The Commentariat -- January 3, 2015
Internal links removed.
Brian Faler of Politico: "The question of who will be Congress' next chief number-cruncher has suddenly gotten a lot more important. Republicans, who are considering replacing the head of the Congressional Budget Office, are leaving it up to the agency to decide how to implement their long-sought plans to [apply so-called 'dynamic scoring' to] taxes and other legislation.... A draft of House rules for the upcoming Congress would require scorekeepers to begin using the methodology. But, to the surprise of some Democrats, Republicans are stopping well short of telling them how to do it.... The wide latitude given to the CBO could help insulate Republicans from charges they are threatening the credibility of Congress' independent budget analysts in their drive to reduce taxes. But it also raises the stakes in the question of who will run the office, because economists have widely varying opinions of how tax cuts affect the economy." ...
... CW: In other words, Republicans know dynamic scoring is phony, so they plan to shift responsibility for it to the CBO & begin every sentence with, "According to the CBO's own methodology..., blah-blah. Cute. Fortunately for the GOP, this is way too arcane for the public to follow, so Republicans will get away with it.
Michael Schmidt & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The Obama administration doubled down on Friday on its allegation that North Korea's leadership was behind the hacking of Sony Pictures as it announced new sanctions on 10 senior North Korean officials and several organizations. Administration officials said the action was part of what President Obama promised would be a 'proportional response' against the country. But White House officials said there was no evidence that the 10 officials took part in ordering or planning the Sony attack, although they described them as central to a number of provocative actions against the United States."
Rocco Parascandola & Larry McShane of the New York Daily News: "NYPD Commissioner William Bratton wants his officers to show respect, rather than their backs, at the Sunday funeral for assassinated colleague Officer Wenjian Liu. Bratton, in an internal message distributed Friday to citywide commands, urged the rank and file not to repeat last week's show of disdain for Mayor de Blasio during the service for slain cop Rafael Ramos."
Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "City officials in Cleveland announced on Friday that they are handing over the investigation into the Nov. 22 police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice to the county sheriff's office."
Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "Key organizers of the wave of recent protests over police treatment of African Americans lashed out at Oprah Winfrey Friday over comments she made to People magazine criticizing their movement as 'leaderless.'" ...
... CW: I'm with Oprah on this. The failure of Occupy, for instance, was not a failure of motivation nor of goals. It was a failure of leadership & design. The idea that organization, strategy & planning denigrate the ideal of equality may be true, but it is also self-defeating. Thousands of people were extremely active in the civil, women's & gay rights movements, but leaders made things happen, & not just through protests. They fought the law, and they won. As long as every protest is an individual protest, the entrenched system will win. And, yes, there were differences within each of these movements, but those who took the long view & fought with steady, goal-oriented determination were the ones who effected changes.
The New York Times Editors write a lovely eulogy to Mario Cuomo.
Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "... the relentless stream of migrants to Europe -- propelled by the war in Syria and turmoil across the Middle East and the Horn of Africa -- has combined with economic troubles and rising fear of Islamic radicalism to fuel a backlash against immigrants, directed most viciously at Muslims. The simmering resentments and suspicions have driven debates across Europe about tighter controls on immigration. Worries about immigration have helped buoy right-wing parties in Britain, Denmark, France and Hungary. German officials recorded more than 70 attacks against mosques from 2012 to 2014.... There are few places where the turn against immigrants is more surprising than Sweden, where a solid core of citizens still supports the 65-year-old open door policy toward immigrants facing hardship that has long earned international respect for the country."
Presidential Election
A History Lesson for Hillary. Gail Collins: "The only president elected to follow a member of his own party without creating some sort of cosmic disaster was George H.W. Bush." Read the whole column. It's interesting & funny.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Edward W. Brooke, who in 1966 became the first African American popularly elected to the U.S. Senate and who influenced major anti-poverty laws before his bright political career unraveled over allegations of financial impropriety, died Jan. 3 at his home in Coral Gables, Fla. He was 95." The AP story is here. ...
... Update: The Boston Globe's obituary is here.
New York Times: "A British health worker who is being treated for Ebola in a London hospital is now in critical condition, her doctors said on Saturday. The patient, Pauline Cafferkey, a nurse from Scotland who had volunteered with the charity Save the Children to care for Ebola victims in Sierra Leone, returned to Glasgow, Scotland, last Sunday."
AP: "Indonesian officials said Saturday that they were confident wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 had been located after sonar equipment detected four massive objects on the ocean floor." ...
... Washington Post: "AirAsia was not authorized to fly from Surabaya to Singapore the day that one of its passenger jets attempted the route and crashed into the Java Sea amid poor weather conditions, according to Indonesian officials. Transportation Ministry Spokesman J.A. Barata told the Wall Street Journal that the air carrier was only allowed to make the flight four days of the week, but not on Sunday."
Guardian: "A woman who claims that an American investment banker loaned her to rich and powerful friends as an underage 'sex slave' has alleged in a US court document that she was repeatedly forced to have sexual relations with [Britain's] Prince Andrew.... Another close associate of [financier Jeffrey] Epstein who is also accused in the lawsuit, Alan Dershowitz, told the Guardian that the woman’s accusations against himself were 'totally false and made up'." ...
... Guardian: "Lawyers have asked the US government to hand over any letters or other documents it might have relating to the claims of two women that Prince Andrew was among those who lobbied its justice department on behalf of the billionaire financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein."
Yahoo! News: "A 7-year-old girl walked three-quarters of a mile through rugged terrain Friday night -- after surviving a plane crash that killed her father, mother, sister, and cousin. The child had been aboard her family's Piper PA-34 heading from Key West, Fla., to their home state of Illinois, but the plane crashed in western Kentucky."
Washington Post: "A suspected al-Qaeda terrorist died Friday night just days before he was slated to go on trial in New York on charges of helping plan the 1998 bombings outside U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 people, his lawyer said. Among the dead were 12 Americans, including two CIA employees. Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer after U.S. commandos and FBI agents captured him in a 2013 raid outside his house in a suburb of Tripoli, Libya."
White House: "In this week's address, the Vice President wished Americans a Happy New Year, and asked that as we make resolutions to get healthier in 2015, we take the time to sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act":
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Reader Comments (8)
This is in response to some of yesterday's comments:
@Akhileus, Marie and P.D. Pepe: I thought the timeline for DA was smashing and good for the Times for using an enjoyable piece of entertainment to educate us (must be why I pay the big bucks to subscribe). Akhileus, the Good Wife is another favorite of mine, and I don't know what I'll do if another great show is added at that prime slot, because my DVR can only record two shows. I loved your imaginative mashup of the two shows. Maybe Alicia can handle the divorce after Robert runs through yet another fortune and Cora gets fed up?
I am about to watch Orange is the New Black (Netflix) and if it's good I'll get back to you. The book, which I'm in the midst of, is riveting. Though a good story on a personal/emotional level, it also sheds a lot of light on our miserable prison and drug enforcement systems. Yikes, what a mess!
Sad day for journalism; Bill Moyers will retire. http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/02/bill-moyers-retirement-television-lays-down-challenge-next-generation-journalists.
Yes, it is a sad day for progressive journalism now that Bill Moyers is retiring. I am happy I had a chance to work with the man when I was on the Peace Corps staff in Washington in 1963. However, it was a brief acquaintance, because after Kennedy's assassination, he was called to work for Lyndon Johnson--and could not refuse, although he seemed ambivalent.
Turned out he was called on by Johnson to employ what I would call "Rovian" tactics during Johnson's campaign against Barry Goldwater. This was not in Moyers' nature, and he considered leaving at that time, but stayed on because he was told he was needed. He broke with LBJ for good after he Johnson left office, and it was then his progressive soul emerged.
Even though Moyers was coerced by the Bushies into leaving his PBS program in the early 2000's, because he was too liberal, he continued to grow and develop in his humanism. When he came back with the Moyers' Report on PBS sometime later, he was a full-blown Cassandra and took on Big Banks, Corporations, The Fed and all manner of dishonest enterprises. His special interest was the environment, and Climate Change is the theme of his final show. I hope everyone has a chance to watch it.
I did not know Bill Moyers well and doubt he would even remember me, but he has been a role model in self-honesty and truth for me all these years. I will miss him terribly. I do see him as the last truly honest journalist in the media--uncompromised and uncompromising. He learned his lessons about the institutionalized craziness of politics long ago, and grew far beyond that tantalizing, addictive call.
Following up on yesterday's history and geography lessons, there's this from Ann Landers from years ago ... so it must be history by now.
DEAR ANN LANDERS: I am sending you an essay put together by Richard Lederer, a teacher at St. Paul's school. It is made up from lines in student papers, collected by history and English teachers around the country. He swears they were real and that he did not make them up. - Graduate Student in the Bronx
DEAR BRONX: Please tell Richard Lederer (no relation) that I loved his collection and will claim him as an honorary cousin if he is willing.
The History of the World
Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birthmark. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They traveled by Camelot. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. David was a Hebrew king who fought the Philatelists. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.
The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. The mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Styx until he became intolerable. In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who died from an overdose of wedlock.
Eventually the Ramones conquered the Greeks. Nero was a cruel tyrant who tortured his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
In the Middle Ages, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings. Joan of Arc was canonized by George Bernard Shaw. The Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense. William Tell shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
In the Renaissance, Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. The painter Donatello's interest in the female nude made him the father of the Renaissance. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh invented cigarettes, and Sir Frances Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
Queen Elizabeth's navy defeated the Spanish Armadillo. William Shakespeare wrote about Romeo and Juliet, a romantic couplet. Miguel Cervantes wrote ``Donkey Hote.'' John Milton wrote ``Paradise Lost.'' Then his wife died and he wrote ``Paradise Regained.''
Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was that the English put tacks in their tea. Benjamin Franklin invented electricity by rubbing cats backward. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
Abraham Lincoln's mother died in infancy. He signed the Emasculation Proclamation. In 1865, Lincoln got shot by an actor in a moving picture. His name was John Wilkes Booth. This ruined Booth's career.
Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.
Bach and Handel were famous composers. Handel was half-German, half-Italian and half-English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven was so deaf that he wrote loud music. He expired in 1827 and later died from this.
Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.
(Ann Landers is distributed by Creators Syndicate Inc. Letters can be mailed to Ann Landers, P.O. Box 11562, Chicago 60611-0562.)
Bill Moyers' leaving leaves an enormous gap; will anyone take up the good fight? When I read that PBS gets pressure from Congress and its funders I cringe. Their "we are independent and listen to no one but you," evidently means that there are a lot of "you's" out whose money and/ influence speaks conservative.
Since it's a New Year I started cleaning out my files and yesterday found this gem. It's a June, 2008 piece in the NYT by Judith Warner who addresses the misogyny that surrounded Hillary while she was running. Please click on the link at the end of the third paragraph entitled "an incredible montage." After watching it I felt so angry–-so disgusted (even Chris Mathews comes off as a prick) and twas not only the men who play at this game. And this kind of thing is why I said if we are going to have the first female president it better be someone who has tough skin and has taken the blows.
Here's the link to above comment:
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/woman-in-charge-women-who-charge/?ex=1213588800&en=13e31bb233babef5&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Belated?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy
It's all getting too much for me, too!
"... ICYMI “I’m All Caught Up!” “I did it! I’m caught up!” Mr. Mickowski wrote. “I experienced every show, movie, webisode, album, book, webcomic, podcast, video game, Twitter feed, Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit AMA and op-ed you guys were telling me I had to check out. Now we can talk about them and I won’t feel like such an outcast when we hang out.”
Think I'll go read a book.