The Commentariat -- March 16
CW: click on the map to take this click-and-drag map test. If you can locate all these countries on the first pass, you're a lot smarter than I am:
"President Obama's Trivial Pursuits." Following up on Karen Garcia's theme (here), Keith Koffler, who writes the White House Dossier, says, "The Middle East is afire with rebellion, Japan is imploding from an earthquake, and the battle of the budget is on in the United States, but none of this seems to be deterring President Obama from a heavy schedule of childish distractions.... [Tuesday] morning, as Japan’s nuclear crisis enters a potentially catastrophic phase, we are told that Obama is videotaping his NCAA tournament picks.... Saturday, he made his 61st outing to the golf course as president, and got back to the White House with just enough time for a quick shower before heading out to party with Washington’s elite journalists at the annual Gridiron Dinner." And so forth. ...
... CW: President Obama had his last job -- U.S. Senator -- for a little more than two years before he got bored with it & decided to run for President. He's had his current job for the same length of time. Is he bored with it, too?
Transparently Opaque. AP: "Two years into its pledge to improve government transparency, the Barack Obama administration took action on fewer requests for federal records from citizens, journalists, companies and others last year even as significantly more people asked for information."...
... From the AP report: The Obama administration censored 194 pages of internal e-mails about its Open Government Directive that the AP requested more than one year ago. Adam Sorensen of Time labels this "the Obama transparency paradox in one sentence."
Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling and Sperling’s deputy, Jason Furman ... are pressing [President] Obama to cut Social Security benefits if necessary. But Obama’s political team, led by David Axelrod, David Plouffe and Jim Messina, are urging the president to understand that backing benefit cuts could prove disastrous to his 2012 reelection hopes, sources say. The political team is winning the argument so far...."
Shock and Awe? Or Aw, Shucks? Shahien Nasiripour of the Huffington Post: "The Obama administration is seeking to force the nation's five largest mortgage firms to reduce monthly payments for as many as three million distressed homeowners in as little as six months as part of an agreement to settle accusations of improper foreclosures and violations of consumer protection laws, six people familiar with the matter said.... The modified mortgages could cost the five financial behemoths -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial -- as much as $30 billion.... But the deal is far from complete.... The banks are now crafting their own proposals." CW: I'll bet they are. ...
... Associated Press: Elizabeth Warren "... is rebuffing banking industry claims that the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] is too powerful and lacks accountability.... Warren is also giving little ground against Republicans who say she's played an inappropriate role as federal agencies and states try pressuring big U.S. banks to overhaul how they modify mortgages and handle foreclosures." ...
... AND Geithner Sticks up for Warren. Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "Secretary Timothy F. Geithner pushed back Tuesday against lawmakers questioning the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau role in negotiating a settlement with mortgage servicing firms whose shoddy practices and flawed foreclosure paperwork came to light last fall."
The Speaker's Dilemma. Brian Beutler of TPM: "... the 54 Republicans who voted against the stop-gap legislation [to continue funding the government] put [Speaker John Boehner] in an unenviable box: Either he kowtows to his right flank, and pushes initiatives that can't pass in the Senate; or he abandons them..., and passes consensus legislation. The latter option, however, would require significant concessions to win Democratic votes, and further delegitimize himself with the Tea Party base."
Robin Bravender & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Senate Democrats are scrambling to combat a GOP-led offensive against the Obama administration’s climate regulations ahead of a possible Wednesday floor showdown. In a surprising move, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid signaled Tuesday he would allow a floor vote on a Republican amendment to nullify the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases." Also, see today's Right Wing World below.
Katrina vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post: neither Republicans nor President Obama has the sense to face economic realities; their destructive plans to reduce the deficit will only worsen the U.S. economy, just as British PM David Cameron's Conservative austerity program has caused Great Britain's economy to decline.
New York Times Editors: "The [Supreme] Court’s lack of a recusal policy leaves each justice to decide whether he or she is meeting that standard. That plainly violates the age-old legal principle: Nemo iudex in causa sua — no one should be a judge about his or her own case.... The court is still not addressing the issue despite months of questions about possible cozy friendships, suspected political biases and family ties.... A bipartisan group of 107 law professors from 76 law schools have made their own proposal for how the court should solve its recusal problem.... The professors’ proposal is a good start.... If the justices don’t act, Congress may have to require them to adopt a more transparent recusal process.... The questions about the court’s impartiality are too serious to ignore."
Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times: "From Liberia to South Africa to the island of Madagascar, Libya’s holdings are like a giant fund, geared to make friends and win influence in the poorest region in the world. This may help explain how Colonel Qaddafi has been able to summon sub-Saharan African soldiers to fight for him in his time of need — Libyans have spoken of 'African mercenaries' killing protesters and helping him rout rebel fighters — and why so many African leaders have been so slow to criticize him, even as his forces slaughter his own people."
Fred Kaplan of Slate on Gen. David Petraeus' testimony Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Petraeus & Michele Flournoy, a Defense undersecretary, testified that the war in Afghanistan was going great! One little problem Petraeus acknowledged: the government we're propping up is totally corrupt. The senators didn't ask the witnesses any "awkward questions" about that.
Anybody who says you can't save money at the Pentagon has never been to the Pentagon. We can save money on defense and if we Republicans don't propose saving money on defense, we'll have no credibility on anything else. -- Haley Barbour
Kasie Hunt of Politico: "America should slash defense spending — and consider shrinking its presence in Afghanistan, Haley Barbour said Monday night. Barbour, a likely candidate for president in 2012, told Iowa county leaders and activists here that the GOP won't have any credibility on cutting spending if they're not willing to trim the defense budget — often considered sacrosanct for Republicans." ...
... Ben Smith dubs Barbour's speech "a major moment" in the Republican race to the nomination. "Barbour's leading Republican rivals have positioned themselves to President Obama's hawkish right on a range of foreign policy issues. They've also resisted calls from some associated with the Tea Party movement for deep cuts to federal spending that would include defense cuts." ...
... Joe Klein of Time: "... this is Haley Barbour, folks -- and we know two things about him: he's not the world's boldest policy thinker and he's probably the smartest political strategist in the field. When Barbour decides that Afghanistan is a loser, you can bet that more than a few Republicans are heading that way -- and that means interesting times for the trigger-happy neoconservatives...."
"The Sad, Hypocritical Retirement of Evan Bayh." Ezra Klein: as a near-retiree from the Senate, Evan Bayh -- pretty much a career do-nothing senator -- made surprisingly candid statements against the usual Washington corrupt politics. Now he has three new jobs: (1) at "the massive law firm McGuire Woods [whose] ... principal clients ... 'include national energy companies, foreign countries, international manufacturing companies, trade associations and local and national businesses'"; (2) at "Apollo Management Group, a giant public-equity firm"; and (3) as a Fox "News" contributor. Klein writes:
The 'corrosive system of campaign financing' that Bayh considered such a threat? He’s being paid by both McGuire Woods and Apollo Global Management to act as a corroding agent on their behalf. The 'strident partisanship' and 'unyielding ideology' he complained was ruining the Senate? At Fox News, he’ll be right there on set while it gets cooked up. His warning that 'what is required from members of Congress and the public alike is a new spirit of devotion to the national welfare beyond party or self-interest' sounds, in retrospect, like a joke.
Right Wing World
Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: "Thirty-one Republicans on the House Energy And Commerce Committee -- the entire Republican contingent on the panel -- declined on Tuesday to vote in support of the very idea that climate change exists. Democrats on the panel had suggested three amendments that said climate change is a real thing, is caused by humans and has potentially dire consequences for the future. The amendments came on a Republican bill to block the EPA from offering regulations to mitigate the results of global climate shifts. The global scientific community is in near unanimous agreement that climate change is real, and that humans contribute to it."
Rush Limbaugh thinks it's a hilarious irony that the Japanese, who are famous environmentalists, have been hit with an environmental disaster. And they're recycling at their refuge camps. This man is a bona fide sociopath. Media Matters has the transcript. Here's their video:
Emergency! Quick, before anybody notices that even Glenn Beck knows James O'Keefe is a scam artist. Benjy Sarlin of TPM: "House Republicans are holding an emergency meeting of the Rules Committee on Wednesday to take up legislation that would block funding to NPR in the wake of James O'Keefe's hidden camera prank on the news organization.... A spokesman for the Rules Committee Democrats, Shurid Sen, called the bill 'a reactionary response to the O'Keefe video' and said it was being 'rushed to the floor' without going through regular committee hearings." ...
... Alex Pareene of Salon posts on Beck's little war on O'Keefe & Andrew Breitbart. ...
... How Gullible Is NPR? Jamison Foser of Media Matters has a startling post on NPR's coverage of James O'Keefe: "NPR repeatedly covered O'Keefe, and adopted his (false) claims about what his videos showed. But only a single NPR report ... contained so much as an allegation that he'd ever been less than honest. NPR's coverage of O'Keefe helped enhance his stature and credibility."
Kendra Marr of Politico: "Michele Bachmann fired back at the media Tuesday, saying her Revolutionary War gaffe was only reported because she is a conservative politician." CW: actually, Congresswoman, the media are reporting on your misrepresentations because you think a person as ignorant of American history as you are is qualified to be president. Backstory in the March 13 Commentariat.
Local News
Jim Dwyer of the New York Times: as the state legislature of New York aims to cut healthcare costs, there's one area they refuse to touch: executive compensation. Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick, a Democrat whose district includes Greenwich Village, is bucking the system by "sponsoring a bill that would limit executive salaries at publicly financed hospitals to $250,000." Glick lamented the loss of the 160-year-old Still, "the top 10 executives took home about $6 million that year. They may have gone out of business, but they didn’t go cheap."
Scott Rothschild of the Lawrence Journal World: after initially refusing to apologize for suggesting that illegal immigrants should be shot from helicopters in the same way the state shoots feral hogs, Kansas state Rep. Virgil Peck, a Republican, issued an apology Tuesday. Less than an hour before Peck apologized, Republican Gov. Sam Brownbeck said the legislator should apologize. See original story in yesterday's Commentariat. With audio.
Matthew Haggman & Martha Brannigan of the Miami Herald: "Voters swept Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez out of office by a stunning margin [almost 90 percent!] Tuesday, capping a dramatic collapse for a politician who was given increased authority by voters four years ago to clean up much-maligned county government but was ushered out in the largest recall of a local politician in U.S. history. The spectacular fall from power comes after two years of missteps, ranging from granting top staffers big pay hikes to construction of a publicly funded stadium for the Florida Marlins to implementation of a property-tax rate increase...."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The New York Times said Wednesday that four of its journalists reporting on the conflict in were missing.... The missing journalists are Anthony Shadid, the Beirut bureau chief and twice winner of the for foreign reporting; Stephen Farrell, a reporter and videographer who was kidnapped by the in 2009 and rescued by British commandos; and two photographers, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, who have worked extensively in the Middle East and Africa."
"Blood Money Deal." Washington Post: "A CIA contractor who shot and killed two Pakistani men was freed from prison on Wednesday after the United States paid $2.34 million in 'blood money' to the victims’ families, Pakistani officials said, defusing a dispute that had strained ties between Washington and Islamabad. In what appeared to be carefully choreographed end to the diplomatic crisis, the U.S. Embassy said the Justice Department had opened an investigation into the killings on Jan. 27 by Raymond Allen Davis. It thanked the families for 'their generosity' in pardoning Davis, but did not mention any money changing hands."
New York Times: "’s nuclear crisis intensified dramatically on Wednesday after the authorities announced that a second reactor unit at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan may have ruptured and appeared to be releasing radioactive steam." ...
... Los Angeles Times: "A series of grim developments hit a shaken Japan on Wednesday, including reports that high-level radiation may have leaked from a second damaged nuclear reactor and that emergency workers were forced to temporarily scramble for safety. The setbacks aggravated public fears that authorities might not be able to contain the expanding nuclear crisis." ...
... New York Times: "Emperor of , in an unprecedented television address to the nation, said on Wednesday that he was 'deeply worried' about the ongoing nuclear crisis at several stricken reactors and asked for people to act with compassion 'to overcome these difficult times.' An official with the Imperial Household Agency said that Akihito had never before delivered a nationally televised address of any kind, not even in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 that killed more than 6,000 people. The address was videotaped."
New York Times: "Stepping up its involvement in ’s , the Obama administration has begun sending [unarmed] drones deep into Mexican territory to gather intelligence that helps locate major traffickers and follow their networks, according to American and Mexican officials."
Los Angeles Times: "The GOP-led House approved a short-term spending bill Tuesday but only after dozens of Republicans rejected the measure, forcing party leaders to rely on Democrats to achieve passage and help skirt a threatened government shutdown.... With House conservatives opposing their party's stopgap proposal as inadequate, the vote also signals trouble ahead for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) as he negotiates a long-term deal with Democrats on behalf of a deeply split Republican caucus."
Al Jazeera: "Security forces in Bahrain have driven out pro-democracy protesters from the Pear Roundabout in the capital Manama. Helicopters hovered overhead as troops backed by tanks stormed the site - the focal point of weeks-long anti-government protests in the tiny kingdom - early on Wednesday, an Al Jazeera correspondent said. Multiple explosions were heard and smoke was seen billowing over central Manama." With video.
Al Jazeera: "At least 120 people have been wounded in renewed clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in the Yemeni port city of Al-Hudayah. Witnesses said police and government loyalists attacked anti-government protesters with tear gas, rocks and bullets on Wednesday. The violence comes as pro-democracy opposition groups and students escalate their campaign to remove Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president for 32 years, from power."
New York Times: "The former chief executive of Freddie Mac may face a civil action as the government ramps up an investigation of disclosure practices at the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, people briefed on the investigation said. The executive, Richard F. Syron, a former president of the American Stock Exchange and now an adjunct professor and trustee at Boston College, has received a so-called Wells notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission, an indication the agency is considering an enforcement action against him."
AP: ousted former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is expected to return to Haiti soon. Meanwhile, former dictator Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier is living in luxury in a private villa. Haiti will hold a presidential run-off election Sunday between "two outspoken Aristide critics, singer Michel Martelly and law professor Mirlande Manigat."
A Made-for-TV Horror Story. Los Angeles Times: On Tuesday, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged "the German-born con man Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter — alias Chris Chichester, Christopher Crowe and Clark Rockefeller ... with the 1985 murder of his 26-year-old San Marino landlord. The skeleton of Jonathan Sohus, a computer programmer who had mysteriously disappeared with his wife, Linda, was discovered in the backyard of the San Marino home in 1994. But Los Angeles area authorities had been unable to locate Gerhartsreiter...." The AP story is here.
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