The Commentariat -- April 27, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' latest attempt to take down Paul Krugman. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. ...

... Driftglass has something to say about Brooks, too:

Mr. Brooks, in case you hadn't noticed, the government of the United States has been conducting a massive experiment for about the last 30 years. It's called 'Conservatism'. Maybe you've read about it? Its key features radical deregulating of everything, the mass rejection of science, running up staggering debt by throwing money at rich people, gutting our manufacturing base, shredding our social safety net, lying our way into some of the worst foreign policy decisions in our history, slandering, lying and impeaching opponents, voter suppression, mass-distributing firearms as if they were free sausage samples being handed out at the mall....

Paul Krugman: "... something has changed [in Europe] in the past few weeks. Several events — the collapse of the Dutch government over proposed austerity measures, the strong showing of the vaguely anti-austerity François Hollande in the first round of France’s presidential election, and an economic report showing that Britain is doing worse in the current slump than it did in the 1930s — seem to have finally broken through the wall of denial. Suddenly, everyone is admitting that austerity isn’t working."

NEW. Governing by Executive Order. Anne Gearan of the AP: At Ft. Stewart today, President Obama signed "an executive order mandating several new education protections for military service members. Though there is little the federal government can do to shut down diploma mills, the new protections would make it harder for post-secondary and technical schools to misrepresent themselves to military students.... Bills pending in Congress, largely backed by Democrats and unlikely to become law soon, would do many of the same things Obama was ordering Friday."

Thirty-one Republican Senators voted against reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act (see yesterday's Ledes):

Robert Farzad of Business Week: we taxpayers still have a "special relationship" with A.I.G.; Treasury has effectively given them another bailout, according to Elizabeth Warren & is playing numbers tricks according to Neil Barofsky. And A.I.G. hasn't learned a thing -- its CEO can hardly wait to get back into risky business. ...

... Speaking of Elizabeth Warren -- Robert Rizzuto of The (Massuchusetts) Republican: "With Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown set to release six years of tax returns sometime today, the Massachusetts Democratic Party released a new video this morning portraying him as 'a millionaire under that $675 barn jacket" (via Greg Sargent):

The Presidential Race

** New York Times editors: "Mitt Romney has made [Robert] Bork a chairman of his Justice Advisory Committee. As with other Republicans leaders, Mr. Bork's central position in Mr. Romney's legal team says a great deal about the presumptive presidential nominee's approach to the law, none of it good."

E. J. Dionne: "Mitt Romney ... has a utopian view of what an unfettered, lightly taxed market economy can achieve. He would never put it this way, of course, but his approach looks forward by looking backward to the late 19th century, when government let market forces rip and a conservative Supreme Court swept aside as unconstitutional almost every effort to write rules for the economic game. This magical capitalism is the centerpiece of Romney's campaign.... This is Romney’s true radicalism."

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: no matter how "moderate" Gov. Etch-a-Sketch becomes on immigration, he won't be able to top McCain 31% of the Hispanic vote because "Romney, like his party, is just too white.... Average Latino voters, men and women who work really hard every day for white bosses, are just going to find that he reminds them too much of the guy who docks their pay when the bus comes late. And they won't be wrong -- he basically is that guy."

John Broder of the New York Times: "The group Americans for Prosperity just went up with a $6.1 million ad buy in swing states that accuses the Obama administration of squandering American taxpayer dollars on green energy projects, asserting that some of the money actually went to foreign entities. The ad is going up in eight states." And it's full of lies. CW: Good for Broder for debunking the ad. ...

     ... NEW. Stephen Lacey & Rebecca Leber of Think Progress fact-check the ad. Oops, no facts! ...

     ... AND. NEW. Steve Benen: "If President Obama has failed as spectacularly as his Republican detractors argue, shouldn't it be easier for them to come up with honest attack ads?"

... Paul Waldman of American Prospect on the "Cool Obama" ad from Karl Turdblossom Rove (see the ad in yesterday's Commentariat): "So once again, we have to wage a campaign of the cool kids versus the squares. This all started in the 1960s, when people like Rove and Romney watched their contemporaries smoking grass, listening to music with electric guitars, and dancing wildly about with adventurous girls in sheer peasant blouses, and thought to themselves, 'Gosh darn it, I hate those guys!'" CW: my thoughts exactly.

Right Wing World *

Russell Berman of The Hill: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sounded a pessimistic note on the prospects of Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) modified DREAM Act proposal making it into law this year.... 'I found it of interest,' he said of Rubio’s proposal, 'but the problem with this issue is that we’re operating in a very hostile political environment. And to deal with a very difficult issue like this … I think it would be difficult at best.'" CW: Hostile political environment: see also 20-foot electrified double border fence with alligator mote. ...

... Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "The Rubio proposal hardly puts Obama in a 'box,' as the Post suggests [see yesterday's Commentariat]. All Obama has to do is endorse the Rubio option as a stopgap measure, say it's the best that can be done for now, and tell Congress to get to work. At that point, the GOP will fling it into a black hole of obstruction, from which neither hope nor light can escape." CW: and if Romney also endorses it, that will leave him once again at odds with the Xenophobe Party. C'mon, Obama, you know what to do.

* Where it sucks not to be white. -- Akhilleus

News Ledes

New York Times: "The economic output of the United States grew at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter of the year, largely on the strength of consumer spending and a surge in residential building helped by unseasonably warm weather."

Vice President Oops! Politico: "The Federal Election Commission has fined Sen. Marco Rubio $8,000 for accepting more than $210,000 in improper contributions during his 2010 run for the Senate."

New York Times: "Moments after an unusual fiery appeal from Speaker John A. Boehner, the House voted 215 to 195 on Friday to prevent a doubling of student loan rates and challenge President Obama over a veto threat. The bill, which would strip $5.9 billion from a program within the health care law to pay to keep rates on subsidized undergraduate loans at 3.4 percent, is all but certain to fail in the Senate, where lawmakers have put together their own measure to keep the rate from reverting to 6.8 percent by closing tax loopholes for some wealthy business owners."

New York Times: "The dramatic nighttime escape of a blind rights lawyer from extralegal house arrest in his village dealt a major embarrassment to the Chinese government and left the United States, which may be sheltering him, with a fresh diplomatic quandary as it seeks to improve its fraught relationship with Beijing."

New York Times: "Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Thursday passed a bill that encourages intelligence agencies and businesses to share information about threats to computer systems, including attacks on American Web sites by hackers in China and other countries."

New York Times: "Federal regulators escalated their antitrust investigation of Google on Thursday by hiring a prominent litigator, sending a strong signal that they are prepared to take the Internet giant to court."

Guardian: "Japan and the US have agreed to relocate thousands of US marines from Okinawa in a move aimed at reducing the island's military burden amid lingering anger among residents over pollution, accidents and crime. Under a deal reached in Washington late on Thursday, about 9,000 marines will move from the southern Japanese island to the US Pacific territory of Guam and other locations in the region, including Hawaii and Australia."

New York Times: "... the Secret Service has begun to change its policies after the scandal [in Colombia]. The agency plans to bar employees from drinking alcohol beginning 10 hours before their shift.... The previous cutoff was six hours.... According to a Congressional official, the employees involved [in the prostitution scandal] included nine Secret Service agents and three uniformed officers. None were part of the president's personal detail."

Guardian: "The military judge in the court-martial of the US soldier accused of handing WikiLeaks the biggest trove of unauthorised state secrets in American history has put army prosecutors on notice that they must prove Bradley Manning knew he was helping the enemy or face the possibility that the most serious charge against him be dismissed."

Reuters: "A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh 'enhanced interrogation techniques' the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs."

New York Times: Jeremy Hunt, the "embattled British cabinet minister who has drawn criticism for his dealings with Rupert Murdoch's media empire, promised on Friday to hand over text messages and e-mails relating to his role in a failed $12 billion bid by Mr. Murdoch to take full control of BSkyB, Britain's main satellite broadcaster."

Reuters: "George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who is accused of murder in the death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, has raised at least $200,000 through a website set up to fund his defense, his lawyer said on Thursday."

ABC News: "While U.S. officials say publicly there is no specific threat of a terror attack, behind the scenes law enforcement officials tell ABC News there are plans for a major security surge at airports and transportation hubs in advance of next week's anniversary of Osama bin Laden<'s death."

The Commentariat -- April 26, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is ostensibly on Charles Blow's uncritical post re: Mitt Romney's "victory" speech Tuesday night. But since Blow totally missed it, my column is most useful, I think, as a rundown of what a bunch of crap Romney's speech was. The NYTX front page is here with links to some great stuff. NYTX is in the last week of its subscription drive, so if you were of a mind to sign up, now would be a good time to do so. ...  

... If I coulda, I woulda defended Krugman in the Krugman-Bernanke brouhaha, but I told NYTX editor Chris Spannos I wasn't smart enough. He contacted economist Dean Baker, who is smart enough. Tho Baker was reluctant, he has weigned in, coming down on Krugman's side. Here's Baker's post. The "debate" started with this article, to be printed in this week's New York Times Magazine, in which Krugman criticizes Bernanke for not sticking to his own principles & doing more to manipulate the economy to encourage jobs growth -- which is half of the Fed's charter. In response to a question from New York Times reporter Binyamin Appelbaum, Bernanke responded that Krugman was "absolutely incorrect." In a blogpost, Krugman replied, "... as I see it, in effect he [Bernanke] declared that he has been assimilated by the Fed Borg." ...

... Charles Pierce's review of Ross Douthat's book about religious stuff is priceless.

Here's an American Crossroads (Karl Rove) anti-Obama ad that just makes me like the President better:

Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone interviews President Obama.

Episode 2 of "Money, Power & Wall Street." You have to play through at the end of the video to see the full episode:

Jared Bernstein enters into the World-Where-Facts-Matter & reviews scholarly research that all shows that raising the tax rate on high-income earners has no negative impact on the economy.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "An increasing number of the nation’s large banks — U.S. Bank, Regions Financial and Wells Fargo among them — are aggressively courting low-income customers ... with alternative products that can carry high fees. They are rapidly expanding these offerings partly because the products were largely untouched by recent financial regulations, and also to recoup the billions in lost income from recent limits on debit and credit card fees."

Nicholas Kristof: autopsies of dozens of veterans' brains show evidence of a disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., raising the question, "Could blasts from bombs or grenades have a catastrophic impact similar to those of repeated concussions in sports, and could the rash of suicides among young veterans be a result?"

Dream Act -2.0. Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: Sen. Marco Rubio's (RTP-Fla.) "alternate" Dream Act "puts Obama in a box. Democrats are reluctant to see Rubio's efforts as anything other than a political gambit to repair his party's tarnished image with Hispanics and boost his own profile as a potential vice-presidential pick or future White House contender. But if Obama does not at least try to work with Rubio, he could risk losing a centerpiece of his appeal to Hispanic voters — that he is their fiercest ally in Washington and that the GOP is to blame for lack of action on fixing the country's immigration ills." ...

... CW: Obama should call Rubio into the Oval, tell Rubio he knows what he's up to, then green-light the plan, if Rubio ever gets it written down, even tho the plan leaves these kids as 2nd-class noncitizens. This is the only way Obama can one-up Romney's certain embrace of the plan, which Romney says he's "studying."

The Presidential Race

"The Wrong Message." Fareed Zakaria: "Recently the president and his advisers have focused on taxing the rich and tackling inequality. The 'Buffett rule' tax on millionaires has become Obama’s bumper sticker. The proposal is reasonable — but does not deserve the attention Obama is showering on it. It raises a trivial sum.... It adds one more layer to a tax code that is already the most complex and corrupt in the industrialized world. If the president wants to be bold, he could propose comprehensive tax reform and eliminate the hundreds of deductions, exemptions, credits and loopholes, many of which Congress sells in exchange for campaign contributions.... Warren Buffett has said that, in the midst of the economic slowdown, his strategy was to invest in America. That's the Buffett rule Obama should follow."

Gail Collins: "We are now in for six months of Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama, and with the polls showing the race to be very close, you could argue that it is going to be really exciting. Except for the fact that it's Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama."

Jed Lewison of Daily Kos makes the case that, with two exceptions, Mitt Romney hasn't been much of a flip-flopper. On the contrary, he has stuck to his newly-honed conservative guns.

Jamelle Bouie of American Prospect: "In his victory speech last night, the former Massachusetts governor offered a startlingly dishonest take on the last three and a half years of the Obama presidency." Bouie, by contrast, offers a starltingly honest take.

Right Wing World *

"The Wonk Gap." Steve Benen: right-wing experts, even when they know better, will say anything, do anything to score points for their side. Case in point, economist Glenn Hubbard, once a Dubya's economist, now working for Romney, "has a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that President Obama's budget plan includes a secret plan to raise everyone's taxes by 11%. Commenting on the piece, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Hubbard's argument is 'completely made up,' and a 'remarkably hackish observation for an economist.'"

Tim Noah of The New Republic: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last week became, I think, the highest-ranking Republican poobah to say, pretty much outright, that we need to soak the poor. More remarkable still, he said we need to do it in order to avoid raising taxes on the rich!" Here's that sniveling little weasel on the Utoobz:

* From which no fact returns unmutilated. -- Akhilleus

News Ledes

Reuters: "The family of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, killed almost a year ago by American special forces in a military town in northwest Pakistan, left Pakistan for Saudi Arabia early on Friday morning, the family lawyer told Reuters. The move ends months of speculation about the fate of the three widows and 11 children, who were detained by Pakistani security forces after the May 2 raid. 'Yes, they're being deported to Saudi Arabia,' said Aamir Khalil, the family lawyer. 'It is a special flight.'"

San Diego Union-Tribune: "Sgt. Gary Stein, the Camp Pendleton-based Marine who made national headlines for his disparaging remarks about President Barack Obama on Facebook, has been thrown out of the Corps."

Washington Post: "A measure that would reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act was approved by the Senate Thursday with broad bipartisan support, despite some Republican objections to key provisions. The battle over those differences now moves to the House, where Republicans are pushing an alternative version of the bill."

New York Times: "The drama of former Senator John Edwards's trial took a few more twists on Thursday as Andrew Young ... admitted submitting misleading financial statements to a wealthy benefactor who thought he was helping the senator hide a mistress." ...

     ... News & Observer: "Andrew Young, the former aide for John Edwards, acknowledged under a rough cross-examination Thursday afternoon that much of the money obtained from two wealthy supporters went into the construction of his $1.5 million Orange County home." The News & Observer's Edwards page is here.

AP: "A military judge rejected a defense motion Thursday to consolidate some of the charges against [Pfc. Bradley Manning].... Col. Denise Lind was still considering a defense motion to dismiss the most serious charge against [him] — aiding the enemy — which carries a maximum life sentence. She said problems with a Fort Meade Internet connection had slowed her work on that matter and might delay her ruling until a later date."

AP: "The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits remained stuck near a three-month high last week, a sign that hiring has likely slowed since winter. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000. It was little changed from the previous week's figure, the highest since Jan. 7."

AP: "Chrysler followed its strong first-quarter sales with a big profit, sending its 2009 brush with financial death farther into the rearview mirror. The Auburn Hills, Mich., company made a net profit of $473 million, its best quarter in 13 years, mainly on the back of strong U.S.sales."

Washington Post: "The United States has begun launching drone strikes against suspected al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen under new authority approved by President Obama that allows the CIA and the military to fire even when the identity of those who could be killed is not known.... The policy shift marks a significant expansion of the clandestine drone war against an al-Qaeda affiliate that has seized large ­pieces of territory in Yemen and is linked to a series of terrorist plots against the United States. U.S. officials said that Obama approved the use of 'signature' strikes this month and that the killing of an al-Qaeda operative near the border of Yemen's Marib province this week was among the first attacks carried out under the new authority."

New York Times: "Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once a powerful warlord, was convicted by an international tribunal on Thursday of 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes committed in Sierra Leone during that country's civil war in the 1990s. The ruling, announced by Presiding Judge Richard Lussick of Samoa, said Mr. Taylor was guilty of involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, rape, slavery and the use of child soldiers. The court, however, said the prosecution failed to prove that Mr. Taylor had direct command responsibility for the atrocities in the indictment."

New York Times: "The front-runner for the French presidency, the Socialist candidate François Hollande, said on Wednesday that if elected he would ask other European leaders to renegotiate a fiscal treaty in order to promote growth."

Washington Post: "Israel’s military chief said in an interview published Wednesday that he believes Iran will choose not to build a nuclear bomb, an assessment that contrasted with the gloomier statements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pointed to differences over the Iran issue at the top levels of Israeli leadership." Here's the interview of Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz in Haaretz.

Washington Post: "Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday convicted Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of contempt for defying its orders to reopen an old corruption case against the president, but the justices spared Gilani any prison time. The sentence was symbolic, lasting only until judges left the courtroom. But Gilani's political future remains clouded with the possibility that he could still be removed from office."

AP: "Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country's claims of military prowess."

Guardian: "Rupert Murdoch has admitted to the Leveson inquiry there was a 'cover-up' at News International over the phone-hacking scandal. Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive, giving his second day of evidence to the inquiry in London, said he was 'misinformed and shielded' from what was going on at the News of the World, adding that there was a 'cover-up'."

Neither Snow nor Rain ...

... But Republicans will stay these couriers.

Matt Taibbi is right about this:

... Politics ... plays a huge part in [the financial woes of the U.S. Post Office]. In 2006, in what looks like an attempt to bust the Postal Workers' Union, George Bush signed into law the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006....

The transparent purpose of this law, which was pushed heavily by industry lobbyists, was to break a public sector union and privatize the mail industry. Before the 2006 act, the postal service did one thing, did it well, and, minus the need to generate profits and bonuses for executives, did it cheaply. It paid for itself and was not a burden to taxpayers. Post offices also have a huge non-financial impact: In a lot of small towns, the post office is the town....

This is a classic example of private-sector lobbyists using the government to protect its profits and keep prices inflated. Sen. Sanders is pushing a bill that would delay the end of Saturday delivery for two years, and prevent a number of post-office closings, but the writing is on the wall, unless there's a public outcry.

On the other hand, postal workers can be their own worst enemies. I installed my mailbox about ten years ago after some workers ran into my old one. Before installing it, I went to the Post Office to find out the specifications on where to place it. (I would have phoned, but you can't phone the local offices here. Very convenient.) A postal worker told me the distance from the street & the height. The base had to be from 36" to 42" from the ground, he said. I installed it at 38", and over the years it sank about two inches, which is not surprising, considering it was sitting on a bed of Florida sand. That seemed fine with the P.O.D. for a decade.

Shortly after I had my latest eye surgery, I found a notice in my box from the letter carrier telling me I had to raise the box 10 inches. He chose to drop this missive on IRS Day. Perfect!

When I went to the local P.O.D. to ask if I could get a reprieve, the postmistress (what a quaint term!) told me that if I didn't raise the box within a few days, the carrier would stop delivering mail. I took off my shades & showed her my black eyes & said -- truthfully -- that my doctor told me not to do any heavy lifting for a month. She said then I should purchase a box at the P.O.D. or forget about getting mail.

I called my useless Congressman, Connie Mack (CoMa) (RTP-Fla.), to see if he had received other complaints about the P.O.D.'s new requirement. A nice young man told me this was news to him, but he'd take my information. The only info he wanted was my Zip code, not even my name, so obviously, CoMa had no intention of following up with the Post Office. That's constituent service, CoMa-style.

My husband told me there was no way I could lift the box as I had done too good a job cementing it in. Last Friday, the P.O.D. stopped delivering our mail. So I spent a good part of Saturday digging a huge hole around the post & got it loose. Luckily, a neighbor happened by when it came time to lift the box, and he helped me remove the post & reposition it at the new, U.S.P.S.-approved height.

This is obviously a minor matter, but it's a good example of why people hate the gummit. (Yes, I know the U.S.P.S. is not technically the government.) Every contact with a government agency is an encounter with a stone wall. I'm just thankful I didn't have a serious problem, as so many people do when they contact a government representative. If Democrats want to "sell" the government as a positive force in society, they would do well to encourage their employees and representatives to act a little less like autocrats and a little more like the human beings they probably are when they get off work.

Please feel free to share your own run-ins -- postive or negative -- with the government. Change your name if you must!