The Commentariat -- Dec. 7, 2012
Betty McIntosh, ca. 1941.** Elizabeth P. McIntosh, in the Washington Post: "On Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, I was working as a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. After a week of war, I wrote a story directed at Hawaii's women; I thought it would be useful for them to know what I had seen. It might help prepare them for what lay ahead. But my editors thought the graphic content would be too upsetting for readers and decided not to run my article. It appears here for the first time." The Post also has a video interview of McIntosh here, but it wasn't working this morning. Update: a half-hour later, the video suddenly started playing; definitely worth your watching.
Cliff Notes
Oh, Mano a Mano. Jonathan Weisman & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "At House Speaker John A. Boehner's request, Senate leaders and Representative Nancy Pelosi have been excluded from talks to avert a fiscal crisis, leaving it to Mr. Boehner and President Obama alone to find a deal, Congressional aides say." Here's the video of President Obama's visit to a Virginia family who needs that middle-class tax cut.
Over there in Right Wing World, where they are pretending this month that they really do like the darker-complexioned people, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is again being touted as one of the GOP's most brilliant thinkers & a contender for the presidency. Jindal has been doing everything he can to raise his profile, including writing an op-ed in Politico about the danger of the fiscal cliff, which he says is nothing compared to Fiscal Cliffs II & III, etc. that are a-coming. The only trouble is, as Jon Chait of New York magazine points out, Jindal has no fucking idea what the fiscal cliff is. Like many Americans, he has it ass-backwards. He thinks if the fiscal arguments aren't resolved, deficits will explode. Of course, the opposite is true. Sequestration will cut expenditures & higher taxes will raise revenue. This, my friends, is what passes for brilliance in Right Wing World. Jindal's op-ed is here. ...
... Oh, I see Paul Krugman says what I said. Only he didn't use the word "fucking." "... you have to wonder even more about the state of mind that induces you to write an op-ed about a subject you don't comprehend at all." ...
... AND here Krugman, via Dean Baker, points out that the Washington Post headline writers don't understand the fiscal cliff, either. "It speaks to the state of confusion that all the deficit fearmongering has created. And if headline writers at a major newspaper can't get it straight, how can you expect ordinary voters to get it?" CW: the Post has been serving as Deficit Hawk Central, so if anybody should get that the fiscal cliff is not about Deficit Armageddon, it's the Post staff.
AND in another Stupid Republican Trick, Sahil Kapur of TPM reports, "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wanted to prove on Thursday that Democrats don't have the votes to weaken Congress' authority on the debt limit. Instead they called his bluff, and he ended up filibustering his own bill." ...
... Pausing to watch the videotape of this moment in Senate history is worth three minutes of your time:
... CW: when Mitch McConnell stands on the Senate floor and says, "I object to myself," we should applaud him. ...
...Shane Goldmacher & Elahe Izadi of the National Journal: "... people on both sides of the aisle acknowledged that McConnell's failed maneuver cost the GOP some precious negotiating ground." ...
... Matt Yglesias on how Obama can beat the Republicans in their debt-ceiling game: "... the federal government still has a lot of tax revenue coming in. You use that money to make sure bond holders get paid in full and there's no default ... & to make sure Social Security checks keep paying out. You keep paying federal workers' wages. But contractors, state governments, and health care providers just get IOU notes..., you tell them to keep doing their jobs, and [you] tell them that if they want money they should ask congress."
Paul Krugman: we don't have a fiscal crisis; we have a jobs crisis. "So why aren't we helping the unemployed? ... It's about class. Influential people in Washington aren't worried about losing their jobs; by and large they don't even know anyone who's unemployed."
Tim Egan: "For the politicians and pundits who do the gun industry's bidding, the First Amendment does not apply to the Second Amendment. It took a sportscaster, accustomed to parsing the nuances of a stunt blitz, to break the code of shameful silence."
The Decline and Fall of the GOP
James Downie of the Washington Post on the 38 Republican Senators who voted against the disability treaty: "It was nothing less than moral cowardice, a failure that should shame them for the rest of their lives." ...
... Steve Kornacki of Salon: "It's striking to compare the two Senate votes, for the ADA in '90 and against the treaty this week. In '90, there was overwhelming bipartisan support for the ADA, with only a handful of dissenters -- all Republicans. The initial Senate vote, in October 1989, was 76-8, and the final bill (the compromise between the Senate and House versions) passed on a 91-6 vote in July '90. Most of the Republicans who voted no all hailed from what was then considered the far-right fringe.... This week's Senate roll call was a mirror image of the ADA, at least on the Republican side." What's more, there were actual concerns about the ADA; there are none about the treaty. ...
... BUT Greg Sargent sez "It seems perfectly possible that DeMint’s new post could put him in an even better position than before to enforce ideological purity on Republican candidates -- including in the House -- who would otherwise be inclined towards moderation, balance, and compromise to toe the Tea Party line. This is the sort of thing that risks discouraging moderates from running for office." CW: this assumes, erroneously I think, that forcing ideological purity is a winner. Yeah, it will work in some states and/or districts which don't need forcing anyway. But nation-wide, people are fed up with the far-right Tea Party absurdity. You have to be invested in Reynolds Wrap haberdashery & Rushbo Media Enterprises to buy this nonsense. The more the economy improves & the more people get jobs, the less people will be swayed by Right Wing World fantasies. ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos has a rundown of reaction to DeMint's career move: "In any case, we may have found the single most widely lauded decision of Sen. Jim DeMint's storied career, and by a wide margin. No matter what you think about Jim DeMint, everyone involved agrees: the best single thing he's ever done is leave."
Joe Conason of the National Memo: "The suddenly sensible sounds emanating from the business community are astonishing when contrasted with the anger displayed toward the president by many of these corporate suits only weeks ago, when they berated Obama as 'anti-business' and loudly yearned for a corporate-style Romney presidency. Resoundingly rebuked by the electorate, which overwhelmingly favors Obama's positions on taxes and entitlements -- and stands ready to blame the Republicans if no budget agreement is achieved -- the business leaders are backing ever so subtly away from their traditional alliance with the GOP. These brand-conscious executives suddenly have realized that the Republican brand, especially at the congressional level, is politically toxic. And they would rather not be too closely identified with it at this dangerous moment."
Tim Noah of The New Republic writes "Requium for a Wingnut." The wingnut would be Jim DeMint, of course. ...
... Paul West of the Los Angeles Times: "The surprise resignation of Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina on Thursday could prove to be a marker for a decline in the influence of the tea party movement he has helped lead.... Republican losses in the election weakened his position.... A wide survey in DeMint's very conservative home state, released this week, found that more South Carolinians now disapprove of the tea party movement than approve of it.... DeMint's decision could also open the way for him to run for the GOP presidential nomination." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.
... of Roll Call: "Immediately following Sen. Jim DeMint's announcement that he would be ditching the Senate to lead the Heritage Foundation, tweeters everywhere began playing their new favorite game: How many ways can we start rumors about Stephen Colbert being appointed to South Carolina's Senate seat? The truth is, it might not be the craziest idea ever." Semnani lists four reasons Gov. Nikki Haley should consider appointing Colbert to DeMint's seat. ...
... Andy Kroll of Mother Jones: "A Colbert for Senate Twitter account, @ColbertforSC, sprung up almost immediately." Colbert is "looking forward to Gov. Haley's call," a spokesperson said.
AP: "Obama's approval rating stands at 57 percent, the highest since May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs killed [Osama bin Laden], and up 5 percentage points from before the election. And 42 percent say the country is on the right track, up from 35 percent in January 2009.
Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post suggests ten ways to reduce income inequality that have nothing to do with the tax code. CW: A number of his suggestions are obvious, but the last one stunned me.
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Justice Antonin Scalia is just not into free speech. He "abhors" the Court's decision in the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case, in which the Court "held that reporters and other individuals cannot be held liable for making unintentionally false statements against public figures so long as they do not do so with 'reckless disregard of whether [their statement] was false or not.'" ...
... Speaking of right-wing nuts, John Brenahan & Manu Raju of Politico post this gem: "The National Republican Senatorial Committee quietly sent $760,000 to the Missouri Republican Party in early November, just as the state GOP was mounting a last-minute TV ad blitz to boost Rep. Todd Akin's sagging Senate campaign.... The disclosure is highly significant because the Senate GOP campaign committee promised to abandon Akin after failing to push the conservative congressman out of the race following his August declaration that 'legitimate rape' rarely leads to pregnancies because female bodies often shut down." ...
... Speaking of right-wing nuts, a great piece by Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post on Sheldon Adelson, "low-information billionaire." The irony is that despite the $150 million Adelson spent on Gingrich, Romney, et al., the policies he favors pretty much reflect, as Linkins puts it, "the platform of the average Daily Kos diarist." CW: Linkins is too circumspect to say so, but I feel pretty confident that the reason Adelson puts his money where he does is that he's a "savvy businessman" who knows damned well who's for sale. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...
Jim Yardley of the New York Times: "... 112 workers were killed in a blaze last month [in a Bangladesh garment factory] that has exposed a glaring disconnect among global clothing brands, the monitoring system used to protect workers and the factories actually filling the orders. After the fire, Walmart, Sears and other retailers made the same startling admission: They say they did not know that Tazreen Fashions was making their clothing.... The global apparel industry aspires to operate with accountability that extends from distant factories to retail stores.... But much of the factory's business came through opaque networks of subcontracts with suppliers or local buying houses."
Local News
Steve Yaccino & Monica Davey of the New York Times: "As labor supporters crowded into the [Michigan state] Capitol chanting their dismay, this state's Republican leaders announced on Thursday their intent to swiftly pass limits on unions in Michigan, a state with deep ties to organized labor." CW: -- once again proving that if you are a regular person trying to earn an honest wage for your labor, Republicans hate you.
Stacey Solie of the New York Times: "By 5 p.m. Thursday..., the first day that same-sex couples were able to apply [for marriage licenses in Washington state,] the [Seattle, King County] office had issued 481 [marriage] licenses -- most of them to same-sex couples -- doubling the previous record for licenses issued in a single day.... in another part of town, a different kind of party was taking place under the city's Space Needle, where dozens of people had gathered to celebrate the vote to legalize recreational use of marijuana in the state." ...
... CW: as contributor Kate Madison's brother (a Biblical scholar, I'm sure) noted, the Old Testament preordained the Washington votes: "If a man lies with another man he should be stoned." -- Leviticus 20:13. ...
... Uh oh. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Senior White House and Justice Department officials are considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in those states...." CW: IMHO, senior White House & Justice Department officials should chill out. I can think of something that might help them in that regard.
Erica Goode of the New York Times: Missouri "authorities are investigating allegations that [Bethany] Deaton, 27, was drugged, sexually assaulted and killed on the orders of her husband, Tyler Deaton, 26, a man described by witnesses as a Pied Piper-like leader who gathered a band of young people around him and pressured them to engage in sexual practices under the guise of religious devotion. [Micah] Moore, [who confessed to suffocating her at Tyler Deaton's insistence] has been charged with first-degree murder. Mr. Deaton and others are still under investigation."
Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: New Jersey Gov. Chris "Christie, a Republican who supported Mitt Romney, endured a half-hour of grilling from [Jon Stewart] about his political beliefs, his personal style and even a hug he recently received from Bruce Springsteen." The extended interview, which is a three-parter, starts here. ...
... Here's one of the issues on which Stewart challenges Christie. Jason Millman of Politico: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rejected a state-run health insurance exchange Thursday, paving the way for the federal government to step in and run one."
Right Wing World
Guns Don't Kill People; People Kill People Women Who Get near Gun Owners Get Killed. Annie-Rose Strasser of Think Progress: "Bush White House Press Secretary-turned-Fox News host Dana Perino asserted Wednesday night that women who are victims of violence should 'make better decisions' to avoid being hurt." CW: Perino managed to put herself to the right of a bunch of Second Amendment stalwarts.
News Ledes
Guardian: "A nurse at the private hospital treating the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge has been found dead in a suspected suicide three days after being duped by two Australian radio presenters in a hoax call." The New York Times has a follow-up here.
New York Times: "President Obama proposed a $60.4 billion emergency spending bill on Friday to finance recovery efforts in states pummeled by Hurricane Sandy, a sum White House officials called a 'robust' investment in the region but that was far less than the amount the states had requested. The spending plan would pay for most but not all of the $82 billion in damage identified by the governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut...."
AP: "The U.S. economy added 146,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008. The government said Superstorm Sandy had only a minimal effect on the figures." CW: bear in mind that had Romney won the election, he now would be getting credit for inspiring "confidence" in businesses to hire & expand their operations.
AP: "Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets after Friday midday prayers in rival rallies and marches across Cairo, as the standoff deepened over what opponents call the Islamist president's power grab, raising the specter of more violence. President Mohammed Morsi responded to bloody clashes outside his palace with a fiery speech denouncing his opponents, deepening the crisis. The opposition turned down his appeal for talks, saying the president had not fulfilled their conditions for beginning negotiations."...
... Guardian Update: "Egypt's opposition National Salvation Front (NSF) has angrily rejected calls by the president, Mohamed Morsi, for a national dialogue and warned that he has lost legitimacy after recent unrest and bloodshed."
AP: "The exiled Hamas chief broke into tears Friday as he arrived in the Gaza Strip for his first-ever visit, a landmark trip reflecting his militant group's growing international acceptance and its defiance of Israel. Khaled Mashaal, who left the West Bank as a child and leads the Islamic militant movement from Qatar, crossed the Egyptian border, kissed the ground, and was greeted by a crowd of Hamas officials and representatives of Hamas' rival Fatah party."
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Reader Comments (12)
Yes: Republicans are fatter:! This comment was originally posted on Nate Silver's 538 column on Alaska. It's short so I reproduced it in its entirety:
Fact BoyEmerald City
"... I obtained the CDC's figures for obesity by state (the percentage of the population with a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher) and ranked them.... Of the top ten (skinniest) states, Obama carried nine, Romney one. Of the bottom ten (fattest) states, it was Romney nine, Obama one.... In any case, the[r]e is obviously a correlation between obesity and a propensity to vote Republican."
CW: I gave guidelines a while back on what I consider fair borrowing practices. If I get around to it, I'll dig them up & put them up as a blogpost. Copying somebody else's work in its entirety without his permission is one of the things we don't do here. So I've abbreviated the original author's work. You can read it on Silver's post, which is here. The comment is at 8:23 pm ET, Dec. 6.
My thanks to Gov. Jindal for proving that my comment yesterday that you cannot link the words Republican and 'think' is true.
And just note that this proves what the Republican ideology is really all about. There is absolutely no interest in facts, only two things. Protecting their money and never, ever admitting they were wrong.
Marie,
Thanks for the Elizabeth McIntosh link.
She notes that her editors, many decades past, balked at publishing her grim, graphic, firsthand, on the ground account of what it's like to be under attack as the dogs of war are unleashed on your city, your town, your village; as they are set upon your neighbors and friends. It seems they had good reason, at the time to withhold such imagery. Her vignette of a little girl lying dead, barefoot in a morgue, her little hand still clinging to pieces of a jump rope is harrowing.
It's an impression of war from the point of view of those buffeted by forces unleashed by smug men sitting in comfortable chairs thousands of miles away.
I've never been under attack, never had bombs rained down upon me or needed to find shelter from strafing bullets, but I've read enough accounts like this one to appreciate something of the terrifying decision to take a country to war. It's worth recalling on this day that there are scores of members of our congress, practically none of whom have ever been witness to the kind of devastation and bloodletting seen by Ms. McIntosh and thousands of others both in and out of the service on December 7, 1941, who have no problem setting loose those dogs of war.
For many of these chickenhawks, it's a way to puff out their chests and pretend to be men of honor and patriotism when nothing could be further from the truth. Men like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney rained the same exact kind of terror down on a largely innocent civilian population during their exercise in "Shock and Awe" (obsequiously reported with a similar level of awe by a bovine press, if you recall), blithely unconcerned about the lives they were about to destroy, all for their own personal aggrandizement. If a few little brown kids have to die in order for them to feel big and bad, so be it.
During the recent presidential election the Republican candidate routinely and cavalierly brandished the sword of war as a way of demonstrating that he too had what it takes to kill innocents and send other Americans into harm's way (just not himself or any member or his own family, god forbid any of them should get mud or blood on their delicate persons).
Perhaps if such as these who feel the allure of war had experienced what Elizabeth McIntosh describes, they wouldn't be so quick to rattle sabers and threaten to open bomb bay doors, especially on countries and populations that presented no threat to us and had never attacked us.
War as a first option will forever be linked with the Bush administration and all who supported it, Democrats included. Little bodies lying in the rubble of Shock and Awe, hundreds of thousands of lives shattered, a trillion dollars poured down Mideast sinkholes will be their legacy.
One other word about Ms McIntosh's article. Man, can she write. Her OSS/CIA reports must have been something.
Thanks again for that link. It offers an unusual alternative to the typical Pearl Harbor Day stories.
Excellent Post piece on the craven, gutless wonders on the Republican side of the senate that have the temerity to call themselves leaders.
They collectively display one of the two defining characteristics of the modern GOP, the other being greed.
Plenty of evidence of their greed. This particular instance of their "moral leadership" reeks. Too bad the tradition of handing out white feathers to cowards has dropped away. These curs should be handed bags full of them.
Better than a movement for Colbert to replace outgoing walking and talking pile of dung Jim DeMint, would be a movement to get that pile of dung to walk and talk its way into the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016!
How great would that be?
I wouldn't have to stress about who the Democrats would run and how they would fare in what will be a biblical onslaught of hate ads, lies, and billions arrayed against them by desperate last gasp patriarchal white wingnuts.
A four day old half eaten cruller could squeak out a win against this idiot. A fresh cruller with no teeth marks would win going away. That would make it three EPIC FAILS in a row for the GOP!
DeMint in '16! Sign me up, baby.
Yet more evidence that the Republican fixation on federal spending is a crock:
Kenneth Baer and Jeffrey Liebman write in the New York Times that "While there was a temporary and necessary spike in spending from the Recovery Act, annual appropriations actually declined by 1.4 percent a year between 2008 and 2012 in inflation-adjusted dollars — after growing by 6.1 percent a year during the George W. Bush administration."
They add that with the caps agreed to last year, discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP is scheduled to reach its lowest level since the Eisenhower administration.
And much as I hate to be the bearer of good news, with 200,000 baby boomers retiring every month, unemployment is coming down faster than the raw numbers of job growth would indicate.
Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/opinion/the-baby-boom-bump.html?hpw
I found this eye-opening: "The job switch should have substantial financial benefits for Mr. DeMint, whose 2010 net worth, $65,000, was among the lowest in the Senate. Edwin J. Feulner, the current head of the foundation, in 2010 earned $1,098,612 in total compensation. " from Jennifer Steinhauer, NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/us/politics/jim-demint-to-leave-senate-to-run-heritage-foundation.html?hp&_r=0
In addition, Mr. Demint with his more than 5 years as a Representative and looks like about 8 as a Senator is fully vested in retirement benefits. So, Mr. Conservative can look forward to a bit of the old gov't dole/entitlement in his future!
Nice.
Re: My gun is bigger than yours; Tim Egan's article is an excellent response to Jeffrey Goldberg's "The Case for More Guns" piece in this month Atlantic. Goldberg must be missing all the letters he received as the advice columnist or he is just another smart dumbfuck.
Tim Egan is country, Jeffrey Goldberg probably doesn't know how to load a breech load single shell shotgun.
In a perfect world Mr. Goldberg would go hunting with Dick Cheney; he's already shot himself in the foot. Asswipe.
One more thing, I had read the article and watched the video on Elizabeth McIntosh early this morning...and knew that Marie would surely be advising it as a must-see. Having the opportunity to read the 'unprinted' article was seeing and understanding the horror that "regular" people felt as they lived through those days. I think of it, because this sort of devastation on a varying scale continues in the lives of many people today—in Gaza, in Syria—who live with unexpected horrors often on a daily basis. It is hard for most of us to realize what must it be like...to wake up on a sunny, lovely otherwise normal day and then be confronted with bombings, explosions & bullets flying. The fear these people live with on an almost daily basis is unfathomable to me.
What a remarkable eye-witness account Ms. McIntosh wrote back then. What a shame it was withheld so long.
In 1979, my husband and I were in Cairo to attend a rather lavish fund-raising event. One afternoon, following lunch we returned to our hotel room to relax. Suddenly, things boomed and shook...I ran to the balcony overlooking the Nile and was stunned by what I was seeing. Black fighter jets in formations of four and six streaked low over the city,
while other large aircraft loomed higher up. They seemed to come from all directions and the noise level was incredible. What was happening? It went on for thirty minutes or so. Had some Middle East tensions escalated to a sort of confrontation? Were we in the middle of the start of something? No...as someone informed us later, Sadat wanted to 'impress' a large visiting audience with a demonstration of his firepower capabilities. That 'mini-shock & awe' is something that I think about whenever there are the too real episodes happening around the world—I still recall the chill, that initial fear and dread as I stood on there watching those jets. It's a damn awful feeling.
Cassidy in the New Yorker has an update on the progress of republican economic (moronomics?) policies in Britain that is, forget unemployment, attack the deficit. As has the Guardian. Highlights: British economy on verge of triple dip recession, industrial output on level of 1992. German industrial production dropped 2.6% in October. Recovery by 2015...maybe.
Read the article by Mathews and can't believe his take on environmental lead as a cause of inequality. The incidence of children with high blood levels of lead has been reduced dramatically, according to statistics which I also find unbelievable. According to the CDC for example, in Maryland the incidence has fallen from 88% with harmful levels in 1997 to 0.44% in 2010. Equivalent numbers for Mississippi are 95.4% and 0.38%. Overall high levels of lead are found at a rate one half the rate of new cases of cancer.I would rather ascribe the scholastic failures of American children to inequality itself. In the Chicago area for example where your child goes to school (inner city or suburb) means a 10 fold difference in funding per child. As for lead being the cause of teen pregnancies.. hmmm, perhaps a low cost substitute for viagra? I don't think the Canadian environment differs greatly from the American, lead included, so something more is required to explain significant differences in rates of teenage pregnancy and the last time a survey of international grade school achievements was published the best American state performed worse than the Canadian nation.
Just read the article by Elizabeth McIntosh. Overwhelming sense of loss of an era of safety and innocence. 2402 dead, of whom 48-68 were civilian. Today that's a bad week in Syria, a bad day in the Congo, a military/civilian casualty ratio the military would be proud of.
In 51 short, bloody months, I cannot imagine what a Japanese Elizabeth McIntosh would be writing on the air raid of March 9-10 1945 which saw 41 square kilometers of Tokyo burnt, 97,000 dead, 125,000 wounded, 1,000,000 homeless.
Ain't progress wonderful.
I would have thought the Washington Post's resident Republican shill, Jennifer Rubin, would be a fan of Senator DeMinted. But no, she thinks the Senate will be improved by his absence (he never did anything constructive anyway), and today she thinks the Heritage Foundation can say goodbye to "think". I seldom, if ever agree with her, but in these two cases, I do.