor of Kansas. He closed the borders, shut out all outsiders and infidels and went to work implementing the Great Confederate Black Magic Experiment.
Complete and utter disaster ensued.
Unpossible! All our beautiful wickedness cannot possibly fail!
Thus, as in so many other, pre-literate primitive cultures, if the rain doesn't come when the medicine man says it will, there must be others to blame.
Republicans blame poor people.
And so, a sacrifice is in order. Someone must be burned on the altar of Failed Confederate Ideology and it might as well be people we have no time for, even if they vote for us.
Someone has to be sacrificed to prove that it wasn't our fault.
The Confederate Black Magic Economic Plan MUST continue. Facts, actual real world outcomes, clear indications of abysmal failure must be ignored and eradicated.
Wingnut Sharia Law will continue in Brownbackistan, by god, until everyone sees how right we are.
Mustn't it? Oh-oh. Another bad crop report.
Gather your stones, everyone.
So it's nice to see that Mike Huckabee has been a naughty boy and hasn't been drinking his daily Kool Aid prescription.
So what to make of this apostasy?
Two things. First, Huckabee, seeing himself mired in the muck looking at the fancy hubcaps of the other candidates' SUV's roll past him, needs to do something to separate himself from the standard issue Condfederates.
So what to do?
Oh! Yeah. Let's point out what absolute rubbish their talk of Social Security "reform" is. But what Huckabee is actually doing, is pointing out the cracks in the Confederate mud walls. Whether he realizes it or not, he's admitting what a scam their entire platform is. The War on Women, the War on the Poor, the racism, the militarism, the unhinged rush of the piggies to the trough. But not to worry, Huckabee will be summarily dispatched by Fox bots now that he's opened the ball on Confederate mendacity.
Even all that faux religiosity is on the table, Mike, thank you very much. He might as well admit that their Bigotry for Jesus is all a scam as well.
The trick now is, will any of their sycophants listen? And if they do, will they be able to add it up?
My guess is no and no.
But at least he's come out and admitted what a load of self-serving fucking liars they all are. Him included.
Akhilleus summed up the major content of my feelings in re: Hilary Clinton in a comment a couple days ago.
Whether you are an Obama fan, the excitement and anticipation that defined the 2008 election is an outlier (understatement alert). Its easy to argue that the excitement was never going to translate into reality. In a lifetime, there probably won't be another candidate who can weave such anticipation into an image, (tabula rasa if you want) that allowed so many people, however briefly, to feel good about the Presidency. It sure isn't Hilary, which I'm pretty sure she gets.
It's early days, but Hilary's quietness may be the best strategy. A quiet, "normal" and low key approach makes a deafening contrast to the GOP. The relentless expression of extreme idiocy, anger, and lies renders the rhetoric of the right to meaningless babble. The loud clang of expressing themselves IS the status quo on every subject. The GOP is like Vuvuzela horns or fingernails on a blackboard. There's no room to ramp up the volume and no way to separate real substance from the chaos of just noise. Many people are disengaged from participation in democracy. Decisions are made primarily on feelings of like or dislike, based on mostly butkus. But..."can't we all just get along" seems to be a gag-me-with-shovel sentiment that a majority can get behind. In my optimism, I'm hopeful that the populace has reached its limit on angry stupid rich white guys' chaotic yelling. Yeesh, sit down, preferably in the back of the room, and shut up already!