On the supercommittee

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For the last week or so, I’ve been reading all over the place about what a colossal failure the Congressional supercommittee has been for failing to reach a deficit deal and, as a consequence, automatically triggering $1.2 trillion of “sequester” cuts. To take one recent example, this week’s Economist stated that “the implications of the committee’s failure are more disturbing than the reaction of the markets has let on” and argued that, going forward, “Congress will be trying to undo the supposedly automatic budget cuts it agreed to only in order to make it impossible for the supercommittee to fail.”

Perhaps this is a naive question, but why is no one floating the possibility that the “failure” of the supercommittee was actually intentional? Or at the very least, semi-intentional. One of the biggest problems with the debt negotiations going all the way back to the debt-ceiling crisis, it seems to me, was that even the members of Congress who wanted to cut a deal felt they didn’t have sufficient political cover to do so. This was especially true on the Republican side, which is facing extraordinary rightward pressures from the Tea Party, Grover Norquist’s cultish no-tax-increases “pledge,” et al.

So then, wouldn’t automatically triggered cuts, in the event of a “failure” to reach a deal, work beautifully for both sides? In that, during months of negotiations, the two parties couldn’t reach any agreement in the traditional sense (writing a deficit-reduction bill and passing it) due to pressures from their respective political bases, instituting the very same type of deal but calling it a “failure” (for which each side can blame the other) is a fancy little way of avoiding criticism by pretending that that the “sequester” cuts were not expected to ever occur. Now, both Republicans and Democrats get to hammer each other for obstructing the deal, but there’s no clear loser — except for the institution of Congress itself, whose approval ratings are, quite frankly, already at rock-bottom anyway. Democrats get to talk about how they’ve cut defense (liberal red meat) and how Obama will veto any attempts to reverse this; Republicans get to crow about taking a step to tackle the deficit (conservative red meat). I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “win-win” situation, but I don’t see how it’s particularly damaging for the parties either. The one “loser” besides Congress in all of this could be Obama, but given the disparity between his approval ratings and those of Congress, it seems the American public has at least a cursory notion of which institution has proved itself so useless for the past couple years.

Am I wrong on this?

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Today’s ironic-in-retrospect quote

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Paul Krugman, 11/14/2001:

But two months into the war on terrorism, we’re starting to get a sense of how little this war will actually cost. And it’s time to start asking some hard questions.

At the beginning of the week we learned that the war is currently costing around $1 billion per month. Oddly, this was reported as if it were a lot of money. But it’s only about half of 1 percent of the federal budget. In monetary terms, not only doesn’t this look like World War II, it looks trivial compared with the gulf war. No mystery there; how hard is it for a superpower to tip the balance in the civil war of a small, poor nation? At this rate, even five years of war on terrorism would cost only $60 billion…

So the budgetary cost of the war on terrorism, abroad and at home, looks like fairly small change. Even counting the measures that are likely to pass despite Mr. Bush’s threat, I have a hard time coming up with a total cost that exceeds $200 billion.

Oops.

 

Press organizations protest police treatment

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A few months ago I noted (in a somewhat hyperbolic tone, or so I thought at the time) that the methods used by London authorities to quell the summer riots were heavy-handed and oddly reminiscent of practices more often associated with ne’er-do-well authoritarian dictatorships in the Middle East.

Well, things have only gotten weirder since then. The Occupy Wall Street movement — which, in my judgment, would likely have been ignored long ago if not for senseless police brutality — really picked up steam this past week, when a campus police officer at UC Davis pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters. (Try saying that five times fast.) The school’s chancellor, who was initially somewhat defiant, has since apologized.

And yet perhaps the more notable form of anti-police brutality backlash came in the form of this New York Times post, which stated, “A cross-section of 13 news organizations in New York City lodged complaints on Monday about the New York Police Department’s treatment of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

What I found particularly disturbing about the UC Davis incident, apart from the obvious insanity of the event itself, was the extraordinarily calm and collected manner in which the officer sprayed the students. There were cameras everywhere; he had to have seen them. A police force that can act with such impunity, metaphorically taunting the cameras with its nonchalance, is not fit to “protect” a populace. Coming less than one month after a strange scene in the Bronx in which hundreds of off-duty cops angrily protested their colleagues’ apparently justified indictments for ticket-fixing, one increasingly gets the impression that police departments around the country are collectively in need of a major overhaul. (In that Bronx story, the police even went so far as to taunt welfare recipients, and some wore t-shirts that read, “Improving everyone’s quality of life but our own.”)

I would like to suggest that this start a national conversation about police tactics, but genuine national conversation doesn’t seem to be much in vogue these days.

UPDATE (11/23/2011 1:42 AM Paris time): Well, that certainly didn’t take long. One Times reporter fires a warning shot.

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Maybe it’s just me…

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…but the New York Times appears to be missing the point entirely:

Occupy Wall Street protesters have touched a nerve with their slogan, “We are the 99 percent.” It has focused attention on the ground gained by the rich even as a brutal economy has pushed the typical American family backward. Economic inequality may or may not become a central issue in the presidential race, but the candidates have at least one reason to hope it does not.

A look at the finances of those vying for the presidency shows that almost all of them rank at the very top of the country’s earners. In other words, they are the 1 percent.

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Live-blogging tonight’s Republican presidential debate

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Hello! Are you ready? I’ll be live-blogging from Paris, where I’m sitting on a couch in the living room and generally wondering why I’m not asleep.

2:01 AM — Hello, and welcome to the nth GOP debate (n, in this case, stands for infinity). Anderson Cooper just showed up, and we’re now watching a truly entertaining (in a car-wreck sort of way) promo video about…the American West, Las Vegas, and (I think) the Republican debate.

2:03 AM — And the crowd goes wild! Can I just say, I love Anderson Cooper. Also, I have a full glass of wine waiting for me, and another half-bottle in the kitchen. I think I may have to turn this night into a 9-9-9 drinking game.

2:04 AM — Newt Gingrich is announced. I take a quick sip of merlot.

2:05 AM — They just announced Rick Santorum’s name. I suddenly have this uncontrollable impulse to Google something.

2:06 AM — While the national anthem is sung, a large video of the waving American flag is displayed at the front of the theater, just in case we didn’t get the point that this debate is taking place in the United States. Honestly, would any other country allow a pizza magnate to lead a presidential race? There has to be a law against this somewhere.

2:09 AM — Ron Paul opens with, “I am the champion of liberty.” And I am Captain America, but we can’t all be heroes, Ron.

2:11 AM — +1 to Bachmann for incorporating the “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” slogan. She also just got the first question from the audience, which means she has now matched her entire TV exposure from the last three debates combined. I give her three minutes until she mentions her 1500 or so foster kids/army.

2:13 AM — Herman Cain is speaking about the economy. I compulsively gulp down more wine.

2:14 AM — “Herman’s well-meaning,” says Santorum, “but what is a black guy doing on stage?” OK, so I may have made up that last part, but I know he was thinking it.

2:15 AM — Cain: “I invite every American to do their own math.” Now you’re just stealing George W. Bush’s intellectual property, Herman. Not cool.

2:16 AM — This debate has gotten off to a surprisingly wonky start. Wow, and then Rick Perry just called Herman Cain “brother” twice in thirty seconds. Not a good sign from a guy who may or may not have painted over a rock named “Niggerhead.”

2:18 AM — Cain is under fire. Big time. You can almost see the thought-bubble around Anderson Cooper’s head: “Fight. Fight. Fight!”

2:19 AM — Cain is holding up surprisingly well so far. He must’ve eaten a lot of pizza beforehand. Oops, spoke too soon. Romney just calmly, coolly, and calculatingly owned him. Just like the cruel, job-killing CEO he is. Where do I sign up?

2:22 AM — Gingrich with a good line. When asked why he thought Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would be a hard sell, he quickly replied, “You just watched it.” Well played, Mr. 1994. Well played.

2:24 AM — And there it is! Ronald Reagan gets mentioned by Bachmann. I’m going to go ahead and drink one for the Gipper right here.

2:26 AM — OK, I’ll say it: Rick Perry looks better this time around. Now time to take Mitt to task over health care.

2:27 AM — Rick Santorum’s plan: Kill all gay people and bomb every country starting with the letter I. (I really need to stop making things up. What is it with me and Santorum?)

2:29 AM — Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney Go. At. It. “Rick, Rick, let me speak.” But I have to say (gulping down my pride): Santorum was right. Romney’s lying.

2:32 AM — Now it’s Mitt’s turn to get hammered. And by Newt, of all people. And now Bachmann.

2:36 AM — Andddd we take a break. Which means I take a drink. It’s getting a little hot in here.

2:40 AM — Rick Perry looks sick every time he’s called on. I know that feeling from sitting in the front row at comedy clubs. I guess there is a minor difference, though, since I’m not running for president.

2:43 AM — Wow, Mitt actually reached out and touched Rick for several seconds. I was waiting for a fistfight. Didn’t happen. But the fight continues.

2:45 AM — Mitt Romney just inadvertently admitted he had to fire the undocumented immigrants that landscaped his lawn because he’s running for public office. Gotta admire the man’s honesty. Even if it wasn’t on purpose.

2:48 AM — I cannot believe Rick Perry just advocated using Predator drones in the service of guarding the border. Then, just as I was regaining my composure, Bachmann pinged Obama on his undocumented relatives previously living in the US. Wow. This is getting dirty. And disgusting. (Now she said English will be the official language of the United States government.)

2:54 AM — A Latino questioner reasonably asks what message the Republican candidates have for Latinos in the United States. Newt Gingrich ably evades the entire question. Ron Paul immediately begins discussing how to “attract Latino votes.” Sorry, Ronnie, but that wasn’t the question; it was just what you heard. And Herman Cain makes it a trifecta of avoidance. Make it quadrafecta (is that a word?), with the addition of Perry.

2:58 AM — It is unclear whether Michele Bachman supports the repeal of the 14th Amendment. I have just downed the rest of my merlot. Now she just finished educating us all on “anchor babies.”

3:04 AM — Mark notes that Rick Perry just referred to France as a “who.” This personification is, however, a step up from the usual way Republicans address France-related issues. That said, he did have a bit of a hard time remembering what the 10th Amendment is. (Don’t we all.)

3:09 AM — No way! Bachman just said, “I’m a mom.” But then she did not mention the foster kids. What happened? Did someone trademark the phrase?

3:11 AM — Ron Paul dings the Fed. I guess we could all see that coming. When do we get our next commercial break so I can refill my glass?

3:18 AM — Another break in progress. Another glass of merlot for me.

3:27 AM — Bachmann: “That makes all of us much danger.” Or something along those lines.

3:28 AM — Bachmann: “First Obama brought us into Libya. And now he’s gone into Africa.” You can’t make this up.

3:30 AM — Uh oh. Here come the Israel questions. I always cringe a little when this happens in GOP debates. Cain on the Gilad Shalit deal: I would not negotiate with terrorists, but it’s possible I would make a Gilad Shalit-type deal. Coherent as always.

3:34 AM — Ron Paul: “I want someone willing to cut something.” So, so true. But when it comes to defense, no one will touch anything. Except the brave Rick Perry, who just announced he wants to defund the UN. Sure.

3:38 AM — Michele Bachmann actually just said she wants Iraq and Libya to “compensate” the United States for “liberating” its citizens. There really are no words. Her comments speak for themselves.

3:40 AM — Ron Paul just nails everyone else by asking if they would condemn Ronald Reagan for his hostage deal with the Iranians. Rick Santorum stumbles through a response. Why is Ron Paul so crazy on some issues? If it weren’t for, well, every single domestic policy he has, I’d vote for him immediately.

3:49 AM — Rick Perry keeps getting booed. This is especially shocking at a Republican primary debate, where Rick Perry should absolutely own.

3:51 AM — Michele Bachmann is just about crying that her time is almost over. Her desperation is really showing. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich continues his streak of being incredibly cranky.

3:53 AM — And that’s it. This may be the beginning of the end for Rick Perry. Even with his stronger responses, he may have crossed a line with some of them and got booed multiple times.

3:55 AM — And that’s good night from me.

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And then there were eight

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Tim Pawlenty drops out of the presidential race this morning.

Practically speaking, there may still be nine candidates left, depending on what’s going on in Sarah Palin’s inscrutable mind.

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Key moments from last night’s debate

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I didn’t get the chance to watch the Republican presidential debate on FOX last night, where it seems that Bret Baier and Chris Wallace did a great job of asking tough (if at times off-topic) questions. But I’ve caught up on the highlights and the reactions, and here are a few of what seemed like the important (or funny, or depressing) points to me.

1. When asked for a show of hands as to who would walk away from a budget deal that contained a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases, every single one of the eight Republican candidates raised their hands. Every single one of them claimed to oppose a 10-to-1 deal on the grounds that it isn’t good enough. I don’t think the below video needs any additional commentary; it speaks for itself.

2. Ron Paul thoroughly schooled Rick Santorum on Iran. Santorum’s incoherent foreign policy was no match for Ron Paul’s common-sense advice to simply try to imagine putting oneself in Iran’s shoes, surrounded as it is by nuclear threats, to determine why it might be so interested (assuming that it is) in pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities.

3. Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann took the gloves off last night (something Pawlenty was accused of being unable or unwilling to do in relation to Mitt Romney and “Obamneycare” in the previous debate). While looking a little more feisty this time around, T-Paw nevertheless wasn’t able to do much damage, as Bachmann ably pivoted with some sharp-edged comebacks of her own. (It almost goes without saying that neither of the two showed even the slightest glimpses of ability to govern, preferring instead to boast of their uncompromising positions on everything, but such is the nature of the primaries, and especially so with today’s GOP.) I’m not certain what Bachmann achieves by going head-to-head with Pawlenty, though, since he’s possibly on the verge of being forced out due to lack of traction, and she’s running at or near the top in polls.

4. I’m a bit torn on this one: Far be it from me to agree with Newt Gingrich on anything, but he may have a point here. While I do think that Wallace and Baier largely seemed to do an admirable job of asking questions that voters wanted to hear, Gingrich was understandably (also, self-servingly) frustrated with questions that pertained more to campaign dynamics and gossip than actual policy positions. Given the frequent insanity on policy positions emanating from all the Republican candidates (Gingrich himself being perhaps the most notable in that regard), I can’t say I entirely disagree with his take on the questions.

5. Jon Huntsman. Whatever happened to this guy?

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Just an observation

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From the New York Times today:

The BBC and other British news organizations reported Tuesday that the police may be permitted to use rubber bullets for the first time as part of the government’s strengthened response to any resumption of the mayhem. David Lammy, Britain’s intellectual-property minister, also called for a suspension of Blackberry’s encrypted instant message service. Many rioters, exploiting that service, had been able to organize mobs and outmaneuver the police, who were ill-equipped to monitor it. [emphasis mine] “It is unfortunate, but for the very short term, London can’t have a night like the last,” Mr. Lammy said in a Twitter post.

This sounds awfully familiar. It is also, as Andrew Sullivan would likely dub it, Greenwald bait.

It goes without saying that most aspects of the London riots are entirely different than those that have been taking place all over the Middle East this year. Nevertheless, it is sometimes helpful to remind ourselves what exactly separates “us” from “them,” as a preemptive guard against a gradual erosion of civil liberties. We’ve learned that lesson the hard way in the United States since 9/11 — and perhaps more depressingly, many have yet to grasp it.

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On Glenn Greenwald, Israel, and The Godfather III

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Over the last several days, I’ve been commenting on the blog Sad Red Earth, run by A. Jay Adler. The post, guest-written by Rob H., that sparked the extensive comments was titled “Glenn Greenwald’s False Accusation Against The New York Times.” In it, Rob accused Glenn Greenwald, a political blogger on Salon.com, of falsely attributing anti-Muslim bias to the New York Times, which ran a headline immediately after the recent Oslo attacks stating, “Powerful Explosions Hit Oslo; Jihadis Claim Responsibility.”

Greenwald wrote that “for much of the day…the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo.” In reality, Rob countered, “the truth turned out to be that the headline he sharply criticized in two columns — over two days — was only online for about two hours, and NOT ‘much of the day.’ I confirmed this with a Senior Editor at The Times by simply sending him an email inquiring about the headline in question.”

First of all, assuming Rob is telling the truth (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), one should give credit where credit is due. Rob was right, and Greenwald was wrong. In fact, not only was he wrong, but his misinformation looks a bit suspicious: it’s difficult to mistake two hours for most of a day without some pretty severe preconceived biases.

The comments section of Rob’s post soon spun off into a million different directions, however, only some of which were related to the original subject. In general, the comments either supported or rebutted one of the following topics:

1) Glenn Greenwald “often makes mistakes and even admits it while declaring he’ll make many more.” He is thus irresponsible and unreliable as a writer/thinker, and is guilty of committing the same journalistic crimes as those he so often pillories.

2) Greenwald’s “worse [sic] trait is that, in Chomsky style, he truly sees the U.S. as nothing but a force of evil in the world, an [sic] also has this nasty little habit of advancing explicitly anti-Semitic arguments.”

3) As A. Jay put it, “Which is it – you want something ‘out of’ our relationship with Israel that you think we don’t get, or you morally can’t ‘stomach’ Israel? You can’t stomach Syria either, but at least you’re not paying for the upset, and that’s bottom line? And there are not other bases upon which to distinguish between then two and upon which to base our relations with them?”

4) The Godfather III. Don’t ask; I’ll explain later on in this post.

Continue reading On Glenn Greenwald, Israel, and The Godfather III →

Thoughts on the debt ceiling

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It looks like we may avert a debt disaster after all. Of course, this will come at a heavy price, namely deep cuts which will stifle an already nearly-dead recovery. Furthermore, this proposed agreement would include approximately $2.5 trillion in cuts over the next decade with absolutely no increased revenue. Considering the GOP currently controls one-half of one-third of our national government, this is a Republican coup de grâce if there ever was one.

Below are my thoughts, adopted from an email I wrote yesterday to friends.

—
Most people in this country believe that the debt ceiling allows us to spend more money, take on bigger obligations, etc. This is not the case, and is a hugely important distinction, especially because almost everyone doesn’t realize this (unless they follow the debate closely, which most Americans don’t). It simply allows us to pay for our existing debt obligations. Obama loves to use the analogy of someone who buys a car, drives it off the lot, and then refuses to make his monthly car payments. In that case, the debt ceiling is hit when he fails to make a payment, not when he tries to buy a new car.

Interestingly, I think it was in the Economist that someone mentioned that the debt ceiling itself is an archaic and almost obsolete invention, and only the US and Denmark, I believe, use it (although, true to stereotype, the Danish are much more timely about getting it raised).

But the point is, the debt ceiling represents money we’ve already spent. Increased spending down the road is an entirely separate issue. (Ironically, if we do default on our debts, the nation’s debt is going to increase significantly due to interest rate hikes alone.) Furthermore, Republicans raised the debt limit 7 times under Bush, 11 times under Reagan, etc. and, while the potential of its raising has occasionally been used as a cudgel to enact small reforms, the threat of default has never yet been wielded to my knowledge. Many like to bring up the fact that Obama voted against raising the debt limit in 2006, for which he has since (conveniently) expressed regret, but it is important to note that he did so in protest against a then-assured debt ceiling increase (in a Congress in which both houses were controlled by the GOP). There is a huge difference between taking a symbolic no vote against certain passage and actually holding the nation hostage until one’s own rigid policy prescriptions are implemented, the threat of default be damned.

Finally, in that we do have a debt ceiling and in that it does represent existing — not future — spending, it might be helpful to take a look at who’s contributed the most to its ever-increasing levels and draw one’s own conclusions about fiscal hypocrisy.

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