The Commentariat -- Feb. 6, 2014
Internal links removed.
NEW. Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. Although these cameras can't read license plates or see faces, they provide such a wealth of data that police, businesses and even private individuals can use them to help identify people and track their movements.... Defense contractors are developing similar technology for the military, but its potential for civilian use is raising novel civil liberties concerns."
NEW. Everything Is Obama's Fault, Ctd. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Facing growing resistance from conservatives, Speaker John A. Boehner on Thursday cast strong doubt that he could pass an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws this year, leaving it to President Obama to win the trust of his balking Republicans.... 'There's widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws, and it's going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes,'" Boehner said....
... CW: Hope you got the logic of that. As long as the Congress & the President are from opposite parties, Congress is completely impotent! Ergo, best thing to do -- throw the bums out this year. Funny how Newt Gingrich promised a Contract on America when Clinton was president. Of course, there is one difference between Clinton & Obama: the former has pasty white skin; the latter does not.
Greg Sargent: "Under questioning today before the House Budget Committee from Dem Rep. Chris Van Hollen, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf confirmed that in reality, his report suggests Obamacare will reduce unemployment":
... Dylan Scott of TPM: Paul Ryan contradicted the party line during the Q&A with Elmendorf. "'Just to understand, it is not that employers are laying people off,' Ryan said. 'That is right,' Elmendorf said. That's a pretty direct contradiction for the attack adopted by many GOPers following the report's release.... [But] Ryan ... said he was 'troubled' by the report because it suggested that Obamacare was encouraging Americans 'not to get on the ladder of life, to begin working, getting the dignity of work, getting more opportunities, rising the income, joining the middle class.'"
... Brian Beutler demonstrates how the GOP's lying about the CBO report "flow[s] naturally from the composition of the [conservative] movement itself." In other words, the suspension of reality over there is Right Wing World will continue, a few passing nods to the real world via Ryan & others notowithstanding. ...
... Like Ryan, Ross Douthat is still very upset that some people who should be in the work force may drop out because of ObamaCare. CW: There are obvious fixes for any built-in discouragement of work (more give to sliding subsidies, etc.), but don't expect Republicans to knuckle down & write corrective legislation. ...
... Ah, I see Charles Pierce also calls out Ryan & Douthat, & as usual, he displays his full contempt for both of them. ...
... Brad Friedman of the BradBlog, in Salon: "... the release of two different official reports, one from the U.S. State Department on the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project and another from the Congressional Budget Office on the economic outlook in light of the Affordable Care Act [caused leaders of the Republican party] ... to blatantly lie about what's in each of those reports, specifically with regard to 'job creation'...." The State Department's KXL report estimated that after a two-year construction period, the pipeline would create 35 -- count 'em, 35 -- permanent employees. After the report's release, Speaker John Boehner reiterated his claim that the KXL pipeline would bring "more than 100,000 jobs."
... ** Major Media Fail. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "The big loser in Tuesday's Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report release ... is the traditional media. This was a textbook case of reading incomprehension, preconceived assumptions, susceptibility to spin and inability to admit an error, spread out over the airwaves, the Internet, and blowing up in real time. In the aftermath, it's fascinating to see how it all played out: who corrected themselves, who backpedaled without ever acknowledging their fuck up, who insisted that even if they were wrong they were right, and who ran with the lie and are sticking with it." McCarter gives a special shoutout to gutless ignoramus Tuck Chodd. ...
... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post has a quick rundown of many of the media outlets that initially blew the story & changed their headlines, not to mention the content of their stories. ...
... Steve Benen: "... if this were simply an instance in which conservatives pushed a bogus attack and the media fell for it, this would become an interesting anecdote in a journalism textbook about media malpractice. But as [the] day progressed, we actually saw a more alarming twist: media professionals suggesting reality doesn't matter all that much." As Politico put it,
The Republicans just got a big gift from the Congressional Budget Office: It's going to be a lot easier for them to call Obamacare a 'job killer.' ... There's a lot more fine print about what those numbers really mean, and whether the jobs were 'lost.' ... But what matters politically is how they'll look in attack ads. And in this election year, '2 million lost jobs' is a Republican ad maker's dream."
... CW: The Politico piece, by David Nather & Jason Millman, who are among those Politico "reporters" who come & go so often they might be interns, is the worst case of journalistic malpractice I've seen in a long time. ...
... The Other CBO Report. John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "... something the C.B.O. said that you probably missed, which is based on actual facts rather than on informed speculation: in the past five years or so -- and this has nothing to do with Obamacare -- some six million jobs (and workers) have already gone missing from the U.S. economy. That figure was in a separate report that the C.B.O. released on Tuesday, titled, 'The Slow Recovery of the Labor Market.' ... Since 2008, the Republicans have been fighting policy efforts to stimulate spending and hiring. In part, they are responsible for the millions of missing workers." CW: The Senate should be holding big splashy hearings on this report. (Although if they tried, maybe nobody would show up.)
Latest GOP Ransom Demand. Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "A new break in the GOP's debt-ceiling strategy emerged at a private lunch on Wednesday, where House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) encouraged his allies to consider linking a restoration of recently cut military benefits with a one-year extension of the federal government's borrowing authority.... Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signaled he would like to see a restoration of the previous level of cost-of-living benefits for military personnel, and aides said he is planning to push legislation as early as next week that would return billions of related funding cut under last year's budget agreement." ...
... CW: So Boehner may demand that Democrats do what Harry Reid wants. Maybe Boehner should also demand a path to citizenship for immigrants, a $12 minimum wage & Medicare for all.
Dominic Rushe & Jill Treanor of the Guardian: "New York state's top financial regulator has demanded documents from more than a dozen banks including Barclays, Deutsche, Goldman Sachs and RBS as a probe widened into trading practices in the $5.3tn-a-day global foreign exchange markets. Benjamin Lawsky, New York's financial services superintendent, made the move following the banks' decision to fire or suspend at least 20 traders following reports that employees at some firms had shared information about their currency positions with counterparts at other companies."
The New York Times Editors note that the Justice Department has mostly ignored its best argument on the contraceptive cases coming before the Supreme Court -- allowing companies to favor one religion over another -- i.e., deciding that the owners' religious beliefs should take precedence over the beliefs & practices of the employees -- would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. "The justices should have the parties submit new briefs focused on the establishment clause...." ...
... Linda Greenhouse on the stories behind the sex cases the Supremes are hearing this term.
Frank Rich comments on Philip Seymour Hoffman, the CBO report & Fox "News."
Brenda Woods of Atlanta's WXIA defends inclusiveness against the xenophobes who found the Coca Cola ad outrageous. "'America the Beautiful' by any other language is still America, the beautiful." Via Media Matters:
New Jersey News
Erin O'Neill of the Star-Ledger: "Housing advocates claim New Jersey and the contractor it hired for Hurricane Sandy housing recovery efforts mismanaged the application process for the state's two largest initiatives for homeowners. The Fair Share Housing Center today released an analysis of state data showing that nearly 80 percent of residents who appealed rejections from the two housing programs proved they were wrongly denied in the first place. The center obtained the data through an open public records request. 'The Christie Administration's widespread rejection of large numbers of families actually eligible for Sandy aid shows that the Sandy recovery process has been flawed from start to finish,' said Adam Gordon, a staff attorney for Fair Share Housing Center, which sued the state last year for not releasing public documents related to the recovery effort."
AP: "New Jersey lawmakers investigating a political payback scandal ensnaring Gov. Chris Christie's administration may need to get a judge to force two key figures to turn over subpoenaed documents. Christie's two-time campaign manager [Bill Stepien] and a deputy chief of staff [Bridget Kelly] have refused to turn over text messages, emails, personal calendars and other documents related to a traffic-blocking operation near the George Washington Bridge...."
Michael Barbaro, et al., of the New York Times: "... Democrats are determined to transform [Chris Christie] into a toxic figure, whose name is synonymous with the ugliest elements of politics: partisan bullying and backslapping cronyism." CW: Hmmm. I thought Christie made himself "a toxic figure," without a lot of outside help.
Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker explains why Bridgegate will go on for a loooong time.
Senate Races 2014
Scott Brown, on the front page of the New Hampshire Union Leader. The report describes him as "a longtime summer resident of Rye," [Nw Hampshire].... Gail Collins: "Brown has not officially announced his candidacy, but he did show up shirtless for the New Hampshire news media when he took part in the state's recent Penguin Plunge.... Besides Scott Brown's chest, one of the early election themes in 2014 is tons of Republican incumbents being driven crazy by Tea Party primaries."...
... Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "Fox News contributor Scott Brown is renting out his email list to an outlet that touts shady products like Alzheimer's disease cures and Social Security tricks. Brown joins several of his Republican colleagues in attempting to cash in on their followers through dubious or shady practices. Mike Huckabee, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich have all been renting out their email lists to suspect sources. As Salon's Alex Pareene noted, 'the conservative movement is an elaborate moneymaking venture. For professional movement conservatives, their audiences and followers are easy marks.'" In an update, Hananoki notes that Brown now claims to have severed ties with "this vendor." CW: Yeah, well, property taxes in New Hampshire are really high. Brown needs all the spare change he can get.
Presidential Election 2016
The Next POTUS Will Not Be a Really Rich Guy from Massachusetts. Margaret Hartmann of New York: "CNN ... in separate interviews on Wednesday..., asked both Mitt Romney and John Kerry if they'll run again. "The answer is no, I'm not running for president in 2016. It's time for someone else to take that responsibility and I'll be supporting our nominee," said Romney. The secretary of State was similarly Shermanesque. 'I’m out of politics. I have no plans whatsoever; this is my last stop,' he said."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Ralph Kiner, baseball's vastly undersung slugger, who belted more home runs than anyone else over his 10-year career but whose achievements in the batter's box were obscured by his decades in the broadcast booth, where he was one of the game's most recognizable personalities, died on Thursday at home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 91."
Guardian: "The frustration of the Obama administration at Europe's hesitant policy over the pro-democracy protests in Ukraine has been laid bare in a leaked phone conversation between two senior US officials, one of whom declares: 'Fuck the EU'. The US state department did not directly confirm that the leaked audio clip posted on YouTube captures the voices of the top US diplomat for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, and US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. However, the department's spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Nuland, who made the disparaging remark about the EU, 'has been in contact with her EU counterparts and of course has apologised for these reported comments'." ...
... New York Times: The White House surmised Russia recorded & leaked the conversation. "'The video was first noted and tweeted out by the Russian government,' Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters. 'I think it says something about Russia's role.'"
Guardian: Ban Ki-Moon, "the United Nations secretary-general, has used a speech ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi to condemn attacks on the LGBT community, amid growing criticism of Russia's so-called 'gay propaganda' laws."
New York Times: "A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Mathew Martoma on Thursday on insider trading charges in what may be the last criminal case to emerge from a decade-long investigation of Steven A. Cohen and his SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund. The jury of seven women and five men found Mr. Martoma, a former SAC portfolio manager, guilty of seeking out confidential information related to a clinical trial for an experimental Alzheimer's drug."
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(This post, which was posted above, in Marie's excellent essay on the Miserable Ones, should rightly be posted here.)
More bad ACA news for the wingnuts.
Fresh on the heels of the realization (at least on the part of those who don't have serious cognitive problems --hey, they can get health insurance now!) that that little "Two Million Jobs Lost!" grease fire is already out, there's more bad news from the CBO to haters of the ACA (pretty much everyone in an elephant suit).
A story on NPR this morning highlighted the fact that healthcare costs have come down significantly to the point where the effect of those reductions has begun to help rein in the federal deficit which is down to a third of the size it was in 2009. Granted, there are other reasons for such a dramatic drop, but according to most (real) economists, getting a handle on out of control healthcare costs is a key to long term budget stability, and the advent of the ACA has already helped out on that score and will likely continue to accelerate the trend in cost controls (as we've already seen).
The wingers are not buying this though, facts being the chimerical creatures they are to the right.
A flack from the American Enterprise Institute, Joe Antos, is having none of this. He refuses to admit that, one, healthcare costs actually are that big a deal when talking about the federal deficit (seriously, Joe?), and, two, that the ACA or any other cost control mechanisms will actually have any effect, at which point he plays the "more evidence is needed" card, one of the hoariest of delaying scams from the GOP bag of tricks, in use for decades.
Back when the smog in LA was suffocating Angelenos, Reagan and his bobblehead dolls sniffed that there was not enough evidence that pollution controls would work. "More studies are needed". I guess the outcome of those "studies" was that trees caused acid rain. Those must have been some studies, Ron. But can you think of any important issue before the American public which the GOP looked down on that has not been shelved or delayed by the "more evidence is needed" ploy?
Immigration reform: more evidence needed
Healthcare reform: more evidence needed
Continued protection for voting rights: more evidence needed
Equal pay for women: more evidence needed
Keeping guns away from the deranged: more evidence needed
Environmental controls: more evidence needed
Rise in minimum wage: more evidence needed
Drilling in protected areas could be bad: more evidence needed
Fracking poisons drinking water: more evidence needed
Cigarettes cause cancer: more evidence needed
Cancer is bad: more evidence needed
Oh, I suppose there are a few ideas that don't get this treatment.
Invasion of a foreign country and a decade-long war costing trillions of dollars. No evidence needed.
Bombs away.
Oh, and one other interesting development this week.
CVS has decided to stop selling cigarettes. Why? It seems they are looking into providing some basic health services in response to all those newly insured Americans. Is it opportunistic? Sure. Is it meant to make money? Of course. But any reduction in the number of places selling cancer sticks is good, and the realization that healthcare for everyone means a better America is evidence of how the ACA is already changing the zeitgeist, no matter how much the wingers moan and scream and beg the almighty to smite the moochers who don't deserve healthcare.
It appears, even this early on, that the ACA could be looked at, in a century or so, as a kind of Magna Carta that brings with it radical changes in the quality of life for millions of Americans. Changes that conservatives have neither authorized nor approved.
And no more evidence is needed.
Healthcare and the deficit.
@Akhilleus: I didn't listen to the segment, but I read the summary, which after the initial paragraphs devolves into a "he said/he said" story. The story describes David Cutler as a "Harvard economist and health policy specialist ... who helped develop cost-control measures in Massachusetts." It calls the other guy, Joe Antos, "a health policy specialist at the American Enterprise Institute."
Now, you know and I know AEI is a right-wing propaganda tank, but you can bet most readers don't know that. It sounds like two policy experts who draw different conclusions about the same data points. In fact, the story suggests Cutler might be biased since he's talking about cost controls he helped model.
If you want to know why people are happy to vote Republican, stories like this are one reason. They have no idea those "reasonable" fellows they listen to on NPR are, as you describe Antos, "flacks" for wingers.
Marie
Marie,
Unfortunately, the Antos/AEI quote about "more evidence is needed" was left out of the summary. It's in the complete audio file, however.
The epidemic of he said/she said reportage has reached tidal wave proportions. It's to the point where the most egregious and outrageous screeds from the right are softened and perfectly balanced by the most anodyne, basic common sense statements from the left, an impossible kind of math that would have put Euclid in the ground but seems to have zero effect on thousands of "reporters".
AAAARRRGGHHHH!
(Sorry. Had to get that out.)
Cute picture of Racist Beefcake Boy Scott Brown. This pathetic jagoff is never going away, is he?
Wonder what potential 'bagger fundamentalist supporters think of him appearing in a picture with guys wearing shirts that say "Frozen Seamen". Given the level of your average 'bagger's spelling abilities, they may not get the joke. And isn't there something in the Bible about not freezing that stuff? Or maybe it's spilling it. And since we're on the subject, what do the whackadoodles think about in vitro? Their rallying cry is "Adam and Eve" not "Adam and Petri".
But I digress. Bqhatevwr.
Anyway, just say RBB gets into the '16 race, and say he outlasts Aqua Buddha, The Jersey Bully, and whatever other 'bagger dwarfs jump in with both cleft hooves.
I want to see him debate Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Warren punched his bus ticket and it was just her first go 'round. Hillary would freeze more than just his seamen.
@re: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/koch-brothers-palm-springs-donor-list?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Andy Kroll & Daniel Schulman in "Mother Jones:"
Some attendee carelessly left behind the supposedly secret guestlist.
Interesting reading.
I might add for the Boehner contempt of Obama... "There’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws."
Oh yeah, and what about all your libertarian fuck sticks refusing to follow any federal laws concerning gun control? Maybe Obama should prove to Boehner that he makes citizens follow federal laws and send in a team to gently kick Sheriff Joe Arapio (sp?) off his soap box. And then head to Misery 'Missouri' (remember, I hail from Brownbackistan and I still have a grudge from our neighbors burning, looting and murdering my fellow Kansans because we didn't want to join the Slave Club) and tell them to take their nullification laws and stick them up their ass and leave it to Todd Akin to dislodge them with his dusty vaginal probes...
Pardon my French, but Boehner has been such a spineless sack of shit since he has been the speaker it's astounding. And now after running through every imaginable excuse for sitting on his hands for YEARS including the ever-present "more evidence needed (that serves our talking points)" he has the gall to legitimize doing nothing for the next year because...(drum roll): Obama exists, and he can't be trusted because somehow he gets out of every trap we've set for him.
democracy with a little "d".
@Barbarossa. After reading the list you cited in Mother Jones I could not suppress a belly laugh. Charles Koch, President of Koch Fertilizer. Where do you start with that one?????
Diane,
In addition to the Cocks, there are the Fink, the Hooks, and Hard-on (Hardin).
Sounds like the prototypical conservative plutocrat list. All it's missing are the Douches, the Asses, the Dickheads, and the Simonizer (Texas Hazardous Waste scumbag, Harold Simmons), and the Fuck You While you Sleep Assholes, the Marriott Brothers.
All trying to buy their way into hegemony heaven.