The Commentariat -- Dec. 31, 2013

Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "In an almost annual ritual, Congress is letting a package of 55 popular tax breaks expire at the end of the year, creating uncertainty -- once again -- for millions of individuals and businesses. Lawmakers let these tax breaks lapse almost every year, even though they save businesses and individuals billions of dollars. And almost every year, Congress eventually renews them, retroactively.... 'More cynically, some people say, if you just put it in for a year or two, then that keeps the lobbyists having to come back and wine-and-dine the congressmen to get it extended again, and maybe make some campaign contributions,' said Mark Luscombe, principal tax analyst for CCH, a consulting firm...."

Emily Atkin in Think Progress: "Just one week after Al Jazeera discovered that regulatory responsibility for Alberta, Canada's controversial tar sands would be handed over to a fossil-fuel funded corporation, federal scientists have found that the area's viscous petroleum deposits are surrounded by a nearly 7,500-square-mile ring of mercury.... The findings ... showed that the 7,500 miles contaminated are 'currently impacted by airborne Hg (mercury) emissions originating from oilsands developments.'"

Matthew Wald of the New York Times: "The Federal Aviation Administration will authorize test sites for drone aircraft in upstate New York, New Jersey and at least eight other states, the agency said on Monday, preparing for a time when unmanned aircraft of various shapes and sizes cruise over the landscape." The FAA announcement is here.

Nate Raymond of Reuters: "The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to force the U.S. government to disclose details of its foreign electronic surveillance program and what protections it provides to Americans whose communications are swept up." ...

... Eric Posner, in a Slate piece, sides with Judge William Pauley over Judge Richard Leon re: NSA storage of metadata. CW: Here's a curious argument Posner makes: "The risk of abuse must, for now, be considered remote. If the NSA ever does start blackmailing people, the information will come out because you can't blackmail someone without talking to him." Say what? If the NSA -- or anyone -- blackmails you, the whole idea is that the blackmailer is threatening to make public something you want kept secret. So couldn't we surmise, more logically, that the NSA is blackmailing thousands of people, & those people are keeping quiet lest their secrets be revealed? So, no, if the NSA resorts to blackmail, there's no reason to anticipate that "the information will come out."

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "The plan to trim pension increases for working-age military retirees ... is by far the most controversial provision in a bipartisan budget deal approved by Congress and signed last week by President Obama. The cut is small -- a one-percentage-point reduction in the annual cost-of-living increase -- but it has provoked outrage among veterans who argue that the country is reneging on a solemn pact.... The authors of the budget deal, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-Wash.), have already agreed to amend the provision to exempt disabled retirees and survivors of those killed in action, eliminating roughly 10 percent of the $6 billion in savings projected over the next decade. But Ryan has resisted efforts to abandon the pension cut entirely, calling it a 'modest' adjustment to a particularly generous program -- and therefore a more sensible choice than harder decisions that may lie ahead."

Apropos of a discussion in yesterday's Comments, Steve Benen produced this chart which "shows every political figure who made 10 or more Sunday show appearances this year, with red columns representing Republicans and blue columns representing Democrats":

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker: "This chart shows why Sunday talk shows suck.... This is proof that if God exists, He intends for you not to watch TV on Sunday mornings." Weinstein also notes there is only one woman among the 13, no person of color (unless you count Ted Cruz) & the average age of the six old boys who top the list is 65+.

Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "The State Department on Monday said it has no evidence that 'core al Qaeda' behind last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.... '...it actually matters whether you say core al Qaeda directed and planned it or they didn't, or it's just some folks that are affiliated with a local group or militia or terrorist organization -- that's what we're looking into right now -- whether they took some inspiration from some sort of similar ideology,' [State Department spokeswoman Marie] Harf said. She pushed back on those making stronger statements." ...

I agree with Mike [Rogers (R-Mich.)] that ... the intelligence indicates that al-Qaeda was involved. But there were also plenty of people and militias that were unaffiliated with al-Qaeda that were involved. I think the intelligence paints a portrait that some came to murder, some people came to destroy property, some merely came to loot, and some came in part motivated by those videos. So it is a complex picture. -- Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), member of the House Intelligence Committee, on Fox "News" Sunday

... You can watch the full "Fox 'News' Sunday" segment here. It's worth hearing Schiff's full remarks on Benghazi, which come early in the segment that was booked to discuss Edward Snowden. ...

... New York Times Editors: "If [Rep. Mike] Rogers has evidence of a direct Al Qaeda role, he should make it public. Otherwise, The Times's investigation, including extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack, stands as the authoritative narrative." CW: The editors do not directly address Schiff's claims (or mention him at all), but he was no doubt talking about the same intelligence Rogers claimed he had seen. Also bear in mind that this is the Times -- likely with justification -- declaring itself the superior authority. If Rogers has the goods, he should accept the editors' challenge. ...

... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "... one particularly hilarious theme in the response to the Times investigation [of the September 11, 2011 Benghazi attack]. According to [Rep. Mike] Rogers [R-Mich.], the article was intended to 'clear the deck' for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said today that The Times was 'already laying the groundwork' for a Clinton campaign. Other Republicans referred to Mrs. Clinton as our 'candidate of choice.' Since I will have more to say about which candidate we will endorse in 2016 than any other editor at the Times, let me be clear: We have not chosen Mrs. Clinton. We have not chosen anyone. I can also state definitively that there was no editorial/newsroom conspiracy of any kind, because I knew nothing about the Benghazi article until I read it in the paper on Sunday."

... Dana Milbank: "No doubt Issa will continue to pursue the Benghazi 'scandal.' Others will look deeper into Pajama Boy, or Obama's religion. If they'd devote a similar intensity toward the jobless and the uninsured, they might actually do some good."

Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Before he went to prison 10 years ago, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky was Russia's richest man, worth maybe $15 billion. Set free this month, he could only guess at his vastly depleted, but still formidable, wealth.... As Russian prosecutors began dismantling his company, Mr. Khodorkovsky's lawyers set about safeguarding his main asset, shares in the Yukos oil company. His lawyers did such a good job entangling billions of dollars in offshore vehicles outside of Russia, mostly in the Netherlands, that it is far from clear when or if Mr. Khodorkovsky will ever gain access to what is left of his fortune. The money is now under the control of Dutch foundations, run by boards known by the benign, if Kafkaesque, term of benevolent interveners."

White House Whitewash. CW : If you can't remember what-all President Obama did this year, the White House would like to remind you -- of only the good stuff. There is nary a word about the Healthcare.gov rollout. The one & only mention of the ACA is a September "white board" video touting the ACA & the Website, which went slightly live October 1. Pathetic, stupid & a little scary.

Right Wing World

Adam & Eve & Pinch Me. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "A new Pew Research Center poll shows a widening political gap over theories about how humans came to be, with Republicans growing increasingly skeptical about the idea that humans evolved over time. Over the last four years, the percentage of Democrats who said they believe in evolution has risen by three points, from 64 percent to 67 percent. But the percentage of Republicans who believe in the theory has dropped 11 points, from 54 percent to 43 percent." Pew's report is here.

When Impeachment Isn't Enough. Let us ring out the old year with the wingiest wingnut of all. Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: Fox "News" analyst & retired Major Gen. Paul E. Vallely "has prescribed a regimen of extra-constitutional measures to protect the Constitution from President Barack Obama.... Vallely suggested that Congress pass legislation that would allow conservative activists to undo the results of the last presidential election.... Vallely ruled out impeachment [because], '... if Obama was found guilty and removed from office, Joe Biden would step in, Valerie Jarrett still wields all the power, and likely we get more of the same.' ... He did suggest that a new George Washington could be drawn from the ranks of retired military personnel, which, of course, include Vallely. 'It's fallen upon senior, retired military to take stands against the overreach and tyranny of a corrupt government....'" ...

     ... CW: Please remember, Fox "News" employs this guy. Via Charles Pierce, who is very impressed with Jarett, "the shadowy genius behind the takeover of the Republic." I wonder if it's a coincidence that Vallely seems most worried about people who happen to be black "wielding all the power." I don't suppose he would propose, say, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell to be the "senior, retired military" guy to fill in when Barack, Joe & Valerie are sent packing. While Vallely is contemplating his choice for the next president, may I suggest that the current one call him into the Oval, & with cameras rolling, strip one of Vallely's stars & send him packing.

News Ledes

AFP: "A Bangladesh court Tuesday ordered the arrest of owners of a garment factory where 111 workers were killed last year in the country's worst such fire, after police laid charges. The court in Dhaka issued the warrants for Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter and four others over the blaze that gutted the Tazreen factory where workers stitched clothes for Western retailers including Walmart."

Reuters: "Police detained dozens of people on Tuesday in sweeps through the Russian city of Volgograd after two deadly attacks in less than 24 hours that raised security fears ahead of the Winter Olympics. A man wounded when a bomber set off a blast in the city's railway station on Sunday died overnight, bringing the toll in that attack to 18. Regional governor Sergei Bazhenov said 16 died in a trolleybus bombing on Monday."

AP: "Suspected Jewish vandals set fire to three vehicles in a West Bank village early on Tuesday and sprayed threatening graffiti referring to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of his expected visit to the region, police said."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 30, 2013

Juliet Eilperin & Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "More than 1.1 million Americans signed up for an insurance plan through the federal health-care marketplace during its initial enrollment period, with more than 975,000 enrolling in December alone, the Obama administration announced Sunday.... So far, nearly 2 million Americans -- who were either uninsured or had to change coverage after their existing plans were canceled -- have signed up under the new health-care law on state and federal marketplaces. Roughly 850,000 people have enrolled through the state-run exchanges.... The administration is still far short of the enrollment targets it set just before the system was launched Oct. 1." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic writes kind of a status report on the ACA.

Amy Davidson of the New Yorker has a good response to some of Judge William Pauley's credulous acceptance of the government's position in the NSA case he heard. Davidson contrasts Pauley's views with those of Judge Richard Leon -- on some of the same key evidence.

Heather Linebaugh, a former U.S. drone operator, in a Guardian op-ed: "The UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, a/k/a drones] in the Middle East are used as a weapon, not as protection, and as long as our public remains ignorant to this, this serious threat to the sanctity of human life -- at home and abroad -- will continue."

Paul Krugman on why the fiscal scolds finally lost control of the conversation. My favorite line (mostly because I had never heard the "old saying," "As the old saying goes, they used Reinhart-Rogoff the way a drunk uses a lamppost -- for support, not illumination." Important reminder: "As the Columbia Journalism Review recently noted, many reporters retain the habit of 'treating deficit-cutting as a non-ideological objective while portraying other points of view as partisan or political.'"

The New York Times' top story, by Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg is about the U.S. federal investigations into JP Morgan & other top U.S. banks' practice of bribing Chinese officials by hiring their children. This is against U.S. law but SOP in China. CW: It would be amusing if this relatively innocuous practice brought down any of the big banks when mismanagement & their abuse of primarily American investors & customers brought them huge gifts from taxpayers. However, since they're too big to fail, none of them will.

David of Crooks & Liars: "Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) lashed out at House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) on Sunday for spending over a year on what he said was a crusade on a 'fairy tale' after a New York Times report showed that Al-Qaeda had no role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks. Issa defended his attacks on the administration. ...

... Caitlan MacNeal of TPM: "Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on Sunday disagreed with some of the conclusions in the New York Times investigation on Benghazi, specifically that the attack was fueled in part by an anti-Islamic American video." ...

... MEANWHILE, Issa's friends in Right Wing World, they're writing stories like, "The New York Times Whitewashes Benghazi," & 'The New York Times' Revisionist Account of Benghazi." CW: If you already got your boxed set of "Leftist Conspiracies 2013," don't worry; I'm sure these new ones will come in a post-holiday bonus package. ...

... Driftglass puts his stamp on right-wing reaction to the Times story. ...

There’s just no chance that this was an al-Qaeda attack if, by al-Qaeda, you mean the organization founded by Osama bin Laden. If you're using the term al-Qaeda to describe even a local group of Islamist militants who may dislike democracy or have a grudge against the United States, if you're going to call anybody like that al-Qaeda, then O.K. -- David Kirkpatrick, defending his New York Times story ...

... Benjamin Bell of ABC News: Sociopath & "Firebrand conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, expressed no regrets over his role in this fall's government shutdown [Sunday] in an exclusive interview with ABC's [conservative lackey] Jonathan Karl for 'This Week,' placing the blame for the 16-day closure squarely on the shoulders of Democratic leaders. 'I think it was absolutely a mistake for President Obama and Harry Reid to force a government shutdown,' the freshman senator said.... When reminded by Karl that even Republican House Speaker John Boehner took conservative groups to task for pushing a faulty strategy, Cruz said 'I can't help what other people say.'" ...

... Born in the U.S.A. Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News: "The junior senator from Texas is still a Canadian. But he's working on it, eh? Born in Alberta 43 years ago last Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz was unaware of his dual nationality until The Dallas Morning News explored the issue in August. Since then, he said in a recent interview, 'I have retained counsel that is preparing the paperwork to renounce the citizenship.'"

Emma Fitzsimmons of the New York Times: "Justice Sonia Sotomayor will return to her hometown for New Year's Eve to help lead ... the ball drop in Times Square. She will press the crystal button on Tuesday night to lower the ball and lead the 60-second countdown to midnight, organizers of the event said on Sunday. She will be the first United States Supreme Court justice to do so."

Michael Kirkland, a legal analyst for UPI, looks at the prospects for universal gay marriage. It ain't a slam-dunk.

E. J. Dionne thinks 2013 was not such a bad year for President Obama. ...

Philip Rucker & Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post notice Malia & Sasha Obama have gotten older in five years. Huh. ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times runs down President Obama's favorite TV shows.

Isaac Chotiner of the New Republic whacks Charles Blow & Frank Bruni for trying so hard to beat each other for the title of New York Times' Worst Columnist. CW: There's a reason I seldom link these guys' stuff: Bruni is off-topic & dull when he's not just dull; Blow is remarkably trite. Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link.

Local News

Michael Barbaro & Kitty Bennett of the New York Times: "When [New York City Mayor Michael] Bloomberg leaves office at midnight Tuesday, he will bequeath a litany of record-shattering statistics on crime reduction, sidewalk safety and skyline-altering construction. But perhaps the most staggering figure is the amount of his own money that he devoted, day in and day out, to being mayor -- much of it unseen by the public. An analysis by The New York Times shows that Mr. Bloomberg has doled out at least $650 million on a wide variety of perks and bonuses, political campaigns and advocacy work, charitable giving and social causes, not to mention travel and lodging, connected to his time and role as mayor.... In the process, he has entirely upended the financial dynamics surrounding New York's top job. In the past, the city paid its mayor; Mr. Bloomberg paid to be the city's mayor." ...

... CW: Normally, I think our practice of electing royalty -- either because of their money or their political family name -- is absolutely anti-Democratic. However, Bloomberg made a good chunk of his money soaking the rich, so the millions he gave back to the city makes him something of a Robin Hood, albeit one who takes a steep commission. Still, making the city's richest person mayor is a less-than-romantic return to feudalism.

News Ledes

AP: "Secretary of State John Kerry will present Israel and the Palestinians the broad outlines of what a final Mideast peace agreement could look like when he travels to the region this week, the State Department said on Monday."

New York Times: "New York's hold on its status as the country's third most populous state is down to fewer than 100,000 people, according to figures released on Monday by the Census Bureau. And the trend is not in the state's favor, as Florida, which is No. 4, gained residents at three times the pace of the Empire State over a year's span."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "Bail was set Monday at $250,000 for Msgr. William J. Lynn, four days after an appeals court ruled he was wrongly convicted of endangering children. Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina also ruled that Lynn must surrender his passport and be subject to electronic monitoring and weekly reporting while on bail."

New York Times: " A deadly suicide bombing at a crowded railroad station in southern Russia on Sunday, followed by a blast in a trolley bus on Monday in the same city, raised the specter of a new wave of terrorism just six weeks before the Winter Olympics in Sochi." ...

... AP: "A suicide bomber killed 14 people aboard an electric bus in the southern Russian city of Volgograd during the Monday morning rush hour, and authorities believe it was the work of the same group that set off a bomb at the railway station a day earlier. Together more than 30 people were killed in the explosions...."

Guardian: "The Australian icebreaker, Aurora Australis, was thwarted on Monday in its initial attempts to reach the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, the scientific research vessel stuck in sea ice off the coast of Antarctica since Christmas Day. It will now wait for better weather before making a further attempt to cut through the thick pack ice around the Shokalskiy."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 29, 2013

NEW: AFP: "The US National Security Agency has collected sensitive data on key telecommunications cables between Europe, north Africa and Asia, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday citing classified documents. Spiegel quoted NSA papers dating from February and labelled 'top secret' and 'not for foreigners' describing the agency's success in spying on the so-called Sea-Me-We 4 undersea cable system." ...

... The full Der Spiegel article (in English) is here. It covers other aspects of super-duper hacking done by an NSA unit called "Tailored Access Operations."

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times has a Big Piece on Benghazi! ...

... Driftglass: "The New York Times just pulverized any last remnants of the wingnut fairy tale of Benghaaaaazi! But before you get too excited, do not for one minute imagine this will trigger a sudden outbreak of Conservative self-awareness." ...

... Yes, because there will always be Louie Gohmert.

Ernesto Londoño, et al., of the Washington Post: "A new American intelligence assessment on the Afghan war predicts that the gains the United States and its allies have made during the past three years are likely to have been significantly eroded by 2017, even if Washington leaves behind a few thousand troops and continues bankrolling the impoverished nation, according to officials familiar with the report." ...

... See Jeffrey Goldberg, August 2008. Also, Herman Melville, 1851.

Alice Marwick in the New York Review of Books: "... private companies systematically collect very personal information, from who you are, to what you do, to what you buy. Data about your online and offline behavior are combined, analyzed, and sold to marketers, corporations, governments, and even criminals. The scope of this collection, aggregation, and brokering of information is similar to, if not larger than, that of the NSA, yet it is almost entirely unregulated and many of the activities of data-mining and digital marketing firms are not publicly known at all."

The Pope of Janesville. Joan Walsh of Salon: As he prepares his new campaign to "help" he poor, Altar Boy Paul Ryan laments Pope Francis's ignorance of matters economic: "'The guy is from Argentina, they haven't had real capitalism in Argentina,' Ryan said (referring to the pope as 'the guy' is a nice folksy touch.) 'They have crony capitalism in Argentina. They don't have a true free enterprise system.'"

Lena Sun & Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post have a moving piece on people who are delighted to get health insurance coverage under the ACA.

Sean McElwee of the Atlantic: Vermont is finding out that switching to more-or-less a single-payer health insurance system is mighty difficult, too, even in a state as small, homogeneous & liberal as Vermont. Although the concept was signed into law in 2011, Jonathan Gruber -- who helped develop both the Massachusetts & U.S. plans -- says, “There is no Vermont plan. There are Vermont ideas, but there is no Vermont plan."

CW: Ross Douthat does a self-audit, which makes me like him a little better. Probably we could find more Mistakes Ross Made, but that would mean reading his columns. I would do one myself, except I can't recall all the stupid stuff I said. (Perhaps you'll want to remind me.) ...

... Here's Dave Weigel's "Everything I got wrong this year," which Douthat links.

... Not everybody admits his mistakes:

"The Year of the Weasel." Paul Krugman: "... we've now seen that one side of the debate [over monetary policy] not only refuses to take evidence into account, but tries to dodge personal responsibility for getting it wrong. This has gone from a test of ideas to a test of character, and a lot of people failed."

"Money Talks." Before we bid adieu to the "Duck Dynasty" clan, let give Driftglass the last word, the word which puts this squalid story in perspective: "Obviously, as 25 years of Rush Limbaugh has demonstrated, you can haul the poo-flingingest, bigoted loudmouth out of the dankest wingnut watering hole in America and stick a microphone in front of him, and nothing he says or does -- no matter how offensive or untrue -- will earn him more than token slap on the wrist just as long as he can generate ad revenue and hold an audience. So nothing new there. What is mildly interesting is the curve on which those wrist-slaps are graded." ...

... CW: After today, you will have to satisfy your thirst for "Duck Dynasty" news elsewhere, unless we learn that Phil has a black boyfriend, a development that will raise in me a brief stirring of schadenfreude somewhat vitiated by my sympathy for the young man.

Money Talks, Ctd. Tal Kopan of Politico: The right-wing bill mill ALEC has moved "toward greater openness ... in the wake of dozens of corporate members pulling out earlier this year after ALEC was drawn into the Martin case. By some estimates, as many as 400 lawmakers and 60 companies, including brand names like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and McDonald's, bolted. But critics say the transparency effort is a smokescreen, and they charge that ALEC remains the same corporate-driven 'bill mill' designed to push right-wing business interests in statehouses with as little notice as possible."

Local News

Ken Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times: "... at Shooters World, a Tampa-based temple of American gun culture..., about 50 people took turns on a recent Saturday firing pistols, military assault weapons, an Uzi machine gun and a .50-caliber sniper rifle. It was a charity event called Shooting With SOF, which stands for special operations forces. Organizers say they have raised $75,000 for military and veterans causes by allowing car dealers, insurance brokers, makeup artists and other ordinary folks to live out fantasies firing some of the world's deadliest guns while being tutored by 20 current and former commandos -- seasoned, seen-it-all veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and places they can't talk about." CW: The geniuses who participated in this event used the word "badass" a lot. I myself cannot think of a better way to show my charitable heart than by shooting & "reveling in the gun's destructive power."

News Ledes

AFP: "An Australian icebreaker was Monday battling against bad weather to reach a ship carrying a scientific expedition stranded off Antarctica, leaving open the possibility of a helicopter evacuation, authorities said."

AP: "Dozens of lawsuits seeking damages from the federal government for Hurricane Katrina-related levee failures and flooding in the New Orleans area are over. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. has dismissed the cases. The move comes more than a year after a federal appeals court overturned his ruling that held the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers liable for flooding caused by lax maintenance of a shipping channel."

New York Times: "The detention of four American military personnel in Libya on Friday was preceded by a confrontation at a checkpoint in which gunshots were fired and a vehicle was damaged, a witness in Libya and an Obama administration official said on Saturday."

AFP: "At least 18 people were killed and dozens injured Sunday when a suicide bomber blew herself up in a train station in the Russian city of Volgograd ahead of February's Olympic Games in nearby Sochi. Regional officials said the woman set off her charge near the metal detectors stationed at the entrance to the city's main train station while it was packed with afternoon travellers."

AFP: "The Israeli military fired a barrage of shells into southern Lebanon in retaliation after five Katyusha-style rockets were launched against the Jewish state on Sunday, officials said. The attacks struck uninhabited areas of both Israel and Lebanon without causing any casualties or damage, officials on both sides said."