The Commentariat -- May 7, 2013
Dan Rather explains the Washington political dynamic to Chris Matthews:
All of these things we've said about what the president could do, should do, might have, could have, but the central thing to keep in mind is his opponents -- you talk about taking them out to dinner, making nice with them -- these people, politically, want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs.
Bernie Becker & Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "The Senate on Monday approved legislation that would for the first time allow states to collect billions of dollars in online sales tax revenue from out-of-state purchases. The 69-27 vote is a major victory for retail groups and state governments, who for years have fought to close what they see as a loophole that allows as much as $23 billion in annual taxes from online sales to go uncollected." ...
... Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "The bill got bipartisan support in the Senate but faces opposition in the House, where some lawmakers regard it as a tax increase. Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, and the conservative Heritage Foundation oppose the bill, and many Republicans have been wary of crossing them."
The White Man's Stand (Sadly, Not the Last). Ashley Parker: "Republican opponents of legislation to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws are readying an offensive intended to hijack the newly released bill as the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday begins a review that will offer the clearest sign yet of how difficult a path the legislation faces.... Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a member of the committee, has long been a vocal opponent of the immigration overhaul, and he signaled last week that he planned to try to slow down the legislation's progress by offering amendments that would 'confront the fundamentals of the bill.'" ...
... Washington Post Editors: "Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), now leader of the Heritage Foundation, knows that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is likely to judge that immigration reform -- including eventual citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants -- will be a shot in the arm for the U.S. economy. After all, the CBO has done so with previous such legislation. That explains why Mr. DeMint, a bitter opponent of legalization, has launched a preemptive attack on the CBO -- 'puppets of the Congress,' he called the office the other day -- and why Heritage has issued a study slamming amnesty for unauthorized immigrants as a drain on taxpayers. The Heritage paper, chock-full of assumptions that most economists dispute, is a blatant attempt to twist the immigration debate. It concludes that newly legalized immigrants would cost $6.3 trillion more in benefits over their lifetime than they would pay in taxes.... Influential Republicans, including Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, rolled their eyes at the Heritage report...." ...
... Dylan Matthews of the Post has the wonky details of all that is wrong with the Heritage report. And there's a lot. Some of their assumptions are downright laughable. ...
... For a shorter wonkish explanation of "the cesspool that is Heritage economic analysis," Matt Yglesias is helpful.
NEW. Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "Gun violence has dropped dramatically nationwide over the past two decades, but nearly three-quarters of all homicides are still committed with a firearm, the Justice Department said in a report released Tuesday." ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "... at least two Republican senators who voted against a bipartisan proposal to expand the national gun background check system have approached Democrats about possibly restarting debate on the issue, according to senior Senate aides familiar with the talks.... The aides, who asked not to be identified..., refused to identify the two Republicans. But through spokespeople, Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who voted to block the background check proposal, signaled they are open to a new debate if Democrats make significant changes to the plan. Meanwhile, aides to Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who voted against the background-check plan, disputed a new barrage of TV ads critical of her vote and said she remains opposed to the current bipartisan background check proposal.... 'She's the only senator in the northeast to vote against background checks,' [Majority Leader Harry] Reid said of Ayotte. 'She went from a hugely positive number in New Hampshire -- her negatives now outweigh her positives. She is being hit every place she goes. So we are going to pick up some more votes. I may be able to get another Democrat or two. That would get us up to 57." ...
... Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Beneath the surface..., some of the NRA's allies are uneasy, saying publicly and privately that the organization is facing long-term -- and even short-term -- challenges on a scale it has not faced before. Those challenges include changing demographics and patterns of gun ownership; a new willingness of gun-state lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to buck the NRA; and the rise of an organized and well-funded gun-control movement." ...
... Ed Kilgore goes where contributor Nancy & I went in yesterday's Comments: "Am I perhaps being unfair to [NRA President Jim Porter, et al.,] in suggesting that they are behaving like America-haters and are flirting with treason? I don't think so." ...
... Sean Murphy & Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe: "Eyewitness accounts strongly suggest that MBTA Transit Police Officer Richard H. Donohue Jr. was shot and nearly killed by a fellow officer in Watertown April 19 during the hail of gunfire unleashed on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as the suspected terrorist made a getaway in a carjacked sport utility vehicle." ...
... Charlies Pierce: "Dear Wayne LaPierre: The only thing that can stop a good guy with a gun is ... another good guy with a gun.... LaPierre made great hay this weekend warning his convention of paranoid shut-ins that everybody up here really wished they'd had guns while the Tsarnaevs were on the loose, but that we were all chained into our homes by the dead hand of Deval Patrick's tyranny." ...
... Mark Follman of Mother Jones: "On Tuesday, inside a rural Kentucky home, a five-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old sister. The boy had been playing with a .22 caliber single-shot Crickett rifle made and marketed for kids." From the Cricket Website, Follman reproduced some of the marketing photos of those lucky-ducky kids showing off their lethal Crickett weapons (pink ones for girls!). In an update to his post, he writes, "Shortly after we published this story, the Crickett Firearms website was shut down, and it remains unavailable. This morning I called Keystone Sporting Arms and was referred to attorney John Renzulli, who spoke on behalf of the company: He said that the Crickett Firearms site had been 'inundated and corrupted' by a surge of visitors and had been shut down by the hosting service." Uh-huh.
** "Justice O'Connor Regrets." Jeff Toobin on Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's partial repudiation of her vote on Bush v. Gore: "There is no more eloquent testimony to the evolution of the Republican Party than the ideological fate of the last three Justices to leave the Supreme Court: O'Connor, Souter, and Stevens. In this way, O'Connor's apostasy on Bush v. Gore is a surprise -- but perhaps only because it took so long."
Harry Reid Nails Ted Cruz:
My friend from Texas is like a schoolyard bully. He pushes everybody around and is losing and instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him, but he changes the rules that way no one wins except the bully who tries to indicate to people that he has won.
Watch to the end where Harry tells Teddy to STFU (in nice, gentlemanly Senate-speak):
... If you watch this longer video of the exchange, you'll get to see Ted in action. It appears that he has perfected the Paul "Choir Boy" Ryan demeanor; it's uncanny.
Sex & Economics. Dillon Tatum of Salon: "Austerity, as a policy issue, is increasingly characterized by a sexual politics that aims to depoliticize and legitimate arguments for anti-interventionist economic policies. Not only does this carry with it enormous consequences for the practice of scholarly inquiry, it also makes for a poor science of political economy. Even President Obama is guilty of contributing to this idea, suggesting that American families know how to manage their money, and therefore 'it's time Washington acted as responsibly as our families do.' The state, then, becomes personified as a family unit.... Unfortunately, such a discourse makes it easy for pop-intellectuals like [Niall] Ferguson to make insensitive and dangerous comments.... How could a homosexual possibly understand the economic problems of the nation-collective -- the National Family -- when his own life is one of deviance from the baseline of familial virtue? Only 'family men' can theorize the national economy." ...
... MEANWHILE, over in winger world Jonah Goldberg sees Ferguson as a victim of political correctness: "Ferguson was trafficking in an old theory that was perfectly within the bounds of intellectual discourse not very long ago. Now, because of a combination of indifference to intellectual history and politically correct piety he must don the dunce cap." BTW, the "intellectual historian Gertrude Himmelfarb" whom Goldberg favorably cites spawned William Kristol. Plus, it would be nice if Goldberg is going to pretend to care about "intellectual history," that he not lede with a complete misrepresentation of what Keynes meant by "in the long run we're all dead." The contrast between left-leaning intellectuals & what passes for intellectual discourse on the right is stark.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs on the latest winger Benghazi hysteria, & the MSM's hyperventilated complicity. Johnson includes some links, so if you want to get all shocked by the "cover-up," he provides passage to the sensational stories. ...
... Jonathan Bernstein: the pity is that there likely low-level malfeasance in various government agencies, but the GOP is so busy trying to bust President Obama & would-be President Hillary that they won't take the time to look for real problems. CW: as a matter of fact, Clinton did accept & implement the recommendations of an independent "accountability review board" which reviewed the Benghazi incident. Also, "Four State Department officials were removed from their posts on Wednesday after an independent panel criticized the 'grossly inadequate' security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi...." (NYT)
Insider Trading, Congressional Edition. Jia Lynn Yang, et al., of the Washington Post: "'Political intelligence' firms -- companies that sell their analysis of federal actions to investors -- have drawn much of the scrutiny from lawmakers and investigators worried about potential insider trading. Last month, federal regulators issued subpoenas to the law firm Greenberg Traurig and an analyst at the brokerage firm Height Securities in connection with another spike in trading that occurred after information was shared about the government's health-care decision. But it is not just boutique firms and lobbyists offering political intelligence. Congress itself has become a source of sophisticated political analysis for investors, for whom every nugget of exclusive information can translate to millions of dollars in profit."
Katie McDonough of Salon: "Chief of the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response branch at the Pentagon Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski was arrested and charged with sexual battery in Virginia over the weekend. Krusinski is accused of drunkenly fondling a woman in a parking lot, according to Arlington County police." ...
... Jim Miklaszewski, et al., of NBC News: "Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, 41, was removed from his position as head of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office pending an investigation, the Air Force said.... On Tuesday, the Pentagon will release its annual report on sexual assaults in the military, which shows an increase in reported assaults in fiscal year 2012 -- up from 3,192 a year before." CW: from the mugshot accompanying the post, it appears the victim had to put up quite a fight to fend off Krusinski.
Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) secretly underwent a medical operation in February to help him lose weight, he told the New York Post on Tuesday. According to the report, Christie, 50, had gastric band surgery, which restricts the amount of food one can eat, at the urging of his family who was concerned about his health.... Christie told the Post the surgery had nothing to do with his political ambitions."
Having nothing to do with anything else, here's a nice story by Richard Conniff of the New York Times about Dr. Maurice Hilleman: "At Dr. Hilleman's death in 2005, other researchers credited him with having saved more lives than any other scientist in the 20th century. Over his career, he devised or substantially improved more than 25 vaccines, including 9 of the 14 now routinely recommended for children."
Rick Perry is a badass (and other lowlights from the NRA convention):
Now This Is Appropriate. Justin Sink of the Hill: "The website for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was hacked on Sunday to redirect users to advertisements for erectile dysfunction." Thanks to James S. for the link.
Congressional Race
He's a Jerk, But He's Our Jerk. Charles Pierce explains what's up in South Carolina: "Remember that, over the two weeks in which Colbert Busch's numbers have deflated, Sanford has done nothing but make a jackass of himself, even by his standards, which are damned near historic. He choked in a debate. He tried to have an argument with a cardboard Nancy Pelosi. He had plenty of troubles before, and then he turned into a clown and, at the same time, he got himself back into position to win the election. Why? Because this is no longer an election. This has become a tribal conflict, and Mark Sanford's tribe is bigger, that's how."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The F.B.I. director Robert S. Mueller III met with Russian law enforcement and intelligence officials in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the bureau's investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings...."
The State (South Carolina): "Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has redeemed a political career sidelined by scandal by winning his old congressional seat. Sanford defeated Elizabeth Colbert Busch Tuesday in the state's 1st Congressional District. Colbert Busch is the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert. With 71 percent of precincts reporting, Sanford has 54 percent of the vote."
Denver Post: "James Holmes wants to plead not guilty by reason of insanity to the killing of 12 people and the wounding of 70 others in the Aurora movie theater attack.In a one-page court filing Tuesday, Holmes' lawyers wrote they intend to 'tender a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.' Holmes would need the judge's permission to change his plea from the standard not guilty plea currently entered on his behalf. Judge Carlos Samour Jr. wrote in an order Tuesday that he will allow Holmes' attorneys to argue at a hearing Monday morning that they have 'good cause' for the plea change."
AP: "Secretary of State John Kerry is making his case to Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to take a tougher stance on Syria at a time when Israel's weekend air strikes against the beleaguered Mideast nation have added an unpredictable factor to the talks. Kerry arrived Tuesday in Moscow for talks with the most powerful ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime."
New York Times: "Three young women from Cleveland who disappeared about a decade ago, and who friends and relatives feared were gone forever, were found on Monday and appeared to be physically unharmed, the authorities said." The Cleveland Plain Dealer story is here, with related links. ...
Interview of Charles Ramsey (a total kick, bro) & Amanda Berry's 911 call:
... CW Update: I'm glad to see citizens are criticizing the dispatcher for her handling of Berry's call. Not only did the dispatcher pretty much tell Berry she would send a police car when it was convenient, she hung up on the distraught woman, making no effort to see that she remained safe till police arrived. The dispatcher seemed totally dismissive & disinterested in helping Berry. The dispatcher's handling of the call is "under review."
... New York Times Update: "... at a news conference on Tuesday, the police and investigators said that they were slowly starting to unravel the thread of events that led up to the escape of the women after one of them, Amanda Berry, tried to force her way through the front door of the house on Seymour Avenue." ...
... Update: the Plain Dealer has an informative liveblog here. ...
... Reuters Update: "Cleveland authorities said there was one attempt to visit the home in 2004 on an unrelated matter but no one answered the door. They said they combed through records and found no other calls to the house nor reports of anything amiss in the years the women were missing. But neighbors said they had made more than one call to police about suspicious activity at the house." ...
... Washington Post Update: "Neighbors said that several years ago, a naked woman was seen crawling on her hands and knees in the backyard, and pounding was heard on the doors in 2011. Police showed up each time but stayed outside, the neighbors said."
AP: "Hundreds of survivors of last month's collapse of a building housing garment factories in Bangladesh protested for compensation Tuesday, as the death toll from the country's worst-ever industrial disaster passed 700. The police control room overseeing the recovery operation said the death toll stood at 705 on Tuesday afternoon as workers pulled more bodies out of the wreckage...."
AP: "On Monday, Worcester funeral home director Peter Stefan said he'd received 120 burial offers from the United States and Canada for the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. But he said when he talked to officials in the cities and towns where the graves are located, nobody wanted the body there."
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Reader Comments (3)
"The contrast between left-leaning intellectuals & what passes for intellectual discourse on the right is stark."
-Marie
"We will never have the elite, smart people on our side"
-Republican Scholar professing his deep wisdom
The links to coverage of the senate vote for a sales tax on goods purchased online reminded me of a recent e-mail blast I received from one of the far-right mailing lists I've found myself on.
In this particular screed (sponsored by crazy Paul number one, the father) readers are urged to threaten this or that against their elected representatives if they vote for the Stealing our Freedom Act, otherwise referred to as the National Forced Internet Tax Mandate (I think "mandate" carries the implication of force, but never mind). The actual name is the "Marketplace Fairness Act".
At the time I did a bit of research to try to see how much, if any, of what the e-mail claimed was true, and to get a more balanced impression of the bill (you're surprised that these communiqués are not balanced? Zut alors!).
The bill seems an entirely reasonable way to makes things more fair for everyone and to return some badly needed funding to state governments. Period. But sadly, none of that matters to the authors of the Jeremiad in question.
It's funny how so many of these calls to action sound exactly the same, like they all come from a basic conservative boilerplate that starts with a lot "Red coats are coming, the red coats are coming" hollering, then citations about the founders and freedom and tyrants and yadda, yadda, yadda.
Then there are the obligatory references to reclaiming the country (from you know who), freedom, restoring the Constitution (here I always find myself wondering exactly how many of the recipients of these fulminations have ever even read the Constitution, apart from the Heritage Foundation's version of it, that is), freedom, danger to the nation, Obama stealing our freedom, national prosperity, freedom, the UN (they always manage to work in something about the UN. "local trash pickup scandal...HOLY SHIT! THE UN is behind it!" "changes in city building codes....THE UN!!" I just don't know how they do it), and did I mention freedom?
It's pretty much the same crap all the time no matter what the issue is. Oh there are the usual paragraphs of made up statistics and fabricated right-wing history ('cause they're all such big students of history) for each outrage, but I would think they'd get tired of all this non-stop screaming until I take a gander at some of the names in the list and I know why they can never get enough:
obamahater@yahoo, luvmyguns@aol, freedomlvr@dickhead, colddeadhands@wtf, tyrantkllr@wherever, and on and on like that.
But the really scary stuff comes from people who respond to the group. This is when you realize that not all of this is just big talk to demonstrate he-manliness and wingnut bona fides. Things like "Someone's gonna see me exacise (sic) my 2 amendment rights pretty soon if they don't smarten up" and "What those fukin' librerals (sic) need is double ought in the face". Not all of these loudmouths are kidding. It's a non-stop outflow of hatred, willful misunderstanding of how the country works, and finely tuned invective designed to keep the water at 99.98°C.
And believe me, brothers and sisters, this stuff comes out daily. Sometimes three or four times a day. Wingnuttiness never sleeps. It's one loooonnnggg screed that would make you think that 23 page sentence in Ulysses was a 15 second PSA for home medical care delivery.
And now idiots like these are getting ready to lock and load and march on Washington.
What could possibly go wrong?
I have been having thoughts today about the three women who had been abducted–-one evidently had a child during that period ––and how something like this can take place in a neighborhood where the abductor was known and talked to and at times even barbecued with, but NOT really known. The two brothers in the Boston bombings were also known, but not known. And then there's the case of Jody Arias who shot and knife slashed her lover. And yesterday Akhilleus wrote about Chauncey Gardener, the Peter Seller's character who was perceived as someone other than who he actually was. I have always thought "Being There" was a film like "Dr. Strangelove" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" that will never lose purchase. It's part of our American iconic classics––our Shakespeare in miniature. Now I need to go out and pick some daffodils to clear my mind––maybe even say hello to a neighbor or two.