Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 910

Chris Christie Is Putting a Lot of Distance Between Himself and the Rest of the GOP

Chris Christie really wants voters to know that he's willing to work across party lines. But there's a problem: his party, the GOP, had a bit of a tussle with national approval ratings this month after the conservative wing of the party led everyone into a government shutdown. Christie, as a Republican, could be worried that the tanking public perception of his party might not recover quickly enough, even though the New Jersey governor had nothing to do with the shutdown itself. Granted, Christie doesn't have much time before his next political test: New Jersey's gubernatorial election is in just weeks. Enter Cory Booker, the Democratic Newark mayor elected to the Senate on Wednesday, to save the day: 

.@corybooker Today is another example of how people of different parties can work together and accomplish big things. pic.twitter.com/sd2iGRtKTM

— Governor Christie (@GovChristie) October 17, 2013

As a perceived centrist, Christie became the dream candidate that never was for the 2012 presidential elections, which instead resulted with Mitt Romney, running to the right of his normal stance, losing to President Obama. The approval ratings hit for the Republican Party already has some pundits looking once again to Christie, who is kind of teasing a 2016 run even as he campaigns for 2013. And, well, he's given out a lot of material to work with.

When Christie was asked about a recent visit with Republican senators, the governor said his message to the bunch was something along the lines of "get the government reopened, stop monkeying around, and get back to work. I said, I'm out there in the field, people have no patience for this stuff. None." That's a good quote. There are more. Here's what else Christie had to say about the shutdown: 

"Everybody is at fault here ... They all saw this coming, and they all played chicken with each other and now the country is fed up and rightfully so."

"The president saw this train coming for a long time. All of a sudden [Friday's] the first day he has anyone over to the White House? Same thing with the Speaker, same thing with the majority. They saw this train coming for a long time and did nothing to stop it."

Christie is currently leading in the polls going into his re-election. The governor is pretty good at winning over Democrats. That's in part because his record contains some deviations from the party line, including eventually accepting a medical marijuana proposal and recently flipping his stance and supporting in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants in the state. He's also good at picking fights with Rand Paul, another theoretical candidate in the 2016 campaign. In other areas, however, Christie has a more conservative record in office. 

       

Teenagers Can Now Post Publicly on Facebook

Facebook announced yet another change in the sites usage terms on Wednesday, easing restrictions on how minors could use the social network. Users under the age of 18 can now post publicly, whereas before they were restricted to sharing updates only with friends or friends of friends.

The site is couching the need for the policy change with the assertion that, "While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services," namely Twitter and that (Facebook-owned) Instagram. So it's really just a matter of keeping up with the Joneses. Simple as that.

Oh, and also, as The New York Times notes, "big money is at stake for the company and its advertisers. Marketers are keen to reach impressionable young consumers, and the more public information they have about those users, the better they are able to target their pitches." So while Facebook is trying to maintain parity with other social networks, it's also looking to gain more data on its users that can then be turned into advertising opportunities, and potentially include their users' personal data in order to sell products.

While the default posting setting for minors remains friends-only, allowing public posting has some cyberbullying activists up in arms, expressing to the Times their worry that removing the restriction will make embarrassment or harassment easier. Not all states have laws like California's, which requires that sites allow minors to delete their postings.

       

'South Park' Missed Its Deadline for the First Time Ever

One of the main reasons that Comedy Central's South Park is able to remain more topical than most television shows is its famously expedited production schedule. Episodes are created from start to finish in six days, written, recorded, and animated less than a week before they air on television. For the first time ever, South Park has missed its deadline to deliver a new episode of the show.

South Park Studios, where the episodes are made, lost power on Tuesday night, making it impossible for the production team to finish work on the latest episode, entitled "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers." In its place the network aired "Scott Tenorman Must Die" a fan favorite than involves Cartman tricking a kid into eating his own parents.

Last night, #SouthPark lost power. All computers were down & we were unable to finish the new episode. Read more: http://t.co/umEIRdOuRP

— South Park (@SouthPark) October 16, 2013

No new episode tonight, but we WILL be airing "Scott Tenorman Must Die". And we'll be LIVE TWEETING it. #SouthParkBlackout #ScottTenorman

— South Park (@SouthPark) October 16, 2013

According to co-creator Trey Parker, "It sucks to miss an air date but after all these years of tempting fate by delivering the show last minute, I guess it was bound to happen." Perhaps most famously, the show aired an episode about Obama winning the 2008 presidential election only a day after he had actually done so.

       

Stenographer Dragged Off House Floor During Vote

House of Representatives stenographer Dianne Reidy was rushed off the floor tonight while addressing the chamber during the vote to reopen the federal government. Public Radio International correspondent Todd Zwillich managed to get a recording of Reidy's impromptu remarks:

She spoke for almost a minute, saying:

He will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. [to someone next to her] Don't touch me. [to the chamber] He will not be mocked. The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been, it would not have been— no. It would not have been— constitution would not have been written by Freemasons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ.

Reidy can be seen being escorted from the podium in this audio-less clip from C-SPAN.

According to Fox congressional reporter Chad Pergram, Reidy was then interviewed by capitol police.

House stenographer Dianne Reidy now being interviewed by USCP.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 17, 2013

       

Cory Booker Wins New Jersey's Special Senate Election

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, after comfortably leading in the polls, won the New Jersey special election for the Senate on Wednesday according to the AP. He defeated Republican Steve Lonegan with 55.4 percent of the vote, compared to the GOP candidate's 43.6 percent, after just over 50 percent of the votes were counted. 

In other words, Buzzfeed did not end Booker's chances at the Senate by pointing out that he once tweeted a stripper. Nor was Lonegan's campaign able to successfully leverage that revelation to make voters stay away from Booker. Obviously, Booker responded to his victory on Twitter: 

Thank you so much, New Jersey. I'm proud to be your senator-elect: https://t.co/vs9ew7iOkd

— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) October 17, 2013

Booker becomes the eighth black senator in U.S. history — and only the fourth to be elected to the position. According to the Senate website, here's how those eight senators compare to every person elected in the senate's history. The blue slice below represents the four elected black senators. The red slice, those appointed. The yellow slice is every non-black senator.

The new Senator will take Frank Lautenberg's seat. Lautenberg, a Democrat, died in June. Because his seat is currently filled by an interim Republican appointed by Gov. Chris Christie, Booker's election will restore the Senate to a 55-45 party balance, with the advantage going to the Democrats. 

Booker spent less than $1 million on television ads during the special election campaign, according to Politico. Lonegan tapped into the nation's network of conservative celebrities, gaining the endorsement of Sarah Pailin.

       

New Snowden Documents Outline the NSA's Role in the CIA's Drone Program

A mundane email from the wife of an associate of Osama Bin Laden led to a drone strike that killed him, according to the latest story based on the NSA leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden. Hassan Ghul, whom the U.S. has never officially acknowledged killing, died in Pakistan in 2012. The story, from the Washington Post, is notable for two reasons: it gives more details on what happened to Ghul. And, it connects the NSA into the CIA's drone program, detailing how the agency relies on the NSA's intelligence collection programs, such as SIGNIT, to target its attacks. 

Here's how Ghul was found, as told by the Post: 

In the search for targets, the NSA has draped a surveillance blanket over dozens of square miles of northwest Pakistan. In Ghul’s case, the agency deployed an arsenal of cyber-espionage tools, secretly seizing control of laptops, siphoning audio files and other messages, and tracking radio transmissions to determine where Ghul might “bed down.”

The e-mail from Ghul’s wife “about her current living conditions” contained enough detail to confirm the coordinates of that household, according to a document summarizing the mission. “This information enabled a capture/kill operation against an individual believed to be Hassan Ghul on October 1,” it said.

Ghul has been known by U.S. intelligence since at least 2003. In 2011, he provided a bit of intelligence that helped to disclose Osama Bin Laden's safe house. Ghul was captured, and told interrogators of the leader's trusted courier, who was later identified and followed to the compound. Because of this, Ghul is a much-discussed figure in the ongoing debate on counterterrorist interrogation programs. the documents also show that the NSA was responsible for confirming that Ghul was killed: 

Although the attack was aimed at “an individual believed to be” the correct target, the outcome wasn’t certain until later when, “through SIGINT, it was confirmed that Hassan Ghul was in fact killed.”

The Post notes that the documents don't outline how specifically the emails were collected, but notes that the agency has a "silent raid" program of sorts to divert files from al Qaeda officials for further analysis. Those missions are extremely efficient. The Post writes, "A single penetration yielded 90 encrypted al-Qaeda documents, 16 encryption keys, 30 unencrypted messages as well as “thousands” of chat logs" 

       

Ronan Farrow Gets His Own Show After All

Today in show business news: MSNBC has its youngest anchor yet, HBO announces some big premiere dates, and Justin Bieber gives us the best holiday gift.

The whirlwind of recent Ronan Farrow rumors has finally settled on something real: The wunderkind son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen will get his own weekday show on MSNBC. The initial rumor was that he would get a weekend show. Then it was that he wouldn't get any show, just some airtime on other people's programs to give him some on-the-job training for a future show. But now it's been confirmed that he's getting the whole enchilada, a weekday show premiering early next year. And he's turning 26 in December. So... That should make the rest of us feel pretty great, right? Trudging up the six flights of stairs to my studio apartment and watching reruns of Full House until SVU comes on is going to feel especially good tonight. How about you? What'll it be? Joyously choking down lukewarm dollar pizza as you think proudly about all of your accomplishments? Sitting at the computer in your darkened living room, refreshing Twitter in your underwear, so very glad you've made all the choices you've made? Oh wait. Sorry, those are still me. Yup, still me. Except I don't have a living room. Anyway! Let's shake it off. Good for him. His success isn't our failure. There isn't a finite amount of success in this world! Go out and grab yours. But first put some pants on. Wait, dammit, sorry, still talking about myself. [Entertainment Weekly]

HBO has announced the premiere dates for Girls and two new series, True Detective and Looking. The third season of Lena Dunham's Brooklyn-based comedy will premiere on January 12, along with the Woody Harrelson/Matthew McConaughey limited series True Detective. Meanwhile, Looking — known as "Gay Girls" because it is about young, modern gay men living in a big city (San Francisco in this case) — will premiere the next week, after Girls. So that ought to make January interesting! Of course the idea of Gay Girls is a little horrifying because it could be so terrible, but let's not be pessimistic about that. January is bad enough. [Deadline]

On Christmas Day, a radiant golden child will be delivered to this Earth and save us all. And his name begins with a J. It's Justin Bieber! Yes, the comely young Singnadian has a new movie coming out, a concert film of sorts, and it was announced today that it will be released on December 25 of this year. Fitting for the season, the film is called Believe. As in, "You better believe I just peed in that bucket." That's going to be the catchphrase of the holiday season! So unwrap those presents quickly and then race on over to the nearest multiplex. Or, y'know, open up the fortune cookies quickly if you're from New York, if you catch my drift. The point is, no matter your creed, you gotta see this ding-dang movie on opening day. Say it with me: "You better believe I had servants carry me up the Great Wall of China!" [The Hollywood Reporter]

America Ferrara has signed on to star in a CBS pilot called Damascus. She'll play a nun/lawyer who teams up with another lawyer to fight "a secretive and powerful organization that is determined to destroy them." Oh godddd. Another nun/lawyer show??? I swear, after A Legal Habit we should have just shut this tired old genre down. Obviously these shows never got better than Sister Justice, but they just kept churning them out anyway. Superior Court, Cross Examination, that British one Wig & Wimple. It's just too much. No more lawyer nuns. Love you, America, but it's gotta stop. [Deadline]

For the first time ever, Trey Parker and Matt Stone missed a deadline turning in a South Park episode. The power went out in their offices, so they fell hours behind and weren't able to deliver on time. So, Comedy Central will run something else and the episode will be shown next week. Well, I guess 239 out of 240 isn't bad, right? [Deadline]

Here is a trailer for the new Liam Neeson thriller Non-Stop. It's basically Flightplan with a man. Why didn't they call it Flightman? They should have called it Flightman. Though, really, it's not exactly the same setup. Neeson is an air marshal framed for hijacking a plane he's currently on, so he's gotta exonerate himself and, of course, land the plane safely. Julianne Moore is there too, and the way the trailer is cut makes it seem that she's secretly the villain? Doesn't it kind of look that way? Why else would she take the role? Anyway, I will see this and I will see it twice. It's gonna be good.

       

You Don't Have to Be a Baby Boomer to Like Paul McCartney's 'New'

New, the 24th and latest studio album by Paul McCartney, has taken the critical sphere by some amount of surprise: frankly, the 71-year-old ex-Beatle has no right making records this eminently enjoyable in 2013. Combining the whimsy of 2012's Kisses on the Bottom with sly hints of Sgt. Pepper's psychedelia, New—like the best of McCartney's work—feels comfortably familiar without settling into complacency. And, as most reviewers have pointed out, it benefits from the skills of four far younger producers, none of whom was born when The Beatles started out.

It won't upend your view of McCartney's basic strengths or pack the catharsis of the best of Lennon's solo work. But it doesn't have to. It's still a minor triumph. Here are four reasons why.

He's assembled his own team of rivals—sort of.

Losing Beatles producer George Martin, who's now retired, turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Macca: it forced him to hunt down new talent to inject some life into his songs. For 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard he notably snagged Radiohead knob-twiddler Nigel Godrich. This time he tried out four producers and, instead of choosing his favorite, "decided that I loved them all and didn't want to choose one of them." The lineup: Mark Ronson, George Martin's son Giles Martin, Adele producer Paul Epworth, and Kings of Leon/Kaiser Chiefs producer Ethan Johns.

[image error]As The Washington Post's Bill Friskics-Warren observes, the record "was made with four producers, each of whom has succeeded in challenging him and getting him to take risks"—and each in his own distinct way.

He's left the schmaltz behind.

You'll spot reviews referring to New as "McCartney’s first full set of original material in six years," or some variation thereof. That's because the Beatle's actual last release was 2012's quickly forgotten Kisses on the Bottom, a set of old-timey pop and jazz covers so schmaltzy, Starbucks saw fit to release it on its own Hear Music label. 

Which is all fine and good and surely delighted the octogenarian corner of McCartney's fanbase; the point, of course, is that the singer's songwriting has always been rooted in that sort of thing. But New is wise to push beyond the cheese factor and focus on McCartney's pop smarts rather than his considerable charm. Sure, tracks like "Queenie Eye" and "New" turn the whimsy up to ten, but it's the writing that counts.

He's totally in love.

Much has been made of the succinct album title. There's nothing particularly "new" about the stylistic tricks at play here, but there is a new woman in McCartney's life: Nancy Shevell, whom he married in 2011 following his divorce from Heather Mills. That theme crops up throughout New, notably on the bouncy "Alligator" ("Could you be that person for me? / Would you feel right setting me free?") and the sugary title track ("You came along / And made my life a song / One lucky day / You Came Along / Just in time").

[image error]And the singer openly admits the source of his inspiration: "This is a happy period in my life, having a new woman," he told BBC, "so you get new songs when you get a new woman." For Macca, apparently, it's actually that simple.

He's in a nostalgic mood (but not too nostalgic). 

The wistful "Early Days" finds McCartney waxing nostalgic about his halcyon, pre-success days with Lennon, when they had "two guitars across our back," "seeking someone who would listen to the music / That we were writing down at home." But, folksy melody aside, it's not a saccharine, hallmark sort of nostalgic—it's pointed and defensive, insisting: "They can't take it from me if they try / I lived through those early days." Explaining the song's genesis to NPR, McCartney said:

There's so much being written [about] the early Beatles period, and even pre-Beatles period. And people will say, "Oh, he did that because that, and that happened because of that." And I'll be reading and think, "Well, that didn't happen" and, "That's not why I did that." Like anyone's history, you remember what went down better than people who weren't there.

That twinge of bitterness is key to the song—and to the production decisions Ethan Johns makes. The producer "has stripped away all the artificial sweeteners and busy arrangements," The New Yorker notes, "and exposed McCartney’s voice for what it really is these days: frail and aged." 

Another triumph rings through in a similarly candid quiet break on "Queenie Eye." Sings McCartney, "It's a long way to the finish when you've never been before / I was nervous, but I did it / Now I'm going back for more." For a singer who can often enough seem like a power-pop factory unto himself, vulnerability suits McCartney surprisingly well.

All photos: Associated Press

       

Tea Party Republicans Love Love Love Ted Cruz

The Tea Party is less popular than ever, even among Republicans, according to a survey from Pew Research. But the group is still potent within the Republican Party — which means that Sen. Ted Cruz gets a bit of good news on an otherwise bleak day.

"Tea Party" is a necessarily vague affiliation. There are members of Tea Party groups, of course, but Pew largely had to allow poll respondents to self identify. And a lot of Republicans did so.

About four-in-ten (41%) Republicans and Republican leaners agree with the Tea Party movement, while 45% say they have no opinion either way. The percentage agreeing with the Tea Party has declined from its peak of 58% in October of 2010, and has fluctuated around 40% for much of the last year.

In other words, a fairly steady four-in-ten Republicans agree with the Tea Party. text { font-size: 11px; }

That's significant largely in the context of Sen. Cruz. As we've noted, Cruz's anti-Obamacare crusade was a spectacular failure in the realm of national politics, but it has been a big success for Cruz among the heavily conservative Tea Partiers. He won the straw poll at the Value Voters Summit, and raised over $1 million in the third quarter. But the news gets better with this Pew poll.

Below, the change in Cruz's poll numbers between July and October. At left is the shift in his net approval rating among Tea Party and non-Tea Party Republicans between the two months. (Net approval is the percentage of people who approve of him minus the percentage that disapprove.) At right, the change in those who have an opinion — that is, those who have heard of Ted Cruz.

Net approval change Awareness change

See what happened? Among non-Tea Party Republicans, Cruz's net approval became negative. Among Tea Partiers it skyrocketed. And Tea Partiers are much more likely to be familiar with Cruz — meaning that a large percentage of the Republican base is aware of who he is and gained a more favorable view of him after the filibuster, etc. People likely to gain a negative view of him are less likely to know who he is. Win, win.

And then it gets even better for Cruz. The graph at right shows how awareness of three Republicans changed for Republican voters between July and October. In the wake of the budget fight everyone learned more about Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Cruz. But Cruz's name recognition soared — making him a better-known name than his ostensible caucus leader.

And then it gets better for him again. Here's how the net approval for all three figures changed between July and October. (Cruz's graph is the same as the one above.)

Cruz Boehner McConnell

Not only was Cruz the only Republican leader to see a gain among Tea Party Republicans, but both Boehner and McConnell saw declines that were much more drastic than Cruz's among non-Tea Party Republicans. In other words: The Republican leaders of each chamber's caucus took much more of a hit among members of the party than did Cruz.

The polling was conducted before the shutdown was resolved, of course. (As of writing, it still isn't resolved.) But anyone who thinks that Cruz will be chastened by his defeat is probably very much mistaken. On every metric that matters to a possible contender for the party's presidential nomination in 2016, Cruz is excelling.

       

'Game of Thrones' Gets the Bad Lip Reading It Deserves

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cellphone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why, every day, The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

Yes, it feels like an eternity since we saw a brand new Game of Thrones episode. This makes the pain go away a tiny bit:

Some proof that the age of Tinder is upon us (and if you don't know what Tinder is, this video is the sad proof that you might be too good for this world and maybe also out of touch):

Behold the platypus, the ugly-cute animal friend of your dreams: 

And this is a man who is swimming below three feet of ice ... in a Speedo. What'd you do with your Wednesday?