Off The Chain(ed CPI)

Even the Kroog thinks the President's latest deal sucks.  I'm going to have to say that like Paul Krugman, I'm not sure if going over the cliff is going to yield a better deal or not, so maybe we should wait and see what the final deal actually is before ordering the pitchforks and torches.

It sounds as if Ezra Klein is hearing more or less the same things I’m hearing: Republicans willing to give up a lot more on tax rates, although not fully undoing the Bush tax cuts in the 250-400 range; additional tax hikes via deduction limits in a form that hits the wealthy, not the upper middle class (28 percent and all that); unemployment extension and infrastructure spending; but “chained CPI” for Social Security, which is a benefit cut.

Unlike what we’d heard from Republicans before, this contains stuff that Obama can’t get just by letting us go over the cliff: more revenue than he could get just from tax-cut expiration, unemployment and infrastructure too. But it has a cost, those benefit cuts.

Those cuts are a very bad thing, although there will supposedly be some protection for low-income seniors. But the cuts are not nearly as bad as raising the Medicare age, for two reasons: the structure of the program remains intact, and unlike the Medicare age thing, they wouldn’t be totally devastating for hundreds of thousands of people, just somewhat painful for a much larger group. Oh, and raising the Medicare age would kill people; this benefit cut, not so much.

By recalculating benefits through chained CPI, it's lower income seniors who are going to get hurt here, they're looking at a 5% cut or more in SS benefits.  It would also constitute a tax increase of a couple hundred bucks a year on most American households. I'm sure the President thinks it's a partial giveback on the payroll tax cuts, and it is, and it does sound reasonable...but reasonable gets punished later.

In other words this doesn't look like an awesome way to start a second term.  We'll see what the final deal is.  If this is the final deal, I'm thinking it's not a good one.

At all.  I'm trusting the President to get a better one, and that better part I'm suspecting is in the details that we don't know about yet.

Catch And Release

NBC News's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, on assignment in Syria, has been released unharmed after five days of captivity by an "unknown" group operating in the war-torn country.

Engel, 39, has been reporting on the Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

"After being kidnapped and held for five days inside Syria by an unknown group, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel and his production crew members have been freed unharmed," NBC said in a statement. "We are pleased to report they are safely out of the country."

The Syrian government has made it difficult for foreign journalists and citizens to report on what is happening in Syria.

Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Other foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers.

Engel is lucky, too.  Syria has been one of the deadliest assignments for journalists in the world in the last 18 months or so.

Several journalists have been killed covering the conflict. Among them are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain's Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after a severe asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

I'm glad Engel is safe, and I'm sure there's a hell of a story there that we'll here in due time.

StupidiNews!

• Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management is selling Freedom Group, the parent of gun manufacturer Bushmaster, whose AR-15 was used in last Friday's Newtown massacre.
• Iraqi President Jalal Talibani is in a Baghdad hospital after supposedly suffering from a stroke.
• 50-year Senate veteran and WWII hero Daniel Inouye of Hawaii died yesterday at Walter Reed Medical Center, after being hospitalized for several weeks due to respiratory illness.
• A new counter-offer with taxes only going up on those making over $400,000 in exchange for a two-year debt ceiling deal is the latest fiscal deal from the President.
• A federal judge has sided with Samsung that while the phone maker did copy Apple's design elements, that Samsung's phones have not violated patent laws enough to warrant an injunction.

Last Call

If 2008 was all about the GOP ending gay marriage at the state level, and 2012 was all about Voter ID laws designed to disenfranchise Democrats, 2016 is about the electoral college, and splitting electoral college votes in order to disenfranchise even more Democrats, permanently. The push to turn Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (and possible Ohio) into split electoral states to screw the Democrats is on.

All three states have given the Democratic nominee their electoral votes in each of the last six presidential elections. Now, senior Republicans in Washington are overseeing legislation in all three states to end the winner-take-all system.

Obama won all three states in 2008, handing him 46 electoral votes because of the winner-take-all system. Had electoral votes been awarded by district, Republican nominee Mitt Romney would have cut into that lead. Final election results show that Romney won nine of Michigan's 14 districts, five of eight in Wisconsin, and at least 12 of 18 in Pennsylvania. Allocate the two statewide votes in each state to Obama and that means Romney would have emerged from those three Democratic states with 26 electoral votes, compared with just 19 for Obama (and one district where votes are still being counted).

In other words, the electoral vote would have been much closer under this scheme, but the popular vote would have been the same.  Throw Ohio into that mix, and Romney would have picked up 38 electoral votes, enough to have narrowed the President's win to 295 to 244.  If Virginia and Florida tried the same scheme, it could very well have made Romney President...or worse, Florida remains winner take all, and that winner in 2016 is someone like Jeb Bush. 

That's the GOP goal by 2016.   Another Bush in the White House.

Republicans are able to contemplate such a bold plan because of their electoral success in 2010, when the party won control of state legislative chambers and the governorships in all three states, giving them total control over the levers of state government.

"If you did the calculation, you'd see a massive shift of electoral votes in states that are blue and fully [in] red control," said one senior Republican taking an active role in pushing the proposal. "There's no kind of autopsy and outreach that can grab us those electoral votes that quickly."

The proposals, the senior GOP official said, are likely to come up in each state's legislative session in 2013. Bills have been drafted, and legislators are talking to party bosses to craft strategy. Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, has briefed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Chief of Staff Jeff Larson on his state's proposal. The proposal "is not being met with the 'We can't do that' answer. It's being met with 'I've already got a bill started,' " the official said.

Republican state legislators are motivated to act after Romney's loss. And the party lost legislative seats in all three states, adding urgency to pass the measures before voters head to the polls in 2014.

So yeah, Democrats are going to have to put up a fight.  If they don't, the plan to steal the 2016 election could put a Republican in the White House despite a Democrat winning by 4 or 5% in the popular vote.

That's where the GOP is now.  If you can't win it, steal it.

Spread the word.

Meanwhile, Newtowns Can Be Prevented

And in Indiana at least, one potential shooting massacre was averted without firing a shot.

A man in northern Indiana was arrested Saturday after threatening an elementary school near his home.

Cedar Lake police officers found 47 guns and ammunition in the home of 60-year-old Von Meyer following his arrest, according to the Associated Press. Police were called after he allegedly threatened to set his wife on fire and “kill as many people as he could” at the Jane Ball Elementary School less than 1,000 feet from his home.

He was a “known member of the Invaders Motorcycle Gang,” according to police.

Meyer is currently being held in the Lake County Jail without bond. He faces charges of intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement.

So yeah, what we're seeing is conservatives screaming that the problem is people are crazy and our mental health system is irreparable, or that in the ultimate case of "she was dressed provocatively and she had it coming" victim blaming, gun-free zones cause people to get mowed down.  You know, anything but admitting having 47 guns and thousands of bullets might be the actual issue.

Meanwhile, we find out that the country's second largest gun lobbyist and gun dealer trade group the National Shooting Sports Foundation has its headquarters in...guess where.

Just across the highway from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in a stately white building with an American flag flying out front, is the headquarters of the United States’ premiere industry association for gun retailers.

It’s not the consumer-focused National Rifle Association. The National Shooting Sports Foundation has kept a lower profile over the years, but is likely the second-most-powerful force for firearms use in the country. 

Take its lobbying activities. While the gun lobby in general has spent less in 2012 than it has in recent years, the NSSF’s spending has exploded, spiking from about $100,000 in 2008 to $500,000 so far this year (in comparison to the NRA’s $2.2 million). The lion’s share of that went to Patrick Rothwell, the group’s director of government relations, who served for three years as chief of staff to the House Republican Policy Committee. He spent a lot of time this year working on legislation that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating chemicals in gun ammunition and fishing equipment, and the organization has backed a slew of concealed-carry bills.

The NSSF's offical web site statement mentions that their "hearts go out" to the families of the victims of the Newtown tragedy, and that "it would be inappropriate to comment or participate in media requests at this time."

I'm sure those guys are real popular in town these days.

Words Spoken, Will Deeds Follow?

President Obama gave a moving and truly heartfelt speech last night at an interfaith vigil for the victims of Friday's school shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

“We gather here in memory of 20 beautiful children and six remarkable adults,” he said, “They lost their lives in a school that could have been any school in a quiet town full of good and decent people that could be any town in America.”

He continued, “Here in Newtown, I come to offer the love and prayers of a nation. I am very mindful that mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts.”

Obama assured the people suffering in Newtown that the nation grieves with them.

“And you must know that whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide,” he said. “Whatever portion of sadness that we can share with you to ease this heavy load, we will gladly bear it. Newtown, you are not alone.”

But the speech will be far more memorable than just for his all too tragically familiar role of the nation's Comforter-In-Chief.  President Obama took a turn towards calling for action to prevent another Newtown from happening again.

We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.

If there’s even one step we can take to save another child or another parent or another town from the grief that’s visited Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek and Newtown and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that, then surely we have an obligation to try.

In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.

Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?

Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

This is a President clearly willing to use the power of the Executive in order to get things done.  It looks like POTUS has put down a clear goal for his second term legacy here.

And I say, good for him.

StupidiNews!

• A manhunt is under way in Topeka, Kansas for a man who shot and killed two police officers and escaped a robbery scene at a grocery store.
• A Swedish company plans to offer commercial space flights from the small Arctic Swedish city of Kiruna within a decade.
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is recovering after a bout with a stomach virus left her dehydrated and resulted in a fainting spell and mild concussion.
• The EPA's first action since the President reelection:  to tighten soot rules and reduce diesel carbon emissions by 20%.
• Hacker group Anonymous has targeted the Westboro Baptist Church over plans for the church to protest funerals in Friday's Newtown school massacre.

Last Call

Meanwhile, Orange Julius's position on the fiscal cliff slope is crumbling more and more on a now daily basis.

President Barack Obama is not ready to accept a new offer from the Republican leader of the U.S. the House of Representatives to raise taxes on top earners in exchange for major cuts in entitlement programs, a source said late Saturday.

The shape and details of Boehner's offer were uncertain Saturday night, as was the exact reason the president was prepared to reject it.

The source said Obama sees the offer made on Friday by U.S. House Speaker John Boehner as a sign of progress, but simply believes it is not enough and there is much more to be worked out before Obama can reciprocate.

Boehner has cracked on raising tax rates now.  The question is now "on whom?"

Republicans have privately spoken of coming back at Obama with a threshold of $1 million. Obama has previously called that unacceptable because it would not raise enough money on its own to cut the deficit significantly or provide enough money to avert across-the-board spending cuts.

It's the Republicans who are being forced to move, because President Obama knew exactly what he was doing when he walked the GOP into this last year...a deal the GOP could never win, but took anyway.   The President has outsmarted the GOP again, period.

And there's nothing the GOP can do but lose, gracefully or in their case, otherwise.

Hidden (And Still In Hiding) Agendas

This should tell you everything about the NRA lobby in the Senate:

The Sunday morning news shows were dominated by discussion of what can be done after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, which claimed 28 lives on Friday. Several strong gun control advocates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) appeared on the morning shows to push for tighter restrictions and a new assault weapons ban. Their counterparts on the pro-gun side of the aisle, however, categorically refused to appear on MSNBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ to discuss the shooting.

BTW, we reached out to ALL 31 pro-gun rights Sens in the new Congress to invite them to share their views on @meetthepress - NO takers.
— Betsy Fischer Martin (@BetsyMTP) December 16, 2012

Not a one of them felt like defending the "rights" of a citizen to have a Bushmaster AR-15 .223 caliber rifle on the teevee this weekend.  Not one Senator.  Not even John McCain.

Sen. Feinstein on the other hand was glad to announce plans to introduce a new assault weapons ban on the first day of the new Congress.

“I’m going to introduce in the Senate and the same bill will be introduced in the House, a bill to ban assault weapons. It will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession. Not retroactively but prospectively. And it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets. So there will be a bill. We’ve been working on it now for a year,” Feinstein said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” during a discussion about guns following Friday’s deadly mass shooting as a Connecticut school.

Think there's something the Senate fears more than the gun lobby?  I do.

Stuns Of Anarchy

My last takedown of Power Line blogger John Hinderaker was pretty detailed, so this time around I'll spare you guys my usual bloviation and just say that "John Hinderaker may actually be the stupidest mofo alive."

Within the realm of constitutional options, the most practical remedy I can think of would be to require that a certain number of teachers or administrators in each school be trained in the use of firearms and armed at all times. That would probably deter most school shooters. It is curious, but true, that even those killers who do not intend to survive their crimes never seem to open fire in the presence of another armed person. No one tries to shoot up a biker bar.

Except for, as Charles Johnson points out, all the deadly shootouts at biker bars.

Remember, this is a man who believes union members are all thugs who want blood and thinks teachers unions are the sole cause of failed schools.

He is now calling on those selfsame union thug teachers to be forced to carry loaded firearms and be trained in how to use them as part of their jobs.

He really is insane.  Completely, mentally, totally insane.

Last Call

Jake Tappity Tap Tapper:

Sources tell ABC News that President Obama has decided that he will nominate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to be secretary of state.

For a variety of reasons including the finalization of the process, other pending Cabinet decisions, and — more immediately — the national reaction to the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the news will not be announced in the next few days.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is recovering from an illness and a concussion she suffered upon fainting because of that illness, is set to retire in the next few weeks.

We'll see where this goes.  Republicans have to be incredibly careful not to look like insensitive assho...wait a minute, Republicans will attack Kerry anyhow.

And so it goes.

Not An Auspicious Start

With Friday's deadline for state exchanges now in the books, two thirds of US states have rejected forming state health care exchanges, and the federal government now must pick up the tab to get the exchanges ready to enroll people by October.

The Obama administration said Friday that more than half the states had rejected its pleas to set up their own health insurance exchanges, dealing a setback to President Obama’s hopes that Republicans would join a White House campaign to provide health insurance to all Americans.

Friday was the deadline for states to notify the federal government of their plans, and administration officials had been hoping that Mr. Obama’s re-election would overcome resistance to the new health care law. 

Federal officials said they knew of 17 states that intended to run their own exchanges, as Congress intended. 

Instead, the President's re-election just pissed off the rest of the GOP.  Republican governor after Republican governor (and more than a few Democrats, like Missouri's Jay Nixon) refused to participate, and Idaho GOP Gov. Butch Otter actually had his state joined the exchange because he hates the plan, wants the law completely repealed, and the last thing he wanted was the Feds coming in to set up the exchange for him by God.

So in the new year, HHS has 33 exchanges to set up.  Ironically, here in Kentucky, Gov. Dinosaur Steve was perfectly happy with the idea that we expand Medicaid and set up exchanges, because nobody's going to buy the excuse that Kentucky's poor aren't mostly all white people who get a crapload of government assistance anyway.

Go figure.

Newtown-ian Physics

So what happens now in the wake of Friday's mind-numbing tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut?

A heavily armed gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children from 5 to 10 years old, in a rampage at a Connecticut elementary school on Friday, one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

The gunman - who according to a media report carried four weapons and wore a bulletproof vest - was dead inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, state police Lieutenant Paul Vance told a news conference.

Vance said authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being take to a hospital. Another adult was found dead at a related crime scene in Newtown, he said, bringing the toll to 28.

President Obama's response to a wounded nation was excellent:

A visibly emotional President Obama offered his condolences to the victims and families of an elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn. at the White House on Friday.

"We’ve endured too many of these tragedies these past few years," Obama said, appearing to wipe away tears from his eyes.

"We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," he added.

So what can be done?  As Dave von Ebers reminds us in the wake of two vitally important SCOTUS cases decided in the last few years,  any new gun control legislation will be difficult to create, much less pass a GOP-led House.

For what it’s worth, I’d like to see a comprehensive federal gun control statute that encompasses all those principles, too, although the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, popularly referred to as the “Brady Bill,” contains some of those provisions.

But, of course, as my fellow liberals should know (and if you don’t know … why don’t you know?!), the Supreme Court has made that difficult to accomplish. In two recent cases – District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290 (June 26, 2008), and McDonald v. City of Chicago, No. 08-1521 (June 28, 2010) – Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution creates an individual right to keep and bear arms, which, although not unlimited, prevents both the federal government (Heller), and state and municipal governments (McDonald), from imposing the most direct (and perhaps draconian) form of gun control: Outright bans on handgun ownership.

Indeed, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down earlier this month Oak Park, Illinois' anti concealed carry gun control law as a direct violation of the precedent set by Heller.

“The Supreme Court has decided that the amendment confers a right to bear arms for self-defense, which is as important outside the home as inside,” Judge Richard Posner wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “The theoretical and empirical evidence (which overall is inconclusive) is consistent with concluding that a right to carry firearms in public may promote self-defense.” 

So, given that the Executive cannot simply mandate gun control, the Legislative will not pass gun control, and  the Judicial has said gun control violates the Second Amendment, exactly what should Obama do to magically fix this problem?

I'm all ears.  If you want to stop guns, go after the manufacturers and the lobbyists.  Period.  Guns are a product, sold in the US.  They have arguably the most powerful product lobby on Earth.  You're going to need to start with them.

That time has come.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• In Newtown, Connecticut 20 schoolchildren and 6 educators were gunned down by a heavily armed 20-year old before he turned the gun on himself.
• Several news outlets are battling with the Romney campaign over the cost of hundreds of thousands in meals and expenses.
• Egyptian voters will scramble to take to the polls today to vote on President Morsi's constitutional referendum.
• Japan's Shinzo Abe is expected to gain considerable power in Sunday's lower parliamentary elections in Japan, earning enough seats to displace current PM Yoshihiko Noda.
• Google has hired Silicon Valley stalwart and futurist Ray Kurzweil as its Director of Engineering.

Last Call

Republicans are once again trying to jump off a cliff that has a fiscal component, and that's House wingnuts on the Appropriations Committee indicating they will block the President's proposed $60 billion Hurricane Sandy relief package for the Northeast unless Democrats make $60 billion in budget cuts elsewhere.

The White House last week requested $60 billion in federal disaster relief to rebuild the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, but some Republicans are again threatening to hold disaster relief funding hostage unless it is offset by other budget cuts.

A day after Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) called disaster relief for Hurricane Sandy “wasteful spending,” Reps. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Steve King (R-IA), Raul Labrador (R-ID), and Jeff Landry (R-LA), all from the more conservative wing of the House GOP, told The Hill that they will demand offsets for disaster spending:

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said she will need to see offsets on Wednesday as did Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho).

“We have these emergencies every year and we should prepare for that in our budget,” Labrador said.

“No pun intended, we should have a rainy day fund,” Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.) said.

Midwestern House nutjobs telling the East Coast to go to hell.  Seems like something totally moderate and not at all political.  I'm sure this is President Obama's fault too.

And let's remember that Republicans love to watch disaster areas and the people in them suffer.

House Republicans also cut disaster relief funding in a 2011 spending measure and cut it this year to preserve military spending. The GOP also reneged on a deal it struck with Democrats to make emergency disaster relief funding easier in the future.

Of course they did.  Disaster relief might make people grateful for federal government or something, and we can't have that.  Time to make sure that when disaster strikes, Americans know that government helping out their fellow citizens is a zero-sum game where helping people must be punished by taking things from the rest of us.