The Commentariat -- Jan. 26, 2014
Internal links removed.
No, Prime Minister. Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "... for the first time, following what many allies view as a lost year, the White House is reorganizing itself to support a more executive-focused presidency...." ...
... SOTU. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... perhaps more so than in any of his previous congressional addresses, Mr. Obama realizes that he has little chance of major legislative victories this year, with the possible exception of an overhaul of immigration law that Republicans are also making a priority. As a result, aides said, he will present a blueprint for 'a year of action' on issues like income inequality and the environment that bypasses Congress and exercises his authority to the maximum extent." ...
... Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: " Income inequality is out, 'ladders of opportunity' is in. Eager to dispel claims that President Barack Obama is engaging in 'class warfare' as he heads into his State of the Union address next week, the White House is de-emphasizing phrases focusing on economic disparity and turning instead to messages about creating paths of opportunity for the poor and middle class. The adjustment reflects an awareness that Obama's earlier language put him at risk of being perceived as divisive and exposed him to criticism that his rhetoric was exploiting the gap between haves and have-nots." ...
... Digby: "It's actually getting quite boring tracking the administration feints and retreats on these issues. The president clearly would like to be able to say some populist stuff that his supporters want to hear. But the Big Money Boyz are very sensitive about this and he's not going to cross them. Make no mistake, there are no policy proposals coming from anyone of either party that would seriously erode this wealth inequality. That's simply out of the question. What has everyone so agitated is populist rhetoric, which these narcissists see as akin to being a powerless minority attacked by the state. And that means the president and his men have to fall back on 'meritocracy' and mobility tropes that ensure these narcissists will remain on top." CW: On the sensitivity of the Money Boyz, see today's Right Wing World below. Also, Jamie Dimon: ...
When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it. I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country. -- Jamie Dimon, in a prepared speech, March 2009
I just think this constant refrain -- bankers, bankers, bankers, it's just -- it just doesn't -- it's really an unproductive and unfair way of treating people. -- Jamie Dimon, February 2011
I think a lot of it was unfair. -- Jamie Dimon, a few days ago, on JP Morgan Chase's mega-settlement with federal regulators
If JPMorgan is so happy with their settlements that they are rewarding their CEO with a big raise, do you really think the federal bank regulators were tough enough? -- Elizabeth Warren, on her blog
Justin Sink of the Hill: "The White House will host a virtual 'Big Block of Cheese Day' later this month in a nod to historical tradition -- and the popular West Wing television show. In the show, White House staffers were required on one day a year to meet with citizens and interest groups who normally might not earn attention from top administration officials. The fictional tradition was a nod to President Andrew Jackson, who in 1837 hosted an open house with a 1,400 pound block of cheese in the White House's foyer. But the real White House said Friday that they would be hosting a real version of the event -- albeit in cyberspace. 'On Wednesday, January 29th, with a nod to history (and maybe the TV show the West Wing), the Obama Administration ... will take to social media for a day long "open house" to answers questions from everyday Americans in real-time on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and via Google+ Hangout,'... Users of the social networks can flag questions using the hashtag #AsktheWH." Links to more info at this White House Webpage.
Clifford Krauss & Jad Mouawad of the New York Times: "... trains have increasingly been used to transport the oil from the new fields of Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota, in part as a result of delays in the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. About 400,000 carloads of crude oil traveled by rail last year to the nation's refineries, up from 9,500 in 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads. But a series of recent accidents -- including one in Quebec last July that killed 47 people and another in Alabama last November -- have prompted many to question these shipments and have increased the pressure on regulators to take an urgent look at the safety of the oil shipments."
AFP: "The US National Security Agency (NSA) sometimes uses data it collects for economic purposes, intelligence leaker Edward Snowden reveals in an extract of an interview with a German television chain to be broadcast Sunday." And other stuff. ...
... Like this: "On its website, NDR said that Snowden assured he was no longer in possession of any confidential documents, as they had all been handed out to handpicked journalists. The former NSA contractor said he no longer wants to, or is able to, take part in any future revelations." CW: So no rationale for granting him the amnesty or immunity that some in the U.S. spy community have suggested could spare the nation further embarrassment & security breaches.
Nidhi Subbaraman of NBC News: Drones will soon be assisting emergency personnel.
Local News
Terry Tang of the AP: "The Arizona Republican Party formally censured Sen. John McCain on Saturday, citing a voting record they say is insufficiently conservative. The resolution to censure McCain was approved by a voice-vote during a meeting of state committee members in Tempe...."
Billy Corriher in Think Progress: "Last week, the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by a conservative 'dark money' group to keep its donors secret. The lawsuit alleges that the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) illegally 'coordinated' its ads with Attorney General Greg Abbott's (R) 2002 campaign. If evidence emerges that the LEAA coordinated with Abbott's campaign, then the millions of dollars it spent on ads could be considered illegal in-kind campaign contributions." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.
He Said/They Said. Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post write a fairly fascinating story on how the prosecution of Bob & Maureen McDonnell came about. They concentrate on Jonnie Williams' cooperation, which apparently resulted from a routine SEC probe of securities irregularities re: Star Scientific. Maureen appears to be one greedy babe. ...
... Quentin Kidd in the Washington Post: Gov. Bob & wife Maureen McDonnell of Virginia "were trying to keep up with the Joneses. And in the upper echelons of Virginia politics, the Joneses tend to have a certain look and lifestyle.... We can identify with some of their struggles and impulses without condoning the use of the governor's office for personal gain. Their relatively modest background should have made them realize what their constituents would see: What they were doing was outrageous." ...
... CW: Ironically, had the McDonnells lived within their means (sorry, no beach-house investments) & emphasized what a financial struggle they were having, they would have come across as sympathetic characters, & we might be looking at Transvaginal Bob for President posters. Didn't they notice that one thing that made the Obamas appealing was their rags-to-middle-class story? When in 2008 they said they had only finished paying off their college loans a few years earlier (& that was thanks to Barack's best-sellers), voters learned that the Obamas were people who understood their own difficulties.
John Reitmeyer of the Bergen Record: "Chris Christie launched his first term as governor in 2010 by putting pressure on what he said was New Jersey's 'shadow government' of unelected authorities, boards and commissions. But the Port Authority, a bi-state agency with decades of political influence and a budget of more than $7 billion -- larger than many states' -- has been a different story for the governor."
Star-Ledger Editors: "The Christie administration has fired the contractor that's been bungling the distribution of federal Hurricane Sandy relief money.... But now here's the bad news: The administration fired HGI last month, and we are all just finding out about this now.... First Christie's officials publicly deny that HGI is mishandling their grant programs. Then they silently fire the contractor?"
Right Wing World
The Persecuted Rich. Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Venture capitalist Tom Perkins compared liberals' push to reduce inequality in the United States to Nazi Germany's war on Jews. In a letter to the editor published in The Wall Street Journal Perkins, a founding member of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, asks whether a 'progressive Kristallnacht' is coming. Perkins's letter is in response to an editorial on speech codes at American colleges. 'Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich,"' Perkins wrote in the letter to the editor." ...
... This is not the first time horrible people have conspired to persecute Perkins. Nick Denton of Gawker, June 2007: "In 1996, the yacht-crazed financier was racing off the French coast when he collided with a smaller boat, killing a French doctor on board. In a passage from the Valley veteran's forthcoming memoirs, Perkins writes: 'I 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.'" Via Erik Loomis of Lawyers, Guns & Money. ...
... Elias Isquith of Salon: "Kristallnacht was a giant anti-Semitic riot, organized by the Nazi government, that left nearly 100 Jews in Germany and Austria murdered and resulted in the incarceration of some tens of thousands more in concentration camps. It was an act of coordinated barbarism done in service of the Nazis' ultimate goal, the expulsion (and, later, elimination) of Europe's Jewish population. American progressives, on the other hand, would like to see Tom Perkins pay more in taxes."
David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma has proposed a controversial way to stopping same-sex marriages in the state. According to News9.com, state Rep. Mike Turner (R) has proposed scrapping marriage in the state altogether. The lawmaker contends that it is the only way to keep same-sex marriage illegal in the state while still defending the U.S. Constitution." ...
... Martin Longman of Washington Monthly: "Don't let straight people have legally-recognized marriages if it means that gay people can have them, too. This is petulance defined."
Dan Friedman & Dareh Gregorian of the New York Daily News: Dinesh "D'Souza, 52, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges he made illegal contributions to New York Republican senate hopeful Wendy Long in her ill-fated 2012 campaign. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. Long, an old friend of D'Souza's from their Dartmouth days, will testify against him at trial, prosecutor Carrie Cohen told Judge Richard Berman at the 'Roots of Obama's Rage' author's arraignment. Long 'informed the government that Mr. D'Souza lied to her about the source of those donations,' Cohen said."
News Ledes
New York Times: "A Fort Worth hospital that kept a pregnant, brain-dead woman on life support for two months, followed a judge's order on Sunday and removed her from the machines, ending her family's legal fight to have her pronounced dead and to challenge a Texas law that prohibits medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant woman."
Here's an updated Washington Post story on a shooting yesterday at the Columbia, Maryland, Mall that left three, including the shooter, dead. ...
... UPDATE: "... a 19-year-old College Park resident has been identified by police as the assailant in Saturday's shooting at the Mall in Columbia, which left three people dead, including Aguilar."
... Baltimore Sun: "On Saturday night, police said they had tentatively identified the shooter, who had arrived at the mall with a shotgun, a large amount of ammunition and a bag in which they found two crude devices that 'appeared to be an attempt at making explosives using fireworks.'"
New York Times: "Thousands of Egyptians celebrated the third anniversary of their revolt against autocracy on Saturday by holding a rally for the military leader who ousted the country's first democratically elected president. Elsewhere, at least 49 people died in clashes with security forces at rival antigovernment protests organized by Islamists and left-leaning activists."
Guardian: "Ukraine's embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, on Saturday night made a surprising and wide-ranging compromise offer to the protesters who have occupied his capital, promising to make an opposition leader prime minister, give amnesty to those involved in clashes with police and institute major constitutional reforms. The trio of politicians who have become the de facto leaders of the protests rejected the offer but said they were willing to negotiate."
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Reader Comments (8)
Re: 'I wonder when the governments of "normal" countries are going to start issuing travel warnings to their citizens, urging them not to travel to the U.S. because it's an unstable, dangerous place." CW
Wish I had said that.
Here's somethin'; back in the day when I was a PCV the locals would ask me about 'merica because their only source of knowledge came from Hollywood movies. Two questions most asked? Is there a lot of shooting? Is everybody rich? I answered, "Claro, que si".
@JJG: During the early 1960's Redbook came out with an article that recorded the impressions of European children about Americans. At the time Texas had one of the highest homicide rates in the country:
Question: What are Americans like?
The average American is, of course, a Texan. He eats lots of breakfast and gets fat so he has to go on a diet because he likes to look skinny. He calls everyone ‘sweetheart’ and is bad to colored people. If he doesn’t like who is president, he usually shoots him."
As funny as this may seem, these children’s impressions weren’t so off the mark for a particular segment of our population. Congressman James Wright later recalled that Kennedy had "asked many of us questions as to why we thought this foment was going on in an attempt to understand its genesis." The general conclusion, in Wright’s words, was that the real culprit was "the steady drum-beat of ultra right-wing propaganda with which the citizenry is constantly besieged."
I haven't lived in the US since the infamous Citizens United decision so I can't say how close to reality this is at the moment, but the recent piece in the NY Times of the Koch Party, which is really nothing new as their clandestine political operations have been heavily documented as of the last few years, got me thinking. This paragraph specifically,
"they have already set up an operation so sophisticated it rivals “even the official Republican Party in its ability to shape policy debates and elections.” Its components include a political consulting firm to recruit, train and support like-minded antigovernment candidates, which will be active in the congressional primaries. There is also a center that provides technology and administrative services to right-wing groups and candidates, an office that compiles and analyzes voter data and a youth advocacy group."
If the IRS and the government in general can't open up these black boxes of endless anonymous slush funds, I think we're going to enter into a new and dangerous stage in the history of political ads in this country. Traditionally, due to limited funds, the ad blitz never really got going until the election day grew closer and the campaign machines jostled for positioning going down the last stretch. Now, however, we have the Koch bros. (and others of course but they're seemingly the most militant in their underground political activism) creating their own nation-wide network, rivaling the RNC in its scope and influence. The Koch bros., combined with their ideological brethren, now have nearly endless funds to play with. They're both billionaires and detest charity so they've really nothing else to do with this fortune than to spend it pursuing their libertarian fantasies. As they perfect their strategy of colluding and growing in the dark in the new playing field made possible by Citizens United, I'm afraid we could be entering into a new phase where political ads (mostly attacks coming from these groups) are going to be present nearly all year long, rather than just before elections. This constant deluge of misinformation could have a significant impact on the average Joe who won't go out of his way to get the real facts because the liberals don't have a comparative ad-making machine that can match this Koch-inspired rogue political machine.
Call it the NRA model of success if you will. I had a student the other day ask if we could discuss the "gun issue" in class because he said he couldn't wrap his head around the idea of school shootings should equal MORE guns in schools. He asked if the majority of Americans were gun nuts. I replied "No" but explained that the NRA is laser-focused on this one issue and there isn't an equivalent group to counterbalance the argument, fighting step-by-step along the way. Guns have attained "sacred" status by now, so the NRA pretty much owns the issue. Yet Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid, and now the ACA, are still issues that remain open to debate and open for influence. It's going to take a lot of ads exposing "government waste" and "welfare queens" to get the public to come around and eventually accept reducing their own social nets, but with a 365 day campaign cherry-picking the "facts", it could certainly turn the tide in that favor.
Perkins like so many others would like all progressives an non-fascists to have have a circle firing squad that revolves around having the wrong argument in the first place. Then waste time discussing them while they are enriching themselves at the expense of humanity.
Here is an interesting one about textbooks: "http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2014/01/exposing-the-textbook-scam-how.html". Like Perkins or Dinesh D'Souza whoever holds the microphone, wins. It's time to pry it from their cold, greedy fingers. Sanitize it before using it, though.
Sorry, forgot to provide the link to the "Koch Party"
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/the-koch-party.html
Sam Tanenhaus & Jim Rutenberg in the NYT's have a thorough examination of Rand Paul with whom, I predict, will be the front runner for the Republican 2016 election (unless Christi miraculously gets let off the hook by the will of gods). Never would I have thought Rand could inch his way into a prominent position, but lo and behold the curly headed Aqua Buddha Bud has got himself a long article on himself on the front page of the Times. And who knew that the rock group Rush was Rand's favorite because their lyrics were libertarian.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/us/politics/rand-pauls-mixed-inheritance.html?ref=todayspaper
Paul Krugman blogging on Tom Perkins/WSJ:
"Did the Journal think that it was doing a public service by letting the rest of us see the loose screws in this guy’s head? Or — what I suspect, to be frank — did the relevant editors actually think he was making a useful point?"
—and Krugman finishes with a good riposte to the never-ending accusations that Obama hasn't done anything to the one-percenters: "So the one percent does have reason to be upset. No, Obama isn’t Hitler; but he is turning out to be a little bit of FDR, after all." Nicely put, PK.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
MAG: thanks for the link to Krugman, who is so spot on in identifying the two problems with WSJ publishing that looney and hateful letter. Personally I am shocked that the Journal would allow something likening Nazis to progressives to be published.
As to Krugman's concluding point that BHO more resembles FDR than he is given credit for: it would be fun to see the President say something similar to this from a 1936 Roosevelt speech (he was speaking of rich fat cats' who despised him for championing programs that helped the poor):
"Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”
Of course, Roosevelt's remarks occurred during a campaign. But still.....
Here's a link to the whole speech, which is a doozy:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15219