The Commentariat -- June 7, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' distorted take on the Wisconsin recall results. The NYTX front page is here. ...

... There's Debt and There's Debt. Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute explains high school-level economics to David Brooks.

Robert Scheer of Truthdig writes a column about Obama's use of drones. CW: I have some fundamental disagreements with Scheer (I also agree with a number of his specific criticisms), but I expect his piece will resonate with a lot of readers, & I consider his POV, in general, well-worth reading.

E. J. Dionne: "Only about a quarter of those who went to the polls [in Wisconsin] Tuesday said that a recall was appropriate for any reason.... Most voters ... rejected the very premise of the election in which they were casting ballots.... It's worth comparing what happened in Wisconsin with what happened last year in Ohio, where unions forced a referendum on the anti-labor legislation pushed through by Gov. John Kasich (R) and the Republican-controlled legislature. The unions and the Democrats won 61 percent in that vote, repealing the law. But this remedy was not available in Wisconsin." ...

... ** David Dayen of Firedoglake: "The real culprit was an obscure state campaign finance law that allowed Walker, the incumbent, to raise unlimited money while recall petitions were processed.... Barrett's donations were term-limited.... But the most important point: ... The policy of defunding the left ... was the entire point of Scott Walker's agenda. And it was successful when he signed Act 10, the anti-worker law, last year.... As a result, labor couldn't keep up with outside spending to compensate for the massive loophole-induced funding lead Walker had. Walker divided and conquered.... This becomes a downward spiral; labor cannot get back their rights, workers see no reason to keep paying dues for nothing, and the organization fades away." Read the whole post. ...

... Jonathan Chait of New York magazine: "Walker's win will certainly provide a blueprint for fellow Republicans. When they gain a majority, they can quickly move to not just wrest concessions from public sector unions but completely destroy them, which in turn eliminates one of the strongest sources of political organization for the Democratic Party. And whatever backlash develops, it's probably not enough to outweigh the political benefit. Walker has pioneered a tactic that will likely become a staple of Republican governance."

** David Kay Johnston of Reuters: "Six American families paid no federal income taxes in 2009 while making something on the order of $200 million each. This is one of many stunning revelations in new IRS data that deserves a thorough airing in this year's election campaign.... Congress has created two income tax systems, separate and unequal, burdening millions much more heavily than the few, those with gigantic incomes and a propensity to make campaign contributions." ...

... Robert Reich: actually, Bill Clinton agrees with me -- the Bush tax cuts must end. ...

... John Harris & Alexander Burns of Politico: Obama & Clinton aides agree: Bill Clinton is a doddering old fool who can't keep his foot out of his mouth.

... "The New Feudalism":

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in a Washington Post op-ed: "I've reintroduced the SAFE Banking Act, which would end 'too big to fail' once and for all by placing sensible size limits on our nation's megabanks and ensuring that if they gamble, they have the resources to cover their losses."

"Estonian Rhapsody" in Three Four Movements. As a follow-up to his contretemps with the two Brits in the video posted in yesterday's Commentariat -- (Presto:) one of whom held up Estonia as a model of successful austerity -- Paul Krugman produced a chart showing the progress of Estonia's economy and wrote, (Vivace:) "So, a terrible -- Depression-level -- slump, followed by a significant but still incomplete recovery. Better than no recovery at all, obviously -- but this is what passes for economic triumph?" ...

... Liz Goodwin of Yahoo! News: "Estonia's president Toomas Hendrik Ilves struck back on Twitter. (Agitato:) 'Let's write about something we know nothing about & be smug, overbearing & patronizing: after all, they're just wogs,' Ilves wrote, using the derogatory British slang term for dark-skinned people from Africa or the East. 'Guess a Nobel in trade means you can pontificate on fiscal matters & declare my country a "wasteland". Must be a Princeton vs Columbia thing,' he added, referencing the two men's alma maters." ...

... Krugman responds (Adagio) with a chart of New Deal recovery results.

Richard Yeselson of The New Republic on "the long, slow death spiral of the American labor movement": most people don't care about unions.

Scott Shane of the New York Times, reporting on his own reporting. Congressional sieves concerned about leaks: "Prompted in part by recent articles in The New York Times on the use of drones to carry out targeted killings and the deployment of the Stuxnet computer worm against the Iranian nuclear program<, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees issued a joint statement on Wednesday urging the administration 'to fully, fairly and impartially investigate' the recent disclosures and vowing new legislation to crack down on leaks."

This long New York Times Magazine piece by Amos Kamil, who went to the private, prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx, relates how a number of the teachers at Horace Mann sexually abused students. CW: I might be wrong, but I think we're going to be seeing a lot of these pedophiles-in-prep-schools stories. The story is an easy, if disturbing, read.

Lisa Abend of Time: Amid an economic crisis, Spanish officials at the state & local levels are considering ways to eliminate some of the tax exemptions the Catholic Church receives; the Church threatens to retaliate by cutting back social programs.

Presidential Race

Justin Sink of The Hill: "Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee raised $76.8 million in May, outpacing President Obama in the first full head-to-head month of the campaign. The president's reelection campaign said Thursday that it had raised $60 million in May, itself an improvement of more than 30 percent from April."

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: the neighbors around the Romneys' La Jolla, California, home, which he has plans to quadruple in size, are neither thrilled with his plans nor with him. ...

... Max Read of Gawker: "Mitt Romney is a narc."

Steve Peoples of the AP: "Though an early supporter of the Vietnam War, Romney avoided military service at the height of the fighting after high school by seeking and receiving four draft deferments, according to Selective Service records.... Because Romney, now 65, was of draft age during Vietnam, his military background -- or, rather, his lack of one -- is facing new scrutiny as he courts veterans and makes his case to the nation to be commander in chief. He's also intensified his criticism lately of Obama's plans to scale back the nation's military commitments abroad, suggesting that Romney would pursue an aggressive foreign policy as president that could involve U.S. troops."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "With a July 1 rate increase on education loans approaching, President Obama told students [in Las Vegas, Nevada] on Thursday that it is Congress's job to move swiftly to prevent the rise, even as Republicans in Washington accused him of ignoring their most recent proposals and refusing to negotiate":

Bloomberg News: "Fewer Americans applied for unemployment insurance payments last week, indicating limited progress in the labor market after a two-month slowdown in hiring."

Washington Post: "Nasdaq said Wednesday afternoon that it would hand out $40 million in cash and credit to reimburse investment firms that lost money on Facebook's opening day because of computer glitches at the exchange. Nasdaq's chief rival, the New York Stock Exchange, fired off a statement condemning the move, saying Nasdaq was giving itself an unfair advantage and rewarding itself for its own mistakes."

New York Times: "Leon E. Panetta, the United States defense secretary, arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday, after the deadliest day for civilians this year and amid controversy over a NATO airstrike the day before in which Afghan officials say 18 women and children were killed. President Hamid Karzai condemned the strike in the strongest terms and decided the incident was serious enough to cut short his trip to China...."

Washington Post: "... on Wednesday, under questioning from skeptical Republicans, [Doug Elmendorf,] the director of the nonpartisan (and widely respected) Congressional Budget Office, was emphatic about the value of the 2009 stimulus. And, he said, the vast majority of economists agree."

Al Jazeera: "A top US bank regulator [-- Thomas Curry, who heads the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency --] has told legislators that 'inadequate' risk controls at JPMorgan Chase led to a $2 billion derivatives loss, as senators questioned him and others over a failure to prevent the debacle.... Senators expressed concern thatregulators were too lax in monitoring huge trades."

AFP: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out a Syria strategy calling for a full transfer of power from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a senior State Department official said."

Guardian: "The judge presiding over [Bradley Manning's] trial at Fort Meade in Maryland has ordered the US government to hand over several confidential documents relating to the massive leak to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. In particular, the Obama administration must now disclose to Manning's lawyers some of the damage assessments it carried out into the impact of the leak on US interests around the world." (CW: not reported in the New York Times.)

AP: "Natasha Trethewey, 46, an English and creative writing professor at Emory University in Atlanta, will be named the 19th U.S. poet laureate Thursday." New York Times story here.

Guardian: "Spain is warning that Europe's single currency will unravel unless its leaders decide within weeks to centralise budget and tax policies in the eurozone and agree on a strategy to pool responsibility for failing banks."

The Commentariat -- June 6, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Of Sex, Love and the Inquisition." The NYTX front page is here.

Leeches!

Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast: a reader tots up PolitiFact's truthiness ratings (CW: no clue as to what calendar period the analysis covers). "Politifact picks and chooses what topics it covers; it itself is not unblemished in its impartiality.... Based on the following leaders - Romney, Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Gingrich, Perry, Santorum for the GOP and Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, and Clinton (Hillary) for the Dems, we get this graph":

     "Romney, for some reason, seems attached to the Big Lie":

Bill Clinton, Off-message Again. Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Former President Bill Clinton told CNBC Tuesday that the US economy already is in a recession and urged Congress to extend all the tax cuts due to expire at the end of the year. In a taped interview aired on 'Closing Bell,' the still-popular 42nd president called the current economic conditions a 'recession' and said overzealous Republican plans to cut the deficit threaten to plunge the country further into the debt abyss." With video clip. ...

... Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "While the year-end burst of tax hikes and spending cuts known as Taxmageddon promises to be messy, it would set the nation on a course to smaller budget deficits and lower debt, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.... There is already talk of postponing a decision, perhaps by temporarily extending current tax policies. That would avoid a short-term fiscal shock that the CBO has said is likely to throw the economy back into recession during the first part of next year." ...

... Ezra Klein has the charts.

** Joe Stiglitz in the Guardian: "... the American dream is a myth. There is less equality of opportunity in the United States today than there is in Europe -- or, indeed, in any advanced industrial country for which there are data." Thanks to contributor Carlyle for the link. Update: sorry about the earlier link fail. Here's Terry Gross of NPR interviewing Stiglitz; thanks to Julie for the link:

... Here's the Stiglitz article in Vanity Fair, which Terry Gross mentions. It's an excerpt from his new book, Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%. "As the widening financial divide cripples the U.S. economy, even those at the top will pay a steep price."

Ben Geman of The Hill: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is breaking with Mitt Romney and some Capitol Hill Republicans by expressing support for federal green-energy programs, including the one that provided loan help to the now-bankrupt Solyndra. Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said she supports continuation of the Energy's Department loan-guarantee program for green energy, and more broadly backs a federal role in boosting market deployment of alternative energy." CW: Murkowski should become a Democrat.

E. J. Graff of American Prospect: "When white men go into 'women's work,' they earn more money and move up more quickly, out-earning equally qualified women. Because, you know, white guys are just better at everything."

Jamelle Bouie: Republicans are holding the economy hostage until they get their way.

Laurie Goodstein & Rachel Donadio of the New York Times: "The Vatican's doctrinal office on Monday denounced an American nun who taught Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School for a book that attempted to present a theological rationale for same-sex relationships, masturbation and remarriage after divorce. The Vatican office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the book, 'Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,' by Sister Margaret A. Farley, was 'not consistent with authentic Catholic theology.' ..." ...

... Maureen Dowd: "Just the latest chapter in the Vatican's thuggish crusade to push American nuns -- and all Catholic women -- back into moldy subservience." ...

... Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post: "Twenty-four hours ago news broke that the Vatican had condemned the book 'Just Love:A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics' a publication by a prominent nun-theologian that disagrees with church teaching on same-sex marriage, masturbation and remarrying after divorce. Monday morning, the book's reported ranking on Amazon: 142,982. Tuesday afternoon, after a day of furious news coverage of the Vatican censure: It's at #16." CW: Thanks for the plug, Joe Ratzinger. And Oprah thought she could move books. Celibate thugs are just better at everything.

Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "Labels inside every box of morning-after pills, drugs widely used to prevent pregnancy after sex, say they may work by blocking fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman's uterus.... Such descriptions have become kindling in the fiery debate over abortion and contraception.... But an examination by The New York Times has found that the federally approved labels and medical Web sites do not reflect what the science shows. Studies have not established that emergency contraceptive pills prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the womb, leading scientists say."

Steve LeBlanc of the AP: "It's the single most contentious element of President Barack Obama's health care law: the requirement that nearly everyone have insurance or face a financial hit. But in Massachusetts, the only state with a so-called individual mandate, the threat of a tax penalty has sparked little public outcry since the state's landmark health care law was signed in 2006 by the governor, Mitt Romney." CW: gee, sounds like a campaign line for Obama, doesn't it?

Health Day via the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain critical to learning and memory, new research finds. According to the study, people who said they were a 'born-again' Protestant or Catholic, or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or 'atrophy') compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again."

William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Thomas D. Raffaele, a 69-year-old justice of the New York State Supreme Court, encountered a chaotic scene while walking down a Queens street with a friend: Two uniformed police officers stood over a shirtless man lying facedown on the pavement. The man's hands were cuffed behind his back and he was screaming. A crowd jeered at the officers." One of the officers -- for no apparent reason -- turned on the justice and "using the upper edge of his hand, delivered a sharp blow to the judge's throat that was like what he learned when he was trained in hand-to-hand combat in the Army." Read the whole story.

On Wisconsin

E. J. Dionne gleans some lessons from the exit polls.

Greg Sargent: "Scott Walker's victory in [Tuesday]'s recall battle is a major wake-up call for the left, Democrats, and unions about the true nature of the new, post-Citizens United political landscape, and it should force a major reckoning among liberals and Democrats about what this means for the future."

CW: I think Jamelle Bouie has the smartest take: "Where the conventional wisdom goes off the rails is in the attempt to draw broad lessons for November, and attribute motives to Wisconsin voters.... According to exit polls, Walker won 17 percent of Obama supporters in the state, and overall, last night's electorate favored the president over Mitt Romney by a significant margin, 52 percent to 43 percent.... For 60 percent of last night's voters, a recall is only acceptable in cases of official misconduct. For 10 percent, a recall is never acceptable. It's not that these voters are pro-Walker, pro-Obama as much as they are pro-Obama, anti-recall." Read the whole post.

Charles Pierce: "A star was born last night. You will now see Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, everywhere in the energetic precincts of the revived American right."

Presidential Race

David Graham of the Atlantic notices that Mitt Romney told the Detroit News that "... as president he'd prioritize the financial interests of General Motors, its employees, and its customers over the interests of the taxpayer. That's a statement that seems to play right into the hands of President Obama's argument about Bain Capital, which is that the interests Romney served in private equity, while perfectly defensible for a private citizen, are far removed from the public interest that the president of the United States must serve."

News Ledes

Yahoo! News: "Union groups and their supporters spent much of Wednesday castigating billionaire donors, Citizens United and corporate power in the wake of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's victory over the effort to recall him from office. 'Texas billionaires' and 'multinational corporations' can 'spend unlimited money to sway an election,' American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) president Richard Trumka told reporters on a conference call Wednesday afternoon."

Washington Post: "D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown resigned from his seat Wednesday night, hours after he was charged with bank fraud, plunging the city government into a leadership crisis."

AP: "A jury dominated by people with Penn State loyalties was selected Wednesday to decide Jerry Sandusky's fate in the child sexual abuse scandal that rocked the university and led to football coach Joe Paterno's downfall."

ABC News: "Anders Breivik, the right-wing extremist who has confessed to killing 77 people during a murder spree in Norway last summer, played the violent computer game World of Warcraft nearly seven hours a day for several consecutive months before his attack, prosecutors say. Breivik, 33, already known to have a long history with the online role-playing game, was particularly absorbed by it between November 2010 and February 2011...."

AP: "Reports of assaults on women in Tahrir [Square in Cairo, Egypt] ... have been on the rise with a new round of mass protests to denounce a mixed verdict against the ousted leader and his sons in a trial last week.... Protesters and activists met Wednesday to organize a campaign to prevent sexual harassment in the square.... The phenomenon is trampling on their dream of creating in Tahrir a micro-model of a state that respects civil liberties and civic responsibility, which they had hoped would emerge after Mubarak's ouster."

New York Times: "Leaders of the House Ethics Committee said Wednesday that they would move ahead with a long-delayed inquiry into allegations of impropriety by Representative Maxine Waters after concluding that committee missteps had not denied Ms. Waters a fair hearing in the case."

New York Times: "Syrian opposition activists reported a mass killing of villagers by pro-government militiamen and security forces on Wednesday — if verified, the fourth massacre in less than two weeks -- threatening to inject a new surge of angry momentum into the growing international effort to isolate President Bashar al-Assad and remove him from power."

New York Times: "Ray Bradbury, a master of science fiction whose imaginative and lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 91."

New York Times: "The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday delved into the nuances of JPMorgan's trading loss, quizzing the bank's primary regulators about how the blunder would affect the outcome of Wall Street regulation."

Here's the New York Times' report on the Wisconsin recall elections.

Not reported in the Times account (as of 7:15 am ET), the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports the one spot of light for unions and Democrats in the Wisconsin elections: "Democrats appeared to have assumed control of the state Senate with results posted early Wednesday showing former Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine) defeating incumbent Van Wanggaard in a tight race.... Results posted early Wednesday showed Lehman with 36,255 votes to 35,476 for Wanggaard with 100% of precincts reporting. The margin of 779 could bring a recount."

Washington Post: "Primary voters in California on Tuesday began to remake the face of Congress as a redrawn electoral map and new balloting rules promised a significant overhaul of the state's delegation, which accounts for about 12 percent of the House of Representatives."

More Blows to Unions. New York Times: "In both San Diego and San Jose, voters appeared to overwhelmingly approve ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers." The San Jose Mercury-News story is here. The San Diego Union-Tribune story is here.

New York Times: "Greece is rapidly running out of money."

The Commentariat -- June 5, 2012

In Hong Kong's Victoria Park, thousands remember Tiananmen Square. Photo via MSNBC.... James Fallows of the Atlantic: "That so many people would turn out, in a supremely business-minded community that has been legally part of the People's Republic of China for nearly 15 years, to observe the Tiananmen anniversary that is leading to detentions, tightened censorship, and crackdowns in other parts of China, is impressive and heartening. (It also is impressive and heartening that Hong Kong's legal regime remains independent enough to allow such demonstrations and comments, after these nearly 15 years.)"

Quote of the Day. Conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less. -- E. J. Dionne, Washington Post

CW: I just couldn't stomach David Brooks today (and I tried), but Dean Baker does a very nice job of flaying a part of Brooks' latest nonsense.

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: Congressional Democrats & the White House engaged in "an unusual example of all-hands-on-deck coordination ... in advance of a key procedural vote on the [Paycheck Fairness Act] set for Tuesday.... The bill came up for a procedural vote in the Senate in 2010 and failed, as no Republican supported it. It heads to the Senate floor again on Tuesday for another procedural vote to begin debate; it is expected to fail once again.... The paycheck legislation seems to have vexed the Romney campaign -- Mr. Romney will not state clearly whether he supports it." CW: the gist of the report seems to be to diss Democrats for being uniformly behind a bill that would help women in the workplace. Nice work, Steinhauer.

"Our Imbecilic Constitution." Sheldon Levinson, in a New York Times "Campaign Stop": "... the Constitution is enveloped in near religious veneration. (Indeed, Mormon theology treats it as God-given.) ... What was truly admirable about the framers was their willingness to critique, indeed junk, the Articles of Confederation. One need not believe that the Constitution of 1787 should be discarded in quite the same way to accept that we are long overdue for a serious discussion about its own role in creating the depressed (and depressing) state of American politics." Sorry, don't know how I missed this one, but it has not reached its use-by date. Plus, another reason not to vote for Brother Willard.

Steve Benen: Chris Hayes gives Mann & Ornstein some airtime, after other news talkshows rebuff the scholars, who have written a book -- and some essays -- fingering Congressional Republicans as the real obstructionists.

Joe Nocera has not been palling around with Wall Street terrorists quite so much lately. Today it dawns on him that labor unions were a major factor in reducing income inequality in the last century. No kidding.

CW: You wouldn't know it from reading Larry Summers' jargon-laden op-ed in the Washington Post, but the headline writer helpfully titled the piece "It is time for governments to borrow more money." I fee so much better knowing Larry doesn't feel he has to talk down to me. Jerk.

Nathaniel Popper of the New York Times: "As the European crisis intensifies, a growing number of companies in the United States are warning investors that sales in the region are slowing and could get much worse."

Greg Sargent thinks voters are too dense to appreciate the argument that Republicans are sabotaging the economy. I'm not so sure. I wouldn't make sabotage my main campaign theme, but Democrats should hold Republicans accountable, in part, for the lousy economy. On the other hand,

Presidential Race

The Republican Congress and their nominee for President, Gov. Romney, have adopted Europe's economic policies. Their economic policy is austerity and unemployment now, and then a long term budget that would explode the debt when the economy recovers so the interest rates would be so high, nobody would be able to do anything. -- Former President Bill Clinton, at a fundraiser with President Obama & finally getting with the program (for now) ...

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: former President Bill Clinton, appearing with President Obama at fundraisers in New York City, tried to clean up his earlier remarks praising Mitt Romney's business acumen. ...

... Roger Simon of Politico has quite a good take on Bill Clinton, campaign surrogate: he's "out of control." ...

... Why can't Clinton be more like Ed Gillespie? -- whom Michael Scherer of Time nominates for Best Surrogate for his performance on Chris Wallace's show Sunday. What a performance!

Mitt Romney Explains Why He Is Running for President. Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: "According to an analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would save himself $5 million in taxes in 2013 by winning November's election (assuming he could get his tax plan enacted into law)."

When Willard Loved the Individual Mandate. Mark Maremont of the Wall Street Journal gets his hands on a few e-mails the Gov. Romney team accidentally forgot to destroy.

Local News

Annie-Rose Strasser of Think Progress: "... in court last week, one of [Wisconsin Gov. Scott] Walker's closest confidants contradicted the Governor's claim that he's been fully cooperative with the [corruption] investigation, which has already claimed three of Walker's former staffers and associates. The probe is aimed at locating government officials who engaged in a range of criminal activities while employed by Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive. Tim Russell, an old Walker adviser who has himself been charged with felony embezzlement, told a local reporter that Walker has not been cooperative with the corruption probe. In fact, Russell's information shows that Walker has been 'stonewalling' investigators." ...

... PolitiScoop: "Scott Walker's closest political aide has just been named in Milwaukee County Circuit Court Monday as the source of damaging revelations that undermine Walker's claim that he has cooperated with the John Doe criminal corruption probe into his current and former administrations." Thanks to reader Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... Charles Pierce has the whole story & tells it as only Charles Pierce can. ...

... AND Obama finally gets with the program:

... AP: "President Barack Obama's press secretary says the president hopes Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett beats Republican Gov. Scott Walker in Tuesday's recall election."

Karen Herzog of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Tuition and fees this fall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison would top $10,000 for in-state students, and UW-Milwaukee would be close behind, if a recommended 5.5% tuition increase is approved by the Board of Regents this week." CW: I've linked this only because it shocked me. When I went to the UW-Madison in 1962, in-state tuition was $300/year. Even adjusted for inflation, the 1962 fee would be $2,255 today.

News Ledes

New York Times: "In a hard-fought race that pitted two Democrats and onetime friends against each other, Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. won the primary in the Ninth Congressional District on Tuesday. With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. Pascrell had 64 percent of the vote, beating Representative Steve Rothman, with 36 percent, according to The Associated Press."

Los Angeles Times: "U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) leaped to a commanding lead against 23 little-known challengers, according to absentee ballot returns Tuesday night. Feinstein captured about 51% of the early balloting, assuring her a place in the general election under the state's new 'top-two' primary rules. Autism activist Susan Emken, a Republican, polled about 12% of the absentee tally, making her the early favorite to face Feinstein in the fall."

NBC News projects Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has survived the recall effort @ 9:55 pm ET. Update: Wisconsin GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch also holds her seat @ 10:15 pm ET. Sen. Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald projected to survive recall @ 10:40 pm ET.

New York Times: "Al Qaeda's deputy leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi, was killed in a drone strike in northern Pakistan, an American official confirmed on Tuesday, in the biggest single success in the controversial campaign's eight-year history in the country."

Boston Globe: "Senate Democrats lost a key vote Tuesday to expand rights of working women to challenge employers on pay discrimination.... Democrats mustered 52 votes for passage, far short of the 60 needed to block a GOP-led filibuster. All 47 Republicans opposed the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voted with Republicans as a procedural tactic to allow him to again bring up the measure."

Guardian: "Syria has severed almost all its remaining diplomatic links with the west, declaring that envoys from the US and most of western Europe were no longer welcome in Damascus, in a tit-for-tat response to the expulsion of Syrian diplomats last week. The Assad regime announced that 17 diplomats from the US, UK, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany and Canada were considered 'personae non gratae' as well as the entire Turkish mission in Damascus."

Guardian: "One of the highest-profile prosecutions stemming from the Iraq war period is to go ahead after the US supreme court refused to dismiss manslaughter and weapons charges against four employees of the private security company Blackwater Worldwide. Supreme court justices declined to review a ruling by a US appeals court that reinstated the criminal charges against the guards for their involvement in the incident, in which 17 Iraqi civilians died and 20 were wounded."

The New York Times has a liveblog of the Wisconsin election. ...

... Los Angeles Times: "As Wisconsin residents decide today whether Gov. Scott Walker keeps his job, reports have surfaced of automated calls instructing voters who signed the recall petition that they don't need to cast a vote to oust the controversial governor." ...

... Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Over 200 students statewide reported confusion at the polls Tuesday and many left without casting a vote, according to the League of Women Voters. 'We know there has been disenfranchisement. We know this has happened. We know students left their polling places without voting,' said Carolyn Castore, the League's coordinator for the statewide election protection hotline." ...

... AP: "Regardless of the outcome, Wisconsin voters will make history today. Either Gov. Scott Walker will become only the third governor in U.S. history to be removed from office before his term is up, or he'll be the first to survive such a challenge." The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's election day coverage is here. ...

... ABC News has a rundown of contests in other states.

New York Times: "Pressed by a banking crisis and turmoil in the markets, Germany has indicated that it is prepared to accept a grand bargain that would provide greater support for its most indebted euro zone partners in exchange for more centralized control over government spending in Europe."

New York Times: "In late April, the military's Special Operations Command presented the State Department and Congress with an urgent request for new authority to train and equip security forces in places like Yemen and Kenya.... But in a rare rebuke to [Admiral William McRaven] and his command, powerful House and Senate officials as well as the State Department, and ultimately the deputy cabinet-level aides who met at the White House on the issue on May 7, rejected the changes."

Washington Post: "The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that Secret Service agents are shielded from a lawsuit brought by a man who said his free speech rights were violated when he was arrested after confronting then-Vice President Dick Cheney."

AP: "A federal appeals court in San Francisco plans to announce Tuesday if it will rehear a legal challenge to California's same-sex marriage ban or send the landmark case on to the U.S. Supreme Court. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday it was ready to reveal whether a majority of its actively serving judges has agreed or refused to reconsider a February ruling by two of its member judges declaring the ban unconstitutional." ...

     ... NBC News Update: "A federal appeals court said Tuesday it will not rehear arguments on California's Proposition 8, meaning the final word on the constitutionality of the state's ban on same-sex marriage will likely come from the U.S. Supreme Court."

New York Times: "The Walt Disney Company, in an effort to address concerns about entertainment's role in childhood obesity, plans to announce on Tuesday that all products advertised on its child-focused television channels, radio stations and Web sites must comply with a strict new set of nutritional standards."

AP: "Despite his repeated efforts to delay it, Jerry Sandusky's child molestation trial was set to begin with the start of jury selection, as prosecutors and his defense lawyers choose 12 people from the area around Penn State to decide his guilt or innocence."

AP: "Crowds cheering 'God save the queen!' and pealing church bells greeted Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday as she arrived for a service at St. Paul's Cathedral on the last of four days of celebrations of her 60 years on the throne. Poignantly, the queen was without Prince Philip, her husband of 64 years, who was hospitalized on Monday for treatment of a bladder infection."

Reuters: "Lawyers for George Zimmerman ... said on Monday they would ask a judge to release him from jail again after his bail was revoked last week."