The Commentariat -- Dec. 8, 2014

Internal links removed.

David Rogers of Politico: "House-Senate negotiators neared agreement Sunday on the last pieces of a $1.1 trillion spending bill designed to avert any shutdown this week and put most government agencies on firm footing through next September. Building on a long weekend of talks, the goal was to file the giant measure by late Monday and then push for quick floor action before the current funding runs out Thursday night." ...

... Greg Sargent opines that since Boehner needs Democrats to pass the bill in the House, "That should mean House GOP leaders will not be able to attach anything to the funding bill that would undermine Obama's action."

The Bush Pre-buttal. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "A long-awaited Senate report condemning torture by the Central Intelligence Agency has not even been made public yet, but former President George W. Bush's team has decided to link arms with former intelligence officials and challenge its conclusions.... Mr. Bush and his closest advisers decided that 'we're going to want to stand behind these guys,' as one former official put it.... The former officials said that neither Mr. Bush nor his advisers had been interviewed by the committee."

Rachel Huggins of the Hill: "President Obama will sit down with BET Networks to discuss calls for criminal justice reform after two controversial grand jury decisions cleared white officers in the death of black men.... The interview, hosted by BET host and TV journalist Jeff Johnson, marks the president's first network discussion outlining his strategy to investigate the incidents and ways the country can unify during this time." There's a clip here. ...

     ... Jonathan Chait: White conservatives are outraged that President Obama said racism is "deeply rooted" in our culture. Hell, they're not racist. They don't even know any black people. CW: It's extremely unfortunately that this branch of De Nial runs right under the Supreme Court building. ...

... Allen McDuffee of the Atlantic: "New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday admonished former mayor Rudy Giuliani for his repeated recent comments that 'responsibility is on the black community' for reducing the necessity of police officers in their communities. 'I think he fundamentally misunderstands the reality,' said de Blasio on ABC's This Week. 'There is a problem here. There is a rift here that has to be overcome. You cannot look at the incident in Missouri; another incident in Cleveland, Ohio; and another incident in New York City all happening in the space of weeks and act like there's not a problem.'" ...

     ... Vanessa Williams of the Washington Post on de Blasio's blunt remarks on racism & policing & why the mayor is able to speak more forcefully than is President Obama. ...

... Timothy Cama of the Hill: "The New York Police Department (NYPD) has launched its investigation into the killing of Eric Garner, but it could take up to four months to complete, the department's head said. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said the decision last week by a grand jury not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo for killing Garner meant that the internal investigation could kick off.... He promised a transparent investigation into possible violations of department policy, including a public trial if necessary. Bratton will then have the final say on any potential punishments for Pantaleo, he said." With video. ...

... Mike Carter of the Seattle Times: "Federal prosecutors say they will review an incident in which a Seattle police officer punched and seriously injured a handcuffed, intoxicated woman, after King County prosecutors said Friday they won't charge the officer." The policeman asserted the woman kicked him though a hospital exam showed no indication of physical injury.

... Connie Schultz in Politico Magazine: "A boy's death and a damning Justice report put Cleveland at the center of a national police crisis." Schultz, a syndicated columnist, is married to Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). ...

... You will want to know what Rush Limbaugh thinks about the killing of Eric Garner in a Fox Sunday show segment that had Chris Wallace -- who is accustomed to interviewing the wing-nut contingent -- asking, "What are you talking about?" ...

... AND, over at the winger screed Power Line, Paul Mirengoff seems to think it's ridiculous that young people would be upset by the grand jury's decision to free Eric Garner's killer. I don't know if Mirengoff is smart enough to know that Columbia University is essentially in Harlem.

John Harwood of the New York Times: President "Obama has long since concluded that pursuing dreams of reconciliation in his final two years in office is a fool's chase. So he is offering an alternative model for 21st-century presidential success.... It turns ... on advancing the major policy goals that Mr. Obama embraced as a candidate. Through that prism, he continues to make progress."

Donna Cassata of the AP: "Republicans will hold at least 246 House seats come January, according to election results Saturday, giving the GOP a commanding majority that matches the party's post-World War II high during Democratic President Harry S. Truman's administration. The GOP retained control of two seats in runoffs in Louisiana, expanding the advantage for Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who can afford defections from his increasingly conservative caucus and still get legislation passed." ...

... Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "Trying to win Southern seats is not worth the ideological cost for Democrats.... The Democratic Party cannot (and I'd say should not) try to calibrate its positions to placate Southern mores.... It's lost.... If they get no votes from the region, they will in turn owe it nothing, and in time the South, which is the biggest welfare moocher in the world in terms of the largesse it gets from the more advanced and innovative states, will be on its own, which is what Southerners always say they want anyway.... Let the GOP have it and run it and turn it into Free-Market Jesus Paradise...." Read the whole post.

E. J. Dionne: "Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). They have co-sponsored a bill that ... would create a 15-member commission to study ... [on] 'how best to expand the use of data to evaluate the effectiveness of federal programs and tax expenditures.' The commission would also look into 'how best to protect the privacy rights of people who interact with federal agencies and ensure confidentiality.' ... They're saying, you should want government programs to achieve what they set out to do. And in this age of Big Data, there are more metrics than ever to allow you to have a clear sense of how well they are working." ...

... CW: I would take this bill a little more seriously if Ryan were not the co-sponsor. For instance ... Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Conservatives in Congress led by Paul Ryan are thinking of bringing back an accounting gimmick from the 1970s called dynamic scoring [which was] used by Ronald Reagan to help sell the country on gigantic income tax cuts...." Unless Murray has tricked Ryan into co-sponsoring a bill that will prove he's a charlatan, their data-analysis bill is a joke. Even if it ain't funny.

"Recovery at Last?" Paul Krugman: "At this point we have enough data points to compare the job recovery under President Obama with the job recovery under former President George W. Bush, who also presided over a postmodern recession but certainly never insulted fat cats. And by any measure you might choose -- but especially if you compare rates of job creation in the private sector -- the Obama recovery has been stronger and faster. Oh, and its pace has picked up over the past year, as health reform has gone fully into effect.... We can now say with confidence that the recovery's weakness had nothing to do with Mr. Obama's (falsely) alleged anti-business slant. What it reflected, instead, was the damage done by government paralysis -- paralysis that has, alas, richly rewarded the very politicians who caused it."

Oh, the "Death Panel" Again. Sarah Ferris of the Hill: "The GOP is refocusing its attention on the courts as it searches for any way to weaken President Obama's signature healthcare law while he continues to wield a veto pen. Twenty-five Republicans asked the Supreme Court to take on another lawsuit against ObamaCare on Thursday, this time against a controversial Medicare advisory board that the party has assailed as a 'death panel.' Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), who is leading the charge in Congress against the Independent Payment Advisory Board, said legal challenges against ObamaCare 'make a lot more sense' than writing repeal bills that are guaranteed a veto." ...

... Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Liberals on and off Capitol Hill are defending President Obama's healthcare law from the friendly fire of fellow Democrats. The liberals say the criticisms from Sens. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) are not only flat wrong, but also pointless coming four years after the law's passage. 'I disagree with both of them,' said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who helped usher the bill into law as then-chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. 'I disagree with what they said, and I can't quite see a lot of value in it.'... Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, delivered a similar message, arguing that, while there are plenty of improvements that could be made to the law, the critics should focus their attention on getting those things done instead of questioning the value of the law as it stands."

ALEC Attack -- Bought & Paid For. Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "Oil, gas and coal interests that spent millions to help elect Republicans this year are moving to take advantage of expanded GOP power in Washington and state capitals to thwart Obama administration environmental rules. Industry lobbyists made their pitch in private meetings last week with dozens of state legislators at a summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an industry-financed conservative state policy group." ...

... Marcus Stern & Sebastian Jones for the Weather Channel (yes, the Weather Channel!): "InsideClimate News, The Weather Channel, and The Investigative Fund have monitored the regulatory response to oil train explosions this year, focusing on whether the agency that oversees the railroads -- the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) -- is able to ensure that the nation's aging railroad infrastructure can safely handle its latest task: serving as a massive, rickety network of pipelines on wheels. We found that regulators don't have the resources to catch up with -- let alone, get ahead of -- the risks posed by exploding oil trains. That has left the FRA politically outgunned by the railroad industry, leaving it largely to police itself." CW: I thought maybe this article was going to end up being an advocacy piece for Keystone XL since two of its major owners are the Blackstone Group (founded by Pete Peterson) & Bain Capital (Mitt!), but it doesn't seem to be.

Brian Murphy & Daniela Deale of the Washington Post: "The Pentagon was putting final touches on a rescue mission in hopes of freeing American Luke Somers. At a South African-based charity, negotiators believed they were within hours of reaching a deal for the release of South African teacher Pierre Korkie. Neither side was apparently aware of the other -- or even that the two men were held together -- in the days before an unsuccessful raid by U.S. Special Forces on Saturday that left both captives dead."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: The Rolling Stone story of the alleged gang rape of UVA student Jackie keeps looking worse: "Fire the Rolling Stone editors who worked on this story." ...

... Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: "One of the article’s strongest points was that ... the campus administrators who heard about [Jackie's] claims chose not to investigate them. Rather than force her to confront the alleged perpetrators, they allowed her to choose whether to press charges, request a campus hearing, or just go on with her life. Yet by not seeking the men out, Erdely and Rolling Stone made the same mistake. By arguably violating journalistic ethics to respect Jackie's wishes and her fears of the accused, they let the allegedly evil bros remain as hidden and unaccountable as they would want to be." ...

... Jessica Roy of New York: "The past few weeks cannot have been particularly uplifting for sexual-assault survivors, who have been forced to watch as Jackie, the woman at the heart of Rolling Stone's controversial campus-rape story, has had her character picked apart, been thrown under the bus by the magazine she agreed to open up to, and even had men's-rights activists publish what they claim are her full name, phone number, and address to the internet. But now Emily Clark, Jackie's freshman-year suite mate, has penned a moving letter in UVA's student newspaper reemphasizing her belief in Jackie's story.... Here's hoping the Twitter wackos won't use this gesture of support as an excuse to drag Clark through the mud, too." ...

... Hanna Rosin in Slate: "In the story, reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely called her subject by the name 'Jackie,' which I think many reading the story assumed was a pseudonym (many of the other characters in the piece go by pseudonyms).... Erderly then told a Washington Post reporter that the young woman's real first name is Jackie.... From there, it's a short distance to some vicious trolls, including the singularly vile Charles C. Johnson, threatening to doxx her. Johnson tweeted Jackie's full name on Sunday and wrote that he would give Jackie until midnight 'to tell the truth' or else he will 'start revealing everything about her past.'... Others are already a few steps ahead of him, posting pictures from Jackie's Facebook feed -- and even her mother's Facebook feed -- and adding nasty captions."

Chris Hughes, owner & publisher of the New Republic, defends himself in a Washington Post op-ed. He also suggests TNR journalists who walked out (a dozen, according to him) are a bunch of backward-looking whiney-babies. ...

... Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "The New Republic magazine said on Saturday that it would not publish its next issue, but would return to newsstands in February next year, after dozens of its top editors and contributors resigned in the face of a leadership change.... Some of the journalists who left had requested that their articles be removed from the coming issue, according to former staff members...."

White House: "On December 7, 2014, President Obama delivered remarks at the 2014 Kennedy Center Honors reception":

... In case you forgot, here's Obama, two years ago, at a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater in New York:

News Lede

Oakland Tribune: "On Sunday, the morning after protests resulted in six arrests and injuries to three police officers, witnesses to the unruliness insisted the number of police present escalated the tension after a person vandalizing with a skateboard touched it off. They also took exception to any characterization that the protests were violent.... A Sunday evening protest began much less aggressively, with just one bottle being thrown at officers from the otherwise peaceful crowd. However, demonstrators broke off into two groups about 8 p.m., with one continuing peacefully into neighborhoods and a more aggressive group heading full steam toward Highway 24. Those protesters tried to light patrol cars on fire and threw bottles, Molotov cocktails and rocks at officers, California Highway Patrol officials said." The San Francisco Chronicle story of the Saturday protests is here.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 7, 2014

Internal links, photo removed.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The White House signaled Friday that it still favors going ahead next week with the release of a long-delayed Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA interrogation practices many view as torture, despite indications of a last-minute move by Secretary of State John Kerry to put off the release due to concerns about possible retaliation against American forces and hostages overseas. 'The president has been clear that he wants the executive summary of the Committee's report to be declassified as expeditiously as possible, and we welcomed the news from the Committee that they plan to do so next week,' National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Friday afternoon in a statement to Politico. "The precise timing is up to Senator [Dianne] Feinstein and the Committee."

Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year. They share a common philosophy about the reach of the federal government, but the companies also have billions of dollars at stake. And the collaboration is likely to grow: For the first time in modern American history, Republicans in January will control a majority -- 27 -- of attorneys general's offices." CW: Working with? "The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt [said] ... federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.... The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma's biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon's chief of lobbying."

Andrew Siff of NBC New York: "Staten Island's top prosecutor did not ask grand jurors to consider a reckless endangerment charge in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a source familiar with the case told NBC 4 New York. District Attorney Daniel Donovan only asked grand jurors to consider manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges against NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo...."

Redditt Hudson, a former St. Louis Police officer, in a Washington Post op-ed: "I won't say all, but many of my peers were deeply racist.... The problem is that cops aren't held accountable for their actions, and they know it. These officers violate rights with impunity. They know there's a different criminal justice system for civilians and police. Even when officers get caught, they know they'll be investigated by their friends, and put on paid leave. My colleagues would laughingly refer to this as a free vacation. It isn't a punishment. And excessive force is almost always deemed acceptable in our courts and among our grand juries. Prosecutors are tight with law enforcement, and share the same values and ideas. We could start to change that by mandating that a special prosecutor be appointed to try excessive force cases. And we need more independent oversight, with teeth." ...

... Vivian Yee & Kirk Johnson of the New York Times: "... even as [police] departments have started adopting [body cams], questions remain about how much it can actually prevent violent encounters with citizens or clarify the boundaries of appropriate police response."

Katie Glueck of Politico: "Hillary Clinton had several opportunities to distance herself from the Obama administration during an appearance Friday before a heavily pro-Israel crowd, but she didn't take them. Instead, she defended President Barack Obama's dealings with the Jewish state at a time of tense U.S.-Israel relations, insisting the White House is committed to Israel's security and supporting America's nuclear talks with Iran."

God News

This Explains a Lot. Public Religion Research Institute: "White evangelical Protestants are much more likely to attribute the severity of recent natural disasters to the biblical 'end times' (77%) than to climate change (49%)." CW: Ergo, climate change cannot be "man-made"; it is God's work. Via Steve Benen.

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Maryland and six other states still have articles in their constitutions saying people who do not believe in God are not eligible to hold public office. Maryland's Constitution still says belief in God is a requirement even for jurors and witnesses. Now a coalition of nonbelievers says it is time to get rid of the atheist bans because they are discriminatory, offensive and unconstitutional. The bans are unenforceable dead letters, legal experts say, and state and local governments have rarely invoked them in recent years. But for some secular Americans, who are increasingly visible and organized, removing the bans is ... a test of their growing movement's political clout."

Simon Brown of Americans United schools Rick Santorum on the history of separation of church & state, which Santorum opined was a communist Soviet idea. "Roger Williams was talking about church-state separation in 1644. More than 100 years later, key founders like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson championed the idea. Madison, who is widely considered to be the 'father of the Constitution,' was a primary drafter of the First Amendment. In a document known as the 'Detached Memoranda,' Madison wrote, 'Strongly guarded ... is the separation between religion & Gov't in the Constitution of the United States....' Here's a newsflash for Santorum: Williams, Jefferson and Madison were not communists." Read the whole post. Via Benen.

Caitlin MacNeal of Think Progress: "A federal judge last week rejected a newly-elected Republican Colorado state representative's claim that the U.S. navy violated his religious freedom. Gordon Klingenschmitt, who once tried to perform an exorcism on President Obama, claimed that he was wrongfully dismissed as a Navy chaplain for attending a politicized religious event in uniform." Via Benen. ...

... Yeah But. Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "Klingenschmitt, however, insisted that he was fired [from the Navy] because he used the name of Jesus in his prayers and therefore was a victim of anti-Christian persecution.... Klingenschmitt, who has built his entire career as a political activist on this claim of religious persecution, is now receiving support from the right-wing outlet WorldNetDaily, which implies today that the judge only ruled against Klingenschmitt because she is a lesbian." The headline is a laffer: "Lesbian Judge Takes on Jesus in Court."

Nick Squires of the Telegraph: Pope Francis has fired the head of the Swiss Guard. "In a dispassionate one-sentence notice, the Vatican's official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, announced on Wednesday that Daniel Anrig will no longer serve as the commandant of the 500-year-old corps after the end of next month. No official explanation was given for the decision, but it was widely rumoured that the Argentinean Pope ... found the commander's manner overly strict and 'Teutonic'."

Congressional Elections

Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Republicans put the finishing touches on a triumphant midterm election by picking up a ninth Senate seat Saturday when Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) defeated Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) in a runoff election.... With most precincts reporting, Cassidy led Landrieu by about 14 percentage points. The Associated Press called the race for Cassidy shortly after polls closed in the evening." The Times-Picayune story, by Cole Avery, is here.

Diana Samuels of the Times-Picayune: "Republican Garret Graves is headed to Washington to represent Louisiana's 6^th Congressional District. And four-time former governor and ex-convict Edwin Edwards -- a Louisiana icon, both beloved and reviled -- has lost his first, and likely last, political race at the ballot box."

Roll Call: "Republican physician Ralph Abraham defeated Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo, a Democrat, in a runoff for Louisiana's 5th District. He will now officially succeed outgoing GOP Rep. Vance McAllister. Abraham led Mayo, 66 percent to 34 percent, with two out of 845 precincts reporting when the AP called the race."

News Ledes

AP: "Chlorine gas sickened several people and forced the evacuation of thousands of guests from a suburban Chicago hotel early Sunday, including many dressed in cartoonish animal costumes for an annual furries convention who were ushered across the street to a convention center hosting a dog show.... he source of the gas was apparently chlorine powder left in a ninth-floor stairwell at the hotel, according to the Rosemont Public Safety Department. Investigators believe the gas was created intentionally and are treating it as a criminal matter." CW: Yes, apparently there's an international convention for people who like to dress up as bunnies & foxes.

AP: "Four of the remaining nine USS Arizona survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack are vowing this year's anniversary won't be their last reunion. The men in their 90s gathered for a news conference Tuesday in a building overlooking the memorial that sits on top of the Arizona, a battleship that sank in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack. Even though it's the last official survivor gathering of the USS Arizona Reunion Association, the men said they still plan to get together, even if not in Hawaii."

New York Times: "The United States transferred six detainees from the Guantánamo Bay prison to Uruguay this weekend, the Defense Department announced early Sunday. It was the largest single group of inmates to depart the wartime prison in Cuba since 2009, and the first of the detainees to be resettled in South America. The transfer included a Syrian man who has been on a prolonged hunger strike to protest his indefinite detention without trial, and who has brought a high-profile lawsuit to challenge the military's procedures for force-feeding him. His release may moot most of that case, although a dispute over whether videotapes of the procedure must be disclosed to the public is expected to continue."

Note to Commenters

December 6: Problem resolved. Fortunately, no one's e-mail address was compromised. It is safe -- turns out it always was safe -- to include your e-mail address in your posts.

December 5: Please remove your e-mail address from future comments. That is, remove it from the box titled "Author Email."

A reader has identified what looks to me like a security breach. I've notified my host Squarespace, but until they get this fixed, I'm concerned that your e-mail identity could be compromised.

As far as I am aware, no one's ID has been compromised yet but there has been one close call.

I am almost certain this is a programmer error, not a hacking incident.

Marie

Update, December 6: This problem is ongoing. Squarespace has not deigned to respond to my multiple alarms. Their technical service used to be fair-to-middling. Now it completely sucks.