The Commentariat -- Dec. 4, 2013
The President delivered a major speech this morning on his economic vision:
... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama leaves the White House on Wednesday for one of the capital's most struggling neighborhoods to talk about the economy, not simply to divert attention from his troubled Affordable Care Act but to explain how that law, for all of its flaws, fits into his vision for Americans' economic security and upward mobility. It is a vision of partnership between government and citizens that Mr. Obama has described since he was a state senator in Illinois, and it draws on the legacies of three Republican presidents -- Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower." ...
... Michael O'Brien of NBC News: "President Barack Obama said his signature health care reform law is going nowhere as long as he's in office, and he'll spend the remainder of his presidency fighting to make it work if necessary":
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: " White House officials ... are under mounting pressure from Democrats and close allies to hold senior-level people accountable for the botched rollout of President Obama's signature domestic achievement and to determine who should be fired.... The possible targets include Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary; Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services; Mike Hash, the head of the health and human services health reform office; Michelle Snyder, the chief operating officer at Medicaid and Medicare; Henry Chao, the chief digital architect for the website; Jeanne Lambrew, the head of health care policy inside the White House; David Simas, a key adviser involved in the rollout; and Todd Park, the president's top adviser on technology issues.... Robert Gibbs, a former press secretary for Mr. Obama, said Tuesday what many Democrats were saying privately: Someone has to go." ...
... Jason Cherkis & Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post on why ObamaCare is going to work: "With the website now quasi-functional, there are good reasons to believe that the Affordable Care Act will catch on. Quite simply, there are tens of millions of uninsured people who want health insurance, a law in place to help them obtain it, and advocates on the ground making sure they know how to do it. For on-the-ground organizations, Obamacare represents a once-in-a-generation organizing opportunity. By signing someone up for health insurance, they are delivering a tangible benefit, something that person will value for years to come, and winning loyalty along the way. Nonprofits, as well as mayors and governors, have an intense incentive to make Obamacare work." ...
... CW: What Cherkis & Grim don't take into account is that for most people, the "tangible benefit" will seem to be going to the health insurance industry. Yes, the individuals may be glad to have health insurance, but they're also glad they have electricity. That doesn't mean they're thrilled about paying the monthly bills for these services. Except for people who could not otherwise obtain insurance that met their healthcare needs, I don't think most people will see the ACA as a "benefit." ...
... Kevin Drum: "Aside from the tea partiers who object on the usual abstract grounds that Obamacare is a liberty-crushing Stalinesque takeover of the medical industry, it's going to be hard to gin up a huge amount of opposition. And that's doubly true since, as Sargent says, the Republican Party will have no credible alternative for a benefit that lots of people will already be getting." ...
... Au contraire, says Paul Krugman: Right-wing outrage at ObamaCare is only going to get worse as Healthcare.gov gets better. "On both the healthcare and inflation fronts, what you have to conclude is that there are a large number of people who find reality -- the reality that governments are actually pretty good at providing health insurance, that fiat money can be a useful tool of economic management rather than the road to socialist disaster -- just unacceptable. I think that in both cases it has to do with the underlying desire to see market outcomes as moral imperatives. And I suppose there have always been such people out there. What's new is that these days they control one of our two major political parties." ...
... CW: My guess is that Krugman is right & Drum is wrong. Drum is operating on the assumption that voters are rational. Remember the "death panels"? There was no such thing (the proposed ACA bill required coverage for end-of-life counseling), but we are still stuck with the Republican Congress & Republican state legislatures which we got in part because of that hoax. And Sarah Palin is still claiming "the death panels are in there," even tho Democrats removed the requirement to cover end-of-life counseling in respose to the hoax. ...
... The Ghost of Scott Brown Haunts ObamaCare. Alec MacGillis of the New Republic explains the numerous lawsuits challenging the tax subsidy that makes the Affordable Care Act, um, affordable. MacGillis describes the arguments made Tuesday in one of the cases. Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link. ...
... CW: These suits don't just challenge the law on an unjustified premise, IMHO. They are flat-out mean-spirited. The intent is to disallow tax subsidies to people who live in states whose Republican leaders haven't set up exchanges &/or accepted the Medicaid expansion. Residents of those states would be hit with a double-whammy: no Medicaid/no subsidy. I suppose if the plaintiffs are successful, there is the possibility of a silver lining: the effect might be to force those states to get with the program, as tens of thousands of their residents -- some of them "influential" -- would demand the subsidies. ...
... All Hat. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: Speaker John "Boehner and other top Republicans held a news conference at which they said they espoused a 'patient-driven' approach to health care rather than Obamacare.... John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday declined to commit to allowing a vote on a GOP-drafted health-care plan next year." ...
... CW: Really, all Boehner thinks it necessary for Congress to do about securing health insurance to Americans is to stand in the well of the House & yell --
... Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review in Politico Magazine: It wasn't just President Obama who had no idea Healthcare.gov wasn't going to work. The media made no effort to find out, either. Most journalists also were unaware that millions of Americans would lose their current policies. But, as crack journalist Chuck Todd opined, educating the public is not the media's job.
Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "With the jobless rate hovering just over 7 percent, congressional Republicans said Tuesday that they are ready to let emergency unemployment benefits lapse on Dec. 31, immediately cutting off checks to more than a million recipients." CW: I gather from the story, which is about a pending budget deal, that cutting of emergency benefits is part of Paul Ryan's initiative to encourage the unemployed to raise themselves up by their own damned bootstraps. Nice start to his Pope Francis imitation. ...
... Ryan's Dilemma. Joan Walsh of Salon: "TPM and Politico both report that Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray are within sight of [a mini-budget] deal, though Politico cautions 'there remains a distinct possibility that the effort will flounder, as so many budget deals have.... But if Ryan is serious about running for president in 2016, and there are early signs he is, it's hard to imagine him inking any kind of deal to restore social-program sequester cuts and increase government fees in a climate where the Tea Party still holds disproportionate power in the nominating process.... Would Ryan risk a presidential bid to rescue the country from another government shutdown? I've never seen him stand up to that kind of ideological pressure from the right, but there could be a first time."
Richard Cowan of Reuters: "U.S. immigration reform supporters, reeling from their failure to get legislation enacted this year, saw a new ray of hope on Tuesday as House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner announced he had hired a long-time immigration specialist to advise him." ...
... Emmarie Heutteman & Julia Preston of the New York Times: "A longtime labor leader and two other advocates of an immigration overhaul ended their water-only fasts on Tuesday in a tent on the National Mall, the 22nd day of an effort to press the House to take up legislation on the issue. In a ceremony choreographed to evoke the civil rights and farmworker movements of the 1960s, the labor leader, Eliseo Medina, 67, took a bite of bread and a sip of apple juice. Looking tired, Mr. Medina did not speak during the event. Afterward, he rose and walked away, leaning on the arm of another advocate."
The GOP's Latest Strategy -- Impeachment! Dana Milbank: "... on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary met to consider the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama. They didn't use that word, of course. Republican leaders frown on such labeling because it makes the House majority look, well, crazy.... They've proposed [impeachment] as the remedy to just about every dispute or political disagreement...."
Left-wing blogs are the mirror image [of the Tea Party]. They just have less credibility and less clout. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Thanks for your support, Chuck. -- Constant Weader
Chuck Schumer wants us to stop picking on Wall Street.... It seems odd that Schumer is trying to start an internecine war at this very moment, particularly with a tough 2014 up ahead. And as the number three Democrat in the Senate, his words carry outsized weight. But it's clear that the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party is feeling the heat from its resurgent populist wing: the Warrens, Baldwins, Browns and Merkleys. -- Markos Moulitsas ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "The obsessive centrists of the punditverse were abuzz [Tuesday] with praise for supposed centrist Democratic organization Third Way and their grumbling op-ed condemnation of Democratic liberal populism in abstract and 'economic populists' like Sen. Elizabeth Warren in particular. But why would the Third Way, a very reasonable and centrist organization that just wants both parties to get along and agree to cut Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs be so very worked up about Elizabeth Warren, Wall Street reform, and the mere thought of breaking up large banks? ... Oh, I see":
... Markos Moulitsas: "Hmmm, so far [Tuesday] we've seen that Third Way op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and Sen. Chuck Schumer's comparing us to the teabaggers. Then there is DLC dinosaur Al From with a new book and rhetorical embrace of Hillary Clinton, unreconstructed racist Richard Cohen's blasting of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Fox News 'Democrats' Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell in Politico are back for another stab at that whole 'radical center' nonsense.... It's a coordinated counterattack by Wall Street Democrats spooked by the party's embrace of politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin and Jeff Merkley."
Based on academic research, Tom Edsall argues that there aren't many American voters who are true moderates, so "the dream of a moderate revolt against the parties will remain out of reach, exposed as an illusion." ...
... CW: I'd have to look at the actual research (which is too much trouble because one has to register to access it) to see how the researchers define each of their categories, but most liberals would agree that the guy in the White House (who likes Ike, as Jackie Calmes notes in the NYT story linked above) & most elected Democrats are moderates, not liberals. So we already have a centrist president & Senate. The moderate revolt Edsall says can't happen is in fact well-represented within the government now.
Nick Hopkins & Matthew Taylor of the Guardian: "The Guardian has come under concerted pressure and intimidation designed to stop it from publishing stories of huge public interest that have revealed the 'staggering' scale of Britain's and America's secret surveillance programmes, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper has said. Giving evidence to a parliamentary committee about stories based on the National Security Agency leaks from the whistleblower Edward Snowden, Alan Rusbridger said the Guardian 'would not be put off by intimidation, but nor are we going to behave recklessly'." ...
... Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "As [Rusbridger] testified before a Parliamentary committee on national security, he faced aggressive questioning from lawmakers, particularly those of the ruling Conservative Party. Some asserted that The Guardian had handled the material irresponsibly, putting it at risk of interception by hostile governments and others. Others said the paper had jeopardized national security.... After Mr. Rusbridger's testimony, a senior British police officer, Cressida Dick, refused to rule out prosecutions as part of an investigation into the matter."
Maureen Dowd is robophobic. "Experts say there may be as many as 30,000 unmanned private and government drones flying in this country by 2020, ratcheting drones into a $90 billion industry, generating 100,000 jobs.... Of course, for the robophopic, there is already a way to get goods almost immediately: Go to the store." ...
... Alistair Barr & Elizabeth Weise of USA Today: "The drone economy is booming abroad and an underground version is growing fast in the U.S. The FAA plans to draw up regulations by 2015, but that's not quick enough, according to drone entrepreneurs."
Annie Gowen of the Washington Post: "Once a town whose bright stars were government leaders, the nation's capital has become a moneyed metropolis where entrepreneurs whose wealth is often amassed by doing business with the government are the new elite." Includes a slide show of Hickory Hill, the Robert Kennedy family's former home in McLean, Virginia, which is now owned by a tech entrepreneur. The entrepreneur, Alan J. Dabbiere, who purchased the property for $8.2 million, is gutting the place.
Moving on to less important matters, Joe Biden is on a mission to prevent World War III. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Shuttling from one feuding neighbor to the other, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived [in Beijing] from Tokyo on Wednesday to appeal to China's leaders to show restraint in policing a new air defense zone in the East China Sea that has ignited tensions with Japan."
Gubernatorial Races
Greg Sargent: "Democrats are currently using a major pillar of the health law -- the Medicaid expansion -- as a weapon against Republican Governors in multiple 2014 races. Many of these Governors opted out of the expansion or have advanced their own replacement solutions, and many are facing serious challenges." Major targets: Govs. Rick Scott of Florida, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania & Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
That Scott Walker campaign aide who urged Walker's followers to give to his campaign rather than give Christmas presents to their children? Walker fired her. But not for the Scrooge stuff. Instead, for anti-Hispanic tweets she sent a couple of years ago. As Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, "For the second time in less than four months, Gov. Scott Walker has fired an aide for making demeaning comments about Hispanics on social media."
Senate Race
Family Values. Margaret Hartmann of New York: Dick Cheney was "surprised" his daughter Mary & her wife Heather Poe "launched an attack against Liz" -- who's carpetbagging a run for the U.S. Senate -- on Facebook & said the disagreement should have been dealt with "within the family." "Cheney doesn't care if Liz was 'looking at' Mary, pulled her hair, or declared on a national news program that her marriage shouldn't be legal -- he will not tolerate fighting in this family."
Local News
Nathan Bomey, et al., of the Detroit Free Press: "The city of Detroit today officially became the largest municipality in U.S. history to enter Chapter 9 bankruptcy after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes declared it met the specific legal criteria required to receive protection from its creditors. The landmark ruling ends more than four months of uncertainty over the fate of the case and sets the stage for a fierce clash over how to slash an estimated $18 billion in debt and long-term liabilities that have hampered Detroit from attacking pervasive blight and violent crime."
Ray Long & Monique Garcia of the Chicago Tribune: "The Illinois General Assembly today narrowly approved a major overhaul of the state government worker pension system following hours of debate on the controversial plan strongly opposed by employee unions. The House voted 62-53 to approve a measure that aims to wipe out a worst-in-the-nation $100 billion pension debt by reducing and skipping cost-of-living increases, requiring workers to retire later and creating a 401(k) option for a limited number of employees. The measure needed a minimum of 60 votes to pass the House.... Moments earlier, the Senate voted for the measure 30-24. The bill needed at least 30 votes.... The measure now goes to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who has said he'll sign it. The vote is a major victory for Quinn as he heads into a re-election bid next year."
Mike Deak of the Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press: "A waitress who alleged that one of her customers wrote an anti-gay message on a receipt has been suspended from her job pending the completion of an investigation into the incident. On Friday, Gallop Asian Bistro posted on its Facebook page that waitress Dayna Morales 'is currently not on our employee schedule while (we) are still working to complete our investigation.' ... On Monday, WNBC reported that Morales had been discharged dishonorably from the Marines." ...
... Last week Fox "News" published a piece detailing claims by acquaintances of Morales that suggest she is a serial liar who has made various grandiose claims about her military experience that are untrue.
News Ledes
New York Times: Connecticut officials released audio of the 911 calls re: the Sandy Hook killings. "The Hartford Courant has excerpts of the audio here. Partial transcripts are here.
New York Times: "Chinese leaders pushed back at visiting Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday over what they assert is their right to control a wide swath of airspace in the bitterly contested East China Sea. But the Chinese also indicated they had not decided how aggressively to enforce their so-called air defense identification zone, which has ignited tensions with Japan."
New York Times: Hassane Laqees, "a major player in the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah from its inception three decades ago to its current intervention in Syria's civil war," was shot dead in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday. "Over the years, he survived several assassination attempts."
Bloomberg News: "Companies boosted payrolls in November by the most in a year, a sign that U.S. employers were optimistic about demand after the end of a government shutdown a month earlier, a private report based on payrolls showed today. The 215,000 increase in employment exceeded the most optimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey and followed a revised 184,000 gain in October that was larger than initially estimated...."
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