The Commentariat -- Oct. 24, 2013
This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches. My goal is the same as yours: Get rid of the glitches. -- Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)
No matter what one does in life, when it is something new in learning the ropes of it, it is going to take a little adjustment. -- Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.)
See, Republicans can be patient & reasonable about healthcare reform, even partisan dopes like Joe Barton. Uh, when they're talking about the Bush administration's very shaky rollout of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. -- Constant Weader
Sandhya Somashekhar, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration said Wednesday night that it will give Americans who buy health insurance through new online marketplaces an extra six weeks to obtain coverage before they risk a penalty. The announcement means that those who buy coverage through the exchange will have until March 31 to sign up for a plan.... Administration officials said the new deadline is unrelated to the many technical problems that the marketplace's Web site, HealthCare.gov, has had in its first three weeks of operation. Instead, they said, the change is designed to clear up confusion about when people would face a penalty under the 2010 health-care law." ...
... ** Topher Spiro and Jonathan Gruber of the Center for American Progress: "The Affordable Care Act is already working: Intense price competition among health plans in the marketplaces for individuals has lowered premiums below projected levels. As a result of these lower premiums, the federal government will save about $190 billion over the next 10 years, according to our estimates. These savings will boost the health law's amount of deficit reduction by 174 percent and represent about 40 percent of the health care savings proposed by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform -- commonly known as the Simpson-Bowles commission -- in 2010. Moreover, we estimate that lower premiums will lower the number of uninsured even further, by an additional 700,000 people, even as the number of individuals who receive tax credits will decline because insurance is more affordable. In short, the Affordable Care Act is working even better than expected, producing more coverage for much less money." CW: Investigate that, GOP. ...
... David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "... there is an entire political party and pundit class out there that professes to believe that deficits are the scariest thing ever, and we need to do something about them right now. They also happen to be the same people who are the most opposed to the Affordable Care Act. How does that work, exactly? It works because most of the deficit fetishists never actually cared about the deficit, per se. The deficit is just a symbol to them of a moral laxitude about a culture of dependency that can only be fixed by slashing social spending and forcing people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps." ...
... Reed Abelson, et al., of the New York Times: "While competition [among health insurers] is intense in many populous regions, rural areas and small towns have far fewer carriers offering plans in the law's online exchanges. Those places, many of them poor, are being asked to choose from some of the highest-priced plans in the 34 states where the federal government is running the health insurance marketplace...."
... Frank Newport of Gallup: "Despite the highly publicized technical issues that have plagued the government's health insurance exchange website that went live on Oct. 1, Americans' views of the Affordable Care Act are slightly more positive now than they were in August. Forty-five percent now approve of the law, while 50% disapprove, for a net approval score of -5. In June and August, net approval was slightly lower, at -8." ...
... Josh Lederman of the AP: "Frustrated Democrats lamented Wednesday that persistent problems with new health care exchanges have inflicted damage on the public's perception of the already unpopular 'Obamacare' — with some lawmakers insisting President Barack Obama should ensure those responsible lose their jobs. Emerging from a closed-door briefing with health officials from the Obama administration, House Democrats appeared to have at least as many questions as answers about how and when the beleaguered website will be fixed. Although they resolved not to let setbacks with one aspect of the health law outshine the parts that are working, they griped that the shoddy website had given Republicans an opening to do just that." ...
... Ana Marie Cox of the Guardian: "ObamaCare is not President Obama's 'Iraq War.'" ...
Jennifer Steinhauer & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Emboldened by the intense public criticism surrounding the rollout of the online insurance exchange, Republicans in Congress are refocusing their efforts from denying funds for the health care law to investigating it." ...
... Robert Pear: "Contractors that built President Obama's health insurance marketplace point fingers at one another and at the government, but each insists that it is not responsible for the problems that infuriated millions of Americans trying to buy insurance on the Web site, according to testimony prepared for a Congressional hearing on Thursday." ...
... ** SNAFU. Michael Scherer of Time: "The basic architecture of the site, built by federal contractors overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, was flawed in design, poorly tested and ultimately not functional." ...
... Norm Ornstein in the National Journal: "... the failures in vision and execution, in the face of clear and blunt warnings of problems ahead, are striking and troubling.... The stark internal warnings from tech experts of deep-seated problems in the programs came months ago and went unheeded.... I view the problem in a broader way. It is the larger failure of public administration that has been endemic in the Obama White House, and is probably the president's most significant weakness." ...
... This Too Shall Pass. (Whereas a Legislative Delay in the Individual Mandate Should Not.) Jonathan Chait: The Democratic freakout over the Healthcare.gov debacle is an overreaction. "... a legislative delay in the individual mandate can do plenty of harm and no potential good. It's a pure political maneuver by vulnerable Democrats to insulate themselves from an unpopular national story." ...
... From the Strange Twists Department. Ben Jacobs of the Daily Beast: "... the movement [to oust Kathleen Sebelius] was sparked by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) who called on the former Kansas governor to resign on October 11 -- just three days after Milton Wolf, a second cousin of Obama's, announced a primary challenge to Roberts as a Tea Party candidate. What was so surprising and news-making about Roberts’s demand for the secretary's scalp is that the two have what the senator once called 'a special relationship.' Roberts got his start in politics working for Sebelius's father-in-law, Keith Sebelius, who was a six-term Republican congressman from western Kansas. When Keith Sebelius retired from the House, Roberts succeeded him."
The Cruz Obstruct-&-Bully Machine Never Sputters. New York Times Editors: "Senator Ted Cruz ... has a new target for his obstructionism: the Federal Communications Commission. Last week, Mr. Cruz blocked the Senate from considering the nomination of Tom Wheeler to lead the commission -- a candidate who leaders from both parties had agreed would be put up for a vote without delay.... Mr. Cruz knows that Congress will not repeal federal laws granting the F.C.C. power to require disclosure, so he is trying to bully Mr. Wheeler into agreeing not to exercise the agency's authority.... Neither [Cruz] nor supporters of Republican candidates and conservative causes want disclosure of spending on commercials by groups like Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the billionaire Koch brothers." CW: Ah, Ted heard his masters' voice. ...
... Ashley Parker of the New York Times, MoDo's protegee, profiles Heidi Cruz.
Tal Kopan of Politico: "The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin, said in a Facebook post that a House Republican leader told off President Barack Obama during a negotiation meeting, and that GOP leaders are so disrespectful it's practically impossible to have a conversation with them. But Wednesday afternoon, both the White House and House speaker's office denied his claims. In a "negotiation" meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: "I cannot even stand to look at you,"' Durbin wrote in a post on his Facebook page over the weekend."
Illustration by the Daily Beast."RINO Hunting Season." David Freedlander of the Daily Beast: "... before Republicans can defend their majority, they first must stave off a slew of primary challengers who are targeting incumbent members of Congress. The new spate of primaries mostly target those Republicans who failed to toe the Tea Party line during the recent budget standoff.... On the day the government shutdown began, J.D. Winteregg, a high school French teacher and founder of a group called The Ohio Accountability Project, announced a primary run against [Speaker John] Boehner." Via Driftglass, who notes, "Gathering the ignorant, paranoid, hateful dregs of society into one political party and then giving them real power has some downsides." ...
... ** Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "It's not 'moderates' vs. 'conservatives.' The two opposing Republican sides, if they really are opposing, are 'radical' and 'conservative.' And only one side is fighting. The other is rolling over.... The only really important votes on which these two sides disagree are the votes that threaten fiscal calamity. So that's all the conservatives stand for. Elect me, and at five minutes 'til midnight, I'll stand courageously against global economic cataclysm!"
Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "Federal authorities are preparing to take action in a criminal investigation of JPMorgan Chase, suspecting that the bank turned a blind eye to Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme. The Madoff case, coming on the heels of a tentative $13 billion settlement over JPMorgan's mortgage practices, poses another major threat to the reputation of the nation's largest bank." CW: Yup, Jamie Dimon is a "savvy businessman," Mr. President.
Dan Frosch of the New York Times: "... a Tesoro Logistics pipeline had ruptured, spreading more than 865,000 gallons of oil across seven acres of [Steven] Jensen's farm [near Tioga, North Dakota]. The spill is one of the largest inland oil pipeline accidents in the United States. State officials ... said the oil posed no immediate environmental risk. Fortunately, they said, the accident occurred in a remote area, away from water and homes. But the rupture has raised fresh concerns about the ability of pipeline companies to detect problems before it is too late. Such fears have been heightened as the Obama administration nears a decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry a type of Canadian crude to American refineries on the Gulf Coast that is especially difficult to clean if spilled."
Alison Smale of the New York Times: "The diplomatic fallout from the documents harvested by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden intensified on Wednesday, with one of the United States' closest allies, Germany, announcing that its leader had angrily called President Obama seeking reassurance that her cellphone was not the target of an American intelligence tap. Washington hastily pledged that Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of Europe's most powerful economy, was not the target of current surveillance and would not be in the future, while conspicuously saying nothing about the past. After a similar furor with France, the call was the second time in 48 hours that the president found himself on the phone with a close European ally to argue that the unceasing revelations of invasive American intelligence gathering should not undermine decades of hard-won trans-Atlantic trust."
Greg Miller & Bob Woodward of the Washington Post: "Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA's drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan's government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by The Washington Post."
David Ignatius of the Washington Post praises James Clapper for integrating the intelligence agencies & cajoling the NSA into being a teensy-weensy bit for transparent. CW: I have no idea if any of this is true, but it's interesting to me, mostly because I've had a hard time figuring out where the Director of National Intelligence fit into the org chart. Apparently, so has everybody else, including previous DNIs.
David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: "... the lengths to which White House officials went to find [tweeter Jofi] Joseph reveal how much of an embarrassment his Twitter feed had become inside the West Wing and across the street at the stately Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where Joseph worked alongside his NSC colleagues while secretly skewering them online."
Local News
Excuse Me for Voting. Aviva Shen of Think Progress: "A Texas district judge who has been voting for the past five decades was almost barred from the polls Tuesday, thanks to the state's newly implemented, stricter voter ID law. The law kicked in on Tuesday as early voting in Texas' November 5 election began. As she told local channel Kiii News, 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts was flagged for possible voter fraud because her driver's license lists her maiden name as her middle name, while her voter registration form has her real middle name. This was the first time she has ever had a problem voting in 49 years.... Watts worried that women who use maiden names or hyphenated names may be surprised at the polls." CW: What a perfect law! Not only does it discriminate against minorities, the poor & college students, it also discriminates against women. Just about every group that leans Democratic. Why not flat-out revert to "first principles" & allow only white, propertied men to vote? It appears the real fraud these laws are targeting is all that emancipating and franchising that's been going on since the days of our beloved Founders. Minorities, the poor, young people & women have corrupted the system envisioned by the Founding Fathers. ...
... Steve M. of NMMNB: "If they can't fix the technical problems of voter ID, shouldn't it be defunded? Shouldn't the legislature shut down the government, if necessary, to make sure that happens? At the very least, shouldn't implementation be suspended and all mandates and penalties be delayed?"
Share Article
Reader Comments (18)
Just in case there is a need to truly clear the fact that the minds of humans often make absolutely no sense, the news story of the day on TV was Prince George’s christening. Let's see, a worldwide interest in a child who when he grows up will be paid millions to occasionally shake someones hand. Yea.
If you are married to Ted Cruz are you just as bad as him because you condone and enable him? Is this some kind of train-wreck, battered women's syndrome, 'I got me a great job at Goldman Sachs goldmine'? Real patriots don't hunger after money and power; and neither do their wives. Then again wasn't Jenny Sanford another GS well-paid 'staffer'? Does GS have any plans to have a woman above their glass ceiling?
If I had NYT on my resume, I would ask better biographical questions for the lead enabler of Ted Cruz.
You might want to ask better questions for Ms Cruz, but I betcha you wouldn't get the answers you seek. Looks like we have a smooth team of political people here that balance each other quite well. Perhaps when the Mrs. gets a few oranges thrown her way in the supermarket because of her husband's antics she may have a rethink. Oh, wait! It's Texas plus her Nanny probably does the shopping.
Re: Pakistan: According to Mohsin Hamid, a Pakistani writer, the most pernicious aspects of the US drone campaign in Pakistan is that it facilitates the refusal of the Pakistan state and its society to do more to confront the problems of extremists who threaten all the people who live there. Pakistani politicians find it far easier to blame the drone strikes for their problems with extremism than to articulate concrete measures against specific extremist groups. And as the article above states Zardari's government, despite its denials, is actually helping US drone attacks.
Why would Durbin say what he did if it wasn't true––it's a pretty bold statement. And then to have it dismissed by the WH? what's going on here?
Agree with PD. The Parker interview was a snoozefest of things that are common knowledge. The interview skills were pretty lackluster. We already knew Heidi Cruz is highly educated, stands to reason she's a cash machine as a VP at Goldman Sachs and she provides a hell of an health insurance policy to Ted. I'd probably be "candid and direct" if the subject were my brand of TP too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for intimate tales. However, Parker missed a gift when she reported the 60 second decision to liquidate the family assets to fund Ted's political ambitions. A simple "Mrs. Cruz, can you talk more about that decision" could have been a grand opening to gain some insight. Did the future of her girls play into the decision or just Ted's grandiose belief that money will always be available to him. Instead, Parker pushed away the plate with a big juicy T-bone and opted to finish her airburger.
@P.D. Pepe: The Huff Post has a pretty thorough piece on the Durbin story. Apparently Harry Reid said Rep. Pete Sessions made the insulting remark to the President. How the story got conveyed to Durbin is complicated.
Marie
Read the HuffPost article on the Durbin mystery and found it less than definitive...and I'm not alone. Tho' I suspect fire behind the smoke. See: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/pete-sessions-stand-look-you-obama-durbin.html
"Unraveling the Ongoing ‘I Cannot Even Stand to Look at You’ Mystery"—By Dan Amira
Thanks, Marie, –––but after reading said article I thought: Yep, clear as mud!
A Note from Answer Lady. @MAG & P.D. Pepe: Yeah, I haven't seen a published definitive answer.
My conjecture about what happened is that Pete Sessions made the remark, & several people, including Harry Reid & a White House aide who did the readout for Democrats, relayed Sessions' remark to others. Reid's account to other Senators was so specific I find it hard to believe that Sessions didn't make the remark.
But the deal before this meeting, like other such meetings, is that no one would tell exactly who said what -- just to avoid this kind of kerfuffle. So the tattletales either didn't get that memo, or they thought the remark was so outrageous -- it is -- that they accidentally forgot the rule. The White House is sticking with the rule & describing the aide's readout as a "miscommunication."
And why do you think Pete can't stand to look at Obama? What is it about Obama's face that Pete finds so reprehensible? Just can't figure it out.
Marie
On another topic, In the nytimes, Andrew Rosenthal via Buzzfeed, quotes Sheldon Adelson, casino mogul and big Republican/Israeli donor
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/no-comment-necessary-fight-nukes-with-nukes/?_r=0
Adelson thinks it would be a great idea to fire a nuke at Iran as a warning. (into the "middle of the desert" so no humans are killed). This goes to show thatn ignorant people should not have access to huge amounts of money. People listen to their crackpot ideas.
He obviously doesn't know much about the terrain of Iran, international law, US law, the Constitution, the UN charter, and the effects of nuclear weapons, Or maybe he does know and just wants attention.
Just finished reading the profile on Glen Greenwald in The Advocate. Hmmm...its an understatement to say he comes off as emotionally immature. Long article, lots of time and energy invested by the author.
http://www.advocate.com/print-issue/current-issue/2013/10/24/enemy-state?page=0,0
It looks like clerks at Barney's, the upscale Manhattan clothier, may have the same problem as Pete Sessions.
Remember, in the wake of the Trayvon Martin murder by right-wing weapons poster boy, whatsisname, when the president recounted stories from his youth when he was followed by security the minute he entered a store, just because, well, you know? And remember how outraged the wingnuts were that the president would "take sides" (never figured out how relating an actual real world experience was "taking sides", but never mind)? The right-wing blogosphere had rolling conniption fits over the fact that Obama could relate to treatment that stemmed from racism, the overt kind and the mostly subconscious kind. Oh horror. Because that shit just never happens, right? Of course not.
Until it does. Again.
So a black kid in Manhattan strolls into Barney's, having decided to leave his George Zimmerman autographed automatic machine gun and spare cartridges at home, and without a black ski mask over his face. He refrained from shouting "All you crackers hit the deck and hand over some bling!" Instead, he walked up to the register with a $350 Ferragamo belt, paid for it with his own debit card for which he produced a legal ID and strolled out--without shooting a single person, mind you (Zim would have taken out a few old ladies just to stay in practice). He didn't get far before he was arrested by undercover NY City detectives on a tip from some upstanding Pete Sessions type working at Barney's that the kid's debit card was stolen, because, well you know. He was arrested for being a black kid who didn't belong in Barney's.
Pretty much what Pete Sessions thinks should happen to Barack Obama for the crime of winning an election and living in the White House.
See? That shit never happens. Black people are such liars.
But I tell ya, that's it for me. They'll never see me buying a $350 Ferragamo belt in Barney's ever again!
Oh, the kid's name?
Trayon.
Yikes!
Barney's is calling, Mr. Sessions. Your belt is ready.
Hey, you can bet Barney's has their thousand dollar knickers in a twist over this. Lordy, lordy, ain't that jest like them white folks who wait on black folks and think the pattern should always be reversed––in a store like Barney's. And a belt for $350? Wow––gotta get me one of those.
@Akhilleus. Guess we'd better add "Shopping While Black" to our list of unspeakable crimes.
Barneys now claims their clerk & other store personnel had nothing to do with Christian's arrest & did not finger him to the NYPD. If true, then this is entirely a Ray Kelly operation: send a couple of cops to stand around Barneys & other upscale stores to pick off black shoppers.
I'd like to be on the NYPD committee to pick which stores black people are allowed to shop in: Lord & Taylor, yes; Saks, no; Macy's, yes; Bonwit's, no.
Marie
@Diane. You get my nomination for a Shadow Pulitzer. You would be a helluva better reporter than MoDo's trainee.
Marie
Re: Program this; If you work on a big enough project you build delay time right into the time line. If Mrs. Romney ordered Italian tile for the guest bathrooms and the supply chain isn't rock solid chances are the tile will not be there to set when the time comes. No tile; no plumbing fixtures, no mirrors, no shower glass, no cute little designer wash cloths; no happy Mrs. Romney. No, no, this can't be happening to me! So when the owners of 'Sol-y-mar' manor say to the builders; "We're having guests on the first of the month, will the house be ready?" The answer has to be, "It is what it is and it takes what it takes. Don't put out the invitations yet." Delays come with big projects. Every rich ass in Congress who has built a seven thousand square foot house knows this. So; all the belly aching from both sides about the roll-out of the ACA is for show. I'm of the opinion that the roll-out was done in panic because the project was not finished. If the builder(s) had said, "No, Mrs. Romney, no you can not have your house until it's done and every system tested."; the wait would have been worthwhile. Sure there would have been the same bitching and moaning by the same pissants who are moaning and bitching now but the bathrooms would be perfect.
I went on the ACA site and my feeling were way,way too much info per page. KISS, said Col. Sanders, and the clever folks in high places forgot who they were trying to reach. In my world I would have started home page with; name, age, dependents, income, address and a contact for reaching applicate with a cost to be determined, nada mas; as simple as a Calif. driver license app. I know, too simple.
Re Sheldon Adelson...a NYT commenter makes a remarkable observation. Why go all the way to Nebraska? Isn't the route a bit shorter from Israel?
Harry Reid has ruled out a grand bargain. Bravo (and amazing). Maybe now the White House will wake up.
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/330499-emboldened-reid-rules-out-budget-grand-bargain
Abusive comment removed. Reminder: you can whack public figures. You can't whack contributors to Reality Chex. Except me. -- CW