The Commentariat -- November 27

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on "Ross Douthat's Mythbuster Fail." Boomer Alert: Douthat thinks you're delusional. And Kennedy was either a "mediocre" or a "disastrous" president; you get only those two choices. The NYTX front page is here.

The Hope poster is kind of faded and a little dog-eared. -- Barack Obama ...

... Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "... with unemployment stubbornly at 9 percent and consumer confidence at or near record lows, [Obama campaign operatives] are settling on a strategy that incorporates the combativeness of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1936 drive, the anti-Congress zeal of Harry S. Truman’s 1948 campaign and the disciplined focus of George W. Bush’s 2004 blitz against Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. The result is not your college-age daughter’s Obama campaign of hopeful, transcendent politics." ...

... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Nearly a year before Election Day, Republican presidential candidates and conservative action groups are already spending heavily on television advertising aimed at casting [President] Obama as a failure. Their tactics, the aggressive and sometimes misleading kind not typically used until much further along in a campaign season, have led to a spat with Democrats in what is shaping up to be the most costly election advertising war yet."

Finally, Someone Speaks up for the One Percent. John Kenney of the New Yorker: "We come from near and far, by any means necessary, some on private jets, others on extremely large private jets.... Our numbers may be smaller than those demonstrating in New York and other cities, but we are still a movement, coalesced around a cause, sleeping two and sometimes three people to a villa.... We’re angry. We’re angry at something we’re calling 'imagined frustration.' By this we mean that, except for Congress, the White House, banks, major lobbyists, and the editorial boards of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, no one is listening to us. And we’re tired of it." ...

... the tax code shouldn’t allow the wealthy the kind of loopholes that let them, essentially, force other taxpayers to underwrite donations to their pet causes. -- Scott Klinger of Business for Shared Prosperity ...

... How to Make Millions without Paying Taxes. David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "From offshore havens to a tax-sheltering stock deal so audacious that Congress later enacted a law forbidding the tactic, [Ronald] Lauder has for decades aggressively taken advantage of tax breaks that are useful only for the most affluent.... 'There’s real truth to the idea that the tax code for the 1 percent is different from the tax code for the 99 percent,' said Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado...."

The political environment in the Republican primary ... basically means you can’t be authentic unless you’ve got a single-digit I.Q. -- Bill Clinton

Nicholas Kristof: "Obama has done better than many critics on the left or the right give him credit for."

Paul Krugman writes two blogposts refuting David Brooks' nonfactual (a/k/a big fat lying) assertion that taxing the rich won't make a dent in the deficit (here's Brooks, and BTW, here is James Kwak of Baseline Scenario also debunking Brooks' claim). In his first post on the topic, Krugman begins,

I’ve been getting the predictable hysterical reactions to today’s column. And it’s true — I’m a Sharia Jewish atheist Marxist who hates America! Bwahahaha!

But one thing actually worth reacting to is the assertion I keep getting that this is all a distraction, that even if we seized all the money of the top 0.1% it would make no difference to the fiscal outlook. Here’s a piece of advice nobody will take: before you make assertions about numbers, look at the numbers.

      ... Krugman goes on to, well, look at the numbers. What a concept! In his follow-up post published late Saturday afternoon, Krugman uses a recent analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center to bolster his point:

Seriously, the notion that denying health care to the near-poor is a serious deficit-reduction policy, but raising taxes on the very rich is not, is not something you can justify at all on the basis of the actual numbers. Anyone [CW: like, say, Brooks] who says different is practicing, well, class warfare.

CW: Columnist as Self-Parodist. If you want to read how a columnist writes speculation and distortions to demonstrate that "both sides do it," read Frank Bruni's column, which ostensibly is about how politicians use speculation and distortions to misrepresent their opponents' positions. When Bruni can't find anything negative to say about Obama's campaign, he just speculates -- based on a speculative Politico story -- that Obama will use speculations and distortions to discredit his opponent. Undeterred by lack of evidence, Bruni also disparages an accurate remark Obama made in 2008. He throws in Democrats and Republicans on the Super Committee too in service of his false equivalency.

WalMart Rules. Will Evans of California Watch: "In a push to expand across California without interference, Wal-Mart is increasingly taking advantage of the state’s initiative system to threaten elected officials with costly special elections and to avoid environmental lawsuits. The Arkansas-based retailer has hired paid signature gatherers to circulate petitions to build new superstores or repeal local restrictions on big-box stores. Once 15 percent of eligible voters sign the petitions, state election law [forces]... City councils [to] either approve the Wal-Mart-drafted measure without changes or put it to a special election." Thanks to a reader for the link. ...

... Chris Hawley of the AP: "As reports of shopping-related violence rolled in this week from Los Angeles to New York, experts say a volatile mix of desperate retailers and cutthroat marketing has hyped the traditional post-Thanksgiving sales to increasingly frenzied levels. With stores opening earlier, bargain-obsessed shoppers often are sleep-deprived and short-tempered. Arriving in darkness, they also find themselves vulnerable to savvy parking-lot muggers."

Right Wing World

Newt, Inc. Karen Tumulty & Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "Former House speaker Newt Gingrich transfigured himself from a political flameout into a thriving business conglomerate. The power of the Gingrich brand fueled a for-profit collection of enterprises that generated close to $100 million in revenue over the past decade...."

News Ledes

AP: "A record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the four-day holiday weekend starting on Thanksgiving Day, up from 212 million last year, according to early estimates by The National Retail Federation released on Sunday. Americans spent more, too: The average holiday shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, up from $365.34 a year ago."

Reuters: " France and Germany are planning a quick new pact on budget discipline that might persuade the European Central Bank to ramp up its government bond purchases...."

New York Times: "In center city Philadelphia, hundreds gathered outside City Hall in a show of solidarity ahead of a city-imposed Sunday evening deadline to clear a campsite there. The protesters braced for a police sweep, but it did not take place immediately after the 5 p.m. deadline, surprising few."

AP: "Bernie Fine was fired Sunday by Syracuse University after a third man accused the assistant basketball coach of molesting him nine years ago.... Zach Tomaselli, 23, of Lewiston, Maine, said Sunday that he told police that Fine molested him in 2002 in a Pittsburgh hotel room.... Tomaselli, who faces sexual assault charges in Maine involving a 14-year-old boy, said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press that he signed an affidavit accusing Fine following a meeting with Syracuse police last week in Albany. Tomaselli's father, meanwhile, maintains his son is lying."

Al Jazeera: "The Arab League has approved sanctions against Syria, which could include halting co-operation with the nation's central bank and stopping flights to the country. The 22-nation body voted 19-3 to impose the sanctions on the recommendations at its headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday."

AP: "The [CW: extreme right-wing] New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Sunday editions, signaling that rival Mitt Romney isn't the universal favorite and that the state's largest newspaper could reset the contest there with six weeks to go before voters cast their ballots." You can read the Union Leader's endorsement here.

The Commentariat -- November 26

My New York Times eXaminer column contrasts former New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, who died yesterday, with the current crop of Times op-ed writers. See yesterday's Ledes for Wicker's obituary. The New York Times eXaminer's front page is here.

We have a Weekend Open Thread up for Off Times Square.

Christina Hoag of the AP: "Occupy LA, a 485-tent camp surrounding City Hall ... has remained largely a peaceful commune. Police arrive on site only when called in to investigate petty crimes. Marches have resulted in only about five spontaneous arrests — the other 70 or so involved protesters who deliberately got arrested to make a political statement. City leaders are now hoping that peace can withstand what could be its biggest test. The city has given campers a 12:01 a.m. Monday to clear out of the park, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a Friday afternoon news conference." ...

... Stacey Patton in the Washington Post: Black Americans are greatly underrepresented in the Occupy movement. Patton suggests some reasons. "Beyond a lack of leaders to inspire them to join the Occupy fold, blacks are not seeing anything new for themselves in the movement. Why should they ally with whites who are just now experiencing the hardships that blacks have known for generations?" ...

... I’m not mad at the tea party for being so loud. I’m mad at the progressives for be ing so quiet the past couple of years and not having that fire and that intensity at the grass-roots level to give both parties something to respond to that’s not just cut, cut, cut. You hear people talking about a disappointment [in Obama] and this kind of thing. I’m still of the view it was never, ‘Yes, he can.’ It’s supposed to be, ‘Yes, we can.’ And the ‘we’ was not evident in a couple of those years. -- Van Jones ...

... Joseph Williams of Politico: "While still a high-value target for conservatives, the charismatic [Van] Jones has ... become a superstar of the resurgent left, founding — with MoveOn.org — the American Dream Movement, a grass-roots political force modeled after the tea party. His issue is no longer just green jobs, but to push back against the right’s domination of economic policy and social issues that he dates to the 2010 election." ...

... Naomi Wolf in the Guardian: "As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.... Logic ... implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces ... to make war on peaceful citizens.... Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams." ...

     ... In a post titled "How Bullshit Magically Turns into Fact," Karoli, who also writes for Crooks and Liars, debunks Wolf's "sources." Wolf may not necessarily be wrong, Karoli concludes, but she's got bupkus on which to base her conspiracy theory. ...

... CW: In yesterday's Off Times Square, Valerie L. T. recommended watching the Democracy Now! panel discussion about the Occupy Movement. She writes, "If you don’t have the time to listen to the entire show, I encourage you to tune in to hear William Greider and Naomi Klein. They start speaking about 24 minutes into the show." I have not yet had a chance to listen (supersize it; this is a fussy video I can't enlarge):

Tom Hayden in Nation of Change: "The pepper spraying of eleven UC Davis students is a startling visual revelation of a pattern repeated over two decades: the widespread use of a potent chemical compound to subdue political protesters, prison inmates and inner city youths, in spite of numerous warnings by health officials of potentially life-threatening effects."

Here's the First Family standing with the Occupy Black Friday boycott:

Oh God! Joel Siegel of ABC News: "Critics of President Obama felt little holiday cheer after the president did not thank God in his Thanksgiving-themed weekly Internet address. They immediately took to Twitter and the Internet to voice anger and disbelief.... Obama mentioned God once in a closing "God bless you," to Americans watching the Internet address. However, the President explicitly thanked God earlier in the week in his written Thanksgiving proclamation.... Three of the Republican presidential candidates – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum – issued Thanksgiving statements that omitted any references to God. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry mentioned God in their statements."

Right Wing World

Reid Epstein of Politico: "To hear the Republican presidential candidates tell it, the U.S. Constitution is the guiding light of democracy, a bedrock document so perfect and precise that it shouldn’t be challenged, interpreted or besmirched by modern-day judges. Except for all the parts the GOP candidates themselves want to change. The same candidates promising to appoint strict constructionist judges clearly think the Framers, for all their wisdom and foresight, forgot a few things, which they now want to tack on with an array of proposed constitutional amendments that would bulk up the document." ...

... They probably got their ideas from John Hodgman:

Gail Collins reads Ron Paul: "Basically, Paul seems to want to revert to the 18th century, when every bank could set its own monetary policy and every community ran its own schools — presuming, of course, the community wanted to pay for them. 'The founders of this country were well educated, mostly by being home-schooled or taught in schools associated with a church,' he reasons. Those of us who were not born in the gentry could presumably go back to sewing and reaping hay."

CW: I tried to watch this video of David Brooks & Charlie Rose bewailing Obama's failure to force Democrats on the defunct Supercommittee to "cut entitlements," followed by Brooks' applauding Mitt Romney for his plan to partially privatize Medicare. I quit about halfway thru, but maybe you can tough it out. As Heather of Crooks & Liars asks, "Who needs Fox News when we've got PBS?"

The Ledes

AP: "Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters of firing on two army checkpoints in the northwest and killing 25 soldiers, then retaliated by closing a key border crossing used by the coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan.The incident Friday night was a major blow to already strained relations between Islamabad and U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan." New York Times story here.

AP: "U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year..., senior U.S. military officers say. At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will be sent to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital."

It's a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood. "Black Friday's typical jostling and jockeying took a more ominous turn during this year's bargain-hunting ritual with a shooting, a pepper spraying and other episodes of violence that left several people injured."

Los Angeles Times: "The City Hall park where Occupy Los Angeles protesters are camped will be closed at 12:01 a.m. Monday, according to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, triggering what officials hope will be an end to the nation's largest remaining Occupy camp. But police might not immediately begin removing protesters who linger.... Officials hope in the coming days to help protesters move their belongings and to find beds in homeless shelters for those at the camp who need them."

AP: "Three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo caught flights out of Egypt early Saturday, according to an airport official and an attorney for one of the trio."

AP: "NBA players and owners ... reached a tentative agreement early Saturday to end the 149-day lockout and hope to begin the delayed season with a marquee tripleheader Dec. 25. Most of a season that seemed in jeopardy of being lost entirely will be salvaged if both sides approve the handshake deal."

Reuters: "Arab officials will prepare plans for sanctions against Syria on Saturday over its failure to let Arab League monitors oversee an initiative aimed at ending a violent crackdown on protesters seeking an end to President Bashar al-Assad's rule."

The Commentariat -- November 25

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled, "Life Lessons from the New York Times Op-Ed Page: How to Cut-and-Paste, and Still Get It Wrong." You can read it here. (You may not be surprised to discover that Our Mister Brooks plays a starring roll.) The front page of NYTX is here. ...

... Paul Krugman: on the 99.9 Percent: "'We are the 99 percent' is a great slogan. It correctly defines the issue as being the middle class versus the elite (as opposed to the middle class versus the poor). And it also gets past the common but wrong establishment notion that rising inequality is mainly about the well educated doing better than the less educated; the big winners in this new Gilded Age have been a handful of very wealthy people, not college graduates in general."

** Today's Off Times Square topic is Black Friday. For some reason.

Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Over the past year..., capitalism has fairly rolled over democracy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Europe, where financial institutions and large investors have gone to war under the banner of austerity, and governments of nations with not-very-productive or overextended economies have found that they could not satisfy those demands and still cling to power.... What the markets are doing, is, in essence, extending to the realm of once-equally-sovereign nations the one-dollar-one-vote principle that our Supreme Court enshrined in its Citizens United decision last year."

Prof. Robert Frank, in a New York Times op-ed, on "How to End the Black Friday Madness": "Inspired by the 9-9-9 proposal of the Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, I call it the 6-6-6 plan — an across-the-board 6 percent national sales tax (on top of any existing state and local sales taxes) in effect from 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving to 6 a.m. on Black Friday." CW: Black Friday always reminds me of the film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" a story (based on a 1935 novel by Horace McCoy) about Depression-era dance marathons. In both, desperate Americans put themselves under extreme stress and complete with other desperate people for a few extra bucks the rich toss out as part of a scheme to further enrich themselves. ...

... Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times: "As the busiest retail weekend of the year begins late Thursday night, the differences between how affluent and more ordinary Americans shop in the uncertain economy will be on unusually vivid display.... Many affluent shoppers will avoid the [Black Friday] scene altogether.... Still, a deal is a deal.... Neiman Marcus sold out of pewter-color Ferraris (luggage set matching the interior included) at $395,000 each within 50 minutes of making 10 of them available through its 'fantasy' holiday catalog late last month." ...

... A statement from Adbusters is here. Related AP story here. ...

... Update: Karen Garcia has a lovely post on "The Nightmare before Christmas." Don't miss the comparative photos. ...

... Update 2. Borowitz Report: "In what economists are hailing as a clear sign of economic recovery, Walmart customers across the USA jammed into stores on Black Friday, sometimes killing each other to buy useless shit.... Dr. [Davis] Logsdon said that the increased violence and mayhem at retail outlets across the country was 'a testament to the greatness of the American consumer.”

Aaron Davis & Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Funding cuts for school lunches, home energy assistance, child support enforcement, HIV care, Race to the Top grants and other government programs will come quicker than advertised following the failure this week of the congressional 'supercommittee.' ... Members of Congress cast the breakdown as likely having little to no effect on federal spending over the coming year.... But in state capitals, where legislatures are bound by requirements to balance budgets, the committee’s failure cocked a trigger on $1.2 trillion in cuts that must, by law, be built into spending plans that governors will begin releasing within weeks."

Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "A smaller share of Americans currently serve in the Armed Forces than at any other time since the era between World Wars I and II, a new low that has led to a growing gap between people in uniform and the civilian population...."

CW: I finally forced myself to read this profile of Arianna Huffington by Vanessa Grigoriadis, writing in New York Magazine. The profile is long, informative and seems balanced. It will not give you new insights into the meaning of life. ...

... As an antidote, here's a brief profile of Andy Borowitz by Paul Farhi of the Washington Post. ...

... Today Our Mister Brooks writes (well, copies from others) a saccharine column in which he excerpts "life lessons" from septuagenarians-plus for the edification of the young. In a column I'll link later, I've summed up the lessons Brooks has chosen to share:

Cheating on your wife can lead to divorce. Also, cheating on your wife makes you feel ashamed. If you drink too much, you might cheat on your wife, which has the aforementioned downsides. When a loved one dies, you will feel really sad. When a child is hit by a car, God is more likely to mend the child's injuries than are doctors. (We do not learn why God let the driver of that car hit the child. Perhaps that will be a life lesson for another day.) When you yourself get sick, it's nice to have friends and be cheerful.

... Here is Andy Borowitz, whose Thanksgiving gift to us is an illumination of that last lesson.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Tom Wicker, one of postwar America’s most distinguished journalists, who wrote 20 books, covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy for The New York Times and became the paper’s Washington bureau chief and an iconoclastic political columnist for 25 years, died on Friday at his home near Rochester, Vt. He was 85." You can read Wicker's account of JFK's assassination here.

Chicago Tribune: "Maggie Daley, who dedicated herself to children’s issues and the arts while also zealously guarding her family’s privacy during 22 years as Chicago’s First Lady, died a little after 6 p.m. Thursday, more than nine years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 68." With links to related stories.

AP: "A week into his new job, Premier Mario Monti is running out of time to reassure nervous investors that his government has a strategy to deal with Italy's crippling debts.The nation's borrowing rates skyrocketed Friday after a grim set of bond auctions, with a new auction looming Tuesday."

Reuters: "Sprint Nextel may be forced to abandon the biggest advantage it has over its rivals - unlimited data services for a flat fee - because of heavy data users and a shortage of wireless airwaves."

Reuters: "Former MF Global Chief Executive Jon Corzine is expected to testify at a congressional hearing next month, a committee aide said on Friday, tamping down speculation that the former head of the bankrupt brokerage would decline to take part."

AP: "Anti-Wall Street demonstrators in encampments around the country spent Thanksgiving serving turkey, donating time in solidarity with the protest movement and, in some cases, confronting police."

The New York Times story on Black Friday is here.

New York Times: "As huge crowds of demonstrators gathered in Tahrir Square on Friday, state television reported that the generals running Egypt had appointed a politician from the era of deposed president Hosni Mubarak to lead the cabinet, potentially hardening the lines between the interim military rulers and protesters demanding their exit. At the same time, stepping directly into the crisis, the Obama administration urged the generals to transfer power immediately to a civilian government 'empowered with real authority.'" The Al Jazeera story is here, with video....

... AP: "Family and friends of three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo waited anxiously Friday for news that they had been released from police custody. Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. A court in Egypt ordered the release of the students, a lawyer in Philadelphia confirmed Thursday." ...

     Update: "A Cairo airport official says the first of three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo has left Egypt. Luke Gates, 21, left Cairo early Saturday morning on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany."

Al Jazeera: "Syria is facing the prospect of economic sanctions as an Arab League deadline to sign a protocol allowing rights monitors into the country or face punitive measures passed with no apparent response from Damascus. As the deadline expired on Friday, fresh anti-government protests were reported in various towns across Syria and activists said three people had been killed." New York Times story here.

AP: "Moroccans began voting for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change."

New York Times: "Quashing recent speculation of a softening in Germany’s hard-line stance on the euro, Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated on Thursday her firm opposition either to bonds issued jointly by the euro zone countries or to an expansion of the role of the European Central Bank as quick responses to the sovereign debt crisis."

Washington Post: "AT&T and T-Mobile on Thursday moved closer to abandoning their proposed $39 billion merger, saying they have withdrawn their application from the Federal Communications Commission."