The Commentariat -- March 25, 2013
Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: President "Obama is set to sign a government funding measure that leaves in place the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration -- a policy that undermines many of the goals he laid out during the 2012 campaign. Obama thinks the cuts are, in his words, 'dumb,' and he says they will slow the economy and harm priorities by cutting spending on education, research and development, and many other programs. Yet Obama now finds himself enacting a broad domestic policy that he doesn't support and that he believes will harm the country."
Greg Miller, et al., of the New York Times: "The suspicious attack that killed 26 people in northern Syria last week exposed the difficulty of determining whether the Syrian regime has resorted to using chemical weapons as well as the lingering uncertainty over how President Obama would respond if what he has called a 'red line' is crossed."
Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker on the DOMA & Prop 8 cases which the Supremes will hear this week. ...
... Here's a lovely profile of Edith Windsor, the widow/plaintiff in the DOMA case, written in December by Peter Applebome of the New York Times. ...
... A Tea Leaf? Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times: "Jean Podrasky, 48, a lesbian who wants to marry her partner, will be at Tuesday's U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8 in seating reserved for family members and guests of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.... Podrasky [is] ... the first cousin of the chief justice on his mother's side.... She said Roberts knows she is gay and introduced her along with other relatives during his Senate confirmation hearing. She hopes he will meet her partner of four years, Grace Fasano, during their Washington visit. The couple flew to Washington on Sunday." ...
I have come to the conclusion that our government should not limit the right to marry based on who you love. While churches should never be required to conduct marriages outside of their religious beliefs, neither should the government tell people who they have a right to marry. -- Sen. Claire McCaskill (ConservaD-Mo.)
There are now 42 sitting U.S. Senators who back gay marriage. -- Taegan Goddard ...
... Steve Benen: "With the Supreme Court set to hear landmark cases this week on marriage rights, the evidence is overwhelming that the right has lost the larger national debate. 'There's no putting this genie back in the bottle,' Republican strategist Ana Navarro conceded yesterday. "This is now undeniable. The shift is here. We're not going back." BUT winger-bigot Gary Bauer trots out the "skewed polls" argument. CW: what this says, I think, is not that 54 or whatever percentage of Americans have gay friends/relatives who have made them see the light, but that the majority of Americans believe in fundamental fairness & individual self-determination, both of which are supposedly defining tenets of the American ethos. ...
... Will Portman, Sen. Rob Portman's (R-Ohio) son, in a Yale Daily News guest column, on his coming out as gay. CW: sorry, Will, I know it isn't nice to say so, but Gary Bauer is a winger-bigot, and not just on this matter.
** David Carr of the New York Times: "In pretrial hearings [in the Bradley Manning case]..., basic information has been withheld, including dockets of court activity, transcripts of the proceedings and orders issued from the bench by the military judge, Col. Denise Lind. A public trial over state secrets was itself becoming a state secret in plain sight. Finally, at the end of last month, in response to numerous Freedom of Information requests from news media organizations, the court agreed to release 84 of the roughly 400 documents filed in the case, suggesting it was finally unbuttoning the uniform a bit to make room for some public scrutiny. Then again, the released documents contained redactions that are mystifying at best and at times almost comic. One of the redacted details was the name of the judge, who sat in open court for months." (Emphasis added.)
Micah Cohen of the New York Times: "... with more budget battles approaching, over raising the nation's borrowing limit and perhaps reaching a grand bargain, Mr. Obama’s advantage over Congressional Republicans has all but vanished. Public approval of his handling of the economy has slipped, according to polls, and surveys now show that a roughly equal number of Americans favor Mr. Obama as favor Congressional Republicans on economic matters." CW: that's because Obama has conceded that Republican priorities of reducing the deficit are fundamentally correct; i.e., it's his own damned fault.
Ryan Koronowski, et al., in Think Progress: "Senate rules allow for consideration of any amendment [to the budget] that is brought to the floor. Senators introduced hundreds of amendments, which resulted in a 'vote-o-rama.' Many conservatives offered amendments to undermine existing and potential public health safeguards, particularly those that would attempt to reduce climate pollution. [We list] seven deadly amendments to curtail protection for our children's health and heritage. As usual, these conservatives are focused on protecting dirty energy companies profits at the expense of public health."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that while he doesn't want to legalize drugs, he doesn't think people should go to jail for non-violent drug crimes. Paul and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) last week introduced a bill that would give judges greater flexibility by allowing them to work around mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, which civil rights groups say often don't fit the crime." Like a broken clock that is right twice a day, Aqua Buddha Man gets it right for once. See also Jack Mahoney's contribution in today's Comments.
Frank Rich (published last week) on everything.
Paul Krugman: "... unrestricted movement of capital [across national borders] is looking more and more like a failed experiment.... The best predictor of crisis is large inflows of foreign money."
Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "In weighing a bid for The Los Angeles Times, Rupert Murdoch finds himself in a familiar role: waiting for rule changes from the government. With the resignation last week of Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he may have to wait a little longer. Mr. Murdoch ... has been beefing up News Corporation's lobbying efforts in Washington in the last few months to urge regulators to revise a media ownership rule that would prevent the company from acquiring The Los Angeles Times and other newspapers in markets in which it already owns television stations."
Driftglass: strangely enough, the Sunday Morning Iraq War Cheerleading Camp denizens do not discuss the Iraq War during their camp meetings surrounding the 10th Annual Cheerleaders Reunion.
Local News
Ron Brownstein of the National Journal: Gov. Rick Perry's refusal to accept ObamaCare funds for Medicaid expansion & rejection of ACA health insurance exchanges -- in a state that has the highest percentage of uninsured residents -- could help turn Texas blue. CW: it would be nice to think that at some point, stupid-&-cruel becomes a losing platform.
Bill Keller makes the point that state legislatures do not hew to public opinion because the public pays little attention to them. Do you know who your state legislators are? I haven't a clue other than to be certain they're a couple of rabid, not-too-bright Republicans, like my Congressman Tripp or Trap or Trug Whatizface, who is a pathetic, dumber-than-dirt winger.
Something else I missed last week: David Seifman of the New York Post: "The first-responder son of city Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano resigned today after The Post revealed his history of racist, anti-semitic writings." ...
... BUT Andre Tartar of New York reports that "racist FDNY employees [are] still posting racist things on Twitter." Here's the Post story, which is a doozy.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The American military formally transferred all but 'a small number' of the Afghan prisoners at the Bagram Prison to the Afghan government on Monday in a ceremony that almost, but not quite, marked the end of the American involvement in the long-term detention of insurgents [at Bagram].
New York Times: "Anthony Lewis, a former New York Times reporter and columnist whose work won two Pulitzer Prizes and transformed American legal journalism, died on Monday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85."
KKTV Denver: "Police have determined the gun used by Evan Ebel in Texas was the same weapon used in the shooting death of Department of Corrections Director Tom Clements. The confirmation comes after analysis by the Colorado Springs Metro Crime Lab based on analysis of shell casings collected in Texas by El Paso County Sheriff's Office investigators. Analysis is based on unique markings left on the casings at both crime scenes." Via TPM.
Politico: "The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will take up another affirmative action case related to race-based considerations in college admissions in Michigan."
Reuters: "Regulators on Monday approved a plan to compensate market makers who lost money in a botched Facebook Inc public offering in May on the Nasdaq exchange.... The decision from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was in response to a series of high-profile glitches last year that shook the market, including the handling of Facebook's long-anticipated initial public offering."
Los Angeles Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Sunday to stop Iran from flying arms across Iraqi territory to the beleaguered Syrian regime, but found him unwilling to give ground.... The overflights have become an increasingly important issue for the Obama administration, which believes that they have reinforced [Syrian President Bashir] Assad
AP: "A rebel military leader who was among the first to call openly for armed insurrection against President Bashar Assad was wounded by a bomb planted in his car in eastern Syria, anti-regime activists said Monday. Col. Riad al-Asaad, leader of a now-sidelined rebel umbrella group known as the Free Syrian Army, had his right foot amputated following the blast late on Sunday...." New York Times: "With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria's opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad...." Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Monday to smooth over relations with President Hamid Karzai, who recently accused the United States of colluding with the Taliban."
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Reader Comments (3)
For all the Republican nonsense inherent in Reince Priebus's "Looking for America" tour, libertarians like Rand Paul could preempt Democrats on the vital issue of drug decriminalization. This issue and that of private incarceration should be on the front burner for every liberal politician. The U.S. prison system is an ongoing human rights violation and should be addressed as such.
Marie, "it would be nice to think that at some point, stupid-&-cruel becomes a losing platform." Perry is undeniable proof that shit-for-brains has a purpose. The constant fertilization has produced some very good hair.
If you think drones are killing only terrorists, watch this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2013/mar/25/drone-attacks-pakistan-visualised