The Commentariat -- Feb. 14, 2014
Internal links removed.
Politico has a Valentine's Day gift for you: a look into the romance of Dick & Pat Nixon, excerpted from a book by Will Swift.
Ashley Parker & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: " Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, offered a long-shot option on Thursday to revive the moribund effort to overhaul the nation's immigration laws that would require the support of more than a dozen House Republicans -- and, if nothing else, pressure others to act on an election-year issue that Tea Party-aligned members strongly oppose. The legislative maneuver, known as a discharge petition, would allow supporters of overhauling the nation's immigration laws to circumvent the Republican majority in the House by bringing the measure directly to the House floor, bypassing the regular committee process. It is a rarely successful tactic, though it was used in 2002 to eventually win passage of a major campaign finance law." ...
... Speaking of Discharge Petitions.... Michael Memoli of the Los Angeles Times: "Democrats will seek to force a House vote on raising the federal minimum wage, party leaders said Thursday, but even getting the proposal to a vote will be an uphill fight. As the minority party in the House, Democrats cannot set the agenda for when bills are brought to the floor. So they will use a procedural tool known as a discharge petition to bring up their proposal to raise the minimum hourly pay to $10.10. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), who announced the move at a three-day policy retreat for House Democrats, said the party decided to push the issue after President Obama signed an executive order this week setting a new minimum wage for workers employed by federal contractors." ...
... ** "A Valentine for Restaurant Workers." Mark Bittman of the New York Times: "... among generally mistreated minimum wage workers there's a subgroup of those whose wage experience is even more miserable and unfair. The group is tipped workers, the majority of whom are restaurant servers. There is a minimum wage for tipped workers, called by those who know the 'tipped minimum wage': ... $2.13.... The National Restaurant Association -- the other N.R.A., the Herman Cain gang..., has fought to preserve the $2.13 tipped minimum wage.... As a result, the tipped minimum wage has remained at the same level for more than 20 years." ...
... ** Paul Krugman: "Now that the Congressional Budget Office has explicitly denied saying that Obamacare destroys jobs, some (though by no means all) Republicans have stopped lying about that issue and turned to a different argument. O.K., they concede, any reduction in working hours because of health reform will be a voluntary choice by the workers themselves -- but it's still a bad thing because, as Representative Paul Ryan puts it, they'll lose 'the dignity of work.' ... If you really care about the dignity and freedom of American workers, you should favor more, not fewer, entitlements, a stronger, not weaker, social safety net. And you should, in particular, support and celebrate health reform. Never mind all those claims that Obamacare is slavery; the reality is that the Affordable Care Act will empower millions of Americans, giving them exactly the kind of dignity and freedom politicians only pretend to love."
Ed Kilgore: The Wall Street Journal editors ... aren't mad at [Sen. Ted] Cruz for opposing a debt limit increase. They're mad at him for forcing a vote which revealed the double-dealing GOP effort to ensure the debt limit increased passed without Republican votes. 'Democrats had enough votes to pass the increase with a simple majority, which means they would have owned the debt increase.'" ...
... They Were For It Before They Were Against It (a Few Minutes Later). Kilgore again: "As you will be shocked to learn, all twelve Senate Republicans who supported cloture on the debt limit bill yesterday voted against the actual bill. That was appropriate given the happy celebration of Republican hypocrisy we've been witnessing in most of the MSM this week.... Anyone pleased that we have dodged the debt limit bullet and perhaps ended debt default threats for good should praise the Democrats from the White House on down who forced Republicans into a Hypocrite's Corner instead of praising the hypocrites themselves."
Lydia Depillis of the Washington Post: "Employees at the Volkswagen auto plant [in Chattanooga, Tennessee] will vote Friday on whether to join the United Auto Workers union, marking the end of a fevered battle between national conservative groups and labor leaders over the future of the right-to-work South. If a majority of Volkswagen's 1,570 hourly workers vote yes, it would mark the first time in nearly three decades of trying that the UAW has successfully organized a plant for a foreign brand in the U.S. This time, the union has a powerful ally: Volkswagen itself, which is hoping the union will collaborate in a German-style "works council" and help manage plant operations." ...
... CW: I guess that makes Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) a Big Fat Liar. Besides being a dick on general principles -- like protecting workers.
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times: "Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable comes at a moment of seismic change in the television industry, with consumers increasingly cutting their cable cords and instead streaming their favorite shows via the Internet through services like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and Hulu. This shifting landscape may aid Comcast as it seeks to persuade government officials -- and deploy its prodigious army of lobbyists -- to win [regulatory] approval for its $45 billion takeover.... Still, the combination of the two companies, creating a cable and broadband behemoth serving 30 million customers across 42 states, is expected to come under intense scrutiny from the Obama administration, which has toughened its enforcement of federal antitrust laws." ...
... That's Not What John Cassidy Sez: "Comcast Corporation is ... the largest media company in the world." With its planned purchase of Time Warner Cable, it will get even bigger. People living in the U.S. "pay far more for broadband Internet access, cable television, and home phone lines than people in many other advanced countries, even though the services we get aren't any better. All too often, they are worse.... This sorry situation ... is the predictable outcome of Congress bowing to the monopolists, or quasi-monopolists, and allowing them to squelch potential competitors.... What we need is a new competition policy that puts the interests of consumers first, seeks to replicate what other countries have done, and treats with extreme skepticism the arguments of monopoly incumbents such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable.... Under President Obama, the anti-trust division of the Justice Department has nodded through a number of dubious mergers.... The new head of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, is a former lobbyist for two sets of vested interests: the cell-phone operators and, you guessed it, the cable companies." ...
New York Times Editors: "This deal ... would give Comcast greater power over media companies like CBS and Disney and Internet services like Netflix and Amazon. And that would ultimately give it more control over American consumers."
Haya el Nasser of Al Jazeera: President "Obama is visiting the agricultural heart of [California] and the nation, where farmers are making the tough decision to forgo cultivating seasonal crops and use the little water they have to save permanent crops. Fewer crops will mean fewer workers. It's a dire situation, one the White House will address with an expected $100 million in disaster assistance for California livestock producers, with relief going to other states facing similar problems. An additional $1 billion will help those who lost cattle during the 2012 drought that browned several states and the snow that hit the Dakotas in the fall of 2013. The Department of Agriculture will accelerate the application process for disaster aid."
Jennifer Medina & Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: Enrollment of Latinos in insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act is lagging for a number of reasons.
(1)The Can Kicks Back the Bucket. Byron Tau of Politico: "A year and a half after launching with much fanfare, a group affiliated with fiscal watchdogs Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson is nearly broke. The Can Kicks Back -- which targets millennials and was conceived as a partner and affiliate of the group Fix the Debt -- is running low on cash, according to emails and documents reviewed by Politico." ...
... Alex Pareene of Salon: "One fundraising problem The Can Kicks Back has faced is the entirely accurate perception that it is not actually a grass-roots organization of young people deeply concerned with reckless entitlement spending and unsustainable long-term debt, but rather yet another front group -- and in this case a particularly ineffective one -- for the small network of billionaires who have spent decades advocating tax cuts and the rolling back of Social Security and Medicare benefits, in the name of fiscal responsibility." ...
(2) Jordyn Phelps of ABC News: "A new political attack ad from the Koch brothers-funded group Americans for Prosperity calls on Louisianans to tell Sen. Mary Landrieu that Obamacare is hurting their families. The ad shows a number of people, who appear to be Louisianans, opening their mail to find a letter stating that their health care policy has been cancelled because of the Affordable Care Act.... But the people in the emotion-evoking ad are not Louisianans at all; they are paid actors." ...
(3) Jim Romenesko: "The conservative Media Research Center often urges liberal news outlets to TELL THE TRUTH, but the Reston, VA-based press watchdog isn't telling the truth about its own leader: Brent Bozell doesn't write the syndicated column that appears under his byline. It is longtime MRC media analysis director Tim Graham who writes 'almost everything published under [Bozell's] name,' a former MRC employee tells me in an email. 'That includes his weekly column. Same goes for his books, which at least carry Graham's name in a secondary billing, but also aren't written by Bozell (but Bozell keeps 80-90% of the advance and all profits!)' Two other people with ties to MRC confirmed that Graham is Bozell's ghostwriter -- and that Graham is not happy with the assignment." ...
... Paul Krugman: "What these stories have in common is that they show how much of what passes for genuine expression of public concern is really just a bought and paid-for (or, in the case of The Can, not sufficiently paid-for) front for plutocratic priorities."
Obama 2.0. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "A century-old debate over whether presidents should reward political donors and allies by making them ambassadors has flared again following a string of embarrassing gaffes by President Obama's picks.... The stumbles have highlighted the perils of rewarding well-heeled donors and well-connected politicos with plum overseas assignments, and have provided political fodder for Republicans eager to attack the White House. The cases also underscore how a president who once infuriated donors by denying them perks has now come into line with his predecessors, doling out prominent diplomatic jobs by the dozens to supporters."
The Person I'd Most Like to Deck Today: Bobby Jindal, who made a major speech Thursday night at the Reagan Library arguing that that "liberal elites," including of course President Obama, are waging a "silent war" on religious freedom that would "transform the country from a land sustained by faith into a land where faith is silenced, privatized and circumscribed." Yeah, Bobby, you obnoxious, self-righteous, ignorant shmuck, this liberal elite person would definitely like to see religion "privatized." Pick up a copy of the Constitution you've sworn to uphold, where you'll find that the establishment clause of the First Amendment makes "privatization" of religion compulsory. Oh, and your concern that "liberals will use the mantra of anti-discrimination to force people to violate their religious beliefs"? Check out the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment whilst you've got the Constitution handy. ...
... First Runner-Up: Ted Cruz. Apparently every obnoxious/stupid/harmful thing Cruz or his compatriots say or do gets a pass. Stewart Powell of the San Francisco Chronicle: "Cruz dismissed reporters' questioning his role in sidetracking the House proposal on immigration reform. 'I understand that a lot of folks in the press want to focus on the Washington politics of it all,' Cruz said. 'I think most Americans could not care less about a bunch of politicians in Washington.'" ...
... Update. Extra Points for Cruz. Luke Johnson of the Huffington Post: "Amid a wave of court decisions striking down anti-gay marriage laws in states, the Texas Republican introduced a bill to the Senate Wednesday to amend U.S. law 'with regard to the definition of "marriage" and "spouse" for Federal purposes and to ensure respect for State regulation of marriage." Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is the bill's only co-sponsor so far."
... Still, the Biggest Asshole of the Week Award should go to zillionaire Tom Perkins. One Person, One Vote? Hell, No. Charles Riley of CNN: "Tom Perkins suggested Thursday that only taxpayers should have the right to vote -- and that wealthy Americans who pay more in taxes should get more votes. The venture capitalist offered the unorthodox proposal when asked to name one idea that would 'change the world' at a speaking engagement in San Francisco.... Perkins offered no immediate indication that he was joking. Asked offstage if the proposal was serious, Perkins said: "I intended to be outrageous, and it was.'"
Margaret Hartmann of New York has a point: Looks as if the only people being "held accountable" for the Snowden clusterfuck -- besides Snowden himself -- are two contractors & a member of the military attached to the NSA. CW: No actual NSA employees. And none of the geniuses who installed a system of protocols which practically invited someone like Snowden to compromise NSA data. The "S" in NSA guarantees top-tier job security, too. Great! ...
... RT: "Former Texas congressman Ron Paul has announced a petition aiming to secure clemency for Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower who revealed extensive US surveillance programs and ignited a national debate on Americans' privacy."
Beyond the Beltway
** "It's Not Just the Bridge." Alec MacGillis of the New Republic: "The problem with Christie isn't merely that he is a bully. It's that his political career is built on a rotten foundation. Christie owes his rise to some of the most toxic forces in his state -- powerful bosses who ensure that his vow to clean up New Jersey will never come to pass. He has allowed them to escape scrutiny, rewarded them for their support, and punished their enemies. All along, even as it looked like Christie was attacking the machine, he was really just mastering it." CW: A fascinating read.
Anne Blythe of the Raleigh News & Observer: "The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the state environmental agency tasked with regulating Duke Energy after a coal ash spill left the Dan River so polluted that people were advised to avoid contact with the water. The probe, environmentalists say, might also open a window into the relationship that state regulators have with the country's largest electricity provider, a company that also was a 28-year employer of Gov. Pat McCrory [R]." ...
... Michael Biesecker & Mitch Weiss of the AP: "Over the last year, environmental groups have tried three times to use the federal Clean Water Act to force Duke Energy to clear out leaky coal ash dumps like the one that ruptured last week, spewing enough toxic sludge into a North Carolina river to fill 73 Olympic-sized pools. Each time, they say, their efforts have been stymied -- by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The state agency has blocked the citizen lawsuits by intervening at the last minute to assert its own authority.... After negotiating with Duke, the state proposed settlements where the nation's largest electricity provider pays modest fines but is under no requirement to actually clean up its coal ash ponds.... The environmentalists suggest [Gov. Pat McCrory's] administration's real goal has been to shield the governor's former employer from far more severe and expensive penalties it might face if the cases ever made it to a federal courtroom."
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Norfolk struck down Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage Thursday night, saying it violates the constitution's guarantee of equal protection. U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen stayed her decision so that it can be appealed, and so same-sex marriages in the commonwealth will not begin immediately. Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D), who had switched the state's legal position on the issue and joined two gay couples in asking that the ban be struck down, has said the state will continue to enforce the ban until the legal process is over." CW: Allen is an Obama appointee.
Mark Stern in Slate: "In addition to barring all anti-discrimination lawsuits against private employers, [a bill passed by the Kansas State House would] permit government employees to deny service to gays in the name of 'religious liberty.' ... If a gay couple calls the police, an officer may refuse to help them if interacting with a gay couple violates his religious principles. State hospitals can turn away gay couples...." ...
... CW: For what it's worth, I think there's a bit too much hyperventilation over this bill, even though it is likely to become Kansas law. But not for long. It is clearly unconstitutional, and the first challenge should be upheld. I would expect a judge to order a stay as it moves through the courts.
Chrissie Thompson of the Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio "State Rep. Peter Beck, R-Mason, now faces a total of 69 felony counts and is under pressure to resign his General Assembly seat. A Hamilton County indictment alleges Beck helped bilk investors of hundreds of thousands of dollars as chief financial officer of an insolvent West Chester software startup owned by the late Cincinnati money manager Thomas M. Lysaght. Beck also is accused of taking some of the money intended for the startup ... and diverting it to his campaign fund. Ark by the River Fellowship Ministry, a secretive Linwood church investigated by The Enquirer in September, also received much of the money from the fraud, according to the indictment issued Thursday. So the church -- a 'cult,' according to the felony indictment -- and Pastor Janet Combs, who is Lysaght's widow, also face felony charges for corruption, money laundering and receiving stolen property."
News Ledes
Reuters: "A 120-car Norfolk Southern Corp train carrying heavy Canadian crude oil derailed and spilled in western Pennsylvania on Thursday, adding to a string of recent accidents that have prompted calls for stronger safety standards. There were no reports of injury or fire after 21 tank cars came off the track and crashed into a nearby industrial building at a bend by the Kiskiminetas River in the town of Vandergrift."
AP: "A windy stretch of the Mojave Desert once roamed by tortoises and coyotes has been transformed by hundreds of thousands of mirrors into the largest solar power plant of its type in the world, a milestone for a growing industry that is testing the balance between wilderness conservation and the pursuit of green energy across the American West. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, sprawling across roughly 5 square miles (13 sq. kilometers) of federal land near the California-Nevada border, formally opened Thursday after years of regulatory and legal tangles ranging from relocating protected tortoises to assessing the impact on Mojave milkweed and other plants."
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Reader Comments (12)
Senator Corker to VW workers in Tennessee: "Zo, vee understand you haf relatives in Tennessee? Vee haf vays of making you vote correctly. It vould be a shame if your brozzer's job prospects were liquidated when ze new plant goes to Argentina, nein? Und, pay no attention to VW management ... all your base belong to us."
@Patrick: Very funny–-sounds more like a Russian proletariat. I am very interested in the outcome of this vote. Corker's fear of worker's united gives him shivers and nightmares.
And speaking of Russia, our U.S. Ambassador, the wonderful Michael McFaul is saying bye, bye to Putin and his powerful country. Article below:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116610/michael-mcfaul-exit-interview-us-ambassador-russia-speaks
Re; Another Valentine fine mess;
Listen up Kansas, hear me out Bobby Jindal, I'm talking to you Rand Paul; I got a plan. Tax religion. That's right, property, pastor, donations and all. Flat rate, dime on the dollar. That money pays for social services, nothing more. You folks finally could be doing the Lord's work that you say you've been doing all along. All those special needs people you've supported in the womb? From cradle to grave your God tax takes care of them. The poor, the sick, the huddled masses? You've got them covered. The needy, the lame, the old; think, you are taking care of God's chosen ones. All those tax dollars from every church, temple, mosque, and cult club house across the land. Every dollar rung out of every believer all working for charity. What God fearing man, woman or child wouldn't like to comfort the masses?
No more Uncle Sam handouts, no more greedy IRS digging into your pockets, this is God the Father spreading the wealth and sharing the riches that spring from this blessed nation.
Wait..., What? You don't like the idea? Bad idea, Bible says nothing about sharing with the needy, the lame, the sick, the old, the forgotten?
What is said on Sunday, stays on Sunday?
Jesus likes rich, white, healthy people? Can't say I blame him for that. Cripples, beggars and lepers and thieves are so much trouble. Not like us. Yea, you're right, bad idea.
OK, how about this? The rich worship money, why not tax them for God's work in this nation under God? Really, really bad idea, you'll hurt their rich feelings and we don't want rich people with hurt feelings.
OK, fuck them poor people, they don't get a Valentine card or a tiny little candy heart, they don't deserve one.
So here's the Right-Wing World zeitgeist, as gleaned from a number of posts this morning:
"Dignity of Work", of course. Living wage, ha-ha-ha. Unions, never.
Healthcare is bad. Paid actors say so.
Forget the CBO. The ACA costs jobs. Period.
Actual governing, nyet. Self-centered grandstanding, da.
Immigration reform? Okay. When we're dead.
No more voting for poor people. The rich can vote as often as they like.
You can't trust the public to do what we tell them, so we set up phony-baloney Astroturf organizations funded by billionaires to "represent" the interests of the little people, those ignorant schmucks.
Experience doesn't matter as long as you know how to grease the wheels, take care of your friends, and hammer their enemies once you get into the governor's office.
Stiff-arm anyone who tries to hold your corporate buddies responsible for the toxic environmental hazards they cause.
Christianity, da. US Constitution, nyet.
Equal protection under the law, nyet. Frenetic homophobic flailing, always.
Use your office to defraud the public and act on your every corrupt instinct. Just don't get caught.
Whatever the problem, it's Obama's fault.
@AK: Good summery and as I'm writing from underneath a huge blanket of what we in the Northeast call SNOW I'd add denial of Climate change/ Global Warming to your list. And since JJG mentions this God being responsible for much of the right's actions, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts HE's pissed at the South for something since they got a shit load of snow and sleet. Now what could God be so pissed about they wonder. Maybe by the time these folks dig themselves out of the deluge and fetch their cars from who knows where they might just figure out that this God of theirs had nothing to do with this and the scientists were right all along––but I doubt it.
Tom Perkins suggests keying your vote quanta to your net worth. OK, as long as your net worth isn't counted in money. How about one vote for each step taken on Afghanistan mine-hunting patrols? One vote for each hour in a combat zone, as an exposed combatant not a remington raider? One vote for every middle schooler you teach? I could go on, you get the point. Perkins thinks that money is the measure of the citizen. Sad for him.
PD,
What is god, in the eyes of the wingnuts, pissed about?
Gays, godless liberals, women indulging their libidos without a permission slip from Mike Huckabee, women being allowed a choice about how to live their lives, the black man in the White House, moochers who aren't sufficiently grateful, any and all efforts at gun control, attempts to raise the minimum wage, school systems that teach evolution, separation of church and state, people making fun of Wal Mart shoppers, you name it. Plenty of things to be pissed about.
Oh, and regarding my list, there are a load of things I didn't mention. I restricted the items to things noted only in today's links.
We'd be here 'til "'baggers for Barack" was an actual movement if I had to adumbrate all the nasty stuff oozing out of Right Wing World.
Patrick,
He's not the only one who thinks that way. I'm guessing, people like Perkins, recalling that the Constitution originally estimated black people as only partial persons, will soon be demanding that rich people be deemed multiple persons; an apartment block full of people, or maybe an entire stadium. But if we got to do it by their humanity, some of them would only get a thimble's worth of personhood.
If the right is so hung up about the "dignity of work," why I am I deluged every evening with ads that tout "retire early?" Maybe in your 40's or 50's. Where is the outrage?
And thinking of Tom Perkins, as unappealing as that is, he may have good reason to fear retribution from the masses he despises. At least I hope so.
In the late 90's while cruising in French waters in one of his many gigantic yachts, Perkins smashed into a much smaller boat, killing a man on board.
He walked. He paid a pittance fine, got back on his yacht and sailed away while the family of the man he killed got nothing, and then he had the gall to complain that he "...was arrested and tried in a foreign court in a language you don't understand, by judges indifferent - or worse - to justice, represented by an inappropriate lawyer with the negative outcome preordained." An unconscionable prick.
This episode reminds me of one of the most startling scenes in all of Dickens' work, and baby, that's saying something.
Do you recall the contemptuous, imperious character of the Marquis St. Evrémonde from Tale of Two Cities? Another unconscionable prick. Early in the book, this swaggering aristo has his driver race his carriage through the streets in order to frighten the peasants, just for a laugh. A small boy is trampled to death by his horses. The Marquis, completely put out by this temporary stoppage of his fun, tosses the little boy's heartbroken father a few coins and drives off. Standing in a doorway watching is another of Dicken's most vivid characters, the psychotic Madame Defarge, with her knitting needles. This, of course, is not at all a good sign for the Marquis who, a few chapters later, is found belly up with a knife in his chest.
Sic semper scumbags.
Was Perkins chastened by the death of the man who had the misfortune to get in his way and spoil his fun? Not in the least. He went out not long after and bought himself the biggest yacht in the world, presumably so he wouldn't be disturbed by the screams of whoever he ran over next.
How is the attitude of Tom Perkins that much different from the Marquis? And he thinks he deserves even more?
Anyone seen Madame Defarge lately?
I'm gonna to start a movement to really drive the Republicans nuts. Forget Hillary. Let's elect another black president in 2016.
@James Singer: How about a black or latina, female, lesbian. They hate minorities, women, GLBT. Or anyone with an IQ over 50.