The Commentariat -- January 3, 2013
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Maureen Dowd's fluff piece on Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
As of shortly after 1:00 pm ET today, all of the people pictured will be U.S. Senators.Gee, I've found them some swell dates for the sock-hop:
... Now, isn't that special?
C-SPAN: "At 1 p.m. [ET], Vice President Joe Biden will conduct a ceremonial swearing-in [of new Senators] with each member just outside the Senate Chamber, which can be attended by the Senators' families. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) returns to the Senate tomorrow after suffering a stroke in January 2012. After re-learning how to walk over the last year, the Senator plans to climb the steps of the Capitol building at 11:30 a.m. Vice President Joe Biden, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are expected to attend." CW: C-SPAN will have live coverage of both events.
Harry Reid Trick. Manu Raju of Politico: "He has a chance to go 'nuclear' Thursday, but instead Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to punt a decision on the filibuster until later this month.... Changing filibuster rules by 51 votes on the first day of a new session, circumventing the usual requirement in which at least 67 senators are needed to change Senate rules. Instead, he'll employ a circuitous procedure to technically keep the Senate in its first legislative day by sending the chamber into recess -- rather than adjourning. That move would keep the Senate in session, preserving his option of pushing forward with the so-called nuclear option at a later date." ...
... To help get Reid off the dime, you can sign Sen. Jeff Merkley's (D-Oregon) petition to reform the filibuster.
Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor, a Republican and possible presidential candidate with a reputation for take-no-prisoners bluster, attacked the House Republican leadership on Wednesday for its refusal to allow a vote on a Hurricane Sandy relief bill the night before." ...
... Gov. Christie, at a New Jersey State House press conference:
... You can watch the full presser here. "They [the House of Representatives] are so consumed with their own internal politics, that they have forgotten they have a job to do." ...
... Molly Ball of The Atlantic: "Christie's emotional diatribe seemed both utterly authentic and politically brilliant. There's basically zero political downside in campaigning against Congress, and particularly the House GOP, right now.... Christie is up for reelection this year in his very blue home state, and by turning his legendary temper on the GOP, he's helped turned his image from partisan ball-buster to nobly apolitical, equal-opportunity ball-buster."
..."Dereliction of Duty." New York Times Editors: "Mr. Boehner had promised to allow the House to vote this week on a $60.4 billion aid package [to states hit by Hurricane Sandy] that easily passed the Senate. But he reneged while trying to get out of the way of a final agreement on the fiscal cliff.... Whether Mr. Boehner can revive the Senate package in a few weeks, as now promised, is uncertain, because it's not clear whether he actually leads the right-dominated Republican caucus anymore.... The aid was overdue before Mr. Boehner tossed the Senate package aside on Tuesday." ...
... Dave Weigel of Slate: "Republicans allowed a familiar narrative -- oh, the bill's full of pork and waste! -- to creep out. [Here's an example on a site owned by severely winged-out Michelle Malkin of the creeps creeping. There are many more.] Christie mocks the narrative in the single boldest part of this rant. The 'pork,' he points out, was $600 million in a total $60 billion package -- one percent of the total. The Republicans who got angry about that, he says, are dupes. 'Those guys should spend a little more time reading the information we send and a little less time reading the talking points sent by their staff. That's quite an ask. Making fun of waste in an omnibus bill is one of the GOP's most effective tactics...." In an Update, Weigel notes that the Boner "now pledges a Friday vote on the smaller chunk of Sandy relief -- $9 billion for flood insurance -- then more votes on January 15." But since the new Congress will be sworn in today, the bills will have to go back to the new Senate for passage. ...
... ** Alex Koppelman of the New Yorker: "House Republicans didn't simply forget about the Sandy-relief legislation in the excitement of the fiscal-cliff deal. The bill stalled and died because many of them -- joined by key conservative activists and think tanks -- flat out opposed the version the Senate passed. They opposed it because, they said, half -- or more -- of the sixty billion dollars of funding contained in the bill was what they called 'pork.' A more accurate term would be 'foresight.' The legislation ... would have paid for ... forward-thinking measures, and that was the funding conservatives had a problem with." Read the whole post. CW: funny how the Luddites cry "Save our children from debts we incurred" but they oppose saving our children from floods or unsafe bridges or hazardous waste. Kinda makes you think just maybe they don't actually care about the kiddies.
NEW. Paul Krugman explains why the federal government can't just print money money or mint a giant platinum coin & deposit it at the Fed to get around the debt limit.
Michael Shear & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Even as Republicans vow to leverage a needed increase in the federal debt limit to make headway on their demands for deep spending cuts, Mr. Obama --who reluctantly negotiated a deal like that 18 months ago -- says he has no intention of ever getting pulled into another round of charged talks on the issue with Republicans on Capitol Hill." ...
... A New Path to Progress? Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: McConnell + Biden + Reid, "Then both Senate leaders worked hard to deliver the votes of a vast majority of their reluctant members, isolating House Republican leaders, who found themselves with no way forward other than to put the bill before the House and let Democrats push it over the finish line. 'I think this is the fourth time that we've seen this play out, where Boehner finally relents and lets the House consider a measure, and Democrats provide the votes to pass it,' said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois [D]." ...
... Russell Berman of The Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is signaling that at least one thing will change about his leadership during the 113th Congress: he's telling Republicans he is done with private, one-on-one negotiations with President Obama."
** Gail Collins: "... the bar is low [for the new Congress to be sworn in this week], since some people believe the departing 112th Congress was the worst in history, because of its stupendous lack of productivity and a favorability rating that once polled lower than the idea of a Communist takeover of America." Includes extended remarks on South Carolina.
Charles Blow on the dysfunctional Congress. Nothing new here, but this is a good bit:
As The Economist pointed out in November: 'The Democrats won 50.6% of the votes for president, to 47.8% for the Republicans; 53.6% of the votes for the Senate, to 42.9% for the Republicans; and... 49% of the votes for the House, to 48.2% for the Republicans (some ballots are still being counted). That's not a vote for divided government. It's a clean sweep.' Republicans control the House in part because of the geography of ideology -- cities tend to have high concentrations of Democrats and rural areas have high concentrations of Republicans -- and because of the way district lines were redrawn, in many cases by Republican-led state legislatures.
Cliff Notes -- Post Mortems
David Jackson of USA Today: "President Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, employed an autopen to sign the 'fiscal cliff' bill late Wednesday night, the third time he has used such a device. In a statement, the White House said officials received the bill from Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon, Washington time."
Ron Lieber of the New York Times: "The new rules [in the tax-&-spending bill] target two tax breaks: personal exemptions and many popular deductions like those for state and local taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions. For both breaks, single people with at least $250,000 in adjusted gross income and married people filing jointly with at least $300,000 in income are vulnerable. A hypothetical Texas couple could end up paying about $2,500 more in taxes, for instance." The New York Times provides a table showing how the tax might affect two hypothetical families with adjusted gross incomes of $400K.
Best Post Mortem. CW: I don't entirely agree with Jonathan Chait, but his use of "The Big Lebowski" to explain the tax-&-spending negotiations is damned clever. I do think House Republican leadership will blink on the debt ceiling. Sending the U.S. into effective bankruptcy is just too stupid even for them. Boehner, or whosoever should happen to be Speaker next month (see Right Wing World below), will let Democrats & the few non-crazy Republicans authorize raising the debt limit. (What they should do is dump the law permanently, & I'll be pleasantly stunned if that happens.) That said, see also Charlie Brown & Lucy below. ...
... Also, Noam Scheiber of The New Republic is expressing a general-consensus view here: "... here's what the fiscal cliff accomplished then: It affirmed to Republicans that Obama will do pretty much anything he can to avoid a debt default, regardless of what he says. It affirmed the White House anxiety that the GOP might not blink before we default. To put it mildly, that's quite an asymmetry. I want to believe the president can get through the next stage in this endless budget stalemate without accepting some of the more dangerous spending cuts conservatives are demanding. But at this point I'm having a hard time seeing it." CW: I'm with Scheiber on the 2nd part: Obama will give up half the farm (the half where the farmhands bunk), but I don't think it will be over the debt ceiling -- I think it will be on the sequester deal. To all you old ladies & gents, to all you hungry children, to all you college kids -- the President wishes you well, he'd like to help, but in the end, he expects you to tighten your little belts another notch.
Barack Robin Hood Obama. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "For President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress, the fiscal deal reached this week is full of small victories that further their largest policy aims. Above all, it takes another step toward Mr. Obama's goal of orienting federal policy more toward the middle class and the poor, at the expense of the rich.... In the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama said that his top priority as president would be to 'create bottom-up economic growth' and reduce inequality. He has governed as such."
Most Optimistic Post Mortem. Here's a note my friend Barack sent me yesterday:
NEW. A Strong Contender for Most Pessimistic Post Mortem. Frank Rich on "the end of the 'Fiscal Cliff' crisis, Howard Schulz's bipartisanship fetish, and John Roberts's latest political play." CW: to my personal delight, Rich even takes a stab at his former colleague, "ostensibly moderate conservative David Brooks."
Chuck Mikolajczak of Reuters: "U.S. stocks kicked off the new year with their best day in over a year on Wednesday, sparked by relief over a last-minute deal in Washington to avert the 'fiscal cliff' of tax hikes and spending cuts that threatened to derail the economy's growth." CW: see my stock market widget in the upper right-hand column.
E. J. Dionne: "... we should at least consider the possibility that this week's Midnight Madness was actually a first step down a better road. This will be true if Obama hangs as tough as he now says he will; if he insists on more revenue in the next round of discussions; and if he immediately begins mobilizing business leaders to force Republicans off a strategy that would use threats to block a debt-ceiling increase to extract spending cuts. Real patriots do not risk wrecking the economy to win a political fight. Obama ... needs to move the discussion away from a green-eyeshade debate over budgets and foster a larger conversation over what it will take to restore broadly shared economic growth. His presidency really does depend on how he handles the next two months."
Wherein Lucy is Obama and we are all Charlie Brown.James Downie of the Washington Post on the pluses and minuses in the fiscal deal. Plus, "... soon, for the second time in two years, the GOP will threaten the country with economic ruin (via forcing the government to default on its bills) to advance its agenda. This is nothing less than the behavior of a party that has abdicated all responsibility for governing." Downie is the umpteenth pundit to make this point: "The legacy of this [tax-&-spending] deal almost entirely depends on whether Obama stands firm on the debt ceiling." CW: supporting Obama is like entering into a second marriage: it's "the triumph of hope over experience."
Steve Benen: the House GOP blocked reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which the Senate reauthorized, with bipartisan support, back in April. For the first time since 1994, the law has expired. ...
... Eric Dolan of the Raw Story has more.
Mark Follman of Mother Jones: "... the NRA's argument [that 'arming the good guys' would save lives] is bereft of supporting evidence. A closer look reveals that their case for arming Americans against mass shooters is nothing more than a cynical ideological talking point -- one dressed up in appeals to heroism and the defense of constitutional freedom, and wholly reliant on misdirection and half truths.... Not a single one of the 62 mass shootings we studied in our investigation has been stopped this way -- even as the nation has been flooded with millions of additional firearms and a barrage of recent laws has made it easier than ever for ordinary citizens to carry them in public places, including bars, parks, and schools.
... CW: I seldom link letters to the editor, but here's a good one to the New York Times from psychiatrists Daniel Rosen & Steven Roth: "As psychiatrists, we place great value on the importance on preserving patient confidentiality. Despite this, we suggest the creation of a national database to help prevent individuals who have been involuntarily psychiatrically hospitalized (the constitutional basis for which is dangerousness) from acquiring guns."
Nicholas Kristof: "Tens of thousands of [Chinese] censors delete references to human rights, but they ignore countless Chinese Web sites peddling drugs, guns or prostitutes. Doesn't it seem odd that China blocks Facebook, YouTube and The New York Times but shrugs at, say, guns?"
Right Wing World *
* Where there is much breathless ado about sending the Orange Man back to his little desk on a back bench.
Ed Kilgore: "The Breitbartians are trying to stir up speculation that Boehner could be 'knocked out' of the speakership if he fails to win on the first ballot, but only if an alternative like Eric Cantor quickly emerges."
D. S. Wright of Firedoglake: "It’s being reported that there are 20 Republicans [which is all it takes] ... willing to band together to unseat John Boehner. The only real success of the 'fiscal cliff' vote may have been the destabilizing of the House Republicans."
News Ledes
Washington Post: "The Federal Trade Commission handed Google a victory Thursday when it ended its nearly two-year-long investigation of the search giant by finding that it had not unfairly promoted its own products over those of its rivals and accepting voluntary concessions from the company over display tactics and patent licensing. The negotiated settlement, which falls far short of what a coalition of competitors had demanded, will result in few if any visible changes in how hundreds of millions of consumers use the world's most popular search engine."
New York Times: "President Obama set aside his veto threat and late Wednesday signed a defense bill that imposes restrictions on transferring detainees out of military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But Mr. Obama attached a signing statement claiming that he has the constitutional power to override the limits in the law."
Reuters: "Private-sector employers shrugged off a looming budget crisis and stepped up hiring in December, offering further evidence of underlying strength in the economy as 2012 ended. While other data on Thursday showed an increase in the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits, the trend remained consistent with steady job growth."
AP: "More Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, though the winter holidays likely distorted the data for the second straight week. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications rose by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 372,000 in the week ended Dec. 29. The previous week's total was revised higher."
New York Times: "An American drone strike killed a top Pakistani militant commander in a northwestern tribal region, security officials said on Thursday. The death of Maulvi Nazir was seen as a serious blow to Taliban fighters who attack United States and allied forces in neighboring Afghanistan."
Washington Post: "The Obama administration acted lawfully in refusing to disclose information about its targeted killings of terrorism suspects, including the 2011 drone strikes that killed three U.S. citizens in Yemen..., [Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York] ruled Wednesday. But the judge also described a 'veritable Catch-22' of security rules that allow the executive branch to declare legal 'actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.'"
Reuters: "Hundreds of the children [who attend the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut] ... head back to classes on Thursday for the first time since a gunman killed 20 of their schoolmates and six staff members.... Chalk Hill Middle School, closed about a year and half ago, has been hastily refurbished in the three weeks since the December 14 attack and renamed Sandy Hook Elementary School."
New York Times: "Rape, murder and other charges were filed on Thursday against five men suspected of carrying out the gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who later died of her injuries in a case that has prompted outrage and protests across India."
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Reader Comments (14)
"Mr. Obama — who reluctantly negotiated a deal like that 18 months ago — says he has no intention of ever getting pulled into another round of charged talks on the issue". [Throat clearing sound] Say what?
Speaker Boehner has resolved not to negotiate with the President one on one any more but instead to let the House of Representatives "work its will" in "ordinary course."
Sounds like a good idea. Maybe the House can vote to overturn Obamacare for the 34th time.
Here's the link: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/275295-boehner-tells-gop-hes-done-with-one-on-one-obama-talks
Al-Jazeera could be coming to a boob-toob near you!
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/01/2013132255769130.html
Re: alright men; take a knee; James Singer, whenever I was told to huddle up to listen in awe to the coach, owner, super or foreman, be it a playing field, gym, or jobsite if the one speaking was lying through his fucking teeth, without fail somebody; I won't say who, would cough "bullshit". Is that the throat clearing I thought I read in your comment? Unfortunately the cough can be contagious and if the entire group comes down with it the leader loses his team.
I hope Obama is not losing his team or worse he doesn't know his team except for the money players.
We may well have seen the last of the Wah-wah-wah Cheeto Man.
Teabaggers with the long knives out are looking to deflate this boner all because he was mean to them and said that they might not have the best interests of the country at heart, you know, because of them being intransigent idiots and all, who don't know the difference between governing a nation and pissing their pants.
Well, what did he expect? It was all fun and games when guys like Boehner and McConnell thought they could use the crazies to back their own power plays but now that the nuts have taken over they want him gone.
It reminds me of the old limerick about the smiling young lady from Niger:
There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
So where does that leave us?
Boehner was a feckless, incompetent boozy blowhard. But the next speaker could be a dangerous, egotistical, bomb thrower. Then again, with Eric Cantor as speaker and all those moronic teabaggers restored to positions of power, it won't be long before the country is at a complete standstill. And remember, those other fiscal molehills are just around the corner.
You may recall during last year's invented debt ceiling "crisis", Teabagger made to order, by the way, Cantor got up and made a speech about how stupid the president was in not understanding how difficult it was for a moral icon like him to vote for a raise in the debt ceiling because he was, like, fiscally conservative and stuff.
Like most teabaggers, Cantor forgets that history is not what they say it is and that prior acts and speeches are not too difficult to find. During the Bush "Whoopie! We're at War--Slash Taxes for The Wealthy!" years, Cantor voted seven times--count 'em, seven--to raise the debt ceiling, running up an additional $4 trillion in debt for the rest of us. But suddenly, under the Black Satan from Kenya, he's a fiscal conservative.
Well, if you thought John Boehner was a hypocritical piece of shit, just wait until Speaker Cantor starts to lug his gigantic ego and complete disregard for governance across the stage of state.
We're gonna see a lot more smiling tigers.
Looking at this imbroglio from a hawk's eye perspective it will be fascinating to watch who will be snatched up and flown away, who will be eaten whole right on the spot, and who will be ignored and passed over. And if you keep in mind that Obama is a center court kind of guy he hasn't lost his team nor has he sucked up to the big buck players; progressives aren't happy, but then they rarely are, and the fly by right road kill eaters are devouring themselves. I'm getting almost giddy waiting to see what awaits teary-eyed John B. If he loses the bar down the street is gonna make some money, fer sure.
One of the newcomers to keep an eye on is Deb Fischer (R) from Nebraska who beat Bob Kerry. She's taking Ben Nelson's spot. She is ultra conservative and presents as someone who is very sure of herself and is not going to be moved from her positions, like for instance gun control––none for her, thank you very much.
Hell's a-popping, folks, get out the popcorn and grab yourselves a good seat. Have a full box of tissues handy just in case.
@ Akhilleus: aren't you thinking of this one? --
There once was a guy from Ohio
Who so loved to have a good cry-o.
In his beer he would sob
That the teabagger mob
Would soon hang his ass out to dry-o.
Marie
Just to be fair, after all the evaluations of the horrible job of Congress but pundits and others, let us not forget that all of these greedy incompetent scumbags were elected by the citizens of the United States of America. So who is really responsible? We are and for some reason, no one wants to deal with that fact. And BTW, just to note, most of them were just reelected.
Marie,
Okay, that was a laugh out loud limerick. The best kind.
Thanks.
Although this may inspire the more poetically inclined amongst our band of commentators to limerickize the place even further.
I'll come back with one shortly. All I have so far is
A man in the senate named Mitch
Whose tea rash had left him an itch
something
something
But still he's a son of a bitch...
Admittedly not nearly as pithy as "...ass out to dry-o".
But first I have to take note of the fact that Sen. Mark Kirk (R) of Illinois will be walking up the Capitol steps to take his oath of office, quite a feat for someone who suffered a damaging stroke nearly a year ago. I also noticed that Sen. Kirk was a firm opponent of healthcare prior to his own health problems. He has said that angels visited him after the stroke. I wonder if they whispered to him that the kind of healthcare he was about to receive, which would restore him to his job and preserve his livelihood, which he also received free of charge to him but paid by all of us, was the kind that all Americans deserved.
Unfortunately, he has waffled on his answer, apparently. But I suppose that's a step up from the usual Republican answer of "No, no, no, never, and didn't I tell you NO in the first place?"
It seems that ideology on the right trumps everything. Common decency, common sense, morality, and even personal experience.
Republicans in both houses are about to find out how much it will cost them to keep on keepin' on with this kind of lunacy.
@Marvin Schwalb. Yeah, but as Charles Blow points out, a majority of Americans voted for Democrats for President, Senate & House.
Nonetheless, the U.S. of A. would be a far, far better country if those Southern states would just secede (and I say that as someone who lives in a Southern state & who would happily move to Taxachusetts the day before Florida became an independent nation -- or, alternatively, I would relocate to the Conch Nation.
Marie
P.S. Great comment yesterday re: Republicans & Sandy relief.
@Akhilleus:
Came out of hidin'
To deal with Joe Biden,
Marie,
Yup. That'll do.
We can claim co-authorship when Jon Stewart opens his show with it tonight.
Fiscal Cliff words from Bernanke
Made the Right Wing even more cranky.
Now their "responsible" talk
Is all chopping block
For the poor and sick granddad, not grandee.
Ken,
Grandees indeed, but not in deed, and never in need.