The Commentariat -- May 16, 2013
Your Daily Scandal Sheet
Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: "It was often said of Bill Clinton that he was blessed in his enemies, and to a degree the same may be true of Barack Obama." ...
... Gail Collins: "It's been quite a week, what with the I.R.S. scandal, the Benghazi controversy and revelations about the Justice Department's sweep of The Associated Press's phone records. Plus, the Russians came up with an alleged American spy in a bad wig who they said was caught carrying a compass, an atlas of Moscow and a ridiculous traitor-recruitment letter." ...
... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "President Obama announced Wednesday night that the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service had been ousted after disclosures that the agency gave special scrutiny to conservative groups. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., meanwhile, warned top I.R.S. officials that a Justice Department inquiry would examine any false statements to see if they constituted a crime. Speaking in the White House's formal East Room, Mr. Obama said Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew had asked for and accepted the resignation of the acting commissioner, Steven Miller, who as deputy commissioner was aware of the agency's efforts to demand more information from conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status in early 2012.... Mr. Holder's warning came as lawmakers stated unequivocally that I.R.S. officials had lied to them in failing to disclose the added screening despite being pressed repeatedly."
... Michael Hiltzig of the Los Angeles Times writes what for me is the definitive analysis of the IRS "scandal." I don't see why everybody else is having so much trouble with this. ...
... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos gets it: "... while the politics is heating up, some important context is emerging, like the fact that liberal groups were targeted as well, and in fact the only group to have its application denied was a liberal group." ...
... David Kay Johnston of the Columbia Journalism Review makes several salient points., including about how inaccurate some news reporting has been (New York Times). ...
... Eric Holder tells Darrell Issa that the way he conducts himself is "inappropriate" and "shameful":
... Igor Bobic of TPM: "Attorney General Eric Holder testified Wednesday that his recusal from a criminal investigation into an administration leak of classified information last year was not done in writing." CW: sounds a little like a convenient, retroactive recusal. ...
... Dana Milbank: "Recusal is no excuse." ...
... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Under fire over the Justice Department's use of a broad subpoena to obtain calling records of Associated Press reporters in connection with a leak investigation, the Obama administration sought on Wednesday to revive legislation that would provide greater protections to reporters in keeping their sources and communications confidential.... It is not clear whether such a law would have changed the outcome of the subpoena involving The A.P." ...
... Kevin Drum: "In 2010, such legislation was introduced, and died when it was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate. More generally, media organizations have been lobbying for a federal shield law for decades, and Congress has been resolutely unwilling to pass one.... Politically, Obama is basically daring Republicans to put their money where their mouths are. You want to make the DOJ leak investigation into an issue of executive overreach? Fine. Then rein it in. Pass a law making it clear what DOJ can and can't do in leak investigations."
Yeah, I Knew It: It's All David Petraeus's Fault. Michael Shear & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "E-mails released by the White House on Wednesday revealed a fierce internal jostling over the government's official talking points in the aftermath of last September's attacks in Benghazi, Libya, not only between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, but at the highest levels of the C.I.A. The 100 pages of e-mails showed a disagreement between David H. Petraeus, then the director of the C.I.A., and his deputy, Michael J. Morrell, over how much to disclose in the talking points, which were used by Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, in television appearances days after the attacks.... The White House released the e-mails to reporters after Republicans seized on snippets of the correspondence that became public on Friday to suggest that President Obama's national security staff had been complicit in trying to alter the talking points for political reasons. While the e-mails portrayed White House officials as being sensitive to the concerns of the State Department, they suggest Mr. Obama's aides mostly mediated a bureaucratic tug-of-war between the State Department and the C.I.A." Here are the e-mails. Now you too can release snippets to suit your own purposes. ...
... ** Greg Sargent publishes an excellent response to the Benghazi hysteria from Tommy Vietor, former "spokesman for the National Security Council. He was intimately involved in coordinating the interagency debate over what to say publicly about the attacks." One thing Vietor explains is why the White House had its finger in the pie in the first place -- um, it's the law -- the law which of course Congress passed. ...
... Ain't Democracy Great? Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "PPP's newest national poll finds that Republicans aren't getting much traction with their focus on Benghazi over the last week. Voters trust Hillary Clinton over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49/39 margin and Clinton's +8 net favorability rating at 52/44 is identical to what it was on our last national poll in late March. ... 41% [of Republicans] say they consider [Benghazi] to be the biggest political scandal in American history to only 43% who disagree with that sentiment.... One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don't actually know where it is. 10% think it's in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess." By contrast, in a PPP survey conducted in August 1998, 87% who said they considered the Monica Lewinsky affair the biggest political scandal in American history were able to pinpoint the location of President Clinton's penis. Another 10% pointed to Clinton's head (also a correct answer). Only 3% were not sure. PPP survey via Charles Pierce.
Business as Usual. Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Under pressure from Wall Street lobbyists, federal regulators have agreed to soften a rule intended to rein in the banking industry's domination of a risky market. The changes to the rule, which will be announced on Thursday, could effectively empower a few big banks to continue controlling the derivatives market, a main culprit in the financial crisis.... Just five banks hold more than 90 percent of all derivatives contracts." CW: Republicans on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission naturally wanted to water down the regs. The deciding vote came from a Democratic commissioner who went along with the Republican commissioners & the banks: his name is Mark Wetjen, & before he got his current sinecure, he was a staffer for Harry Reid. Read the full article; it's going to get worse when commission chairman Gary Gensler, whose term is up, leaves.
Harry Reid Is Still Dithering. Brian Beutler of TPM: "If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to change the Senate filibuster rules -- either broadly, or more narrowly to fast track presidential nominees -- he'll need a strong case. Part of that case will rest on whether Republicans make good on their threat to block confirmation of Richard Cordray -- President Obama's non-controversial nominee to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- unless and until Democrats agree to weaken his agency's regulatory power.To that end, he'll hold a vote on Cordray's nomination next week."
Paul Krugman on the "debt crisis" that isn't: "To the millions of Americans who are out of work and may never get another job thanks to premature fiscal austerity, the VSPs would like to say, 'oopsies!' ... Correspondents tell me that at VSP Central, aka The Washington Post -- where deficit panic has pervaded the news pages as well as the opinion section -- the stunning new [CBO] deficit report is buried as a small item deep inside the paper. And Bowles and Simpson, who are now 26 months into their prediction of fiscal crisis within two years, will continue to be treated as revered gurus." CW: I caught a bit of NPR coverage of the new CBO numbers. I was encouraged that they had Dean Baker on to explain the facts; then -- at their he-said/she-said best -- they had Pete Peterson's No. 1 hackess (isn't that the term for a girl hack?) on to explain why the debt is still a MAJOR PROBLEM which can only be resolved by killing old people. Or something.
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "On Thursday, Mr. Obama will meet with senior Pentagon officials to discuss legislative responses to the sexual assault crisis. Also on Thursday, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, the New York Democrat who has made this her signature issue this year, will introduce legislation that would give military prosecutors rather than commanders the power to decide which sexual assault cases to try. Ms. Gillibrand's goals are to increase the number of people who report crimes without fear of retaliation and to give legal power to military prosecutors. "
In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat. If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple.... The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party. Our kids and grandkids would study how this used to be a national political party. 'They had Conventions, they nominated Presidential candidates. They don't exist anymore.' -- Ted Cruz. Yup, that Ted Cruz. ...
... Thomas Edsall, in the New York Times: "A group of Democratic operatives ... is determined to bring Texas back into the Democratic column. [The operation,] Battleground Texas, has put the fear of God into the Texas Republican Party."
Ken Ward, Jr., of the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette: "Today's Gazette story by Kate White about the Monday explosion that injured two workers at the Airgas facility in Putnam County included this bit of news: 'Members of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration arrived at the scene.' As best I can tell, this is the first time anyone from OSHA has ever visited this particular facility. OSHA data includes no record of the agency ever inspecting the site.... Unlike the nation's coal mines, other workplaces are not required to be inspected periodically by federal safety officials.... As the AFL-CIO explained in its latest Death on the Job report, at the current rate, it would take OSHA's small office in West Virginia -- they've got just 8 inspectors -- more than 100 years to inspect every workplace in the state." CW: Via Charles Pierce. Bear in mind, OSHA ignores these dangerous workplaces not because OSHA inspectors are lazy bureaucrats but because Congress limits the agency's funding (8 inspectors in the whole state of West Virginia). Employers are free to violate common-sense safety standards because that's the way Congress wants it.
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: Mark Sanford is back in Congress.
Maureen Dowd Dislikes Women & Democrats. I didn't link MoDo's column yesterday because I thought it was stupid. Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog does a nice job of explaining why.
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Reader Comments (10)
The congressional hearings yesterday starring Eric Holder who I must say, held his temper quite well given the fact that he was being questioned by a bunch of caterwauling, republican ruffians who were rude, strident, and acted inappropriately. High on this list were Louie "Goober" and a fella from Florida named DeSantis. Louie just couldn't contain himself and had something very close to a meltdown or better yet, a hissy fit. DeSantis yelled at Holder the whole time , almost snarling like a snippy bulldog. And of course our John Hamm look-alike (Issa dyes his hair and fancies himself as adorable as J.H.) apparently strained Holder's patience at trying to put up with this bombardment. Someone pleaded for civility––but it went nowhere. One interesting thing, however, was that Holder intimated that they now have knowledge about the culprits who did the dirty deed in Benghazi. One scandal down, maybe, three more to go. At least Obama isn't being blamed for the sexual abuse in the military–––yet.
@PD Pepe: probably because the House committee heads -- all men -- don't care about sexual abuse in the military. (Those fatigues are so provocative, female military are just asking for it.)
Marie
Re: Titles and their 'dresses; From: Department of Private Relations
(yea, they're my nephews and nieces; who else would give'm a job?)
Hack; public information officer, capable of spinning silk from shit.
Hackess; same as above; female version.
Hackette; different than above; female version; ROM, ample cleavage, Fox gnus commentator.
Hackass; Department Head; can turn blather into matter, six into nine, when raining will explain sunshine.
Alright boys and girls, let's go; we got some 'xplainin'.
IRS? That's what they do. They call'em tax collectors.
Benghazi? Wrong place, wrong time, standing too close to the fire.
I'll be at lunch.
Lets nominate Holder for the Golden Balls award. "Inappropriate and shameful" to Issa. My heart sung to hear a truth proclaimed in the House.
Dowd will forever be unfulfilled. Her life's work centers around a desperate search for a surrogate daddy. She drags a velvet bag of dreams around monogrammed "Dreams: Oedipal version", which was lovingly assembled back at Immaculata High School long ago.
Way to go Team Obama. Don't stand behind your people. Throw 'em to the baying media hounds. Secretary Lew fires the IRS commissioner who had nothing to with this IRS "scandalette."
I fail to see what the IRS did wrong. They're supposed to review application to be granted tax exempt status. Selecting applications by their title looks to me that someone thought the names raised red flags. Did any of these conservative groups have their applications rejected? Apparently not. Who decided these groups were "unfairly targeted?"
Charles Pierce's latest on the IRS dogfight is interesting.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/common-sense-campaign-irs-nightmare-051613
My comment on the Times article got 86'ed. Hope you don't mind.
Often, organizations receive tax-exempt status because of what they purport to represent and not because of what they do.
If not for the blanket and biased exemptions for churches and other worship-based organizations, difficult decisions would have to be made each time such an organization asked to be exempted from taxes.
The IRS needs clearer criteria in making these decisions. Is the group in question organized to distribute food to the homeless? To build houses for people? Is it a volunteer fire department in an area that does not have a professional fire department? If so, it's best to encourage the organization by allowing it to use every dollar in its mission.
By this standard, it would be a rare 501(c)(4) group that would even come close to qualifying for tax-exempt status. So many would just fail to submit an application that the IRS's job of sorting out the truly charitable from those who would use tax savings to build garish McMansion cathedrals would be easier.
Here's how to solve this problem: As of some date less than a year hence, all tax exemptions cease. Simple extension applications that concentrate solely on charitable mission will be read, starting tomorrow. We will need to hire and train thousands of people to read the applications. It's a jobs program, a stimulus package, and a wake-up call to any smart aleck who currently is under the impression that our federal government is some schmuck to be pushed around.
Mark Morford on Obama's "scandals" and other events.
http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/05/14/guns-to-your-gay-mother/
By now many will have seen Cong. Gohmert's admonition, not to cast aspersions on his asparagus. It says something about his synapses not really working right, biologically. I think he meant to say not to calumniate his cauliflower, but he would probably deny that allegation, and the alligator.
Interview with David Cay Johnson re IRS. Worth a watch.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/16/the_other_irs_scandal_david_cay