The Commentariat -- March 26, 2014
Internal links removed.
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "President Obama on Tuesday publicly endorsed a plan that Justice Department and intelligence officials have developed for a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Agency's phone call records program, saying that he believed it would resolve privacy concerns without compromising the program's utility as a counterterrorism tool." ...
... The Guardian story, by Spencer Ackerman & Julian Borger, is here. ...
... Michael Shear & Alison Smale of the New York Times: "President Obama vowed on Tuesday that the United States would use its military to come to the defense of any NATO country that is threatened, sending a warning to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, about the consequences of further aggression along the border with Eastern Europe":
... New York Times Editors: "If President Obama really wants to end the bulk collection of Americans' telephone records, he doesn't need to ask the permission of Congress, as he said on Tuesday he would do. He can just end it himself, immediately.... The immediate question, though, is why the president feels he needs to wait for Congress before stopping mass collection." ...
... CW: Aw, c'mon. Obama wants GOP members of Congress to feel the pain. He'll enjoy watching them vote for eavesdropping, & so will some of their Democratic opponents.
... Carol Leonnig & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Three Secret Service agents responsible for protecting President Obama in Amsterdam this week were sent home and put on administrative leave Sunday after going out for a night of drinking, according to three people familiar with the incident. One of the agents was found drunk and passed out in a hotel hallway.... The hotel staff alerted the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands after finding the unconscious agent Sunday morning, a day before Obama arrived in the country, according to two of the people."
Via John Cole of Balloon Juice.Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "In a long and lively argument that touched on medical science and moral philosophy, the Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed ready to accept that at least some for-profit corporations may advance claims based on religious freedom." ...
... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "A divided Supreme Court seemed inclined to agree Tuesday that the religious beliefs of business owners may trump a requirement in President Obama's Affordable Care Act that they provide their employees with insurance coverage for all types of contraceptives." ...
... Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker: "There were two lessons from Tuesday's argument in the Hobby Lobby case in the Supreme Court. First, it's very important that there are now three women Justices. Second, it's even more important that it takes five votes to win.... There is no such thing as a women's position on this case or on any other issue. But there is such a thing as women's voices, and with this case, especially, it was important that they be heard. On this day at the Supreme Court, they were." ...
... ** Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "One thing that was immediately clear Tuesday morning: There is finally a women's team at the high court." ...
... David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "And why shouldn't the government force corporations to cover abortion?" ...
... Even Ruth Marcus, the David Brooks of the Washington Post, is sensible about the implications of the Hobby Lobby case. ...
... Groucho prefigures the Mind of Anthony Kennedy. Thanks to Akhilleus for making the connection (see today's Comments):
Bloomberg News (via the L.A. Times): "The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Obama administration in a dispute over taxes on severance compensation, overturning a lower court decision that could have forced the IRS to refund more than $1 billion. The court said that payments to laid-off workers are subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA. It was a victory for the Internal Revenue Service...." The ruling was unanimous.
Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration has decided to give extra time to Americans who say that they are unable to enroll in health plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline. Federal officials confirmed Tuesday evening that all consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension."
Jane Perlez & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Michelle Obama's weeklong trip to China seemed to start as a spring break holiday with her mother and daughters but has turned out to include far more substance -- and politics -- than the cheerful advocate of fitness and healthful eating often displays at home. At a high school [in Chengdu, China] on Tuesday, Mrs. Obama pointedly told students that the United States championed 'the right to say what we think and worship as we choose,' even as she conceded that Americans still lived those ideals imperfectly and that minorities had struggled to overcome a legacy of discrimination."
Dominic Rushe of the Guardian: "... bitcoin is not a currency. The Internal Revenue Service ruled Tuesday that the controversial cryptocurrency and its rivals will be treated as property, not cash, for tax purposes. The ruling had been expected and marks another step in the wider attempt to make bitcoin mainstream. In its notice, the IRS said bitcoin would be treated much like stock or other intangible property."
Jon Ralston: "The Federal Election Commission has sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's campaign, asking for more information on why he listed an expenditure of more than $11,000 $16,000 in 'holiday gifts.' The gifts, I have learned, were purchased from his granddaughter, Ryan Elisabeth Reid, who is a jewelry vendor in Berkeley, CA. The gifts were later passed on to donors and supporters.... Reid has previously been asked to explain holiday gifts to his Ritz Carlton doorman by the FEC."
Beyond the Beltway
Kathleen Gray & Gina Damron of the Detroit Free Press: "The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday extended a stay on last week's ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman that struck down the Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage."
Congressional Races
Peter Hamby of CNN: "A leading Democratic pollster predicted a 'sobering' turnout disadvantage for her party in this year's midterm elections and called on Democrats to articulate 'a bigger economic agenda' this fall. 'There is a huge turnout disadvantage and challenge,' Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said Tuesday at a breakfast with reporters. 'There is always a challenge in turnout in an off year, but it's really dramatic this time.'" ...
... Steve Erickson of the American Prospect suggests that impeaching Obama will be/is the purity test for Republican candidates this year & for 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls. CW: Are Republicans that crazy? Maybe.
Stupid Democratic Trick/Shades of Mitt. Ed Tibbetts of the Quad City Times: "Democratic Senate hopeful Bruce Braley apologized Tuesday for comments at a fundraiser at a Texas law firm in which he said if Republicans took control of the Senate, Sen. Chuck Grassley, a 'farmer from Iowa who never went to law school,' would chair the Senate Judiciary Committee." Nothing like stroking slick big city lawyers at the expense of rural voters in a rural state. Idiot. Yeah, Bruce, Chuck is an ignorant hick, but he's not as stupid as you are.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the most senior adviser to Osama bin Laden to be tried in a civilian United States court since the Sept. 11 attacks, was convicted on Wednesday of conspiring to kill Americans and providing material support to terrorists."
Seattle Times: "Wednesday's grim search of the Oso-area mudslide has revealed additional victims. 'There are finds going on continually. They are finding people now,'said Steve Mason, a fire battalion chief leading the westside operation." ...
... Update: "Emergency managers now believe up to 90 people may be missing in the mudslide that destroyed a community near Oso, Snohomish County last Saturday."
AP: " Within days of Crimea being swallowed up by Russia, the lights began flickering out. Officials in the peninsula accused Ukraine of halving electricity supplies in order to bully Crimea, which voted earlier this month in a referendum to secede and join Russia."
Washington Post: "New satellite images taken in recent days show more than 100 objects -- some as long as 75 feet -- that may have come from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Wednesday. The images, which Hishammuddin called the 'most credible' lead so far in the search for the vanished Boeing 777 airliner, revealed items in the water nearly 1,600 miles from Perth, Australia."
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Reader Comments (18)
..."CW: Aw, c'mon. Obama wants GOP members of Congress to feel the pain. He'll enjoy watching them vote for eavesdropping...."
I agree! Let the poor guy have a little fun. I would love to see him be more thoughtfully sadistic. Besides, November is coming soon, and the Repubs who vote for more eavesdropping will have lots of egg to lick off their rich, putrid faces--as they tromp about spewing venomous lies on the campaign tee-rail!
This is an example, IMHO, of the NYT's editors' humorless self-righteousness, and I wish they would shut the fuck up. (:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/26/town-to-ted-nugent-thanks-but-no-thanks/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3
Ol' Ted finds he's not as popular as he thinks. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Too bad they had to pay him, but i think it's money well spent.
The Hobby Lobby president, Mr. Green, is building a $70 million Bible Museum in D.C. in order "to bring to life the living word of God, to tell its compelling story of preservation, and to inspire confidence in the absolute and reliability of the bible," so says the Green guy.
Now––isn't that special!
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117145/museum-bible-hobby-lobby-founders-other-religious-project
@PD Pepe: Thanks for the link. What's particularly sad about this is that many of the manuscripts in Green's collection are important historical documents, which I would be happy to pay to see, except they will be in the hokey-jokiest way possible, instead of in a scholarly light. (The Vatican Museum, which one might recognize as an institution backed by something of a religious organization, by contrast, displays its collections as works of art & historical relics. ) Green isn't wasting his money; he's trivializing international treasurers.
Green has applied for (and I suppose will get) tax-exempt status for his "religious" museum. As the country grows more secular & more sensible, the concessions we make to magical thinking seem more & more outlandish.
Marie
Tomorrow the president visits the pope, a pope who has demonstrated a long, long overdue concern for the poor and the dispossessed. Something not seen in the Vatican for a looooong time. But what is uppermost in the tiny brain of Senator Aqua Buddha? The president needs to apologize.
For being the President of the United States, apparently.
Rand Paul has, repeatedly, and stupidly, over his extremely short career as a politician, demonstrated an appalling lack of understanding of Constitutional and legal principles which makes his disdain for things like medical board certification all the more clear. Like other Republicans (Chris Christie) he looks askance at things like truth and accuracy of personal claims.
When Christie needed to dislodge himself from the quagmire of legal and political culpability and his guilt as a rat, he simply got himself a bought and paid for "investigation" (paid by the taxpayers) that un-guiltied him. Likewise, when Bad Toupee decided that, for some reason, he couldn't make the grade as a board certified physician (not smart enough?), he created his own board and Voila, he's a doctor. Hey, wow. What a great idea. But would you see this guy for an eye problem? So why should anyone trust his judgment on constitutional or international protocol matters?
So when Li'l Randy insists that the president grovel before the pope and beg forgiveness for the fact that a program that provides medical care for the citizens of America--a secular country, not a Christian theocracy (yet)--also offers coverage for contraceptives. Seriously, senator? He might as well apologize for being president because any other president, by this logic, would have to admit guilt at his constitutional responsibility for upholding the laws of the land of which the ACA is one.
And I'm pretty sure the pope was not expecting an apology. He's a big boy, unlike the Sour Little Whiner, and he knows how the world works. Li'l Randy does not.
So, by this type of weird thinking Obama should also ask forgiveness from Vladimir Putin for any economic sanctions being considered. We should ask forgiveness from all socialist countries (the few remaining) for being capitalists. And why not ask forgiveness from the French for being, well, not French? You see how silly this is? But Rand Paul thinks of himself as a Serious Person. He's not. What he also isn't is an American who understands the Constitution.
He routinely inserts his foot in his mouth up to the knee on issues he apparently believes no one understands but him, when, in nearly all cases, his abysmal ignorance is the only thing worth understanding because this guy has no business being on a local zoning board, let alone in the White House. But, as is the case with his ignorant Republican cohort readying for the 2016 presidential tilting, few call him on it, further fueling his sense of self-importance and the rightness of his own wrongheadedness.
Stupid, smug little shit.
A couple of observations about yesterday's SCOTUS hearing-that-should-never-have-happened, the Hobby Lobby whinery.
First, from all accounts, it seems that the Ladies of the Court did a bit of a tap dance on the head of Paul Clement, who seems destined to advocate for every last crazy wingnut complaint possible, making his day a bit inclement. At least I hope so.
But, comme d'habitude, all things hinge on what Tony (Swingman) Kennedy thinks. And here it's not too good.
I had a girlfriend once who had a bad habit of looking at the most insignificant event and stretching it out into the future toward the wildly incredible conclusions. Now, I'm all one for playing things out to see the possible outcomes, but not too big on wasting time on highly unlikely or silly outcomes. She'd get a new pair of shoes and think, oh the heels are too big, I might trip. If I fell, I might severely injure myself. I might even lose the leg. My life would be over. No one would want to marry me. I'd end up in a nursing home, a one-legged old maid. Better take those shoes back.
Ye-ah.
That relationship didn't last. When we broke up she said she knew it was over 10 minutes after we met.
This is Anthony Kennedy. No, no..I didn't go out with Anthony Kennedy. This is how he thinks. Apparently. Yesterday Ian Millhiser on Think Progress opined that the when defending a law before Kennedy, the government can't just defend the law it has already passed. They have to defend against any future contingent laws that Kennedy thinks might be passed (you remember his railing against the government making everyone eat broccoli?). Even though, as Digby indicates, what's the problem if a corporation's medical plan funds an abortion? It's a legal medical procedure. But in a case strictly about payments for contraception, Kennedy can't help himself but do abortion what-ifs.
I wonder, did he do this sort of prognosticating when considering all the (very real and imminent) dangers of Citizens United?
I'm guessing not.
That's why we broke up. I won't even return his calls anymore.
Barbarossa,
Ted Nugent couldn't be more disgusting if he tried. And he has tried, and been pretty successful at it. And I'm not referring to his recent tirades against the President of the United States in which he called him a piece of shit subhuman mongrel, or his other "speeches" in which he suggested that it was time for him to assassinate the president (why is this shithead not in jail?).
If I had the money, I would attend every rally for every Republican this asshole shows up to support and I'd play excerpts from past interviews in which Nugent brags about having sex with underage girls. He once wrote a song called "Jailbait" (and another called "I'm a Predator") in which he describes his urge to handcuff a 13 year old and rape her. He once was concerned that having sex with an underage girl might get him into trouble so he got the girl's parents to sign her over to him, as her legal guardian, so THEN he could have sex with her. Because it's all fine and dandy if he's her "father" and wants to statutorily rape an underage girl.
Rocker Courtney Love has described a sexual encounter with Nugent when she wasn't even 13 years old! But this is the face of the Family Values Republican Party. Nice, huh?
Plus, he refers to himself as "Uncle Ted". That is just über creepy.
This guy is a pig beyond description, but according to Sarah Palin, he's the man. "If a candidate is okay with Ted Nugent, he's okay with me". Yeah? How about if he wants to rape another little girl. Is that okay with you Sarah, you pathetic, pygmy-brained, amoral imbecile?
Christ, these people!!
What he said, every day and twice on Sunday...
I know my mother, a feminist radical Unitarian her whole life, would be absotively in total disbelief. She is, I'm sure, rolling in her grave.
@Re: Corporate Personhood: If corporations are people, why can't they be treated as people? No immunity for crimes, in the event of national emergency, be drafted, etc. The owner of Hobby Lobby should lose the reason for creating a corporation in the first place--personal immunity.
PD,
One of the comments to the New Republic article about the Hobby Lobby Bible Museum plan perfectly encapsulates the delusional paranoia and extremism of these people.
"Bible museums are good. Abortion museums are not."
I skate. Do you like peanut butter?
Talk about your non sequiturs.
The only mention of abortion comes from the museum's COO who says that it will not be mentioned in any museum display. But that doesn't stop one of the Bible bangers from calling attention to it as if there is a museum dedicated to abortion being planned, a satanic plot, no doubt to attack and persecute Christians.
The unadulterated stupidity and knee jerk paranoia of such a statement calls to mind a chapter of Simon Schama's History of the Jews I watched last night on PBS. The intolerance of Christians, who felt themselves attacked from all sides by the very few Jews in Europe, allowed them to convince themselves of the satanic quality of Jews and then to further provide them with the appropriate amount of righteous outrage and "moral religious" underpinnings necessary to exact horrible penalties from the Jews.
In medieval England, because Christians abhorred usury, at least nominally, church fathers borrowed extensively from a well off Jewish businessman who subsequently became the richest man in England. They then denounced him as a usurer (and a Jew, of course), imprisoned him and confiscated all his money and possessions. No one had to pay him back. They got the castles and enormous estates they craved and got rid of him into the bargain. Schama doesn't say so, but I wondered if this historical figure might have been the inspiration for Shakespeare's Shylock.
Nonetheless, while watching this, I couldn't help think how bad things could really be if the fundamentalists took control again. It's unlikely, of course, but right now, a couple of hard right Christians are on the verge of changing the entire legal landscape with the wave of a SCOTUS opinion, an opinion that would affect millions of Americans. And it's not "control" but it's far out of whack in terms of proportional influence and the fact that Christian viewpoints could then be invested with the force of law.
I guess we can forget about that abortion museum.
Should have thought of this earlier.
When considering how Anthony Kennedy seems to stretch a simple premise into some wild ass conclusions, you have to admit that Groucho Marx could have been a Supreme Court Justice too.
Follow Groucho's logic here and see if it doesn't come close to Kennedy's.
What if he doesn't shake my hand? It could be WAR!
About the Braley-Grassley hoo-haw: I'm going with what Charlie said--"I'm not exactly sure what the problem is here. "Farmer" is the nicest thing Grassley's been called in a long time."
@James Singer: The problem is that every voting Iowa farmer who never went to law school probably thinks that s/he would make a great Judiciary Committee Chair & give those show-off East-Coast liberal elite law-school-grad judges what-for & a dose of common sense. Braley already has "trial lawyer" branded to his forehead; now he's a "snobbish trial lawyer" who looks down his nose at regular hardworking folks from Ioway.
As I wrote, it was a Mitt-47%-Romney moment.
Marie
Rumsfeld has slipped out of his shadowy hole to join in the NeoCon chorus of Obama's foreign policy failures. Apparently he, get this, compares Obama to...an ape! Yep, no subtle white privilege racist pig shit to see here. I'm sure making ape comparisons is just an everyday reference for Rummy as he had a commanding role in the monkey show that comprised Dubya's administration.
He points out the great buddy buddy relationship that Dubya had created with Karzai in Afghanistan and how he left Afghanistan in such a great situation until the arrival of Obama and everything fell apart....
As had been sufficiently documented here on RC, these people are fucking out of their minds! I'm getting the impression their historical record dates from the last time they took a shit or banked a fat check for bogus lobbying fees. Their disdain for facts and the Truth lets them spew hot air all over the airwaves and the "journalists" (conmen) just nod their heads or push for more insanity (gotta pull in those ratings!). Even the mainstreamers supposedly calling out the bullshitters designate the bald faced lies with fucking Pinocchio faces! Ahh, isn't that cute, Aqua Buddy is misinforming millions of vulnerable ill-formed citizens to his cynical advantages, three cartoon faces to him! Teehee.
Sorry, forgot the link contemplating the ridiculousness of modern mass media.
via Juan Cole
http://www.juancole.com/2014/03/rumsfeld-trained-diplomacy.html
safari, Rumsfield is a pig, but I disagree with your take on his statement. He said Obama had failed to get a SOFA agreement with Karzi and that it did not take any brains to get a SAFA agreement. We have 127 of them. An ape could get a SOFA agreement. It is not rocket science.
All the above is, of course, a paraphrase. And as a matter of fact, Rumsfield frequently says "it's so easy an ape could do it". I'll try to find the article I read this morning to support my view.
I would be happy to see the guy spend the rest of his life in Abu Garib, but on this one I'm calling him innocent.
safari, here is the Slate article on Rumsfield's "ape" remarks.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/03/25/_a_trained_ape_could_get_a_status_of_forces_agreement_was_donald_rumsfeld.html
Marie, sorry. I remain unconvinced. "[E]very voting Iowa farmer who never went to law school probably thinks that s/he would make a great Judiciary Committee Chair" wasn't going to vote for Braley even if he'd washed himself in the blood of the lamb at high noon on the center stage of the Iowa State Fair. Period. But it was a stupid thing to say, sort of, but not as bad as it might of been if he'd called Grassley, more aptly, a hayshaker. Braley will survive.