Month: March 2014

The issuance of team Christie’s internal review report last Thursday added no new information with regard to the GW Bridge access lane closings that it didn’t merit a new diary.  (News reports were added as comments to the last diary.)  It’s not as if anyone expected anything other than Christie bridge scandal: Internal report clears governor, .  For a million dollars or so (State of NJ dollars), Randy Mastro of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, concluded that the perpetrators of the GW Bridge plot were Bridget Kelly and David Wildstein, Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer is a liar, and the Port Authority of NY & NJ needs reorganization.  Also that Bridget Kelly and Stepien had an affair that he ended and she become emotionally unbalanced.

Dawn Zimmer publicly pushed back against Mastro’s accusations.  Stepien and Kelly’s attorneys have criticized the disclosure of their affair.  So far, no response from Wildstein so far.    

The initial media response to Mastro’s report was at best lukewarm, but with a few days to digest it, the response has turned hostile.  Losing Christie fanboy Joe Scarborough.  Not sure how trashing Kelly is more shameful than trashing NJ teachers or that it may not be as effective for Christie’s political future.

In making the case that Christie is clean, Mastro seems to have overlooked the fact that the NJ legislature has also been investigating this.  Christie’s bridge scandal lawyers to be subpoenaed.

…
Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski (wihz-NEHS’-kee) says lawyers retained by the Republican governor’s administration to conduct an internal investigation appeared to have access to information that the committee hasn’t seen.

Wisniewski says the additional subpoenas will be discussed as soon as the committee can be convened.
…

This could be a really big “oops” on Mastro’s part.  

Mastro gilded his report by also calling for restructuring of the Port Authority of NY & NJ.  One teensy, weensy problem with this: ‘Exhaustive’ Christie Report Omitted Port Authority

The team hired by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to investigate the politically-motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge did not interview any employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bi-state agency that executed the lane closure. Other than key Bridgegate figures David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, none of them were even asked.

That includes Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye, whose emails figure significantly in the unraveling of the Bridgegate scandal.
…

Maybe Mastro should be called The Amazing Randy as he divined what the PA police would have told him if they’d been interviewed about the lane closings and the changes the PA needs.

Expect a bit of back pedaling from Mastro as State and Fed investigators begin asking questions of him.  

Update #1

This is going to be fun: Christie lawyer declines to show interview notes in internal report on ‘Bridgegate’

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP attorney Randy Mastro yesterday declined a request by lawmakers to turn over notes taken during the interviews of over 70 witnesses that supported an internal report conclusion that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has no knowledge about the lane closures near the George Washington Bridge…

Guess it’s time for NJ State auditors to take a look at Mastro’s engagement letter as there seems to be some confusion as to who hired him and for what.

Was Mastro hired by the State of NJ to perform an investigation or by Governor Christie as his consigliere on the State of NJ’s dime?

Update #2 – Exclusive: Christie Prosecutor Gets Its Star Witness to Start Talking.

Esquire has learned from sources close to the investigation that David Wildstein, the former Port Authority operative who helped plan and execute the Great Fort Lee Clusterfk, is now cooperating with Paul Fishman, the federal prosecutor investigating the soon-to-be-ex-governor and his minions for criminal conduct. Fishman has also increased the number of investigators at work on the case, and has begun presenting evidence and witnesses to a grand jury in Newark.

Connecting a couple of dots, it would be logical that Fishman would want to hear from Drewniak to confirm the veracity of some statements from Wildstein. How important those particular statements may be to unraveling the GW Bridge conspiracy could range from inconsequential to explosive. Also note from mainjustice dot com that Charlie McKenna, former chief counsel to Christie, met secretly with Fishman in mid-January and speculation that Wildstein has struck an immunity deal and several team Christie lawyers engaged in a cover-up conspiracy.

Update #3: Bridge scandal panel weighing immunity after judge’s subpoena ruling

A leader of the legislative committee investigating the George Washington Bridge lane closings said today that it will consider granting immunity to witnesses in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of New Jersey to move the inquiry forward.
…
The way to move the legislative inquiry forward, Wisniewski said, would be to work in close consultation with federal prosecutors to ensure the committee does not give anyone protections before U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman’s inquiry into them is complete.
…

Some concern that supplying documents or testimony to the NJ legislative committee could allow those implicated to avoid prosecution based on the Iran-Contra precedent that set Ollie North free.

Update #4 – 400 pages of Mastro Interview Notes released. The initial reported snippets add little to what was previously known. Better stuff is now being culled Christie’s office gave less attention to mayors who didn’t support governor, official said. Keep in the mind that this is within the constraints of Mastro’s “investigation.”

The law firm did not record the interviews or keep transcripts. Instead, they were summarized by the attorneys and reflect their “mental thoughts and impressions” to ensure they were protected under attorney-client privilege, the firm said.

The review did not include interviews with Baroni; Samson; Stepien; Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff; and David Wildstein, a former top official with the Port Authority.

State Senator Loretta Weinberg calls out Mastro’s notes for what they are:

…the interviews were “designed to shore up the whitewash,” but fell short.

“This report should be an embarrassment to the authors and to the governor and the so-called ‘documents’ don’t change that one iota.” Weinberg said.

For example, the apparent bombshell from the interview of Christina Renna, Christie liaison with local officials, that the fired Bill Stepian was the real power between the Christie administration and local officials. The problem with whitewashes is that it’s difficult to get them to 100%. Richard Ribisz, Sandy Relief Regional Director for Governor, for whatever reason reported:

…a phone call from Renna shortly after it became clear that Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer would not endorse Christie for re-election.

“Renna told him not to bend over backwards for Mayor Zimmer, which Rebisz explained meant that he should not go out of his way to help her, and that Mayor Zimmer wasn’t going to endorse the Governor,” according to notes from the interview.

Once again urge caution in interpreting this latest batch of information. Running with “Wildstein claims approval from highest office for toll lane closing” can too easily be discounted as nothing beyond the e-mails released months ago unless there’s evidence that Bridget Kelly’s “time for traffic” message can be shown not to have originated with her. the reason for closing those bridge access lanes still remains hidden.

When it comes to turning out young people in November’s midterm elections, I am in general agreement with Ed Kilgore that mechanics are more important than message. The best way to get young people to vote is to make sure you contact them and ask them very directly to vote. Then you need to follow up and follow up again. Above all, people need to know that an election is taking place and when and how they can vote in it.

But there is another way to get young people to vote, and that is to get them talking to each other about politics, which isn’t something they are overly inclined to do. There are a variety of issues that could be used to appeal to young people. Marijuana decriminalization is one promising issue. Making college more affordable is another one. Talking about the affordability of housing is something young adults will relate to. Too many of them are stuck living with their parents well into their twenties. Raising the federal minimum wage is already on the table.

In the negative campaigning category, talking about Republican intolerance reminds young people why they don’t like Republicans, but I think it’s positive campaigning that focuses sharply on the difficulties young adults are facing that will do the most to get them talking among themselves about getting out to vote.

It’s not feasible, of course, but I wish we could see polling numbers on issues distributed by congressional district. While it may be true that the American people look more favorably on gay people than they do on evangelical Christians, how is that opinion reflected in the constituencies of our congresspeople?

This is a question I’d like to see answered on a whole variety of issues, from immigration reform to reproductive choice to gun control to raising the federal minimum wage.

Just because the majority of the American people desire something or look favorably upon it, doesn’t mean that they get a Congress that is representative of that opinion. I mean, set aside the always strong possibility that a member of Congress might not vote the way his or her constituents would like; I think part of the problem is simply that Congress is made up of distorted constituencies that don’t collectively reflect the will of the people as a whole.

Example one is obviously that 1.37 million more people voted for Democratic House members than Republican ones in the 2012 election, and yet the Democrats didn’t even come close to winning control of the lower chamber.

A December 2012 analysis by the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan D.C. publication, said House Democrats out-drew their Republican counterparts by more than 1 million votes–1.37 million votes to be precise, Cook’s House editor, David Wasserman, later calculated.

Between the two parties, Democrats won 50.59 percent of the vote while winning 46 percent of seats, leaving the Republicans with 234 seats and Democrats with 201. The Republican advantage was a decrease from the party’s 49-seat majority in 2011-12; Democrats held House majorities from 2007 through 2010.

If we think about the country geographically, in what percentage of the territory do you think it is true that people look more favorably upon gays than evangelical Christians?

Compare that number to the raw national opinion numbers and you can get an insight into the disparity between what the people want and what they actually get in Congress.

You have no rights around the police, except the right to be assaulted for any reason or no reason at all. From the Arizona Daily Star. The incident occurred after Wisconson defeated the University of Arizona in the NCAA basketball tournament. A UA student was trying to walk to her car, when a police officer decided to – well read the following:

“These girls had been trying to get to their car. The girl is on her phone not paying attention and this cop came out of nowhere and just leveled her,” said Phoebe Landolt, who shot the video. “After that everyone just started yelling and she started crying.”

Landolt said she and her friends were standing near Park Avenue and University Boulevard when she caught the incident.

The video:

Tuscon police say they are looking into the matter. We all know what that means.

Jonathan Cohn notes that it now looks like about 6.7 million people will ultimately sign up for ObamaCare by the cutoff, which is officially tomorrow, but in reality April 15th.

Even accounting for the fact that some of these people won’t actually pay their premiums, these figures would seem to undermine—or at least weaken—the argument that Obamacare is a catastrophic failure. Republicans and many of their allies obviously think otherwise. They are doing what they almost always do when data confounds their previously held beliefs. They are challenging the statistics—in particular, by suggesting that most of the people getting insurance already had coverage. Some, like Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, say the administration is “cooking the books.” Others, like Senator Ted Cruz, say that the number of people without insurance is actually rising.

Sorry, but that’s nonsense.

Over the weekend, the White House press office proudly blasted out this blog post showing the long lines that had formed all over the country of people seeking ObamaCare. As an aside, the White House web site is brazenly sticking it to the Republicans by displaying a countdown clock that says that there are still 16 days to sign up.

The best estimates are that the law is roughly where it was expected to be, both in terms of how many people signed up and in how much it has so far reduced the ranks of the uninsured (about a 23% reduction).

Obviously, it would be over-performing if the website had functioned properly from the outset and, especially, if the Medicaid expansion hadn’t been undermined by the Supreme Court and ideologically-mad Republican governors and legislatures.

Here’s a question. Is the current situation in which the Republicans are systematically trying to limit how many people can vote (and the Democrats are trying to make it easier for people to vote) a natural byproduct of America’s two-party system?

In other words, would it really ever be in the interests of a major political party to restrict voting in a multi-party system?

Since there is a political price to pay for nakedly trying to disenfranchise people, a political party would not make the effort unless they had the hope of a sufficient upside. In a strictly binary system, it might make sense. But in a system with, say, proportional representation and/or a prime minister, I’m doubtful that it would ever pay off enough to compensate for the way it alienates people.

But maybe it’s normal for a two-party system to develop in such a way that one party always benefits from higher turnout and one party always suffers. In such a system, the party that suffers will begin to doubt the worth of people’s right to vote, since that right imperils their hold on power.

What do you think?

I am kind of a coffee snob. I mean, I can’t drink Folgers or Maxwell House. On the other hand, I think it’s kind of ridiculous how much some people are willing to pay for a cup of coffee. So, I guess I like to reside in the middle, sneering at everyone else. What’s got me worried is that it took me forever to realize that Apple is infinitely superior to Microsoft, but I eventually got it. So, maybe I am destined to be a Blue Bottle coffee drinker.

The question investors are asking now is: Can coffee’s “third wave” produce a Starbucks of its own? A group of big-name Bay Area techies—including Kevin Systrom of Instagram, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, and venture capital firms like Google Ventures and True Ventures—believes it can. Over the past two years, they’ve been pouring tens of millions into a San Francisco favorite that just might be the Apple to Starbucks’ Microsoft.

It’s called Blue Bottle, and it’s the creation of a former freelance clarinetist named James Freeman. As a coffee enthusiast in San Francisco a decade ago, Freeman recalls, it was nigh impossible to find a cup roasted the way he wanted it—which is to say, with a light touch, to set free the beans’ natural flavors. Instead the city’s sippers were in thrall to the dark, oily, French-press style purveyed by Peet’s, a contemporary of Starbucks. Inspired by traditional Japanese siphon bars, where baristas brew each painstaking cup by hand, Freeman opened a tiny Blue Bottle kiosk in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood in 2005.

It quickly found a cult following, and by 2009 Freeman had opened a larger café in Mint Plaza and a booth at the Ferry Building, San Francisco’s answer to Seattle’s Pike Place Market. He expanded to New York in 2010 and now has 13 cafés and counting.

I guess I am damned to hate pretentiousness while being somewhat pretentious myself.

I promise to hold out as long as I can.

My title is taken from a message on a billboard for Manhattan Mini Storage first displayed in in the Tribeca area of NYC earlier this year of this year.

It’s definitely snarky in a vaguely ominous fashion, but I’m not sure the same can be said for our current Masters of the Universe, however. They own, in whole or part, both political parties in the United States, and the police in most cities are more than willing to do their “dirty business” for them, as the unjustified violence by law enforcement against the Occupy Movement demonstrated.

And though income inequality continues to worsen, the wealthy and major corporations have stashed trillions of ill-gotten gains overseas safely away from the hands of both marauding members of the proletariat, but also for the clutches of the IRS.

The biggest American corporations are reporting record profits, official data shows. But the companies are not investing their windfalls in business expansion, which would mean jobs. Nor are they paying profits out to shareholders as dividends.

Instead, the biggest companies are putting profits into the corporate equivalent of a mattress. They are hoarding what just a few years ago would have been considered unimaginable pools of cash and buying risk-free securities that can be instantly converted to cash, which together are known in accounting parlance as liquid assets. […]

My analysis of the latest data from the Federal Reserve, the IRS and corporate reports shows that American businesses last year held almost $7.9 trillion of liquid assets worldwide. […]

My estimate is conservative. I did not count cash due to American companies from their offshore subsidiaries as accounts receivable because the IRS does not provide fine details on these additional trillions of dollars.

Consider the debate over federal spending. Uncle Sam spent $3.5 trillion in fiscal 2013. Corporations hold liquid assets equal to all the money the federal government spent that year plus 2012 and three months of 2011.

(cont.)
In short, the rich have the equivalent of their rainy day funds, much of which – nearly Two Trillion dollars by multinational corporations according to Richard Rubin of Bloomberg – is safely placed in offshore tax havens.

U.S. multinational companies reported earning 43 percent of their 2008 overseas profits in Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland, more than five times the share of workers and investment they have in those jurisdictions, according to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report.

That report cites academic estimates of the annual revenue loss to the U.S. that ranges from $30 billion to $90 billion.

And this has been going on for years, as Investigative journalist David Cay Johnston’s article indicates. Indeed, since 1994, “liquid assets have grown at about six times sales…” That’s a remarkable statistic.

You wonder why job growth is so limited in the US? Why wages for everyone without a Senior Executive Vice President or better as their title has stagnated? Why the stock market is so high, while people are being laid off right and left, and revenues for bargain retail behemoths, such as Walmart, fallen dramatically? Because the rich and multinational corporations are not investing this hoard in infrastructure (plants and facilities form manufacturing for example), research and development, or even distributing much in the way of dividends.

And they sure as heck on not focused on creating jobs – at least not in the United States. Indeed, quite the contrary:

A wave of layoff announcements over the past week has exposed the reality of the economic “recovery” touted by the Obama administration and governments worldwide. Deep-going job cuts are hitting the manufacturing, pharmaceutical, technology and retail sectors across North America, Europe and Japan.

Despite stagnant revenues, reflecting sluggish economic growth, companies are reporting booming profits. These profit gains are almost entirely due to a relentless assault on jobs, wages and working conditions being carried out by the ruling class.

I see this everyday in my city. Twenty, thirty and even forty-somethings are working lower paid jobs with less hours. And among the college educated (i.e., those with at least a bachelor’s degree), fewer and fewer of them are working in fields related to their college majors.

Venerable consulting firm McKinsey recently published an insightful report on recent college graduates. According to the report, which surveyed almost 5,000 graduates, one-third of respondents stated that college “did not prepare them well for employment.” The report’s somewhat sobering findings include the fact that four to five times more graduates are working in sectors such as restaurants or retail than would prefer to. While working at a restaurant throughout college is an attractive proposition for many young people, making this line of work a full-time career was certainly not the goal.

This obviously puts the lie to the oft cited conventional wisdom that if you work hard enough and get a college degree, you will ensure yourself a bright financial future. Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric from the right, which is frequently parroted verbatim by what passes for the mainstream ‘liberal’ media, the reason that economic opportunities for young people have declined, and that job growth is slow and primarily in sectors paying lower wages and salaries, is not due to the fact that corporations are taxed too much. While millions of people under 40 struggle with student loan debts approaching astronomical levels, our major corporations, for the most part are wallowing in record profits and record payouts to their senior executives (or in the case of Wall Street, add in investment bankers and hedge fund managers).

And yet, the upper crust in our society seem to believe that they are under attack due to a media generated wave of envy by the undeserving poor, which as we know by now, includes most of the former middle class in this country.

My college educated son with two degrees lives at home because he can’t find a job. Even among people his age who do work, living with their parents is hardly uncommon. One in three people between the ages of 18 to 34 live with their parents or their parent-in-law, according to a study commissioned by the National Association of Home Builders. What is really depressing is the rate of young adults living at home due to increased unemployment.

Around ages 25 to 34, better educated and more experienced young adults typically enter the stage in their lives when they move onto more stable, higher-paying jobs. The ability to find these jobs plays an increasing role in the decision of older young adults to leave parental homes and strike out on their own. In 2012 the share of unemployed in this age group was 14 percent among adults living with parents compared to 6 percent among adults of the same age who left parents’ homes[3]. Rising unemployment rates and ever increasing sense of economic instability during the Great recession forced many young adults to postpone their decision to leave parents’ homes. The shares of unemployed young adults ages 25 to 34 living with parents doubled since 2000, when 7 percent of young adults living with parents were unemployed. The share of unemployed among same age adults living independently was less than 4 percent in 2000.

It should probably come as no surprise, that this astonishing increase in adult children living at home due to unemployment over the last 14 years correlates with the Bush era of tax cuts and deregulation, which primarily benefited the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations. Yet, when the financial and housing crisis that triggered the so-called “Great Recession” occurred, and unemployment rose, who received the greatest share of the Federal government’s largesse? Wall Street and the financial community. Though some relief for the banks was needed, one can argue that just as much money, if not more, was required to be spent by the government to spur job growth.

The 2009 Stimulus package of 787 Billion dollars contained roughly $500 Billion of actual spending for infrastructure, unemployment benefits and so forth, with the remainder of about $288 consisting of tax credits and other tax relief for individuals and businesses. Compare that figure with the cost of federal funds, guarantees and other benefits shoveled into the gaping maw of our largest financial institutions with little or no oversight on what they could do with those monies.

Recently, a pair of PhD students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City tried to assess the total size of the Fed’s commitments—not just loans made, but asset purchases as well. The bottom line: a Federal Reserve bailout commitment in excess of $29 trillion.

Now to be sure, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department did not turn over $29 trillion to the Bankers and other eligible financial institutions, but they did allow them to receive nearly interest free loans from the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as monies from the TARP program, which far exceeded anything Mr. or Ms. Average American received as a result of spending under the 2009 Stimulus package. And this fails also to account for the Automotive industry bailout, which, yes, did save some jobs, but was far more beneficial to the bottom line of GM and Chrysler. The winners in this battle for Government assistance clearly belong to the eponymous One Percent, and even more to to the .01 Percent of Americans, i.e., those with plenty of money and no inclination to re-invest it in ways that would benefit society at large.

Unfortunately, not enough elected officials and major figures in the Democratic Party have consistently made the case for a vigorous change to the economic policies our government currently pursues. That is, few national Democrats vigorously push for policies that would actually lower unemployment and increase the number of better paying jobs. These policies would include, without limitation, greater government spending on major infrastructure (roads, bridges, the electrical grid, renewable energy, etc.), as well as programs for student loan debt relief, improving the hand of Labor unions vis-a-vis managment, increasing the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits.

Even now, many Democrats are running away from the greatest accomplishment of the Obama administration in terms of its beneficial effects for the 99% – The Affordable Care Act. While flawed because it did not opt for Medicare for all (i.e., a single payer system) or even provide a “public option to compete with the health insurance industry cartels, it has vastly improved the lives of millions of Americans who now can obtain coverage that provides real benefits should they experience costly illnesses and other medical expenses. At the same time, not many National Dems have made promoting other parts of a progressive agenda a priority. Issues such as Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Expanding and increasing Social Security, reigning in the out of control Big Banks, and increasing Taxes on the wealthiest Americans while eliminating subsidies to our largest and most profitable corporations are infrequently brought to the fore when Democrats promote their “brand” and never with the same conviction one feels when Republicans promote their agenda.

A few Democrats have shown they support progressive causes, I’ll grant you that, but not enough for the average low information and/or discouraged voter to see much of a difference between the two parties. In a cases like this year, elections are decided more often based on the popularity of the President and individual candidates, than by a referendum on the competing and distinct differences between the two parties’ vision for the future. And to be honest, there isn’t much of a consistent vision by Democrats.

The Republicans vision, on the other hand, is pretty clear: Lower taxes, cut spending (except on the military), repeal ‘Obamacare,’ and protect Real Americans’ inalienable rights to God (the Christian one), Guns and Getting Big Guvmint off their back. Even these little hissy fits by our oligarchs about an epidemic of “wealth envy” are just part of the continual campaign by the GOP to gin up support for whatever the rich want. One more victimization card the right wing plays. Despite the billboard slogan I used as the title to this blog post, we, collectively as a nation, are not anywhere close to a revolution from the left. The failure of the Occupy Movement – thanks in no small part to the national Democrats refusal to acknowledge them, much less promise solutions for their legitimate grievances – told us all we need to know about the likelihood of an American Spring.

Indeed, I’d argue the reverse is more likely, so long as the Democrats continue to campaign as the party of “vote for us because we aren’t as mean and nasty as those GOP People.” Unless, the Democrats make this election one between a progressive vision for our country and the one Republicans have been running on since Ronald Reagan took office, they will lose seats in the Senate and they will not regain a majority in the House. The Republican base will turn out this Fall. But will enough people turn out for Democrats, especially young people? What are Democrats offering them that will make not only a short term improvement in their lives but will also give them hope for their future? I don’t believe most people turn out to vote in an off year election simply because a party claims it is the lesser of two evils. Dems need to energize those voters, make them into believers in the Democratic Party’s cause, not put them to sleep with endless bable about deficits and debt relief or other debates in which young people are not invested. All that will do is make them feel their vote is worthless, regardless of the R or D beside the name on the ballot.

The longer the Democratic Party, as a whole, is content to waffle on the fundamental issues of our times, the less likely they are to convince the young voters they need to win elections to show up at the polls. Ask yourself what does the Democratic Party stand for? Then ask yourself if the principles and policies they propose offer any hope to the great mass of voters that electing Dems will make a positive difference in their lives? Right now, I believe most voters would answer that last question “no,” and that would include many people who will make the effort to vote and pull the switch in November for the Democratic ticket.

As for our modern day Aristocrats? I think they’re safe, and they know it, regardless of what happens on election day this year or in 2016, or in future elections after that for as far as they can see. And that to me is the saddest thing about our country’s current political scene.

The last time I allowed myself to feel any sense of optimism about a peaceful resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict was during the Camp David talks in 2000. Being pessimistic isn’t the same thing as having no hope, however, and I’ve been hopeful that something might come from the current negotiations. With Netanyahu reneging on the fourth and final prisoner release, my hopefulness is receding.

With the talks teetering on the brink of collapse, Washington has been fighting an uphill battle to coax the two sides into accepting a framework proposal which would extend the negotiations beyond April to the end of the year.

But the matter has become tied up with the fate of 26 veteran Palestinian prisoners whom Israel was to have freed this weekend under terms of an agreement which brought about a resumption of talks.

Israel on Friday informed the Palestinians via a US mediator that it would not release the fourth and final batch of prisoners, with the US State Department confirming it was working “intensively” to resolve the dispute.

The Palestinians say they will not even consider extending the talks without the prisoners being freed, but Israel has refused to release them without a Palestinian commitment to continue the talks, prompting a fresh crisis of confidence between the parties.

I am having some trouble figuring out if this indicates that Netanyahu is prepared to let the talks collapse or if it is being driven by his inability to hold his coalition together.

In other words, is this a concerted strategy or the absence of any strategy at all?

Over at the National Review Kevin Williamson has penned a column we are all familiar with. It’s a rallying cry for conservatives to get over their differences and rally behind the Republican Party. In the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, there were countless articles of this type written by pragmatic liberals. All you have to do is reverse the names, and it looks completely familiar.

And though I reject the notion that Mitt Romney wasn’t good enough for true-believing conservatives, let’s say, arguendo, that that was the case. Unless you are ready to give up entirely on the notion of advancing conservative principles through the ballot box, you might consider looking at things this way: Even if you do not think that it matters much whether Republicans win, it matters a great deal that Democrats lose.

Maybe you were not that excited that 2012 gave you a choice between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I sympathize — I liked Rick Perry. But how is President Romney vs. President Obama a hard choice? How is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a hard choice? How is Speaker of the House John Boehner vs. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a hard choice?

It isn’t.

I don’t think these types of columns are ever very convincing, but that doesn’t mean that they are incorrect. If we were to give this genre a name, it would be Vote-for-the-lesser-evil essays. They don’t exactly get people fired up and ready to go.

And it’s not a great sign that people feel that they are necessary to write because it indicates that there are some rather strong divisions. Back in the 2005-6 period, Democrats became unified, and they did an adequate job of patching things up after the 2008 primaries. The divisions among Republicans are more fundamental. There’s a glaring generation gap on gay rights. There’s a yawning gulf between the businessmen who want comprehensive immigration reform and the nativist base that wants an end to all non-white immigration, whether it is legal or illegal. There’s a growing chasm between the libertarian non-intervention wing of the party and the John McCain bomb-em-first-ask-questions-later wing of the party. There’s also a Main Street/Wall Street divide over tax policy and social/religious issues.

In all these cases, important factions within the GOP simply want different things. It’s hard to patch things up when you have diametrically-opposed goals.

Interestingly, Mr. Williamson says he quit his membership in the Republican Party during the Bush years because he couldn’t abide belonging to the same club as Arlen Specter. He also says that “the Affordable Care Act, [is] the worst domestic defeat for the cause of limited government in a generation,” which is a nice admission. It shows the real reason that conservatives keep bad-mouthing a law that is working very well and is already covering seven million people. We can understand, now, why conservatives have fought the law with so much fury. They believe, correctly, that the mere existence of the law is a tremendous ideological defeat. Whether it works well or not is completely beside the point for these folks.

Going forward, that’s going to be an increasingly suicidal political position to take. There will be divisions on that, too.