The Commentariat -- Sept. 29, 2014
Internal links, defunct video removed.
Paul Krugman: "... most Americans have no idea just how unequal our society has become.... In the United States the median respondent believed that chief executives make about 30 times as much as their employees, which was roughly true in the 1960s -- but since then the gap has soared, so that today chief executives earn something like 300 times as much as ordinary workers.... Today’s political balance rests on a foundation of ignorance, in which the public has no idea what our society is really like."
Brian Knowlton of the New York Times: "President Obama acknowledges in an interview to be broadcast Sunday night that the United States underestimated the rise of the Islamic State militant group while placing too much trust in the Iraqi military, allowing the region to become 'ground zero for jihadists around the world.' In some of his most candid public remarks on the subject, Mr. Obama says in the interview with the CBS News program '60 Minutes' that it was 'absolutely true' that the United States had erred in its assessments of both the Islamic State -- also known as ISIS or ISIL -- and the Iraqi military." ...
... Here's a clip:
... Justin Sink of the Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would be willing to call the House back into session if President Obama submitted a war resolution for his fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Republican leader said Sunday. 'I'd be happy to,' Boehner told ABC News's 'This Week.' 'The president typically in a situation like this would call for an authorization vote and go sell that to the American people and send a resolution to the Hill. The president has not done that. He believes he has authority under existing resolutions.' Boehner said he agreed with the administration that the president has the authority to carry out the strikes against ISIS, but that 'Congress ought to consider' a resolution explicitly authorizing such action." ...
... Justin Sink: "The U.S. may have 'no choice' but to send in ground troops to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned on Sunday. The top House Republican said he did not believe the strategy outlined by President Obama, which includes the use of American air power but rules out boots on the ground, will accomplish the goal of destroying the terror network." ...
... Timothy Cama of the Hill: "President Obama still supports repealing Congress's 2002 authorization to use military force in Iraq, despite relying on it for efforts to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). But Obama wants it replaced instead with an authorization specific to ISIS to support the current fighting, said Tony Blinken, deputy White House adviser for national security. 'We still would like to repeal it. We think what would be very helpful is if ... Congress worked to give us a targeted, focused authorization,' Blinken said on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'But while we welcome that, we don't need it,' he said."
Matthew Boesler & Kathleen Hunter of Bloomberg News: "U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren called for congressional hearings into allegations that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been too deferential to the firms it regulates. A radio program about the regional Fed bank raised 'disturbing issues' and 'it's our job to make sure our financial regulators are doing their jobs,' Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement [Friday].... Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who's also on the banking committee, backed Warren's call for a probe."
"Chastisement." Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker briefly reviews the history of U.S. laws on domestic violence: "It was not until the nineteen-seventies and eighties -- when feminists and the battered-women's movement brought renewed attention to the problem, introducing shelters and hot lines, and treating assault within the family as seriously as assault outside of it -- that law enforcement and legislatures responded, passing mandatory arrest laws, creating domestic-violence units in prosecutors' offices, and making it somewhat easier to obtain and enforce protection orders."
Jeffrey Rosen of the New Republic interviews Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link.
Brent Kendall of the Wall Street Journal: "A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday will consider a fresh challenge to campaign-finance rules, this time a 74-year-old law prohibiting government contractors from making political contributions tied to federal elections. The case ... follows a string of Supreme Court rulings that have considerably eased federal restrictions on political donations. The ban applies to both individual and corporate contractors and is aimed at preventing corruption. The challenge comes as the government is outsourcing more work to the private sector: Spending on government contracts has grown to roughly $500 billion annually." Firewalled. If the link doesn't work, copy part of the lede sentence into a Google search box.
Vince Guerriri in Politico: "Jim Traficant was our kind of crook."
Let's Go the the Audiotape. Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: "At a town hall event in Ballantyne, North Carolina, ThinkProgress asked [North Carolina Rep. Robert] Pittenger: 'Do you think businesses should be able to fire someone because they are gay or lesbian?' He replied that businesses should have the 'autonomy' to fire workers for being LGBT, and asked rhetorically: 'Why should government be there to impose on the freedoms we enjoy?' The Charlotte Observer picked up the story, and reported that ... the congressman 'stood by his comments.' But after local and national human rights groups began ... protesting at Pittenger's office in Charlotte, he stood by them no longer. Local channel WSOC-TV reported: 'The congressman's office insists he never made the divisive statement....' The office repeated the denial to MSNBC." He blamed "the blogger" for misrepresenting his views. Post includes a surprising, sophisticated technological breakthrough: an audio tape of Pittinger's remarks. And, no, "the blogger" didn't misinterpret anything.
Another Sensitive GOP Candidate. Esther Lee of Think Progress: "During a debate for the 10th Congressional District with a Democratic challenger Wednesday, Virginia Republican congressional candidate Barbara Comstock said that the government can secure the border by tracking immigrants in a similar fashion to how the shipping company FedEx tracks packages." CW: Because immigrants are a lot like stuff you buy online: cheap & tax-free. As a bonus, no shipping charges.
David Streitfeld of the New York Times: Hundreds of writers have united to ask the Justice Department to investigate Amazon for monopolistic tactics.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. New York Post front page headline: "Another Liberal Crybaby for Dem Clintons. PARTY POOPER." In teensy, weensy print, a photo caption, which would be a normal headline: "Bill & Hillary Clinton welcome their first grandchild, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky."
Here's that Pew Research Know Your World Religions quiz that contributor Haley S. linked yesterday. CW: The test is kinda fun, especially when it makes you conjure up memories of stuff you haven't given any thought in 50 years. BTW, all you heathens who were boasting that you got perfect scores should bear in mind that atheists & agnostics know more about religion than do religious people. This makes one wonder why religious people of one faith system, denomination or sect are so willing to discriminate against those who belong to another. Answer: tribalism. I'm beginning to think tribalism accounts for 90 percent of social behavior.
Beyond the Beltway
American "Justice," New York City Edition. Jennifer Gonnerman of the New Yorker: "A boy was accused of taking a backpack. The courts took the next three years of his life."
Molly Hennessy-Fiske & Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "Far from finding peace after a round of summer protests and riots, Ferguson remains a city on the brink, its nearly every step troubled. The last week has been especially fraught. In separate incidents, one Brown memorial went up in flames and part of another was run over. When Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson tried to speak to demonstrators one night, clashes broke out with officers. Then there was the city's newly hired spokesman, brought in to help Ferguson repair its image. He was fired after it was revealed that he had been convicted of shooting and killing a man in 2004." ...
... Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "Disparities between the percentage of black residents and the number of black elected officials are facts of life in scores of American cities, particularly in the South. The unrest that followed the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., has emphasized how much local elections can matter, and prompted a push there for increased black voter participation. The disparities result from many factors: voter apathy, especially in low-visibility local elections; the civic disconnect of a transient population; the low financial rewards and long hours demanded of local officeholders; and voting systems, including odd-year elections, that are often structured in a way that discourages broad interest in local races. But Ferguson has become a vivid example of the way a history of political disengagement and underrepresentation can finally turn toxic."
Senate Race
John McCormick of Bloomberg analyzes the first Iowa Senate debate between Bruce Braley & Joni Ernst. McCormick thinks Ernst managed to comport herself like a normal person & Braley did her no damage. ...
... Greg Sargent has some sensible commentary on the debate & on Braley's chances of keeping the Iowa Senate seat in Democratic control. His remarks are consistent with what Victoria D. wrote in yesterday's Comments: "It seems that the Ernst campaign has successfully taken a blunder by Braley last March wherein an open mic caught him criticizing Grassley for being a farmer, not a lawyer..........and run with it, painting Braley as an elitist dick. Still, it's surprising to read about voters such as the woman described in the article as a Democrat who is voting for Ernst largely on personality /character issues, seeming to ignore the significance of policy altogether. She "likes" Ernst and Braley is an elitist. Case closed."
Presidential Election
Ryan Lizza has a long profile in the New Yorker of Rand Paul. CW: Haven't read it yet, but I plan to. "In some respects, Paul is to Republicans in 2014 what Barack Obama was to Democrats in 2006: the Party's most prized fund-raiser and its most discussed senator, willing to express opinions unpopular within his party, and capable of energizing younger voters."
Tim Alberta of the National Journal: "Ted Cruz is running for president.... According to sources close to the Texas senator, Cruz could be preparing for an end-of-year announcement and is now dedicating considerable time and effort to cultivating a foreign-policy foundation that might help his candidacy stand out in what is guaranteed to be a crowded field. 'At this point it's 90/10 he's in,' one Cruz adviser said. 'And honestly, 90 is lowballing it.'"
Crazy Person Is the Religious Right's Choice for U.S. Veep. Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Dr. Ben Carson, a popular Tea Party activist and Fox News contributor who says he will likely seek the Republican nomination for president in 2016, said on Sunday that he is seriously concerned that there will not be 2016 elections in the United States because the country could be in anarchy by that point.... Carson finished a close second Saturday in a straw poll at the 2014 Values Voters Summit for 2016 presidential preferences." [Ted Cruz was first.] ...
... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "As a signal of Carson's popularity at the summit, the former Johns Hopkins University neurosurgeon came in first in the polling for vice president, winning 22 percent of the votes."
News Ledes
AP: "Militants of the Islamic State group were closing in Monday on a Kurdish area of Syria on the border with Turkey -- an advance unhindered so far by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, including one that struck a grain silo, killing two civilians, according to activists. Islamic State fighters pounded the city of Kobani with mortars and artillery shells, advancing within three miles (five kilometers) of the Kurdish frontier city, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Nawaf Khalil, a Kurdish official."
New York Times: "A wave of protest in Hong Kong further engulfed the city on Monday as thousands of residents defied a government call to abandon street blockades, students boycotted classes and the city's influential bar association added its condemnation of a police crackdown on protesters."
Los Angeles Times: "Ashraf Ghani was inaugurated Monday as president of Afghanistan, succeeding President Hamid Karzai and marking the first peaceful transition of power in the nation's history."
Oklahoman: "In a bizarre coincidence, a fired Oklahoma City nursing home employee was arrested Friday after a co-worker reported he threatened to cut her head off. Jacob Mugambi Muriithi, 30, is being held in the Oklahoma County jail on a terrorism complaint. His bail is set at $1 million... She said Muriithi identified himself as a Muslim and said he 'represented ISIS and that ISIS kills Christians,' the detective told a judge in the affidavit. The two had not worked together before."
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Reader Comments (15)
Interesting interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jeff Rosen. The old gal still has the moxie and the muscle.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119578/ruth-bader-ginsburg-interview-retirement-feminists-jazzercise
In more bad news in the Iowa senatorial race, Democratic candidate Braley failed to rough up Republican Joni Ernst in their first debate. According to this report, Ernst appeared calm and folksy, while Braley remained calm but didn't score points against his opponent. Reading the summary of some of the interchanges, it appears to me that Ernst did a bang-up job as painting herself as a moderate. Wink-wink.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-29/braley-fails-to-do-damage-to-ernst-in-iowa-senate-debate.html
From te start, the Iowa senate race was Braley's to lose. So he is.
Tribalism, religion, and idiocy.
Marie's point about tribalism is, unfortunately, an accurate one. We all have some kind of tribal affiliations, in most cases several tribes. Most people are probably fond of where they grew up, their college, their home teams, their heritage, their profession, their political party and certainly their family, their country, and their religion.
But most people don't behave stupidly for their college or their profession or their hometown or state. (I said most people.) The last three are different. In many cases we will protect those in our family, in some cases, no matter what. So too with country and religion. But there are lines that most people will draw even in those cases. Many people wouldn't be able to countenance a family member who committed a terrible act: child molestation, abuse, or murder. So too some people find it difficult to support certain things done by their country or in the name of their religion. Some, but not all. Murder, war, terror, torture of children even, can be supported if the ties that bind are tight enough, and the enemy is made to appear scary enough.
Because for some, those affiliations mean more than their lives are worth, or those of their family and friends. Your side advocates that potentially unstable individuals be allowed to carry concealed deadly weapons into schools, bars, airports, day care centers? That's fine, even if there's some part of their brain that screams "DANGER", because the "other side", those who must never be allowed to win, might advocate for something different.
Conservatives used to be concerned about the environment. No more. Because they are told that environmental concerns are for tree huggers and liberals--the other side. The enemy.
Too many common sense issues are submerged by the tidal wave of tribalism. And as bad as political tribalism can be, and religious tribalism, a tribe bound by both, with the addition of racial ties, is particularly dangerous, and nearly impregnable to reason and common sense.
Some liberals have a take no prisoner attitude, but I don't know of any who would sacrifice everything for small political wins. But that is a characteristic trait of right-wingers.
Let's take the interesting case of Dr. Ben Carson. Unlike that other "doctor" running for president, he isn't self-certified. He graduated from Yale and he's done some amazing things in the operating room. Clearly a smart, talented guy.
But those smarts are short-circuited by his connection to conservative ideology and religion. He's connected now to a party that, if it weren't for his ability to go on Fox and insult the president (oooh...such sweetness for the wingers...a black man lowering the conservative boom for them on their hated black enemy. Who could possibly argue "racism" in that case?) wouldn't let him walk in the front door. A party that loses sleep at night worrying about how to stop other black men and women from getting to the polls. A party that sees nothing wrong with young black men being incarcerated at a rate that used to be seen only in futuristic science fiction stories about prison planets, or sees nothing wrong with black men, who don't live to make it as far prison, being shot down by out of control police.
Such is the madness of tribalism. A smart guy who compares gay marriage to child molestation and bestiality. Who doesn't believe in evolution, and who believes healthcare reform, if it's proposed by a Democrat, even a black Democrat, is no better than slavery. And if fundamentalist Christianity and conservative ideology can make a guy like Ben Carson that stupid, what do they do to people whose IQs are already barely room temperature?
But those are the people with the guns. And the hate. And the Bibles. And with a clear rode to voting in every election. They can even bring their guns when they go to vote.
Their tribal affiliation guarantees it. But it also guarantees that they stay stupid and that their kids learn that Moses wrote the Constitution, that environmental disaster is a fairy tale, that racism in the interest of party and god is A-Ok, and that walking around with loaded weapons in a CVS is just the best danged way to stick it to everyone else who isn't in their tribe.
Tribalism, religion, and idiocy. They're all of a piece in the Modern GOP. Unfortunately, the rest of us are stuck with it as well.
PD,
I just wish RBG had the urge for a vacation and a hankering to write her memoirs. I'd miss her, but I'll be pretty pissed if, when she finally retires, there's a Republican president or a Republican controlled congress or both. Can you imagine Ted Cruz as the sixth wingnut on the Court? He could be there until 2054.
Watched the 60 Minutes interview last night.
Can you imagine any Republican president (the last three come to mind) ever, ever admitting that there were some miscalculations made regarding an international situation. Even though the Decider had a report on his desk that said "Plan to hijack planes and fly them into tall buildings is in the works", which, of course, he declined to read before heading off for a vacation that, days after which planes were hijacked and flown into tall buildings, he and his mewling minions denied any and all responsibility. Some actually tried to blame Bill Clinton!
Reagan never apologized for his miscalculation which got hundreds of marines killed in Lebanon, and a few months later, ordered his people to cut and run. And Bush, in a debate, could never remember single mistake he had ever made in his life.
More GOP insidiousness.
But don't worry, there won't be an election in 2016. Another GOP genius guarantees that we'll all be dead by then. Wonder if he'll be talking about any "miscalculations" after that election takes place?
@Akhilleus. Thanks for the thought of Justice Ted. If you look at his biography, Cruz is highly-qualified to sit on the Court. If a liberal had credentials like Ted's, I'd be mighty impressed.
The only hope is that Ted (a) thinks he'll be president, if not now, soon, so he wouldn't want to have to detour over to the Supreme Court, which could put the pain in campaigning; and (b) he probably couldn't stand playing second fiddle to John Roberts. President Gohmert would have to demote Roberts so Ted could be chief justice for life, and get him a fancy Lord Chancellor outfit like CJ Rehnquist's.
Marie
Wow. It didn't take very long for Rupert Murdoch's NY Post wingnut stormtroopers to attack a tiny baby, because after all, what else would you do with a newborn who had been born into a Democratic family? Be nice? Be polite? Be human?
Fuck no. Insult it. Use that baby as a punchline. Anything for a tiny molecule of political advantage and spite.
Oh, wait. It was supposed to be funny? How could we tell? What do you think the level of outrage and winger fury would have been if, when Jenna Bush had her baby, the Village Voice ran the headline "Another 'Decider' Brings More Crap into the World"? Wouldn't they think that was funny?
Nothing is beneath these assholes.
Attacking a baby. Wow.
What's next? Attacking women who have been raped? Oh, wait. They already do that.
Marie,
Re: the File on Cruz.
" If a liberal had credentials like Ted's, I'd be mighty impressed."
Me too. But here again, we have another ostensibly smart guy (all his friends say so) made stupid by ideology and religion.
Oh, and terminal cases of ambition and ego, like water on the brain.
Amputation might be the only cure.
Moral stupidity.
Wingnuts are stupid about so many things. Why not in the areas of philosophy and morals?
I am right and you must die if you don't agree.
National Review "writer" and resident (one of many) douchebag, Kevin D. Williamson (D for douchebag, of course, just in case you weren't convinced) has declared that women cannot have abortions, no matter what. He has spoken!
You might snicker, well, douchebag, what are you gonna do about it if some woman does get an abortion?
His answer?
Kill her.
I ain't kiddin' either.
In the K(D for douchebag)W world, any woman who has an abortion should be executed. Not just any kind of execution either. She must be hanged by the neck until she is dead. Also her doctors, any nurses involved, any hospital staff connected to the procedure, any politicians who support it, and pretty much anyone else who doesn't go along with KD (for douchebag) W. That means most of us are headed for the gallows as well.
Read his Twitter feed. He demonstrates his philosophical idiocy by stating, for anyone who isn't as smart as he is, that it's an "elementary Trolley Problem" situation, black and white, easy-peasy.
First he clearly has never worked through the Trolley Problem as some of us did a few months ago. It's an experiment in one's sense of morality and the consequences of our actions, not a third grade test of what's black and white. In a nutshell, the Trolley Problem asks whether it's morally defensible to allow one person to die so that five others can live. And, by the way, douchebag, there is more than one version of the problem. The first (you let a man die to save the others) without the second (you kill that man so the others can live) doesn't mean as much.
Of course his suggestion is that, if his wife were in danger of dying and needed an abortion to save her life, he would let her die.
But unlike in the case of the Trolley Problem where one dies to allow five to live, in this guy's world, it's a one for one deal. So there is really no Trolley Problem connection, elementary or otherwise.
Philosophical Fail, douchebag.
But we've seen time and again, that when wingnuts are forced to walk the line they draw for everyone else, they are nearly always unable or unwilling to abide by their own rules. (You can go to war but I don't have to; gays and lesbians are going to hell, unless one is my daughter; blah people have to abide by the rule of law, but if a hero police officer murders one, they walk. I want to be free from the guvmint, but if I get in trouble, they better bail me out.)
But they sure love to be smug when telling others that they must suffer in order to satisfy their personal world views.
Oh yeah, and to show you how great K(D for douchebag)W is at establishing a well argued point of view, a few months ago, Time Magazine ran a cover article on Laverne Cox (anyone who's seen "Orange is the New Black" knows that she's the in-cell hairdresser), a transgendered woman.
This so incensed K(D for douchebag)W that he grabbed the nearest crayon, stamped his widdow feet and wote a hundwed times, "Not a Woman, Not a Woman, Not a Woman...." He finished with his hands over his ears yelling "La-la-la-la-la....I can't hear you...."
Very compelling stuff there, douchebag.
You know, I keep hoping that this sort of stuff is still a bit on the fringe, but it's not. It's front and center. If these people ever take over (chaos will overrun the country, hang anyone who gets an abortion, etc.) it will make what's happening now seem like halcyon days.
Halcyon days like you read about.
Marie and Akhilleus, as usual, both have it right.
In both the physical and the moral universes, what we believe is as critical for what that belief excludes as it is for what it contains. Unless tempered by the kind of healthy skepticism which supplies the tentative, just-maybe element of all intelligent thought, belief is the mental equivalent of Frost's fences, which as he says wall out as much as they enclose.
Tribalism, like religion, can be seen as a set of fences that eliminate other possibilities, like the consideration that members of any tribe other than one's own possess the same human rights we do. Current Mideast affairs offer one bloody example after another. But a look at our own social and political disorder tells the same story.
And when we construct fences compounded of both religious and ethnic barriers, history shows they are extremely hard to penetrate or dismantle.
In our interconnected world, overcoming that difficulty is humanity's greatest challenge.
Ken,
And it's often the mark of a huge breakthrough when at least someone on one side realizes that those on the other side of the fence are not demons or Satan spawn.
Unfortunately such an event typically requires the person attempting the break to turn in their membership card as most others in the tribe will come a-hunting for apostates who seem to threaten the status quo.
In effect, that describes the Hero, the one who stands apart, who is able to do things the rest are unable or unwilling to do. Today, however, when such as Cliven Bundy have the "HERO" badge pinned on their chests, that concept is pretty far removed from its classical origins.
Homer would not be pleased.
BTW, did anyone else catch Valerie Jarrett on The Good Wife last night?
I guess she was taking time out from advising the president to try to convince Alicia to run for state's attorney in Illinois.
I remember Donna Brazile did a couple of cameos on the TGW.
Someone at the Weekly Standard, aka Bill "Always Wrong" Kristol's Fun House for the Irrational, spotted Jarrett and, seems to think that her appearance was real time. In other words, while the world is burning, the president's adviser took time to appear on a TV show.
The idea!
In other news, Alicia got Cary out of the slammer. Thank god. Unless he was gonna get a tattoo, a Sons of Anarchy haircut, and become the jailhouse lawyer, that story arc had "enough, already" written all over it.
Charles P. Pierce on Braley's failure:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/What_Could_Have_Been