The Commentariat -- May 17, 2014
Your Friday Afternoon News Dump. Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "One day after deflecting calls from unhappy senators to shake up his leadership team, Eric Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, ousted the department’s soon-to-retire head of health care. The move came amid snowballing allegations that veterans hospitals manipulated waiting lists to hide long delays many patients faced to see physicians.... But ... Republican officials quickly pointed out that Dr. [Robert] Petzel’s retirement had already been announced last September — to take effect this year — and that two weeks ago President Obama nominated Dr. Jeffrey A. Murawsky, a senior department official, to replace him." ...
... Dana Milbank: Shinseki must go.
Julia Preston of the New York Times: "With border authorities in South Texas overwhelmed by a surge of young illegal migrants traveling by themselves, the Department of Homeland Security declared a crisis this week and moved to set up an emergency shelter for the youths at an Air Force base in San Antonio, officials said Friday. After seeing children packed in a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Tex., during a visit last Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Monday declared 'a level-four condition of readiness' in the Rio Grande Valley."
** Women Are "Nice Enough," Just Not Too Bright. David Neilson of Newslo: "American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray -- who is an educational advisor to Republican governor candidate Greg Abbott, told an audience at the University of Texas this week that there is no 'evidence' showing that any woman has ever been a 'significant original thinker.' He then said the reason for this was the smaller size of the female brain. 'When you compare the size of a man’s brain with that of a woman, there’s no comparison,' explained Murray. 'It’s not that I have anything against women. They’re nice enough, but it’s just a physical fact that their brains have developed to the same degree that men’s brains have developed.'” Thanks to Julie L. for the link. ...
... CW: Let me just add here that Murray is NYT columnist David Brooks' favorite "scholar." Brooks has cited him extensively & approvingly in his columns (& in his books, I think), & -- if I recall correctly -- they have stroked each other on various Villager symposia & write lovely things about each other on book jacket blurbs. The Times may have fired the "pushy" broad, but Brooks would have to screw Pinch's lady friend at the entrance to 620 8th Ave. to lose his place on the op-ed page. ...
... CW UPDATE: Oh noes! I've been punked. See comment in May 18 Commentariat.
Marjorie Connelly of the New York Times: "In response to polling data showing that the Affordable Care Act has become more popular, a prominent Republican pollster said that he expected Republicans to change how they talked about the law. 'After the primaries, expect a shift in Republican candidates’ rhetoric against Obamacare,' said Bill McInturff, a partner in Public Opinion Strategies. 'Only [a] few want to repeal the law; most want to fix and keep it,' he added." ...
... "We Can't Pass Laws Because Obama Won't Enforce Them, Ctd." Kate Nocera of BuzzFeed: "An aide to House Speaker John Boehner rejected Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett’s comments that the administration has a 'commitment' from Boehner to pass immigration reform... "But as the speaker has said repeatedly, it’s difficult to see how we make progress until the American people have faith that President Obama will enforce the law as written,' [said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel]. ...
... CW: Here's an indication of Boehner's "commitment" to immigration reform. Seung Min Kim of Politico: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor won’t allow attempts next week to include a measure on a must-pass defense policy bill that would legalize young undocumented immigrants who serve in the military. A spokesman confirmed Friday that the legislation, known as the Enlist Act, will not be among those debated with the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill that sets policy for the Pentagon. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), the Enlist Act’s chief sponsor, had pledged to bring it up as part of the floor battle over the defense bill."
David Dayen of the New Republic: "People power" has put true net neutrality back on the agenda. "The grassroots pressure got tech firms off the sidelines. Over 100 of them, including Google, Facebook and Amazon, publicly opposed [FCC] Chairman [Tom] Wheeler’s rules, arguing that the rules should not allow 'individualized bargaining and discrimination.'”...
... Lee Drutman & Zander Furnas of the Daily Dot have done an analysis of which companies have spent the most $$$ lobbying for & against net neutrality: The biggest oppo spenders: Verizon, AT&T & Comcast.
CW: Glad to read your differing takes yesterday on Tim Egan's column about preserving the "diversity" of commencement speakers. Could we agree that this is carrying political correctness too far?
Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "Embattled Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has no intention of accepting two-thirds of the punishment imposed upon him by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. He may be staying away from his team and the league, but he will not pay the $2.5 million fine levied against him and he will sue the league to retain ownership of the team...."
Annals of Journalism, Ctd.
Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "The controversy over the firing of Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, continued on Friday as the company’s chief executive [Mark Thompson] sent a letter to senior editors in an effort to further address the reasons for her dismissal." ...
... Here are the New Yorker articles, by Ken Auletta, which Somaiya refers to in his piece linked above: Part 1 and Part 2 of why Pinch fired Jill. Very interesting, if this is the kind of gossip that interests you. CW: Bottom line, I think: the principals are all people who don't play well with others, so firings are hardly surprising. Add to that the Times' long history of misogyny, & Abramson's ouster seemed nearly inevitable. ...
... Catherine Thompson of TPM: "A New York Times spokeswoman demanded on Friday morning that the New Yorker magazine correct a report about the newspaper's firing of executive editor Jill Abramson. The magazine, however, responded by saying its original report was accurate." ...
... Michelle Dean of Gawker: It's the old "If X = Y, then woman = pushy/man = bold" equation. ...
... Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast: "When they tell you it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. In Abramson’s case, it’s about the money and a lawyer. It’s also about being, to put it politely, less than forthcoming with Dean Baquet, her deputy and now successor, regarding her plan to hire Guardian journalist Janine Gibson to be Baquet’s co-managing editor in charge of digital journalism."
A Big Day in Pretend Journalism:
Gail Collins: Everybody's talking about Hillary.
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Reader Comments (6)
Young/minor immigrants really cut to the heart of 'What do you do with immigration reform'? Do you do the Canadian model where anyone with money whose remotely part of the Commonwealth is ok? Ask anyone in Vancouver over the age of thirty about the affordability of housing now? Or do we just throw up our hands and take anyone, M-13 Central American gang members, or Ukrainian "Jewish" mobsters, how about Cuban boat people who quickly recolonize a good portion of Florida? Let's ask the French how things are going with the Roma/Gypsies?
Universal acceptance of refugees (the majority of which I believe are economic) will be long in the future based on the power disparity between who is settled now and who is arriving now. I am reminded of an interesting column Paul Theroux did years ago in the NYT about African medical students who come to the states and then never return to benefit their homelands.
At the risk of being called a bigot, how many of these refugees from South of the border are Catholics? They remind me of how the profligate breeding of Mormons has changed the politics of the Mountain West. Religiously inclined folks, just like too many police, vote Republican.
If ever I needed an MLK, now would be a great time. It is so easy for me to sound like a heart-less pig about immigration reform when all I want is immigrants who follow most laws most of the time, immigrants who don't buy their way here, immigrants who don't ghettoize entire regions. Am I a racist bigot when I like the neighbors I currently have? That question about liking one's current neighbors is asked in France, Scandanavia, England - insult me because you don't like what I say...the question is asked widely and not just by me.
How about that story about Elaine Chou, Mrs. Mitch McConnell. I don't hear anyone talking that likely as not her daddy smuggled a fortune out of China along with many other non-communist Chinese. And now they use their bullshit story to erase the fact they left mainland China with a generation of economic woe. When should the best and the brightest, most enterprising be remanded to their homelands to spread their seeds in their countries of origin who so desperately need them?
At the heart of Republican inaction on immigration reform is their sure knowledge that immigration reform can fracture even the most hardened Democratic alliances when your kids are competing with immigrants for a stake in life. Republicans love this scenario because Democrats engage in a circular firing squad which no sentient Republican wants to see end.
I completely understand Democrats who don't want to deal with immigration reform. I am reminded of "only Nixon could go to China". Just like Civil Rights reform was the right thing to do, FIFTY years later how's the Democrats doing in the South? And how does that affect us when the Supreme court justices appointed by Republicans chip away at that seminal political outcome? Laws and legislation are great when they can be achieved but there is no replacement for simple social advancement like acceptance of LGBT. Democrats are close enough to losing the Supreme court. Barry O is simply not in the right place at the right time to push immigration reform now without catastrophic loses to abortion rights, civil rights, worker rights and environmental rights.
The American Enterprise Institute is getting some press today. Arthur C. Brooks, the AEI President, has an op-ed in today's Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/17/opinion/arthur-c-brooks-beware-the-city-dolls.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
It looks like his version of a commencement address. His first point (I could only get through one) is: "1. Earn everything...People who do not feel responsible for their own successes spend 25 percent more time feeling sad than those who feel they are responsible..."
His example? Lottery winners, people who most likely were of modest means until they win big through chance. Having seen one of these "lucky" families live through the nightmare, it's not because they privately have more money now. It is because their names are of public record and they are targets. They receive a constant barrage of requests from donations, and their children have to have bodyguards. I can only hope that the teenage boy I observed decades ago, a year or two my junior, has recovered. He really went off the deep end.
Lottery winners are not allowed to enjoy and disperse their new wealth in private the way heirs do. Brooks' argument is pure deflection.
I leave the rest of the piece for others to rip to shreds. I need to go wash the AEI slime off now.
Newslo is a satirical site. The article has some factual basis and is probably not far from the actual thoughts in Murray's head.
At the end of the article, click on "show facts" to see the truthful part.
Charles Murray thinks women can't have a well developed brain
AND well developed breasts. Sorry about your bust line Marie.
Citizen: The difficult answer to your series of stated and implied questions about immigration woes (all of them good and some, in this PC era, courageous) is implied in the name you have applied to yourself, "Citizen."
Of course, like likes like; that's the way tribalists like ourselves are designed; we are all more comfortable looking into a mirror than into the unknown.
The challenge before us is finding workable ways to get the many tribes--ethnic, religious, social and economic--to acknowledge that all of us are first and last citizens of the world, a romantic truth commonly voiced by the 18th and early 19th century leaders of the Enlightenment and even before, but today, when our economies and technologies, not to mention our sheer and still growing numbers, have forged unbreakable interdependencies between nations and peoples, a concrete and critical necessity.
We have a choice of realities: Will we continue to support tribal interests at the expense of the human race? Or will be look at the big picture, that is the good of the whole world, and act accordingly?
The national and geographic divisions with which historic accident has presented us don't make it easy to look beyond what are artificial borders, so maybe that's the first thing we need to examine.
Instead of building higher fences, maybe we should lower or eliminate them. (We certainly do when lowering economic barriers benefits the rich.) After all, divisions only encourage and perpetuate the differences among us, the source of much mutual distrust. Frost's "Mending Wall" comes to mind.
Like it or not, we're all citizens of the world; that is as real as climate change; and no matter what we think or prefer the world will continue to intrude.
So suggests one citizen to another.