The Commentariat -- Feb. 20, 2013
John Schwartz of the New York Times: "The White House on Wednesday will flesh out the plans President Obama announced in the State of the Union address to repair the nation's ailing infrastructure, a White House official said.... The draft [summary of the plan] sounds three major themes that Mr. Obama has discussed since he was first a candidate for the presidency, but with initiatives intended to engage in work that minimizes the need for Congressional approval and which can capitalize on private investment to help start projects."
President Obama spoke about the sequester Tuesday:
... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Days away from another fiscal crisis and with Congress on vacation, President Obama began marshaling the powers of the presidency on Tuesday to try to shame Republicans into a compromise that could avoid further self-inflicted job losses and damage to the fragile recovery. But so far, Republicans were declining to engage." ...
... Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Obama will sit for interviews with eight local reporters on Wednesday, as he continues to ratchet up his pressure on lawmakers to take action to prevent automatic spending cuts from taking effect on March 1." CW: ah, the "puppet master" at work. ...
... David Firestone of the New York Times: "... it's ridiculous for Republicans to claim the sequester is really Mr. Obama's idea, as if a kidnapper's relatives deserve blame for paying the ransom.... Republicans love the idea of reducing spending but prefer to remain in the shadows when the cuts actually materialize. Even now, they won't consider the Democratic alternative of balancing cuts with an equal amount of higher tax revenue from the rich and corporations...." ...
... Michael Tomasky of Newsweek: "My Twitter feed these last couple of weeks has been overflowing with people going beyond the usual 'communist' and 'idiot' name-calling that I get every day and throwing the occasional 'liar' in there because I 'withhold' the information that the sequester was the Obama administration's idea.... Let's grant that this is true. But it's true only because the Republicans were holding a gun to the administration's head -- and besides, the Republicans immediately voted for it.... The Republicans are partial owners of this idea, and as the party that now wants the cuts to kick in, they deserve to -- and will -- bear more responsibility for the negative impacts." Tomasky recounts the history of the sequester. Worth noting: "... according to Bob Woodward in his new book, Jack Lew ... originally came up with the notion of sequestered cuts. Or maybe it was Gene Sperling."
... BUT WAIT, there's more. John Avlon of Newsweek: "I happened to come across an old email that throws cold water on House Republicans' attempts to call this 'Obama's Sequester.' It's a PowerPoint presentation that Boehner's office developed with the Republican Policy Committee and sent out to the Capitol Hill GOP on July 31, 2011.... It's essentially an internal sales document from the old dealmaker Boehner to his unruly and often unreasonable Tea Party cohort. But it's clear as day in the presentation that 'sequestration' was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending.... The presentation lays out the deal in clear terms, describing the spending backstop as 'automatic across-the-board cuts ("sequestration"). Same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.'" CW: do ignore Avlon's deep bow to the Simpsons & Bowels.
... The Washington Monument Strategy. Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "... whatever the level of damage across-the-board would impose, we can expect the affected agencies will try to make the damage look as high as possible." ...
... Steve Benen parses the both-side-are-to-blame argument on the sequester (& on other issues that come before Congress). Now, try to follow: "Democrats are open to a balanced compromise, Republicans aren't, so Democrats bear some responsibility for the mess by asking far-right extremists who abhor compromise to accept a deal that requires equal sacrifices from both sides. If only Democrats would accept Republican extremism at face value, and realize GOP officials aren't interested in constructive bipartisan policymaking, they could simply give Republicans what they want and spare us all the aggravation." ...
Amazing Feat: Two Old Coots Move Goal Posts!
Greg Sargent: "Like a pair of aging crooners hoping to recapture past glory with a long-awaited reunion tour, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson released a new version of their deficit reduction plan [Tuesday]. Ezra Klein ferrets out the real news in the plan: It asks for far less in new revenues, and more in spending cuts, than the previous Simpson-Bowles plan did.... The plan roughly represents the ideological midpoint between the Obama and Boehner fiscal cliff blueprints -- which is why the plan is so heavily tilted towards cuts." ...
... Here's Ezra Klein's breakdown. Simpson-Bowles 2.0 is "meant to be an outline for a new grand bargain. To that end, Simpson and Bowles began with Obama and Boehner's final offers from the fiscal cliff deal.... While this plan doesn't include more tax increases than Obama asked for, it does include significantly more than the $1 trillion in spending cuts than Boehner asked for.... In increasing the total deficit reduction, Simpson and Bowles have put the weight on the spending side of the budget." ...
... Kevin Drum: "In SB 1.0, deficit reduction was moderately evenly divided between spending cuts and tax increases. In SB 2.0, they've suddenly decided it should be 75 percent spending cuts. That's despite the fact that spending cuts have already been 75 percent of the deficit reduction we've done so far. Why? ... I guess they figure that conservative sacred cows are a little more sacred than liberal ones. Or something. But even if you take deficit reduction seriously in the first place, this sure makes it hard to take Simpson-Bowles 2.0 seriously as a plan." ...
... Derek Thompson of the Atlantic notes that the new Simpson-Bowles back-of-the-napkin plan looks mighty Republican. ...
... Tim Noah of The New Republic: "You may have heard that Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, matinee idols of the Austerity Über Alles movement, have devised a new budget-slimming plan. That's not quite right. They've produced a very rough outline that's deliberately short on details [because they don't have time to add & subtract & all when they have to spend so much time on the teevee.]... Simpson and Bowles's ... agenda is not limited to deficit reduction. They also want to lower tax rates. Why? They just want to, is all." ...
... Charles Pierce: "The main non-drone gripe I'm going to have with the president when he leaves office is the muscle he put behind the preposterous Simpson-Bowles Commission. The basic problem was that he handed the administration's credibility over to a former bagma...er...lobbyist and to the single most unpleasant member of the Republican Undead. Having done that, he allowed them to establish the basic austerity-leaning parameters of the overall economic discussion. He gave the Republicans a baseline from which to attack any proposal to the left of something that Ike might have liked. And, worst of all, he gave the courtier press a graven image to worship.... The Village must have its cults, and Simpson-Bowles is pre-eminent among them."
Michael Hirsh of the National Journal: "... what has gone largely unnoted by the punditocracy is that, over the past decade or so..., [Chuck Hagel] has distinguished himself with subtle, well-thought-out, and accurate analyses of some of America's greatest strategic challenges of the 21st century -- especially the response to 9/11 -- while many of his harshest critics got these issues quite wrong." Happily, Hirsh uses Tom Friedman as his Exhibit A for pundits who got it wrong. CW: oh yeah? Kate Madison noticed.
Peter Waldman of the American Prospect: "When he leaves office in January of 2017 -- provided there isn't a terrible scandal or some kind of economic or foreign policy disaster between now and then -- Barack Obama will likely be hailed as the greatest Democratic hero since John F. Kennedy.... Obama -- particularly the second-term Obama -- does not apologize for liberalism. That isn't to say he's the most liberal guy around, because he isn't. But ... he does not exude the fear of his party's ideology that characterized an earlier generation, scarred as they were by the Gingrich revolution of 1994.... Some Democrats look like they're moving left, and it's for one reason: because it's good politics."
Cristina Silva of the AP: "Arizona took center stage in the national immigration debate Tuesday as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano [who is the former governor of Arizona] toured the state's border with Mexico and Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix." CW: proving you never know when McCain is going to surprise you & do the right thing. ...
... THEN AGAIN, "All the Latest Rage." Charles Pierce: "To be perfectly fair to the howling mob -- and we like to be fair to howling mobs around here, especially when they inconvenience Republicans -- this may have something to do with McCain's once again seeming to have reversed himself on the issue. This is, after all, a man who ran against his own immigration bill when he was trying to get nominated in 2008 and, when feeling threatened by a primary challenge the last time he came up for re-election." Read the whole post.
... Matthew Cooper of the National Journal on the White House Press Corps' Latest Crybaby Moment: "The greater threat from the Obama administration isn't the usual playing of head games with the White House press corps; it's the aggressive prosecution of both the people who leak government information and the reporters who receive it. I have some skin in the game on this too, having been involved in the CIA leak case that began 10 years ago when I wrote about how the White House was waging a war on Joe Wilson. The aggressive prosecution of leaks and the invocation of once-dormant statutes to go after leakers and reporters threatens to shut down real and vital sources of information.... Ask reporters, such as James Risen of the New York Times, who have been in the legal crosshairs for their role in reporting on intelligence issues. Those are the things we really need to know. The president's golf score? Oh, please." ...
... A note on our intrepid journalist class. Greg Mitchell: Mike Allen of Politico "wrote [yesterday] that Obama avoids Politico reporters in part because they 'ask tough, unpredictable questions.' ... So John Cook, editor of Gawker, just performed a public service by posting on Twitter every question Allen chose to ask President Bush when he did get full access back in 2008. You may remember 2008 -- the economy was about to collapse and we were still in a full shooting war in Iraq." Mitchell picks a number of his favorite Allen-to-Bush "tough, unpredictable questions." Here are two, but do read Mitchell's list. Thanks to MAG for the link:
All right. Mr. President, who does the better impression, Will Ferrell of you, or Dana Carvey of your father?
Now, Mr. President, you and the First Lady appeared on American Idol's charity show, "Idol Gives Back." And I wonder who do you think is going to win? Syesha, David Cook, or David Archuleta?
... ** Our Intrepid Press Corps, Hard-Right-Wing Edition. Dan Friedman, a New York "Daily News reporter, "explains how he inadvertently created the myth that Chuck Hagel spoke to a non-existent group." "If you see a story on Hagel addressing the Junior League of Hezbollah, that's fake too." When you think they can't do anything worse than smearing Shirley Sherrod with totally deceptive tape-editing that inverted the substance of her speech, think again.
Thom Shanker & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Gen. John R. Allen, the four-star Marine Corps officer who served until earlier this month as the top commander in Afghanistan, will retire from the military to focus on 'health issues within his family,' President Obama said on Tuesday. General Allen was caught up in the scandal that led to the resignation of David H. Petraeus as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. But last month, the Pentagon officially cleared him of misconduct after an investigation into his exchange of e-mails with Jill Kelley, a Tampa, Fla., woman who was also a friend of Mr. Petraeus's.... There is little doubt that an unexpected obstacle to General Allen's new assignment at NATO was the inquiry by the Pentagon inspector general."
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: The Supreme Court's "hearing from the administration is especially important because the Prop 8 defenders, in their brief to the court, cite the president's comments about the 'healthy debate' occurring in the states in defense of letting the law stand. And especially given the president's words last month: 'If we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.' A president who speaks so eloquently at his inaugural cannot allow his administration to remain silent before the court, where words are translated into reality."
Excellent. Supremes to Take a Shot at Making Politics Even More Corrupt. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a challenge to federal campaign contribution limits, setting the stage for what may turn out to be the most important federal campaign finance case since the court's 2010 decision in Citizens United, which struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions.... 'In Citizens United, the court resisted tinkering with the rules for contribution limits,' said Richard L. Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California, Irvine. 'This could be the start of chipping away at contribution limits.'"
Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: "Unless the Justice Department and BP reach a last-minute settlement, the British oil company will return to court on Monday to face tens of billions of dollars in civil claims from the 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that could cripple the company for years to come.... The Federal District Court trial in New Orleans will bundle suits brought by the Justice Department, state governments, private business and individual claimants against BP and several of its contractors. Decisions on culpability and damages could be a year or more away, but they are likely to have profound impacts on environmental law and determine the viability of BP as a major oil company with global ambitions."
Katherine Skiba of the Chicago Tribune: "Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., and his wife, former Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson, are expected to plead guilty to federal charges Wednesday, when more details may emerge about an alleged crime spree in which he is accused of spending more than $750,000 in campaign cash to buy luxury items, memorabilia and other goods."
Holy Crystal Meth! Is the Roman Catholic Church just one big criminal op? N. R. Kleinfield of the New York Times: "At a time when priests from California to Delaware have been accused of loathsome deeds, the allegations against Monsignor [Kevin] Wallin, the former pastor of the Cathedral of St. Augustine in Bridgeport, [Connecticut,] are of a notably different dimension: that he was a drug dealer and addict who was buying an adult novelty shop to launder ill-gotten proceeds, a priest who was cross-dressing and having sex with men.... Colleagues said that ... he had long been sexually active with men.... The Diocese of Bridgeport had forced Monsignor Wallin from his position at St. Augustine in June 2011, after it was alerted to his dissonant behavior. His parishioners were told only of ambiguous personal and health issues.... The lurid case is only the latest scandal for the Bridgeport Diocese, already tainted by a string of clerical sexual abuse cases. Last year, the Rev. Michael R. Moynihan, the former pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Greenwich, was sent to prison for obstructing justice after being accused of spending church money on himself. In 2007, the Rev. Michael Jude Fay, from St. John Roman Catholic Church in Darien, was convicted of stealing $1.3 million; he died in prison."
Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has jumped 45 cents in the past 31 days, according to AAA, the fastest run-up since 2005." Mufson talks to some experts about why -- um, "market tension" or something.
Local News
Matt Helm & Joe Guillen of the Detroit Free Press: "An emergency review team’s report on Detroit paints a city on the verge of collapse, too inflexible to restructure itself, unable to explain why its budget forecasts are routinely wrong and no longer capable of papering over its crisis by taking out loans.... Detroit is out of time, a six-member review team lead by state Treasurer Andy Dillon said in a report delivered Tuesday to Gov. Rick Snyder. Snyder is widely expected to use the evidence to appoint an emergency financial manager to tame a yearslong runaway budget crisis."
News Ledes
New York Times: "In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that criminal defense lawyers must warn their clients if deportation could be a consequence of a guilty plea. On Wednesday, the courtlimited the reach of that ruling, saying it did not apply retroactively to people whose convictions had become final by the time the justices announced their 2010 decision, Padilla v. Kentucky."
AP: "Evidence of an unrelenting campaign of cyberstealing linked to the Chinese government is prompting the Obama administration to develop more aggressive responses to the theft of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets. The Obama administration is expected to announce new measures Wednesday, including possible fines and other trade actions against China or any other country guilty of cyber-espionage."
Reuters: "Groundbreaking to build new U.S. homes fell in January but new permits for construction rose to a 4 1/2-year high, reinforcing expectations the housing market will support economic growth this year."
Reuters: "Office Depot Inc said on Wednesday that it would buy smaller rival OfficeMax Inc for $1.17 billion in stock to get more clout with suppliers and better compete against Staples Inc and Amazon.com Inc."
AP: In Orange County, California, a "shooter, 20-year-old Ali Syed, killed a woman in the home he shared with his parents, killed two drivers during carjackings, injured two others and shot up cars on a busy freeway interchange before committing suicide as police closed in, authorities said."
Reuters: "Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests< against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt crisis. Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union's poorest member, now faces a tough task to prop up eroding support ahead of a probable early election."
Reuters: "A Syrian missile killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Tuesday, opposition activists said, as the army turns to longer-range weapons after losing bases in the country's second-largest city. The use of what opposition activists said was a large missile of the same type as Russian-made Scuds against an Aleppo residential district came after rebels overran army bases over the past two months from which troops had fired artillery."
AP: "Tens of thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday as unions staged a general strike to protest government spending cuts and tax hikes, which some predict will push unemployment to an alarming 30 percent. Police said up to 40,000 people were participating in two separate marches in central Athens that were so far peaceful."
Chicago Tribune Wire Services: "Witnesses heard 'non-stop shouting' in the home of Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius shortly before his girlfriend was shot dead, the lead detective in the murder investigation said on Wednesday." CW: Read the whole story; sounds like Pistorius is a murderer AND a liar.
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The Catholic Church is the original Too Big To Jail. Clearly, this is a corrupt organization that has as much to do with the Sermon on the Mount as it does with the Gambino family. I'm imagining a Law and Order episode in which Jack McCoy has finally had enough and goes after the Church for malicious indifference.
Re: the truth is you can't trust it. Michael Hirsh's article tore the scab off one of my greatest wounds as a member of our society. People that get no respect for telling "it" like it really is. Chuck Hagel tells it like it is and gets shit upon by others because they "can't handle the fucking truth." Happens everyday, everywhere. We have this myth in America that we are like old Hollywood tough guys; "Give it to me straight Doc; it's the big C, ain't it?". "No, soldier, the relief column ain't goin' to get here. It's our stand and we're goin' to die."
But that's just an other example of American exceptionalism, right? We believe shit that's shit and reject the hard truths. I'm afraid we are all asswipes.
JJG: Last weekend I listened to an exchange between Brian on Q &A and (sorry I forgot his name) the past curator of the Nixon Museum. He told the tale of having the people who worked in the Museum listen to some of the Nixon tapes that he wanted to feature there. On several of these tapes Nixon uses blatant racist and bigoted comments. After the meeting many of these listeners came up to him and either asked who doctored the tapes and/or how dare he consider featuring these tapes in the Museum. They just couldn't believe Nixon could say those things or if they could they didn't want that to be any part of his legacy. This curator, who laments that many of our presidential museums are more like shrines instead of actual history, has come to the conclusion, as he told Brian, that when people want and need to believe something nothing is going to deter that belief--facts be damned. I'm thinking now of the Jefferson/ Sally Hemings connection and wonder whether that truth has gotten into the Jeffersonian museum at last.
So, your comments about Chuck Hagel correspond to this "we believe shit that's shit and reject the hard truths," and I fear it's something we have to live with. I have this fantasy of someone coming back from the dead and telling the world there were no pearly gates, no god greeted him, no virgins there to soothe and stroke him, and so forth–––but even then there would be those that would say, "You Lie!" Sigh~~~~~~~~~~~as Tony Soprano would say, "Whataya goin to do?"
@Kate: Thanks for getting back to me. Another key player here was David Addington, Cheney's right hand man. These neoconservatives had a grand scale plan to restructure the Middle East–-a hegemonic dream of dominance over that region. The acquisition of bases in Iraq (to replace the bases in Saudi Arabia that the Saudi government forced the US to close in 2003 and Iranian bases lost because of the Iranian revolution in 1979) was, from what I understand from my readings on this, an underlying motive for the American invasion of Iraq.
in today's Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/sports/ncaafootball/a-company-that-runs-prisons-will-have-its-name-on-a-stadium.html
"On Tuesday, that trend took another strange turn when Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, firmed a deal to rename its football building GEO Group Stadium. Perhaps that pushed stadium naming to its zenith, if only because the GEO Group is a private prison corporation."
A shocking idea that this Geo group even exists, let alone brags about it.
The sportcasters can call it the "house that misery built"
mae finch
Journalism done Right (wing).
In a Daily News post linked by Marie, above, we discover the horrible origin story of that dreaded terrorist organization, Friends of Hamas who "reportedly" hired Chuck Hagel as a speaker, tossing him a $25K honorarium for his trouble. Breitbart.com, that citadel of journalistic ethics, scooped everyone on this schlocking revelation which, it turns out, was a complete fabrication. Surprise!
Dan Friedman, a Daily News reporter suggested, with both eyes winking wildly, to Breitbart genius Ben Shapiro, that Hagel had been importuned by a non-existent terrorist organization to speak before their collected group of murderers, throat-slitters, bomb-throwers, and America hating terrorists called, ridiculously, the Friends of Hamas.
Attempting to conceal a massive woody, Shapiro ran home and posted the "story".
If you think it's typical of a Breitbart, or other far right-wing "news" outlet to print completely risible made up shit as if it were publishing the Pentagon Papers, you're right. But it gets better.
After being apprised that he had been had, Shapiro responded with all the obtuseness that ideological blindness can confer.
“The story as reported is correct. Whether the information I was given by the source is correct I am not sure,” he said.
Get that? Even though I was had and printed false information, the story is correct.
It's a lie but it's true.
Only in Rightwing World.
Had Friedman called it "Associated Supporters of Child Rapers" Breitbart would still have published it and then refused to retract or correct it.
Just another day in the World of Wingnuts.
@JJG, PD Pepe. Here in North Georgia, no matter what happens, Obama did it," no matter how far fetched that may be. Marie said the other day that rednecks might blame Repugs for the national parks closing. Oh no, Obama did it. Boehner is busy with a disinformation campaign painting the sequester as the President's idea. Which are they going to believe? The truth? I don't think so.
Payroll taxes go up after Republicans kill the payroll tax holiday? It must be Obamacare! When I point out that Obamacare doesn't go into full effect until next year, I get a blank look.
I saw a piece in our local paper this a.m. that made me chuckle. Obama is getting his infrastructure plan polished up and will be talking about in interviews. TeeHee. I imagine the Republicans have such a hate on they can't see straight. The usual complaints from Republicans when Obama takes a break were absent this weekend (replace by those who demand to film "The Changing of the Presidential Underwear" on a daily basis). I suspect the disloyal opposition was breathing a sigh of relief. Obviously, they are unable to sustain a thought for longer than 10 seconds and dual thoughts would just end up dueling. He's just throwing too much at them at once. Obama has studied presidential 2nd terms and he is responding with appropriate urgency.
I also admire his ability to maximize opportunities like receiving the Israeli Presidential Medal of Distinction next month. It's obvious there was some back and forth on this, the award is beneficial to both sides. It's like his mind never rests and all with no personal scandals. Obama demonstrates the character, back story and intelligence for which every Republican would give their left nut to find in a 2016 candidate ..and he does it all while being black. Of course when you embrace the stupid, revisionist personal history (Rubio), and moral bankruptcy that is modern day Republican its unlikely that they will overcome their blinding rage any time soon.
My skirt blew over my head in glee when I read about the loud nasty directed at McCain in his town hall. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. And how about that Mark Sanford...he learned so much from lying to ...well everybody. He is pathetic and trite. Just go away.
Barbarossa,
Another "It's all Obama's fault" whine is just around the corner. And it's a three-fer.
A story on NPR this morning raised the very real possibility that extremely overweight people who work for large corporations may find that their contribution to health insurance under the new healthcare reforms may go up. The idea was, I'm pretty sure, to encourage individuals to bring their weight down so as to reduce future healthcare costs, an important element in the president's plan.
And where are the most obese people in the country? Oh yeah! Red State World.
So now, in addition to whining about being forced to join Obamacare and have, you know, a chance at a better life, the Obama haters throughout the predominantly conservative South can also wail about being denied all those deep fried Snickers bars or else paying the consequences in higher premiums.
Damn Obama. He fucks everything up!
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revolt-of-the-rich/
Don't be put off that it's from The American Conservative (perhaps we will get extra points for being so open minded). It is another informative assessment of the GOP plutocrats by Michael Lofgren. I suppose it is no surprise to most here, but I am reassured that someone from the other team has come to the same conclusions.