The Commentariat -- July 11, 2014
Internal links removed.
In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it. That's not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own. -- Speaker John Boehner, Wednesday ...
Think about that. You're going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job while you don't do your job. -- President Barack Obama, Wednesday, to a crowd in Austin, Texas
... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Speaker John A. Boehner's lawsuit against President Obama will focus on changes to the health care law that Mr. Boehner says should have been left to Congress, according to a statement issued Thursday by the speaker's office. By narrowly focusing the legal action on the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Boehner will sidestep the more politically problematic issue involving Mr. Obama's executive action offering work permits for some illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children." ...
... CW: This is hilarious. They're suing Obama for temporarily waiving the part of a law they hated most -- the employer mandate -- in a law they despised so much they attempted to repeal it 50 times. Kinda like suing the neighbor for trespass because he ran into your yard to save you from a rabid dog who was attacking you. ...
... digby: "So, the Republicans are going to court to enforce a mandate which they voted against and to which they are completely opposed? ... Also too, the great black whale of Obamacare is just irresistible. They're going to go after it even if it makes no sense at all." ...
... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "Yep, it's back to Obamacare, and it's ironically for doing something that Republicans claim they wanted. Which means that if they're successful in their lawsuit, their victory will have achieved ... a faster implementation of Obamacare. Bunch of geniuses, they are." ...
... Tony Pugh of McClatchy News: "Some 9.5 million Americans gained health coverage during the recent marketplace enrollment period as the uninsured rate for working-age adults fell from 20 percent to 15 percent, according to a new national survey by the Commonwealth Fund." ...
... Jenna Levy of Gallup: "The uninsured rate has decreased sharply since the Affordable Care Act's requirement for most Americans to have health insurance went into effect at the beginning of 2014." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "Since most opponents of Obamacare cannot admit even partial success, you won't read those number in the conservative media unless it's part of an effort to deny them." ...
... Jonathan Chait documents how the libertarian Peter Suderman of Reason has accidentally shown "how ObamaCare is succeeding." ...
... Scott Lemieux posts a funny "Shorter Peter Suderman." ...
... Paul Waldman in the American Prospect: "One of the arguments conservatives have made is that people who ended up changing plans will hate the new ones they had to get because of Obamacare. Well, it turns out that among people who previously had insurance but are on a new plan they got through the exchanges or Medicaid, 77 percent say they're satisfied with their new plan, compared to only 16 percent who aren't satisfied, and the results are almost exactly the same for those who were previously uninsured. Not only that, 74 percent of Republicans with new plans say they're satisfied.... [But] no matter how much data we get demonstrating that the law is working well, those voters [in red states] will still get angry every time the word is spoken. So it's in the candidates' interest to keep on talking about it, in the same apocalyptic terms." ...
... Timothy Jost, in the Washington Post, says the federal courts will not rule for litigants attempting to destroy the ACA with the argument that individuals who live in the 2/34ds of the states which do not have their own exchanges cannot receive the tax credits which are critical to enrollment. "Judge Harry T. Edwards of the D.C. Circuit panel ... called the plaintiff's argument 'preposterous.'" (Edwards is a Carter appointee.) ...
... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos isn't so sure, given that the Supreme majority has "already proven that it's perfectly willing to make bullshit decisions about the law." ...
... MEANWHILE, winger Jonathan Keim of the National Review thinks Jost might be right, but only because "President Obama has packed the D.C. Circuit." CW: "Packed the D.C. Circuit" is winger-speak for "filled normally-occurring vacancies on the Court of Appeals." These people really cannot stop themselves even long after the phony "outrages" have died their natural deaths. ...
... AND Many Thanks to Chuck & Dave, the Amazing Koch Brothers, for Spending Millions to Sell ObamaCare to the Yahoos. Niam Yaraghi, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, runs the numbers & discovers that "after controlling for other state characteristics such as low per capita income population and average insurance premiums," ObamaCare enrollment was higher in states that ran more anti-ObamaCare ads. Yaraghi notes that people in these states also were "more likely to believe that Congress will repeal the ACA in the near future..., [so] could have a greater willingness to take advantage of [what they believed was] this one time opportunity."
Colleen Nelson of the Wall Street Journal: "Insisting that he's not really a partisan guy, President Barack Obama on Thursday again criticized Republican lawmakers for inaction as he challenged them to 'do something.' The president mocked Republican suggestions that he should be sued or impeached for taking executive actions and said he would not let partisan gridlock in Washington deter him for pressing ahead with his own agenda.... On the last leg of a two-day swing through Texas, the president summed up what he had accomplished during the first six months of the year, saying that he had taken more than 40 executive actions that didn't require Congressional approval. Still, he said that GOP complaints about overreach were unfounded":
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Congressional Republicans pushed back Thursday at President Obama's request for nearly $4 billion to help stem the surge of young migrants from Central America to Texas and to deal with the humanitarian crisis there, signaling that they expected concessions for their legislative approval. The Republicans said that at the very least they planned to amend a 2008 law that affords migrant children from Central American countries extra legal protections when they cross the border. That measure, signed by President George W. Bush, has inadvertently made it more difficult to quickly return these children home." ...
... The Boner Theater Presents Another Dramatic One-Man Performance by Matinee Idol John Boehner. Sarah Mimms of the National Journal: "House Speaker John Boehner had some harsh words for President Obama on the border crisis, raising his voice and slamming the podium during a press conference Thursday. When asked if Congress needed to approve a $3.7 billion request from the president to help ease a recent surge of unaccompanied minors, Boehner repeatedly said that the House would not grant Obama a 'blank check.' The speaker added that the children should be taken care of and then sent back. Pressed on the issue, Boehner appeared to get heated. 'This is problem of the president's own making. He's been president for five years! When is he going to take responsibility for something?' he shouted."
... Greg Sargent: "GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, a key player in the House on immigration, just met with the House GOP leadership to make one final plea that Republicans act on immigration reform in the face of the current crisis. He was told that it is dead for the year. In an interview with me just now, Diaz-Balart confirmed the meeting, and said he is 'very disappointed' in his party's decision not to move forward. Crucially, he cast the GOP leadership's refusal to move forward as the key obstacle to reform. He said he had legislation ready to go, and that his conversations convinced him that a solid number of Republicans and Democrats would have supported it." ...
"Words Do Matter." Kate Bolduan of CNN confronts Gov. Rick Perry on his conspiracy theory that President Obama had purposely created the border crisis:
Tom Kludt of TPM: Mainstream pundits & the usual suspects go nuts over a "quotation" that Obama didn't say. ...
... Jed Lewison is just not taking seriously enough the reactions to the fake Obama quote -- "I don't do photo-ops."
Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "The Senate voted 75-22 Thursday to confirm Shaun Donovan as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Donovan was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), but was tapped to replace Sylvia Mathews Burwell at the OMB after she took the helm at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).... Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he opposed Donovan's nomination because he didn't think he had the credibility to stand up to the administration and rein in spending.... Sessions said, 'He was chosen because he has a good personality, people skills, and is politically loyal and would defend administration goals and priorities even when the result would be unfavorable to the country's fiscal health.' CW: Also, Sen. Sessions said he couldn't abide anyone with a good personality & people skills, & might have voted to confirm a perpetually-peeved little jerk like himself.
Alison Smale & Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "Germany's relations with the United States plunged to a low point Thursday, with the government demanding the expulsion of the chief American intelligence official stationed here because, it said, Washington has refused to cooperate with German inquiries into United States intelligence activities."
Benghaaazi! Conspiracy Theory Fizzle Redux. AP: "The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by Republican lawmakers that a 'stand-down order' held back military assets that could have saved the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans killed at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya.... Transcripts of hours of closed-door interviews with the military leaders by the House Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform committees were made public for the first time on Wednesday.... Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Oversight panel, has suggested Hillary Rodham Clinton gave the order, though as secretary of state at the time, she was not in the military chain of command." ...
These transcripts definitively show that Republican attacks against our nation's military servicemembers and former Secretary of State Clinton are completely unfounded and utterly offensive. -- Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee ...
... Steve Benen: "In reality, there was no real need to debunk the right's 'stand-down' Benghazi conspiracy theory again. The argument was thoroughly discredited a while ago, and though some congressional Republicans occasionally still throw it around, in all likelihood, even they probably don't believe it. But just in case someone -- perhaps, say, a Fox News host, for example -- might still be unsure about whether the theory has merit, let's note the new evidence that confirms the old evidence."
Jesse Holland of the AP: "A powerful government workers' union will end its support for the United Negro College Fund after the group accepted $25 million from the conservative powerhouse Koch brothers and the college fund's president appeared at a Koch event.... AFSCME President Lee Saunders said the actions of the college fund's president 'are not only deeply hostile to the rights and dignity of public employees, but also a profound betrayal of the ideals of the civil rights movement.'" ...
... Lisa Graves of the Progressive: "... billionaire oil industrialist Charles Koch was an active member of the controversial right-wing John Birch Society during its active campaigns against the civil rights movement.... The echoes of his past role reverberate along with the millions he and his brother David Koch have spent fueling a John Birch Society-like 'Tea Party' peopled with right-wingers like Birchers of decades past.... In many ways, the playbook deployed by the Kochs today through myriad organizations resembles a more sophisticated (and expensive) playbook of the John Birch Society back then. Even the recent announcement of the Kochs to give a $25 million gift to the United Negro College Fund (with strings attached requiring the recruitment of free market African American college students) echoes that past. In 1964, in the face of criticism for its assault on the civil rights movement, the John Birch Society also funded a scholarship program to give college funds to African Americans who were not active in the civil rights movement...." Via Charles Pierce.
Paul Krugman: "... why should right-wing sentiments go hand in hand with inflation paranoia? One answer is that using monetary policy to fight slumps is a form of government activism. And conservatives don't want to legitimize the notion that government action can ever have positive effects.... But there's also a much more direct reason for those defending the interests of the wealthy to complain about easy money: The wealthy derive an important part of their income from interest on bonds, and low-rate policies have greatly reduced this income." Krugman has several recent blogposts backing up this column.
Paul Krugman: Oh, those prominent "reformacons" who are going to turn the Republican party away from Stupid? The big guns, Ramesh Ponnuru & Yuval Levin, "both did indeed strongly defend [Paul Ryan']s smoke-and-mirrors budgets." Then Levin lied about what his & Ryan's positions on austerity were: "It's one thing to get a major issue wrong, and rely on the wrong research. It's something else, and much worse, to pretend after the fact that you did no such thing."
James Ball of the Guardian: "General Keith Alexander, the then director of the NSA, was briefed that the Guardian was prepared to make a largely symbolic act of destroying documents from Edward Snowden last July, new documents reveal. The revelation that Alexander and Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, were advised on the Guardian's destruction of several hard disks and laptops contrasts markedly with public White House statements that distanced the US from the decision."
Congressional Races
Republican political consultants or operatives did in fact conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process. They made a mockery of the Legislature's proclaimed transparency and open process of redistricting by doing all of this in the shadow of that process, utilizing the access it gave them to the decision makers, but going to great lengths to conceal from the public their plan and their participation in it. -- Judge Terry Lewis, in an opinion invalidating Florida's congressional redistricting map ...
... Mary Klas of the Miami Herald: "A judge threw out Florida's congressional redistricting map Thursday, ruling that the Legislature allowed for a 'secret, organized campaign' by partisan operatives to subvert the redistricting process in violation of the state Constitution. Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis ruled that two of the state's 27 districts are invalid and must be redrawn, along with any other districts affected by them, to bring the map into compliance with the state's new Fair District amendments."
Senate Race
Every time I get an opponent -- uh, I mean, every time I get a chance -- I'm home. -- Veteran Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), speaking on a Kansas City radio show. Roberts "owns a Washington-area home while his official residence in Dodge City is rented space in a home owned by two supporters. Not so long ago, Roberts joked about having full access to a recliner there." Roberts has a Tea party primary challenger.
News Ledes
Guardian: "The death toll in Gaza has risen as international pressure builds on Israel to end its four-day conflict with Hamas and Palestinian militant groups in the enclave. A Gaza health ministry spokesman said two Palestinians were killed and three injured in an Israeli strike on Friday that brought the death toll to 100. Rocket fire continued at Israeli cities, which have so far avoided fatalities.... The White House said Barack Obama had phoned the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to offer to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas." CW: So it's 100-0.
Washington Post: "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the Afghan capital Friday to push for a resolution to a weeks-long political crisis centered on the country's fraud-hit presidential election. The dispute over last month's run-off has U.S. officials worried Afghanistan, already roiled by a Taliban-led insurgency, could collapse before its first democratic transfer of power."
Share Article
Reader Comments (5)
As I alluded to the other day, these conservative (whoops..there's that oxymoron alert again...beep, beep, beep...) intellectuals, the so-called Reformacons (sounds like a kid's action figure--"Get your very own Reformacon, kids, collect 'em all. Pull their strings, they make a speech, sit down and don't do shit) are no more than wingnut egghead manqués (accent on the egg).
First, anyone who has advised George W Freakin' Bush on the prosecution of his illegal, immoral war of choice and supported those actions with faux scholarly drivel doesn't have the intellectual credibility of Wile E. Coyote. And, to top it off, no one can consider themselves smart who has read three pages of the Paul Ryan snow job budget and held it up as the work of anyone other than a flimflam man.
Besides the fact that some of them were brought up in the Chicago School of Neocon Fantasy, should a one of them come up with a decent, workable, non-delusional idea, no one of any import on the right would give a cubic inch of a single flatulent outgassing.
So they're not as completely deceitful as Ted Cruz, not as delusional as Louie Gohmert, and not as obviously odious as Sarah Palin. So what? That makes them better dressed wingnuts with more diplomas.
"Hey kids, big markdown on those Reformacons, They've been discontinued. Half price! Get 'em while they last."
Dana Perino, former scurrilous boot licker and shameless flack for a president who deserted during wartime, lied about it, then lied to start another war (he wouldn't have to fight in), and current shill for other right-wing liars, is OUTRAGED about something President Obama never said. Didn't I say something recently about the problems of all this counterfactual thinking on the right?
The latest foray into stupid is in regards to a statement made by the president that he wasn't interested in photo-ops at the American/Mexican border, that he was interested in results, in solutions. This idea, of course, is completely anathema to Republican hacks like Perino, who are ONLY interested in photo-ops, not solutions. Why, whatever could this Kenyan person mean by not being interested in photo-ops? The fact that the president didn't mean "all" photo-ops need not intrude on the hazy thinking of the counterfactualists. Or the stupid.
Anyway, Ms. Perino, former Bush shill, expert herself in twisting things so badly she'd make the Laocoön look like Modigliani's "L'homme qui marche", has this to say about something Obama never said:
"I'm still trying to get my head around this statement by potus. It's one of those that lasts long after a presidency is over."
Really, Dana? Gee, how 'bout we recall some statements your guy made that will last long after his debacle of an administration, and that still have the stench of fungal decay, death, and calculated mendacity about them:
“The Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” (But we couldn't find them.)
“We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.” (How's that free and prosperous Iraq workin' out?)
“The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.” (Terrorism is so over! Happy, happy, joy, joy.)
"We do not torture" (Other guys do it.)
"Mission Accomplished! (Not just a liar. A stupid liar).
And those, friends, are things Dana Perino's boss actually did say.
Nothing is too hypocritical for right-wing assholes.
And don't forget stupid.
Marie links a great piece about the president telling Boehner and his weenie do-nothings in the wingnut controlled house (if you can call it control, more like insect infestation) to shove it up their asses.
What I want to know is where has this guy been? The guy who realizes that these assholes have the knives out for him and always have. The guy who has been trying to play nice with thugs and fools.
“Think about that,” he told the crowd. “You’re going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job while you don’t do your job.”
Then he throws in a nice quote from Scorsese's movie about backstabbing traitors, "The Departed":
“I’m the guy doing my job,” Obama said, getting the line almost right. “You must be the other guy.”
If you haven't seen the movie, it's pretty great. Here's the line. It's about 2:00 minutes into this short clip:
You must be the other guy. Ain't it the truth.
Wonder if Paul Ryan and the reformacons have been noticing: "The U.S. government ran a monthly budget surplus in June, putting it on course to record the lowest annual deficit since 2008." http://www.cnbc.com/id/101830305
More from the BIG guvmint is BAD, BAD, Bad POV....
"...(Steve 'Mr. Fix-It") Miller, nonexecutive chairman of AIG, said on CNBC that a Ronald Reagan-type overhaul is needed to get the nation back on track. "[After Carter] Reagan came in and did a lot of things, including cutting tax rates—both corporate and personal tax rates—tried to slow the growth of regulation that was strangling business. I think that ... would work again now."
Interestingly, Mr. Fix-It is now at AIG (beneficiary of HUGE government support/bailout) and formerly "...While with Chrysler in the 1980s, he was the executive in charge of arranging with hundreds of banks the U.S. Government insured program of loans to avoid bankruptcy."
Hypocritter!
@MAG: if Miller had a personal motto, this might be it:
"Money for me, not for thee."
You have to wonder, where do these guys get off?
Also, strange that he hasn't noticed how much steam the economy has picked up under The Reugulator (a/k/a President Obama).