The Commentariat -- September 12

No, this is not a war zone. It's San Bruno, California after the gas explosion that killed at least four & injured dozens of others. AP photo. CLICK TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.... The Huffington Post has more photos here. The San Francisco Chronicle lists aid groups you can contact.

What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? -- Newt Gingrich, proving he will tell any lie, spew any slur that he thinks will advance his agenda ...

... Gingrich ... is not a reasonable man.... He's just like the rest of them, with a worldview shaped by the most radical and fringe elements of the Republican Party, which are more dominant with each passing day. -- Hari Sevugan, DNC Press Secretary

Susan Saulny in the New York Times: Mayor Richard M. "Daley inherited a Chicago on a gritty decline, and he helped make it economically viable. He led an effort to resuscitate downtown.... He built new parks and refurbished old ones.... He gave incentives to developers who emphasized landscaping, art and environmentally friendly buildings. He was a stickler about trash.... But he was not always transparent in his decision-making. And critics say that downtown’s renaissance came at the expense of poor, far-flung neighborhoods. ...

... Chicago News Cooperative on the Daley legacy. "He is quick to anger, surprising, emotional; exceedingly loyal to some and ruthlessly business-like to others; parochial, yet overly sensitive when criticized for it. While he was in office, great strides were made."

Legal Corruption. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: House Minority Leader John Boehner "maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS. They have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaigns, provided him with rides on their corporate jets, socialized with him at luxury golf resorts and waterfront bashes and are now leading fund-raising efforts for his Boehner for Speaker campaign, which is soliciting checks of up to $37,800 each, the maximum allowed."

Michael Luo of the New York Times: "... from 2007 through 2009, the number of families in homeless shelters — households with at least one adult and one minor child — leapt to 170,000 from 131,000.... With long-term unemployment ballooning, those numbers could easily climb this year." ...

... Stephanie Armour of USA Today: "Anthony and April Soper of Lake Stevens, Wash., went on a trial plan that cut their monthly payment. But they didn't get a permanent modification, and they say they don't know why. Now, they're suing Bank of America, their mortgage servicer. BofA is seeking a dismissal of the case." CW: some of these cases are being rolled into a class action suit; at the very least, HUD should join as a plaintiff against the bank, but Secretary Donovan has been asleep at the wheel ever since he got the job, so be surprised if he suddenly wakes up. ...

... Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: big reason for all the foreclosures -- the powers-that-be in Washington were more interested in saving the banks than in saving the homeowners. (Think "TARP.") CW: evidently, they still are because nobody has stood up for homeowners. Nobody.

Rod Nordland of the New York Times: "Even as more American troops flow into the country, Afghanistan is more dangerous than it has ever been during this war, with security deteriorating in recent months, according to international organizations and humanitarian groups. Large parts of the country that were once completely safe, like most of the northern provinces, now have a substantial Taliban presence — even in areas where there are few Pashtuns, who previously were the Taliban’s only supporters." ...

... David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Amid the warlords, ex-mujahideen fighters, hard-line clerics and shady businessmen running for a seat in the Afghan parliament, Robina Jalali, a 25-year-old candidate from Kabul, offers a more inspiring biography."

Glenn Greenwald points to another absurd example of U.S. double standards -- we don't allow (alleged) victims of U.S. torture to have their day in court under any circumstances, but we obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in "compensation" for Americans for alleged abuses by Saddam Hussein. CW: of course what this is really about is abuse of power; we do it because we can.

The Fuck Obama Xtravaganza (FOX) gives a sterling example of how to cover up breaking news AND simultaneously diss the President & First Lady. Neil Cavuto used the opportunity of Michelle Obama's Shanksville speech to, well, shut her up & remind the viewers where "that young lady... and her husband" were on September 11, 2001: "he was a nobody and she was married to a guy who wasn't that well-known." Video via Jeff Neumann at Gawker:

In the Washington Post, Wray Herbert reviews Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. Fine details the way scientists, including the best-credentialed scientists, just "make stuff up" to suggest that men & women are "wired differently." Fine IDs what she calls "blobology" & "brain scams" & other phony science. ...

... "The Bad Science of Brain Sexism." In Salon, Thomas Rogers interviews Fine.

In Memoriam -- September 11

The President makes remarks at the Pentagon:

Vice President Biden at Ground Zero:

... C-SPAN has video of the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, memorial ceremony. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell begins speaking at about t 29:30 min. in; First Lady Laura Bush speaks at about 42:30 min. in; & First Lady Michelle Obama begins at about 55 min. in.

Los Angeles Times: "President Obama plans to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by attending a memorial service at the Pentagon, the White House said Tuesday. In addition, Vice President Biden will attend services at ground zero in New York, while Michelle Obama will be joined by former First Lady Laura Bush at the Flight 93 memorial near Shanksville, Pa., Robert Gibbs announced at his daily press briefing." Update: see videos in right column.

Verena Dobnik of the AP: "Politics threatened to overshadow a day of mourning Saturday ... amid a polarizing national debate over a planned mosque blocks from the site where Islamic extremists attacked America. Chants of thousands of sign-waving protesters both for and against the planned Islamic center were expected after — and perhaps during — a ceremony normally known for somber church bells ringing and a sad litany of families reading their lost loved ones' names." ...

... Washington Post: "Hundreds of supporters of the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero gathered Friday evening near the site in Lower Manhattan, where they lit candles, sang and prayed on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."

The New York Times has an excellent multimedia feature showing the plans & progress for Ground Zero. CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO GO TO THE TIMES INTERACTIVE SITE.

photo.     ... Here's the slideshow.

Ted Koppel, now of BBC News, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The goal of any organized terrorist attack is to goad a vastly more powerful enemy into an excessive response. And over the past nine years, the United States has blundered into the 9/11 snare with one overreaction after another.... Much of what [Osama bin Laden] has achieved we have done, and continue to do, to ourselves."

Secret Muslim Plot Exposed. Again. Jim Newell of Gawker: "A group led by the father of a Flight 93 victim will be running full-page ads this Friday and Saturday in a Shanksville-area newspaper ..." protesting that the Shanksville memorial, a work-in-progress, is really a Muslim crescent pointing at Mecca. Uh-huh. ...

    ... You know what else is going to be in the shape of the Islamic Crescent on 9/11? The Moon. -- Attaturk, Firedoglake

Meanwhile, at the Fuck Obama Xtravaganza (FOX) -- Media Matters: "Fox News is attacking President Obama's decision to attend a 9-11 memorial at the Pentagon rather than the World Trade Center site. However, former President George W. Bush routinely did not visit ground zero on past anniversaries of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Vice President Joe Biden is attending a memorial at the World Trade Center site...."

The Commentariat -- September 11

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims perform the early morning Eid al-Fitr prayer in the Saudi holy city of Mecca on Friday, Sept. 10, as Muslilms around the world start celebrating the the three-day holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. AFP-Getty image. CLICK TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.

Having never met a 'Judeo-Christian,' I am always suspicious when that category of beliefs is invoked. -- Michael Sean Winters

Michael Sean Winters in the National Catholic Observer eloquently explains the many reasons that there is no valid comparison between the Cordoba Center & the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz (which Pope John Paul II, a Pole, ordered to be moved). Via Hertzberg....

... Rick Hertzberg of The New Yorker: if Cordoba House must be moved, the best place to move it would be to Ground Zero. Hear him out.

Paul Krugman & Robin Wells in the New York Review of Books on "... the origins of the 2008 crisis; ... the ongoing policy debates about the response to the crisis and its aftermath." (This article will have -- but doesn't yet -- a Part 2.) ...

We believe that the relative absence of proposals to deal with mass unemployment is a case of 'self-induced paralysis' — a phrase that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke used a decade ago, when he was a researcher criticizing policymakers from the outside. There is room for action, both monetary and fiscal. But politicians, government officials, and economists alike have suffered a failure of nerve — a failure for which millions of workers will pay a heavy price. -- Paul Krugman & Robin Wells ...

... Dana Milbank on the right's attacks on 20th-century British economist John Maynard Keynes. First of all, Milbank points out, many of the right's programs are Keynesian. "Or perhaps, more ominously, these Republicans know exactly what they are saying when they reject Keynesian intervention: that the government should do nothing to help the millions out of work or to rebuild confidence in the economy."

With so much of Keynesian theory universally embraced, Republican denunciation of him has a flat-earth feel to it. Will they next demand the abolition of NASA because it's "Galileo on steroids?" Shut down the National Institutes of Health for being a "Hippocratic mistake?" ... Demand a halt to public schools teaching from the "failed Darwinian playbook?" (Oh, wait. They did that last part already.) -- Dana Milbank

Brad Grow of the Washington Post: "A crackdown on reckless mortgage lenders by the Federal Housing Administration has failed to root out several executives with criminal records whose firms continue to do business with the agency in violation of federal law, according to government documents, court records and interviews.... Documents and interviews reveal that more than 34,000 home loans have been issued over the past two years by a dozen FHA-approved lenders that have employed people who were convicted of felonies, banned from the securities industry or previously worked for firms barred by the agency."

According to the AP's "Fact Check," "President Barack Obama told voters repeatedly during the health care debate that the overhaul legislation would bring down fast-rising health care costs and save them money. Now, he's hemming and hawing on that." ...

... BUT Michael Crowley of Time says the "fact-checkers" are ignoring some nuance, & the President has not been inconsistent.