The Commentariat -- April 8, 2013
Ed O'Keefe & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Prospects for a bipartisan deal to expand federal background checks for gun purchases are improving with the emergence of fresh Republican support, according to top Senate aides.... Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), a key Democratic broker, has spent the past few days crafting the framework of a possible deal with Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.). Manchin and Toomey are developing a measure to require background checks for all gun purchases except sales between close family members and some hunters...." ...
... Travis Waldron of Think Progress: "Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) Sunday became the latest senior Republican to question the 13 Republicans who have threatened to filibuster gun legislation they haven't yet seen. The blind filibuster threats, originally made by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), have already been criticized by top GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tom Coburn, who 'bristled at the idea.'" ...
... Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: why are members of Congress afraid to vote for legislation that has the back of 90 percent of the American people? CW: Talbot offers a number of explanations, but the obvious answer is that members of Congress don't represent 90 percent of the people & don't give a flying fuck about anyone but their constituency of one -- themselves. ...
... E. J. Dionne: "... election outcomes and the public’s preferences have ... little impact on what is happening in Washington. At the moment, our democracy is not very democratic.... This representational skew affects coverage in the media.... There is no immediate solution to the obstruction of the democratic will. But we need to acknowledge that our system is giving extremists far more influence than the voters would." ...
... Paul Krugman: conservatives are still opposing ObamaCare in the name of FREEEE-DOM, an ironical position that isn't playing so well anymore, "perhaps because the experience of losing insurance is so common...." ...
Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: the Obama administration will hit up federal employees to effect budgetary "retirement savings." ...
... CW: It's probably worth reading Michael Scherer's (Time) piece on Obama's abandonment of quasi-liberals just for a laugh. Scherer claims the President's move to the right is justified because Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Sunday that Obama was "showing a bit of leg." Apparently, Scherer is unaware that Graham is a tease: he loves to dance with the President, but he never goes home with him.
Contributor Keith Howard recommends this essay by David Graeber, published in Baffler. Consider it a short history of world revolutions.
The Never-Ending Ted Steven Case. (even though Stevens is dead & the court overturned his conviction.) Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "An administrative judge has overturned the suspensions of two federal prosecutors whom the Justice Department had tried to discipline for failing to turn over evidence that might have helped the defense in the botched corruption trial against Senator Ted Stevens."
Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times profiles Anne Smedinghoff, the young U.S. diplomat killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan Saturday.
** Frank Rich on the death throes of old media. ...
... AND speakng of old media, here's Jon Favreau, formerly President Obama's chief speechwriter, in his "debut Daily Beast column," on the sequestration cuts, & -- BTW -- the media's failure to robustly cover the issue. Favreau, we should note, took a job with the first big old-media outlet to totally fold: Newsweek.
David Cameron says his government is cracking down on welfare queens (and kings). He chose the perfect venue to publish his op-ed -- The Sun -- the tabloid owned by Cameron's pal Rupert Murdoch.
Local News
Josh Margolin & David Seifman of the New York Post: "Former Rep. Anthony Weiner is laying the groundwork for a political comeback, possibly as a startling addition to this year’s mayoral race, sources said yesterday. Political insiders were abuzz at news that Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, had granted a lengthy magazine interview for the first time since his resignation in an embarrassing sexting scandal in 2011." CW: okay, it's the Post, Not The World's Most Reliable Newspaper, so I hope it's wrong again. Anthony Weiner will forever be known for his private attributes, & I don't want to think about them. He should go quietly & become a mortician or a restaurateur, or maybe both.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Margaret Thatcher, a towering, divisive and yet revered figure who left an enduring impact on British politics, died on Monday of a stroke, her family said." The Guardian's obituary is here, with links to related stories. ...
... American women of a certain age will be more saddened by this. New York Times: "Annette Funicello, who won America's heart as a 12-year-old in Mickey Mouse ears, captivated adolescent baby boomers in slightly spicy beach movies and later championed people with multiple sclerosis, a disease from which she suffered, died on Monday in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 70."
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Reader Comments (7)
While responsible journalism is a dying art, consolidated by corporate cash Kings, permitted by our petty politicians not worth their weigh in horseshit... Alas! Sometimes diamonds are indeed forged in the rough desert of modern media.
You're guaranteed at least a little giggle with this gem of journalism
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/30-animal-doppelganger-of-congress
"The Secret of the Seven Sisters" on the al Jazeera site is a simple and useful look at big oil in the middle east. I don't know if this has been pointed out on earlier posts - I'm just catching up.
So the Iron Lady soon will lie rusting in her grave.
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan rang a bell for conservatives in the 80s that still rings out today.
Bellicose, friends to the wealthy, scourge of the poor, unions, and the middle class. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Conservatism in a nutshell.
One of Thatcher’s early political statements of purpose came at the expense of poor children when she denied them access to a free glass of milk at school. As is the case with most bullies, Thatcher attacked those who could not defend themselves (the Falkland Islands “War” draws the same picture on larger and more deadly scale) and if her opponents had any power at all, such as unions, she changed the laws to chop their legs off.
Like Reagan, she hated unions and clutched at every opportunity to break them. She saw them as repositories of undeserving, uppity poor people who were impinging in the rights of the wealthy.
When miners went on strike, Thatcher’s government sided with the fat-cat owners. She changed the laws that controlled how government assistance could be handed out in order to starve the miners and their families into submission, forcing them to knuckle under to her rich friends and backers.
Thatcher’s war on unions had indirect but dire consequences here in the States. Her indefatigable efforts on behalf of Rupert Murdoch during a printers strike is largely responsible for the creation of Fox “News”. Back in the mid 80s, Sir Rupert the Egregious had borrowed nearly three quarters of a billion to expand his empire. With Thatcher’s help he successfully fired 5,000 unionized employees, broke the printers' union and drastically reduced his overhead pocketing hundreds of millions. Voila, Fox Network.
Sir Rupert returned the favor with years of outrageous propaganda and smears in service of Thatcher’s most radical policies, attacking and besmirching any who stood against her. And although Thatcher has departed, Murdoch is still working hard to make life miserable for the poor (see Marie's link to the Sun article).
And what is it about conservatives starting wars against puny, barely defended countries? Reagan invaded Granada. Granada? A country the size of Greenwich Village, population 79. How to show toughness there, Ron. At least he didn’t enter war criminal territory the way Thatcher did in the Falklands by killing hundreds of men and boys on an Argentinian vessel that posed zero threat to Britain, and the way Bush and Cheney did in Iraq. No country too small for them to show who’s boss.
Free ride for the wealthy and the wingnuts, pain, suffering, and death for everyone else.
The international Conservative way.
"Oh, Mr. Scratch, we have a new arrival. Shall I show her to the Brimstone Room?"
Thanks to reader Keith Howard for the Graeber piece. Much to chew on there.
And this morning from one of my sons:
www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2013/03/16/corporations-record-huge-returns-from-tax-lobbying-gridlock-congress-stalls-reform/
It's not ALL about the money, but as Graeber implies, most of it is. Reminds me to get back to work on a book supplied a year ago by the other son, DEBT, by the same author, which Thomas Frank praised in passing in one of his Harper's pieces.
I don't usually pass these sorts of things along but this is just too funny.
Books are temples of the intellect, dammit!
I have to say the lovefest between Thatcher and Reagan that is being touted non-stop on NPR is seriously putting me off my feed. Pieces of work the both of them. Their grandiosity was only surpassed by their elevated status on the asswipery scale.
Best thing I've seen in a while:
https://twitter.com/resnikoff/status/321366544217174016
Follow the link