CW: re: a discussion contributor Diane & I had yesterday, Byron Tau of Politico reports today, "Massachusetts leaders say there are no discussions about a change the state's Senate succession laws in the event that President Obama nominates Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) to his cabinet."
Jon Stewart on the inevitable fallout from the election results:
... AND he has some advice for Greedy Bastards:
Sam Stein & Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "President Barack Obama will enter high-stakes budget negotiations firmly committed to seeing the tax rates for high-income earners rise to pre-George W. Bush levels, he assured a gathering of progressive and labor leaders on Tuesday.... 'It was a very, very positive meeting,' said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka." ...
... Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "Progressive activists are now preparing to turn the firepower they marshaled to reelect the president against him if he looks like he’s backing down on his mandate, as they see it, to preserve the social safety net and raise taxes on the wealthy."
Actor-comedian Rob Delaney proves a person need not be an expert to have good ideas. In a Salon opinion piece, he writes, "President Obama should junk the Race to the Top plan immediately. It is a deeply flawed reworking of George W. Bush's test-based, pro-charter school No Child Left Behind Act. Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan should change course dramatically and publicly admit Race to the Top doesn't and can't work and then craft a new plan that doesn't treat education like an industry and coerce teachers to 'teach to the test,' while marching toward education privatization."
Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "The Kaiser Family Foundation polled Americans last week, right after the election, asking what they want to see happen next with the health-care law. Most notably, they saw support for repeal plummet to an all-time low.... This isn't exactly Americans gravitating toward the health-care law: Support for expanding the law or keeping it as is held steady at 49 percent. Those who no longer support repeal seem to have drifted into the 'don't know' category, about what should happen next."
The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race. -- Paul Ryan, explaining GOP election losses
We did everything we could to discourage the blah people from voting. We never thought those lazy takers would stand up against us makers. -- CW translation ...
Too many black people voted. -- Neetzan Zimmerman (of Gawker) translation
... Michael Shear & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times write that it isn't just urban (read minority) voters who rejected the Republican ticket. ...
... ** Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly: "... this habit of thinking of 'the urban vote' as being a policy-indifferent mob that is simply turned out to neutralize the 'big choices' being made by civic-minded folk, making the election results meaningless in terms of the direction of the country, certainly bears the pungent whisky-and-brimstone aroma of Old Dixie politics. Ryan would be well advised not to use this sort of terminology to support the no-mandate-election spin of his party." ...
... Paul Krugman: "Asians and Jewish households are much more Democratic than you might expect given their relatively high incomes, presumably because they see the GOP as believing fundamentally in a white Christian nation from which they will forever be outsiders." Krugman wonders if "over time Southern whites will finally become culturally assimilated, and start voting like the rest of their fellow citizens." ...
... Ryan Takes a Stand: Ideology before Party. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The House's Republican leaders would dearly like to elevate Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington to lead the House Republican Conference, putting a female face into the pantheon of the white male Republican leaders. But standing in their way is Representative Tom Price of Georgia, one of the most conservative members of the House, who has lined up some big guns in his quest for the fourth-ranking post in the House Republican conference. The most important of those guns, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin..., showed no sign of retreat Tuesday in a letter sent to colleagues endorsing Mr. Price." ...
... The People Have Spoken. So We'll Do It My Way. John Parkinson of ABC News: "Despite a devastating loss last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan rejected Democratic claims of a mandate to raise tax rates on the wealthy. Asked whether President Obama has a mandate on taxes, Ryan told ABC News' senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl that the House Republican majority is proof that the president does not." CW: see my remarks in today's Comments section. ...
... NEW. Dan Amira of New York explains Ryan's Rules of Mandates: "If Ryan wins, it's a mandate. If Obama wins, his party also needs to control the House of Representatives -- otherwise, no mandate. What if Ryan and Romney won, but the Democrats still gained two seats in the Senate? Unclear, but we're guessing it's a mandate." CW: I'd file Ryan's Rules of Mandates as a subcategory under Sociopaths' Rules for Living.
NEW. Patrick Keefe in the New Yorker: "the Electronic Communications Privacy Act..., originally passed in 1986..., considers any e-mail that is over a hundred and eighty days old to be 'abandoned,' meaning that the author of the e-mail no longer has any reasonable expectation that it would remain private. So to obtain access to this e-mail, the F.B.I. doesn't need a court order; it just needs to ask your e-mail provider."
... Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "The FBI is making a new push to determine how ... Paula Broadwell obtained classified files, part of an expanding series of investigations in a scandal that also threatens the career of the United States' top military commander in Afghanistan. Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from the North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell ... marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession.... The surprise move by the FBI follows assertions by U.S. officials that the investigation had turned up no evidence of a security breach -- a factor that was cited as a reason the Justice Department did not notify the White House before last week that the CIA director had been ensnared in an e-mail inquiry."
... Maureen Dowd: David Petraeus's "fall started as Sophocles and turned sophomoric.... It features toned arms, slinky outfits, a cat fight, titillating e-mails, a military more consumed with sex than violence, a plot with more inconceivable twists than 'Homeland,' and a Twitter's-delight lexicon: an 'embedded' mistress named Broadwell, a biography called 'All In,' an other-other woman of Middle East ancestry who was a 'social liaison' to the military, a shirtless F.B.I. agent crushing on the losing-her-shirt-to-debt Tampa socialite, a pair of generals helping the socialite's twin sister with a custody case, and lawyers and crisis-management experts linked to Monica Lewinsky, John Edwards and the ABC show 'Scandal.'” Dowd blames Petraeus for "So many more American kids and Afghanistan civilians ... killed and maimed in a war that went on too long. That's the real scandal." ...
... Vernon Loeb, who covers the Defense Department for the Washington Post & wrote All In with Paula Broadwell, writes in the Post that he had no clue about her affair with David Petraeus. ...
... Massimo Calabresi of Time argues that the Justice Department had a duty to tell the President or the investigation into Gen. Petraeus' affair with Broadwell. CW: I would argue that Gen. Petraeus himself had a duty to tell the President when he found out about the investigation. He didn't. Or so we are led to believe. ...
... The Family Khawam. Christina Ng, et al., of ABC News: "Jill Kelley, 37, is a Tampa socialite who ... forged tight friendships with top brass. Her sister, Natalie Khawam, also became friendly with major players, including both Gen. Petraeus and Gen. John Allen.... A U.S. official described Kelley as a 'nice, bored, rich socialite' who drops 'honorary' from her title and tells people she is an ambassador. ... Kelley and her husband Scott ... have been sued at least nine times. Court records indicate that the Kelleys owe more than $2 million on an office building and face foreclosure.... Natalie Khawam, who now lives with her sister and brother-in-law in Tampa, is deeply in debt and filed for bankruptcy in Florida in April 2012.... Khawam has also been embroiled in a child custody battle.... In November 2011, the D.C. Superior Court ruled that Khawam's husband would get sole legal and primary custody of the child. The judge wrote that Khawam 'has exhibited an utter disregard for the child's interest' in maintaining a meaningful relationship with his father, that she 'has extreme personal deficits in the areas of honesty and integrity,' and that she has exhibited a 'willingness to say anything, even under oath, to advance her own personal interests at the expense' of her husband, the child, and others.'" ...
... Jason Cherkis & Christina Wilkie of the Huffington Post: "... Jill Kelley ... founded a questionable charity for cancer patients with her surgeon husband, Scott Kelley.... While the origins of the seed money used to start the charity in 2007 are unclear, financial records reviewed by The Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money not on research, but on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees. By the end of 2007, the charity had gone bankrupt, having conveniently spent exactly the same amount of money, $157,284, as it started with...." ...
... Adam Estes of The Atlantic: "Frustrated by the media attention, Jill Kelley's taken to calling 911 multiple times a day. On one of these calls a couple of days ago, the socialite told the dispatcher..., 'You know, I don't know if by any chance, because I'm an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability, so they should not be able to cross my property,' she said. 'I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well.' ... Jill Kelley is an honorary consul of South Korea. (Who knew?) A diplomatic official confirmed her status to Foreign Policy.... He went on to clarify, however, that it's nothing more than a symbolic title and comes with no special treatment or protection. 'She does not work as a real consul,' the official said." ...
... Here's a screengrab from an ABC News Denver affiliates story on the Petraeus Affair, via John Aravosis of AmericaBlog:
... The station later ran an apology, which read, in part, "... when the 7NEWS reporter went on the Internet to get an image of the book cover, the reporter mistakenly grabbed a Photoshopped image that said, 'All Up In My Snatch.' 'It was a mistake,' said KMGH-TV News Director Jeff Harris." Via Crooks & Liars. ...
... CW: the other day I mentioned in the Comments section a mindblowing flow chart created for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Gen. Petraeus's predecessor in Afghanistan, whose career was also brought low by a little too much public exposure. Now it seems certain media outlets are creating "Pentagon of Love" flowcharts to try to get a handle on the complicated interrelationships in the Petraeus Affair. Joe Coscarelli of New York magazine has one here. Here's another from Max Read of Gawker:
Local News
Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who has pushed aggressively for cutting and capping taxes in New Jersey during his three years in office, said Tuesday that people who lived in towns destroyed by Hurricane Sandy were likely to pay higher taxes to help rebuild.... Mr. Christie said he expected the federal government to do as much as it had done for victims of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast to help rebuild New Jersey. And he said that municipalities would be allowed to raise property taxes more than the 2 percent limit that he signed into law in 2010 to cover costs brought on by the storm."
Right Wing World
Dominique Mosbergen of the Huffington Post: "A petition for Texas secession has qualified to receive a White House response. As of Tuesday evening, the petition -- which asks for the peaceful withdrawal of the state of Texas from the union -- had racked up more than 81,000 signatures. (Only 25,000 are needed to elicit an official response from the Obama administration.) ... Residents in more than 40 states have filed secession petitions to the Obama administration's 'We the People' program, which is featured on the White House website, in the last few days." ...
... Kevin Robillard of Politico: "
Gov. Rick Perry, who famously mused about secession in 2009, doesn't support an effort by some Texas residents who are petitioning to leave the United States. 'Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it,' Perry spokesman Catherine Frazier told the Dallas Morning News. 'But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government.'" ...
... The Houston Chronicle rebuts a popular misconception about Texas's "right" to secede (thanks to historian/genius Rick Perry for popularizing that one) -- and related facts/fictions. ...
NEW. You know your party is in trouble when -- Erick Erickson is the voice of reason: "We here at RedState are American citizens. We have no plans to secede from the union.... Too many people have spent the past four years obsessed with birth certificates. Now they are obsessed with voter fraud conspiracies, talk of secession, and supposed election changing news stories if only we had known."
News Ledes
New York Times: New York state "Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman's office has issued subpoenas to the Long Island Power Authority and Consolidated Edison as part of an investigation into whether the utilities violated state laws in their response to Hurricane Sandy.... [New York] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Tuesday that he had named a commission with subpoena power to investigate the handling of the disaster by utility companies."
New York Times: "Congressional investigators took aim on Wednesday at a former colleague, Jon S. Corzine, blaming the onetime senator's risk-taking at MF Global for accelerating the brokerage firm's demise."
Washington Post: "Surprising virtually no one, Sen.-elect Angus King (I-Maine) said Wednesday that he plans to caucus with Senate Democrats, because 'affiliating with the majority makes the most sense.' King won a decisive election last week to succeed retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and throughout his year-long campaign refused to say with which party he would caucus once he arrived in Washington."
Guardian: "Hamas's military commander has been killed in an Israeli air strike in a move likely to herald a dramatic rise in violence in Gaza. Ahmed al-Jaabari, the head of the Islamist organisation's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, died when his car was struck in Gaza City by a missile after Israel warned it may step up targeted assassinations, having endured almost a week of intense rocket fire from Gaza. Reports suggested three other Palestinians were also killed."
The Hill: "Former CIA Director David Petraeus will voluntarily testify before congressional panels investigating the September terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said.... The precise timing of Petraeus's visit to Capitol Hill hasn't been finalized, Feinstein said, though his appearance could be as early as Friday."
New York Times: "Syrian authorities ordered airstrikes for a third consecutive day close to the tense Turkish border on Wednesday, and said a French decision to recognize and consider arming a newly formed Syrian rebel coalition was an 'immoral' act 'encouraging the destruction of Syria.'"
Politico: "The president is scheduled to do his first press conference in months on Wednesday, at 1:30 p.m. EST in the East Room." ...
... New York Times Update: "President Obama on Wednesday declared that he would not extend tax cuts at upper income levels but that Congress should quickly do so for the middle class, and he praised David H. Petraeus's record while saying that national security had not been compromised during the intelligence official's affair with his biographer." The transcript is here.
Politico: "At a 10 a.m. news conference, [House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi] will answer ... whether she'll remain minority leader through 2014 -- or release her 10-year, ironclad grip on the Democratic Caucus." C-SPAN will no doubt carry the presser live, but I'm not sure exactly where.
... Update: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will remain in charge of the Democratic Caucus for the 113th Congress, the California Democrat announced on Wednesday morning. Pelosi revealed her decision before a room full of cheering Democrats, many of whom had privately lobbied her in recent days to stay put." CW: um, I thought the caucus had to vote on their leadership. I didn't realize they could crown themselves, a la Napoleon.
AP: "Pakistan freed several Taliban prisoners at the request of the Afghan government Wednesday, a move meant to facilitate the process of striking a peace deal with the militant group in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. The release of the prisoners -- described as mid- and low-level fighters -- is the most encouraging sign yet that Pakistan may be willing to help jumpstart peace talks that have mostly gone nowhere, hobbled by distrust among the major players involved, including the United States."
Reuters: "The United States announced an extra $30 million in aid to those affected by the war in Syria on Wednesday and called the formation of a new opposition coalition an important step that would help Washington better target its help. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement after talks in Perth..., [Australia]."
AP: "President Hu Jintao stepped aside as ruling party leader Wednesday to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take China's helm as part of only the second orderly transfer of power in 63 years of Communist rule.In a possible break from tradition, Hu may also be giving up his post as head of the commission that oversees the military, which would give Xi greater leeway to consolidate his authority when he takes over."
AP: "With rampant unemployment spreading misery in southern Europe and companies shutting factories across the continent, workers around the European Union sought to unite in a string of strikes and demonstrations on Wednesday."
AP: "The chief operating officer of a utility company heavily criticized for its response to Superstorm Sandy is stepping down. The Long Island Power Authority announced Tuesday that Michael Hervey had tendered his resignation, effective at the end of the year.... LIPA has come under withering criticism since Sandy knocked out power to more than a million of its customers on Oct. 29, both for how long it was taking to get power restored and for poor communication with customers."
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