The Commentariat -- March 9, 2013
President Obama's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here. ...
... Harry Enten of the Guardian: "... how does President Obama get the public back on his side? He needs to make this debate about specifics. When Pew tested different policies on reducing the deficit, people only agreed on cuts to foreign aid. Americans wanted to increase or keep funding the same for all other specific policy programs or proposals." (Emphasis added.)
Josh Barro (a Republican!) of Bloomberg News: "Despite its problems, Social Security is the best-functioning component of the U.S.'s retirement-saving system. Instead of cutting, the federal government should be expanding its role in retirement saving. I'm always struck when people talk about Social Security as 'just' an insurance program, when it's in fact the most important retirement-saving vehicle." ...
... 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.
Jacob Goldstein of NPR: "The scariest jobs chart isn't scary enough.... If this had been a typical recession and recovery, the U.S. economy would now have roughly 10 million more jobs than it did at the previous peak. In fact, there are now three million fewer jobs."
Justin Gillis of the New York Times: "Global temperatures are warmer than at any time in at least 4,000 years, scientists reported Thursday, and over the coming decades are likely to surpass levels not seen on the planet since before the last ice age." CW: More proof to Jim Inhofe that scientists are liars, conspirators, etc.
Gail Collins runs down a few of the excuses gun-toting Senators have come up with for voting against innocuous gun safety legislation.
Jeremy Herb of The Hill: "The Obama administration will release its 2014 budget more than two months late on April 8, according to congressional sources."
Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "Of all things for Republicans to be going nuts about, losing the White House tours is the last one. Sequestration is causing real harm to real people, whether it's unemployed workers, children and mothers who need Head Start, or soldiers looking to enroll in the Army's tuition assistance program. They could make all these problems go away -- including the loss of their precious tours -- with the blink of an eye. All they have to do is repeal sequestration. If they just repealed the damn thing, they wouldn't even have to raise taxes."
Obama 2.0. Constitution, 1.0. Marcy Wheeler: "According to the White House, John Brennan was sworn in as CIA Director on a 'first draft' of the Constitution including notations from George Washington, dating to 1787.... That means, when Brennan vowed to protect and defend the Constitution, he was swearing on one that did not include the First, Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments -- or any of the other Amendments now included in our Constitution. The Bill of Rights did not become part of our Constitution until 1791, 4 years after the Constitution that Brennan took his oath on.... The moment at which Brennan took over the CIA happened to exclude (in symbolic form, though presumably not legally) the key limits on governmental power that protect American citizens." CW: Cue up Rand Paul (who filibustered Brennan's nomination). ...
... Oh no! Daniel Halper of the right-wing Weekly Standard: "He does not appear to have placed his hand on a Bible, a Torah, a Koran, or other sacred religious text as he said the oath." ...
... Fili-fundraiser. David Corn of Mother Jones: "Take away all [Sen. Rand] Paul's hyped-up hysteria -- watch out, Jane Fonda! -- and he didn't truly disagree with the administration's position that in an extraordinary circumstance, such as an ongoing terrorist attack, the US government can deploy lethal force against evildoers who happen to be American citizens. So why did Paul go ballistic? Here's a clue: The day after he ended one of the longest filibusters in US history, he tried to cash in on his stunt by zapping out a fundamentally inaccurate fundraising email for his 2016 reelection campaign.... This senator as a crass operator untethered from the truth who's eager to exploit his own grandstanding." ...
... Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Paul received his answer on the drone strikes and as many have noted, he actually had his answer well before he started his filibuster, but as [Thom] Hartmann noted [video included in post], the question that he should have been asking and to which he did not get an answer is, 'What does "engaged in combat" mean?' when we haven't had a declaration of war since 1941." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... conservatives followed Paul the Younger onto the quicksand of his broader ideology, which for the most part is in the mainstream of the John Birch Society. This is not what the GOP needs right now." ...
... "President Paul"? Ha Ha Ha. Tim Noah of The New Republic remembers way back when nearly every Republican (Paul was a "yea" vote) opposed former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary: "... much of [the GOP's resistance to Hagel] was based on Hagel's having taken positions on national security issues that his fellow Republicans judged unacceptably dovish -- and Hagel isn't nearly as dovish as Paul is. If Hagel proved unacceptable to the GOP, it's inconceivable that Paul -- who less than one month before the 2012 election published an op-ed condemning Mitt Romney for being too hawkish in the Middle East and too willing to increase Pentagon spending -- will ever pass muster. And by 'the GOP' I don't just mean GOP politicians. I mean voters, too." ...
... Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Responding to Sen. John McCain's condemnation of his thirteen hour filibuster, Paul said Friday that while 'I treat Sen. McCain with respect, I don't know if I always get the same in return.' ... Earlier in the day, McCain told The Huffington Post that Paul, along with Sen. Ted Cruz - who assisted in Wednesday's filibuster - was a 'wacko bird' that could taint American's impressions of the GOP." ...
... ** Jonathan Chait of New York: "What's interesting is that not only the official but the unofficial organs of the party -- Matt Drudge, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh -- have all sided with Paul. The whacko birds suddenly find themselves on the inside, while the party's 2008 standard-bearer presses his nose against the glass and gawks." ...
... Carl Hulse of the New York Times sticking with the story on the GOP filibuster of Caitlan Halligan, one of President Obama's nominees to the D.C. Appellate Court: "Democrats say they want to see how Republicans respond to future appeals court nominees, including another one to the District of Columbia circuit, Srikanth Srinivasan, Mr. Obama's deputy solicitor general. But a series of filibusters against what they view as acceptable nominees could again bring to a head the push for a change in Senate rules."
Paul Waldman on Juan Williams' "Double Plagiarism": "... plagiarism is taking someone else's words and passing them off as your own without attribution. Williams does that whenever his assistant writes something for him that then appears verbatim in his column, which from his explanation sounds like something he does regularly. [Emphasis added.] It's just that this time, his assistant passed off CAP's words as his own to Williams, and Williams then passed off CAP's words as his own to his readers, when he thought he was only passing off his assistant's words as his own, which otherwise nobody would know about.... There is something wrong with having an assistant who doesn't just do research for you but actually writes prose that you then present as your own, even if it's only a paragraph here and there." ...
... CW: I am almost certain that this is how Maureen Dowd got caught plagiarizing several years ago. After someone noticed she had lifted a short graf from Josh Marshall of TPM, MoDo "explained" that she got the information in a phone conversation with a "friend" and assumed these were the friend's own thoughts. Her editor, Andy Rosenthal, let her get away with that bullshit. (You try remembering word-for-word what a friend tells you on the phone.) Her "friend" was almost certainly Ashley Parker, then her assistant. Parker kept her mouth shut & has since been rewarded with a regular gig at the Times. ...
... Ed Kilgore: "With all the resources he has, Williams ought to be able to write his own stuff, and if he has to let a 'research assistant' ghost for him now and then, he should be able to do the minimal Google searching to ensure there is no plagiarism. Failing that, he could at least take responsibility for the plagiarism in his own named column...." ...
... Digby: "I think many of these folks crossed over long ago from being writers to TV celebrities. It's a different line of work for most of them much more lucrative and satisfying. Of course they're going to outsource the shit work. That's what wealthy TV celebrities do." ...
... And since we're on the topic of media pimps masquerading as journalists -- Brad Friedman: "Former San Diego ACORN worker, Juan Carlos Vera will receive $100,000 in a settlement from federal criminal and professional liar James O'Keefe, after being secretly video-taped in violation of California law by the Rightwing propagandist. The tape was just one in a series of similar videos, all deceptively edited as part of his 2009 ACORN 'pimp' hoax series. The story of the settlement was originally broken by Wonkette, which published the 3-page settlement document [PDF], yesterday." ,,,
... AND there's this great post by Stefan BC of Wonkette: "Yesterday, as first reported by your Wonkette (<–COPY LINK HERE, LA TIMES), the world rejoiced upon news that the insufferable date-rapey Dennis the Menace clone known as James O’Keefe III had settled his lawsuit with a former ACORN employee to the tune of $100,000 plus one weak ass nonpology.... A few former recipients of ACORN assistance ... were able to take an ounce of solace in justice being served against the person who unfairly brought down a truly beneficial organization."
News Ledes
AP: "Venezuelans will vote April 14 to choose a successor to Hugo Chavez, the elections commission announced Saturday as increasingly strident political rhetoric begins to roil this polarized country. The constitution mandated the election be held within 30 days of Chavez's March 5 death, but the date picked falls outside that period. Critics of the socialist government already complained that officials violated the constitution by swearing in Vice President Nicolas Maduro as acting leader Friday night."
AP: "Syrian rebels freed 21 U.N. peacekeepers on Saturday after holding them hostage for four days, ending a sudden entanglement with the world body that earned fighters trying to oust President Bashar Assad a flood of negative publicity."
Christian Science Monitor: "Militants staged two deadly suicide attacks Saturday to mark the first full day of US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's visit to Afghanistan, a fresh reminder that insurgents continue to fight and challenges remain as the US-led NATO force hands over the country's security to the Afghans."
Washington Post: "A former spokesman for al-Qaeda and son-in-law of Osama bin Laden pleaded not guilty Friday to a charge that he conspired to kill Americans. The plea in federal court in Manhattan was accompanied by new indications that the former spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, has cooperated with U.S. authorities while being secretly held in U.S. custody since his Feb. 28 arrest in Jordan."
Washington Post: "Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces charges of committing crimes against humanity, won Kenya's presidential election by the narrowest of margins, winning 50.03 percent of the vote and avoiding a runoff, according to preliminary results posted early Saturday. The tight finish is almost certain to spark controversy and will probably result in a legal challenge from Kenyatta's main rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whose party has already publicly charged that votes were doctored."
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Reader Comments (8)
Thanks Marie for creating the petition––looks like the hits are coming.
Perhaps one of the reasons some Republicans were/are having such an iffy time with Hagel is that during Tom DeLay's foray into all things unbecoming––Hagel, having retired from the Senate, always having displayed an independent streak was resistant to the permanent campaign mentality plus was vocal on the partisan efforts of Gingrich and DeLay to control K Street. Here is how he voiced that concern:
"They wanted to build a triad: the White House, K Street and business, and Congress, and just lock up the issues...Our role, the Republican Congress, was to do the bidding of the Republican business community as represented on K Street. That K Street Project was about a blatant as anything I've seen."
I wish him well. I suppose the world has always been this crazy and we just didn't know it, but now it has reached Monty Python circus moments: The US is allied with Iraq, which is allied with Iran, which supports the Syrian regime, which the US hope to topple. We are also allied with Qatar, which subsidizes Hamas, and with Saudi Arabia, which funds the Salafis who inspire jihadists who kill Americans wherever they can. And that's just for starters. And last night on Fox they were still going on about Bengazi––while Wack-a-do was wiping his mouth from having talked for twelve hours about all those goblins that are coming to getcha if you don't watch out! He's a tall Orphan Annie (Rand)––oh, those curls!––but his dog don't bark and he don't have that bald guy who'll take him in but he do have them two brothers from different mothers, Cruz and Rubio, the presidential hopefuls of future time, that stand up for him and will eventually tear each other apart.
Rachel reported last night about Colorado passing a whole slew of gun laws––Democratic Governor and legislature with a Democratic majority––!!!!!!
Re: Take my words out of your mouth; Juan Williams has a research assistant steal sentences; grind off the serial numbers and resell them as "like new". So? You can do that with machine guns at the county fair.
Ever since Ricardo Cabeza squatted in my house he's been doing all my commenting; and a fine job he's done. I'm only writing today because Ricardo is on vacation. Having an assistant is great. I concentrate on the big ticket items like lunch and let him handle the day to day mundane. In fact "I" don't even read what "I" write anymore, I have a reading assistant as well. Why not? There's so many jobless college grads out there along with the illegals I got a huge pool of quality people to choose from. Turns out that people are corporations as well as the other way around. I suppose a rouge "JJG" could sneak something in the text like, "JJG is the laziest asswipe to come down the pike since Tommy Times" but I trust my team.
Prepared by Groupo JJG, all wrongs preserved.
So South Dakota teachers can now "pack." Led to an interesting discussion here last night: in how many ways can teachers use guns to improve test scores? We came up with quite a few, most of them obvious.
This morning would like to open the door to others of the RC family to suggest some of their own. Has potential as a party game, we thought, and didn't think it right to keep it all to ourselves.
@Ken Winkes. First, shoot all the dumb kids.
Too obvious?
Marie
Shoot out all the wrong answers on multiple guess tests.
Shoot holes in standardized testing.
Re: study or die; if my standard magazine holds 9 bullets with one in the chamber and my "penis enlarger" super clip holds three times as many bullets; not counting the one in the chamber how many bullets does my "penis enlarger" hold? You have two minutes class. Starting now.
Times up. Twenty-seven? Good answer, Marie. Whoa, wrong, twenty-six; I just shot the custodian.
Hey JJG, "I concentrate on the big ticket items like lunch..." Good line! I think of Will, and Friedbrain and 'never had an original thought in my life' Brooks making lunch. Without heat, they wouldn't know which end of the pan to grab when making a grilled cheese. Do you think they use American Cheese?