The Commentariat -- Oct. 12, 2013
The President's Weekly Address:
Here's the Washington Post's liveblog of the shutdown/debt ceiling crisis. ...
CW: The WashPo & NYTimes stories seem to conflict about that Obama-Boehner phone call. ...
... Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "House Republicans were told by Speaker John Boehner Saturday morning that negotiations between the House GOP and President Obama have ended, with Obama’s rejection Friday of the House’s latest offer. At a closed door meeting in the basement of the Capitol, Boehner urged members to hold firm, several said, even as Senate Republicans work to negotiate their own proposal to end the impasse." ...
... Ashley Parker & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: " The House and the Senate met on Saturday to continue parallel — and at times competing — negotiations to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling less than a week before the Treasury’s borrowing authority runs out on Thursday. The mood on Capitol Hill and in the White House was one of tempered optimism, even though neither the House Republicans nor the Obama administration has yet to produce any tangible areas of agreement. A phone call from President Obama to Speaker John A. Boehner on Friday afternoon yielded little more than an exchange of pleasantries." ...
Jeremy Peters & Ashley Parker: "Republican senators emerged from a meeting at the White House on Friday afternoon expressing confidence that a deal could be reached in a matter of days that would end the government shutdown and extend the nation’s borrowing authority, but cautioning that details of an agreement, including the length of an extension, still needed to be worked out." ...
... Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Congressional Republicans rushed late Friday to develop a new plan for reopening the government and avoiding a first-ever default in hopes of crafting a strategy that can win the support of the White House before financial markets open Monday.... Details were still fluid late Friday, but the latest 23-page draft of the emerging measure would immediately end the shutdown and fund federal agencies for six months at current spending levels. It would maintain deep automatic cuts known as the sequester, but give agency officials flexibility to decide where the cuts should fall. In addition, the proposal would also raise the debt limit through Jan. 31, 2014." ...
... Jonathan Salant of Bloomberg News: Sen. Ted Corker (R-Tenn.) & Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) tell Al Hunt of Bloomberg TV that the end of both the government shutdown & the debt default threat is in site & votes should come mid-week. Ted & Pete are thrilled that the President is going to help them "chip away at entitlements." CW: As a certified "entitlement moocher" whose future COLA is almost certain to get chipped, I couldn't be more thrilled. Hmm. Wonder if Congress will chain Congressional pensions to the lower COLAs a/k/a "chained CPI." ...
... Steve Benen: "House Republican lawmakers are saying they want to make catastrophic threats a normal part of contemporary politics, and justify this extremism by saying voters haven't left them any choice." They're afraid to vote for a clean debt ceiling because "it will establish a precedent" & they might never again be able to hold the nation hostage. "But -- and I'm just spitballing here -- Republicans could try ... working on a policy agenda and then reaching out to Democrats in the hopes of reaching compromises. This would, I'm afraid, require both sides to make concessions..., but if GOP lawmakers were willing to try this, I have some good news for them: There's plenty of precedent for this approach working quite well." ...
... Digby: " The only thing that will stop them from doing this again is for them to lose many seats in the next election. I'm not sure why people are fooling themselves into believing otherwise."
A Day in the Life of a Megalomaniac
MORNING. Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "The shutdown according to House Speaker Ted Cruz" -- is going great! ...
BUT. If I’m never seen again, please send a search-and-rescue team. -- Ted Cruz, worrying aloud to a roomful of "Values Voters"/conspircy theorists about his upcoming afternoon appointment at the White House
AFTERNOON. Burgess Everett of Politico: Cruz tells off the President:
I told the president ... that we need to work together and fund the government and at the same time provide substantial relief to the millions of people who are hurting because of Obamacare, who are losing their jobs, being forced into part-time work and losing their health insurance. If the outcome doesn’t impact people who are struggling, who are hurting because of Obamacare, then I don’t think it would be a good outcome. -- Tailgunner Ted
No. -- Jay Carney, when asked to give a breakdown of the exchange between Cruz & Obama
ALL DAY. Ted's college roommate Craig Mazin tweets about Ted, reveals it's more than Ted's ideas that stink. Funny stuff.
No one has done more to strengthen Obamacare than Ted Cruz. -- Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.)
... for most party actors, including many sympathetic to Tea Partyism, [Ted Cruz is] going to be the guy who ran up the wrong hill.... He's probably off the list of serious contenders [for the GOP presidential nomination]. He still has the basics of a viable candidate (conventional credentials, if only just barely, and he's within the mainstream of his party on public policy positions). But I think it's extremely likely that he's in the process of being winnowed out. -- Political Scientist Jonathan Bernstein
... "The Zombie-Eyes Granny Starver" Emerges. Charles Pierce: "Paul Ryan is staking his claim as a reasonable guy on the very narrow criterion of Not Being Louie Gohmert. But there isn't an ounce of daylight between their essential positions."
... Tom Kludt of TPM: "Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) channeled his inner-maverick Friday during an appearance on Fox News Channel, repeatedly reminding the conservative network that the government shutdown was brought about by the quixotic effort to halt the Affordable Care Act. When anchor Martha MacCallum asked him about the White House's handling of the suspension of death benefits to military families, McCain said that while the administration deserves blame it was a GOP-induced shutdown that caused the problem in the first place."
Paul Krugman: "What [a new Democracy Corps] report makes clear is that the current Republican obsession with attacking programs that benefit Americans in need, ranging from food stamps to Obamacare, isn’t about some philosophical commitment to small government, still less worries about incentive effects and implicit marginal tax rates. It’s about anxiety over a changing America — the multiracial, multicultural society we’re becoming — and anger that Democrats are taking Their Money and giving it to Those People. In other words, it’s still race after all these years." ...
... Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker remarks on how much the Tea Party is like the John Birch Society. "The common core belief, then and now, is actually descended from “Huck Finn” ’s unforgettable Pappy and his views on the 'guv’mint': the federal government exists to take money from hard-working white people and give it to lazy black people, and the President is helping to make this happen." CW: BTW, I agree with Gopnik's assessment of the roots & character of white racism. I would add that much of today's racial resentment is a direct result of the economic trends in this country -- people see they're not getting ahead & they look for someone to scapegoat. In this regard, the GOP agenda is brilliant: surreptitiously make life harder or your base, & they will be even angrier & even more devoted to their crazy beliefs & conspiracy theories -- who was it who said "clinging to their guns & religion"? I thought then & I think now that guy was right. ...
... John Judis of the New Republic: "We could be witnessing the death throes of the Republican party.... Under pressure from grassroots radicals and the new outsider groups, the old Republican coalition is beginning to shatter. The single-issue and evangelical groups have been superseded by right-wing populist groups, which are generally identified with the Tea Party, although there is no single Tea Party organization. These groups can’t easily be co-opted by the party’s Washington leadership. And the business groups in Washington, who funded the party over the last two decades, have grown disillusioned with a party that appears to be increasingly held hostage by its radical base and by outsider groups." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "I dunno; this is a song we’ve heard before. Time and again yesterday’s conservative radicals have become today’s and tomorrow’s 'Republican Establishment;' that’s a big part of why the GOP has move so steadily to the Right over the years." ...
... Steve M. of NMMNB: "Trust me, these folks are going to work this out. First of all, crazy-base disappointment with the GOP is not exactly new. Crazy-base voters thought John McCain was a pathetic RINO. Did they bolt for a third party? No. They felt the same way in 2012 about Mitt Romney. Did they bolt then? No. They never bolt, because they hate liberals, Democrats, and the Democratic voter base as they perceive it (i.e., non-white moochers) far more than they hate one another."
Brendan Sasso of the Hill: "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has granted the National Security Agency (NSA) permission to continue its collection of records on all U.S. phone calls. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced the court's approval in a statement late Friday. The court authorizes the program for only limited time periods and requires that the government submit new requests every several months for re-authorization." ...
... Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The C.I.A. said Friday that it did not suspect Edward J. Snowden of gaining access to computer files without authorization when he was working as a technician for the agency in Geneva in 2009, and did not send him home as a result."
Senate Race
The New Jersey special election for the U.S. Senate is this coming Wednesday, & Gail Collins has a few thoughts about GOP candidate Steve Lonegan, whose view of the social safety net (& philosophy of life) could be summed up in this classic: “I’d hate to see you get cancer, but that’s your problem, not mine.” Also, she ruminated on Chris Christie, who set the election on a Wednesday in mid-October so he would get all the headlines in the November election: "People, do you think Governor Christie used to be one of those kids who refused to share? When other children came over, do you think he put all his toys in one big pile and sat on it? I once had a friend like that, but I don’t think she grew up to be in charge of a state." ...
It was just weird. I mean, to me, you know, hey, if he said, 'Hey, you got really hot breasts man, I'd love to suck on them.' Then like, yeah, cool. But like, he didn't say that. It was like kind of like, I don't know, it was like what a gay guy would say to a stripper. It's the way he was talking to her. It's just like like there was no sexual interest at all. I don't know. To me, if I was single and you know like some stripper was tweeting me, I might take advantage of the perks of the office, you know? ... This is strange. It's just weird. ... It's like, 'I don't know who she is. I don't know anything about her.' Get the fuck out of here dude. You can't follow her Twitter page and not know she's got those great breasts. How do you fucking not know? -- Rick Shaftan, top aide to Steve Lonegan, speaking on the record to a TPM reporter about Democratic rival Cory Booker's Twitter exchange with that vegan stripper Collins mentioned
And Democrats have been complaining about the quality of Booker's campaign? -- Constant Weader
... Shaftan Gets Shafted. David Giambusso of the Star-Ledger: "Hours [after TPM published the interview], Lonegan fired Shaftan, saying the comments 'are not reflective of my views or that of my campaign. His comments are distasteful and offensive, and his contract as a vendor for my campaign will be terminated immediately,' Lonegan said."
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Response: jacuzzi blogREALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- Oct. 12, 2013
Reader Comments (14)
Judging from the comments yesterday, this is no longer a site about politics. Of 19 comments yesterday, 12 were about literature & music & had no relation to politics.
If any of you regular contributors would like to take over this site & move it in any direction you want, please contact me. You are more than welcome to it. I'm serious.
I will be more-or-less out of commission for several days, so won't be posting much. I should be able to respond to any volunteers by Wednesday. (If more than one contributor wants the site, I'll let you-all work it out.) I'll be glad to help you get your new & improved site up & running.
Marie
My vote is for Marie to run the site and keep it about politics.
Here is an article of interest (pointed out by a Naked Capitalism commenter):
http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/10/11/the-core-internet-institutions-abandon-the-us-government/
Best,
KH
@Tommy: I'm with you. Keep Marie and the emphasis on politics.
My crazy right wing brother constantly posts about guns on Facebook; e.g., "Ted Nugent for Presidennt." I never knew him to be so focused on guns and violence but I can only conclude he must watch Faux news. With people like him as part of the Republican base, we liberals mustn't lose our focus on the current political climate. It's too important. The sad part is that my brother isn't stupid, just irrational about some things. And he lives in Oregon, a blue state! However, the northeast corner is kind of redneck country.
A few words about art, slavery, and war. Put them together and it spells politics. What they have in common, and what they each celebrate, will be equanimously destroyed when the abusive forces of deceit, deception, and confusion win over the resiliency of the body politic and incite yet another doomed march into the inferno, custom made by master artisans and engineers and designed to express the untethered visions of current aspirants to the crown of the master race. Yes, fellow humans, we are living in a time of next-level war messaging, and some, like Ms. Burns and many of her readers and commenters, are working very hard to keep their eyes on the action--and not the birdie--and we certainly don't want to look directly into the bright flash of the picture makers, lest we get disoriented by the temporary blindness which ensues. Rarely does that transient form of sensory disruption play well with it's more dangerous form, the personal and cultural blind spots and dimly lit fields of view which can haunt us and stunt us for lifetimes and then generations. The ugliness being served up in the house of the US government is one such spectacle, and I think this venerable site's readers are beginning to show signs of stress associated with cognitive dissonance, which, in my experience, will either serve as motivation to seek a path to greater and deeper awareness for both individuals and the cultures they embody, or spiral into any one of the lesser vehicles of illusory control and rationalized self-worth. This is psychological warfare as corporate messaging, served up by very bad but technically proficient artists and engineers, which is designed to deprive you of the ability to love and to serve and to heal, and replace it with a counterfeit sense of control and self-preservation. Once locked into this state, a person--and a culture--is without the few things which can restore peace and civility. Insight and wisdom, not to mention courage and sacrifice, can carry the day while sentiment and self preservation yearn for the life now lost. Anger, resignation, and despair become the jailers.
Marie Burns has done her level best to call out the diabolical and soul-crushing bullshit which is falling on our nation and our kind, the human kind, since time immemorial (and especially since someone figured out that they can use actors and proxies to sell their toxic messaging and products, instead of honest humans with a conscience), and even through her occasional fits of pique, she has acquitted herself incredibly well through her commitment and devotion to the art of communication and dissemination of functional criticism.
It is clearly important to her that some of her readers benefit for the experience and in turn make a difference in the struggle. She has worked tirelessly, to date, and that sustained energy, renewed many times, may not last indefinitely. This is not a spectator sport in the baseball card collecting innocence of a bygone era. It is a deadly serious bloodsport spectacle of a poison-pill culture designed to deprive you of the freedoms which you so cherish, and for the few who it allows to prevail on the material level, fealty is demanded under threat of forfeiture. Not much room for simple human decency in this coliseum. So if all this multi-level, passive aggressive, shiv to the brain stem kaleidoscopic mayhem is getting to us, then I advise we take a walk in the fresh air for a while and then get back to work. The lives rescued will be our own, even those of us without offspring to care about. Life is a blessing and a gift, not a commodity and a bargaining chip. Real threats must be separated from false ones, and they must be met with an equal or greater force than the thugs and brutes and sadists who issue them.
Yes, I know, my syntax and punctuation are lacking. And I might not be inflated to the right pressure. They tried to teach me better.
Re: Copnik's reference to the John Birchers: When Reagan, in the summer of '62, despairing of his dwindling acting career, registered as a Republican and began to campaign for John Rousselot, a far right Congressman running for re-election. Reagan appeared unembarrassed when Rousselot was revealed to be national public-relations director for the John Birch Society. Although he denounced the Birchers when he was running for governor of California this was the man whose party became the one that despised government but reveled in power. And the fridge element of that party took root and multiplied.
Re: Krugman's post that it is still about race, this article provides supporting evidence. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/us-civil-war-redux-20131089528858855.html
I think we are seeing what happens when a high functioning sociopath is applauded and fed regularly. He is voracious. As I keep saying, Cruz will blow himself up and the spectacle will splatter those who stand too close. I'm cheering for a quick demise. Alas, I suspect there will be few lessons learned. The next narcissistic messiah is just over the hill.
You have to wonder if the source of Ted's college age stink was his rotting soul or poor hygiene. Whichever, it was obviously in his best interest to learn to tame it.
Good piece of the VA governor's race and libertarian Servis polling.
http://prospect.org/article/virginia’s-libertarian-surge-wasn’t
Kos’s Saturday nutpick-a-palooza column is always the funnies page. Here’s today’s:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/12/1246542/-Saturda-nutpick-a-palooza-Nice-civil-war-you-have-going-there?showAll=yes
I'd like to recommend a Krugman blogpost that's exceptionally insightful, even for him: Business and the GOP.
He points out that the logic of the 1% is the reverse of what they claim. They say that the 99% should be content with a smaller share of the pie -- as long as the pie is larger. But, in reality, what the 1% want is a smaller pie -- with a larger share for themselves.
The rest of us don't catch on that the 1% counter-intuitively want a smaller pie. This makes it harder for us to outmaneuver them. We need to parse them better. It's not just that the 1% take money from us. They ruin it for everybody else.
One reason the 1% think that way is their psycho-pathology. A large share of a small pie makes them feel important, makes them feel that their lives are worthwhile after all, that they escaped the grim fate of the 99%. It's pathetic that the 1% need this reassurance; but they do.
The other reason is sheer stupidity on their part. (How can someone stupid get rich? I know: I can't understand it either.) Think of it this way:
I plant a garden in the spring. When you put out most seedlings they only have 2 leaves––starter leaves. So, I put out a green bean plant; and overnight some slug––a snail without its shell––comes and eats both of the leaves, which kills the plant.
I want instead to say to the slug: Look, in a week that plant would have 10 leaves. Come back and I'll give you 3 instead of the 2 you got. In a month it'll have 500 leaves. Come back and I'll give you 200, and after the beans have come I'll give you all the leaves. But, you had to eat those 2 piddly leaves and now you don't get more––and I don't get my green beans that I worked for.
That's what the 1% do. They're greedy, mindless slugs.
I know what you do about slugs. You take the bottom half of a plastic bleach bottle, set it nine tenths in the dirt near your plants, and fill it part way with beer. The slugs are attracted to the beer; they tumble in and can't climb out. End.
A better way to deal with slugs is to have a possum come into your yard and eat them. (Metaphor, not gardening tip--although that too.)
@Marie; Thanks for the clarification. At times I have wondered.
A gloss on Mr. Coleman--I do know slugs!--and Dr. Krugman.
Another other, very telling piece, critical in fact to understanding it IMHO--of the business-Republican relationship is geography. Business is now international. The rest of us increasingly poor slobs are imprisoned behind our border fences. And, flag pins aside, business knows no patriotism when it is not profitable.