Rachel Maddow's Blog, page 3342
August 27, 2013
Treasury gives Congress a debt-ceiling deadline
Associated Press
U.S. military intervention in Syria appears increasingly likely; a government-shutdown deadline looms; and congressional action is needed on everything from agriculture to immigration. Is there anything else that can make matters a little more complicated for Washington this fall? Of course there is.
We've known for months that Congress will have to raise the debt ceiling later this year, but it wasn't clear when, exactly. There was some speculation that action may not be necessary until November or possibly even December.
Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced that the deadline would actually be far sooner.
Unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the Treasury Department said on Monday that it expected to lose the ability to pay all of the government's bills in mid-October.
That means a recalcitrant Congress will face two major budget deadlines only two weeks apart, since the stopgap "continuing resolution" that finances the federal government runs out at the end of September.
In theory, unlike the other national and international challenges facing U.S. policymakers, raising the debt limit is extraordinarily easy. This is, after all, quite literally routine paperwork -- completing the task and avoiding the crisis could take all of five minutes. There are no easy answers for so many of the pending problems, but Congress agreeing to allow the United States to meet its financial obligations is practically effortless.
At least, it could be, and would be were it not for the fact that congressional Republicans are comfortable holding the nation hostage and threatening to trash the full faith and credit of the United States for the first time in the nation's history.
To date, GOP leaders have not said what kind of ransom they expect for agreeing to pay their own bills, but as far as the White House is concerned, it doesn't much matter -- there will be no negotiations with those threatening to hurt Americans on purpose.
Indeed, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney left no wiggle room on the subject yesterday, telling reporters, "Let me reiterate what our position is, and it is unequivocal. We will not negotiate with Republicans in Congress over Congress' responsibility to pay the bills that Congress has racked up, period." He added, "We have never defaulted, and we must never default. That is our position, 100 percent, full stop."
Complicating matters slightly further, Congress won't have much time to play dangerous games -- House Republicans have said they're only willing to work nine days in the entire month of September, which leaves very little time to get an enormous amount of contentious work done, against the backdrop of a foreign policy crisis in Syria.
Also consider how this coincides with the looming budget crisis. Kevin Drum summarized the landscape this way:
Politically, this means that Republicans don't really have the option of quickly passing a 2014 budget (or a short-term continuing resolution) and then taking some time off to plan for their latest round of debt ceiling hostage-taking at the end of the year. If mid-October really is the drop-dead date, it means that budget negotiations in late September and debt ceiling negotiations in early October pretty much run right into each other. It's Fiscal Cliff v2.0.
Again, it's important to emphasize that this doesn't have to to be difficult. Congressional Republicans, in theory, can choose to be sane -- they can turn off the sequester that's hurting the country; they can approve a compromise budget that keeps the government's lights on; and they can choose not to put Americans through another damaging debt-ceiling crisis. It's simply a matter of will.
Whether this is in any way realistic is another matter entirely. We'll find out soon enough -- the new debt-limit deadline is just eight weeks away.
Morning Maddow: August 27
The UK is drawing up contingency military plans for Syria.
The UN is not cool with reports that the US is spying on it. Here's how Der Spiegel says we do it.
Residents of Mayflower, Arkansas say they need help with oil-related illnesses.
Where to put all that nuclear waste? How about Mississippi?
Arrest of a Wisconsin capitol singalong protester turns violent.
The Florida committee chairman who doesn't want tochange "one damn comma" of Stand Your Ground is strategizing.
The recently-closed North Carolina abortion facility is open again.
Court releases Pres. Gerald Ford's testimony in the trial of would-be assassin Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme.
August 26, 2013
Links for the 8/26 TRMS
Citations for Monday's show are listed after the jump:
Feb. 11, 1983 - Iran presses 'human wave' attack
Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
Kerry calls evidence in Syria 'undeniable'
February 22, 2009 - Bunning: Ginsburg will be dead in nine months
Ginsburg rejoins Supreme Court weeks after cancer surgery
'I Am Alive': Justice Ginsburg Fires Back at Sen. Bunning's Death Prediction
Ginsburg reflects on present, future
Court Is 'One of Most Activist,' Ginsburg Says, Vowing to Stay
Justice Department sues Texas over new voter ID law
Texas voter ID law likely enforced next week
Speaking in Raleigh, Colin Powell blasts North Carolina voting law
Where the North Carolina GOP got its agenda
Association of Student Governments talks voting
NM County Told To Issue Same-Sex Marriage Licenses
GOP chair urges support for same-sex marriage
Illinois Republican chairman Pat Brady to resign, sources say
Young people not as divided on same-sex marriage as leaders
Alabama Republicans Seek To Purge Young Conservative Over Marriage Views
Meet The College Republican Who Took On The Religious Right In Alabama — And Won
ACLU Hires Steve Schmidt to Bring Republicans Into Same-Sex Marriage Push
Camp Keating That Was Attacked is Abandoned
U.S. says insurgents breached base during Kamdesh battle
Obama awards Medal of Honor to Staff Sgt. Ty Carter for heroism in Afghanistan
Ahead on the 8/26 Maddow show
Tonight's guests include:
Steve Clemons, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and editor-at-large for the Atlantic magazine
Rep. G.K. Butterfield, (D) North Carolina, represents Elizabeth City, NC
Here is a song! And here is executive producer Bill Wolff, with a look at tonight's show:
How a bronze bust of Rush Limbaugh turned into a good thing
AP
Last year, both Steve and I wrote posts discussing the induction of Rush Limbaugh into Missouri's Hall of Fame. At the time, there seemed little of redeeming value to this tale but now, it has taken an unexpected, and even encouraging, turn.
Just to recap: inside the grand rotunda of the state capitol in Jefferson City (above) sits the Hall of Famous Missourians, a stately array of bronze busts celebrating such notables as Mark Twain, Harry Truman, and as of May 14, 2012, a broadcaster from Cape Girardeau named Rush Hudson Limbaugh III. Tellingly, the Hall's latest inductee failed to meet with universal acclaim. According to Politico:
News of the impending ceremony broke shortly after he called Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” and a “slut,” inspiring a “Flush Rush!” campaign against Republican House Speaker Steven Tilley, who selected Limbaugh for the honor. In the past couple of months, protesters reportedly have delivered hundreds of rolls of toilet paper to Tilley’s office and presented him with approximately 35,000 petition signatures.
Republican leaders of the Missouri House kept the induction event secret until 25 minutes beforehand, hoping to keep protesters away from the unveiling of Limbaugh's bronze bust. The Kansas City Star reported that the doors were locked and guarded by armed members of the Missouri Highway Patrol while the ceremony took place. Behind those locked doors, the honoree took this solemn occasion to say, "Our so-called 'friends' on the other side of the aisle are deranged."
So that went well.
But now Missouri has a new House Speaker, Tim Jones, who devised this inspired online strategy to avoid any repeat of the ghastly Limbaugh debacle:
Selection into the hall traditionally has been at the discretion of the Speaker of the House. However, current House Speaker Tim Jones has empowered the people of Missouri to decide the next outstanding Missourians to be honored by induction into the hall. Please use the forms below to provide your suggestion for the next inductee into the Hall of Famous Missourians. Also include your reasoning for why your selection makes the ideal candidate to join the likes of Walt Disney, Ginger Rogers and Stan Musial. Speaker Jones will accept nominations until September 13, 2013 and will formulate a “Top 10” list of candidates based on the results and other important criteria as recommended by nonpartisan staff of the Missouri House. Visitors will then have the opportunity to cast their votes for the final 10 nominees with the two candidates who receive the highest number of votes selected for induction into the Hall of Famous Missourians. Voting will conclude October 13, 2013.
So they're going to let Missourians decide who gets to be in the Hall of Famous Missourians? Sounds suspiciously like democracy to me.
Blaming the unemployed
A few months ago, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) was asked about his poor record on job creation after three years in office. Corbett offered a variety of explanations for his record, including this gem: "[T]here are many employers that say we're looking for people but we can't find anybody that has passed a drug test, a lot of them."
As a rule, this isn't exactly a political winner. For one thing, it's factually wrong. For another, accusing the jobless of being drug addicts tends to offend those struggling to find work.
Watch on YouTubeBut Corbett isn't the only one who's pushing this argument. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) argued last week in a speech to a local Chamber of Commerce that there are "3 million jobs every month in this country that go unfilled." The congressman thinks he knows why.
"And the trouble is, it's because they either can't find people to come to work sober, daily, drug-free and want to learn the necessary skills going forward to be able to do those jobs," he added.
It's puzzling why elected officials would say things like this out loud. If Joyce and his Republican colleagues in Congress have an explanation for why they've done so little to create jobs in the United States, they should certainly make their pitch. But to say to the country in a time of high unemployment, "Too many of you are lazy drug addicts" strikes me as more than a little tone-deaf.
[W]hen asked by The Huffington Post for data on his assertion that businesses can't find unemployed workers to hire who are sober or drug-free, Joyce's spokeswoman said the congressman was relying on anecdotes from business owners.
Oh, well in that case, there's no problem?
Let's make this plain: it's time to stop blaming Americans for high unemployment.
There are millions of folks looking for work right now, and (a) the overwhelming majority of them are not substance abusers; (b) they're not lazy; and (c) their job prospects would improve if Congress stopped making the job market worse on purpose.
There's certainly room for a policy debate about structural vs. cyclical unemployment, but Joyce's overly simplistic assessment of job vacancies just isn't constructive.
It does help explain, though, why so many Republican policymakers are interested in government-mandated drug tests.
Monday's campaign round-up
Today's installment of campaign-related news items that won't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* In Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli's (R) gubernatorial campaign released this new statewide ad late Friday. Watching the spot, it's hard not to get the impression that the Republican is worried about being tarnished by the corruption scandal surrounding Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
Watch on YouTube* In San Diego, Republican Carl DeMaio, who has been running for Congress, appears to be ready to now run for mayor in the upcoming special election. There are, however, as yet unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct in DeMaio's past -- allegations the Republican has categorically denied, and dismissed as "absurd and ludicrous."
* Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) has ruled out a gubernatorial run, but was asked on Fox News yesterday about a possible White House campaign. "I'm going to travel around the country and see what happens," he replied.
* In a surprising move, Rasmussen Reports, a controversial, Republican-friendly pollster, has forced out its founder, Scott Rasmussen. A press statement from the company did not explain the reason for Rasmussen's departure (thanks to reader R.P. for the tip).
* In fundraising news, the DCCC and NRCC each raised about $4.4 million in July. For the year, House Democrats appear to have an advantage, despite being in the minority.
* And in South Carolina, Gov. Nikki Haley (R) will officially kick off her re-election bid at an event in Greenville this afternoon. Given the state's importance in the presidential nominating process, several likely 2016 contenders will be on hand for the event, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R).
Cruz won't endorse fellow Texan Cornyn
Associated Press
In the world of Republican campaign politics, this was pretty stunning.
It only took some brief remarks for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to widen the growing divide between himself and his Senate Republican colleagues.
Cruz told reporters here Friday that he plans to stay out of primaries involving GOP senators, a move that means the upper chamber's top two Republicans will not have the public support of one of the most popular figures on the political right, as they each seek to fend off conservative challenges. It's a decision that carries risks for Cruz's long-term standing in the party, observers and Republican strategists say, but is likely to satisfy his most ardent supporters.
"The reason is simple," Cruz explained after declining to endorse Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) or any other incumbent. "I think every elected official, including me, owes it to the people, owes it the grass roots, to go and make the case to the grass roots why he or she is representing their interests."
Cruz, incidentally, was speaking in New Hampshire at the time.
Regardless, this is extremely unusual. Cruz is a Republican senator from Texas. If his fellow Republican senator from Texas, Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, faces a primary challenger, Cruz won't so much as offer an endorsement to his colleague.
What's more, note that Cruz is also the current vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which exists in large part to help Republican Senate incumbents, and yet the junior senator from the Lone Star State doesn't intend to express support for literally any of his GOP colleagues.
The Atlantic noted back in March that "a remarkable number of both Republicans and Democrats" have already come forward "to say that they think Cruz is kind of a jerk." The New York Times added that "even some Republican colleagues are growing publicly frustrated" with the right-wing freshman.
The right-wing senator's new posture against endorsements for incumbents is only going to make matters worse.
Even beyond Texas, Cruz's silence could embolden conservative activists and groups that boosted him to an unlikely 2012 win to press on against GOP incumbents. In Kentucky, the Club For Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund, two groups that supported Cruz, are considering whether to back the primary challenger of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. A handful of other Senate incumbents are also facing some pressure from the political right.
"It's going to alienate many current senators and establishment Republicans," Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said of Cruz's posture. "But I think he's already decided that bridge is burnt and he's not going to try to reconstruct it."
We've seen some instances in which senators try to establish their own spheres of power outside the traditional party framework. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for example, has a following independent of the party establishment. But note that even Paul has some interest in remaining part of the team -- he endorsed his in-state colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), early on.
As of Friday, Cruz won't even publicly support his own caucus' leader's re-election bid.
It would cost Cruz almost nothing to say, as Chris Cillizza suggested this morning, "John's a good man and a strong conservative and I am supporting him." But Cruz doesn't want to take even this cursory step.
It's hard not to get the impression that Cruz doesn't much care about his role in the Senate, and is already planning to run for something else.
The right seizes on Christopher Lane's killing
Associated Press
Shooting deaths in the United States may be tragically common, but when three Oklahoma teenagers shot and killed Australian baseball player Christopher Lane 10 days ago, the circumstances were gut-wrenching. The suspected killers, ranging in age from 15 to 17, later said they murdered Lane because they were simply "bored and didn't have anything to do."
Since the terrible incident in the town of Duncan, however, U.S. conservatives have decided Lane's death is a political opportunity. This is especially true of Fox News, whose White House correspondent, Ed Henry, had this exchange last Wednesday with White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest:
HENRY: Do you have any reaction to the Christopher Lane case?
EARNEST: I'm not familiar with it, actually.
HENRY: In Oklahoma, this 22-year-old Australian -- 22 or 23, I've seen different reports -- baseball player, came from Australia, was targeted apparently by three African American young men who -- the Australian was out on a jog and these young men apparently told the police they were bored and they thought it would just be fun to kill him. Any reaction to that?
Note the specific wording of Henry's question: "three African American young men." In reality, one of the alleged shooters is black, one is white, and one is of mixed racial heritage. But for the Fox News correspondent, this became "three African American young men."
The back-and-forth continued as you might expect it to -- the White House spokesperson said it "sounds like a pretty tragic case" and add some related thoughts on the importance of reducing gun violence. Ed Henry, unsatisfied, wanted an explanation as to why President Obama commented on the Trayvon Martin case, but not this one.
And almost immediately, the rest of the conservative media began pushing the same line, almost as if it were coordinated. In the blink of an eye, the murder was the right's new rallying cry to express a racial/political grievance -- if the shooting of an unarmed black teenager was a national controversy, then the shooting of an unarmed white baseball player should be, too.
In one especially jarring instance, Drudge published a piece on this Friday carefully omitting the mugshot of the white assailant, showing only the other two suspected shooters. The racial subtext was so obvious, it was no longer a subtext at all.
It was part of a much larger push, which quickly started ignoring relevant details.
Adam Serwer had a great piece on this.
Referring to Obama's remarks following the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012, Townhall columnist Katie Pavlich identified the suspects as black and asked sarcastically, "If Obama had a son, would he look like Chris Lane?" Pavlich later corrected her post. Obama's remarks about Martin, which set off another conservative firestorm in 2012, were intended as a gesture of sympathy towards black parents who fear their children may be mistakenly profiled as criminals and harmed as a result.
Even after learning that one of the suspects was white, conservative media insisted the killing must have been motivated by anti-white racism. "They got bored and said, 'Let's go shoot a white guy!' Folks, I gotta tell you, there's something else about this. This is Trayvon Martin in reverse, only worse," Rush Limbaugh told listeners Wednesday. "No matter where you look in the media, it's not a racial event. Nothing about it is racist. This is the epitome of media irresponsibility."
The degree to which conservative media have gotten the details wrong matters. The right has said there were three black shooters, which isn't true. Conservatives have said the violence appears to be racially motivated, but to date no evidence has emerged to substantiate the claim.
And the right sees Lane's slaying as obviously comparable to the Trayvon Martin shooting, but this too is misleading.
Let's not forget what made the Martin case a national issue: it wasn't just the fact that an armed black teen was killed, but also the fact that his shooter wasn't arrested and went uncharged for months. In contrast, Lane's shooters were immediately found, taken into custody, and charged.
To see the Lane tragedy as "Trayvon Martin in reverse" is to put one's far-right blinders on too tight.
But there can be little doubt that this will continue. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) yesterday urged Obama to publicly express his feelings on the incident, and conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker offered this rather twisted perspective yesterday:
Barack Obama helped lead the way when he identified himself with the parents of Trayvon Martin, shot by George Zimmerman in the neighborhood-watch catastrophe with which all are familiar. Stepping out from his usual duties of drawing meaningless red lines in the Syrian sand, the president splashed red paint across the American landscape: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."
In so saying, he essentially gave permission for all to identify themselves by race with the victim or the accused. How sad, as we approach the 50th anniversary of the march Martin Luther King Jr. led on Washington, that even the president resorts to judging not by the content of one's character but by the color of his skin -- the antithesis of the great dream King articulated. [...]
Maybe in his remarks on the 50th anniversary of the greatest peaceful demonstration in history, Obama can remind Americans that if we had sons and fathers, they'd look like Christopher Lane and Delbert Belton as well as Trayvon Martin. Victim in chief is no role for a president.
I find this hopelessly bizarre -- and the timing only adds insult to injury -- but if the last several days are any indication, these attitudes from the right will only grow more intense.
How not to defend voter suppression in North Carolina
Gage Skidmore/Flickr
The Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly
Two weeks after North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) approved the most sweeping voter-suppression law seen in the United States in a generation, the political world is taking note of the disaster in growing numbers. Last week, former Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned the state's new voting restrictions, and yesterday, pundit Cokie Roberts said, "[W]hat's going on about voting rights is downright evil."
But don't worry, the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly, a prominent leader of the religious right movement for decades, has a new defense. In a WorldNetDaily column, the right-wing activist offered an unexpected explanation of why some of North Carolina's new restrictions are worthwhile.
The reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important because early voting plays a major role in Obama's ground game. The Democrats carried most states that allow many days of early voting, and Obama's national field director admitted, shortly before last year's election, that "early voting is giving us a solid lead in the battleground states that will decide this election."
The Obama technocrats have developed an efficient system of identifying prospective Obama voters and then nagging them (some might say harassing them) until they actually vote. It may take several days to accomplish this, so early voting is an essential component of the Democrats' get-out-the-vote campaign.
Have you ever heard a political figure accidentally read stage direction, unaware that it's not supposed to be repeated out loud? This is what Schlafly's published column reminds me of.
For North Carolina Republicans, the state's new voter-suppression measures are ostensibly legitimate -- GOP officials are simply worried about non-existent fraud. The response from Democrats and voting-rights advocates is multi-faceted, but emphasizes that some of these measures, including restrictions on early voting, have nothing whatsoever to do with fraud prevention and everything to do with a partisan agenda.
And then there's Phyllis Schlafly, writing a piece for publication effectively saying Democrats are entirely right -- North Carolina had to dramatically cut early voting because it's not good for Republicans.
Remember, Schlafly's piece wasn't intended as criticism; this is her defense of voter suppression in North Carolina. Proponents of voting rights are arguing, "This is a blatantly partisan scheme intended to rig elections," to which Schlafly is effectively responding, "I know, isn't it great?"
