Month: April 2013

The Democrats’ savvy plan to win the important elite opinion vote

by digby

So, according to Brian Beutler, the Republicans are balking at having a conference to iron out the differences between the Senate and House budgets. This is hypocritical in the extreme,obviously, since they’ve been braying about the Democratic senate failing to produce a budget for years and now that they have one, they don’t want one. But there’s a reason for it:

To explain the about-face, consider what happens if conferees begin meeting and negotiating right away. In this phase of regular order, leadership has less control over the course of events, and pretty much everything is majority rule. Democratic negotiators will be able to relitigate the fight they won in the election. They’ll agree to entitlement spending cuts. They might even reluctantly embrace a provision in President Obama’s budget — chained CPI — that would among other things slow the growth of Social Security benefits. But only if Republicans agree to ditch the anti-tax absolutism.

Republicans would thus be forced to choose between agreeing to new taxes and triggering a huge conservative revolt; or exacerbating the public’s sense that their party is pathologically unable to compromise.

Democrats are privately pleased to find Republicans back in a box. But in public they’re pressing and taunting Republicans to back up words with action.

It’s nice to know they’re already planning on agreeing to entitlement cuts and “reluctantly” accepting the Chained-CPI. Particularly since they weren’t even included in the Senate bill or the progressive plan. But hey, it will be so worth it if only we can show that the Democrats are the adults in the room which is really all that matters:

The GOP could avoid that headache by pulling the plug on the budget debate altogether. But that will reinforce a growing sense among elite opinion makers that Republicans the obstacle to a budget deal that puts the era of fiscal brinksmanship behind us.

If that’s what they’re after, I have to wonder why they just don’t pass the Ryan budget. The elite opinion makers would hail it as a bipartisan breakthrough of epic proportions. Of course, a few more wily “negotiations” like these and we’ll be there anyway, so maybe it’s just another part of their cunning plan.

Update: And about that “fix” the Democrats insist will keep this harmless accounting adjustment that better reflects the real cost of living from devastating people who don’t have a lot of money:

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QOTD: Corey Robin

by digby

Liberals often have a difficult time making sense of these [anti-tax] movements – don’t taxes support good things? – because they don’t see how little the American state directly provides to its citizens, relative to their economic circumstances. Since the early 1970s, with a few brief exceptions, workers’ wages have stagnated. What has the state offered in response? Public transport is virtually non-existent. Even with Obama’s reforms, the state does not provide healthcare or insurance to most people. Outside wealthy communities, state schools often fail to deliver a real education. In such circumstances, is it any wonder ordinary citizens want their taxes cut? That at least is change they can believe in.

He’s got a point.

I’d also like to give a shout out to the liberal media for its relentless “fleecing of America” stories that give the impression that the government is only wasting the people’s hard earned money. Very helpful.

Meanwhile, as we watch CNN self-immolate on the air, I think this wrap-up by brooklynbadboy sums up what’s happening in the beltway pretty well:

Okay, so the White House is now facing imminent defeat in the Democratically controlled Senate on legislation the President has staked a huge amount of his political capital. This is the first time I’ve seen a 90% approval issue fail. Combine that with no movement on important judicial and executive branch nominations. So far we’ve seen a stupid $1 trillion dollar discretionary spending cut we were told was never going to happen, happen. And of course we’ve witnessed the political mess of the White House winning the worst kind of friends by attacking Social Security and making enemies of damn near everyone else.

We’re seeing stagnant workforce numbers, with still record numbers leaving the labor force, even more with some of the crappiest jobs imaginable, and even more stuck in the mud with few upside prospects. Not to mention austerity economics coming from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. And as a result, the president’s popularity is falling underwater and people still feel the country is careening.

If there’s at least one possible glimmer of win on the horizon, perhaps it is on immigration reform, but I’m not hopeful. The House is already talking about breaking up the bill. Considering this White House will always fight for any sort of line they can sign no matter how miniscule, I suspect by the time we get to the end of that process we will have possibly some watered down Dream Act and some extra money for border drones. That’s bout it.

Yup.

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Your latest media debacle

by digby

If you happen to be watching TV right now, you are seeing one of the most embarrassing moments in CNN history.  They confirmed that an arrest had been made in the Boston bombing and it’s well … not true.  Pete Williams on NBC stuck to his guns when everyone else was recycling CNN and made what anyone would probably agree is the logical assumption:  they had found some video that showed who they thought was the bomber but they are trying to identify him and put together the evidence. That’s it.

It may be that they know who this person is by now and they may be in the process of arresting him for all we know, but they were completely wrong in saying they knew who he was. Unless the guy is a well known person and they got a really, really good look at him, it stands to reason that this would take some time.

Poor John King.  He went way out on a limb and looks very foolish. So does CNN’s “expert” former Bush national security advisor Fran Townsend who put it all on the line for sources who obviously burned her. Wolf Blitzer practically had an orgasm on live TV.

I actually feel bad about this.  The world would be a better place with a well run 24 hour breaking news network like CNN used to be. This isn’t helpful.

Check out this storify to see just how this whole debacle unfolded on twitter. What a mess.

Courtesy TPM, here it is in all its glory:

The best context and perspective on the bombing on cable news

by digby

…. was by Chris Hayes, yesterday:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

An excerpt:

We look back at the torture regime and rightly bemoan the lack of accountability from George W. Bush to Dick Cheney to David Addington and John Yoo. The entire culture and society shifted in a dark direction. Dick Cheney said famously and ominously, we would have to work the dark side. He was giving voice to a voice being articulated in our papers and cable news channels. I remember the second tower had hardly fallen when I started reading commentators openly contemplating or advocating for torture, the suspension of due process and all kinds of harsh draconian measures. 

Ultimately, the people responsible for the torture regime are the government officials who made the key decisions, but the fertile soil into which the seeds of torture were planted were provided by the commentators, pundits and law professors who made it seem acceptable in the minds of the public in the wake of 9/11. That is why the aftermath of an event like Boston, we have a duty to fight the darkest impulses in ourselves, in our fellow country men and women, to make clear to our leader that we desire security and justice and the application of the rule of law. That there is no reason that our remarkably capable law enforcement officials and courts can’t handle apprehending, trying and convicting the perpetrators of this slaughter. 

And it is why I was so angered and disappointed when i saw Slate’s great reporter David Weigel report that Susan Collins said this today: “The question is: What do we do once we do capture the individual? How’s he treated? If he’s an American, obviously, then the constitutional protections pertain. If he is a foreign national, in my view, then he should be held by a military tribunal and he should not be read his Miranda rights as [the Christmas Day Bomber] was.” 

Yes, Susan Collins, a voice of bipartisan reason telling reporters that if the person apprehended happens to be a foreign national– what a disgrace and what an insult to the american system of justice. And what ignorance. The fifth amendment of the constitution which protects the right to due process is quite clear about who it applies to. It reads “no person shall be held to answer for capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury nor be deprived of life, liberty of process.” Not no citizen, no person. A French national is arrested in a bar fight, he gets access to a lawyer, is arraigned, charged and tried. We don’t have some special carve out in the law for foreigners. Our laws are our laws.

Watch it all if you have the time.

Did anyone else on the news shows even think about this over the past couple of days? If they did, I missed it. (In fact, apparently most of the media are themselves “tortured” by the fact that they don’t know who to launch the lynch mob against just yet.)

And yet, after their terribly destructive behavior in the wake of 9/11, every member of congress and the media should be reminding herself not to be panic artists this time. These people have some very serious moral obligations to work off. It’s the least they can do.

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The break though agreement to begin thinking about talking about gun control

by digby

As we await the news as to whether or not certain red state Senators can find the cojones to oppose the NRA, this puts the whole thing in perspective.

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Rushing to judgment

by David Atkins

The Saudi man who was reported as a “person of interest” in the Boston bombing, isn’t:

U.S. law enforcement officials said Tuesday that a Saudi national injured in the Boston Marathon bombing is regarded as a witness, not a suspect.

The Saudi, who is recuperating at a Boston hospital, is in his 20s and is in the United States on a Saudi scholarship to study at a university in the Boston area.

We don’t know anything specific yet, but if it does turn out to be a homegrown attack, a lot of conservatives and conservative organizations are going to have egg on their face.

I doubt it will stop people from taking them seriously next time, though. People believe what they want to believe.

Update from digby: This New Yorker piece by Amy Davidson gets into the details. This part is the one that gets me:

After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction—so was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. “Exhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,” President Obama said. “They helped one another, consoled one another,” Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said. In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then “tackled” him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.

What made them suspect him? He was running—so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb—as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead—a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?

What happened next didn’t take long. “Investigators have a suspect—a Saudi Arabian national—in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, The Post has learned.” That’s the New York Post, which went on to cite Fox News. The “Saudi suspect”—still faceless—suddenly gave anxieties a form. He was said to be in custody; or maybe his hospital bed was being guarded. The Boston police, who weren’t saying much of anything, disputed the report—sort of. “Honestly, I don’t know where they’re getting their information from, but it didn’t come from us,” a police spokesman said. But were they talking to someone? Maybe. “Person of interest” became a phrase of both avoidance and insinuation. On the Atlas Shrugs Web site, there was a note that his name in Arabic meant “sword.” At an evening press conference, Ed Davis, the police commissioner, said that no suspect was in custody. But that was about when the dogs were in the apartment building in Revere—an inquiry that was seized on by some as, if not an indictment, at least a vindication of their suspicions.

“There must be enough evidence to keep him there,” Andrew Napolitano said on “Fox and Friends”—“there” being the hospital. “They must be learning information which is of a suspicious nature,” Steve Doocy interjected. “If he was clearly innocent, would they have been able to search his house?” Napolitano thought that a judge would take any reason at a moment like this, but there had to be “something”—maybe he appeared “deceitful.” As Mediaite pointed out, Megyn Kelly put a slight break on it (as she has been known to do) by asking if there might have been some “racial profiling,” but then, after a round of speculation about his visa (Napolitano: “Was he a real student, or was that a front?”), she asked, “What’s the story on his ability to lawyer up?”

By Tuesday afternoon, the fever had broken. Report after report said that he was a witness, not a suspect. “He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” a “U.S. official” told CNN. (So were a lot of people at the marathon.) Even Fox News reported that he’d been “ruled out.” At a press conference, Governor Deval Patrick spoke, not so obliquely, about being careful not to treat “categories of people in uncharitable ways.”

The thing that gets to me is that he was terribly injured in the blast, running away as any sane person would do and then someone tackled him. It’s heartbreaking.

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Pity the poor reporters

by digby

The plaintive wail of the impatient journalist waiting to be spoon-fed the news:

“The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers said, for the umpteenth time, at a press conference early Tuesday evening.

For many journalists I’ve spoken with today, this ignorance is tortuous. The identification of the attacker(s) and the reasons for the attack will likely have enormous political (and potentially geoplitical) ramifications, which will vary greatly depending on whether the attacker(s) is domestic or foreign, acting alone or as part of an organization. We’re standing on the verge of a very important national conversation about something, and we have no idea what it is.

Others have managed to find solace in this. Over at the American Interest, Walter Russell Mead welcomes the waiting period. “It allows us to treat the horror on its own terms, to see the pure evil of this act divorced from any rationalization or justification,” he writes. “Each hour that has gone by since the blast, each new report of heroism among the survivors and responders, each new detail about the identity of the victims clarifies the essential truth of the situation: there is no cause that can justify this deed.”

I agree with that last point, but find no similar solace. I want to know the cause — not because I’m eager to politicize the tragedy, but because I want to know where our national conversation is headed. A great deal of political, financial and emotional capital depends on the answer to that question.

Right.  He doesn’t want to “politicize” it he just wants to know where the political, financial and emotional “capital” will be spent.

I have read a lot of fatuous reporting on this event but I think this one may take the cake. The idea that they are “tortured” because they don’t yet have all the information is just ridiculous. Moreover, the whining, passive tone is embarrassing. Reporters should be beyond busy right now (and many are),  trying to get the story. Find new angles, write about the victims, get perspectives from people who’ve been there or from experts, contextualize it. Just waiting around for someone to tell you who did it so you know whether it’s going to be a “left” or “right” story isn’t actually journalism.  I don’t even think it’s blogging.  He could, for instance write about something else. It’s not the only story in the world.

This is a perfect example of what’s wrong with the beltway press. They literally see everything in the world in terms of the way it’s divided up (in their minds) politically. This is a very shallow view of humanity and it’s telling that they are anxious and “tortured” when faced with a lack of the information that would allow them to fit their news pegs neatly into their designated holes. I’ve always thought there was a psychological dimension to this and this seems to confirm it.

This attitude is a problem and not just for the press but for all of us. The world is a messy place and we need journalism that doesn’t rigidly adhere to a particular narrative in order to understand it. It’s gotten us into a lot of trouble in recent years.

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Complications on guns and immigration

by digby

Before the bombing yesterday, I happened to hear Debbie Wasserman Shultz comment that she thought the gun bill was probably going to be tougher to pass than immigration and it would appear that’s probably so. She was talking about the senate, but it looks like it may be headed for trouble in the senate too. It’s the usual problem of red state Democrats voting with the Republicans. In fact, this time they won’t even vote to break the filibuster and allow a vote (which they could then vote no on!)I’m going to guess they understand very well that the people won’t care if they allow a vote, but the NRA sure will. Red State Democrats are hardly ever profiles in courage:

Senate Democrats were desperately working Tuesday to keep alive the modest bipartisan legislation to expand mandatory background checks to some gun sales, claiming momentum in public and offering new concessions to skeptical senators in private.

The epic struggle to pass even a minimal tightening of gun laws — a scaled-back version of the universal checks that 90 percent of Americans support — is yet another testament to the power of the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, which opposes the compromise.

The deal announced last Wednesday by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales was supposed to be the breakthrough that secured 60 votes for the cause. It didn’t happen. Democrats conceded Tuesday that they lacked the necessary votes to overcome a filibuster and were seeking to win over fence-sitting senators by considering exemptions.

“Now, am I saying it’s all over with, done, we got the votes? No,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “But we certainly feel we have the wind at our back.”

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) confirmed Tuesday that Manchin, Toomey and supporters of their bill are open to carving out an exemption that permits gun dealers who live more than a hundred miles from a firearm licensee to sell a firearm without conducting a background check on the buyer. The aim is to win senators from states like Alaska and North Dakota, which have large rural constituencies.

And so it goes. It may still pass. But it’s getting harder. I just read that the Dems now need to “run the table.” And who knows what the kooks in the House will do?

As Wasserman-Shultz also said yesterday, immigration reform has the added benefit of having a political motivation for the Republicans. As much as many in their base hate Mexicans, they still need some of them to vote for them or the presidency is out of their grasp.

I’m very much for immigration reform, obviously. And I sincerely hope something rational passes, even though the usual good old boys like Senator Jeff Sessions are yanking all the usual chains. But honestly, can they actually justify this level of added spending at a time when they are starving the government everywhere else?

• $3 billion to increase manpower and resources, including up to 3,500 Border Patrol agents, grants to local law enforcement agencies, unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance technology and Department of Defense radar technology.

• Authorizes the deployment of National Guardsmen to help build Border Patrol outposts and monitor the region.

• $1.5 billion to extend the 651 miles of existing fencing across the 1,969-mile border.

Once that plan is developed and submitted to Congress, the nation’s unauthorized immigrants could apply for temporary legal status.

There’s never any lack of money when it comes to policing agencies is there? Even when it’s for absurd projects like patrolling thousands of miles of border with drones. (What are we going to do, shoot hellfire missiles at them?) And to make the undocumented wait until the military industrial complex and DHS get all the goodies on their wish list is just sick.

I guess this may be the best we can do, but what a ridiculous bunch of hoops these people will have to jump through:

Immigrants would be able to achieve that status — and be known as “Registered Provisional Immigrants” — if they entered the U.S. before Dec. 31, 2011, and maintained continuous physical presence in the country, pass a criminal background check and pay $500 and any outstanding taxes. That temporary status could be renewed six years later with an additional $500 payment.

Meanwhile, all business owners would have to begin checking the immigration status of new hires using the federal E-Verify program, and the government would have to implement a program to track every time a person enters and exits the country.

Homeland Security would then face a big test five years after starting its border security program. The agency will have to prove that it is monitoring 100% of the border, and intercepting 90% of people trying to illegally cross it in “high-risk” areas.

If Homeland Security doesn’t reach those goals, the job would be handed over to a newly-created “Southern Border Security Commission” made up of governors from the four border states – California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas – and other border experts appointed by the president and leaders of both parties of Congress.

The commission would receive an additional $2 billion to develop and implement a strategy to reach those goals. But the commission would not need to reach any statistical benchmarks for border security before Registered Provisional Immigrants to begin applying for green cards.

Ten years after the bill is passed, and after paying an additional $1,000 fee, those who have remained under temporary legal status could apply for a green card, and then U.S. citizenship three years later.

If they live that long.

Oh, and by the way, the wingnuts still consider this “amnesty” and they think it’s soft on the border. I think they really won’t be happy unless we decide that it’s legal to use those hellfire missiles on little Mexican women and children. It’s working so well elsewhere ….

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Numbers don’t lie


by digby

I know, I know. Scott Adams is right winger. But sometimes he just nails it:

*In case you’re wondering why, read this.

h/t to @shinobi42

QOTD: Laura Ingraham

by digby

On Boston:

LAURA INGRAHAM: This, in my mind, raises all sorts of questions. I mean, again, we don’t know who did this, motivations, all of that. But it is interesting that at this moment — we are considering legalizing or giving regularized status to millions of people. Pretty much none of them have gone through any rigorous background checks, to have a temporary status in the United States.

And we don’t — I just think that there are all sorts of security implications aside from the other arguments on immigration — national security implications that we don’t talk about with enough frankness and I think certitude here. We can’t stop every attack, but my goodness, if we had borders that were shut down and we actually had a proper screening process, maybe we could stop some of them.

Right. Because undocumented workers perpetrating bombings has long been identified as a huge problem in America. It’s a shocking oversight on the part of our law enforcement. We really need to get on that.

Meanwhile,  the good news is that we’re on board with thorough background checks on American citizens, right?  No? Oh, I forgot, Americans are good and “they’re” evil. In fact, it’s downright unpatriotic to ask Americans to undergo a background check for any reason at all — even if they’re buying weapons for which the only possible use is to kill people.

We all know that God-fearing Americans cannot, by definition, commit acts of terrorism (unless they are left wing, in which case they are communists and therefore not God-fearing) so it’s all good.

Update:  Ooops.  It looks like Ingraham’s not alone:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, a prominent House conservative, says Congress should be cautious about rushing immigration reform, especially after Monday’s bombing in Boston, where three people were killed.

“Some of the speculation that has come out is that yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa,” King says. “If that’s the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture.”

On immigration, King says national security should be the focus now, and any talk about a path to legalization should be put on hold.

“We need to be ever vigilant,” he says. “We need to go far deeper into our border crossings. . . . We need to take a look at the visa-waiver program and wonder what we’re doing. If we can’t background-check people that are coming from Saudi Arabia, how do we think we are going to background check the 11 to 20 million people that are here from who knows where?”

The kook faction has officially weighed in.

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