The Commentariat -- Nov. 29, 2013

Amy Merrick of the New Yorker posts some myths about Black Friday. Hint: the deals aren't that great. ...

... Black Friday Is Not About You. Derek Thompson of the Atlantic: "When you hit the stores this weekend, remember that shopping is a sport, this is its Super Bowl, and retail corporations are better at playing than you." ...

... Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "For retail workers nationwide, who earn a median pay of about $9.60 an hour, or less than $20,000 a year, holiday shopping sprees are most often enjoyed by customers on the opposite side of the counter." ...

... What's Wrong with This Picture? From the front page of the online New York Times:

     ... One of the suggested gifts: a $60,000 traveling desk/trunk. It is quite nice. Maybe some of those McDonald's workers will buy out the trunks to take on their round-the-world cruises.

... Mike DeBonis & Reid Wilson of the Washington Post: "Efforts in Congress to raise the national minimum wage above $7.25 an hour have stalled. But numerous local governments ... driven largely by Democrats ... are forging ahead, in some cases voting to dramatically increase the pay of low-wage workers. The efforts, while supported by many unions, threaten to create a patchwork of wage rates that could mean workers in some areas will be entitled to vastly less than those working similar jobs nearby. The campaigns reach from coast to coast."

Paul Krugman: Is ObamaCare bending the cost curve as the law was intended to do? "The answer, amazingly, is yes. In fact, the slowdown in health costs has been dramatic.... And the biggest savings may be yet to come. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel with the power to impose cost-saving measures (subject to Congressional overrides) if Medicare spending grows above target, hasn't yet been established, in part because of the near-certainty that any appointments to the board would be filibustered by Republicans [CW: and pundits like Mark Halperin] yelling about 'death panels.' Now that the filibuster has been reformed, the board can come into being." ...

... David Morgan of Reuters: "The Obama administration says it is on target to make its problematic health insurance website work smoothly for the 'vast majority' of users by this weekend, but some Americans who want coverage by January 1 may not be able to get it - even if they successfully navigate the portal and sign up for a plan. The problem, according to insurance industry officials and other specialists, is that the administration is behind schedule in building a computer program needed to help insurers verify the names, insurance plan choices and other details of those who sign up for health coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act...." ...

... Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: Especially in states which have accepted the Medicaid expansion available under the ACA, but in other states as well, a shortage of doctors -- and of specialists in particular -- is a looming problem, largely because many doctors won't accept Medicaid patients because the program pays them such low reimbursement rates. ...

... Maeve Reston of the Los Angeles Times: "In Oregon, a state envied for its high tech, sign-ups under the new federal healthcare law have been anything but. About 400 newly hired workers in Salem are processing paper applications by the thousands for health insurance under President Obama's law....Meanwhile, at the headquarters of Cover Oregon, the agency set up by the state to run its transition under the Affordable Care Act, dozens of software engineers have fanned out at long tables on the first floor, trying to untangle the technical problems that have made Oregon the only state with a health insurance exchange that has yet to go online." ...

... Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News: Maybe President Obama thinks he's too damned smart to dither with the "details" of ObamaCare. ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM on why the ACA will survive, no matter what. "Nothing will happen on the legislative front that Obama doesn't approve of. This is a cardinal fact.... The [insurance] carriers themselves have huge incentives to make the system work.... By early next year you will have millions of new people enrolled in Medicaid, large numbers of people who have health care covered who couldn't get it at any reasonable price before who now have coverage and you will have large numbers of people who have care that is better or cheaper and often both than it was before.... I do not think anyone will be able to claw that back.... Obamacare is good policy." ...

... Steve M. is not convinced. The right really believes in a country of "makers" and "takers," & the takers are just not full citizens in the view of the right. "... the right's efforts to dehumanize the less well off would make it a lot easier than we think just to strike millions of people from the health care rolls. I think the right-wing worldview is headed more and more in Mitt Romney's direction -- it just won't have Richie Rich as its figurehead in the future."

Greg Weston & Ryan Gallagher of CBC News, with Glenn Greenwald: "Top secret documents retrieved by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden show that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government allowed the [N.S.A.] to conduct widespread surveillance in Canada during the 2010 G8 and G20 summits.... The briefing notes, stamped 'Top Secret,' show the U.S. turned its Ottawa embassy into a security command post during a six-day spying operation by the National Security Agency while U.S. President Barack Obama and 25 other foreign heads of government were on Canadian soil in June of 2010. The covert U.S. operation was no secret to Canadian authorities." ...

... Ian Austen of the New York Times: "Canadian opposition politicians expressed shock and anger on Thursday over a report that the National Security Agency conducted widespread surveillance during a summit meeting of world leaders in Canada in June 2010."

Ben Goad of the Hill: "Guns that cannot be detected by X-ray machines will no longer be banned if Congress does not renew the decades-old prohibition by Dec. 9. The 1998 Undetectable Firearms Act will sunset that day, ending the prohibition at a time when new technology has made it easier than ever before to manufacture plastic guns with 3-D printers. Gun control activists warn that a lapse would allow anyone with a few thousand dollars to build a homemade gun that would be undetectable at airports, government buildings or schools. 'That threat was little more than "science fiction," when Congress overwhelmingly backed the ban 25 years ago,' said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who is pressing legislation to renew the law."

Humor Break. Joshua Keating of Salon Slate writes a "report" on Thanksgiving, employing the "tropes and tone" the American press uses in describing similar events in other countries. Here's the lede paragraph: "Washington, D.C. On Wednesday morning, this normally bustling capital city became a ghost town as most of its residents embarked on the long journey to their home villages for an annual festival of family, food, and questionable historical facts. Experts say the day is vital for understanding American society and economists are increasingly taking note of its impact on the world economy."

News Ledes

TPM: "A 28-year-old alleged 'former Exalted Cyclops' of the Ku Klux Klan and his mother have both been arrested and are facing federal charges relating to a 2009 cross burning in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Ozark, Ala."

AFP: "US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan on Friday vowed to investigate an airstrike that President Hamid Karzai said killed a two-year-old boy, as acrimony deepens over a deal to allow US troops to stay in the country after 2014." ...

... Washington Post: "The [U.S.-led] coalition acknowledged the incident on Friday, saying that a child was apparently killed during an operation targeting 'an insurgent riding a motorbike.'"

AFP: "China's state media called Friday for 'timely countermeasures without hesitation' if Japan violates the country's newly declared air zone, after Beijing sent fighter jets to patrol the area following defiant military overflights by Tokyo. Japan and South Korea both said Thursday they had disregarded the air defence identification zone (ADIZ) that Beijing declared last weekend, showing a united front after US B-52 bombers also entered the area."

AP: "An Italian court has accused ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi and his lawyers of tampering with evidence by paying off witnesses in a trial related to his notorious 'bunga bunga' parties. Citing testimony and telephone wiretaps, the Milan court said Berlusconi convened about a dozen young women to his Milan mansion on Jan. 15, 2011 to meet with his lawyers after the women's homes were searched as part of the police investigation into the parties. From then on, the judges wrote, the women began receiving 2,500 euros each month from Berlusconi and subsequently they offered unusually identical testimony in court denying that the parties had sexual overtones."

Comments

[Barbarossa]

@Re: Black Friday: Is it just me, or is everybody being inundated with Black Friday emails? Obviously, they have me confused with somone who gives a shit about Black Friday. We have NEVER shopped on BF, nor will we now or in the future, especially considering how the bigs are abusing their workers.

That brings to mind that it's way past time to raise the minimum wage!