The Commentariat -- May 18, 2012
My column in today's New York Times eXamner is on David Brooks' column today. The NYTX front page is here. ...
... Dean Baker has a good post on Brooks, too.
To provide employment for the poor, and support for the indigent, is among the primary, and, at the same time, not least difficult cares of the public authority. -- -- James Madison, letter to Rev. F.C. Schaeffer, January 8, 1820
Sorry, President Madison. You don't get ...
... The Quote of the Day. I stand by what I said, whatever it was. -- Mitt Romney *
* Translation: I make up so much shit, how can I be expected to know what I said, for Pete's sake? What it was, was Romney's invoking Jeremiah Wright to claim that Obama was trying to make this "a less Christian nation" a few months ago, even though now he says bringing up Wright is just wrong. See Charles Pierce on Romney's whining, in the Presidential Race section below.
** Thomas Mann & Norm Ornstein in the Washington Post on what will & won't work to mitigate partisan politics. Point One: banish Tom Friedman.
Paul Krugman: The euro "could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years. And the costs -- both economic and, arguably even more important, political -- could be huge."
Democracy Now! Always good, better with Krugman (begins about 22 min. in). Thanks to Dave S. for the link:
Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "On Wednesday, Obama-appointed(!) Judge Katherine B. Forrest blocked the section of last year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that purported to 'reaffirm' the 2001 authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda. A group of activists and journalists had argued that the vague wording of the law could subject them to indefinite military detention because their work brings them into contact with people whom the US considers to be terrorists...." CW: For more on this, see the first part of the Democracy Now! video where Chris Hedges -- one of the plaintiffs -- and his lawyer speak to Amy Goodman about the case.
Let's Go Shopping at Safeway, Ladies. The President flew into the White House lawn. A Secret Service agent greeted him at the helicopter. The President was carrying two pigs under his arms, and the Secret Service agent said, 'Nice pigs, Sir!' The President said, 'These are not ordinary pigs. These are genuine Arkansas razonback hogs. I got one for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and one for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And the Secret Service agent said, "Excellent trade, Sir! -- Bob Gordon, Senior Vice President & General Counsel for Safeway, kicking off a shareholder meeting May 15
Presidential Race
** Jamelle Bouie of American Prospect: "Romney is running for president as a right-wing Republican with right-wing ideas, and it is absurd to think that he would suddenly revert to the Mitt who governed Massachusetts.... Romney's agenda mirrors that of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.... To meet all of Romney's fiscal goals -- and a balanced budget -- policymakers would have to make the most draconian cuts in the nation's history. Over eight years, they would have to slash $10 trillion from the non-defense discretionary budget, or a whopping 81 percent." Bouie captures "The Real Romney" in a nutshell.
Melissa Harris & Hal Dardick of the Chicago Tribune: "The Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs, today moved to control the fallout from a now-disavowed plan to politically attack President Barack Obama reportedly funded by family patriarch.... Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts, who has been pushing a plan to get government help in rebuilding Wrigley Field, issued a statement distancing himself and the organization from that plan. Ricketts' statement came as Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff, blasted the proposed political attack on the president as an insult to the nation." ...
... More of the same from Jim Rutenberg & Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "Mr. Ricketts became a case study in the risks of political neophytes with big checkbooks seeking to play at the highest and roughest levels of politics." ...
... Charles Pierce: meanwhile, Willard has used the occasion to whine that Obama is attacking his character.
Let's Not Go to the Movies. Paul Waldman of American Prospect tells us about two new crazy anti-Obama movies. Here's the trailer for the less crazy of the two:
... Waldman remarks, "... my favorite is the black family playing Monopoly, who suddenly jump up from their chairs and start swinging at each other.... Who are they supposed to be? The Obamas? Some of Obama's co-conspirators? People sent into a frenzy by his socialist policies?"
For news from Right Wing World, see Akhilleus' comment below. It's a doozy.
Local News
John Schmid of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "At a time when Wisconsin's jobs statistics are under scrutiny as never before, preliminary data released Thursday showed that Wisconsin lost an estimated 6,200 private-sector jobs in April." (See yesterday's Commentariat for links to stories about Gov. Scott Walker making up numbers to pretend Wisconsin does not have the worst jobs record in the nation.)
In Florida, It's Time to Purge Hispanic Voters. Luzette Alvarez of the New York Times: "In an attempt to clear the voter rolls of noncitizens, a move that had set off criticism and a threatened lawsuit, Florida election officials decided on Thursday to use information from a federal database to check a list of 182,000 voters who they suspect are not citizens.... The push ... is viewed by some as an effort to single out Democratic voters, many of them black and Hispanic." No kidding.
"Sieg Heil!" Charles Pierce has a lovely report on goings-on in the "laboratories of democracy"; i.e., the states.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The House on Friday turned back an unusual coalition of liberals and conservatives and voted down legislation to reject explicitly the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects apprehended on United States soil.... The measure would thwart the Obama administration's efforts to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and would impede its ability to carry out the nuclear arms reduction treaty ratified by the Senate in 2010."
The Hill: "Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius didn't mention the controversy over the administration's contraception mandate during a Friday commencement speech at Georgetown University. Sebelius, whose visit to the Jesuit school had prompted protests and complaints because of the contraception issue, gave a largely non-political speech.... Her address was interrupted once by a protester who, shortly after she began speaking, began to yell." CW: if you're dying to see the protester, the video is here.
New York Times: "The United Nations nuclear monitoring agency said on Friday that its leader would travel to Iran on Sunday for a meeting with the country's top nuclear negotiator. The unexpected development signaled that both sides had stepped up both the urgency of resolving their dispute and the seniority of the officials doing the negotiating."
Guardian: "The Brooklyn district attorney has set up a taskforce to combat the intimidation of child sexual abuse victims in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community amid growing criticism of his handling of the issue."
President Obama meets with new French President Francois Hollande. A socialist get-together!
New York Times: "François Hollande used his first visit with President Obama as France's president on Friday to restate his pledge to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year, two years earlier than originally planned." ...
... Washington Post story here.
AP: "The leaders of eight of the world's biggest economies meet this weekend outside Washington, seeking to keep Europe's debt crisis from spiraling out of control and jeopardizing fledgling recoveries in the U.S. and elsewhere." ...
... Guardian: "Barack Obama is to make a major speech in Washington announcing at least $3bn in private sector funding to tackle hunger in developing countries, mainly in Africa. White House officials disclosed the figure in a briefing ahead of the president's speech on Friday, which marks the start of four days of talks with world leaders."
Reuters: "Investors are bracing for Facebook's Wall Street debut on Friday after the world's No.1 online social network raised about $16 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history." ...
... New York Times Update: "Shares of the social network giant closed at $38.23, just 0.6 percent above the initial public offering price -- a price that represented 100 times historical earnings." ...
... New York Times Update 2: Glitches! "The Securities and Exchange Commission said that it would review the day’s trading, which included an unexpected delay, missing trade execution messages and at one point, having to fill orders by hand."
New York Times: "As Wal-Mart reported higher-than-expected first-quarter earnings on Thursday, it suggested in a regulatory filing that the scope of an internal investigation into bribery accusations had widened beyond the retailer's subsidiary in Mexico.... It was the first public disclosure by the company that the internal inquiry could involve additional subsidiaries, though none was named."
New York Times: "Hewlett-Packard's chief executive, Meg Whitman, plans to cut 30,000 or more jobs next week, according to officials familiar with the plan. Her goal, they said Thursday, is to spend the money she saves on increasing the efficiency of the company's sales force and on creating new products." ...
... CW Flashback. San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, 2010: "Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who has touted her experience as a job-creator as the former CEO of eBay, has announced a plan to create 500,000 jobs a year during her first four-year term."
Washington Post: Rep. Trent Franks [R-Ariz.] "presided Thursday over the latest in a long series of attempts to control social issues in the nation’s capital. At issue this time was his bill, with 193 co-sponsors, to ban all abortions in the District beyond 20 weeks, except to save the life of the mother.... Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District's lone, nonvoting member of Congress -- sitting in the front row of a subcommittee hearing room -- was not allowed to speak" at the hearing.
New York Times: "The Westchester County medical examiner's office said Thursday afternoon that the cause of [Mary Richardson] Kennedy's death was asphyxiation due to hanging. [Her estranged husband Robert F.] Kennedy, [Jr.,] said that contrary to earlier reports, there was no note found at the scene.... There was no indication that it was anything other than a suicide."
AP: "Jurors were set to begin deliberating the fate of John Edwards on Friday, weighing nearly four weeks of testimony and evidence from the former presidential candidate's corruption trial." ...
... The Washington Post reports on yesterday's closing arguments.
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Reader Comments (3)
Well it didn't take long for the racists, wingnuts, and generally paranoid white supremacists to respond to the news that birth rates of non-white babies have now surpassed that of whites. The news has been met with the usual stomping around and whining about how the NY Times and liberals have been planning this all along and how the MSM is gloating about the fact that Christian White babies will now be in the minority.
Really, you can't make this shit up. Roger Schlafly, son of the renowned conservative hater Phyllis Schlafly, on their Eagle Forum website complains bitterly that this turn of events is “... not a good thing,” because “...immigrants do not share American values” and thus “will not be voting Republican when they start voting in large numbers.” Instead, they "...will vote Democrat when the Democrats promise them more food stamps.”
Hmm...yet another conservative who doesn't realize that there is no such thing as the Democrat party. Oh wait. Was that a slur? Surely not from the guy who wrote a book ripping Albert Einstein (a Jew) for stealing all his good ideas from Christians and conspired with others (Jews too, no doubt) to keep these brilliant Christians from enjoying similar notoriety. In case you might be thinking that he's just a tiny bit of a kook, he has also expressed the belief that rape--that's right, rape--is nothing more than miscommunication. On the part of the woman. Also, in his considered opinion, there are varieties of rape, some of which are not all that bad. Raping a virgin is not so good. Raping a slut? Meh...I'll leave it to Roger to explain what exactly makes certain women sluts.
Don't forget. This is not some junkyard crackpot. This is the son of the one of the prime movers of conservative ideology. This is the kind of thinking that dominates on the right. This is some scary shit.
Oh yeah the other major outrage connected to the birth-rate story, according to good ol' boy Roger, is that the Times and evil liberals who have been plotting this for some time, are all atwitter about the fact that American families will no longer resemble those great role models of the 1950s, Ozzie and Harriet who were "... happy, self-sufficient, autonomous, law-abiding, honorable, patriotic, hard-working, and otherwise embodied qualities that made America great. In other words, the show promoted values that NY Times liberals despise.
Jeez. I don't know about you guys but I really detest all those values. Hard work, patriotism (okay, the real kind, not the faux Karl Rove kind), honorable dealings, and self sufficiency and happiness are things I wish would just disappear from the face of the earth.
But first, a little news flash for Mr. Schlafly: one other thing Ozzie and Harriet were? FUCKING ACTORS!! This was a fictional show you numbskull. I know it's a dead horse, but these people never tire of mistaking fantasy and fiction with the real world. It's the same sort of magical thinking that led Reagan to claim that he served in Europe during the war and Bush to portray himself as a studly fighter pilot.
I don't know about all of you, but I'm going to crack a bottle of champagne and toast the success of our conspiracy against white, Christian babies.
Cheers, y'all. Food stamps for everyone!
Yes, Akhilleus, fair friend and loyal liberal, I'm with you in my toast to the success of our conspiracy against white Christian babies and as good ole Charlie Pierce says, "the dingbats will scream and fling their poo to all points of the compass."
Re: the Schlafly shrill mother and looney son duo: I think they should go on the road with their act; in between lecturing on rapes, homespun family fun, intertwined with how to keep women down on the farm, they could do a little song and dance number just to keep their audiences awake and alert.
There are assholes and then there is Ken Bennett.