The Commentariat -- March 14, 2013
** Floyd Abrams & Yochai Benkler, in a New York Times op-ed: "Anyone who holds freedom of the press dear should shudder at the threat that the prosecution's theory [in the Bradley Manning case] presents to journalists, their sources and the public that relies on them."
** John Podesta, chairman of the Center for American Progress & formerly Bill Clinton's chief-of-staff, in a Washington Post op-ed: "In refusing to release to Congress the rules and justifications governing a [drone] program that has conducted nearly 400 unmanned drone strikes and killed at least three Americans in the past four years, President Obama is ignoring the system of checks and balances that has governed our country from its earliest days. And in keeping this information from the American people, he is undermining the nation's ability to be a leader on the world stage and is acting in opposition to the democratic principles we hold most important."
Peter Finn of the Washington Post: "As the Obama administration pushes for gun-control legislation, it will have to contend with the changed legal understanding of the Second Amendment that culminated in Heller. That transformation was brought about in large part by a small band of lawyers and scholars backed by the NRA."
** "Stuck on Cruz Control." Dana Milbank: "Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result, it has been said, defines insanity. But among Senate Republicans, the lunatics are running the asylum. A few of the most junior members, with support from conservative activists, are calling the shots, while the caucus's nominal leaders, intimidated by the newcomers' power, have become followers."
Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "Wednesday..., Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced a budget blueprint that proposes only minor trims to Medicare and Medicaid -- the biggest drivers of government spending -- and vows to make the cuts 'without harming beneficiaries.' Meanwhile, a growing number of Democrats have declared their opposition to a proposal that has emerged as Obama's biggest selling point to Republicans: his offer to apply a less-generous measure of inflation to Social Security, resulting in slightly smaller annual cost-of-living increases." ...
... E. J. Dionne: "The Ryan budget was on the ballot last November not only because Ryan was on the ticket with Mitt Romney but also because Romney offered a similar approach. It takes nerve to dismiss the results of an election that Ryan himself called a 'referendum.' ... [Sen. Patty] Murray, [who presented the Senate budget,] has done a service by asking for more revenue than Obama did in his most recent offer. This should help make clear that the 'center; in this debate is ... roughly where the president is right now."
Our biggest problems in the next 10 years are not deficits. -- President Obama, to House Republicans ...
... Jeremy Peters & Ashley Parker of the New York Times on President Obama's meeting with House Republicans yesterday.
Nicholas Confessore & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama joined former campaign staff members and some of his most ardent supporters on Wednesday night, headlining a two-day meeting of an independent group, Organizing for Action, that is intended to bolster his agenda in Congress. The new group hopes to cut through Washington's legislative logjams by harnessing the millions of volunteers and donors who helped elect Mr. Obama to a second term last fall, turning their enthusiasm and money to grass-roots lobbying on issues like immigration, climate change and the expansion of Medicaid."
Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "On the day he named a replacement for the United States ambassador slain at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September, President Obama also met with Prime Minister Ali Zeidan of Libya and emphasized the need for his country's help in finding the attackers who carried out the assault that led to death of the envoy and three other Americans.... Mr.Obama ... announced that he was naming a career diplomat, Deborah K. Jones, as the new envoy to Tripoli, filling a job that has been vacant since the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Ms. Jones previously served as ambassador to Kuwait, and in posts in the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Turkey, Ethiopia and Iraq."
** CW: I missed this report, which should have been headline news EVERYWHERE. Instead, I had to back into it from other commentary: Brad Johnson, writing in Grist: "The State Department's 'don't worry' environmental impact statement for the proposed Keystone XL tarsands pipeline, released late Friday afternoon, was written not by government officials but by a private company in the pay of the pipeline's owner. The 'sustainability consultancy' Environmental Resources Management (ERM) was paid an undisclosed amount under contract to TransCanada to write the statement, [emphasis added] which is now an official government document. The statement estimates, and then dismisses, the pipeline's massive carbon footprint and other environmental impacts, because, it asserts, the mining and burning of the tar sands is unstoppable." Here's another report from Lisa Song of Inside Climate News.
Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Scott Prouty revealed himself on MSNBC's 'The Ed Show' Wednesday night as the bartender who shot a damaging video of Mitt Romney dismissing President Obama's supporters during a closed-press fundraiser last year." ...
... I really like this guy. You can watch the whole interview (in segments) on "The Ed Show" site.
Hope Yen of the AP: "A record number of U.S. counties -- more than 1 in 3 — are now dying off, hit by an aging population and weakened local economies that are spurring young adults to seek jobs and build families elsewhere... The U.S. [is encountering] its most sluggish growth levels since the Great Depression. The findings also reflect the increasing economic importance of foreign-born residents.... Without new immigrants, many metropolitan areas ... would have posted flat or negative population growth in the last year."
Emily Schmall & Larry Rohter of the New York Times:" Jorge Mario Bergoglio ... is in some ways a history-making pontiff, the first from the Jesuit order and the first non-European to fill the post in more than 1,200 years. But Cardinal Bergoglio is also a conventional choice, a theological conservative of Italian ancestry who vigorously backs Vatican positions on abortion, gay marriage, the ordination of women and other leading issues of the day -- leading to heated clashes with Argentina's current left-leaning president." ...
Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "... the first Latin American pope also represents a cultural bridge between two worlds -- the son of Italian immigrants in a country regarded by some as the New World colony Italy never had.... Bergoglio remains a fierce critic of socially progressive trends, including gay marriage, representing a continuity of BenedictXVI's conservative doctrine. Though questioned for some of his actions during Argentina's Dirty War, he may also be a target hard for progressives to hit. In recent decades, he has emerged as a champion of social justice and the poor who has spoken out against the evils of globalization and slammed the 'demonic effects of the imperialism of money.'" ...
... Michael Warren of the AP: "It's without dispute that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the 1976-1983 military junta while it was kidnapping and killing thousands of people in a 'dirty war' to eliminate leftist opponents. But the new pope's authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, argues that this was a failure of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and that it's unfair to label Bergoglio with the collective guilt that many Argentines of his generation still deal with.... Bergoglio twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court in trials involving torture and murder inside the feared Navy Mechanics School and the theft of babies from detainees. When he eventually did testify in 2010, his answers were evasive, human rights attorney Myriam Bregman told the AP."
... CW: As contributors Akhilleus & Dave S. remarked in yesterday's Comments, Charles Pierce has the goods on Pope Francis. Best hope: he'll be a fascist for the poor & excommunicate Paul Ryan & John Boehner. My advice to liberal Roman Catholics remains -- become an Episcopalian. They've got apostolic succession AND incense. It's okay if you say your Rosary & go to confession, too. And you could be gay &/or a girl & become a priest or bishop. In other words, Catholicism without the Beanie Boys & their Main Man. ...
... BUT, Francis does carry his own luggage. The AP reporter, Nicole Winfield, describes this as a "display of humility." CW: this reminds me that President Jimmy Carter also occasionally carried his own luggage. Republicans criticized him for this "display of humility," calling it "undignified." If Francis doesn't get a little more "dignified," he may end up a one-term pope.
Gail Collins sees the only way to get a budget compromise will have to involve white smoke & red beanies. CW: I was cool with it till she got to the part where Paul Ryan ascends into heaven. I don't foresee that happening. Under any circumstance. Even the concept of miracles has limitations.
Local News
The lieutenant governor of Florida, Jennifer Carroll, abruptly resigned on Tuesday, the result of a criminal investigation into an Internet sweepstakes company for which she once served as a consultant.... Her tenure as lieutenant governor has been marred by scandal and poor judgment, and Ms. Carroll was increasingly viewed as an embarrassment to the man who chose her for the job. Gov. Rick Scott" CW: Ha! America's Worst Governor AND Worst Lieutenant Governor. The Tampa Bay Times story, by Tia Mitchell, is here.
Steve Neavling of Reuters: "Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is expected to announce on Thursday an emergency state takeover of Detroit, putting a lawyer with extensive experience managing corporate bankruptcies in charge of the destitute city's finances. The dramatic move will culminate the long decline of the once thriving center of the U.S. auto industry and birthplace of the Motown trend in popular music." The Detroit Free Press story is here.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Matthew Keys, a 26-year-old deputy social media editor at Thomson Reuters, has been charged with assisting the hacking collective Anonymous in an attack on the Web site of The Los Angeles Times, the Justice Department said Thursday. A federal indictment of Mr. Keys, formerly a Web producer at KTXL Fox 40, which, like The Los Angeles Times, is owned by the Tribune Company, said that he went by a user name of 'AESCracked' and assisted in a cyberattack on the newspaper's Web site. The attack reportedly allowed the group to gain access and alter a news feature."
Reuters: "Authorities on Thursday killed a man suspected of shooting dead four people a day earlier in separate incidents at a barbershop and a car wash in neighboring upstate New York towns, Governor Andrew Cuomo said."
New York Times: "The American commander in Afghanistan quietly told his forces to intensify security measures on Wednesday, issuing a strongly worded warning that a string of anti-American statements by President Hamid Karzai had put Western troops at greater risk of attack both from rogue Afghan security forces and from militants. The order came amid a growing backlash against Mr. Karzai's public excoriation of the United States, including a speech on Tuesday in which he suggested that the government might unilaterally act to ensure control of the Bagram Prison if the United States delayed its handover."
New York Times: "China’s new Communist Party leader,Xi Jinping, completed his formal transition to power on Thursday, assuming the presidency during a parliamentary meeting which has sent signals that his government will try to be more responsive to an impatient public while defending the party's top-down control."
New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to sign agreements Thursday to form a government with Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, two dynamic, first-time politicians...."
A representation of traces of a proton-proton collision measured in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experience in the search for the Higgs boson, or as contributor Patrick asserts, a Flying Spaghetti Monster.AP: "Physicists announced Thursday they believe they have discovered the subatomic particle predicted nearly a half-century ago, which will go a long way toward explaining what gives electrons and all matter in the universe size and shape. The elusive particle, called a Higgs boson, was predicted in 1964 to help fill in our understanding of the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang. The particle was named for Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who proposed its existence, but it later became popularly known as the 'God particle.'"
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Reader Comments (24)
Look, quick, at the CBS article on scientists confirming finding the "God Particle." Over on the right in Matie's Ledes. If that's not a picture of a Flying Spaghetti Monster, I'm a monkey's grandson!
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/14/scientists-say-they-are-confident-they-have-found-the-long-sought-higgs-boson/
Sorry, that should be "Marie's Ledes". I was so excited, my fingers slipped.
Funny, I always thought the FSM was cooked, al dente, but clearly she is uncooked pasta. But the essence remains ...
@Patrick. Today's ledes, updated. Marie
Patrick,
All this time spent looking for the Higgs boson and there it was in a box in the pasta aisle. Who knew? Maybe physicists need to spend more time in grocery stores. The answer to the problem of baryon asymmetry might be found hiding behind the low carb yogurt. After all, everyone knows how important yogurt is to matter-antimatter balance.
Don't they?
"Rick Snyder is expected to announce on Thursday an emergency state takeover of Detroit, putting a lawyer with extensive experience managing corporate bankruptcies in charge of the destitute city's finances. " Lord Small Balls has a new job, he can stop bothering Tagg now.
You couldn't help but admire Scott Prouty. Surprisingly, his initial motivation was the labor abuses in the Chinese factory that Bain purchased, although he recognized Romney's arrogance and disdain. There are so few people that will bypass their 15 minutes of fame for the greater good. I was reminded of that when David Corn from Mother Jones was later questioned on air. I know he was the media vehicle for the story (thank goodness there was a vehicle), but he sure has that element of tabloid sleaze that makes you want to hold your nose.
I suppose the most we can hope for from Pope Francis I is that he cleans up the Curia. I want to see how he deals with cleaning up all the molester-priests who require prosecution. At present, not much of a record on that front.
The Pope-a-rama-lama-ding-dong of the last 12 hours or so has me flabbergasted (a state I don't relish) at the deficiencies of the MSM.
Yeah, I know it ain't news how much most news sucks but this was a new low.
As Dave pointed out yesterday, while much of the media was still trying to figure out the new guy, resorting to the standard non-observational observations such as "he's so humble", "he's so likable", "he's a man of the people, look at that smile", Charlie Pierce, a real journalist, was doing what needed to be done. He talks to people, he does the research, he LOOKS IT THE FUCK UP. It ain't rocket science.
I did some basic research into the guy and I found a lot of what Charlie did, in about 15 minutes. And yet hours later we're still hearing about the new pope's humility. Really? That's all you got? How did these people get jobs on their high school newspapers?
"The janitor, Mr. Warren, put a new coat of wax on the gym floor last week. He's such a nice man." We'll overlook the fact that the gym floor needed new wax because of a fight after a basketball game.
But here, in this very specific instance, is the problem of modern journalism writ large. It's much easier to go with the handed down narrative provided by the spinmeisters. So "humble" "man of the people" "rides the bus" "nice smile" "everyone loves him" stand in for serious analysis and real journalism. Even basic observations such as the guy's age seem to elide most of the MSM morons, never mind his inaction during the reign of a brutal junta in the 80s.
It's the same with the Ryan budget fiasco. "Serious" "fiscal wonk" "balanced budget" "path to prosperity" are flung around like oatmeal off the spoons of babies.
This, background on the new pope, should have been a no-brainer for journalists wanting to make their mark. But here again, it's easier to spin the crap and save yourself from being branded a trouble maker. Besides, trouble makers don't get invited onto David Gregory's Right Wing Ball Washing Hour, now do they?
Since everyone seems so sciencey this AM, I just want remind all that it's Pi Day.
James,
Damn! It sure is, isn't it!
Pi for everyone. I was reading a while ago that Pi, because it's never ending, could hold the secret to the universe within it's enormous string of numbers. Kind of like that old idea of giving a million monkeys a typewriter and sooner or later you'll end up with a Shakespeare play.
Or a Paul Ryan budget.
Thanks for the reminder.
I should point out that my daily diatribe (see above) was directed mostly at TV "journalists". There are, luckily, still some real journalists running around with the noses to the ground sniffing out real news.
And speaking of good journalists Noam Scheiber has a terrific piece in the New Republic on the fall of Pauli Walnuts––sorry, Paul Ryan, by the press who seems finally to understand they have been jerked around by this guy:
"The fall from grace must be especially puzzling to Ryan, whose great skill has been exploiting the mores of the mainstream media. He has long understood that you could push a Randian agenda of tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor and, so long as you affected a plainspoken Midwestern-ness, you’d still look like a stand-up guy. He discovered it was possible to command wonkish cred while spouting endless budgetary nonsense, so long as you coated it in the language of “baselines” and “tax exclusions.” As my former colleague Jonathan Chait has written, “Ryan has grasped that the aura of specificity he has cultivated paradoxically renders the specifics themselves irrelevant.”
@Diane: I beg to differ re: David Corn––I think he is one of the good guys––writes well, digs deep and seems pretty humble.
And the hits just keep on comin'.
Looks like Crazy uncle Louie Gohmert, still wandering unshaven around the local Piggly-Wiggly with his fly down and mustard stains on his torn t-shirt, has left off babbling about peanut butter price gouging and taken up babbling about how we coulda shoulda won the Vietnam War. According to Uncle Louie, just one more week of bombing--ONE MORE WEEK!!--and the VC would have thrown their hands up in the air and run crying into our arms begging for mercy.
He forgets that they had withstood nearly a decade of pretty much continuous bombing and were still standing. But no, one more week woulda done it.
This from a guy who coulda shoulda served in Vietnam. But noooooo....like Darth Cheney, he had "other priorities". Instead, like Dubya, he play acted at being a rough tough soldier while at Texas A&M. He was Brigade Commander Louie, running the Corps of Cadets, which sounds a bit like kids running around in tighty whities who break out their GI Joes to battle it out with their King Kong and Godzilla action figures. Of course once the war (that we coulda shoulda won, if only Brigade Commander Louie was over there) was over, he enrolled as a lawyer in the JAG corps. Tough duty there, Uncle Louie.
All this today from the proceedings at CPAC, Convention of the Paranoids, the Assholes, and the Comatose.
Turn that war machine back on, dammit! I know we can win!
Yes, it's Pi day----and also Einstein's birthday (also my daughter's---Happy Birthday, Catharine!)
Happy TGIP ,(Thank Goodness It's Pi day) to all.
@ Ak. When you dig a little deeper in researching Pope Fransis' involvement in Argintina's " dirty war" you will discover he was much more actively engaged in the Generals murder of 30,000 than merely being a cowardly observer. Check into " El Silencio" by Robert Parry.
The Pope-a-rama is much more un-nerving when one considers that the majority of the Supremes are now Catholic. With the veto power that Silent Filabuster gives to the crazy and crooked in Congress, I see little hope of this changing.
Our Democracy continues to slide into Plutocracy and Monarchy.
Pi are not square; pi are round!
"Hope Yen of the AP: "A record number of U.S. counties — more than 1 in 3 — are now dying off, hit by an aging population and weakened local economies that are spurring young adults to seek jobs and build families elsewhere... economic importance of foreign-born residents.... Without new immigrants, many metropolitan areas ... would have posted flat or negative population growth in the last year.""
I bet a hundred bucks she lives in an urban setting and has never spent any time in the fly-over states. If I might paraphrase, immigrants who populate the vast underpopulated areas, good. Finding a sustainable lower level of population, bad. Lots of reasonably intelligent people think piling themselves onto a lump of urban humanity is less than prudent. And why does it have to be immigrants? Go look at what the immigrants to Williston, North Dakota bring with them. And those are our fellow Americans. Don't look to others for resources and resourcefulness, expect that within us. And this idea of looking to immigrants to solve all our underpopulation problems is wrong. It sounds like a hybrid of ideas brought to you by Walmart, Big Business and Rep. Luis Gutierrez with a sprinkle of ACLU for good measure. Yup, we don't need to outsource citizenship.
@re: Scott Prouty: Sooner or later, behaving like as supercilious jerk toward the wait staff will come back to bite you in the ass. Bill Clinton had taken the time to thank the kitchen and wait staff, shake hands and chat with them. Mr Prouty said that at first, he thought the Mittster might do the same. Ha! Fat chance!
What really got to him was the cold, off hand way Romney described buying a Chinese factory aka a sweat shop. Lord sb's description of the workers sounded like a trip to a zoo. I hadn't heard that part of the tape before. It was shocking.
Romney may be 66 years old, but he's still a spoiled immature brat.
People in this neck of the woods still voted for him in droves, because he was (a) white and (b) had an R next to his name. They didn't care that he had no moral core. The scary part is what if he had been elected President? The country owes a lot to Scott Prouty, who does have a moral core.
Looks like Ed Schultz replacement is going to be Chris Hayes. He's too early out here ( 5 am) so when I watch its by podcasts. I hope the new time slot doesn't change his approach although an hour format is bound to diminish the depth of his program. Its a good pick, I have to confess I was hoping for Joy Reid.
@PD Pepe. Corn's journalism clearly has good guy outcomes. I think the digging deep is done by others and probably brought to him, like the 47% video brought by James Carter. No problem, that's what editors do. Personally, the humble thing isn't there for me.
@citizen625: couldn't disagree more. This country was built on "outsource citizenship." Immigrants always have been our future (even if AmerIndians justifiably disagree with me), and them that got here before 'em have always disdained the new ones coming.
Want to know one of the things (which nobody mentions) that happened to the housing market??? -- crackdown on immigrants.
Fortunately, native-born citizens are not producing enough offspring to fill up new housing. Since construction is our No. 2 employer (after government) (I think I read that recently), if we want to build houses, we'd better find somebody to buy them, and if we want to sustain the earth, we'd better not try to populate the country the way the popes recommend.
Personally, I don't care if the U.S. economy shrinks some, as long as everyone is getting a reasonably fair share of the pie (which ain't happening now), but those who want it to grow will have to find some new consumers. Those consumers have to come from somewhere else. (Yes, we can acquire new consumers by selling stuff overseas; i.e., keeping "those people" where they belong, but we also need home-based growth.)
Yen is reporting facts, not much opinion. Yes, she probably does live in an urban area because that's where the majority of reporters live. So what?
Marie
CPAC: Been following CPAC on the Daily Kos, not exactly unbiased reportage but timely and often colorful. So far the speeches all seem to be the kind one usually hears at a highschool football rally or at the local bowling alley when league trophies are presented.
I watched the Ed show and really respected the thoughtfulness and courage of Scott Prouty. That 47% thing needed to be shown; he was correct. I'm thankful that Scott did what he did.
Akhilleus: Yes, I do know how important yogurt is to MY matter-antimatter balance. I also like spaghetti.
@Diane: Corn had me after reading his 2004 book, "The Lies of George W. Bush: the politics of deception. Once had it's hard to let go.
The Economist today notes the release of the UN's updated Human Development Index. The HDI is a rough measure of how good life is in a country. The US comes in 3rd, behind Norway and Australia. I'll pause while Americans pat themselves on their collective backs.
Something interesting happens when societal inequality is introduced into the HDI. For one thing America falls from 3rd to 16th. The effect is demonstrated by looking at Latin Americans who have an HDI of 0.75 which puts them on a par with Kazakhstan. African Americans have a HDI of 0.70, on a par with Chinese. African Americans in Louisiana have a HDI of 0.47, just like Nigerians.
@ Akhilleus: "or a Paul Ryan budget" I like that. It certainly captures the intelligence required.
And then this post by Driftglass puts CPAC into perspective.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2013/03/in-honor-on-2013-big-fucknozzle-trade.html
Marie and citizen625: We certainly profit culturally, intellectually, socially and economically from immigrants. But when I read "underpopulation" I want to scream. At a time when our planet is being skinned alive to support an already unsupportable population explosion we need to celebrate promote emulate the "dying" of these counties, and try to persuade to the rest of the world follow. Fat chance. Let's keep in mind that many (most?) immigrants are fleeing the ravages of overpopulation. Those who suggest that Malthus was wrong appreciate neither the irrelevance of his timing prediction or phasing between overpopulation and resource collapse. The first will occur, has already occurred maybe a century ago, and must in principle precede the second, which is underway; if the two are a century or two or three out of phase, so what? Virtually every weekly issue of Science, Nature, PNAS and NYTimes has one or more articles on resource collapse. While necessary if not sufficient, the only way to enable everyone to get a sustainable piece of the finite shrinking pie is to have far fewer cutting it up.