The Commentariat -- March 16, 2013
I will be away again most of the day today, so I won't be posting. -- Marie
Please sign the White House petition "Save Social Security." If you think means-testing is a good idea, see my argument as to why it is not -- it's the 12th comment in the Comments section.
The President's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here.
Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: the White House put out a chart yesterday that suggests Medicare is no longer growing faster than G.D.P., which is at odds with most projections. ...
... Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "And if that's the case, there's really no deficit problem.... What this really means is that we need an immediate moratorium on 'grand bargain' talk." CW: can you hear us now, Mr. Prez?
Michael Tomasky of Newsweek: "When Republicans say Obama needs to show 'leadership,' what they mean is that he ought to just embrace the Ryan budget."
Sahil Kapur of TPM: "House Republicans unanimously voted down a measure Friday that would have raised the federal minimum wage, from its current $7.25 per hour to $10.10 by 2015. Six Democrats joined 227 Republicans in voting it down; 184 Democrats voted yes. The legislation was proposed as a last-minute amendment upon passage of the SKILLS Act, which reauthorizes a jobs training program." CW: Quick, somebody put all the kids of House Republicans to work at minimum wage. (See Sen. Rob Portman [R-Ohio]. sudden gay-rights advocate.) ...
... Jonathan Chait: "By Portman’s own account..., he opposed gay marriage until he realized that opposition to gay marriage stands in the way of his own son's happiness.... The signal failure of conservative thought is an inability to give any weight to the perspective of the disadvantaged.... Why should any of us come away from his conversion trusting that Portman is thinking on any issue about what's good for all of us, rather than what's good for himself and the people he knows?" ...
... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "Mr. Portman said that he and his wife were surprised to learn their son was gay but that they 'were 100 percent supportive.' Supportive enough to tell the Romney campaign that his son was gay, but not supportive enough to back off his public opposition to equal rights for gay people while he was under consideration for the V.P. slot.... He says that the issue of marriage equality should be left up to the states.... Until this week, Mr. Obama also took that position as part of his 'evolution' on the issue, but has now dropped it. And for good reason. It's sort of like, say, letting states decide whether to ban inter-racial marriage."
Ted Cruz Doesn't Understand the Constitution. Greg Sargent: "The truly wrongheaded aspects of his remarks concern his assertions about the First and Fourth Amendments -- which embody a simplistic view of the Bill of Rights." See also Patrick's comment in yesterday's Comments section. I don't know if Patrick is a lawyer, but I know he's smarter than Ted Cruz. One of the most striking problems of conservatism is that it seems to preclude its adherents from seeing the world in terms other than stark black-and-white. ...
... Gail Collins: Cruz "could not have asked [Feinstein his Bill of Rights question] in a more patronizing way if he had illustrated his remarks with pictures of large, brightly colored stick figures.... Cruz sat sullenly while Feinstein gave her response. 'I would note that she chose not to answer the question that I asked,' he said when she finished. Other Democratic senators jumped in and pointed out some of the ways that other parts of the Bill of Rights were, indeed, limited by exceptions. Interestingly, none of the Republicans came to Cruz's support."
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure to reinstate a ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004. The vote followed the passage of three other measures: one that would expand the use of background checks to private gun sales, one that would make the already illegal practice of buying a gun for someone who is legally barred from having one -- known as a straw purchase -- a felony and increase penalties for the crime, and one that would renew and increase financing for school safety efforts." Now the question is what will Harry Reid -- friend of the NRA -- do?
Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "A top JPMorgan Chase executive struggled to defend his actions on Friday as lawmakers scrutinized the bank's multibillion-dollar trading loss. For nearly an hour, the executive, Douglas L. Braunstein, was berated for playing down JPMorgan's risky bets to investors and regulators on a conference call in April, just weeks before the bank disclosed the costly blowup.... The long, and often tense, Congressional hearing on Friday put JPMorgan in a tough position. While the investment bank has tried to distance itself from the trading debacle, the hearing, which follows a nine-month inquiry, is renewing the pressure on JPMorgan and its influential chief executive, Jamie Dimon."
Daniel Wakin, et al., of the New York Times: "For the first time since the election of Pope Francis two days ago, the Vatican on Friday formally defended him from accusations that, decades ago, in the so-called Dirty War in his home country of Argentina, he knew about serious human rights abuses but failed to do enough to halt them. The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said there had 'never been a credible accusation against him' relating to the period in the 1970s when he was the superior of the Jesuit order in Argentina." CW: well, all right then. That settles that, doesn't it? ...
... Rachel Maddow speaks to Sister Simone Campbell about Pope Francis. Thanks to Waltwis for the heads-up:
... The New Yorker's Joan Acocella and Margaret Talbot join host Amy Davidson to discuss how Pope Francis might change the Church.
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Reader Comments (7)
Now that the Rev. Federico L. has discounted accusations of the new Pope's 1990's countenancing of the actions of the former Argentinian Rightist government, maybe I should feel worse than I do about spreading those baseless rumors in the NYTimes in my comment on Egan's column, one that frankly seemed to me one of his worst.
Egan's sin was uncharacteristic simplicity; and when I read it, I guessed his overly generous assessment of the new pontiff was colored by his own schooling at Gonzaga Prep years ago in Spokane. That much I forgave him. Egan writes so well; and raised Catholic myself, tho' I have long since left that part of my life behind, I know you never entirely take the Catholic out of the boy.
But having read what I had read about the new Pope'l history and remembering what a nun I met in Peru had to say a half dozen years ago, I wasn't willing to grant Francis I, my namesake or not, absolution in advance.
This is my confession. In nomine....
Ken––went back and read your post under Egan's piece––well done! For me it's perplexing that we hear continually of this Pope's love of the poor, how he himself has lived a rather spartan life, how he has washed the feet of those who evidently had dirty feet. Yet––all the homosexuals and trans-genders of this world are to be shunned, made to feel unworthy, ridiculed in a way only the Church knows how so well. What are we to make of this? How can this large embrace of the downtrodden exclude a large part of the population? Could we accuse the Church of sexism, bigotry––– what exactly? As for his part in the "Dirty War", well, some excellent scullduggery might come up with answers, but my guess is we'll probably never know the truth.
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/16/is_pope_francis_a_fraud/
I'm wondering what RC Catholics (current and former) think of the above article.
Someone said they had to pick an Argentine junta abetter because they couldn't find another nazi youth veteran.
After watching the Bush School students' surprise for George H.W., I wish I'd had a copy of this video when friends and colleagues asked why I turned down a job at TAMU. After the children were finished embarrassing themselves, I'm sure they went somewhere to pray.
@ Barbarossa
Thanks for the link. Interesting. Funny how the Church politics paralleled our own national slide to the Right. True Believers can't stand ambiguity, whether they are named Cardinal Ratzinger, Richard Perle or John Yoo, so they have to clutch doctrine as a security blanket. As the world changes, I don't see the Church in its present incarnation adapting; there's too much fear to monger and the rearguarders who manipulate it are too entrenched. Whether the last three popes are "legitimate" I'll leave to the scholastics, those angels dancing on the head of a pin fellows, the Yoos of the Curia. I'll just watch what happens out here in the real world.
One reason not to lose any sleep over a military emasculated by sequestration: http://mondediplo.com/openpage/the-epic-story-of-the-c-130