The Commentariat -- May 29, 2012
David Brooks channels Alexander Hamilton. Homemade art.... My column at NYTX is on David Brooks' latest tour de farce. The NYTX front page is here.
President Obama honoring Medal of Freedom winners:
CW: We all know this one: "If the president does it, it's legal." -- Richard Nixon. But here's one I had not heard before, and considering the source, I've got to make it my
Quote of the Day: If I decide to do it, by definition it’s good policy. -- George W. Bush, in response to aides who told him his tax rebates were bad economic policy ...
... Former Reagan & Bush I aide Bruce Bartlett with more on Republicans as Keynesians.
NEW. How much does a CAT scan cost? Avik Roy of Forbes: it depends. The same facility can charge 20 times as much as its cash price for the same procedure, depending upon who pays & when. And legislators -- thanks to the healthcare lobby -- want to keep costs a secret.
Profs. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers in Bloomberg News: "... the data tell us that a debt-ceiling standoff is an act of economic sabotage.... The next debt-ceiling battle could be worse, because the stakes are even higher. In addition to the threat of default, the U.S. is facing the so-called fiscal cliff: a raft of spending cuts and tax increases that will happen at the end of this year unless Congress acts to postpone them. Another stalemate would almost certainly plunge the economy into a deep recession."
Shaila Dewan of the New York Times: "Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans are receiving their final unemployment checks sooner than they expected, even though Congress renewed extended benefits until the end of the year. The checks are stopping for the people who have the most difficulty finding work: the long-term unemployed.... In February, when the program was set to expire, Congress renewed it, but also phased in a reduction of the number of weeks of extended aid and effectively made it more difficult for states to qualify for the maximum aid. Since then, the jobless in 23 states have lost up to five months' worth of benefits." ...
... Brett Smiley of New York magazine: "... many of those individuals [who lost or are losing benefits] live in key battleground states including North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, and Florida.... Romney believes that jobless benefits incentivize laziness and discourage some people from taking jobs. He wrote in an op-ed in December 2010, "To remedy such problems we need a very different model, perhaps establishing individual unemployment savings accounts....'" CW Note: Smiley writes that Romney has said he can reduce the unemployment rate to about 6 percent by the end of his first term. What Smiley doesn't tell you is that the 6 percent figure is right in the ballpark of what the CBO & OMB project will be the unemployment rate at that time if nobody does anything about it. That is, Romney promises to do absolutely nothing.
Jo Becker & Scott Shane of the New York Times: President "Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding 'kill list,' poring over terrorist suspects' biographies on what one official calls the macabre 'baseball cards' of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises -- but his family is with him -- it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation."
President Obama penned an op-ed in yesterday's Stars & Stripes on "keeping faith with Vietnam veterans." ...
... AND Digby highlights "Arlington West" at Santa Monica beach: "Each Sunday from sunrise to sunset, a temporary memorial appears next to the world-famous pier at Santa Monica, California. This memorial, known as Arlington West, a project of Veterans For Peace, offers visitors a graceful, visually and emotionally powerful, place for reflection." The Arlington West Website is here. ...
... Joe Biden's Memorial Day tribute plans went awry. Details from the Onion.
The John Edwards of Illinois. Katherine Skiba & Todd Lighty of the Chicago Tribune: "Soon after Mark Kirk's [R-Illinois] ex-wife announced she would no longer support his 2010 run for the U.S. Senate, he brought her onto his campaign team, then quietly paid her after his victory. But Kimberly Vertolli, a lawyer who received $40,000 from the campaign, again is at odds with her ex-husband, filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Kirk and his then-girlfriend may have broken campaign finance law. The girlfriend, Dodie McCracken, who works in public relations, has acknowledged receiving more than $143,000 in fees and expenses for her campaign work. A former live-in girlfriend, she is no longer romantically involved with Kirk
Presidential Race
Gene Robinson doesn't say anything others haven't said, but at least he's saying it in a major newspaper: "Not to put too fine a point on it, [Mitt Romney] lies. Quite a bit."
Got Milk? Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: read this story of a Romney gaffe all the way through.
Michael Crowley of Time: Republican governors contradict Romney on his doom-and-gloom claims about the state of the economy.
Jamelle Bouie has more on the Gallup poll (linked in yesterday's Commentariat) that shows Romney's huge lead over Obama among veterans. Bouie doesn't mention what I see as the big story here: Obama has made a three-year effort to expand aid to veterans; Romney suggested privatizing veterans' benefits would be a swell idea; plus, he thinks we should go to war with everybody except England, which really is not a good thing for the people who actually have to fight them, even if it does expand available military "jobs." What is the matter with these people? ...
... Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly also notes that Congressional Republicans demanded "during the debt-limit negotiations to expose veterans programs to the 'defense sequester' to lessen the impact on current Pentagon spending"; i.e., one more way to cut veterans' benefits.
CNN: "Mitt Romney said Monday he wasn't concerned about Donald Trump's commitment to the 'birther' conspiracy, one day before the GOP presidential candidate hosts a fund-raiser alongside the celebrity business magnate."
Local News
Disenfranchisement, Florida-Style. Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) has ordered the state to purge all 'non-citizens' from the voting rolls prior to November’s election. But that list compiled by the Scott administration is ... riddled with errors...." Hundreds, probably thousands of people whom Scott will disenfranchise are citizens eligible to vote. "An analysis of the state-wide list by the Miami Herald found that 'Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted' as ineligible by the list. Conversely, 'whites and Republicans are disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal.'" CW: What a surprise.
News Ledes
New York Times: Mitt "Romney, who formally secured the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday by winning delegates in the Texas primary, introduced a new line of criticism: accusing the president of squandering taxpayer money on companies like Solyndra, which declared bankruptcy last year after receiving $528 million in federal loan guarantees. It amounted to a counterpunch to the White House&'s assault on Mr. Romney's tenure as head of Bain Capital...."
AP: "Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and tea-party backed former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz are heading to a runoff in the state's Republican primary for U.S. Senate."
CW: this is surely going to cause a big flap in Right Wing World. AP: "The White House said President Barack Obama misspoke on Tuesday when he referred to a 'Polish death camp' while honoring a Polish war hero."
AP: "Americans confidence in the economy fell the most in eight months as worries about the weak jobs, housing and stock markets continue to rattle them."
AP: "The U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan killed al-Qaida's second highest leader in the country in an airstrike in eastern Kunar province, the coalition said Tuesday. Sakhr al-Taifi, also known as Mushtaq and Nasim, was responsible for commanding foreign insurgents in Afghanistan and directing attacks against NATO and Afghan forces, the alliance said." (See also today's Commentariat.)
New York Times: "International efforts to pressure Syria intensified on Tuesday, as the United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan began talks with President Bashar al-Assad in the capital, Damascus, after the chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that continued atrocities could make military intervention more likely." ...
... Reuters Update: "France and Australia threw out Syrian diplomats from their capitals on Tuesday and other countries were due to follow suit as revulsion over the killing of more than 100 civilians in a Syrian town spurred them to act against President Bashar al-Assad." ...
... The Times story has been updated to reflect that the U.S. & other nations have ejected Syrian diplomats.
Washington Post: "With Tuesday's Texas primary, [Mitt Romney] is poised to secure the 1,144 delegates required to clinch the Republican presidential nomination at the party's August convention."
New York Times: "Dewey & LeBoeuf, the law firm crippled by financial miscues and partner defections, filed for bankruptcy on Monday night, punctuating the largest law firm collapse in United States history."
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Reader Comments (8)
"What is the matter with these people?"
Gallup has always been a right-leaning poll (who predicted Hoover would beat Roosevelt?). Had a girlfriend, a college student, once who polled in Georgetown for Gallup. One Sunday (yeah, they always did Sunday) she hit a brunch party that included Nick von Hoffman. She said he pretty much destroyed the alleged neutrality of the poll questions. She found another job.
Zounds! Here we go again. The Koch Brothers and their ring of rich bandits (Americans for Prosperity) deny they have set up shop in Wisconsin to re-elect Scotty SlyWalker. No indeedy--they are there to help with Republican candidates in general, especially those who express Tea Party sentiments (my translation). I wish June 5 would be over. Please! I am not sleepin' much and visions of arsenic flow through my head. My Madison friends want me to be there and "share the moment." But I would rather be depressed in my own home--where I can pull the covers over my head, listen to the ocean roar and wail with the whales. Boo fuckin' hoo!
http://www.alternet.org/story/155624/koch_brothers%27_americans_for_prosperity_goes_all_out_in_wisconsin_recall--and
James Singer's comment about Gallup raises the issue of reliability of polls in general and the way questions are phrased. Answers to polling questions, as we all know, depend greatly on the way questions are constructed, how they are asked, tone of voice, comportment of the caller, time of day, day of the week, not to mention whether or not the household being polled owns a landline.
Two reasons the Hoover/Roosevelt poll was so off (at least so I've read) were that only people owning phones were polled and a fair number of that group was taken from lists of people who owned registered automobiles. I'd say that in the early 30s, both of those groups were far better off than the millions of voters who had neither phones nor cars (nor jobs).
Military personnel, especially in the officer corps tend to be far more conservative. Most of the senior officers came into the military during the 70s when the Democratic party was less militant the Republicans and even, in many instances, anti-war. This would explain the 2/3 conservative bent of the officers. Younger officers, like up and coming middle management in many businesses, tend, more often than not, to adopt the views of their superiors. Go along to get along to get promoted, to not be branded a wuss. This isn't across the board, of course, but I'll bet it's pretty standard.
As for enlisted men and women, they apparently tend to be more independent than the general public, but that doesn't mean they are any more (or less) informed about specific issues and are just as liable to believe RomneyLie, Inc. whenever it makes another stupendously mendacious proclamation.
But the reputation of the Republican Party as the Party of Defense is completely unearned, especially considering the vast number of Republicans who ran away from serving when it was their turn. Instead, they offer blanket support which typically has no basis in reality. Blank checks for the Pentagon instead of thoughtful policy choices are just as bad for the military as for the rest of the country.
But the tough guy imagery sported by Republicans still wins the day in many corners. It's much easier to appear tough and decisive when you look at the world without gray areas, spout aggressive slogans, and look the other way at any of the many problems caused by the absentee supervision such as went on, criminally, under the last administration by those tough old military men Bush and Cheney.
So now we have "Mitt: He'll keep us safe (from good jobs and a future)!"
But the poll numbers for Obama reflect far more than the way the questions are phrased and the characteristics of the respondents: they include his very visible skin color, whether that element is acknowledged by the pollsters or not. Would be interesting to poll the same folks on abstracted behaviors and accomplishments of the two men, the kind of color-blind test of human worth Republicans claim is common practice is our exceptional land. Would they really prefer a pathological liar?
Guess I should use the "Preview" capability. Make that "in" our exceptional land...
Best synopsis of the strategy and stakes of the presidential campaign I've read so far:
http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/barack-obama-2012-6/
For anyone who cares:
Doc Watson passed away today. I feel like I've lost a lifelong friend even though I've never meant the man. He is a hero of mine, A man who conquered the adversity his life threw at him, and somehow found the strength to fight it with his music, and bring boundless joy, inspiration, and humility to all those who could hear it.
Goodbye old pal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9UnY5gte04&list=UUdbDqavT656UxDuppdStntw&index=6&feature=plcp
@DaveS
Agreed.