a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists.
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Susie Madrak - Suburban Guerilla

Arthur Silber - ONCE UPON A TIME...

Gary Farber - Amygdala

JOSH MARSHALL (TPM) - Wow. Just Wow

My email to TPM, in response to this post:

"I think you're overlooking the main issue re: Manning. It's not outrageous that political elites believe low-level leakers deserve punishment. It is outrageous that they try to portray low-level leaking as a near-capital crime. In particular, I believe that if Manning gets a sentence harsher than Charles Graner's, then America's moral credibility is basically finished. People will still fear American explosions, respect American logistics, but truth and justice will no longer have anything to do with the American way."

I'm a bit ashamed at my vehemence. Nevertheless, I find the prospect of America treating prisoners of conscience more harshly than they treat rapists or most murderers appalling, and it suggests something has gone very wrong with the American state. The analogy that seems appropriate to me is prosecutions in Islamic states for blasphemy and apostasy. And the more obvious it becomes that overly harsh treatment of Manning and Snowden is not appropriate, the deeper into unreason the American state goes, hardening its heart and doubling down on its folly.

I wouldn't like living in a religious theocracy, a state that claimed to know the will of God. But I would like even less living in a military theocracy, a state that claims to know which citizens have aided the enemy, even when those citizens had absolutely no contact with America's enemies, and no intention of helping them. By the logic of the Bradley Manning prosecution, it seems very clear that Winston Churchill could have been prosecuted for aiding the enemy, when he leaked stories of British military weakness to the public, including to the Germans.

Think about this: Until Manning leaked those documents, there had not been one single publicly released estimate or study by the US government of the number of people killed in the Iraq or Afghan wars. If the fundamental task of an American citizen in this time period was to determine whether  the death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan was "worth it", the US government was making it impossible for American citizens to carry out their duties, by hiding those numbers, and the reality behind those numbers, from them. If the US government refuses to tell us roughly who it is killing, and why, how are we supposed to evaluate that killing? By pictures of kids getting candy, or schools being painted?

I think if you look at my blog posts from 2002-2005, I was very trusting, and respectful, of the national security establishment. It was only after iteration and iteration of "6 more months, 6 more months", that gradually it dawned on me that these people might not be telling the truth. Partly in honor of the troops who have died and suffered. Partly because they had no idea what the truth was, and were operating on the principle of "fake it till you make it". And partly, it must be said, because of the money and the contracts.

Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) - On whistleblowers and government threats of investigation

There seems to be this mentality in Washington that as soon as they stamp TOP SECRET on something they've done we're all supposed to quiver and allow them to do whatever they want without transparency or accountability under its banner. These endless investigations and prosecutions and threats are designed to bolster that fear-driven dynamic. 

Andrew Blake (Vice) - THE TORTURE OF BRADLEY MANNING

Among the documents Pfc. Manning allegedly leaked are the Afghan War Diaries, the Iraq War Logs, secret diplomatic communications, and a video of US soldiers firing at Iraqi civilians and journalists from the air. . ."This is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare,” Pfc. Manning is alleged to have written of the footage.

“When you look at the offense of aiding the enemy and take it out of this case and simply say, ‘If you can possibly aid the enemy by giving information to the press with no intent that that information land in the hands of the enemy, and by that mere action alone you could be found to have aided the enemy,’ that’s a scary proposition,” said Coombs. “Right there that would silence a lot of critics of our government, and that’s what makes our government great, in that we foster that criticism and often times when its deserved, we make changes. “ 

 Irin Carmon (Salon) - Laura Poitras and the NSA story

Chase Madar (Nation) - Bradley Manning aided the American people, not the enemy

Gary Younge (Guardian) - the Bradley Manning trial

Younge's article is a must-read, IMO.

next post: 12/17/2013



posted by Krishna Rangarajan at 11:34 AM

 
Arthur Silber - ONCE UPON A TIME...

Gary Farber - Amygdala

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerilla) - Philadelphia, City of Creepy Crimes

 [re: Gosnell] Ron: . . .I’m old enough to remember when stories like this were in the paper every week. Then laws against abortion were overturned and women stopped dying. . .

SAMIR NAJI al HASAN MOQBEL (NYT) - Gitmo Is Killing Me

LAKHDAR BOUMEDIENE (NYT) - My Guantánamo Nightmare

Ray McGovern (OpEd News) - The Deepening Shame of Guantanamo

Philip Weiss (Mondoweiss) - What you need to know about Bradley Manning

Mike Koozmin (SF Examiner) - Daniel Ellsberg speaks up for Bradley Manning

Michael H. Miller (Observer) - Just a Crook? Pentagon Papers Lawyer Thinks Obama Is Worse Than Nixon

Now, the man who successfully fought Nixon says President Obama has an even more troubling record. He has indicted six leakers to Nixon’s one. . .

Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) - Attacks on Stephen Hawking, transparency for Manning

The assertion that leaking of classified information is a serious problem in Washington DC is dubious, to say the least. We're living in a period where among the worst blunders in American foreign policy history - the Iraq war and the Afghan surge - were made because of too much secrecy and too much worship of classified information, not too little. In particular, The case for Iraqi WMD rested on two Iraqi expats who happened to be liars,  but the American people were not informed of this, because the people capable of accurately analyzing the data did not have access to it. We have become a nation where powerful people can classify the evidence of their mistakes, and then prosecute whistleblowers who leak this information.

If Bradley Manning can be charged with aiding the enemy on grounds he leaked documents to the public, one can only conclude the American elite considers the public their enemy.

I'm going on a blog hiatus for the next 6 months. My main hope for this political period is that Bradley Manning receives some fairness, in consideration to the sentences given to Charles Graner, Lynndie England, and the two officers who burned Pat Tillman's uniform and diary, in an attempt to cover up the circumstances of his death.

A country where whistleblowers who reveal information with intent to expose abuses, are punished more harshly than people who commit abuses, is a country whose judicial system has lost its bearings. I hope it finds them.

a bigger IRS scandal:

Janelle Griffith (NJSL) - Lauryn Hill speaks out for first time since sentencing, thanks supporters

It would have been better if Lauryn Hill had kept on top of her finances and paid her taxes in a timely manner, but I see zero evidence that what she did was anywhere close to deserving a prison sentence. I'm appalled by the practice of the American justice system, of not enforcing a rule or regulation 999 times, but the 1000th time finding some poor sod and subjecting them to the full weight of the law, on grounds that "we believe in the rule of law" and for reasons of "deterrence".

I think the Lauryn Hill jailing is a bigger scandal that the Tea Party targeting, but I think the Tea Party targeting is a real scandal, though a fairly small one. The Tea Party groups had to live in a state of limbo for years, constantly worrying if the IRS was going to drop the hammer on them. That's a real thing to be concerned about. I think the objectively right policy is something like:
1) a group should not have a tax exemption unless its activities are 90% social welfare.
2) there should be an informal understanding that the IRS does not enforce until the social welfare component drops to 75%
3) If the IRS enforces, rules should be enforced consistently, and as leniently as possible.

As for the appropriate punishment for the IRS agents, I think they should be given a chance to explain their actions, and if their actions are defensible (and I think they probably are. The notion that Tea Party groups are social welfare organizations seems preposterous, on its face. They seem, clearly, to be political organizations, and if the political organizations I have given money to - Blue America PAC, the PCCC, DFA and the DNC - don't get a tax-exemption, why should the Tea Party?), they should be let off with a mild warning.

Bill James (Slate) - Life, Liberty, and Breaking the Rules: In defense of Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, jaywalkers, and all the other scofflaws that make America great.

the question I would urge you to think about is not only "Are these people guilty?" It is also, "Is this prosecution necessary and appropriate?"

I think this is one of the most important sentence fragments ever to appear in Slate magazine.

Richard McGregor (FT) - Lunch with the FT: Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi launches into a lengthy explanation of what happened in 2010. Obamacare, the emissions trading bill, the “lies” spread by the Republicans, and then the failure of a bill to force business lobbies to disclose the source of foreign donations. “As soon as that failed, the money just poured in,” she says, into Republican coffers, although she doesn’t say where from.

I find it incredibly telling, and incredibly infuriating, that Nancy Pelosi's answer was not much simpler, and much shorter: "The jobs and income numbers were terrible, and voters held us accountable".

Arturo (Racialicious) - Voices: Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

"To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts." –Roger Ebert, book excerpt posted in Salon, 2011.

next post: 12-17-2013


posted by Krishna Rangarajan at 12:54 AM

 
Andrew Sullivan (The Dish) - The Passion Of David Kuo

Sarah Kliff (Wonkblog) - Arijit Guha, student who battled Aetna over cancer coverage, dies

Deep Thought, by Melissa McEwan: "Losing the capacity to oppress is not oppression."

Though I think this applies not only to unfashionable oppressors like the Westboro Baptist Church, but also to fashionable oppressors like money-lenders who get debt-collection agencies to do their dirty work, or the people overseeing overzealous government regulation of non-violent offenses. Or a permanent war which entitles us to kill people, without trying to keep an accurate record of who we are killing, and why.

(Via Glenn Greenwald) TBIJ - In Video: Naming the Dead

Monica Potts (American Prospect) - The Weeklies

Monica Potts (American Prospect) - The Runaways

Beth Schwartzapfel (Boston Review) - Who Shot Valerie Finley?

As Beth Schwartzapfel explains, the evidence is very, very, strong that a man named Angel Melendez shot Valerie Finley, not Rodney Stanberry, who was convicted and is still in prison for the crime. Unfortunately, the prosecutor, Buzz Jordan, who prosecuted Stanberry, is not willing to consider the possibility he might have made a mistake.

Liliana Segura (Nation) - Are Memphis Prosecutors Trying to Send an Innocent Man Back to Death Row?

As Liliana Segura explains, the evidence is very strong that a man named Patrick Johnson shot Donald Williams, not Timothy Terrell McKinney, who was jailed and is currently being re-prosecuted for the crime. Unfortunately, the Shelby County prosecutors, who are prosecuting McKinney, are not willing to consider the possibility they might have made a mistake.

Arthur Silber - Bad Times

Susie Madrak - Suburban Guerilla

Gary Farber - Amygdala

Diane (cab drollery) - With Deep Gratitude

Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) - Bradley Manning's personal statement to court martial

Edward Wasserman (Miami Herald) - Commentary: Media throw Bradley Manning to the wolves

I can understand someone believing that Bradley Manning leaking the lowest level of classified documents was problematic, troubling, even wrong. I can not understand, can not begin to wrap my head around, how anyone could believe that what Bradley Manning did was worse than what Charles Graner did. I can not understand how anyone could believe that what Bradley Manning did was worse than what Lynndie England did. I can not undersand how anyone could believe that what Bradley Manning did was worse than what the two officers who burned Pat Tillman's uniform and diary, in an attempt to cover up the circumstances of his death, did.

Yet the US Government, under a hip, stylish, liberal president, with a hip, stylish, liberal, spouse, with the approval of the entire respectable American liberal establishment, appears to believe that what Bradley Manning did was not only worse than what the perpetrators of Abu Graibh did, but 40 or 50 times worse. It seems to me deeply obscene.

I can't help liking all of the respectable liberals who have stayed pointedly silent on the outrage of the Bradley Manning prosecution. But I no longer trust them. And the more I think about it, the angrier I get, and the more I no longer want anything to do with them.

Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) - The persecution of Barrett Brown - and how to fight it

Create Our Own Light - Steubenville’s Jane Doe asked people to do something…

Adria Richards - Endlessly Enthusiastic Technology Evangelist

Andrew Sullivan (Dish) - Sexism In Silicon Valley, Ctd

Steve Marx: "It's very unfortunate that the guy lost his job, but I feel that the blame for that lies with his employer, not @adriarichards."  Adria Richards: "@smarx @x3rames clearly. I made comment on HN I didn't agree with his employer firing him."

Dylan Matthews (Wonkblog) - Mark Kleiman on why we need to solve our alcohol problem to solve our crime problem

Matt Campbell (Kansas City Star) - Iraq War veteran, who wrote letter to Bush and Cheney, is ready to die on his own terms

Tomas Young (Truthdig) - The Last Letter

Teju Cole (New Yorker) - A Reader's War

MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE (NYT) - Influential Ex-Aide to Obama Voices Concern on Drone Strikes

Juan Cole (Informed Comment) - What we Did to Iraq

digby (Hullabaloo) - Truth's Consequences

Andrew J. Bacevich (Harper's) - A Letter to Paul Wolfowitz - Occasioned by the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war

Looking back on March 2003, what I remember is that I did not know my own mind until the first bombs fell. I never believed in the national security case for war, and I don't think anyone else did either. The reason the national security establishment, as a whole, was so eager for war was that everybody knew Saddam was weak, and had no significant ability to hit back. It was clearly a war fought for money, glory and revenge, rather than a war fought to address a national security threat. Merrill McPeak, when coming out against the war, expressed this sentiment well: "Everybody's getting a medal. Everybody's coming home. It's hard to oppose this thing."

But I was not so sure about the humanitarian case for war, the argument that the Iraqi people would want us to declare war on their country in order to remove Saddam. I didn't realize Daniel Davies's lesson, "Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them to gain acceptance". If the only justification for this war was humanitarian, then every troop, every person with a role in dropping those bombs, should have been told that this was not a war fought for national security, this was a war fought in order to benefit the Iraqi people. The national security establishment wanted it both ways: They wanted the tactical freedom to fight a war of national security, while at the same time they wanted the moral kudos for fighting a humanitarian war.

But still I didn't oppose the war, maybe because I had in my mind the image of Saddam being toppled, and of Iraqis, on the whole, being happy that it was done. It was only when Bush, in order to placate Tommy Franks, announced a 48 hour grace period for Saddam, and I realized that I didn't want the grace period to end, I didn't want those bombs to start dropping, did I realize the war was a mistake, killing and injuring people when you didn't have to was a mistake, that this war was an act of evil, and not an act of good.

I guess in part because of the Iraq war, I now believe that a fundamental part of being a good hat is waiting for the bad hat to shoot first. The fact that the Coalition was the aggressor in the Iraq war made them the bad hats, no matter how good their intentions may have been. And if a Judeo-Christian alliance initiates a war of aggression against Iran, then that makes them the bad hats, no matter how evil, or even dangerous, the Iranian regime may be. The murder of Iranian scientists was an act of great evil, as was the murder of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria and India, and the plotters responsible for those murders deserve to be punished for their actions. "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go".

I'm not sure it's relevant to this discussion, but if you can imagine what an English drone war against material supporters of the IRA, conducted in Ireland and Massachusetts, would look like, then I think you are in the proper frame of mind to understand what the hell has been going on in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen these past 14 years. Of course, you might say that the IRA was never responsible for anything as bad as 9/11, and you would be right. On the other hand, 99.9999% of the people we've killed in the past 14 years have had nothing to do with 9/11, either.

C.S. Lewis - On Living in an Atomic Age

. . .it is part of our spiritual law never to put survival first: not even the survival of our species. We must resolutely train ourselves to feel that the survival of humans on this Earth, much more of our own nation or culture or class, is not worth having unless it can be had by honourable and merciful means.
    
    The sacrifice is not so great as it seems. Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs. . .

(Via Shengbo Wang) Mary Westmacott - A Daughter's A Daughter

'Listen, Ann, there are just two things that I've no use for whatever - someone telling me how noble they are and what moral reasons they have for the things they do, and the other is someone going on moaning about how wickedly they have behaved. Both statements may be true - recognise the truth of your actions, by all means, but having done so, pass on. You can't put the clock back and you can't usually undo what you've done. Continue living.'

Charles Pierce (Esquire) - Iraq War Anniversary

There were people who got it right. Anthony Zinni. Eric Shinseki. Hans Blix. Mohamed ElBaradei. The McClatchy Washington bureau guys. Dozens of liberal academics who got called fifth-columnists and worse. Professional military men whose careers suffered as a result. Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets around the world. The governments of Canada and France. Those people, I will listen to this week

TIM WU (New Yorker) - FIXING THE WORST LAW IN TECHNOLOGY

TIM WU (New Yorker) - How the Legal System Failed Aaron Swartz—And Us

LARISSA MACFARQUHAR (New Yorker) - REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

Justin Peters (Slate) - The Idealist Aaron Swartz wanted to save the world. Why couldn’t he save himself?

Justin Peters (Slate) - Eric Holder to Senate Judiciary Committee: Aaron Swartz Case Was “A Good Use of Prosecutorial Discretion"

Justin Peters (Slate) - Yes, Your NCAA Office Pool is Probably Illegal.

If you believe in the rule of law, as people sometimes idiotically claim to do, you should turn yourself in.

Dean Baker (CEPR) - Ezra Klein Gives Real Coverage to the Progressive Caucus Budget

Drug Policy Alliance - Women and Gender in the Drug War

David Dayen (Pacific Standard) - Signed, Sealed, Deposited

Falguni A. Sheth - Translation Exercises

Echidne of the Snakes

Freddie - L'Hote

Matthew Yglesias (Slate) - The Rent Is Too Damn High

Duncan Black (USA Today) - The Incomes Are Too Damn Low

Mike Konczal (American Prospect) - Automatic Stabilizers: There When Congress Isn't

Alyssa Rosenberg (Think Progress) - ‘Enlightened,’ Aaron Swartz And The Consequences Of Activism

(Via MJ Rosenberg) BEN EHRENREICH (NYT) - The occupation is a terrible thing that should not continue, and should be resisted nonviolently

MJ Rosenberg - My Position On A Fair Solution To The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

MJ Rosenberg (Washington Spectator) - Obama in Jerusalem: No Big Surprises But Mission Accomplished

An interesting post by Steve Randy Waldman, on the fairly shaky grounds for believing the fight-song economist* argument for privileging capital over labor:

*That is, the collection of economists who have jobs at institutions that have fight-songs

Steve Randy Waldman (interfludity) - K is not capital, L is not labor

. . .let’s assume that the economy is characterized by permanent two-factor, constant-returns-to-scale production function. . .What distinguishes these factors and leaves one optimally taxed, the other optimally untaxed? Fundamentally, the difference is that capital accumulates, while labor does not. . .eliminating conventional capital taxes shifts the cost of government to wages, which include returns to human capital. If human capital accumulation is as or more important than other forms of capital accumulation, and if the quality of effort that people devote to building human capital is wage-sensitive, then taxing wages in preference to financial capital may be quite perverse. . .One final point: The force that drives the Chamley-Judd conclusion is the long-term elasticity of capital provision to interest rates. . .this sort of calculation does not seem to describe economy-wide savings behavior very well. Aggregate purchases of financial assets seem to be insensitive to returns. . .

Just this once, I'm going with the lawyer, and not with the econ PhDs:

. . .Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. . .

I would add this: any theory, whose implication is that thrifty, risk-averse billionaires who live on 5K a year and salt away the rest in T-Bills, should pay a tax rate of near-zero, while someone making and consuming 5K a year should pay a rate many multiples of that, is to me obviously false: a theory that has been falsified by reality.

Determining exactly why theories are false is difficult ( "Why questions are difficult!" Though if I had to guess, I'd bet they're using the wrong production function, and the wrong utility function). But no one should feel bad about preferring the evidence of their own lying eyes, rather than the assertions of Garret Jones, or George Osborne, or Barack Obama*, or Jean-Claude Trichet, or even Paul Krugman. (I've always, for example, believed that Krugman's use of Okun's law is pretty dodgy, though unfortunately, nobody seems to have a better way of determining potential output)

*Obama is included in this list because 1) He seems to think he's done a wonderful job on the economy, despite the fact that a lot of people don't seem to have very much money 2) His highest priority on economic policy at the moment seems to be cutting Social Security.

One final point: I'm fairly sure Martin Feldstein wrote an article in 1993, about why the deadweight loss of the Clinton tax increases would be so large, they would not bring in any new revenue. I have no idea why Feldstein was wrong, but he was. Especially on a politically charged issue like taxes, very strong results greatly privileging your home team are likely to be wrong. IMO, that applies to the Picketty-Saez 70% number, as well as to the Garret Jones 0% number.

"I though these methodologies and techniques were supposed to be impartial!"
"Oh, Minister. Railway trains are impartial too, but if you lay down the lines for them that's the way they go."

I was interested in the discussions of writers and reporters and money. The question that occurs to me, is what portion of their income do writers and reporters spend on other people's writing and reporting, and how do they allocate those dollars?

I said in my previous post I would have my opinions on policy platforms in this post: I don't have too many opinions at the moment, just 2 opinions in the form of questions, organized around the words "war" and "work".

War:
1) How many people is our government killing and injuring? What are the tactical, strategic, legal, ethical reasons for these actions, and do these reasons make sufficient, or any, sense?

2) How many of our people are being killed and injured? And how can we prevent,  and where appropriate, avenge these deaths and injuries?

Work:
1) If your preferred policies are in place, what is your best estimate for when the economy will return to full employment?

I would like to evaluate American officials and pundits, in part, according to their answers to these questions.

I guess if the events of the last few days re: mr-hank, Adria Richards and Tim Noah prove anything, it's that rich people do, indeed, like firing people. Krugman: "it is an open secret that the chief payoff from being really rich is, as Tom Wolfe once put it, the pleasure of "seeing 'em jump.""

I see some weird liberal sneering at Ben Carson, so let me say I strongly disagree with the comparisons of Carson to Hermain Cain. Carson is, indeed, worthy of the greatest respect. Anyone who wonders why should read his books. His first book, "Gifted Hands", is the best, IMO, or at least the least controversial. The later books have large portions I agree with, or learned from, but also patches I either strongly disagreed with, or felt were just not well thought out. (Specifically, I'm thinking of the passage on Fallujah, and the passage on a "Saudi Arabian" solution to health-care overbilling)

I knew Carson is fairly conservative in some respects, but I also believed he supported universal health care and full-employment policies, so am somewhat surprised to hear him talked about as a GOP politician, instead of as an independent. I also never believed he had the love of the political game you probably need to be a good politician. If he did run, and he did have a plan for universal health care and full-employment, it's possible he might have a sort of interesting Salaam/Douthat-type platform, though he seems to be trending toward a libertarian Rand Paul direction.

One quote from Carson's 2008 book, "Take the Risk", which I think shows he is worth reading, even if you don't always agree with him:

I took them. . .to meet Mr. Jaek, the dapper young science teacher who . . .invited me to start coming by his room after school to help with the laboratory chores. He further sparked my interest in science by allowing me to feed and take care of the school's lab animals: a red squirrel, a tarantula, a Jack Dempsey fish, some crawfish, and more. . .I showed up with an ABC camera crew in my wake to find a bald and somewhat rumpled Mr. Jaek still teaching. He and I enjoyed a short reunion and reminisced for a while; then I wanted the video crew to see the wonderful collection of creatures in his lab. He shook his head sadly and said, "We don't have animals in our science lab anymore because of the risk that one of the students might get bitten or scratched. The school system can't afford the liability." I couldn't believe it! Well I could believe it. I just didn't want to believe it because I hated to think of generations of young students missing out on the very thing that sparked my interest in biology and kept feeding the dream that led to my becoming a medical scientist today. . .[page 119-120] 

UPDATE: Obviously disagree with Carson's recent comments implicitly equating homosexuality between consenting equals with bestiality and pedophilia. But the comments were fairly offhand, and unless he doubles down on those comments, don't fundamentally alter my respect for him. Liberals pouncing on those comments remind me of this Homer Simpson quote:

Yeah, yeah, that's his problem, he's a nut! It's not about me being lazy, it's about him being a crazy nut.

So I see Odub mocking Somerby, yet when I go to the Daily Howler site, it's still good: For example, Somerby links to a great piece by the one and only Gene Lyons. OTOH, this is pretty great.

UPDATE: Actually, it wasn't Oliver Willis, it was what's his name. Though reading the 2007-era Yglesias, I feel like Nat X screaming at Michael Jackson: "What happened to this boy, Michael? Where is he?" (should note I don't like the transphobia in the clip).

(Via Glenn Greenwald) Fred Branfman (Salon) - When Chomsky wept

Reading about the greatness of Chomsky makes me appreciate even more this blurb that appears on many of Martin Gardner's books: "Martin Gardner's contribution to contemporary intellectual culture is unique - in its range, its insight, and its understanding of hard questions that matter." - Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of Barriers.

I haven't read too much Jhumpa Lahiri, but did hear her read `Sexy' on NPR, and the ending is just about my favorite of any short story ever:

. . .She would see him one more Sunday, she decided, perhaps two. Then she would tell him the things she had known all along: that it wasn't fair to his wife, or to her, that they both deserved better, that there was no point in it dragging on. 

But the next Sunday it snowed, so much so that Dev couldn't tell his wife he was going running along the Charles. The Sunday after that, the snow had melted, but Miranda made plans to go to the movies with Laxmi, and when she told Dev this over the phone he didn't ask her to cancel them. The third Sunday she got up early and went out for a walk. It was cold, but sunny, and so she walked all the way down Commonwealth Avenue, past the restaurants where Dev had kissed her, and then she walked all the way to the Christian Science center. The Mapparium was closed, but she bought a cup of coffee nearby and sat on one of the benches in the plaza outside the church, gazing at its giant pillars and its massive dome, and at the clear-blue sky spread over the city. ♦

I guess I'm realizing the truth of this:

We may be content to remain what we call `ordinary people': but God is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility: it is laziness and cowardice. Not one of us is safe from some gross sin. On the other hand, no possible degree of holiness or heroism which has ever been recorded by the greatest saints is beyond us.

George MacDonald. An Anthology (edited by C.S.Lewis)

 [ 63 ] Be Ye Perfect
"I cannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and God does not expect it." - It would be more honest if he said, "I do not want to be perfect: I am content to be saved." Such as care for being what they call saved.

 next post: 6/18/2013


posted by Krishna Rangarajan at 8:34 PM

 
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/12/14/hard-to-comprehend/

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/brave-heart-gangrape-victim-wanted-to-live/article4252233.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/no-turning-back-now/article4253692.ece

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/06133786-42c1-11e2-a4e4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2J2b9wUG3

http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com

http://susiemadrak.com/

http://sashasaid.wordpress.com/

http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/

http://www.shakesville.com/

http://www.correntewire.com/

http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/

http://www.eschatonblog.com/

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/01/25/1497571/kiriakou-gitmo-torture/?mobile=nc

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/01/25/cia-whistleblower-john-kiriakou-sentenced-to-30-months-in-jail-wears-conviction-as-badge-of-honor/

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/01/17/bradley-mannings-defense-will-not-be-able-to-discuss-his-good-faith-during-trial/

http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/01/18/was-aaron-swartz-effort-to-foia-bradley-mannings-treatment-why-doj-treated-him-so-harshly/

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/01/aaron-swartzs-politics.html

http://briandonohue.org/?p=1306

http://canopycanopycanopy.com/updates/223

http://jacobbacharach.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/the-days-when-we-had-rest-o-soul-for-they-were-long/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swartz-and-the-corrupt-practice-of-plea-bargaining/

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172187/remembering-aaron-swartz#

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/01/now_barrett_brown_is_being_cha.php

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172439/what-deportation-looks

My primary emotion on Aaron Swartz's suicide is regret I didn't speak out against the treatment of him. In his brief life Aaron Swartz was a man who, to an incredible extent, never cold-shouldered, turned away or withheld his hand from anyone, and I wish we had done the same for him.  My primary memory is of Vince Foster's suicide, and John Brummett's chapter on Foster:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-brummett/highwire/

My primary thought is that we need better metrics for prosecutors. 2 suggestions: 1) the proportion of charges that a prosecutor brings that consist of BS crimes: wire fraud, mail fraud, computer fraud, perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, etc. versus real crimes: murder, rape, assault. 2) the spread between the threatened charges and the plea-bargain. A lower spread means a better prosecutor.

We need less and better prosecutors, in my opinion. One person's opinion I would really welcome on this subject is Vincent Bugliosi, one of the greatest prosecutors of all time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Bugliosi

This Radley Balko article is good for the most part, but the attempt to equate George Zimmerman's prosecution with Aaron Swartz's is wrong, IMO. Aaron Swartz did not kill anyone, George Zimmerman killed an unarmed teenager who he pursued, chased down, and initiated an altercation with.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/the-power-of-the-prosecut_n_2488653.html?1358359916

I think the Obama/Biden proposals on gun control are sensible and worth doing. However, I think gun control supporters should have some humility, because the worst shooting of this kind took place in Norway, a country with strong gun-control laws. There is a also a full-employment component to these shootings, it seems to me: After he dropped out of school, if Adam Lanza could have had a make-work guaranteed job, it seems to me it would have helped the situation. And I don't know whether failing school with the added burden of student loan debt increased James Holmes's bitterness.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fdba9c00-54db-11e2-89e0-00144feab49a.html#axzz2J2b9wUG3

I thought I would have nothing to say about politics, but I do have one thing: Somewhat to my surprise, perhaps regret, I find that if you want candidates to vote for in 2014, you have to start in 2013. A schedule that seems to me to make sense is November 2012-Easter 2013: campaign off-season; Easter 2013 - 4th of July 2013: platform discussions (What & Why); 4th of July 2013 - Labor Day 2013: Evaluation and/or recruitment of candidates, including current elected officials (Who); Labor Day 2013 - 2014 primary: primary campaign (How); 2014 primary dates (When). I'll have my opinions on platforms and litmus tests in my next blog post, in mid-April.

One opinion I have on a policy platform is that I don't want to vote for anyone who has not 1) constructed and/or endorsed a plan to achieve full-employment by the end of Obama's 2nd term, and having achieved it, keep it there more or less indefinitely 2) retroactively endorsed a plan that would have kept the economy at full-employment from 2007-2009, even given the strong demand shocks of that time period.

http://prospect.org/

http://jacobinmag.com/

http://prime.talkingpointsmemo.com/subscribe

http://www.juancole.com/

http://mjayrosenberg.com/

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/

http://thenewinquiry.com/

I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of the 1974 BBC adaptation of David Copperfield. I haven't mentioned my 2 favorite lines, from the first episode: "Hold your tongue, Traddles!" & "Be a man, Master Traddles!" I was so taken by Peter Bourke's performance as the (adult) Traddles, I googled him, and the first result was this heart-breaking story of rape:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-542331/Rape-ruined-dream-Africa-says-RSC-actress-gave-study-lions-Botswana.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210636/

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/21/169903155/transcript-barack-obamas-second-inaugural-address
"The commitments we make to each other — through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security — these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

Filibuster reform:
"Bender: I can't see what's happening! Are we boned?
Leela: Yeah, we're boned."

http://archive.fairvote.org/reports/1995/chp6/richardson.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/01/part_iii_what_to_make_of_the_filibuster_deal.php

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/mcconnell-filibuster-email.php

http://theinfosphere.org/Fry_and_the_Slurm_Factory

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/opinion/krugman-deficit-hawks-down.html
". . .It is, for example, almost two years since Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles declared that we should expect a fiscal crisis within, um, two years. . ."

Two questions I wish could be asked of anyone who warned about the fiscal cliff:
1) Would the fiscal cliff have increased the deficit, or reduced the deficit?
2) Would the fiscal cliff have increased the debt, or reduced the debt?

I don't disagree with "the left" on much, but I do disagree on the call to prosecute Wall Street folk. In a way, such calls seem to me a bad symptom of our age. We don't believe in government's ability to make anybody's life better, but we still retain a touching faith in its ability to make some peoples' lives worse.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/israels-shock-vote-gives-a-glimmer-of-hope-for-palestinians/article4341324.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/Food/my-experiments-with-tea/article4336037.ece

http://vk.com/note7159028_10622535

http://vk.com/notes7159028

Sergey Dovgal

"No matter how cool we try and be, no matter how much we try and separate ourselves from the world with mirror shades and attitude, we all know that inside we're very soft people who yearn to love and to be loved and art reminds us that it is a possibility, and music connects us with that important fact about ourselves - that we love love, and that anything else is incidental, irrelevant, cynical and not interesting to us fundamentally." - Stephen Fry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dongle_of_Donald_Trefusis

"SamFry presents The Dongle of Donald Trefusis.
Episode Three: Birds Of A Feather
I lead a pretty busy life, just this side frantic some times. I rise early to attend to emails and administrative duties. The night will usually have brought in requests for assistance from most countries of the world. At eight AM sharp I walk twenty-nine miles to a gym. This achieves several things: it helps keep me trim, it allows me to listen to audio-books, podcasts, and music that help with my learning Russian, refreshing my understanding of epistemology, and the latest developments in fluid dynamics, as well as perfecting my knowledge of the back-catalogues of the Black-Eyed Peas, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, and other pulse, vegetable or legume-related Rock combos. There's much to be said for this morning ambulation. The gym itself usually takes up forty-five minutes or an hour of squatting, lunging, crunching, curling, pressing, pushing, lifting, swinging, grunting and stretching, which ends with two hours in the steam room and a long, luxurious shower. This whole regime, from walk to emerging from the gym, which is one I manage eleven or so mornings a week, takes no more than twenty minutes. Time-management is crucial here."

http://www.journalfen.net/users/castalianspring/14480.html?mode=reply

"A grave injustice is often done to the reputation of Jeeves's employer, Bertram Wilberforce Wooster. Bertie is all too frequently described as a 'silly ass', a 'gaping idiot', a 'boobie', a 'vacuous imbecile.' In fact, this is distinctly unfair. Wooster may not have the giant intellect of Jeeves, but he does have one great quality, worth all the brain in the world - his good nature, his kindness, his absolute determination at all times to help his friends. Bertie is far too considerate ever to put the blame on someone else when things go awry, too chivalrous ever to repel the advances of an unwanted female, too kind to refuse a request for help."

http://www.stephenfry.com/2008/12/01/stephen-fry-presents-a-selection-of-oscar-wildes-short-stories/
Oscar Wilde, Stories for Children:

The Young King

"Is not He who made misery wiser than thou art?. . .

. . .and as for thy dreams, think no more of them. The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world's sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer". . .

"Sayest thou that in this house?", said the young King, and he strode past the Bishop, and climbed up the steps of the altar, and stood before the image of Christ. . .

http://www.george-orwell.org/Why_I_Write/0.html

George Orwell: "I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed."

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/religion/the-best-virtue/article4333090.ece

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/redempt.htm

next post: 2013-04-16

posted by Krishna Rangarajan at 8:24 PM

 
I guess there's only a few things that could have happened at this time to push my political buttons and piss me off, but one of them did: I saw some left-leaning people sneer at Gen. Wes Clark, and enforce the mysterious conventional wisdom that he's not worth taking seriously, a fit object for fun & ridicule. This reminded me of Spencer Ackerman's August piece, which as far as I know he has not recanted. The piece is not entirely a hatchet job, but does seem to be infused with a curious belief that Clark is not only wrong on certain specific issues, but ridiculous, a "Punchline". Ackerman's piece inspired this defense by Clark's son, a piece that seems to me sensible and right, while Ackerman's piece feels to me like it's written from deep within the DC bubble.

Funnily enough, Ackerman's 2003 TNR piece on Clark  seems to me *much* more sensible and accurate than his 2012 piece.

Watch these three Wes Clark videos:

Wesley K. Clark: Abandoning Values Only Brings Defeat (Aug. 2008)

Wes Clark - 192 Steps to Disaster Preparedness (2006) (transcribed by Plant)

Gen. Wes Clark on why we fought an unnecessary war in Iraq (2007)

and tell me why exactly Clark is not worth taking seriously?

You do see some hints of why Clark might have become unpopular among the DC elites: he was skeptical about the Iraq surge, but his skepticism was justified, IMO. He might have been wrong, but he was not wrong in an outlandish way.

Of all the military figures of the last 15-20 years, Clark is the one I trust the most. He is our era's closest heir to George Marshall. The fact that he's been attacked so bitterly seems to me to reflect a degeneration and a decadence in our DC ruling class, compared to the Marshall era.

Though now that I think about it, Marshall was not a popular figure, at all, during the 40's and the 50's. His fan club basically consisted of FDR, Truman, and the 40's-era Eisenhower.

Two people I saw defending Clark this summer were Susie Madrak and digby (can't find her post to link to it), good company at least.

Digby - Hullabaloo

Susie Madrak - (Suburban Guerrilla)

Asia Society - Current Realities and Future Possibilities in Burma/Myanmar

Amy Goodman interviewing Juan Cole on Petraeus in Iraq and Afghanistan

JUAN COLE: Well, you know, I think General Petraeus, in his heart, was opposed to the Iraq War and a little bit puzzled as to what in the world the Bush administration thought it was doing, because there’s that famous interview he gave early on, and when he was in Mosul, he said, "How does this end?" He couldn’t even conceive of it. And I think—you know, I saw him on television interacting with Arab families. It was set in Mosul. He went to them and said, you know, "What do you need? What can I get you?" So, I think among the generals who served in Iraq, he was one of the ones who tried to reach out to people and tried to accomplish something. 

But I think he learned the wrong lessons from Iraq. . . the Shiites ethnically cleansed the Sunnis. And it happened around the same time as the Petraeus troop escalation or surge in Iraq. And I think he took the wrong lesson from what happened in Baghdad. He kind of allied with the majority community, and so had a fairly soft landing, and then took it off and tried to replicate it in Afghanistan. That was the big error.

I'm thinking a little bit about investment income versus wage income, and I'm somewhat reluctantly coming to the conclusion that it's a more difficult and nuanced issue than I thought. I'm thinking of scenarios, and I find that there are scenarios where it's clear the tax rate on investment income should be 0, and there are other scenarios where it's clear it should be equal to the rate on normal income.

scenario 1: Somone decides to sell their WaPo stock (goodbye, Donald) to buy NYT stock (hello, Pinch). It seems preposterous and harmful that switching their stock between companies should result in any significant tax (I do support a transactions tax, but a small one).

scenario 2: someone is deciding whether to spend their time researching & investing in real estate or stocks versus getting and using an income-increasing certification, or doing non-financial R&D which might or might not pay off in increased income, or writing a book or essay. In this case, it seems preposterous and harmful that income from flipping real estate should be taxed at a lower rate than income from acquiring and utilizing a new skill.

Somewhat related to this issue, an honest question: How do you tell the difference between consumption and investment? What would prevent me from accounting for my consumption of dinner & bed today as an investment in my ability to produce output tomorrow? Yes, yes, "Because the IRS says you can't." But on what grounds does the IRS say so?

Ezra Klein (Wonkblog) - The case for raising taxes on capital gains

Matt Yglesias (Slate) - Why poor people should pay a higher tax rate than Mitt Romney

David Dayen (Firedoglake) - Mitt Romney’s Low Tax Rate a Function of How US Treats Capital Gains and Dividends

Doug Henwood (LBO News) - primary & secondary investment

Jazzbumpa (Angry Bear) - The Effect of Capital Gains Tax on Investment

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) - My Baroque Argument for Higher Capital Gains Taxes

UPDATE: Since I usually praise George Marshall, it seems worth mentioning at least one issue (there were others, as well) where he was on the wrong side of history: the recognition  of Israel in 1948. His intentions were honorable - he was trying to prevent a war - but he was wrong,  IMO. In commemoration of Israel’s 60th anniversary in 2008, JCPA published an excerpt from Clark Clifford's 1991 memoir (which he wrote with Richard Holbrooke), and it makes absolutely riveting reading, especially towards the end:

Because President Truman was often annoyed by the tone and fierce­ness of the pressure exerted on him by American Zionists, he left some people with the impression he was ambivalent about the events of May 1948. This was not true: he never wavered in his belief that he had taken the right action. He felt particularly warmly toward Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first President, and David Ben-Gurion, its first Prime Minister. In 1961, years after he left the White House, former President Truman met with Ben-Gurion in New York. Ben-Gurion’s memory of that meeting is revealing:

At our last meeting, after a very interesting talk, just before [the President] left me – it was in a New York hotel suite – I told him that as a foreigner I could not judge what would be his place in American history; but his helpfulness to us, his constant sympathy with our aims in Israel, his courageous decision to recognize our new state so quickly and his steadfast support since then had given him an immor­tal place in Jewish history. As I said that, tears suddenly sprang to his eyes. And his eyes were still wet when he bade me goodbye. I had rarely seen anyone so moved. I tried to hold him for a few minutes until he had become more composed, for I recalled that the hotel corridors were full of waiting journalists and photographers. He left. A little while later, I too had to go out, and a correspondent came to me to ask, “Why was President Truman in tears when he left you?”

I believe that I know. These were the tears of a man who had been subjected to calumny and vilification, who had persisted against powerful forces within his own Administration determined to defeat him. These were the tears of a man who had fought ably and honorably for a humani­tarian goal to which he was deeply committed. These were tears of thanksgiving that his God had seen fit to bless his labors with success.

I agree with Kevin Drum  that Obama's defense of Susan Rice is good news. Rice did nothing wrong, McCain & Graham's attacks on her are not valid, and they do not become more valid by either McCain or Graham becoming more vehement or angry (that said, I do respect both McCain and Graham). There can be endless compromises with Republicans on policy issues, but Democrats should not let themselves be gaslighted into apologizing for mistakes they did not make, admitting to flaws they do not have, confessing to crimes for which they're not guilty.

Question for Senator McCain: Have you ever relayed to the American people in good faith an intelligence analysis which later proved inaccurate?

MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, SCOTT SHANE and ALAIN DELAQUÉRIÈRE (NYT) - FBI agent passionate, hard-charging bulldog

Being a hard-charging bulldog is good when you're investigating real crimes like murder, rape, grand theft. It's not so good when you are investigating non-crimes, or the endless pseudo-crimes ("wire fraud", "mail fraud", etc) which the FBI seems to have invented in order to distract itself from the harder work of investigating real crimes.

Michal Vasser (Haaretz) - A message to Israel's leaders

Nir Hasson (Haaretz) - Israeli peace activist: Hamas leader Jabari killed amid talks on long-term truce

Netanyahu did not have to initiate this escalation. It was an escalation of choice, not of necessity.

Karam Nachar's twitter feed

Arthur Silber - Once Upon a Time...

next post: 2/8/2013


posted by Krishna Rangarajan at 12:24 AM

 
Arthur Silber (Once Upon A Time...) - To Honor the Value of a Single Life: The First Murder

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - On the whole

Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla) - My life and welcome to it

Sasha Said - Tax Code Insanity: Couple Living Below Poverty Line Faces Higher Tax Rate Than Romney

Diane (Cab Drollery) - Granny Bird Award: Michael McGough

Violet Socks (Reclusive Leftist) - my vote tomorrow

Digby (Hullabaloo) - Blue America Scorecard

The election euphoria fades quickly, doesn't it? It brings back a flood of memories from 2000, 2004 & 2008.

2000 actually feels like a different election, in a different country. I thought, in 2000, the Jack Welch-led NBC operation, and the Michael Kelly-led center-left establishment, had been extremely biased against Gore. One example: Russert put Perot on MTP the weekend before the election, and Perot endorsed Bush, which arguably was fine, but Perot cited a ton of scurrilous allegations against Gore (including, unbelievably, that he sold his Gulf War vote for 20 minutes of extra TV time), which was not so fine. After Florida was called early, I eagerly turned to Russert for schadenfreude reasons. Obviously, the night didn't turn out how I wanted. That election turned out to be very important for policy reasons, but 12 years later, with Kelly gone, Russert gone, Carnahan gone, Wellstone gone, Holbrooke gone, all taken too soon, the personal grudges feel ridiculous, small, and slightly obscene. 12 years later, the Jeff Immelt-led NBC operation is considerably different. In 2000, Harold Ford was supposed to be what Barack Obama became. Different election, different country. Time to bury the hatchet.

2004, OTOH, feels very similar. I was just as complacent as Republicans this cycle that Kerry would be elected in 2004, especially after Zell Miller's IMO over-the-top "Spitballs" speech. Can't remember why. What I remember policy-wise was that Iraq had a successful election in early 2005, violence was down, and that was an excellent time to get out of the country. For reasons I never understood, we stayed, and the situation got worse and worse, until the surge, the Anbar awakening, and Gen. Petraeus's reaching out to the Sunni community.

The 2008 election felt very different compared to 2012, but the election aftermath feels very similar. In particular, it seems very important to remember what ended the Obama honeymoon the last time around:

1)  Operation Cast Lead. I understand the importance of Sandy, jobs & income, and tax & spending  arithmetic. But still, I would feel *much* better about Obama's second term if he made an immediate  trip to both Israel and Pakistan, and got a much-needed earful from a broad cross-section of the Israeli, Palestinian and Pakistani people.

Nick Pinto (Village Voice) - Devastation and a Sense of Abandonment in the Rockaways

2) Drone Strikes in Pakistan. What was so infuriating about those first Obama-authorized drone strikes in 2009 was not just that they killed many people, but we were told that there were zero civilian casualties, which indicated that the national security establishment was either lying to us or lying to themselves, or both, and that war in Afghanistan under Obama would be similar to war in Iraq under Bush: technologically impressive, inspiringly brave and hard-working troops and officers, strategically clueless, hostile and indifferent to ethical questioning.

Reuters - Obama victory infuriates Pakistani drone victims

Reuters (NBC News) - 'I remember all of the pain again': Obama victory infuriates Pakistani drone victims

The 28-year-old Pakistani accuses the president of robbing him of his father, three brothers and a nephew, all killed in a U.S. drone aircraft attack a month after Obama first took office.

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - 'Every Person Is Afraid of the Drones': The Strikes' Effect on Life in Pakistan

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - The Targeted-Killing Czar's Powerful Case Against the Drone War

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - How Team Obama Justifies the Killing of a 16-Year-Old American

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - Obama Apologists Are Defending a Parallel-Universe Drone War

Conor Friedersdorf (Atlantic) - How a 17-Year-Old Changed the Politics of 'Stop and Frisk'

I have one slightly different perspective on the drone war, which is that terrorism in Kashmir, and terrorism in India more generally, does seem to have declined dramatically in recent years, and it is possible, even probable, that drone strikes are one of the reasons why. But even granting that possibility, I think the drone strikes are horrible policy, and a horrible mistake, both ethically and strategically. They provide some extremely minor tactical successes in the short term, in exchange for long-term strategic defeat and ethical nightmares.

IPT News - Senior Terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri Killed

Reuters (NBC News) - Pakistan's poor to be paid to send kids to school, officials announce on 'Malala Day'

Wikipedia - Attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi

Gretawire (Fox News) - SOS HRC - REMARKS AT THE SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND AWARDS IN HONOR OF AMBASSADOR CHRIS STEVENS

3) The insane and over-the-top vetting of Obama appointees, resulting in the unnecessary and unjustified loss of Daschle, and many other good people, as well as immense amount of wasted time and effort, and delay in filling needed jobs. I remember someone saying what was going on was not so much *vetting* of appointees as an *audit* of every aspect of every appointee's life. This is good for snoops and busybodies, and the type of golfer who makes the book of rules his best club, not so good for anyone who wants to get, quickly & efficiently and with minimum fuss, the right people in the right jobs, focused on their jobs, and doing good work for the American people.

An excellent Evan Thomas article on this topic:

Evan Thomas (Newsweek) - The Enemy Of the Good

One of the best things the Bush administration did in early 2001 was that they refused to be mau-maued into replacing Christine Todd Whitman, even though she had had SS tax problems for her nanny. Such minor tax violations are not ideal, but they are not criminal or malicious, and they should be treated like speeding tickets. Pay the back taxes, perhaps pay a fine,  and move on. The Bushies did, however, remove Linda Chavez, and IMO they should not have done so. We need to focus more on what our leaders are actually doing in their actual jobs, and have a sense of perspective, not get sidetracked by these minor, often unintentional, infractions and pseudo-scandals.

The Petraeus resignation brings back those 2008 memories. I strongly believe that Petraeus should not have had to resign, and am angrier at the FBI for snooping into Petraeus's emails than I am at Petraeus. Their justification for doing so ("possible leaks of classified information and possible security breaches") seems to me flimsy and insubstantial, using big and scary words to cover up a lack of substance. My belief is that alleged concern over leaks of classified information (and the concern is very selective) has just become an excuse for power-hungry people to scare and exert control over others. Abuse of government secrecy, and not just patriotism, has become the last refuge of a scoundrel.

The Obama administration's war on whistle blowers is a consequence of this unnecessary and unjustified reverence for classified information, it is a travesty and a disgrace, and it should end.

Kevin Gosztola (Firedoglake) - Bradley Manning Indicates He Would Accept Responsibility for Transferring Information to WikiLeaks

4) Steadfast and stubborn Republican opposition, combined with lack of policy success, possibly due to lack of policy boldness.

I think it's fair to say Democrats were obsessed in 2008-2009 with getting Republican validation and cover for their policies, so that they couldn't be held solely responsible by voters. They didn't get it. But obviously that setback was also an opportunity, because if their policies succeeded, they would get more credit. The Democrats, however, were not thinking in terms of doing whatever it took to get policy success. At every stage, they did as little as possible. The stimulus was big enough to prevent depression, but not big enough to produce prosperity. The health care bill expanded coverage, but only starting in 2014. Democratic timidity produced a weak recovery, with Obama getting a grudging re-election by the American people, despite both they and he knowing he didn't deserve it, at least on economic issues.

Economic growth can come from conservative sources (corporate tax cuts, military spending) or liberal ones (green energy, universal pre-K and early childhood education). The point is not that to succeed, you must support liberal policies. The point is that your policies, whether liberal, conservative, or moderate, must succeed. You must work out what policies you think will really work, and then you must act with with the courage of your convictions, no matter how far outside the bounds of conventional wisdom your best judgements may take you.

One possible deal: pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, in exchange for greater ability of US investors to buy Mexican & South/Central American real estate?

JILLIAN RAYFIELD (Salon) - Harry Reid: Senate will pursue filibuster reform

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Falling Into the Chasm (Oct. 2010)

This is what happens when you need to leap over an economic chasm — but either can’t or won’t jump far enough, so that you only get part of the way across.

Matt Stoller (Salon) - The progressive case against Obama

The key numbers mistake the Romney team seems to have made is actually quite non-ideological and understandable, and even intellectually interesting: namely, that if a conservative Republican becomes a conservative Independent, nothing important changes in terms of voter behavior, but *if* you weight your poll on the basis of party ID, your poll results will change dramatically. Hopefully, the quite subtle and fascinating intellectual error that the Romney team made will be motivation for Republicans to rediscover the delights - and, occasionally, the importance - of playful, rigorous, academic-style thinking. And perhaps, rediscover a little more affection for the academics who keep such thinking alive.

John Dickerson (Slate) - Campaign Numbers

Matthew Yglesias (Slate) - The trouble with being rich

The problem with being rich is that everyone stops telling you what they think and starts trying to get your money. You necessarily end up living your life in a fog of flattery and misinformation. And worse, because Americans genuinely admire rich people even people who aren't flattering you tend to give undue deference to your bad ideas.

My main disappointment with the Romney campaign is that they did not commission a scathing anti-Democrat reggae anthem, "Gimme Hope Obama". It seems to me that with lyrics like "For every bad move that this Obama makes he got a good explanation", and "maybe pressure can make Obama see how everybody could a live as one",  Romney would've been a shoo-in.

At the very least, Romney could have commisioned a Toby Keith song with lyrics like "it's the Republican way" and "Stays in Mexico".

I also agree with the commenter who said future candidates should seriously consider changing their name to Bronco Bama,  a name good for at least 20 electoral votes.

Not much schadenfreude here, except it is sort of grimly amusing to see so many Republicans suddenly discovering Chris Christie is fat.

There actually is one very nice lesson from the 2012 election: Every single person who convinced themselves they could just go on stage in front of tens of millions of people and wing it, no matter how talented and accomplished they were, had their ass handed to them. This includes Obama & Eastwood, of course, but it also includes James Sinegal, a man I greatly admire, but who didn't prepare for his convention speech, and it showed. Clinton did ad-lib during his speech, but he ad-libbed only after having spent weeks and weeks in preparation. There is a big difference in ad-libbing after having done full preparation, and ad-libbing as a substitute for full-preparation.

Ezra Klein (Bloomberg) - What Mitt Romney Doesn’t Get About Responsibility

Josh Barro (Bloomberg) - Six Things We’ll Never Know About Mitt Romney

Drew Westen (NYT) - America’s Leftward Tilt?

“The only way to cut the deficit is to put Americans back to work.” That message beat the toughest austerity message by over 30 points.

Dean Baker (CEPR) - the Interest Burden of the Debt Is Near a Post-War Low

Dean Baker (Guardian) - Saving the Planet or 'Fixing' the Debt

Imagine that we listen to our Campaign to Fix the Debt friends and find a way to pay down the debt while neglecting any steps to curb global warming. 

We’ll be able to tell our children and grandchildren that they don’t have to pay interest on government bonds (they also won’t be receiving interest on government bonds, but let’s not complicate matters with logic) as they evacuate their homes ahead of flood waters. Undoubtedly they will be very thankful for this great benefit that we will have bestowed on them

I think it's fair to say there's an overwhelming mandate in this election for policies that lower unemployment, and increase take-home pay. Advocates of austerity should state how much their austerity would cost in terms of jobs and take-home pay, and state why it is an acceptable cost for a very minor, nebulous benefit. The only economic reason to cut deficits are to 1) lower interest rates 2) make people feel better, and 1) interest rates are already historically low 2) As a pick-me-up, I prefer a walk to cutting Social Security.

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Floating Exchange Rates Protective Against Financial Attacks

It seems to me pretty clear that people who set up the Eurozone & the ECB were guilty of economic malpractice. My belief is that Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy should get out already, take the big financial hit, then watch their economies recover like magic in the ensuing years, but I accept that the right thing to do might be to muddle along.

The importance of floating exchange rates is also why I was somewhat appalled by Yglesias's musing that Romney's military/corporate Keynesianism might be better for the economy short-term than Obama's austerity. Maybe true, but a Romney/Ryan victory would also legitimize Austrian/gold-standard/fixed-exchange-rate ideas, increasing the chance of policy disasters like the Euro or the Argentine Currency Board.

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Soup Kitchens Caused the Great Depression

Paul Krugman (NYT) - Disasters and Politics

let me just take a moment to flag an issue others have been writing about: the weird Republican obsession with killing FEMA. . .It’s really hard to think of a public service less likely to be suitable for privatization, and given the massive inequality of impacts by state, it really really isn’t block-grantable.

AP (Herald-Tribune) - Florida election status: still counting

Ted Barlow (LIGHTBULB JOKE WAREHOUSE) - Obstructing the Voter

NOTICE: PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO VOTE NEXT WEDNESDAY. 

If you believe that you are qualified to vote, your polling station is the OLD ABANDONED RAILROAD STATION on 115th Street. 

BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO VOTE, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ALL OUTSTANDING FINES, WARRANTS, TAXES, UTILITY BILLS, OVERDUE LIBRARY BOOKS AND RENTALS, AND POTENTIAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

NO FATTYS. 

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) - A Case Study of Republicans vs. Democrats on FEMA

At a deep ideological level, Republicans believe that federal bureaucracies are inherently inept, so when Republicans occupy the White House they have no interest in making the federal bureaucracy work. And it doesn't.

I find myself less interested in issues of money, especially Wall Street issues, and more interested in issues of time, space & energy. I feel if we make good use if our time, space and energy, money matters will take care of themselves, while if we don't make good use of our real resources, no amount of budget balancing, fiscal responsibility or neatly filled out spreadsheets will be able to mask the reality on the ground.

 John C. Bogle - Don't Count On It! The Perils Of Numeracy (2002)

In terms of making good use of my time, space and energy, I feel the best thing I can do is spend less time (but not quite no time) on the Internet, so I'm planning for the next post to be a ways away. My contact info is up top, for anyone who wants to reach me before then. Let's hope things turn out as well as they can, for all of us.

next post: 2/8/2013

posted by Krishna Rangarajan at 4:39 PM