Tag: Kevin Drum

I learned today that the military—which, as you know, runs NSA—has long had an unclassified software package called PRISM that’s a sort of workflow or project management tool for information collection. Here’s a description from the Army Field Manual:

The description here of a “collection manager” initiating a sequence that results in a “mission tasking order” sounds fairly close to the Washington Post’s description of PRISM as a tool that allows “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions” to equipment installed at Google, Microsoft, and other companies.

So now I’m curious: Is Edward Snowden’s PRISM the same as the piece of software described here? Is it just a vanilla piece of project management software that’s widely used throughout the military? Or is it something else that’s more specialized and just happens to have the same name? I’m not sure who can clear this up, but perhaps either Glenn Greenwald or Barton Gellman have some insight into this.

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/06/what-prism-do-2

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the newsletter Tax Notes. As we all know by now, the IRS applies extra scrutiny to a group applying for tax-exempt status if it suspects the group is political in nature. In 2010, they decided that having “tea party” in a group’s name was sufficient to raise a red flag.

The Inspector General’s report about this included an audit of 298 groups that had been given special scrutiny. Of these, 96 had “tea party,” “patriots,” or “9-12 project” in their names. But that’s all we know. We have no idea how many of the 298 groups were liberal and how many were conservative, because the IRS doesn’t release the name of groups that have applied for tax-exempt status.

However, the IRS does publish the names of groups that have received special scrutiny and been approved for tax-exempt status. They recently released a list of 176 organizations that have been approved since 2010, so Martin Sullivan checked each one to figure out if it was liberal or conservative. Here’s what he found:

• 122 conservative
• 48 liberal/nonconservative
• 6 unknown

This doesn’t tell us anything definitive about the entire set of groups that got special scrutiny. If the whole set is similar to the approved set, then about two-thirds were conservative and one-third liberal—most likely because of the boom in new tea party groups in 2010. But that’s just a guess.

One thing isn’t a guess, however: Two-thirds of the groups who were approved for tax-exempt status were conservative. If the IRS was on a partisan witch hunt against conservative groups, that’s sure an odd way of showing it, isn’t it?

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/06/reports-says-irs-approved-tax-exempt-status-twice-many-conservative-groups-libera

Noam Scheiber writes that Barack Obama doesn’t really like former aides showing off their closeness to the White House. But that’s not really a problem:

There are more than enough ways to cash in on a White House tour of duty that fall comfortably within the red lines governing Obama’s Washington. No one in the West Wing, from the president on down, would begrudge former colleagues the chance to make a buck so long as a modicum of tact is displayed.

That’s good to hear, no? Click the link for more.

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/04/buckraking-obama-style

Currently, licensed firearms dealers are required to conduct a background check before they can sell you a gun. The FBI conducts the check but deletes its record of the inquiry within 24 hours. The only place that records are maintained longer than that is with the dealers themselves. Private transactions, often done at gun shows, don’t require any background check at all.

You need to know this background to understand how ludicrous this report is:

Senators negotiating a bill mandating background checks for all gun buyers are privately expecting the National Rifle Association not to fight the measure — provided the legislation does not require private gun sellers to maintain records of the checks, NBC News has learned. If that requirement is met and key Republican negotiator Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma signs on, the powerful gun lobby has signaled to lawmakers that they would not actively oppose the bill — and not count votes in favor of it as part of its highly influential NRA lawmaker ratings — according to Senate aides familiar with the stalled negotiations.

Under these conditions there would be no way to enforce the law. If you suspected someone of selling a gun privately without conducting a background check, they’d simply tell you that they did, but they didn’t keep the record. The FBI wouldn’t be of any help, since they’re required to destroy all their records. And that would be that.

So there you have it. This is apparently the compromise that Republicans are offering: they’ll support the background check bill only if it’s written so that it’s literally meaningless. And keep in mind: this is the least controversial piece of true gun legislation on the table right now. It’s the one supported by 90 percent of the public, the one everybody figured Obama would settle for because he knew he’d never get a ban on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines.

Welcome to post-Sandy Hook Washington DC. Seems an awful lot like pre-Sandy Hook Washington DC, doesn’t it?

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/03/how-write-meaningless-law

In the New York Times today, Jeremy Peters delivers some major buzzkill about President Obama’s friendly little dinner with all those Republican senators last night:

Lawmakers in both parties say the president’s efforts may make him a few new friends, but he is not going to change ideologies. Others privately complained that convening such a high-profile meeting seemed like an effort to distract from his failure to help forge a solution to avert the automatic budget cuts that went into effect last week.

Asked Thursday morning about the president’s new social schedule, Speaker John A. Boehner chuckled before saying he hoped the talks would produce real compromise….“I think it’s a sign, a hopeful sign. And I’m hopeful that something will come out of it. But if the president continues to insist on tax hikes, I don’t think we can get very far.”

Those who have studied the relationship between presidents and Congress doubt seriously whether Mr. Obama’s latest outreach will yield much. “It’s a rather shallow notion,” said George Edwards, a political scientist at Texas A & M University and an expert who has written extensively on presidential power. “You’re not going to get committed conservatives to change their long-held ideological commitments because you play a round of golf or invite them to the White House.”

Roger that. And how did Phase 2 go on the other side of Capitol Hill today?

On Thursday, Obama’s charm offensive set the table for one of the hardest nuts to crack — the top Republican budget expert, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who as the GOP vice presidential candidate tried to evict Obama from the executive mansion where he was invited to lunch.

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, sat down with Obama for lentil soup and sea bass in a meeting that Ryan described as a “frank” and the White House called “constructive.”

We all know what “frank and constructive” means, right? Usually it means that no fistfights broke out, but only barely.

We’ve been through a dotcom bubble, and then a housing bubble. Right now, I feel like we’re in a presidential schmoozing bubble. I don’t think there’s much question that Obama could stand to improve his social skills, just as there’s no question that he might do himself some good by making sure his positions—and his concessions—are better understood in the halls of Congress. But the boomlet of excitement we’re seeing over a few dinners and lunch meetings with the opposition is hard to fathom. Maybe we’re all so desperate for something—anything—to convince us that our political system isn’t completely broken that we’re willing to latch on to even a routine bit of socializing as a lifeline of hope. Unfortunately, I suspect this says more about how miserable we all feel than it does about the possibility of Republicans ever agreeing to higher taxes.

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/03/new-york-times-killjoy-over-obamas-dinner-party

On national TV this morning, with millions of people watching, Mitt Romney told David Gregory that there were parts of Obamacare he actually liked. In fact, he said, one of the goals of his healthcare plan “is to make sure that those with preexisting conditions can get coverage.” A few hours later, with approximately zero people listening, a spokesman quietly “clarified” what he meant:

In reference to how Romney would deal with those with preexisting conditions and young adults who want to remain on their parents’ plans, a Romney aide responded that there had been no change in Romney’s position and that “in a competitive environment, the marketplace will make available plans that include coverage for what there is demand for. He was not proposing a federal mandate to require insurance plans to offer those particular features.”

As it happens, we already have a competitive market for individual insurance. In addition, we already have demand for coverage of preexisting conditions. And yet, the marketplace doesn’t make policies available to people with preexisting conditions.

Why? Because policies that cover preexisting conditions are big money losers unless you charge premiums high enough that no one could afford them. Because of that, nobody bothers to offer them in the first place. That’s how the free market works. It would be nice if Romney could explain how he intends to square this circle.

It would also be nice if the mainstream press reported the fact that Romney doesn’t plan to make sure those with preexisting conditions can get health coverage just as loudly as they reported his original misstatement. I’m not holding my breath.

UPDATE: BuzzFeed passes along yet another clarification. According to an aide, “Gov. Romney will ensure that discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage is prohibited.”

This has long been Romney’s position, and it’s not clear if it’s meaningful or not. This kind of protection has been the law of the land since 1995 for people with group coverage. And people who lose group coverage already qualify for individual COBRA coverage for 18 months. So the only way Romney’s statement means anything is if he’s saying he would pass a law that requires insurance companies to offer permanent individual coverage at a reasonable price to people who lose their group coverage. Needless to say, Romney has never actually committed to that particular detail.

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/09/within-hours-mitt-romney-takes-back-everything-he-said-about-preexisting-conditio

The Associated Press looks into Mitt Romney’s association with Bain Capital after he left to run the Winter Olympics in 1999, and adds one small tidbit to the story:

Several associates now say Romney made repeated trips between Salt Lake City and Boston, where he met at times with his former partners, mostly to discuss his severance from the firm. The Boston Globe reported last week that Romney also met with his Bain partners at a 15th anniversary celebration in Palm Beach, Fla., in early 1999.

“Some were group conversations. Some were one on one,” said a legal expert familiar with Romney’s discussions with his Bain partners. This person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential business dealings, said that Romney did not relinquish his Bain ownership after taking the Olympics role but that Romney took care to avoid the day-to-day role of a corporate manager.

This is pretty much the same thing Ed Conard told Chris Hayes a week ago, and since Conard can’t reasonably be described as a “legal expert,” this appears to be independent confirmation of what he said. For the time being, then, it appears that the best evidence supports Romney’s story that (a) he held onto his titles in order to maintain leverage during his severance negotiations, and (b) was involved very little with the operation of Bain after he left. He probably wasn’t completely disengaged (the AP story says his meetings were “mostly” about severance), but it does sound as though he had only minimal operational contact.

Whether he should be held morally accountable for Bain’s actions as long as he held the CEO title is a whole different question. But substantively, probably not.

(Via Greg Sargent.)

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/07/another-source-says-mitt-romney-had-very-little-contact-bain-after-he-left

Atrios links today to a Ryan Chittum piece at CJR that revolves around a small businessman named Drew Greenblatt who seems to have a side business as man-on-the-street for news reporters. Just in June alone, he got quoted by the New York Times (three times), NBC Nightly News, PBS Newshour (twice), NPR’s Morning Edition, and The Hamilton Spectator. Earlier in the year he got hits from CNN Newsroom and Fox Business (four times), the Financial Times, Reuters, and the Associated Press.

You will be unsurprised to learn that Greenblatt is not just some random steel wire manufacturer from Baltimore. He’s an executive-committee member of the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, a DC trade lobby. Chittum explains:

Here’s how you should assume this works, because it’s how it very often does: A journalist is on deadline on a story and needs an anecdote to make it feel “real” with some color—preferably someone who will add balance and/or support the journalist’s thesis. A speed-dialed call is made to industry flacks to supply a quotable small-business person…and, voilà!

Right. But don’t assume this is only the case for industry flacks. Suppose you need an anecdote about credit card fraud. Who ya gonna call? Consumer groups will be happy to hook you up with a fully vetted sob story. An anecdote about malpractice abuse? There are plenty of business groups that can put you in touch with a doctor who has an outrageous story to tell. Someone ripped off by a mortgage lender? You get the idea: just call a group that specializes in lobbying for tougher mortgage regulation. They’ve got plenty of examples.

Journalists like to talk a lot about ethics and transparency. But here’s a transparency rule I’d like to see: when you quote an alleged random man on the street, tell us how you found him. Did you really hoof around until you finally got what you wanted? Is he a friend of your cousin’s? Did you call an interest group and ask for someone? Did you ask for contacts via Twitter or Facebook? If reporters were required to tell us, I think you’d be surprised at how few of these random examples turn out to be truly random.

via Kevin Drum Feed | Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/07/random-news-quotes-not-random-you-might-think