The Commentariat -- July 15, 2012
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled "When Did He Leave & When Did He Know It?" You can guess the subject matter. The NYTX front page is here.
Illustration by Ben Wiseman for the New York Times.Frank Bruni: "WHENEVER you doubt that the future can improve upon the past or that government can play a pivotal role in that, consider and revel in the extraordinary greening of New York."
Digby: "According to Media Matters, with the exception of Spitzer and Chris Hayes, TV news has pretty much avoided even mentioning [the LIBOR] scandal, much less trying to explain it":
CW: I hope you readers who thought I was a dope for citing the case of Tomas Lopez -- the young man fired from his lifeguard's job for trying to save a swimmer outside his assigned "zone" -- as an example of the perils of privatization, will read Steven Pearlstein's Washington Post article on the story, which he describes as "a parable about outsourcing and how it is reshaping large swaths of the economy." Pearlstein makes a number of the same points I did, and then some. I might be a dope, but I have company!
Peter Maass & Megha Rajagopalan in the New York Times: "THE device in your purse or jeans that you think is a cellphone -- guess again. It is a tracking device that happens to make calls. Let's stop calling them phones. They are trackers.... The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ... noted that GPS data can reveal whether a person 'is a weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups -- and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.'"
Speaking of trackers, Scott Shane of the New York Times on "the moral case for drones." Something of a must-read, no matter what your opinion of drones is now.
Glen Johnson of the Boston Globe: "First, it was kings and queens. Now, it is heads of state -- and the secretary of state. During a CNN interview that aired Tuesday, Senator Scott Brown said that President Obama and other powerful Democrats are regularly phoning him to get help passing their legislation.... In reality, Brown's staff says he has spoken by phone with Clinton just twice during his Senate career -- most recently over a year ago, on July 5, 2011.... Brown's staff says he has spoken with the vice president by phone just once. As for Obama himself, Brown's staff says the two have spoken by phone just once, in April 2010.... But the president also hosted Brown in June 2010 for a face-to-face talk in the Oval Office."
Presidential Race
Sing along with Mitt:
Your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this: if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff. -- Mitt Romney, referring to the people who booed him at the NAACP convention ...
... Suzie Madrak: "As far as free lunches go, we of course just witnessed the biggest government handout in history, one that Romney himself endorsed. Four and a half trillion dollars in bailout money already disbursed, trillions more still at risk in guarantees and loans, sixteen trillion dollars in emergency lending from the Federal Reserve, two trillion in quantitative easing, etc. etc. All of this money went to Romney's pals in the Wall Street banks that for years helped Romney take over companies with mountains of borrowed cash. Now, after these banks crashed, executives at those same firms used those public funds to pay themselves massive salaries." Read her whole post on Willard's "character." ...
... Here's the piece by Matt Taibbi -- which Madrak cites -- on Romney big "outreach" to "those people" who are all about "free stuff." ...
... Digby: "... as usual, it's only the average Joe in a bind who needs to be taught a lesson in personal responsibility."
Tony Soprano Explains "Planned Bankruptcy a la Mitt":
Jordy Yager of The Hill: "Rep. Ron Paul said that the Republican Party is scared to let him speak at the national convention in Florida next month.... 'I think the Romney campaign organization is very insecure,' said Paul in an interview with Fox Business News on Friday."
"Perhaps there's a contradiction there":
Local News
Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "The federal government has granted Florida election officials access to a database of noncitizen residents for use in Republican-backed efforts to remove people who are not American citizens from voter registration rolls."
News Ledes
New York Times: "As regulators ramp up their global investigation into the manipulation of interest rates, the Justice Department has identified potential criminal wrongdoing by big banks and individuals at the center of the scandal. The department's criminal division is building cases against several financial institutions and their employees, including traders at Barclays...."
New York Times: "A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama."
Washington Post: "Japan on Sunday recalled its ambassador to China as the result of a reigniting territorial dispute between the East Asian neighbors. The uninhabited and long-contested Senkaku Islands, controlled by Japan but claimed by China, have again turned into a flashpoint amid Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's recent proposal to buy the territory from a private Japanese landowner. China sent three ships to the area last week as an apparent response, prompting a protest from Japan."
AP: "Syria on Sunday denied U.N. claims that government forces used heavy weapons during a military operation that left scores dead and brought immediate international condemnation, while the International Committee of the Red Cross said it now considers the conflict in the country a civil war."
Share Article
Reader Comments (6)
I liked Frank Bruni's point that NYC 's explosion of parks is an object lesson in the wonders that can be achieved by responsive and pro-active government.
It's sobering to consider, however, that the residents of our cities are underrepresented in Congress due to our unique governmental system mandated by the Constitution.
LIBOR IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS: Oh, how we wait for the collapse of various inflated parties–– like the stars that become black holes––oh, how we wait!!!
Marie, I sure hope you did not think that I thought you were a "dope" for citing that article when I suggested that we need to be careful of how we use events to support our shared belief in the dangers of privatization. My point was that we need to pick fact-based evidence that shows that the private management is behaving differently than a public management would. The article you cited did not have enough details - we needed to know a lot more to really judge. That is why I said if we argue with so little evidence then we can't complain when someone generalizes that liberals are incompetent when one thing goes wrong. I think the reason I even wrote is that I read a lot of liberal blogs and see a lot of comments from people that come across as stereotypically whiny as the conservatives complain about. I think you are an amazingly smart, insightful person, which is why I visit your page many times a day. I just think our fight against privatization is stronger is we have data to back up our arguments.
On a related note, my daughter is a lifeguard so I asked her about what her training has taught her. She said "rescue first." Their policy/procedure is to first ensure that their station is covered and then go rescue the swimmer. Assuming that the lifeguard did that and followed proper procedure, he did the right thing. I was not giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Citizens somtimes forget that privatization immediately adds about twenty five percent to the costs of anything taken private. This represents the new profit margin. To avoid looking crazy, the take over group must reduce costs twenty five percent to avoid increasing prices and a immediate out cry. Services quickly decline. There is a wealth of information about Great Britain's experience with privatization of rail and electricity. Prices up, service down and there is a momement afoot to take the rail roads back
The universal means of making a sucess of privatizing anything is cheaper help. Cheaper teachers? Cheaper cops? American workers are under paid now, is peonage next?
Regarding the dispute between Direct TV an Viacom that is causing a number of stations to go dark for Direct TV subscribers (but the only one I care about is Comedy Central): When I learned that I would likely be unable to view The Daily Show and Colbert Report, my immediate thought was that was okay I could watch online if I had to. Au contraire! Apparently that's exactly what Direct TV was telling its subscribers, which caused Viacom to issue a statement that they are pulling the two shows from internet view for a while.
This is starting to resemble an episode of the imaginary show "Corporations Behaving Badly."
Marie: Fabulous column today in the New York Times eXaminer! I'm in awe of your brilliance and energy in marshaling facts and arguments!