The Commentariat -- Jan. 12, 2013
The President's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here.
Greg Sargent: "In a move that will significantly ratchet up the brinksmanship around the debt ceiling, the four members of the Senate Democratic leadership are privately telling the White House that they will give Obama full support if he opts for a unilateral solution to the debt ceiling crisis, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me. The four Democratic leaders -- Senators Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray -- have privately reached agreement that continued GOP intransigence on the debt ceiling means the White House needs the space to pursue options for raising it that don't involve Congress...."
... Brett LoGiorato of Business Insider has a copy of the Democratic leaders' letter to the President. The Senators don't offer an opinion on what steps Obama should take but LoGiorato hears they prefer a 14th Amendment solution. ...
... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "Republicans, of course, believe the Senate Democratic letter is an outrage, but ... over here in the real world, the letter is nothing but common sense. In fact, it's so obvious that it's common sense that even though we have already reached the debt limit, nobody complained when the .. treasury secretary informed Congress he was taking extraordinary measures to avoid default.... President Obama has not become Hitler and he hasn't become Stalin.... He hasn't even become FDR.... This isn't what dictatorship looks like: this is what a president with a tea party Republican House looks like.... Extraordinary measures will give way to superextraordinary measures. But as long as it is legal, it's exactly what the president should and must do."
Harry Enten of the Guardian: "There is much discussion that acting by executive order would be seen as a 'totalitarian' action and provoke a backlash. Nonsense, so long as the order is supporting a measure the public favors." Enten points out that when Obama effected a modified "Dream Act" by executive order -- after years of Congressional failure to pass a bill -- public opinion, which has previously favored the central element of the bill, did not change. Ergo, he could do the same for gun regulations that already have majority public support. ...
... CW: what we're seeing in the President's "end runs around Congress" are attempts to put in place measures which the majority favors but which a minority in Congress has blocked. Obama's "totalitarian" moves more closely represent democratic principles than do Congress's continuing efforts to subvert the public will. I would argue that even his most unpopular achievement -- the Affordable Care Act, which of course did pass Congress but was/is unpopular -- is still closer to what the public wanted than the Big Fat Nothing that preceded it. The fact is that the public is pretty much against every Republican policy. ("Lower taxes" doesn't count.) Congressional Republicans are not just obstructing Obama & Democrats; they are obstructing the majority of the people. ...
... BUT Jessica Dye & Rachelle Younglai of Reuters: "The White House would be taking a risk if it tries to make a constitutional end-run around Congress' authority to raise the debt ceiling, legal experts said." CW: The story concentrates on the 14th Amendment argument. It doesn't mention the President's obligation to pay bills incurred under Congressional spending acts & authorizations. The potential failure here is not the President's but the Congress's. In view of the consequences of the failure to ensure the full faith & credit of the U.S., the President should honor the laws that authorized the spending, not the petulance of irresponsible hostage-takers who would stiff U.S. creditors.
Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "As Washington focuses on what Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will propose next week to curb gun violence, gun and ammunition sales are spiking in the rest of the country as people rush to expand their arsenals in advance of any restrictions that might be imposed." ...
... CW: this means the country is overrun with paranoid nuts & conspiracy theorists and/or gangsters. No normal, law-abiding person who thought he might need a new hunting rifle one of these days would rush out & buy it now in fear that Joe Biden was going to shut down gun & ammo sales. ...
... Dick Cavett: "One of the worst things said in the awful succeeding days ... came, surprisingly, straight from the White House. I was appalled to see the president ruin a movingly delivered statement about the shooting of the kids by closing with, 'God has called them all home.' Talk about not blaming the shooter. So it was God who did it. It's not hard to imagine a kid hearing the president's words and asking, 'Mommy, is God going to call me home?'" Read the whole column; Cavett covers a lot of ground.
... Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: sorry, Drudge, Hitler did not collect everybody's gun; rather, he liberalized the Weimar Republic's strict gun laws. Thanks to contributor Barbarossa for the link. ...
... David Edwards of Raw Story: James Yeager, "the CEO of a Tennessee company that specializes [in] weapons and tactical training, is threatening to 'start killing people' if President Barack Obama moves forward with gun control measures." CW: somebody explain to me, please, why the feds have not arrested this guy for assault, inciting violence & treason (and whatever else), jailed him & confiscated his firearms & ammo. There is something wrong with a government which considers this "free speech." ...
... Okay, a tiny step in the right direction. Newschannel 5, Nashville: "Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security has suspended the handgun carry permit of a local man who threatened to 'start killing people' to protect his Second Amendment right. In a statement released Friday officials said they had suspended the handgun carry permit of James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response based on 'material likelihood of risk of harm to the public'."
Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker speaks with Steve Coll & Jane Mayer to discuss President Obama's national security nominations — John Kerry, Chuck Hagel & John Brennan:
... Ray McGovern in Common Dreams: "... there is at least a hope that Brennan's confirmation hearing might provide an opening for the Senate Intelligence Committee to force out the secret legal justifications and the operational procedures for the lethal drone program that has expanded under Obama.... Former CIA colleagues who served with Brennan before and during the war with Iraq assert that there is absolutely no possibility that Brennan could have been unaware of the deliberate corruption of intelligence analysis." Read the whole column. Thanks to Kate Madison for the link. ...
... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "... the last time [Brennan']s name came up for the job [of CIA director], after Obama won in 2008, he didn't get it because he seemed so close to the torture program perpetrated while he was a senior official at the C.I.A. If he has greater distance now, it is only because more time has passed, not because there has been any true accounting; if anything, we have slid into an odd state of complacency about the torture in the Bush years, watching it in movies and wondering whether it worked, rather than asking who might be culpable." ...
... Joshua Keating of Foreign Policy read up on Brennan and shares what he learned. A long, informative read.
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the scion of the Rockefeller family who established himself as a liberal voice in Congress, said on Friday that he would retire in 2014 at the completion of his fifth term in the Senate." ...
Right Wing World
** ... Never mind 2014. Let's move along. Charles Pierce: "The people who worship at the crypt of David Broder now meditate deeply on the possibility that [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie, a career bully, may be the guy who ends this terrible era of 'partisanship' and 'divisiveness' -- for which, of course, the blame must always be placed on Both Sides, and not on the fact that one of our political parties is demented."
For those of you who cannot believe anyone would really say what Doctor/Congressman Phil Gingrey said about rape -- story linked in yesterday's Commentariat -- Steve Benen has the audio tape:
Meanwhile, Kate Madison's former ward, little Kenny Cuccinelli, now the Virginia AG, has taken a bold stand in favor of (other people's) civil disobedience. Alexander Burns of Politico: "Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee and a rising national figure on the right, told an Iowa-based radio show Wednesday night that opponents of a federal mandate for contraception coverage should be willing to 'go to jail' to fight the law." Kenny, a Roman Catholic, told his bishop he should go to jail to fight contraception access. Kenny didn't suggest he'd join the bishop. He's the attorney general, for Pete's sake!
Charles Pierce: as "the nation's courtier press already is desperate for a Republican candidate in 2016 who boldly will seem to seize the banner of Not Insane, they eventually will cast their eyes southward again to 'Bobby' [Jindal] who, we are relentlessly told, represents some sort of 'moderate' form of Republicanism," and who now is relentlessly pursuing the idea of shifting the tax burden of the Bayou State to its poorest residents. Jindal proposes to eliminate both state income & corporate taxes & shift to a hefty, regressive sales tax. That's what passes for "moderate" in Right Wing World. ...
... ** Ed Kilgore: "... just beneath the surface of a generation of anti-tax rhetoric has lurked a powerful desire to raise taxes on the non-wealthy in order to cut them for 'job creators.' It has been implicit for years in various 'flat tax' schemes or consumption tax 'reform' schemes, and of course in the ill-suppressed rage over the 'lucky ducky' working poor with no income tax liability.... Jindal's tax increase gambit should help put to rest the loose and easy talk we keep hearing about Republican governors offering their party a new and moderate face. Jindal is often touted in such talk, and between his tax 'ideas' and his cutting-edge school voucher program designed to shovel public dollars to conservative evangelical madrassas, his image as a pragmatic 'centrist' is becoming less credible each day."
Steve Benen: "Jim DeMint, taking the 'think' out of 'think tank."
AND, if one reads closely, one might think former Alaska Half-Gov. Sarah Palin has been palling' around with terrorists. One of her possible terrorist pals is going to prison for 26 years for "plotting to stockpile illegal weapons and take violent action against the government."
AP: "More than 34,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the Obama administration to build the 'Star Wars' inspired super-weapon ['Death Star'] to spur job growth and bolster national defense. But in a posting Friday on the White House website, Paul Shawcross, an administration adviser on science and space, says a Death Star would cost too much to build -- an estimated $850 quadrillion -- at a time the White House is working to reduce the federal budget. Besides, Shawcross says, the Obama administration 'does not support blowing up planets.'" CW: I think $850 quadrillion looks like this: $850,000,000,000,000,000. Ill bet the GOP's national defense plan has room for at least some Death Star R&D -- say, one measly quadrillion.
News Ledes
ABC News: "House Speaker John Boehner has invited President Barack Obama to deliver the State of the Union speech on Feb. 12.... The White House says it has accepted the invitation."
Reuters: "New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a public health emergency on Saturday, giving pharmacists permission to administer flu vaccinations to more people as officials seek to stem the worst flu outbreak in that state in several years."
AP: "French airstrikes overnight in Mali drove back Islamist rebels from a key city and destroyed a militant command center, the French defense minister said Saturday, as West African nations authorized the immediate deployment of troops to the country. The al-Qaida-linked militants, who have carved out their own territory in the lawless desert region of northern Mali over the past nine months, recently pressed closer to a major base of the Malian army, dramatically raising the stakes in the battle for the vast West African nation." ...
... Reuters: "Niger will send 500 soldiers to join an international military campaign in Mali led by West African regional bloc ECOWAS to quash advances by Islamist rebels, Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum told Reuters on Saturday."
AP: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is convinced that a lone gunman wasn't solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and said his father believed the Warren Commission report was a 'shoddy piece of craftsmanship.'"
ABC News: "A former Army staff sergeant who helped repel one of the deadliest attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan will receive the Medal of Honor. Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha, 31, becomes only the fourth living recipient of the nation's highest award for valor from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
USA Today: "Lance Armstrong plans to make an admission about doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey scheduled to tape Monday at his home in Austin, Texas, a person with knowledge of the situation said."
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Reader Comments (8)
Ol' Phil is just another reason to be embarassed about the state of Georgia. Tom Price is also a doctor, but makes no more sense.
Another reason: According to state law. you can pay your Georgia State taxes with U. S. gold coins. You would have to be a real idiot to do that. Sort of like kids who trade dimes for nickels.
M o r o n s
Re: Let's put this behind us...Lance is talkin' to Oprah and I traded dimes for nickels. It was a long time ago and I only did it ten, maybe eighteen...maybe thirty times. Then I caught on. But look at all the good I have done with the JJG Foundation for Morons. If you have forgiveness in your cold, tiny heart MR. Barbarossa; you could help out. With your dime donation you will receive a quality plastic bracelet with the Foundation logo, "ten will get you five" imprinted on it. And that's not all; by ordering today the Foundation will include your name on the "Moron Hall of Fame" and forever you will be enshrined with other donors such as Hector, the little chubby kid down the block and Rusty, the dim-witted pit bull. Open your heart and your checkbook; give and you'll receive alright.
Now, about the death star; hasn't everyone figured out by now that every time we jump into our carbon spewing trucks and cars we are busily creating a "Death Star"? Unfortunately, it's our own planet that is targeted.
@JJG. Thanks for sticking up for yourself. I was gonna do that when I got around to it.
BTW, you're smarter than you know. Not to confuse the actual M o r o n s, but the melt value of a nickel is now slightly more than its face value, It was up at about 7 cents a few years back but now it's just over 5 cents. The melt value of a dime, on the other hand, is about 0.02 cents.
Before you lug your stash to the furnace, I should probably warn you that would be a federal offense. There's always a catch.
The Mint has been researching whether or not to change the composition of the nickel; if they do, those old nickels will increase in value. And I'll be applying for a M o r o n grant (awarded in the form of a check, please) which will be just as good any ole genius grant when I take it to the bank. Duh!
Marie
Dick Cavett: Bless his heart that once beat crazily for his luger love letting us in on the secret obsession that in part might explain why so many, mostly men, I assume, cling onto their guns for dear life. The fear of taking away their guns is like stripping them of their potency; I get it, but that other little thing like CONTROL and POWER also comes into play although one could make the case that this, too, has a sexual bent.
So glad Cavett remarked on Obama's having to invoke the god business into a perfectly fine speech. Yesterday on that same trip to the supermarket* we were discussing the dropping of the pastor that had been chosen for Obama's inauguration because he had said some naughty anti-homosexual rantings some years back claiming those were in the Bible so therefore were "the word of God." He of course is right on that last point, but wrong about his own anti-homosexual stance––however––I asked and I continue to ask why is it that this Bible is used as some sort of sacred book for the swearing in of our presidents and those that will serve this country? I find this preposterous! I may be wrong, but I think in the courtroom you no longer have to "swear on the Bible" if you don't want to. Thoughts on this––anyone?
* Note to Marie: You have become a beloved household name and whether you appear in between egg reminders or loftier discussions be assured you are mentioned with affection and gratitude.
Re: Creepy Phil Gingrey: I pride myself on having a vivid imagination, but I cannot imagine being examined by this fruitcake. Where are the Ob/Gyn's of some standing refuting this nonsense?
The NYT reports that the city of NY plans to pay physicians based on the quality of care and not on the volume of procedures. This is so unfair. A huge percentage of doctors are going to starve to death!
Skeezy old, mostly white guys and their faux facts about vajayjays and their owners make me think there should be a new category in the DSM - Gyno-idiocy with asswipe features.
PDPepe not only where are the real OB/GYN experts but where are ANY female OB/GYN experts. Lordy, they have a vajayjay in the game. I betcha claiming impotence is the result of the "natural" laws of procreation would create a stampede among male experts.
@Marvin
Maybe they can run for office a la Gingrey and Price. Of course, the Dems have one--Howard Dean, who is far different from our embarrassing Georgia Congresscitters.
Last night on "The Ed Show," Dean said that Gingrey's remarks were disgraceful coming from a physician and made him wonder about Phil's qualifications to practice medicine. He said it's no wonder women no longer want to go to male ob-gyn's.
As I understand it, here's how Dr. G. advises his patients.
A couple walks into the doctor's office.
Husband: "Gee, Doctor G, I've been trying to knock up the little woman here for going on a year now, and believe you me, heh-heh, I know how it's done. But yet for some reason, still no muffin the oven."
Dr. G.: I'm sure you do, son. The problem is, and not to confuse you with the technological technicalities of guy-no-collogy, the problem is the horse hasn't left the barn. Have you got that, son?
Husband: "I -- I think so. It's the, the horse. He ain't baked no muffins.
Dr. G: Exactly right. You're a smart lad. And you're doing your best. So, don't look on this as your fault, son. It's a girl thing, like I said. It's always a girl thing. Now what you have to do to make her right, what you have to do is just what you did to git 'er in the first place. You got to git 'er drunk.
Husband: Wow! Thanks, Doc.
Dr. G: No problem, son. Pay the nurse on the way out. And don't forget -- if God wanted you to have a little muffin, he'd have given you a wife who could git her horse outta the barn and a muffin in the oven even when the grapes were still on the vine.