The Commentariat -- Dec. 20, 2014
Internal links removed.
... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday rejected critics who say he should not have opened American relations with Cuba because of that nation's human rights record, saying the historic thaw would give the United States more sway with the Cuban government." ...
... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "US President Barack Obama has delivered his most sceptical remarks yet on the future of the Keystone oil pipeline, claiming its controversial extension from Canada to Nebraska would do little to reduce American energy prices and generate only a limited number of US jobs, but could add to the infrastructure costs of climate change." ...
... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "President Obama said Friday that Sony Pictures 'made a mistake' by pulling a movie that sparked North Korea to launch a cyberattack against the company. Speaking at a year-end press conference, Obama said that the movie studio should not have bowed to pressure after the attack." ...
... Michael Schmidt & David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday said that the United States 'will respond proportionally' against North Korea for its cyberattacks on Sony Pictures, and criticized the studio for giving in to intimidation and pulling the satirical movie that provoked the attacks.... His threat came just hours after the F.B.I. said it had extensive evidence that the North Korean government organized the cyberattack that debilitated the Sony computers, marking the first time the United States has explicitly accused the leaders of a foreign nation of deliberately damaging American targets." ...
... Here's the FBI's "Update on Sony Investigation." ...
... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "In his year-ending press conference today, President Obama called first on Politico reporter Carrie Budoff Brown.... The president decided to banter a bit with Brown, noting that she was headed to Europe. She confirmed that she was going to be working on Politico's European venture in Brussels.... So the president had an opening to crack wise on a notable Beltway news mill: 'I think what Belgium needs is some, uh, version of Politico.' The deadpan delivery cracked up the rest of the media." ...
... ** Barbara Morrill of Daily Kos: "What if the President held a press conference and it made men sad?" Thanks to James S. for the link. ...
... Paul Waldman: "Notably, all the reporters Obama called on today were women, which was really outrageous considering that there have only been 4,529 (or so) press conferences in which all the reporters the president called on were men. There was one as yet unidentified male reporter who managed to shout, 'Any new year's resolutions?', while another shouted, 'Are you going to smoke a Cuban cigar, Mr. President?' as he was leaving. Sadly, America did not get answers to these vital questions."
... Frank Pallotta of CNN: "Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, denying that the studio had 'caved' by scrapping next week's opening of 'The Interview,' fired back Friday after President Obama said the studio had "made a mistake.'... Lynton said he would be 'fibbing' to say he 'wasn't disappointed' in Obama's remarks. 'The president, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened,' Lynton said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. 'We do not own movie theaters. We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters.'" ...
... CW Translation: We can make racist jokes about you, but you can't question our business decisions, which you are too ignorant to understand. ...
... Brian Stelter of CNN: "The hackers behind a devastating cyberattack at Sony Pictures have sent a new message to executives at the company, crediting them for a 'very wise' decision to cancel the Christmas day release of 'The Interview,' a source close to the company told CNN.... The hacker message is effectively a victory lap, telling the studio, 'Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy.' The message also says, 'And we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately.'"
White House: "In this week's address, the President reflected on the significant progress made by this country in 2014, and in the nearly six years since he took office":
Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a massive defense policy bill that endorses his plan to fight Islamic State militants, including air strikes and training Iraqis and moderate Syrian rebels. The law authorizes funds for basic military operations, from a 1 percent pay raise for troops to the purchase of ships, aircraft and other war-fighting equipment."
Matt Apuzzo & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency's search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.'s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials.... While effectively rejecting the most significant conclusions of the inspector general's report, the panel, appointed by [CIA Director John] Brennan and composed of three C.I.A. officers and two members from outside the agency, is still expected to criticize agency missteps that contributed to the fight with Congress." CW: Surprise! A Brennan-appointed panel says following Brennan's orders is pretty cool. Here's some additional helpful information: "The panel's chairman is Evan Bayh, a former Democratic senator from Indiana...."
Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: "The White House needs a much taller fence to protect the president and first family. That's the headline recommendation from an independent panel convened to assess the Secret Service in the wake of a series of embarrassing agency failures this fall."
Annals of "Justice," Ctd.
Matt Apuzzo & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "F.B.I. agents in every region of the country have mishandled, mislabeled and lost evidence, according to a highly critical internal investigation that discovered errors with nearly half the pieces of evidence it reviewed. The evidence collection and retention system is the backbone of the F.B.I.'s investigative process, and the report said it is beset by problems. It also found that the F.B.I. was storing more weapons, less money and valuables, and two tons more drugs than its records had indicated. The report's findings, based on a review of more than 41,000 pieces of evidence in F.B.I. offices around the country, could have consequences for criminal investigations and prosecutions."
** Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "Some witnesses who appeared before the grand jury investigating the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown were 'clearly not telling the truth,' according to the St Louis county prosecutor, Robert McCulloch.... The admission came just days after The Smoking Gun, an investigative site which publishes government, police and other documents, claimed to have identified a key grand jury witness and raised serious questions about the credibility of her testimony.... McCulloch, in his interview, appeared to corroborate The Smoking Gun's investigation.... He added that he had allowed [obviously false witnesses] to testify anyway because he had felt 'it was much more important to present the entire picture'." ...
... CW: This is the most preposterous excuse for malfeasance I've heard in a long time. Even an idiot knows "the entire picture" does not include elements that aren't in it. But to mislead the grand jury, McCullouch is now claiming it is good legal practice to present testimony without, apparently, even challenging it. McCullouch should be disbarred, not just removed from office. ...
... Update. Mike Hayes of BuzzFeed: "According to Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct, RULE 4-3.3, 'A lawyer shall not knowingly offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.' The law also says that a lawyer 'may refuse to offer evidence, other than the testimony of a defendant in a criminal matter, that the lawyer reasonably believes is false.' 'A lawyer should not present testimony that he believes to be false,' Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University, told BuzzFeed News. 'That is especially true in a proceeding that lacks all of the usual safeguards, such as opposing counsel and a judge.'" CW: That's funny. A young BuzzFeed reporter knows more about Missouri law than the St. Louis County D.A.
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for same-sex marriages to commence in Florida, meaning such unions will soon be allowed in five of the nation's six most populous states. The court, without comment, turned down a request to block gay marriages in Florida while the state appeals a judge's order that its ban is unconstitutional. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have granted the motion, but did not explain their reasons."
Sabrina Siddiqui of the Huffington Post on "how the NRA lost its battle to defeat Vivek Murthy." CW: Let me add that this is a battle that should never have taken place. Murthy's remarks on gun violence, as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has pointed out, are accurate & no different from what experts & others have acknowledged.
Ed Kilgore: GOP staffers-turned-lobbyists "are rushing back to Congress like -- well, choose you own infestation metaphor, recognizing these are actual human beings with virtues as well as vices.... It's all part of the career-long climb up the slippery pole in the permanent ruling class, with its own rough justice: at any given moment, top-level staff types may be helping run Congress, or run the country in the executive branch, or failing any direct power, getting rich. It all works out in a satisfying manner." Read to the end.
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd.
Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The National Labor Relations Board announced on Friday that its general counsel had brought 78 charges against McDonald's and some of its franchise operators, accusing them of violating federal labor law in response to workers' protests for higher wages around the country. The general counsel's move immediately drew outrage from a variety of national business groups because the labor action deemed McDonald's a joint employer, a status that would make the fast-food titan equally responsible for actions taken at its franchised restaurants."
Richard Bilton of BBC Panorama: "Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation. Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken. It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories. Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions." ...
... BBC News: "An online petition, signed by 155,000 people, has called on Apple to do more to ensure its Chinese factory workers are treated better. The campaign, on Change.org, follows reports of poor working conditions in factories that make Apple products. A separate SumOfUs petition, with more than 43,000 signatories, calls for the iPhone 5 to be made 'ethically'."
AP: "Staples Inc. says nearly 1.2 million customer payment cards may have been exposed during a security breach earlier this year."
Presidential Election
Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Two of the Republican Party's top White House hopefuls clashed sharply Friday over President Obama's new Cuba policy, evidence of a growing GOP rift over foreign affairs that could shape the party's 2016 presidential primaries. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who backs Obama's move to normalize relations with communist Cuba, accused Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) of being an 'isolationist' with his hard-line opposition to opening up trade and diplomatic engagement with the island nation. Paul suggested that Rubio 'wants to retreat to our borders and perhaps build a moat.'... The feud is the loudest public dispute so far between potential GOP 2016 candidates and lays bare the divergent world views of traditional hawks -- including Rubio and past Republican presidents and nominees -- and the emerging, younger libertarian wing represented by Paul."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The United States transferred four detainees from the Guantánamo Bay prison to Afghanistan late Friday, the Defense Department announced Saturday, fulfilling a request from the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, in what officials here characterized as a show of good will between the United States and the government in Kabul.The four men are not likely to be subjected to further detainment in Afghanistan, an Obama administration official said."
New York Times: "In an apparent targeted killing, two police officers were shot in their patrol car in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon by a man who later fatally shot himself in head, police officials said."
Reuters: "Dozens of protesters were arrested on Friday in Milwaukee when they blocked rush-hour traffic on a major highway to protest the killing of an unarmed black man who was fatally shot by a white police officer this year. The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department took at least 73 adults and one minor into custody during the protest that blocked Interstate 43, which runs through the city, according to the department's Twitter feed."
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Reader Comments (11)
Of course. What's getting the play from the Prez's year-ender is that he only called on the female reporters. Here's Barbara Morrell's at Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/19/1353007/-What-if-the-president-held-a-press-conference-and-it-made-men-sad
Morrill. Sorry Barbara.
The Colbert farewell to the tune of "We'll Meet Again" was marvelous. I wonder if the nod to "Dr. Strangelove" was intentional?
The thing about Witness 40 is not just that she was unreliable, but that she was outright committing perjury. I just don't see how putting her before a grand jury under those circumstances is excusable.
More numbers for RC readers (who didn't catch the NYTimes article):
Seems that TARP, another government "failure" ala the ACA, also did pretty well. One "bad" investment and many good ones, a much better average than the financial institutions TARP had to rescue.
No wonder virtually every anti-Obama letter in the local paper is completely devoid of fact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/business/us-signals-end-of-bailouts-of-automakers-and-wall-street.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Fortunately the CIA's internal investigation into its hacking of the Senate Intelligence Committee's computers has recommended no penalty for the perpetrators.
www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/us/politics/panel-to-advise-against-penalty-for-cia-computer-search.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
I say fortunately because I'm off to bed and any other result might have shocked me to wakefulness.
For those interested TPM has published a key to the cameo appearances in Colbert's Final Farewell.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/every-cameo-final-colbert-report
One can only imagine the hard work of the booking agents for this segment. I sure am going to miss this show.
Thank you, Victoria––such fun to connect the faces with names–-had no idea someone actually did this. So we can conclude these are all the guests Colbert ever had minus the ones who have died, plus friends and family––( lovely looking wife and kids). Stephen is one of a kind and the kind we wish there were many more of.
Good primer on the Cuban embargo: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/18/7408819/cuba-deal-us-embargo
Victoria and PD,
That certainly was quite a collection of bon vivants at the Colbert farewell. They all should know that they, including every soldier in that Afghanistan photo, are now in the GOP crosshairs as traitors.
An out of their minds wingnut blog, Powerline, is screaming that Colbert is a liar and a secret Democratic operative whose program has been serving Democratic Party by providing millions of dollars worth of pro-Democratic, anti-Republican propaganda, on his half hour show.
The headline on this piece, by the way, is "Democrats to Colbert: Thanks for your help!" But the actual tweet sent from the DNC was "Thank you Stephen for an amazing ride." See the difference?
The author of this dreck, John Hinderaker (truly a hind raker) is outraged that Colbert is allowed to present himself as someone who treats both sides equally, being that his show "...consists of an endless series of anti-Republican 'jokes.'" Note the quotes around "jokes" as if nothing Colbert presents is really very funny. We've touched on the problems wingers have with humor before, as in there isn't any. Humor, that is.
But here's the kicker.
Hind Raker has never seen the show. Ever. He admits as much. "Well, your honor, I've never seen the evidence, but I know this is what it shows."
Whoa, okay. So let's criticize things we don't know about. That's a classic wingnut trait.
Never seen the show, but it's Democratic propaganda. Oh-kay.
The thing most conservative "thinkers" (I believe quotes around that word is entirely appropriate when talking about wingers--there are no thinkers. Only reactors. And screamers) overlook when ripping anyone who makes fun of them is that they deserve to be made fun of. Michele Bachmann? Sarah Palin? Louie Gohmert? Chris Christie? George Bush? Dick Cheney? Ted Cruz? It's a fucking smorgasbord of stupidity, fer chrissakes. Take a stick to the right-wing piñata and all kinds of whacko falls out. Should all that shit be ignored? I suppose, by Right-Wing lights (such as they are), they should be. No one gets to criticize them.
But clearly, since Hind Raker has never seen the show, he's missed all the sequences in which Colbert ripped Democrats and Obama. But never mind that....it only throws a monkey wrench into a preconceived delusion.
Another knee slapper here involves the way this Hind Raking motherfucker is so up in arms about a half hour show that purports to criticize wingnut craziness, but never acknowledges that there are multiple 24/7 far right media outlets devoted to non-stop screaming about progressive policies, including a major television network that operates on the assumption that there are no liberals, progressives, or real Democrats who are NOT traitors.
But this is all of a piece with their scorched earth approach. If there is a single voice crying in the wilderness, asking questions about right-wing perfidy, ignorance, and stupidity, they need to be put down as evil traitors.
Here's something really disturbing, under the heading of "What liberal media". This blog, a truly despicable piece of shit wingnut screed that today has a headline screaming about why transgendered people and cross dressers have any civil rights at all (um....they have civil rights, asshole, because they're human beings. You fuckhead) was once lauded by Time Magazine as "Blog of the Year". They might have meant Bog of the Year, but I doubt it.
One more thing about powerline.crap. The founders of this piece of shit site are all Dinesh D'Souza style Dartmouth wingers. And all lawyers to boot.
'nuff said?
Akhilleus and All,
Admit I'm not and have never been a Colbert aficionado (mostly on too late for me), but have caught both Colbert and Stewart from time to time and mostly enjoyed what I saw. For me, much is over the top satiric ranting designed to provoke horselaughs, less of it quietly witty but still worthy of a smile, and some, sometimes too much, simple filler.
That said, I don't see how in the last ten years it would be possible for a political comic to be "fair and balanced," when one side of the aisle so frequently takes one absurd position after another, as Jon Steward might say, "daily".
Since satire's intent is to skewer stupidity, then the party of stupid should not be surprised (outraged, of course, that's its speciality) when it and its adherents are so often comedy's butt.
Kinda like a drunk staggering across a freeway in the evening rush hour and blaming the cars that crush him to pulp...
Or complaining there are too many liberals among the educated.
As Akhilleus demonstrates, even their outrage is a joke.