The Commentariat -- August 22, 2012
Paul Krugman has a fascinating post, which is mostly about Niall Ferguson's fact-challenged Newsweek cover story and types of economic "errors," but which also gives a window into how the Times fact-checks his columns. I wonder why they don't fact-check Tom Friedman?
Presidential Race
The bottom line is that Romney is proposing to take more money from seniors in higher premiums and co-pays and hand it over to private insurance companies and other providers in the Medicare system. -- Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) ...
... ** Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney's promise to restore $716 billion that he says President Obama 'robbed' from Medicare has some health care experts puzzled.... Paul D. Ryan, included the same savings in his House budgets. The 2010 health care law cut Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and insurers, not benefits for older Americans, by that amount over the coming decade. But repealing the savings, policy analysts say, would hasten the insolvency of Medicare by eight years.... To restore them in the short term would immediately add hundreds of dollars a year to out-of-pocket Medicare expenses for beneficiaries. That would violate Mr. Romney's vow that neither current beneficiaries nor Americans within 10 years of eligibility would be affected by his proposal to shift Medicare to a voucherlike system.... Henry J. Aaron, an economist and a longtime health policy analyst..., called Mr. Romney's vow to repeal the savings 'both puzzling and bogus at the same time.' ... Restoring the $716 billion in Medicare savings would increase premiums and co-payments for beneficiaries by $342 a year on average over the next decade; in 2022, the average increase would be $577." ...
... Paul Krugman has more.
... CW: Romney has devoted a lot of attention to & taken a lot of heat for his promise to "restore" the $716 billion, a campaign promise on which he would obviously have to renege immediately. Either the whole "President Obama is robbing Medicare" is a 100-percent lie or Romney has no fucking idea what he's doing. I think "no fucking idea" is a factor. And, BTW, Paul Ryan, Principled Policy Wonk, must knows this -- & he ain't telling. Venial or mortal sin? ...
... CW: Over & above the fact that my taxes will go up, too, so that Romney's and Ryan's can go down, these extra Medicare premiums come directly out of my pocket. You high-minded purists who avail yourselves of Reality Chex but plan to sit home & not vote because Obama is such a "disappointment" to you -- please have the courtesy to find another venue & take your fucking "principles" with you. You aren't welcome here.
Mary Bruce of ABC News: "President Obama kicked off a two-day campaign swing through Ohio and Nevada [yesterday] by shifting the focus of his attacks from Medicare and taxes to education, slamming the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan plan to cut student aid." ...
... A new Obama-Biden ad, which Greg Sargent says is running in Ohio & Virginia. Sargent's "Morning Plum" is particularly rich today. Of Jackie Calmes' NYT article (linked above), Sargent says, "For some reason, Jackie Calmes of the New York Times decided it might be a good idea to call up a range of experts and ask them if Romney's claim is, you know, true."
Dylan Byers of Politico: "In an in-house interview yesterday, Newsweek executive editor Justine Rosenthal said [Niall] Ferguson's controversial and heavily criticized cover story about President Obama was an opinion piece and did not reflect the opinions of Newsweek. 'This is not the opinion of Newsweek, this is the opinion of Niall Ferguson,' Rosenthal said." With video.
Julie Pace of the AP: "Mitt Romney claims he's got a winner with his criticism that President Barack Obama is giving welfare recipients a free ride. Never mind that aspects of his argument against the Democrat are factually inaccurate.... It could open Romney up to criticism that he is injecting race into the campaign.... [Bill] Clinton is among those who have called Romney's welfare attacks dishonest and false." CW: this isn't news to Reality Chex readers, but it's helpful when the AP puts out stories like this (albeit this one is way too he-said/she-said), because the stories often appear in local papers.
Gutless Wonder. "This Is What a Romney Presidency Would Look Like": Steve Kornacki of Salon: "When news of Akin's 'legitimate rape' comment broke Sunday, the Romney campaign’s initial response was [a] very tepid statement.... It was only the next day, when ... Republicans with more credibility with the party's conservative base began rebuking Akin, that Romney made a more forceful statement.... And it was only when just about everyone who's anyone in the Republican Party had called on Akin to quit that Romney finally did the same late yesterday.... His response ... shows that Romney is willing to stand up to a member of his own party -- but only if just about everyone else in his party is already doing it." ...
... Alexander Burns of Politico: "... one could argue that Romney would have an easier time distancing himself from his party's problems in Missouri if his running mate shared his own, somewhat more lenient views on abortion." CW: Yes, one could. But, hey, Paul Ryan was a brilliant choice. ...
... Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "So ... there’s no Ryan 'bounce' -- except maybe in Wisconsin. (According to 538′s Nate Silver, the average VP bounce is around four points.)" CW: But, hey, Paul Ryan was a brilliant choice.
"Drawbridge Republicans." Matt Miller in the Washington Post: before now "we've never had two wealthy candidates on a national ticket whose top priority is to reduce already low taxes on the well-to-do while raising taxes on everyone else -- even as they propose to slash programs that serve the poor, or that (like college aid) create chances for the lowly born to rise. Call them the Drawbridge Republicans ... Republicans who have no qualms about pulling up the drawbridge behind them.... If Romney and Ryan actually win on their Drawbridge agenda, the United States will have crossed a scary new Rubicon for a supposedly advanced democracy."
Paul Harris of the Guardian: "The Sensata plant in Freeport, [Illinois,] is profitable and competitive, but its majority owner, Bain Capital, has decided to ship jobs to China -- and forced workers to train their overseas replacements.... As Sensata strips out costs by sacking American workers in favour of Chinese ones, the value of Romney's own investments could rise, putting money into the pockets of a Republican challenger who has placed job creation in America at the heart of his bid for the White House." Thanks to a reader for the link.
He's Not a Wonk, He's an Ideologue. Ben Adler of the Nation: "Ryan's obsession with inflation and preventing the Federal Reserve from rescuing our economy puts him in the kooky fringe of right-wing politics.... He is therefore impervious to evidence.... On economics conservatives have become as willfully ignorant as they are on matters of science. Ryan, who is being celebrated as an intellectually serious policy maker, is the economic equivalent of a climate change denier." CW: hmm. Where does Ryan stand on climate change? ...
... Mary Ellen Harte in the Huffington Post: "While Mitt Romney has expressed uncertainty over whether global warming is occurring or not, his vice-presidential pick, Congressman Paul Ryan, is a virulent denier of climate science, with a Congressional voting record to match...." CW: just a crazy man.
Joe Conason of the National Memo: Paul Ryan "may come to regret his flippant response to Carl Cameron last Saturday, when the Fox News reporter asked how he would respond to critics who question his weak national security resume. '... I voted to send people to war.' What Ryan cites as his chief qualification to serve as commander-in-chief is a series of votes that represent the most fateful, expensive, inexcusable error in recent American history. For him to cite that vote to draw a contrast with President Obama, who got the Iraq issue right, is startling."
Kaili Gray of Daily Kos: "As one of the most fervent anti-woman Republicans in the House, [Paul Ryan] must be aching to come to the defense of his bestest bud Todd Akin. After all, they've voted together 93 percent of the time, so they see eye-to-eye on pretty much everything -- including whether there are different types of rape that are not as bad as real rape and whether it's ever okay for women to have abortions. (Spoiler alert: Yes and no.) But because Ryan is now Mitt Romney's running mate, he has to keep a lid on the crazy. The campaign even forced Ryan to sit down for an interview to disavow Akin's claims and pretend that he's shocked and offended by Akin articulating exactly what Ryan also believes."
Congressional Races
Jonathan Weisman & John Eligon of the New York Times: "Representative Todd Akin said definitively on Tuesday that he would not leave the race for the Senate in Missouri, saying on Mike Huckabee's radio show that 'there's a cause here' and that an outpouring of grass-roots support would propel him to victory without the support of the Republican establishment." ...
... AND Akin Digs the Hole Deeper. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Arguing that he misplaced the word 'legitimate,' Akin explained -- during a follow up interview with Dana Loesch -- that he meant to argue that women sometimes lie about being raped.... Since he first made the comments over the weekend, Akin claimed that he meant to say 'forcible,' rather than 'legitimate' rape." ...
... The Constitution Be Damned. John Eligon: Akin says he must run to bring God back into the public forum.
Maureen Dowd: "Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.... Mitt..., in his last presidential bid went after the endorsement of Dr. John Willke, a former president of the National Right to Life Committee and father of the inanity about rape victims being able to turn back sperm if they put their mind and muscles to it."
Todd Akin is creepy AND grammar-challenged.
Mark Warren in Esquire: "What is it with these people who would so casually invalidate the results of an entire election just because their spectacular nominee went and accidentally told the truth -- as he sees it, anyway -- and in so doing publicly exposed the mindset of a large swath of his party? Why even bother having elections and pretending that you care what people think, if they can so easily be thrown away? And since when is being an idiot a disqualifying condition?"
Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: "Rep. Steve King [RTP-Iowa] ...told an Iowa reporter he's never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest.... A 1996 review by the Guttmacher Institute found 'at least half of all babies born to minor women are fathered by adult men.' ... King's office said that King didn't mean he had never heard of pregnancy resulting from statutory rape or incest but that he had no direct, personal knowledge of such instances." With video. You decide.
Joe Klein of Time: "... the Akin-King statements and, indeed, the Akin abortion amendment that Paul Ryan supported (and which made a distinction between 'forcible' and other sorts of rape) point to a larger Republican problem: it has become a party that, at the grass roots, celebrates ignorance.... Todd Akin is not an outlier. He is a symptom of the disease."
Washington Post Editors: "It is scary that someone so ill-informed could hold elective office or have a chance of becoming a senator.... Unfortunately, Mr. Akin's remarks are not the first, nor are they likely to be the last, in a long-running effort to downplay the horror of rape as a way to restrict access to abortion."
Josh Barro in Bloomberg News: "The reason Akin walked into this mess is that he lives inside a right-wing bubble, where people believe in false but politically convenient 'facts' about science and history.... Todd Akin's problem is that a view that's acceptable within his bubble is despicable to people who understand that, in fact, rapes can and do lead to pregnancy. And the conservative movement's problem is that a strategic decision to believe in falsehoods will cause its politicians to appear, and to be, stupid."
Why It's Hard to Be a Massachusetts Republican. (Ask Willard). Scott Brown Campaign: "Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who yesterday was the first sitting senator to call on Todd Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race, is now urging his party to take a more lenient stance on abortion in its national platform. In a letter this afternoon to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Brown expresses concern that the official Republican platform is set to include 'language opposing a woman's right to choose and supporting a constitutional amendment banning abortion. I believe this is a mistake because it fails to recognize the views of pro-choice Republicans like myself.'"
Right Wing World *
Dana Milbank: "By their own logic, Republicans and their conservative allies should be concerned that [Hurricane] Isaac is a form of divine retribution. Last year, Rep. Michele Bachmann, then a Republican presidential candidate, said that the East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene -- another 'I' storm, but not an Old Testament one -- were attempts by God 'to get the attention of the politicians.' In remarks later termed a 'joke,' she said: 'It's time for an act of God and we're getting it.' ... Even if you don't believe God uses meteorological phenomena to express His will, it's difficult for mere mortals to explain what is happening to the GOP just now." CW: I might find this funnier if I weren't in the eye of the storm.
* Where god is totally paying attention.
News Ledes
The Hill: "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday warned the economy will enter a recession next year if the country goes over the so-called fiscal cliff."
New York Times: "Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develop autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday, in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study found."
New York Times: "The nation is heading toward the worst outbreak of West Nile disease in the 13 years that the virus has been on this continent, federal health authorities said Wednesday."
New York Times: "The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission had wanted to bring her vision for regulating money-market mutual funds to a vote, as early as next week, but two of the five members of the commission opposed it. Luis Aguilar, the commissioner seen as the swing vote, said on Wednesday afternoon that he would feel comfortable voting only after significant further study of the industry and the limited regulations that were adopted in 2010. Mary L. Schapiro, the chairwoman, said in a statement on Wednesday evening that she was calling off the vote."
New York Times: "A former family court judge in Syracuse should be barred from returning to the bench, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct ruled Wednesday, after an investigation into an act of sexual misconduct 40 years ago with his niece, 13 years before he became a jurist."
ABC News: "Federal agents in Washington state have arrested an armed man accused of making threats against President Obama."
AP: "Forecasters cast a wary eye Tuesday on Tropical Storm Isaac, which was moving west in the Atlantic Ocean and poses a potential threat to Florida during next week's Republican National Convention in Tampa."
AP: "U.S. officials are investigating possible violations of sanctions against Iran by Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain's Financial Times reported Wednesday."
Space.com: "After more than two weeks of sitting still, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is finally set to roll out on the Red Planet with its debut drive on Wednesday...."
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Reader Comments (17)
Watching the weather maps, I hold out great hope that Isaac will snake around the Keys and clobber the Tampa dog and pony show. But I know better. God's a twinkie.
Ill informed, celebrates ignorance, virulent denier, willfully ignorant, impervious to evidence. This is just a list from Marie's early evening post. The easiest way to deal with your beliefs is to avoid anything that resembles facts. These people are trained from birth to this concept of reality. Delusion by development. And these politicians are not alone. A very large percentage of America lives with this mask. Religion requires it and it eats at everything. Does anyone notice the extent that these pathetic souls resemble the their enemies, the ultra religious islamists. Those same folks that are devoted to making women slaves. The dream of the new Republican party is to make America the Christian model of Saudi Arabia. In this world we can change some names. Prince Koch, Lord Romney.
Another subject:
The Washington Post this evening included a story that JCS Chief General Martin Dempsey's plane (a C-17 Globemaster III) was attacked by the Taliban and was hit by shrapnel. The general was unhurt because he was "in his room." Some writers pointed out that the plane was not the general's but was the property of the US government. The Good General may have considered the plane his own. But I wondered: Was the good general's "room" in a luxury Airstream travel trailer on board or about to be towed onboard the C-17? So many dignitaries get to ride first class on these dual purpose cargo planes inside their own cocoons. Given the Good General's reputation for comfort and self-indulgence, the combination of an Airstream and a C-17 may have given the locals a focus for their anger. If we pull the military out of Afghanistan, many generals and visiting dignitaries will lose their special perks and the status of having one's own personal C-17. No wonder why they think we ought to continue the war.
Marie! I am energized by your passion and use of barnyard language. Really. As much as I am disappointed by the President, the difference between the parties is a gulf that must be evident even to the most petulant of my fellow libs. The next four years will configure a Supreme Court (where much power seems to reside these days) for a generation, and for all of Obama's reluctance to pull back from military adventurism, he at least has the decency to not strut around and brag about all the kids he's sending to their deaths so as not to fight ignorant villagers who probably can't find Wasilla, Janesville, or Lake Winnipesaukee on the map "over here."
So, yes I would have liked to see the President ixnay on the arrantless-way iretapping-way and targeting American citizens overseas and say a firmer "no" to Keystone in any of its incarnations and promote scientists within the administration who could explain to even the most dense that the evidence shows the climate changing (maybe make a series of films narrated by Jesus or Morgan Freeman about the sorry state of the Earth) and appoint a Treasury secretary who cares as much about those who are losing their homes as the bankers and their bonuses and an Attorney General who isn't frightened every time a white shoes Wall Street lawyer says "boo." Notwithstanding all of that, I have sent what little money I can afford to the Obama campaign and I will do what I can to see that the President is reelected.
I live in Maine, and we will be solidly blue this fall (with the exception of favorite son Angus King, an "Independent" (but not like Joe Lieberman) who will win Olympia Snowe's seat in the Senate, so I am disturbed yet again by the Byzantine construction called the Electoral College, which skews the popular vote in a way that is no longer necessary.
Here's my challenge to those who will sit this one out because the President has disappointed: Give him real Democrats in the House and Senate with whom he can work and then judge. Right now, any judgment you pass will be like criticizing a child who is trying to build a house of cards while being stung by bees.
Again, take it to them, Marie. The other side is determined to win. Let's not go all brie and Chardonay on our end.
To Those Liberals Who Are Disappointed With Our President: Get Over It!
If you do not vote, you are contributing to the Repubs strategy to suppress voting ~ as well as all the reasons that Marie posts and comments on daily.
Dana Millbank beat me to it on the hurricane as divine message to Republicans but there is still the question as to what exactly the message might say if indeed Isaac kicks right-wing ass in Tampa.
Is it:
Knock off this "legitimate rape" bullshit
or
Taking more money from the poor again, are we?
or
Remember that part where I told you to help the sick, not stick it to the sick?
or
NO MORE LYING, I DAMN IT.
or
Camels, eyes of needles, rich men, heaven....ring a bell?
or
You screw with my planet, I screw with you.
or
R&R? Never heard of 'em. Are they important?
or
Teabaggers and fundies DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME. Get it?
or
It could just be a hurricane.
I second JackMahoney's sentiments. As someone who is not a purist nor an ideologue I am happy to be welcome here, but do hate to think anyone of the wonderful people who have posted here have to leave. So here's the solution: vote OBAMA-BIDEN and then you can stay, we'll all be thrilled and your country will be the better for it.
Oh, and I notice that Newsweek's excuse for not fact checking a FRONT PAGE article is that Ferguson's tripe was an "opinion" piece. Funny how Ferguson is busy trying to defend his "opinions" with long whining "don't pick on me anymore you stinky liberals" asides. And at no time, at least that I've seen, does he describe his work as "opinion". In between whines and snide insults, he makes sure that everyone understands that his is a work of reasoned argument.
That mean old Paul Krugman disagrees, but then what does he know?
Loved that you finally lost your temper with the "purists," Marie! I know you had several commenting on RealityChex a few years ago, but I think we all insulted them so much that they got angry and left. They are presently whining on another site.
I know I pissed off a lot of progressive purists (and others) by repeating my mantra: SUPREME COURT every time a discussion about not voting for Obama--or going all third party--emerged. I am so happy that my fellow-commenters here see this election (and the world) similarly, so I have abandoned my soap box. I now read Reality Chex and all the comments each day with anticipation, and good humor--though the regression of our country makes me unutterably sad.
Thanks, Marie, for providing us with this "spot of sanity!" I hope the hurricane misses Ft. Myers as it hurries up to the Panhandle to tip over Tampa.
I will cast my vote for the President, but here in the red state of Georgia, due to the "divinely inspired" Electoral College, my vote will disappear. Maybe some day,things will change and the state will turn purple, but not any time soon.
Barbarossa,
Given the change in demographics (fewer white babies than non-whites), Right-wing Masters of the Universe will strive with all they have (meaning ENORMOUS pots of untraceable cash) to stave off a one person, one vote scenario. Electoral Collegialism means they don't need to steal nearly as many votes and many more serious electoral challenges can be brushed aside by Karl Rove and the Kochs.
Republicans will glom onto a white, rich, right-wing only paradigm.
Same as it's ever been.
Obama has been a weak, diffident, unengaged President who has been unable to sell his message to the public. The Democratic Party has not helped it as it looked foolish creating the Health Care Act and along with President failed to sell it. A weak President has allowed the wing nuts to set the agenda.
Never the less, however, in spite of, and realistickly, as a yellow dog, Franklin D. Roosevelt, New Deal, liberal Democrat I will vote for President Obama to help protect the country from the disaster of a R and R administration.
Secretly. I feel the Americans deserves the pain and police state they will get if they elect R and R. Of course the level of pain will be so great that if we are still having elections, the wing nuts will be gone for a couple of decades or however long it takes the country to forget. The last lesson lasted about sixty years.
Obama’s administration has been an utter failure. His first two years, his blank check years, he fiddledy-fucked around with healthcare, never telling Congress “This is what I want. On my desk. By Friday.”
I suspect he had no agenda, no plan. Certainly no fire, that much was obvious.
You’re absolutely correct about the Court. And that’s what this campaign is, or should be, about. The Court is who and what we are about as a nation, always has been. And right now we are a nation of mean-spirited crazies. But that won’t abide… because we’re not really that way as a nation (he said, fingers crossed behind his back).
So vote to re-elect, work hard to hold the Senate, work hard to regain the House. And if by some miracle Obama wins a second term let him know that if he doesn’t do something fucking useful for the commonwealth in the next four years, we likely will not see another Democratic President in our lifetimes.
Re: A vote for is really a vote against. Carlyle and J. Singer, you both know and fail to mention that the President was handed a stinking, smoking turd from Bush. Two wars and an economy that just about to tank and a group of Republicans who conspired to block any attempt of Obama to pass policy. Add the right wing media and it's a f'ing miracle that he carried us this far. He's better than the team he plays for. Maybe next term he can prove it to you all.
@James Singer: you may be underestimating the ease with which Health Care reform could have been enacted, under the best of circumstances. But these were not the best of circumstances, by a country mile. Perhaps there's a reason it took a hundred years to get nearly universal health coverage?
Either way, it was achieved under Obama's watch, and he fought valiantly and doggedly for it .
Good to know the President has your vote. I hope you see it in your interests to try to encourage others of your acquaintance - even those who might be similarly tepid in their enthusiasm - to vote, too.
@JJG. Guess you weren't around when FDR was president or, for that matter, LBJ. But you don't deal with a "smoking turd" by appointing those culpable for creating a share of that turd--Tim Grifter and Lawrence (women can't do science) Summers to fix it.
No problem here. I used to split tickets until I learned my lesson with the first Bush presidency. It was then I realized the center had disappeared. I'm proud to say I've voted in every election since I was eligible; am a registered Democrat (even though I'm ideologically far left of what passes for democrat nowadays); and for the past 30 some odd years have voted a straight democratic ticket even though today's Democratic Party frequently disappoints. When you're losing ground in a tug of war the only choice is to dig your feet in and sharpen your grip. If you don't think your team leader is pulling hard enough, take up the slack and lead the team from behind.