Thursday Reads: Beating the Benghazi Horse to Death and Other News
Posted: May 9, 2013 Filed under: 2014 elections, Foreign Affairs, Hillary Clinton, Libya, Medicare, morning reads, polling, Real Life Horror, Republican politics, Team Obama, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: Ariel Castro, Bangladesh factory collapse, Bangladesh factory fire, Benghazi hearings, Bob Corker, caffeinated gum, Darrell Issa, Ed Markey, Gabriel Gomez, Gregory Hicks, Lindsey Graham, Medicare billing, Susan Rice, Thomas Pickering 40 Comments »
Good Morning!!
I got an e-mail this morning from Dakinikat saying that she arrived safely late last night and is completely exhausted. Hopefully, she’ll get to see her Dad today and give him a great big hug.
Now let’s see what’s going on in the world this morning.
I’ve got to be honest, I’m confused about the latest GOP Benghazi hearings. I have no idea what the fuss is all about, and I really don’t even want to try to figure it out. Apparently, car thief and arsonist Darrell Issa just can’t let go of Benghazi, and is going to keep right on harping on it until someone figures out a way to stop him. I’m going to highlight some articles on this “controversy,” but, as I said, I can’t really explain it.
First, the allegations of wrongdoing:
NYT: Diplomat Says Questions Over Benghazi Led to Demotion
A veteran diplomat gave a riveting minute-by-minute account on Wednesday of the lethal terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 and described its contentious aftermath at a charged Congressional hearing that reflected the weighty political stakes perceived by both parties.
During a chaotic night at the American Embassy in Tripoli, hundreds of miles away, the diplomat, Gregory Hicks, got what he called “the saddest phone call I’ve ever had in my life” informing him that Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was dead and that he was now the highest-ranking American in Libya. For his leadership that night when four Americans were killed, Mr. Hicks said in nearly six hours of testimony, he subsequently received calls from both Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama.
But within days, Mr. Hicks said, after raising questions about the account of what had happened in Benghazi offered in television interviews by Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, he felt a distinct chill from State Department superiors. “The sense I got was that I needed to stop the line of questioning,” said Mr. Hicks, who has been a Foreign Service officer for 22 years.
He was soon given a scathing review of his management style, he said, and was later “effectively demoted” to desk officer at headquarters, in what he believes was retaliation for speaking up.
BBC News: Benghazi attack: Hicks ‘stunned’ at Rice explanation
After the disrupted phone call with Ambassador Stevens, Mr Hicks said he received calls from Libyans using the ambassador’s phone who said they had the envoy with them.
But Mr Hicks decided not to act on the calls, fearing an ambush.
So the “whistleblower” chose not to do anything? What is his complaint then?
UN Ambassador Susan Rice has been the focus of outrage from Republicans in Congress, for giving the news media what has been acknowledged as an incorrect explanation for the attack.
She said on a Sunday chat show on 16 September that the attack had grown out of an anti-US protest, while other officials have said they knew at the time it was an organised, armed assault, possibly by an Islamist militant group.
“My jaw dropped and I was embarrassed,” Mr Hicks said on his reaction to her interview.
I guess it’s still about Susan Rice. . . Or more likely, it’s about Hillary Clinton and attempts to hobble any plans she may have to run for president.
Washington Post: At Benghazi hearing, State Dept. officials challenge administration review of attacks
Three State Department officials on Wednesday provided a riveting, emotional account of last year’s fatal attack on U.S. installations in eastern Libya as they accused senior government officials of withholding embarrassing facts and failing to take enough responsibility for security lapses.
The testimony provided new details on the Sept. 11, 2012, assaults on U.S. installations in Benghazi and their aftermath. But the new information failed to break the political logjam the attacks spawned, with Republicans and Democrats offering starkly different interpretations of what happened and who within the U.S. government is to blame.
Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) opened the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing by saying that panel Democrats had “mostly sat silent” while Republicans tried to wrest the truth from an uncooperative Obama administration.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the senior Democrat on the committee, countered that Issa’s GOP majority had launched a “full-scale media campaign . . . of unfounded accusations to smear public officials.”
But in expanding the narrative of the intensely politicized episode, the witnesses raised fresh questions about whether then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her deputies were sufficiently engaged in assessing the security posture of diplomatic posts last year.
Time Magazine’s Michael Crowley: Terror, Security, and Hillary 2016: Making Sense of the Benghazi Hearings
The hearing by the Republican-led House Government Oversight & Reform Committee was not the first on the events surrounding the death of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans. Hillary Clinton, who was running the State Department at the time of the attack, testified for hours back in January. But the story was given fresh dramatic life and new narrative details through the testimony of two self-described whistle blowers who had not previously spoken in public: Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism; Gregory Hicks, the former deputy of mission in Libya. Joining them was Eric Nordstrom, a former regional security officer in Libya, who had previously testified on the issue.
But “[c]ould the U.S. military have done more to help?”
Not according to the Pentagon – and the hearing’s key witness. Aircraft that might have buzzed the compound where the second pair of Americans died – and scared the militants away — were 900 miles north in Italy. “Time and distance are a tyranny of their own,” Admiral James Stavridis, who responded to the attacks as the NATO commander, told Congress earlier this year. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated it would take as long as 20 hours to get the planes above Benghazi. Hicks testified that he asked the U.S. defense attaché in Tripoli if planes could be scrambled to help those under attack in the CIA annex in Benghazi, a battle that unfolded hours after the initial assault on the nearby U.S. consulate, which killed Stevens, and led to two more American deaths. “He said that it would take two to three hours for them to get on site, but that there also were no tankers available for them to refuel,” Hicks said Wednesday. “And I said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and we went on with our work.” Hicks also testified that a four man team of Green Berets in Tripoli were denied a request to deploy to Benghazi the morning after the attack began, though officials doubt they could have arrived early enough to save lives at the CIA annex.
Apparently the complaint is that the State Department didn’t order all military resources to get to Benghazi even though there was no way they could have gotten there in time to do anything to help?
So we’re back to preventing Hillary 2016?
Whether or not Republicans intended it, the shadow of national politics loomed over Wednesday’s hearing. Hillary Clinton completed a generally well-reviewed tenure of Secretary of State, as evidenced by her sky-high public approval ratings. But Benghazi is a clear black mark on her Foggy Bottom record, one that could haunt Clinton if she runs for president in 2016. Conservatives seized on Hicks’s testimony that, in a call with Clinton on the fateful night, he told her that a terrorist attack was underway–a fact that was slow to appear in the administration’s public rhetoric. Still, despite repeated discussion about what Clinton knew and when she knew it, no smoking gun emerged from Wednesday’s hearing, leading one Congressional Democrat to dismiss questions about her role as a “witch hunt.”
I guess that’s pretty much what it’s all about . . . A few more links:
Think Progress: Benghazi Review Board Chair Says Notion Of Cover Up Is ‘Pulitzer Prize Fiction’
“I think the notion of a quote, cover up, has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it,” former Ambassador Thomas Pickering said on MSNBC. He also rebutted claims that the review board tried to protect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from scrutiny:
PICKERING: I saw no evidence of it. She did publicly take responsibility for what happened below her and indeed one of the things the Congress did in preparing the legislation that established the Accountability Review Board was to say we don’t want a situation where heads of agencies take responsibility and then nobody who made the decision in the chain has to suffer any consequences for failure for performance. I believe in fact the Accountability Review Board did it’s work well. I think the notion of a quote, cover up, has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it.
Pickering offered to testify at the latest hearing, but Chairman Issa wouldn’t let him.
Think Progress: GOP Star Witnesses Debunk Right-Wing Benghazi Conspiracy Theories
The “whistleblowers” at today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on what really happened in Benghazi, Libya last September were supposed to break the dam that would lead to President Obama’s eventual downfall, in the eyes of conservatives. Instead, these witness actually served to debunk several theories that the right-wing has pushed on Benghazi, leaving the hearing a fizzle for the GOP.
Read the explanations at the link.
TPM: Top Republican ‘Fairly Satisfied’ With White House’s Account Of Benghazi
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Corker (R-TN) said Wednesday that he’s “fairly satisfied” with the Obama administration’s account of events that led to the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi last year.
“We need to know were these people culpable or not. If they were, why are they still on the payroll? Other than that, I’ve been able to read all the cables. I’ve seen the films,” Corker told MSNBC. “I feel like I know what happened in Benghazi. I’m fairly satisfied.”
He cautioned House Republicans to be “respectful” if they probe the issue further.
“Look, if the House wants to have hearings,” he said, “I hope they’re done in a respectful way and hopefully it will shed some light on what happened.”
I guess that’s enough about Benghazi. I apologize for giving it so much space, but I thought if I were confused about this, some of you might be too.
A bit more news in the form of a link dump:
There has been another factory fire in Bangladesh! Reuters reports: Bangladesh factory fire kills eight; collapse toll tops 900
A DailyKos diary deals with a question that has been rattling around in my head: How did Jason Richwine Get a PhD from Harvard?
WBUR Boston University (NPR): Markey Edges Gomez In WBUR Senate Poll
The Hill on Suffolk University Poll: Markey builds strong lead over Gomez in Mass. Senate race
I realize the media is dying for another Scott Brown surprise, but it’s just not gonna happen.
Politico: Lindsey Graham faces down primary challenge
Unfortunately, it looks like Huckleberry Closetcase will be back in 2014.
Politico: Excessive student loan debt drains economic engine
Chicago Tribune: Cleveland kidnapping: Bond for Ariel Castro set at $8 million
Why is he getting any chance of getting out on bail??
Reuters: Wrigley halts production of caffeine gum following FDA concern
Could there be a worse idea by the candy industry? Kids would be getting that gum!
NYT: Hospital Billing Varies Wildly, Government Data Shows
Sooooo . . . what’s new with you? What are you reading and blogging about today? Please share your links on any subject in the comment thread!
Sunday Reads Late Morning Round-Up: Link Dump Brunch
Posted: April 28, 2013 Filed under: morning reads, Foreign Affairs, Barack Obama, Medicare, American Gun Fetish, Egypt, racism, the GOP, Affordable Care Act (ACA), History, Chechnya | Tags: Georgia, Alex Jones, Paul Kevin Curtis, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Superman Comics, Crater Lake, Spartacus, Nathan Deal 22 Comments »
Vintage Cigarette Card
Good Late Morning
I wanted to give Boston Boomer’s most excellent post from late last night some extra time this morning. She has drawn some lines between points around the Tsarnaev family that puts the “spook” in spooky. If you have not read her post, go do it now!
We have come to the last Sunday in April, can you believe it? So…let’s get on with this morning’s reads.
Think of this as a Link Dump Brunch if you will…
This first link is a long read by one of my favorite writers and journalist, Kurt Eichenwald.
Take some time today to read that piece in full.
Next up, a review of the latest in that ricin case that just keeps on getting weirder…turns out, these dudes were Mensa wannabes. Mississippi Man Arrested in Sending of Letters Laced With Ricin
This is what the former suspect’s brother had to say… (that former suspect was Kevin Curtis…the Elvis impersonator.)
Mr. Curtis’s brother Jack said that neither he nor other relatives immediately dismissed the charges as false, given Mr. Curtis’s history of mental illness.
“We could understand, especially with the things that were tied to his initials,” he said. “I could see why somebody would think it was Kevin. But when they said President Obama, I thought, ‘Somebody messed up because he likes Obama.’ ”
So….they couldn’t rule out the possibility that Kevin did it, cause he was crazy? But when they found out that Obama was a target, they knew it couldn’t be Kevin…cause he likes Obama? That is some logical thinking if you ask me.
In Egypt, there is disturbing news about ancient archeological sites: Egyptians seize pyramid sites for use as cemeteries
Archaeologists fear for pyramid sites as illegal building gathers pace in wake of Arab spring
In Manshiet Dahshur, 25 miles south of Cairo, the villagers recently extended the boundaries of the cemetery. For Ahmed Rageb, a carpenter who buried his cousin in the annexe, it was a logical decision. “We want to bury the dead,” he said, strolling through the new cemetery after visiting his cousin’s tomb. “The old cemetery is full. And there is no other place to bury my family.”
There is just one problem. The new tombs are perilously close to some of Egypt’s oldest: the pyramids of Dahshur, less famous than their larger cousins at Giza, but just as venerable. This is protected land, and no one is supposed to build here – yet more than 1,000 illegal tombs have appeared in the desert since January.
Seems most of the people are not “burying” their dead…they are looking to do a little “illegal excavation.” Read more at the link.
This next link is regarding Obamacare and States refusing to go with expanding Medicaid. How it sticks it to those state’s poor people. Rejecting Medicaid Expansion Could Leave Poor Uninsured Even As Lawful Immigrants Get Aid
It seems that town in Georgia is not the only concentration of gun crazies in the US: Colorado town considers requiring AK-47s and AR-15s in every home
While we are on the subject of ignorant dumbasses…not that every gun crazed nut is an ignorant dumbass. Radio host Papantonio: Anti-intellectualism ‘has become almost epidemic in America’
“Chances are, if you are one of those corporate media-following bone heads who still believe that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, or Saddam Hussein blew up the Twin Towers, or Obama is a secret Muslim, or Obama wants to take your guns, or Obama has FEMA prison camps set up for Teabag Republicans, then search no further,” said Papantonio, who is also president of the National Trial Lawyer Association. “You truly are the undereducated, child-like, impressionable, irrational, dangerous cog in America’s political system that puts Democracy most at risk.”
In her book, Papantonio explained, Jacobs found that more than 40 percent of Americans under the age of 44 did not read a single book over the course of the previous year. And their concentration had deteriorated to the point that politicians needed to condense their messages into 8-second soundbytes to grab their attention, leading her to conclude that the country was now “ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism,” compounded by schools’ increased emphasis on passing standardized tests instead of comprehensive education on subjects like civics and humanities.
“If the Susan Jacobys are right and anti-intellectualism is a trend in America, then spoon-feeding our children with facts and figures designed merely to pass a standardized test will never prepare them to preserve democracy,” Papantonio said. “The truth is when we firmly grasp timeless themes that can be found in novels like The Grapes of Wrath,Elmer Gantry or 1984, we are on our way to better protecting democracy against the Mitch McConnels, the Rush Limbaughs, the Rand Pauls, Peter Kings, Louie Gohmerts, the Bill O’Reillys and Glenn Becks who infect the process of intelligent conservative rational thinking.”
Just yesterday, my dad wanted us to watch Idiocracy…and I couldn’t do it. I just could not see a movie making fun of what we… our society, has truly become.
Part of the theory of Idiocracy was that stupid people were the ones who kept having more kids, while those with higher IQ’s put off having kids till it was too late. So over time the population became dumber and dumber.
Alex Jones opens dating site for ‘Freedom Lovers’
There are those those who believe that there’s somebody out there for everybody. Including fans of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose specialized dating site for his listeners has gained some public attention little more than a month after opening.
As Uproxx reported on Friday, “Dating Freedom Lovers” offers fans of Jones’ InfoWars program the chance to connect with “people that share a passion for liberty and freedom.”
“I’m going to school to be a music teacher,” one user writes. “Hopefully I’ll start a private school someday to compete with the rotting public school system.”
Another hopeful romantic tells the site she is looking for a “TALL single male, with Celtic ancestry for life long [sic] relationship.”
“Unlike Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, which represent little more than vast snooping databases and NSA fronts, we are committed to preserving your privacy,” site administrators wrote in March 2013, adding that they “will never sell your information or divulge any of your details to any third party – government or corporation.”
Well, they have sites for Christian Mingles, Farmer’s only, Bootie Calls, Cougars, Plenty of Fish, you see what I mean…it was only a matter of time before they had something like, love…freedom fighter’s style.
Meanwhile: Today in Conservatism | Mother Jones
The Heritage Foundation and Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity presented the second annual Breitbart Award to Michelle Malkin, syndicated columnist and Fox News Channel contributor….The Breitbart Award honors those who advocate for the truth — a quality that Malkin exemplifies. As the founder of three successful conservative blogs — michellemalkin.com, Hot Air (now owned by Salem Communications), and Twitchy — has changed the way Americans consume media. Malkin dedicates her life to tackling the issues others often shy away from.
So there you have it. Michelle Malkin is now officially one of the best and the brightest of conservative journalism. Seriously.
I don’t know if staying quiet is Gov. Deal’s political suicide but…Students organizing Georgia integrated prom: Governor’s silence is ‘political suicide’
Interesting background on Ray Charles and Georgia’s State song: The Late Movies: “Georgia on My Mind” | Mental Floss
WOW, Superman Turns 75: Did You Notice? by Danny Tyree
I am Spartacus! Check out this latest review of Pinning Down Spartacus by Mary Beard | The New York Review of Books
Let’s end this with something pretty.
This is beautiful…Milky Way over Crater Lake | Today’s Image | EarthSky
Have a great day, and share what you are thinking and reading about today.
(…btw, if you find any errors in the above post, sorry. I am fighting off a sinus infection…and spent all day yesterday making 244 little Scachatta Sicilian pizzas. With all the cold meds and dopamax, I am seeing stars everywhere I turn. 
)
Late Night: Chain of Fools
Posted: April 10, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, Medicare, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Real Life Horror, Rick Perry, Social Security, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: cat food, Chained CPI, Dan Rostenkowski, middle class tax increases, social safety net 10 Comments »
The President released his budget today, and it includes the promised benefit cuts to Social Security that the White House has tried to conceal by claiming it wants to institute a supposedly “more accurate” measure of cost-of-living, the Chained CPI. Of course at this point, anyone who is paying attention knows that the change will result in the average senior getting $1,000 less per year after 20 years. It’s a benefit cut pure and simple.
What many people don’t know yet is that switching Chained CPI will result in a significant tax increase for working poor and middle-class Americans.
Here’s your soundtrack for this post. Perhaps the great Aretha Franklin can make Obama’s budget slightly less nauseating. I’m also going to try to ease the pain with cartoons and visual aids.
Luckily, Grover Norquist and the folks at Americans for Tax Reform know darn well that Chained CPI amounts to a tax increase for people on the lower end of the income scale. This is right from their website.
The proposal in question is known as “Chained CPI.” The term is a Beltway euphemism for measuring inflation at a different, slower pace. Many tax and budget items are indexed to inflation, so slowing inflation’s measured rate of growth has both spending cut and tax increase implications.
On the tax side, all income tax brackets are subject to inflation. Slowing down the inflation rate slows down the annual rate of growth in all income tax brackets.
This means the Obama budget contains a tax increase on 100 percent of middle class taxpayers—anyone who pays the federal income tax.
Many other tax provisions—the standard deduction, the personal exemption, PEP and Pease, IRA and 401(k) contribution limits, and many others—are also tied to how CPI is measured.
Chained CPI as a stand-alone measure (that is, not paired with tax relief of equal or greater size) is a tax increase and a Taxpayer Protection Pledge violation. Various reports peg the tax increase amount as exceeding $100 billion over the next decade.
Ted Rall explains Chained CPI:
Dylan Matthews broke it all down (with charts) in a December 2012 post. Here’s the gist:
The group getting the biggest tax hike is families making between $30,000 and $40,000 a year. Their increase is almost six times that faced by millionaires. That’s because millionaires are already in the top bracket, so they’re not being pushed into higher marginal rates because of changing bracket thresholds. While a different inflation measure might mean that the cutoff between the 15 percent and 25 percent goes from $35,000 to $30,000, the threshold for the top 35 percent bracket is already low enough that all millionaires are paying it. Some of their income is taxed at higher rates because of lower thresholds down the line, but as a percentage of income that doesn’t amount to a whole lot.
All told, chained CPI raises average taxes by about 0.19 percent of income. So, taken all together, it’s basically a big (5 percent over 12 years; more, if you take a longer view) across-the-board cut in Social Security benefits paired with a 0.19 percent income surtax. You don’t hear a lot of politicians calling for the drastic slashing of Social Security benefits and an across-the-board tax increase that disproportionately hits low earners. But that’s what they’re sneakily doing when they talk about chained CPI.
That’s why watchdog groups like the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities argue that the only fair way to do chained CPI would be to pair it with an increase in Social Security benefits, and to exempt Supplemental Security Income, which provides support for impoverished elderly, disabled and blind people. Otherwise, it’s just a typical “raise taxes, cut benefits” plan, and an arguably regressive one at that.
So basically if you work for a living or depend on Social Security, you’re getting screwed coming and going.
Here’s another cartoonist’s evaluation of the situation:
Chained CPI will disproportionately affects women, according to the AARP (3/6/2013).
The Social Security benefit cut known as Chained CPI remains a piece of the deficit puzzle for reasons that baffle conservatives, veterans, progressives, and almost everyone in between. The $85 billion in sequester cuts for 2013 have begun and many in Washington have still said they’re willing to cut the modest Social Security benefits we’ve earned by $127 billion over 10 years, even though Social Security by law remains separate from the budget and its deficit. Let’s give every woman and anyone who has or has ever had a mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt or girlfriend a reason to despise this wretched proposal.
This week AARP began running ads about the impact of what the Chained CPI Social Security benefit cuts would mean to women. Below is a copy of one of those ads.
Here’s what Terri O’Neill, president of NOW had to say about women and Chained CPI.
I’m sure you recall that our previous Republican President (let’s face it, Obama is a Democrat in name only) began his second term with the ambitious goal of privatizing Social Security. It didn’t end well for him. Here’s a cartoon from back then:
And another one:
That’s the kind of reaction politicians tend to get when they attack the most successful and powerful government program in history. That’s why it’s called “the third rail.” Remember in when Texas Gov. Rick Perry attacked Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme?” Look what happened to him?
Obama is already beginning to learn why politicians who step on the “third rail” end up regretting it. He’s out there on a limb all by himself. Democrats hate his budget and so do Republicans, because the vast majority of Americans like Social Security and if it’s threatened they tend to get mad–especially seniors.
Yesterday, Digby recalled what can happen “When seniors get angry …” She referred to an incident in 1989 which Democrat Dan Rostenkowski–the powerful Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee–was chased down the street by enraged seniors.
Andrea Stone told the tale at AOL News in August 2010 after the Illinois Congressman’s death: Rosty’s ‘Catastrophic’ Moment Over Health Care Was a First.
The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, first unveiled by President Ronald Reagan, became law in July 1989. The measure provided seniors on Medicare with protection against catastrophic medical expenses and coverage of prescription drug costs. The benefits were to be paid for exclusively by the elderly receiving them, with high-income seniors paying an extra premium surtax.
Soon after Congress passed the law on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, Rosty returned to his district. It was there, after a fairly civil meeting with seniors resentful over having to pay higher taxes for coverage they either already had from a former employer or didn’t want, that he was accosted by an angry mob of Social Security recipients.
As the Chicago Tribune reported the next day, Aug. 19, 1989:
Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, one of the most powerful politicians in the United States, was booed and chased down a Chicago street Thursday morning by a group of senior citizens after he refused to talk with them about federal health insurance. Shouting “coward,” “recall” and “impeach,” about 50 people followed the chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee up Milwaukee Avenue after he left a meeting in the auditorium of the Copernicus Center, 3106 N. Milwaukee Ave., in the heart of his 8th Congressional District on the city’s Northwest Side.
Eventually, the 6-foot-4-inch Rostenkowski cut through a gas station, broke into a sprint and escaped into his car, which minutes earlier had one of the elderly protesters, Leona Kozien, draped over the hood. Kozien, one of more than 100 senior citizens who attended the gathering, said she had hoped to talk to Rostenkowski, her congressman, at the meeting.
But Rostenkowski clearly did not want to talk with her, or any of the others who had come to tell their complaints about the high cost of federal catastrophic health insurance. “These people don’t understand what the government is trying to do for them,” the 61-year-old congressman complained as he tried to outpace his pursuers.
“This was a setup,” said Jaffe, who can be seen in the video ducking into the backseat of the car. “They were standing with made-for-television signs about how he had sold them out.”
As the Tribune reported, “Kozien was soon on the hood, determinedly holding her sign only inches from the windshield. Except for the glass, she was virtually face-to-face with her congressman. ‘I was a little nervous,’ Kozien said later. ‘But I could see through the car window that he looked more afraid than I was.’”
And there is even video of the incident:
Obama is all alone out there on his limb. The only people who have his back are his apparently not-to-bright advisers. Does he really want to be remembered as the first Democratic President to tamper with Social Security? And BTW, his budget also cuts Medicare significantly. Is this really what he wants as his “legacy?” Is it really good enough to gain the applause of Wall Street and the “Very Serious People” in Washington, DC today but go down in history as a worse president than Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush? We shall see.
Obama Suggests He’ll Include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid Cuts in 2014 Budget Due in April
Posted: March 29, 2013 Filed under: Medicaid, Medicare, open thread, Social Security, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, We are so F'd | Tags: 2014 White House budget, Chained CPI, entitlement cuts, safety net 14 Comments »
Thanks to Susie Madrak and Joseph Cannon for catching this White House trial balloon–naturally floated right before a long holiday weekend. From The Wall Street Journal:
The White House is strongly considering including limits on entitlement benefits in its fiscal 2014 budget—a proposal it first offered Republicans in December. The move would be aimed in part at keeping alive bipartisan talks on a major budget deal.
Such a proposal could include steps that make many Democrats queasy, such as reductions in future Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security payments, but also items resisted by Republicans, such as higher taxes through limits on tax breaks, people close to the White House said.
These measures would come as President Barack Obama continues his courtship of the Senate GOP in an effort to thaw tax-and-spending talks. The White House’s delayed annual budget is scheduled to be released April 10, the same day Mr. Obama plans to dine with a group of Senate Republicans to discuss the budget and other issues….
People close to the White House believe a proposal to slow the growth rate of such benefits would use a variant of the Consumer Price Index to measure inflation. The new inflation indicator would cut overall spending by $130 billion, according to White House projections, and raise $100 billion in tax revenue by slowing the growth of tax brackets. The White House earlier called for an additional $800 billion or so in cuts on top of those resulting from the inflation adjustments.
“We and all of the groups engaged on this are starting to feel it may well be in the budget,” said Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president at AARP, an advocacy group for seniors that opposes such changes.
According to the WSJ article, the White House would “insist” that if cuts to safety net programs are included, the entire budget package would have to get an up or down vote. I’m not sure how they would enforce that.
From Susie’s post at Crooks and Liars:
Get your dialing fingers ready. There’s a reason they let this story out on Good Friday, they’re counting on you not noticing or being too busy to do anything about it. The White House switchboard is 202-456-1414, the comments line is 202-456-1111 (be prepared to hold) or you can email here.
Paul Krugman Tries to Explain “Facts” to Ron Johnson and ABC “Powerhouse Roundtable”
Posted: March 10, 2013 Filed under: Affordable Care Act (ACA), Barack Obama, Medicare, open thread, Republican politics, Social Security, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: ABC's This Week, Paul Krugman, Senator Ron Johnson 23 Comments »
Are there stupider Senators than Ron Johnson (D-WI)? Maybe, but he has to be in the top five. Via Think Progress, this morning on ABC’s This Week, Johnson pulled out an old Republican canard, claiming that the Social Security Trust Fund is “a myth.” Nobel Prize-winning economics Paul Krugman attempted to set him straight. You can watch the partial video down below, but I decided to read the whole transcript of the interaction. Here’s how it went down.
Johnson and Krugman participated in the “Powerhouse Roundtable” with George Will, Bloomberg News White House Correspondent Julianna Goldman, and DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The group began by discussing President Obama’s supposed charm offensive of the past few days. Johnson rambled on about how Obama is doing the right thing by “reaching out” to the GOP and maybe something can come of it. I have to hand it to Krugman, because he immediately steered the discussion toward the GOP and Obama’s hopes for cutting earned benefit programs.
KRUGMAN: I’m really skeptical, because I — I mean this is not — this is not about bad personal relations. People are perfectly capable of being polite to each other, being nice, having a nice dinner. This is about a fundamental difference in visions about what America should be…One party really wants to take down the — the — the safety net we have. One party really wants….to privatize Medicare, wants to, you know roll back, wanted to try to privatize Social Security back in 2005. The other party wants it somewhat extended, wants Obamacare to go into place, would do more if it could. That’s not something you’re going to resolve with a few dinners.
Corporate media shill Juliana Goldman chimes in to state the village consensus:
Look, both sides understand what a grand bargain is going to look like. You’re going — Republicans are going to have to give on revenues, Democrats are going to have to give on entitlements. And so there is some case for optimism now that if the president, in trying to build trust…if Republicans see the president moving forward, putting Medicare savings on the table that doesn’t just hit providers, but also hits beneficiaries as well, then — and also going out and selling it to give Republicans some cover, then there could be a sense that you could get some Senate Republicans to — to help bring the House along.
George Will brings up raising the Medicare age and asks Debbie Wasserman Schultz if there’s any chance all those old codgers in Florida will ever see the light so that Democrats could go along with this brilliant idea? No real response from Schultz, so Krugman (he was on fire today!) jumped in again. From here on, I’ll just focus on the interaction between Johnson and Krugman and leave out the few remarks by others.
KRUGMAN: Is it a condition of any Republican support that you have to go for really terrible policies? Because raising the Medicare age is a terrible policy. It raises medical costs, it does very little to improve the budget. It introduces a lot of hardship. Means testing in Medicare is a better policy. I don’t particularly like it, but it’s a better policy. There are other things you can do. There are other ways you can cut. Even — I don’t like the business about changing, you know the price index for Social Security, but that’s not as bad…
JOHNSON: To say that the Republicans haven’t done anything, is just false. The House has actually passed budgets. You know with — with proposals to — to try and save Medicare, bipartisan proposals, quite honestly. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in over four years. Listen, unless we do something, these programs are going broke. It drives me nuts. When I — when I hear people say that Social Security is solvent to the year 2035, it’s not….
Listen, if you — if you’re taking a look at, in a entitlement reform package, in term — you know actually bringing in revenue for those entitlement reforms, I might look at that. But the fact of the matter is — the fact of the matter is, we already have a $1 trillion in middle income tax increases hitting us in Obamacare. They’re hidden, but it’s middle-class….it’s certainly true, as well as another $600 billion. So, you’ve already got $1.6 trillion worth of tax increases hitting us in the next 10 years….
KRUGMAN: Just a question, you say let’s start with the facts, but there — we’ve just — we’ve just run aground right there….JOHNSON: You’ve made my point — you’ve made my point, we have to agree on the facts….But the facts are false.
JOHNSON: No they are not….They are not false.
KRUGMAN: The Social Security thing, Social Security is — there — it has a dedicated revenue base. It has a trust fund based on that dedicated revenue base. You can’t change the rules midstream and say, oh suddenly….
JOHNSON: …here’s the problem with the trust fund, the federal government owns U.S. Treasury bonds, it’s the same thing as if you have $20.00, you spend it. And by the way, that money is spent, it’s gone. You write yourself a note for $20.00, stick it in your pocket and say, I got 20-bucks…No, you don’t. You — you have a note that you have to sell in the open market. The trust fund is a fiction, it doesn’t — it’s…
KRUGMAN: If you — if you want to think of Social Security as not just being part of the government, then there’s no such thing as a Social Security problem, it’s just part of the general budget. You — you cannot say on the one hand….on — on the other hand we’re going to — we’re going to restrict it to only operating off of…it’s important to realize that the facts that are being brought out here are in fact, non-facts.
Here’s the video from Think Progress:
From a piece Kevin Drum wrote last fall in response to WaPo columnist Charles Krauthammer spouting the “Social Security Trust Fund is a fiction” meme. Like Johnson, Krauthammer was arguing that because Social Security funds are invested in Treasury bonds which it cashes in when current funds aren’t sufficient for immediate needs, that the Trust Funds is just “a bunch of useless IOU’s,” to quote George W. Bush.
Here’s Drum:
What Krauthammer means is that as Social Security draws down its trust fund, it sells bonds back to the Treasury. The money it gets for those bonds comes from the general fund, which means that it does indeed have an effect on the deficit.
That much is true. But the idea that the trust fund is a “fiction” is absolutely wrong….Starting in 1983, the payroll tax was deliberately set higher than it needed to be to cover payments to retirees. For the next 30 years, this extra money was sent to the Treasury, and this windfall allowed income tax rates to be lower than they otherwise would have been. During this period, people who paid payroll taxes suffered from this arrangement, while people who paid income taxes benefited….
As the baby boomers have started to retire, payroll taxes are less than they need to be to cover payments to retirees. To make up this shortfall, the Treasury is paying back the money it got over the past 30 years, and this means that income taxes need to be higher than they otherwise would be. For the next few decades, people who pay payroll taxes will benefit from this arrangement, while people who pay income taxes will suffer.
If payroll taxpayers and income taxpayers were the same people, none of this would matter. The trust fund really would be a fiction. But they aren’t. Payroll taxpayers tend to be the poor and the middle class. Income taxpayers tend to be the upper middle class and the rich. Long story short, for the past 30 years, the poor and the middle class overpaid and the rich benefited. For the next 30 years or so, the rich will overpay and the poor and the middle class will benefit.
The trust fund is the physical embodiment of that deal. It’s no surprise that the rich, who didn’t object to this arrangement when it was first made, are now having second thoughts. But make no mistake. When wealthy pundits like Krauthammer claim that the trust fund is a fiction, they’re trying to renege on a deal halfway through because they don’t want to pay back the loans they got.
It’s disgusting that this has to be explained over and over again to the willfully obtuse Republicans and the media talking heads, but I have to say that I’m glad Krugman was there this morning to call attention to the stupidity of what the GOP–and Obama–are proposing.
Now, here’s a bonus for you that I found at Americablog this morning. Florida Rep. Alan Grayson is warning there will be “civil disobedience” if Social Security benefits are cut.
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