The Commentariat -- Jan. 26, 2013
AP: "Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin says he will not seek re-election in 2014. The 73-year-old Harkin tells The Associated Press in an interview, 'It's just time to step aside,' because by the time he would finish a sixth term, he would be 81. Harkin said it would also allow a new generation of Democrats to seek higher office. The announcement comes as a surprise, considering he had $2.7 million in his campaign war chest and was planning a fundraiser next month."
Obama 2.0
Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the U.S.S. Mammon
"President Obama discusses his nomination of Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and Richard Cordray to continue as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau." Transcript here:
** BUT Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "If Barack Obama wanted to send a signal that he's getting tougher on Wall Street, he sure picked a funny way to do it, nominating [Mary Jo White,] the woman who helped [a future Morgan Stanley CEO] John Mack get off on the slam-dunkiest insider trading case ever to cross an SEC investigator's desk.... Irrespective of the Mack incident, which incidentally really was about as bad as it gets in terms of 'regulatory capture,' America's top financial cop should be someone who doesn't owe his or her nest egg to the world's biggest banks." Thanks to contributor MAG for the link. ...
... AND here's Eliot Spitzer on Mary Jo White. He's agnostic:
... Wal-Mart in the White House. Mike Allen & David Rogers of Politico: "Sylvia Mathews Burwell, a respected veteran of the Clinton White House budget and Treasury operations, is expected to be tapped by President Barack Obama as the next director of the Office of Management and Budget, administration sources said. Burwell, president of the Walmart Foundation, was chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and came over to OMB as deputy director when Jack Lew moved up to head the budget office in the last years of the Clinton administration."
White House photo.... BTW, the President does have plenty of female advisors. Above is a photo from January 10. The caption: "President Barack Obama talks with Felicia Escobar, Senior Policy Director for Immigration, left, and Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the Domestic Policy Council, at the end of a meeting with advisors in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Jan. 10, 2013. Pictured in the background are: Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Nancy-Ann DeParle; Acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Jeffrey Zients; National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling; Rob Nabors, Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs; and Kathryn Ruemmler, Counsel to the President." These women do not get the coffee.
Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The National Labor Relations Board has been thrown into a strange legal limbo -- with the possibility that more than 300 of its decisions over the last year could be nullified -- as a result of a federal appeals court ruling on Friday that President Obama's recess appointments to the board were invalid." ...
... CW: I agree with comments Ken Winkes made in yesterday's thread. The D.C. Court's ruling is a disaster. Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns & Money, in a post titled "Neoconfederate Judges Rule NLRB Recess Appointments Unconstitutional": "The opinion is an atrocity, classic 'hack originalism for dummies,' relying heavily on the fact that recess appointments during nominal sessions of the Senate are a relatively recent phenomenon (although there's precedent going back to 1867, and '[t]he last five Presidents have all made appointments during intrasession recesses of fourteen days or fewer'), without considering that the Senate systematically refusing to consider presidential nominees is also a contemporary phenomenon." Read the whole post, especially the part about Obama's "strange inattention to federal judicial appointments," making him "the first president in at least 50 years not to get a single nominee confirmed to the D.C. Circuit." ...
... Charles Pierce: "... the federal appeals court of the District Of Columbia ... today laid down the most singular piece of partisan hackery to come out of a court since Antonin Scalia picked the previous president.... This, children, is what you get when you operate politically under the theory that They're All The Same. You get 20 or 30 years of primarily Republican judges ... drawn from the legal chop-shops in the conservative movement bubble, and doing their partisan duty like performing seals.... David Sentelle, [who wrote the opinion]..., is [a] career Tenther who believes the Constitution [w]as written on a napkin at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Small wonder he went batty on people appointed to the NLRB. This is a guy who thinks the NLRB itself is constitutionally illegitimate.... He doesn't think the agencies should exist." ...
Donovan Slack of Politico: "White House press secretary Jay Carney, who blasted the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling as 'novel and unprecedented,' said that he did not expect any broader application. 'It's one court, one case, one company,' Carney said. Carney said ... the ruling Friday 'contradicts 150 year of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations.... So we respectfully but strongly disagree with the ruling.' Carney declined to say if the administration planned to appeal, referring questions about next steps to the Department of Justice. Justice Department officials did not outline their plans, saying only,'We disagree with the court's ruling and believe that the President's recess appointments are constitutionally sound.'" ...
... Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "The court's position would invalidate the vast majority of recess appointments made by Republican and Democratic presidents over the course of the last century.... If the decision holds, then Senate Republicans just acquired even more power to block presidential appointments than they already had. Good thing the Democrats decided to cave almost entirely on filibuster reform just a day earlier." ...
... Take That, Harry Reid. New York Times Editors: "Democrats could have ... curb[ed] filibuster abuses this week, particularly on high-level presidential appointments, but they squandered the opportunity. The court's decision demonstrates how their timidity is being used against them. With no sign that Republicans are willing to let up on their machinations, Mr. Obama was entirely justified in using his executive power to keep federal agencies operating." ...
... The reliable Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog has a sober assessment. ...
... The McConnell Camp Dances the Filibuster Fandango. Alexandra Jaffe of The Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) campaign is touting what it characterizes as the senator's work to stop filibuster reform in a new fundraising pitch that proclaims, "We beat the liberals. A group of the Senate's most liberal senators, fueled by left-wing groups like MoveOn, have been pushing a dangerous scheme to change the rules of the United States Senate...," the email, written by campaign manager Jesse Benton, reads. He goes on to declare that McConnell 'stopped that scheme dead in its tracks.'"
** Bob Lewis of the AP: "The prospects appear doomed in Virginia this year for Republican-backed legislation that would replace the state's winner-take-all method of apportioning presidential electoral votes with one that awards one vote to the winner of each congressional district.... The Virginia legislation survived a state Senate subcommittee on a 3-3 vote this week, but two Republicans on the full committee said Friday they would oppose the bill when it comes up for a committee vote next week, effectively killing it. And should it clear the legislature, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell announced Friday he opposes it." CW: did Gov. Transvaginal, now that he wants to be POTUS, have a Transfusion, or what??? Maybe he figures he can carry Virginia, & he wants those Northeastern Virginia Electoral College votes. I dunno. ...
... Humorist Paul Bibeau: "Last election, Barack Obama won 51.16% of the vote. Under the new bill he would have won four of the states [sic] electoral votes. And do you know how much it counts an Obama voter as? (It's 4/13 divided by 51.16%. I'll wait. Do it. Get a calculator. You'll crap yourself.) IT IS ALMOST EXACTLY THREE FIFTHS. This bill counts an Obama voter as 3/5 of a person. I don't know if that fraction rights a bell with you." Thanks to contributor Lisa for the link. ...
... CW: I don't think the two Virginia Republican senators' opposition to the bill offers serious relief to Democrats. Here's why, from the AP story: "Republican [State] Sen. Jill Vogel..., a former Republican National Committee election lawyer, said she saw no problem with the bill's legality, but objected to the image it creates for her party so soon after Obama's victory last fall. 'It's the timing of it,' she said. 'It's just an awful impression it makes.'" I do believe Virginia Republicans will find a better time to re-introduce & pass the bill -- closer to the 2016 election, when it's too late for Democrats to, say, get a suit through the courts challenging the gerrymandered districts, which effectively make every Virginia Democratic voter 3/5ths of a person. If that suits Gov. McConnell, as well it might, he'll sign the bill.
Rosalind Helderman & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "A working group of senators from both parties is nearing agreement on broad principles for overhauling the nation's immigration laws, representing the most substantive bipartisan effort toward major legislation in years. The three Democrats and three Republicans, who have been meeting quietly in recent months, plan to announce a final agreement as early as next Friday." The group members are Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) & Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). "Two others, Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.), have also been involved in some of the discussions."
Ryan Lizza & Rick Hertzberg discuss the President's inaugural speech & how it may predict his second term with host Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker:
Bad Lip-Reading the Inauguration:
CW: Gail Collins goes limericky on the fiscal cliff. Apparently she does read Akhilleus & me.
David Gonzalez of the New York Times: "The planned closing of Blessed Sacrament School in the Bronx -- a haven amid the housing projects in the Soundview neighborhood -- has left many parents and graduates upset. That includes the valedictorian of the class of 1968 ... Sonia Sotomayor.... The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced this week that it would close 24 schools, including 7 elementary schools in the Bronx." Gonzalez interviews Justice Sotomayor about the closing. Includes cute anecdote.
Romney, a few days after the 2012 election.The Last Ha-Ha. "I'm Not Going Away." Anna Palmer of Politico: Mitt "Romney told top Washington bundlers, donors and senior campaign leadership in a meeting Friday morning that he would help out GOP candidates for governor in 2013, during the upcoming midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race, according to two people who attended the meeting. Romney also made clear his ambition for elected office has ended, according to another source present.... Romney will also attend Alfalfa Club's annual dinner Saturday night."
So Long to Another Dirtbag. Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), one of the Republicans most vulnerable to a conservative primary challenge, will retire in 2014 rather than seek a third term." CW: bear in mind that Georgia will probably elect a senator who is worse than Chambliss. Maybe former Rep. Joe Walsh (RTP-Ill.) should move to Georgia & run for Chambliss's seat. Like Chambliss, Walsh is good at mocking the sacrifice of war veteran amputees. ...
... Jeff Zeleny & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times go soul-searching with leaders of the Stupid Party (hey, that's Stupid Bobby Jindal's label, not mine). ...
... ** Jamelle Bouie in the Washington Post: "... there are no real reformers among the leadership class of the Republican Party.... At most, these leaders offer a whitewash: Underneath all the new rhetoric of change and inclusiveness lurk the same unpopular policies and priorities skewed in favor of the rich and against the middle class and poor." ...
... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "The backlash from Gov. Bobby Jindal's decision to cut hospice care from the state's Medicaid program as of Feb. 1 has been loud and sustained. Loud and strong enough to force Jindal to reverse that decision."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The Obama administration is debating how much more aid it can give the French military forces who are battling Islamic militants in Mali, weighing the benefit of striking a major blow to Qaeda-linked fighters in Africa against concern about being drawn into a lengthy conflict there."
AP: "The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago 'a line was crossed.' The hackers say they've infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public."
AP: "Residents from Newtown, Conn., are joining a march on Washington for gun control on Saturday with parents, pastors, survivors of gun violence and Education Secretary Arne Duncan."
AP: "An Egyptian court sentenced 21 people to death Saturday on charges related to one of the world's deadliest incidents of soccer violence, touching off an attempted jailbreak and a riot that killed 16 in the Mediterranean port city that is home to most of the defendants."
AP: "Algeria's foreign minister acknowledged that security forces made mistakes in a hostage crisis at a Saharan gas plant in which many foreign workers were killed by Algerian military strikes.Mourad Medelci, in an Associated Press interview, also conceded that Algeria will need international help to better fight terrorism. Algeria's decision to refuse foreign offers of aid in handling the crisis, and to send the military to fire on vehicles full of hostages, drew widespread international criticism."
Al Jazeera: "At least six garment workers have been killed and 10 others injured in a factory fire in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, according to fire fighters and witnesses. The blaze on Saturday comes just two months after the country's worst factory fire that killed 112 workers."
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Reader Comments (7)
@citizen625: re: you comment in yesterday's thread, I have a link under Infotainment to a story about the tragical, apparently temporary, breakup of 1984 Miss Wasila/Miss Alaska Runner-up and the excellent Fox "News" unreality network.
Marie
Before I clicked to Reality Chex, my take on Gail Collins column today was: she's gotta be a CW fan! Thus, over early morning coffee I was inspired to try out the technique myself.
There once a columnist named Gail
Whose wit and savvy are a must read sans fail!
Fans follow her clever words and ledes
yet, oft we wondered what are her reads?
Might it be Marie? Akhilleus? who we also hail?
...the bastard child of poetry is the limerick
But, who among us would dare to pick
apart the spirit of a silly rhyme
It’s makes us smile and adds worth to mime
Especially when it doth poke apart some prick!
Oh the irony in Virginia regarding the electoral college:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-would-have-received-3-5th-of-popular?ref=fpb
http://paulbibeau.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-message-to-virginia-gop-from.html
Have you taken a good look at Mary Jo? Here's a little woman who has brought down the best of thieves and villains and presents as a tight lipped, no nonsense, don't-you-bullshit-me kind of gal. Yes, the old wolf guarding the henhouse business is relevant but in this case I'd say it is of enormous advantage. This wolf apparently knows the nitty-gritty stuff of the Masters of the Universe and where the eggs are hidden. Just maybe Mary Jo can bring some of those preening roosters to the chomping block along with their hens who have gotten too fat and happy. We'll see, but I'm betting on that little lady.
There once was a Speaker named Boehner
Whose goals just couldn’t be plainer
To hobble the Dems
Shackle the femmes
And make the House fiercely inaner
... he wrote, shaking off years of rust ...
If you think Neo-Con activist judges are eroding our political system, take a look at what's happening just South of the border in Honduras....A Neo-Con wet dream
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4085:constitutional-death-spiral-in-honduras&catid=23:honduras&Itemid=46
The Spitzer take on Mary Jo makes sense if you believe Spitzer. I do; always have.