The Commentariat -- March 26
The President's Weekly Address, March 26
The President says that thanks to our men and women in uniform, the military mission in Libya is succeeding even as responsibility is transferred to our NATO allies and partners.
... Here's the transcript. AND here's an AP report.
I had been thinking of featuring an Outrage of the Day. But there are so many. -- Constant Weader ...
... ** Karen Garcia: "Honeywell International, whose CEO [David Cote] is a member of President Obama's Bipartisan Deficit Reduction ('Cat Food') Commission, has pleaded guilty to knowingly storing hazardous radioactive waste without a permit, and has been sentenced in federal court to pay a criminal fine of $11.8 million." CW: you won't find this horror story in the major media, but it should have been front-page news. ...
... But unless you're a rich criminal like David Cote or Angelo Mozilo (see below), the government will go to practically any lengths to put you in jail on the slightest excuse. ...
... Joe Nocera's last "Talking Business" column -- he's moving to the New York Times op-ed page -- will fucking infuriate you: "A few weeks ago, when the Justice Department decided not to prosecute , the former chief executive of Countrywide, I wrote a column lamenting the fact that none of the big fish were likely to go to prison.... [But] there was, in fact, someone behind bars for what he’d supposedly done during the subprime bubble.... Charlie Engle wasn’t a seller of bad mortgages. He was a borrower. And the 'mortgage fraud' for which he was prosecuted was something that literally millions of Americans did during the subprime bubble. Supposedly, he lied on two liar loans." You must read Nocera's whole column to see the extraordinary effort the government made to prosecute Engle. Their "best evidence," acquired via an attractive female IRS agent wearing a wire, couldn't be more flimsy. ...
... Along similar lines, Thom Hartmann writes, "American in the 21st century is bringing back debtors’ prisons. People who can’t pay off their credit cards can be thrown in jail in a third of the states in our nation – and since the start of 2010 – over 5,000 arrest warrants have been issued against people who owe as little as $1,000 to massively profitable corporations like Capital One." ...
... Sorry, this is not a government of, by and for the people. ...
... ** Bob Herbert writes his last column for the New York Times: "Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline.... Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim.... Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush.... The corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home." ...
... Noam Cohen of the New York Times: "... as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are ... continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts.... In a six-month period..., Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times.... In the United States, telecommunication companies do not have to report precisely what material they collect...," but Schmitt broadly impolies they're selling info about you to marketers. ...
... This is not a love song. It is, after all, a "Police" "Sting":
Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy on why the Libyan war coalition is the smallest multinational war coalition in decades. ...
... Bruce Ackerman of Foreign Policy: "In taking the country into a war with Libya, Barack Obama's administration is breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency -- an executive who increasingly acts independently of Congress at home and abroad. Obtaining a U.N. Security Council resolution has legitimated U.S. bombing raids under international law. But the U.N. Charter is not a substitute for the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress, not the president, the power 'to declare war.'"
... Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: U.S. Air Force Capt. Ryan Thulin tells of his raid over Libya.
Paul Krugman deplores the Wisconsin GOP's attempt to intimidate UW-Madison Prof. William Cronon for having the audacity to write a New York Times op-ed on the history of Wisconsin's Republican progressivism. See yesterday's Commentariat for the backstory. As Krugman writes of the GOP's open-records request for Cronon's personal e-mails, "Cronon has a wisconsin.edu email address — but nobody, and I mean nobody, considers such academic email addresses something specially reserved for university business." CW: my husband & I get plenty of e-mails from academics writing on dot.edu's, & many of them are of a highly personal nature. I consider this Republican witchhunt worse than an assault on academic freedom or an attempt at intimidation -- it's invasion of privacy. Do you want the world reading your e-mails? ...
... Jonathan Adler of the Volokh Conspiracy adds an interesting twist to the story: it seems the GOP was upset not by Cronon's op-ed but by an earlier blogpost he wrote in which he wrote about "the American Legislative Exchange Council, largely crediting ALEC with the push for anti-public-sector-union legislation in many states." How does Adler know? Because Cronon's blogpost appeared March 15, the GOP records request was made March 17, and the Times didn't published Cronon's op-ed till March 21. In fact, Adler contends -- absent evidence -- that Cronon wrote his op-ed in retaliation for the records search:
The open records request infuriated Prof. Cronon, and with good reason. Even if justified under Wisconsin state law, the request looks like an effort to intimidate a prominent critic by conducting a fishing expedition through private communications — an expedition aimed at producing fodder for additional attacks on his reputation. ...
... Update. BUT the editors of the New York Times say they asked Cronon to write his op-ed "earlier this month" and that Cronon wrote his blogpost as a result of the research results for the op-ed. Kinda shoots the hell out of Adler's revenge theory. The editoris say the "shabby crusade" of the Wisconsin Republicans makes them "appear vengeful and ridiculous." ...
... The Times has a story here, but it's by A. G. Sulzberger, the Times family scion, & he is known for not getting his stories too straight.
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Nine years after a scandal in Boston prompted America’s Roman Catholic bishops to announce sweeping policy changes to protect children from sexual abuse by priests, the bishops are scrambling to contain the damage from a growing crisis in Philadelphia that has challenged the credibility of their own safeguards.... Church officials are ... deeply troubled by how it is possible that in the bishops’ most recent annual 'audit' — conducted by an outside agency to monitor each diocese’s compliance with the policy changes — Philadelphia passed with flying colors...."
Right Wing World *
The Many Flip-Flops of Newt:
Obviously, my analysis is going to change as the facts on the ground change." -- Newt Gingrich. Translation: If Obama does it, it's wrong.
... Here's the TPM print story by Benjy Sarlin. ...
... He just can't shut up. Until you replace this president and until you have the Congress and the new president replace large parts of our bureaucracies, we’re going to continue to be dominated by a secular, anti-Christian and anti-Jewish elite, which is seeking to impose on us rules that make zero sense. -- Newt Gingrich
... Kendra Marr of Politico: "Newt Gingrich says he could sign as many as 200 executive orders on his first day as president, accomplishing everything from abolishing a circuit court to further tightening restrictions on federal funding for abortions." CW: oh, Newt, why not just sign them now, as you're just as likely to be president now as you will be in January 2013.
* Where facts never intrude.
Local News
Lawrence Journal World: "A group of Hispanic advocates on Friday delivered to the Statehouse petitions signed by nearly 60,000 people, calling for state Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, to resign from office for his remarks about shooting illegal immigrants. Representatives from several Hispanic groups delivered petitions to Gov. Sam Brownback and House Speaker Mike O'Neal.... Members of the group said they feared Peck's comment could incite violence against Hispanics and said Gov. Sam Brownback and House Speaker Mike O'Neal, both Republicans, should insist Peck step down."
Fort Myers News-Press: "U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV announced today that he is not running for the Senate seat held by Democrat Bill Nelson. He said that he would seek re-election to his fifth term in District 14 as a member of the House of Representatives." CW: bad news for me. Connie Mack, or CoMa to me, is my useless congressman. I was so hoping he would run & Nelson would dispose of him.
News Ledes
AP: "A quarter-million mostly peaceful demonstrators marched through central London on Saturday against the toughest cuts to public spending since World War II, with some small breakaway groups smashing windows at banks and shops and spray painting logos on the walls." My friend Peter S. sent me this link to the Guardian's photos of the protests.
New York Times: Canadian "Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Saturday that Canadians would vote on May 2, the shortest possible campaign period under the country’s laws."
New York Times: "Rebels in Libya seized Ajdabiya on Saturday, witnesses said, succeeding in an effort to retake a key town in the east following another night of allied air strikes against forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi." ...
... Washington Post: "The United States and its allies are considering whether to supply weapons to the Libyan opposition as coalition airstrikes fail to dislodge government forces from around key contested towns, according to U.S. and European officials. France actively supports training and arming the rebels, and the Obama administration believes the United Nations resolution that authorized international intervention in Libya has the 'flexibility' to allow such assistance...."
Washington Post: "A new sense of national identity is spreading across Yemen’s divided society as rival tribesmen and political foes unite to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who on Friday said he would step aside as long as he could deliver power to 'safe hands.'”
Washington Post: "Syrian security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas rounds at protesters Friday, killing an undetermined number of people, as unrest that had been mostly contained in a small southwestern city erupted across the country, including the capital, Damascus."
New York Times: "With time running short and budget negotiations this week having reached an angry impasse, Congressional leaders are growing increasingly pessimistic about reaching a bipartisan deal that would avert a government shutdown in early April."
Washington Post: "Federal Aviation Administrator Randy Babbitt said Friday that he will revamp air traffic control guidelines nationwide after an incident in which the lone supervisor on duty in the Reagan National Airport tower slept while two airliners landed on their own.... The National Air Traffic Controllers Association urged that staffing be doubled at other airports that have one person in the tower during overnight shifts. The controllers union said those include San Diego; Sacramento; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Tucson; Orlando; Reno, Nev.; and Burlington, Vt."
Los Angeles Times: "A hiring surge led by California's hallmark industries — high tech, movies and tourism — generated nearly 100,000 net new jobs in February and offered the strongest sign yet that the state economy is on the mend. The 96,500-job jump was the biggest monthly increase since the current record system began in 1990, state officials said. California had added a paltry 700 jobs in January."
New York Times: "A law to limit collective bargaining rights for public workers in Wisconsin was unexpectedly published by a state agency on Friday despite a temporary restraining order barring publication, sparking confusion and more animosity among legislators who have fiercely debated the issue for weeks.... Democrats argued on Friday that the law would not go into effect on Saturday because it still required official publication by the secretary of state.... But Republicans said they believed the law would take effect on Saturday."
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