Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
The Constant Weader is on sick leave today ...
If this post looks familiar, it's because I ran the same thing last week. As you can tell from the cartoon portrait, I have two eyes, and this week the second one is in for a few bad days. Last week, I still had one eye working; this week, I have none that is ready for close-ups. So we'll see, so to speak, how it goes.
My column in the New York Times eXaminer on Maureen Dowd's takedown of Newt Gingrich is here. The NYTX front page is here. ...
... Dowd does a nice job of showing, not telling, us that Newt Gingrich is absolutely crazy.
** "Free the FDA." Prof. Daniel Carpenter, in a New York Times op-ed: "... for the first time in American history, a cabinet secretary — and by extension, a president — has overruled a drug-approval decision by the Food and Drug Administration.... The only solution, then, is to make the F.D.A. truly independent.... At the very least, President Obama and Ms. Sebelius need to clarify what their precedent entails. If they don’t, we can expect to see lobbies from all corners of society — drug companies themselves, safety advocates, groups of doctors and patients — walk directly away from an F.D.A. decision they don’t like and take their cases to the White House."
Time magazine's "Person of the Year" is "the protester." Begins here.
The Voter Fraud that Isn't There. Steve Benen: "... if the [Republican National Lawyers Association] thinks .. 311 cases [of alleged voter fraud] from the last decade — some of which weren’t from the last decade, some of which were cases that got thrown out of court, some of which may have very well have been innocent mistakes — justify a national campaign to restrict Americans’ access to their own democracy, they’re wildly misguided. Republicans support all kinds of new voting restrictions — voter-ID laws, severe limits on voter-registration drives, closing early-voting windows, strict new limits on absentee ballots — because they find it easier to rig voter eligibility than to win elections fair and square." (See also today's Local News below.)
I got a real problem with the mandated drug testing for unemployment insurance. We don’t demand drug testing for people getting farm subsidies. -- Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), on GOP requirements to pass a payroll tax cut
Conservatives Rethink the 14th Amendment. David Gans & Doug Kendall in Slate: "Justice Antonin Scalia created a firestorm last winter when he opined that the 14th Amendment does not protect women against discrimination on the basis of sex.... This view has been, until recently at least, a bedrock conviction of conservative originalists. In that sense then, the bigger news came at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in October when, confronted on his remarks by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Scalia backpedaled.... For a Justice famous for his blunt and unchanging conservative views, Scalia’s fancy footwork was fascinating, and telling." Read on.
I wish bigots would not inconvenience me. Los Angeles Times: The home improvement chain Lowe's "decided to stop advertising on the show 'All-American Muslim,' on [the]... TLC channel, after complaints by the Florida Family Assn...." Lowe's is the closest home improvement store to my house. Also, I've been avoiding Home Depot for years, ever since I found out they gave their incompetent CEO a huge golden parachute. Now what am I supposed to do? ...
... AND it gets worse. Per Tanya Somander of Think Progress: "The Muslim Public Affairs Council has published a full list of companies that FFA claims it persuaded to pull ads from the show. The list includes Airborne Vitamin, Bare Escentuals, Campbell’s Soup, Capital One, Cotton, Inc., Dell computers, Estee Lauder, Gap, Good Year, Hershey Kisses, Ikea, JC Penny, Kayak.com, McDonald’s, Nationwide Insurance, Old Navy, Pier One, Radio Shack, Sears, T-Mobil, Volkswagen, Wal-Mart, and Whirlpool. Click here to see the full list." I can't buy soup? What is the matter with these corporate honchos? In the spirit of the holiday season, a little kook shall lead them? And they're doing this over a show that probably has 80,000 viewers, of whom I will never be one. ...
... Here's a little about the Florida Family Association, the group that has scared the bejeezus (or something) out of Dell Computers & McDonald's from Zack Ford of Think Progress: "Claiming a membership of 35,000 individuals, FFA’s only paid staff member is its president, David Caton, and it is not affiliated with any national organizations." They've also protested "Gay Days" at DisneyWorld, Miss Universe for promoting HIV/AIDS awareness, & TV shows for including anti-bullying messages. I'd go protest FFA, but it probably is the figment of one man's warped imagination, so I'd be standing out in front of some jerk's garage. Get a grip, corporate America. ...
... THEN there's this from Ben Popken of Adweek: "Should Lowe's need a crowbar to pull its head out of the sand, it can find one in its own aisles. On Saturday, the home-improvement company posted a note to Facebook explaining its decision to capitulate to an email campaign by the Florida Family Association and pull its ads from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim. As of this writing, the post has drawn more than 22,000 comments, a significant portion of which are racist and contain anti-Muslim/anti-Islamic hate speech. (Scroll down to see some of them.) So, why isn't Lowe's moderating its Facebook wall?"
Jason Zengerle of New York magazine on the amateur oppo researcher. Zengerle focuses on Andrew Kaczynski, a 22-year-old student at St. John's University on Long Island, who does oppo research for fun, but whose C-SPAN discoveries have provided embarrassing to Republican candidates, especially the Mittster. Here's a Kaczynski find -- Romney attesting that he's a "progressive":
Right Wing World
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "For a man who likes to tout his expertise as a historian, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has a decidedly revisionist approach when it comes to his own history."
Let's not forget, only one president has ever cut Medicare for seniors in this country, and it's Barack Obama. We're gonna remind him of that time and time again. -- Mitt Romney ...
... Politifact: "The statement gets it wrong on every front. The Medicare belt was tightened in 1981 and 1982 under Reagan, in 1989 under the first President Bush and again in 1997 under Clinton. So Obama is in no way the only president to cut the program. Further, by specifying that Obama cut Medicare 'for seniors,' Romney seems to mean that the president slashed benefits, not just the program’s spending. That’s even more egregious. Other presidents have made changes to Medicare that reduced benefits for seniors, while the health care law Obama signed actually increases them. That’s a lot of inaccuracy in a single sentence."
... "(Another) Romney Lie on Health Care." Dishonesty AND Hyprocrisy. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: (a) Obama has not cut Medicare; (b) Bill Clinton cut Medicare payments; (c) Ronald Reagan cut Medicare payments; (d) George H. W. Bush cut Medicare payments. And the Big H for Hypocrisy: "Romney has lavished praise on Paul Ryan's Medicare reform scheme, most recently last week.... Ryan proposes to cut Medicare spending by more than Reagan, Bush, Clinton, or Obama ever did."
FactCheck.org: Karl Rove's "Crossroads GPS distorts the facts in TV ads that attack two Democratic Senate candidates for their roles in the Wall Street bailout and the federal health care law: The well-heeled conservative group says Elizabeth Warren was appointed to oversee how tax dollars were spent for bank bailouts that "helped pay big bonuses to bank executives." That's absurd.... Another ad says Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson 'demanded a payoff' for voting for the new health care law and was 'accused of selling his vote, cynical what's-in-it-for-me-type politics.' That insinuation of personal corruption is false. Nelson demanded nothing for himself."
Media Matters: Obama family fails to wage anticipated Secular War on Christmas; Sean Hannity finds they're celebrating Christmas "too much." Audio.
Local News
Ryan Reilly of TPM: "Wisconsin’s voter ID law imposes the equivalent of a poll tax on individuals with out-of-state drivers licenses and discriminates against the poor, students and the elderly, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday."
News Ledes
President & Mrs. Obama will speak to the troops & their families at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at 11:55 am ET.
AP: "A Republican payroll tax cut bill that sailed through the House despite a White House veto threat is dead on arrival in the Senate, and it will soon be time for talks on a final package, [Harry Reid,] the Senate's top Democrat says." Washington Post story here.
AP: "China has imposed duties on imports of some U.S.-made vehicles, claiming damage from foreign automakers due to dumping and subsidies in the latest round of trade friction between the two countries. The Commerce Ministry said Wednesday that the duties would be imposed for two years on imported cars and sport utility vehicles with engine displacements of over 2.5 liters. The duties range from 2 percent to 21.5 percent."
Live Science: "Barely half of American adults are married, a record low for the country, a new analysis of Census data finds. Following that same trend, the median age at first marriage is older than ever for both men and women, with the median age of marriage for women at 26.5 and the median age for men at 28.7."
AP: "Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry collection sold for a record-setting $115 million — including more than $11.8 million for a pearl necklace and more than $8.8 million for a diamond ring given to her by Richard Burton — at a Christie's auction Tuesday night of memorabilia amassed by the late actress."
My New York Times eXaminer column, "Of Philosophers & Things," is here. The NYTX front page is here.
** Law Prof. Jonathan Macey in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: "Several academic studies show that the investment portfolios of congressmen and senators consistently outperform stock indices like the Dow and the S&P 500, as well as the portfolios of virtually all professional investors.... Democrats' portfolios outperform the market by a whopping 9%. Republicans do well, though not quite as well. And the trading is widespread.... Senators outperform the market by an astonishing 12%.... These results are not due to luck or the financial acumen of elected officials. They can be explained only by insider trading based on the nonpublic information that politicians obtain in the course of their official duties." A proposed new bill, which has nearly identical House & Senate versions, introduced in reaction to the Congresional insider-trading scandal aired in a November "60 Minutes" segment, "would only make their shenanigans easier.... If the law passes in its current form..., I predict such trading will increase because the rules of the game will be clearer."
Deciding Not to Decide. Bryan Walsh of Time has what looks to be a realistic summary of the outcomes of the Durban climate summit: "... there’s no assurance coming out of Durban that we’re all that much closer to an actual treaty that would actually demand actual emissions cuts from all big emitters — developed and developing." Read the whole post; it's more complex than I've let on.
Charles Pierce isn't an expert on the judiciary, but I think he's onto something when he suggests -- based on pretty good circumstantial evidence -- that Chief Justice John Roberts and Associates have in mind to "rejigger" states rights back to where they were in the good ole days before FDR whipped the Supremes into line.
Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "Britain faced pointed criticism from across the English channel on Tuesday for thwarting a European Union-wide pact aimed at shoring up the foundations of the euro." Also "Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister..., has pointedly criticized [PM David] Cameron’s decision to opt out of the pact." Sarah Lyall & Alan Cowell's New York Times story here.
Rich, Sleazy Candidates Revive that Hopey-Changey Thing. Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post: "Against the backdrop of a tightening Republican presidential contest, much of the hierarchy of President Obama’s campaign is decamping from Chicago to Washington on Tuesday for a high-profile debriefing on the the state of the president’s reelection effort. The message will be predictably upbeat. For Obama advisers in need of a little lift after months of bad news, there have been some encouraging signs in recent weeks. At the top of the list is an erratic Republican presidential field roiled by the ascent of Newt Gingrich...." ...
Right Wing World
... Rich, Sleazy Candidates on Their Rich, Sleazy Opponents
That would make him the highest-paid historian in history.” Romney added, “One of the things that I think people recognize in Washington is that people go there to serve the people and then they stay there to serve themselves. -- Mitt Romney, on the $1.6 million Newt Gingrich collected from Freddie Mac, income Gingrich characterized as payment for his services as a "historian"
[I'll consider returning my Freddie Mac earnings] if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years. But I bet you $10 — not $10,000 — that he won’t take the offer. -- Newt Gingrich
Amy Gardner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney escalated his rivalry with Newt Gingrich on Monday with a series of pointed, personal attacks, signaling a more aggressive and negative shift in the race for the Republican presidential nomination."
** Try Not to Gasp in Surprise. Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "The tax plan by GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich would provide big tax breaks to the rich and blow a huge hole in the federal budget deficit, according to an independent study released Monday." The Tax Policy Center study results & links to data are here.
Be careful out there, Mitt. Teh gays look just like "regular" people. Mitt Romney accidentally meets a gay Vietnam vet in a New Hampshire diner:
... Dogwhistling through Dixie. Steve M. of No Mister Nice Blog: where he covers immigration in his stump speech, Mitt Romney channels the Ku Klux Klan. Yes, he does. He really does. Remember, this is the guy who is too moderate for his party. Via Charles Pierce.
The other day Paul Krugman criticized "moderate Republican" Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) for her opposition to raising taxes on millionaires (of which she is one, many times over) on a number of grounds worth your reading -- most of which will be merely reminders. But his post also implies another reminder: "moderate Republicans" are not very moderate and -- like their less wingier colleagues -- they are dedicated to shilling for the rich. BTW: Snowe isn't sticking up for millionaires because she has a huge millionaire constituency: in the whole state of Maine there are only about 375 people who earn over $1MM a year and would therefore be subject to the surtax.
Yuri Kozyrev for Time: in Egypt, Islamists make good democrats -- an interesting perspective.
Headline of the Day: "Anti-Gay Alabama GOPer Secretly Donated Sperm To Lesbian Couples In New Zealand." This would get the Hilarious Hypocrisy Prize if Bill Johnson's sperm-o-matic didn't pose some serious risks for his newborn and as-yet-unborn biological children. Also, Johnson's wife -- who didn't know about how Johnson was using his johnson Down Under -- is not amused.
Jesus (who miraculously [of course] turns out to be a Semitic blond) answers Rick Perry's "Strong" ad:
Local News
Marc Lacey of the New York Times: "... [who] calls himself 'America’s Toughest Sheriff,' [is] the top law enforcement official in sprawling Maricopa County, [Arizona, and] is perhaps best known for his hard-nosed treatment of prisoners and his aggressive raids aimed at illegal immigrants. But it is his department’s approach to more than 400 sex-crimes cases that has Sheriff Arpaio in trouble. His deputies failed to investigate or conducted only the sketchiest of inquiries into hundreds of sex crimes between 2005 and 2007.... Many of those cases involved molested children.... officials discovered that dozens of sensitive cases, many filed by illegal immigrants, had not been adequately investigated or investigated at all."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The said Tuesday that it will take no new steps to boost economic growth this year, citing mounting evidence that the American economy is chugging slowly toward good health."
Politico: "Donald Trump has bowed out of moderating the Newsmax debate in Iowa later, announcing his decision in a statement saying he will not give up the option of running for president as an independent."
From the Fairly Stupid Ideas Department. AP: "Heady with their successful attempts to block trucks and curb business at busy ports up and down the West Coast, some Occupy Wall Street protesters plan to continue their blockades and keep staging similar protests despite requests to stop because they're hurting wage earners."
Washington Post: "The White House has formally threatened to veto a GOP-authored bill that would link the extension of a payroll tax cut that President Obama has sought to other Republican priorities."
The "But I Don't Read the Mail I Answer" Defense. New York Times: "An e-mail chain released Tuesday by a parliamentary panel investigating the shows that ’s son received and responded to messages in 2008 that referred to widespread phone hacking at tabloid, the first documentation that he may have been notified of the wider problem long before he has admitted. James Murdoch responded to the panel in a letter, saying that he had opened the e-mails on his BlackBerry and had not read their full contents at the time or since." Guardian story here.
Los Angeles Times: "Home improvement giant Lowe's Cos. continues to come under heavy criticism from activists, some politicians and customers after pulling its ads from a reality TV show featuring Muslim Americans. The North Carolina company decided to stop advertising on the show 'All-American Muslim,' on Discovery Communications Inc.'s TLC channel, after complaints by the Florida Family Assn., a conservative Christian group that lobbies companies to promote 'traditional, biblical values.'"
Think Progress: " Fourteen Democratic senators have written a letter to Kathleen Sebelius asking the HHS Secretary to provide 'specific rationale and the scientific data you relied on' to overrule the Food and Drug Administration and limit the availability of the morning after pill to women of all ages." The letter is here. The signers are "Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Carl Levin (D-MI), John Kerry (D-MA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Al Franken (D-MN), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR)."
AP: "Facing a weekend deadline to avoid a government shutdown, a combative Congress appears on track to advance a massive $1 trillion-plus yearend spending package that curbs agency budgets but drops many policy provisions sought by GOP conservatives. Lawmakers reached a tentative agreement Monday on the measure. It chips away at the Pentagon budget, foreign aid and environmental spending but boosts funding for veterans programs and modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal."
AP: "Congress is pressing ahead with a massive $662 billion defense bill that requires military custody for terrorism suspects linked to al-Qaida, including those captured within the U.S. Lawmakers hope their last-minute revisions will satisfy President Barack Obama and erase a veto threat. Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees announced late Monday that they had reached agreement on the policy-setting legislation that had gotten caught up in an escalating fight on whether to treat suspected terrorists as prisoners of war or criminals.... The White House had no immediate comment late Monday, and it was unclear whether it would hold firm on its veto threat."
Thought I Already Covered This; Guess I Didn't. New York Times: "The [Supreme] Court announced Monday that it would decide whether Arizona was entitled to impose tough anti- measures over the Obama administration’s objections. The case joined a crowded docket that already included challenges to Mr. Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the 2010 law, and a momentous case on how Texas will conduct its elections."
Baltimore Sun: "Baltimore police in riot gear moved in full force but peacefully evicted protesters with the Occupy Baltimore movement from the Inner Harbor's McKeldin Square during the early morning hours Tuesday. Officials reported no arrests. About 40 people grabbed their belongings and left the encampment, surrounded by police wearing shields and carrying nightsticks who stayed on the periphery. Those who were homeless were given the option of climbing into city buses to be taken to a shelter." With video.
Reuters: "Security forces shot dead 17 people in Syria on Tuesday and rebels killed seven police in an ambush, activists said, after the U.N. human rights chief put the death toll from nine months of protest against President Bashar al-Assad at 5,000."
ABC News: "Former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine is scheduled to testify before Congress again on Tuesday, this time before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, but the whereabouts of about $1.2 billion in client money is still unknown." ...
... Washington Post Update: "Returning to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify before the Senate, Jon Corzine backed off his earlier remarks that he could have inadvertently authorized an transfer of customer funds to the firm account of MF Global, the failed commodities brokerage that he had led."
Maybe You Understand This. Live Science: "Physicists are closer than ever to hunting down the elusive Higgs boson particle, the missing piece of the governing theory of the universe's tiniest building blocks. Scientists at the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, announced today (Dec. 13) that they'd narrowed down the list of possible hiding spots for the Higgs, (also called the God particle) and even see some indications that they're hot on its trail." The Guardian is liveblogging this story.
AP: "Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky waived his preliminary hearing Tuesday, a decision that moves him toward a trial on charges of child sex abuse and cancels the possibility that he would publicly face his accusers."
Air-Tight Alibi. Def. ABC News: "LaDondrell Montgomery had his conviction for armed robbery and a life sentence overturned thanks to his attorney discovering he was in jail at the time of the crime. But he's still not a free man. The Houston, Texas, felon remains in jail faced with five more robbery charges."
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