The Commentariat -- November 7

Zaid Jilani of Think Progress has posted a video of Oakland police shooting a protester with a rubber bullet as he filmed them on November 3. It is astonishing video. You can hear the filmmaker asking police, "Is this okay?" He is clearly standing behind some demarcated line, as are all the other protesters. This guy is doing nothing except videotaping the line of police who are standing some 50 feet away from the protesters. Unless something occurred outside of camera range, there appears to be absolutely no provocation for the shooting. None:

Alec MacGillis of The New Republic, in the Washington Post: Occupy Wall Street "needs some new destinations.... Here ... are other culprits in need of occupation":

Bill Clinton, for lowering the capital gains tax after Reagan raised it.
Harvard, for tuition bloat.
Wal-Mart, for union-busting.
Towers Watson, the biggest corporate compensation consultants.
Tysons Corner, home to thousands of government contractors.

Hope Yen of the AP: "The wealth gap between younger and older Americans has stretched to the widest on record, worsened by a prolonged economic downturn that has wiped out job opportunities for young adults and saddled them with housing and college debt. The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday. While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation." CW: let's see how fast Republicans can get to the mic to tout this stunning disparity as an excuse to cut Medicare & Social Security.

The central paradox of financial crises is that what feels just and fair is the opposite of what’s required for a just and fair outcome. -- Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ...

Translation: You Occupy Wall Street naifs don't understand that saving Wall Street at your expense was good for you. 

Fact: There’s a very popular conception out there that the bailout was done with a tremendous amount of firepower and focus on saving the largest Wall Street institutions but with very little regard for Main Street. That’s actually a very accurate description of what happened. -- Neil Barofsky, former TARP watchdog

Comment: I suspect that negotiations between [New York Times reporter David] Leonhardt and Treasury were required before Geithner’s quote became on-the-record. Which does make me wonder what they thought that they were saying here. -- Felix Salmon

"An Inconvenient Fact." Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "During Obama’s tenure, Wall Street has roared back, even as the broader economy has struggled.... Behind this turnaround ... are government policies that helped the financial sector avert collapse and then gave financial firms huge benefits.... For example, the federal government invested hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in banks — low-cost money that the firms used for high-yielding investments on which they made big profits.... Neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration, for instance, compelled banks to increase lending to consumers...."

... In Defense of Sunlight. Paul Krugman: "... a large part of our political class, including essentially the entire G.O.P., is deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives. This political class will do everything it can to ensure subsidies for the extraction and use of fossil fuels, directly with taxpayers’ money and indirectly by letting the industry off the hook for environmental costs, while ridiculing technologies like solar.... Nothing you hear from these people is true. Fracking is not a dream come true; solar is now cost-effective. Here comes the sun, if we’re willing to let it in." Musical accompaniment suggested by the author:

How Money Corrupts Washington. Lesley Stahl interviews Jack Abramoff:

      ... CBS News has some Web extras here.

... Ironically, Canadian Prof. Gil Troy, writing in the New York Times, says the U.S. has a swell presidential election process. He argues, among other points, that "Considering that Procter & Gamble spent $8.7 billion in 2008 peddling detergents and razors, spending $4.3 billion for the 2008 campaign appears a reasonable price to pay for democracy." Good grief!

Military Math, by Mike Fiore: (Via Susie Madrak of Crook & Liars. Read her post, too: "... Democrats are compulsively cooperative with their oppressors.")

Sadly, Krugman finds it necessary to explain to wingnuts what "hypocrisy" means. In case you know some wingnuts, you might recommend this post to them. ...

... Hypocrisy, Part 2, from Krugman. See also yesterday's Commentariat for the backstory on family man Joe Walsh. ...

... In the first blogpost above, Krugman mentions a 2000 review by Michael Lind of the Mel Gibson film The Patriot. Lind's thesis is that the film depicts a "hero" who is by no means a patriot; in fact, the Gibson character rejects patriotism for "amoral familism." The review is well-worth reading. CW: And, yes, Mel Gibson is a flaming A. Always was, always will be.

Justin Elliott of Salon on the broader implications of tomorrow's vote on public employee collective bargaining in Ohio.

Photo via Esquire.Charles Pierce of Esquire: "Over the weekend, some 12,000 people surrounded the White House as part of the ongoing protest against approval of the proposed XL Keystone pipeline, the engineering experiment that is supposed to bring the products of tar sands in Alberta all the way to Texas, while passing through the Ogallala Aquifer along the way.... A president already laboring under the widespread notion among his supporters that he's too ready to settle for half-a-loaf, and among his detractors that he's dilatory and uncertain, can't exactly ignore 12,000 people outside his house. He should make the call, stand behind it, and tell the country that's what presidents do."

"Reefer Madness." Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a New York Times op-ed, urges President Obama to reassert himself into federal policy on enforcement of marijuana laws. Obama ran for election on a promise of not using the DOJ to override state laws allowing medical marijuana use, but federal agencies, including the DOJ, are doing just that.

"The Big Lie." Barry Ritholtz in the Washington Post: "A Big Lie is so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. There are many examples: Claims that Earth is not warming, or that evolution is not the best thesis we have for how humans developed.... Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault. Indeed, the arguments these folks make fail to withstand even casual scrutiny.... The Big Lie made a surprise appearance Tuesday when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ... stunned observers by exonerating Wall Street: 'It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.'” Ritholtz has a useful list of factors that actually cause the crash.

Carol Williams of the Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday will take up [a] hot-button 4th Amendment issue: whether GPS surveillance without a warrant constitutes an unreasonable search. The case, United States vs. Jones, will decide the law on GPS tracking across the country.... Court rulings since [Katz v. United States, which the Supreme Court decided in 1965] have significantly limited what people can expect to keep private. This shift has accelerated as new technologies — including smartphones and GPS — have emerged."

"They Might Be Terrorists (So Let's Blow Them Up)." -- CIA. Glenn Greenwald on U.S. drone attacks on unknown people.

Alex Rodriguez & Martin Magnier of the Los Angeles Times: "In cautious increments, nuclear archrivals Pakistan and India have been easing the pall of tension that has overshadowed the two nations in recent years.... The latest move toward rapprochement came last week, when the Pakistani Cabinet announced it would normalize trade relations with India by granting its longtime foe 'most favored nation' status."

Right Wing World

The Week That Was. David Remnick of the New Yorker: "A chronicler could profit richly from reviewing the week just experienced by those ambitious members of the Republican Party who have put themselves forward as candidates to revive a fallen nation and lead the march down Nostalgia Avenue and up to the City on a Hill.... The spectacle of the Republican field is a reflection of the hollowness in the G.O.P. itself."

Why Speaker John Boehner Is Not a "Servant of the Rich": That’s very unfair. Listen, I come from a family of 12. My dad owned a bar. I’ve got brothers and sisters on every rung of the economic ladder. -- John Boehner ...

... Translation: I cannot be a servant of the rich because I used to be poor and some of my relatives are still poor. ...

... Analysis: Non sequitur def: "an inference that does not follow from the premise...; fallacy ... resulting from the transposition of a condition & its consequent." The fallacious inference here is that poor people -- or even people who are related to poor people -- cannot grow up to be "servants of the rich." See Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."

A Word of Warning from Dave Weigel of Slate: "When Republicans say they would consider tax increases, they're just pretending."

Mitt Romney, Moderate Republican. Stephen Foster of Addicting Info: "During a speech to a group of conservative activists on Friday in Washington, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said exactly what right wing extremists want to hear. Romney laid out his vision of government which includes privatizing Medicare, raising the retirement age, wiping out government agencies and jobs, making balanced budgets mandatory via constitutional amendment, and slashing funding for the arts, public broadcasting, family planning and passenger rail services. He also wants to give states more budget power." (Emphasis added):

Ha ha. Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: The new Man-of-the-People Mitt flies coach, but is "aloof" & uncommunicative when voters politely approach him.

Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald: "Social conservative pundits tend to be astonishingly obtuse when discussing race..., so it is good they rarely do so. Last week was an unfortunate exception, as one of 'their' blacks struggled to frame a coherent response to allegations that he harassed female colleagues in the 1990s.... Though accusations of sexual impropriety have beset a bipartisan Who’s Who of black and white politicians, the right wing came out in force to argue that people are only questioning Cain because he is a black conservative. This would be the same Cain who not so long ago said racism was no longer a significant obstacle for African Americans. This would be the same right wing that is conspicuous by its silence, its hostility or its complicity when the injustice system imposes mass incarceration on young black men, when the number of hate groups in this country spikes to over a thousand, when the black unemployment rate stands at twice the national average, when the president is called 'uppity' and 'boy.'” ...

... Sexual harassment is hilarious (and people pick on Mike Huckabee unfairly):

CW: I'll admit I didn't link to articles about this story or embed the video because I can't stand Rick Perry sober let alone high (or appearing so). But to make up for my lapse, here's Perry explaining what happened in that weird speech in New Hampshire last week:

News Ledes

The Hill: "The White House is not expected to comply with a subpoena issued by House Republicans for documents related to the $535 million loan guarantee to the failed solar firm Solyndra."

Los Angeles Times: "Michael Jackson's personal physician has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for causing the pop icon's 2009 death by a powerful surgical anesthetic. The verdict against Dr. Conrad Murray comes after a jury of seven men and five women  deliberated for about nine hours over two days. The 58-year-old cardiologist, who was charged with the lowest possible homicide offense, faces a maximum sentence of four years in state prison and a minimum sentence of probation. Murray now also faces the probable loss of his medical license."

President Obama met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen this afternoon. AFP story here.

President Obama spoke about the American Jobs Act at noon:

New York Times: "Greeks awaited word on Monday on the formation of a unity government under a new leader after Prime Minister George A. Papandreou and his chief rival agreed to create a transitional administration to oversee the country’s debt-relief deal with the European Union and then hold early elections. Mr. Papandreou agreed to resign once the details are completed."

New York Times: "An imminent report by United Nations weapons inspectors includes the strongest evidence yet that Iran has worked in recent years on a kind of sophisticated explosives technology that is primarily used to trigger a nuclear weapon, according to Western officials who have been briefed on the intelligence. But the case is hardly conclusive.... The Obama administration, acutely aware of how what happened in Iraq undercut American credibility, is deliberately taking a back seat."

Reuters: "Two journalists close to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he could resign as early as Monday, immediately boosting bond and stock markets."

Reuters: "Thousands of protesters opposed to a new oil pipeline from Canada to the United States circled the White House grounds on Sunday to press President Barack Obama to reject the project for environmental reasons. Opponents to TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport crude produced from oil sands, have dogged the president for months, arguing that the carbon emissions produced in the process of extracting oil from the sands would exacerbate climate change."

New York Times: "Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and a university administrator, Gary Schultz, will step down amid a sexual abuse scandal involving a former football assistant, the university announced early Monday morning."

The Commentariat -- November 6

Thomas Edsall in a New York Times op-ed: "The Republican Party ... has reverted to the penny-pinching of an earlier era, the green eyeshade Grand Old Party of Herbert Hoover and Robert Taft..., evident in the first budget passed by the Republican-controlled House — the Paul Ryan 'path to prosperity' budget with $4 trillion in cuts — and the subsequent Aug. 2 debt ceiling agreement. The new embattled partisan environment allows conservatives to pit taxpayers against tax consumers, those dependent on safety-net programs against those who see such programs as eating away at their personal income and assets.... The sociologist and political scientist Theda Skocpol and her colleagues ... found that opposition to government spending was concentrated on resentment of federal government 'handouts.' ... The conservative agenda, in a climate of scarcity, racializes policy making, calling for deep cuts in programs for the poor.... The politics of austerity are inherently favorable to conservatives and inhospitable to liberals.... Austerity feeds on itself... Retrenchment, in effect, becomes a noose, choking off prospects for growth."

Profs. Roger Backhouse & Bradley Bateman, in a New York Times op-ed: economists have lost the vision thing; Occupy Wall Street might help them look at macroeconomic systems more comprehensively.

News is what people want to keep hidden. Everything else is publicity. -- A U. Texas journalism professor of Bill Moyers' ...

... ** Moyers speaks at the 40th anniversary of Public Citizen. The Nation has published an adaptation of the speech. (Thanks to a reader for the link.) The speech & adaptation each contain material not contained in the other, so it's worth watching and reading:

     ... The Public Citizen site is here. See also videos of speeches by Rep. Donna Edwards, Ralph Nader & Jim Hightower.

Eliot Spitzer, in Slate, lists five goals he thinks Occupy Wall Street can agree to advance:

1. Call for a full rollback of the Bush tax cuts for all those above $1 million in annual income.
   
2. Demand true accountability on Wall Street.
   
3. Demand that a financial service transaction fee be imposed.
   
4. Start a petition drive in every state demanding that the state municipal governments stop using Goldman Sachs for advice and underwriting until Goldman Sachs returns the $12.9 billion dollars it received, from the taxpayers, as a part of the AIG bailout.
   
5. Demand that the New York Fed have 'public' board members who truly represent the public.

William Galston of the Brookings Institution makes the in a New York Times op-ed that voting should be mandatory, a move that besides enforcing participatory democracy could reduce governmental polarization. He cites the effectiveness of mandatory voting in Australia and suggests experiments in implementing mandatory voting begin at the state level.

Jodi Kantor of the New York Times has more (see yesterday's links) on former President Clinton's new book Back to Work. "... the former president has been so frustrated at what he sees as the current one’s failure to explain his economic policies that he has literally decided to write his own version of the story.... His private critique...: incredulity that the president and Democratic leaders did not raise the debt ceiling during the 2010 lame-duck session; bafflement that many beneficiaries of Mr. Obama’s policies 'didn’t even know about' his actions; and frustration about the lack of a powerful Democratic message in the midterm elections." CW: Clinton is right about each of these. For instance, Most Americans -- especially "real" ones -- profess abhorrence of the stimulus bill, yet they have no idea that it gave each of them his own personal tax break. I've heard most of Obama's speeches, and I'm not sure he's ever directly said -- "I gave you a tax break. Almost every Republican voted against it." He should have said that 200 times.

** When an Ear of Corn Isn't Just an Ear of Corn. Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post: You're paying more for commodities like corn, wheat & copper because of Wall Street commodities futures speculation. "The financialization of the economy continues undeterred, creating a bubble in commodities just as it did with houses and office buildings. The industry is still engaged in clever games to circumvent regulation, increase risk and find the cracks between one regulatory agency and another.... You can bet what’s left in your 401(k) that there’s about to be a commodities bubble — one that will generate big fees for Wall Street and leave a mess for everyone else." CW: read this column against the backdrop of GOP cries for reducing/eliminating regulation.

Teacher, poet Taylor Mali recites his poem "What Teachers Make":

... David Firestone of the New York Times: "Republican state lawmakers in the Upper Midwest have been remarkably successful this year in stripping public employees of their bargaining rights, but that campaign could slam to a halt on Tuesday when Ohio voters get a chance to weigh in. Unions and business groups have poured a huge amount of time and money into a referendum on whether to overturn Senate Bill 5, signed into law in March by Gov. John Kasich. The measure bans negotiations on health benefits for public employees, including police officers and firefighters, and makes it virtually impossible to bargain on staffing or to collect dues properly." ...

... Paul West of the Los Angeles Times: "An aggressive Republican drive to weaken the labor rights of government workers appears to have crested, at least in Ohio, where voters are expected to throw out a far-reaching anti-union law this week. The referendum over collective bargaining for public employees, potentially the most important contest in off-year elections around the nation, is being closely watched for clues about shifting voter trends in a state expected to play its usual outsized role in next year's presidential contest."

"Combat by Camera." David Cloud & David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times: "The decision to fire a missile from one of the growing fleet of U.S. drones is made as ground commanders, pilots and analysts at far-flung military installations analyze video and data feeds from the combat zone and communicate through voice and text messages. The system is far from foolproof.... Multiple missteps led to the drone killing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan."

CW: Why was it the House of Representatives needed to reaffirm that the U.S. motto is "In God We Trust"? According to the resolution, which passed 396-9, ""Whereas if religion and morality are taken out of the marketplace of ideas, the very freedom on which the United States was founded cannot be secured." More than 9 MoC's should have had the guts to vote against a resolution that endorses religion. Jerks. Michael Shermer, writing in the Los Angeles Times: "What is troubling ... is the implication that in this age of science and technology, computers and cyberspace, and liberal democracies securing rights and freedoms for oppressed peoples all over the globe, that anyone could still hold to the belief that religion has a monopoly on morality and that the foundation of trust is based on engraving four words on brick and paper.... It's up to us to secure our freedom through enlightened secular policies with practical social applications rather than faith-based hope in empty mottoes reflecting an era gone by."

Dean Baker takes another swipe at the Washington Post's Social Security hit job of last weekend (the following links are to cited material): "If there were ever any doubts that 'Fox on 15th Street' was a fitting label for the Washington Post, Patrick Pexton, the paper's ombudsman removed them with his defense of the Post's front page piece on Social Security last Sunday."

Right Wing World

Philip Elliott of the AP: "Republican presidential contender Herman [Cain] on Saturday vowed to answer no more questions about decade-old sexual harassment allegations and blamed journalists for the claims that have dogged his campaign. Growing agitated with reporters after a one-on-one debate with rival Newt Gingrich, the former business executive suggested the reporters who asked questions about the allegations were unethical. Asked if he planned to never answer questions about the incidents, he was certain. 'You got it,' he snapped, even as the allegations leave plenty of doubts about Cain's candidacy."

Tea Party Family Values. Lee Fang of Think Progress: "... the Family Research Council, a social conservative advocacy nonprofit headed by CNN pundit Tony Perkins, has awarded [Illinois Republican Rep. Joe] Walsh a 100 percent rating as a 'True Blue' member of Congress. The FRC said it gave the honor to Walsh because of his 'unwavering support of the family.'" As of July, Walsh, "a Tea Party freshman in Congress, owed $117,000 in unpaid child support to his ex-wife. Walsh ... has continued to refuse to pay his ex-wife to support his children.... As Marie Diamond noted ... a few months ago, 'Walsh also rejected the congressional health insurance plan for his family on principle, much to the chagrin of his current wife, Helene, who had a preexisting condition and needed surgery while the couple was uninsured.'"

Yay! The Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity stands up against crony capitalism. Stephen Lacey of Think Progress: "Keep in mind, the ad below lamenting 'political favors' is being run by groups that have paid tens of thousands of dollars to sit down directly with other corporations and policy makers to write state laws, then engage in aggressive campaigns to get those laws passed. Welcome to the 2012 campaign season — bought and sold by the 1%." (Thanks to reader Jeanne B. for the link.):

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings."

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Police arrested about 20 demonstrators on the streets around Woodruff Park late Saturday as the Occupy Atlanta protest took an unexpected turn onto Peachtree Street." ...

... Los Angeles Times: "Police were called to two violent incidents at Occupy Los Angeles on Friday, adding to questions about the protest and its future. In the morning, a woman was arrested at the encampment outside City Hall after she set another person's clothes on fire, police said. In another incident hours later, a woman was arrested after protesters said she struck a man with a tent pole. Both were booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.... City officials say ... up until now protesters at Occupy Los Angeles have been mostly peaceful."

AP: "Nicaraguan president and one-time Sandinista revolutionary Daniel Ortega appears headed for victory Sunday in an election that his critics say could be the prelude to a presidency-for-life. Since returning to power in 2007, the 65-year-old Ortega has boosted his popularity in Central America's poorest country with a combination of pork-barrel populism and support for the free-market economy he once opposed."

AP: "Guatemalans rattled by soaring violence choose Sunday between two right-leaning presidential candidates: a former general who promises law and order and a tycoon-turned-political populist whose proposals include more social programs and zero tolerance on crime. Polls show Otto Perez Molina, 61, a retired general and former military intelligence director running for the right-wing Patriotic Party, at least 10 to 15 points ahead of Manuel Baldizon, 41, of the Democratic Freedom Revival party."

The Commentariat -- November 5

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square for this weekend.

Vice President Biden delivers the Weekly Address. The transcript is here:

Candice Choi of the AP: "It's moving day for bank customers. A grassroots movement that sprang to life last month is urging bank customers to close their accounts in favor of credit unions by Saturday. The spirit behind 'Bank Transfer Day' caught fire with the Occupy Wall Street protests around the country and had more than 79,000 supporters on its Facebook page as of Friday. The movement has already helped beat back Bank of America's plan to start charging a $5 debit card fee." ...

... Stuart Pfeifer & E. Scott Reckard of the Los Angeles Times: When Kristen Christian [of Echo Park, California,] learned that Bank of America Corp. planned to charge her a $5 monthly debit card fee, she did what many people do these days when they get mad: She ranted on Facebook. What followed was an illustration of the power of social media. Her Facebook post urging friends to abandon big banks unwittingly blossomed into a national campaign." Here's Christian's Bank Transfer Day event page. ...

BUT. Simon Van Zuylen-Wood of The New Republic: unless you're carrying an average balance in the neighborhood of $25,000 or above, the big banks will be happy to see you go; you've turned into a liability.

"What Now, Occupy?" Rick Hertzberg: "If the Occupy movement doesn’t move beyond encampments — especially encampments in public places that ordinary people normally use for recreation and relaxation without some corporation charging them admission — it will surely turn sour, and so will the public’s view of it.... It’s time for some new, creative, out-of-the-park thinking about where the movement goes from here—as new, and as creative, as the movement’s spectacular in-the-park beginning." CW: well, Rick, didn't Kristen Christian's out-of-the-park thinking hit it out of the park? (See links re: Bank Transfer Day above. Well, it's true Christian got a little assist from the out-of-touch geniuses at Bank of America.)

"The Shrillionaire." Karen Garcia: "... the most powerful person in New York..., Michael Bloomberg, appears to be finally losing it, big-time, over a street protest in the backyard of his fiefdom.... The very thought of non-rich people getting attention in his back yard is obviously causing a major attack of oligarchic angst and a shattering blow to his sense of entitlement." But don't worry, the Villagers have lit their torches for Baron von Bloomberg. Garcia just got her "invitation from the White House's favorite Democratic think tank, The Center for American Progress, to listen to Bloomberg give the freaking keynote address on how to reduce the deficit at its 'American Action Forum' next week.... The gazillionaire who just blamed Congress for the biggest banking fraud in American history will now proceed to advise Congress how to make amends and slash Medicare, Medicare and Social Security." CW: it will be interesting to see if & how Think Progress, an outlet for the Center for American Progress, will cover the von Bloomberg edict. ...

... Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "Bloomberg’s main attraction as a politician has been his ability to stick closely to a holy trinity of basic PR principles: bang heavily on black crime, embrace social issues dear to white progressives, and in the remaining working hours give your pals on Wall Street ... whatever they want.... Bloomberg, with this preposterous schlock about congress forcing banks to lend to poor people, may yet make himself the face of the 1%’s rank intellectual corruption." Read Taibbi's whole post. It's the best explanation anywhere (better than Krugman's!) of who's to blame for the home mortgage crisis and why. ...

... Nick Paumgarten of the New Yorker: Jon "Corzine’s downfall is an update on Icarus, an illustration of hubris. It reminds us that leverage kills, that it is dangerous to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller.... If the firm did indeed use hundreds of millions of dollars of its customers’ money to prop up its own liquidity, in its waning hours, someone, perhaps even the former C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs and Governor of New Jersey, could wind up in jail."

Bill Clinton: Be Nicer to Fat Cats. Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post: "President Obama and his Democratic allies made two key political missteps in recent years, according to former president Bill Clinton in a new book to be released Tuesday. First was not raising the federal debt ceiling in the first two years of the president’s term, when Democrats still had a majority in Congress, and then failing to devise an effective national campaign message during the midterm elections of 2010. Clinton also suggests, obliquely, that Obama’s criticism of Wall Street has been too harsh and counterproductive. The 42nd president periodically surfaces with cheerful tips on how he managed the economy and offers these observations....” ...

... Dana Milbank: "Chris Matthews ... has written a compelling blueprint for President Obama’s reelection. But it doesn’t mention the current president. Matthews’s new book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero,” ... [is] about the Machiavellian Kennedy, the political street fighter who with his brother encouraged opponents to believe they were 'dangerous enemies' who preferred to be feared rather than loved.... [Obama] learned the art of Kennedy’s soaring rhetoric but neglected the kneecapping that supported it."

Ari Berman of The Nation: "The war against government workers is prolonging the recession," and I've got the numbers to prove it. ...

... Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute describes what a "good" jobs report would look like: for one thing, it would not have shown another big decrease in government jobs, one of President Obama's top dumb ideas. ...

... Dean Baker analyzes the numbers but the bottom line appears at the top of his post: "There is no reason to expect much of a drop in unemployment anytime soon." ...

... Ezra Klein writes a review of Ron Suskind's Confidence Men in the NYRB that tells you more about the Obama presidency than Suskind does. In looking at Obama's mistakes, Klein zeroes in on the President's choosing to reappoint Ben Bernanke to chair the Fed & his failure to fill the two empty seats on the Fed's board. CW: One thing he misses is the point Berman & Konczal make above: the bone-headed, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot decision to cut federal jobs, a move that shocked me at the time Obama announced it & still confounds me. 

Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits. Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more. Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states."

CW: What with Brooks' latest column from the Gasbag Gazette, here's a look back at a year-old "60 Minutes" segment on extracting natural gas (via Brilliant at Breakfast). I looked for the HBO documentary "Gasland" online, but it doesn't seem to be available unless you want to purchase the DVD. If anybody knows a source, let me know:

Right Wing World

Jonathan Chait on the Imaginary World Where Paul Ryan Lives (CW: that would be, of course, Right Wing World): "Contrary to the impression he left at [a recent] town hall, Ryan knows full well that his budget plan does nothing for the uninsured.... Much as he wants to pretend otherwise, Ryan has a health-care plan. It’s to repeal the Affordable Care Act and let the uninsured fend for themselves." What makes the reader sick himself is that Ryan tells this fairy tale to a man who has end-stage renal failure: "I'm going to let you die, but I'm standing here lying to you pretending I won't."

Mike McIntire of the New York Times: Texas Gov. Rick Perry "has accepted -- free ... more than 200 flights worth a total of $1.3 million ... from corporate executives and wealthy donors during 11 years as governor.... Although many of the trips were for political or ceremonial events — not unusual for elected officials — others involved governmental functions, including some that were of interest to the planes’ owners. As a result, a group of well-heeled businessmen has effectively helped underwrite some of Mr. Perry’s activities as governor." ...

... Gail Collins: "This is the same Rick Perry who recently told The San Francisco Chronicle that he was the sort of leader who could go to Washington and 'take a wrecking ball, a sledgehammer — whatever it takes to break up the good-old-boy corporate lobbyist mentality that is putting this country’s future in jeopardy.' On a mission like that, wouldn’t you expect him to fly coach?"

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "One part of Mitt Romney’s new fiscal plan that’s gotten less notice is his proposal to eliminate Title X, the only federal program devoted to family planning. This wades into an issue that has challenged congressional Republicans — and one that none of Romney’s competitors have touched." Even staunch anti-abortionists in Congress have been reluctant to take on Title X. CW: That is, when it comes to women's health issues, Romney is to the right of, well, everybody. This, IMHO, is worse than sexual harassment. Excuse me while I retrieve my Herman Cain ballot.

Jonathan Martin of Politico: "The attorney for one of the women who accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment said Friday that the then-National Restaurant Association CEO engaged in 'inappropriate behavior' and 'unwanted advances' that led to a cash payout in 1999. The woman declined to reveal her identity or detail the nature of the claim":

Charles Blow: "... this 'crisis' could help, not hurt, Cain with his base. It helps him more perfectly evoke the Christlike ideal among those on the right of persecution and perseverance. Claims that portray Cain as a predator and monster will be rejected out of hand.... It is no wonder then that they are trying so hard to resurrect Clarence Thomas’s 20-year-old 'high-tech lynching' analogy and apply it to Cain.... Rush Limbaugh who once told a black caller to 'take that bone out of your nose and call me back' slithered out from underneath his rock to defend Cain from 'racial stereotypes' of 'the real racists,' Democrats who would destroy Cain 'à la Clarence Thomas.'"

This bill opens the door for opportunists who will use the legislation to make some money. I’m certainly for civil rights, but I don’t know if this bill is fair because of what we’ll have to spend to defend ourselves in unwarranted cases. -- Herman Cain, 1991, CEO of Godfather's Pizza, on new federal anti-harassment legislation

Local News

Todd Heywood of the Michigan Messenger: the state senate, controlled by Republicans, passed "a blueprint for bullying" when they added a religious/moral exemption; i.e., it's okay to bully another kid if you have a "sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction" that the kid has it coming. The bill still must pass the state house -- also controlled by Republicans -- & if it passes there to Republican Gov. Rick Synder. ...

... This one passage ... is the entire raison d'etre of American 'conservatism,' and of the political party that it has turned into its mindless vehicle over the past four decades. Every element of the 'movement' is in there. There's religious paranoia and cultural sociopathy combining to produce a completely irrational sense of victimhood. There's the carefully chosen choice of targets, and the subsequent inflation of that target into the 'real' threat from the 'rea'" oppressors. And then, finally, there's the framing of legislation to say one thing, but mean another, while maintaining your inherent right as one of society's overdogs to do pretty much anything you want.... Without this formula, Republican politics would have no platform. -- Charles Pierce of Esquire

News Ledes

New York Times: "After a week..., about 143,000 customers served by the state’s largest electricity carrier, Connecticut Light and Power, were still without power by Saturday evening while the repair work was all but complete in most other states.... On Friday, [Gov. Dannel] Malloy (D) announced plans for an investigation into the preparation and repair efforts of Connecticut Light and Power and the state’s other major utility, United Illuminating Company, to be led by James Lee Witt, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Clinton."

New York Times: "The rancor that defined much of the last week on the Republican presidential campaign trail subsided a bit here on Saturday night, as Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain basked in each other’s company and the warm embrace of the Texas Tea Party for what was styled as an old-fashioned issues-focused debate."

New York Times: "Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators streamed into a desolate part of Foley Square on Saturday afternoon, but their slow-moving march turned chaotic as a phalanx of police officers issued orders to vacate the sidewalks — and then swept in to force the issue. One police official said that at least 20 protesters were arrested in a series of fast-moving encounters with officers outside the public square in Lower Manhattan that is hemmed in by several government buildings...."

Los Angeles Times: "Hundreds of protesters vented their frustration with Wall Street Saturday in a march through downtown L.A.'s financial district that at one point erupted into a pushing and shouting match with a counter-protester. It was part of Bank Transfer Day, a national effort to get people to move their money from large corporate banks into smaller banks or credit unions. The march was organized by a coalition of labor unions and community organizations fighting foreclosures and also drew a sizable contingent of protesters from nearby Occupy L.A." ...

... Sacramento Bee: "Credit unions in the Sacramento region and nationwide cashed in during Saturday's 'Bank Transfer Day,' a month-old movement urging consumers to transfer their money out of banks and into not-for-profit credit unions. 'We had our biggest new membership day of the year,' said Roy Worley, a spokesman for Sacramento-based Schools Financial Credit Union. 'Forty-six percent of the new memberships were from individuals stating they came in Saturday because it was Bank Transfer Day.'" ...

... AP: "A downtown Oakland branch of Wells Fargo bank closed its doors for the day Saturday as immigrant rights protesters crowded the entrance to condemn the bank’s ties to private companies that run immigrant detention centers. More than 100 protesters marched a block from the Occupy Oakland encampment to the bank branch Saturday morning. A few protesters briefly tussled with bank security guards who stood in front of the locked entrance. Police were on the scene but made no arrests."

AP: "Residents fearfully left their homes Saturday to bury their dead in northeast Nigeria following a series of coordinated attacks that killed at least 69 people and left a new police headquarters in ruins, government offices burned and symbols of state power destroyed. A radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks...."

New York Times: "Andy Rooney, whose prickly wit was long a mainstay of CBS News and whose homespun commentary on '60 Minutes,' delivered every week from 1978 until 2011, made him a household name, died Friday in New York City." CBS News obituary here.

AP: "Greece's conservative opposition leader has insisted on his demand for immediate elections, snubbing a government offer to form a power-sharing coalition and extending a political deadlock in the debt-shackled country. Center-right New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaras made the remarks Saturday shortly after the Socialist government called on him to join a four-month coalition aimed at securing a mammoth new European debt deal."

New York Times: "Acceding to pressure from European leaders, Italy 'invited' the International Monetary Fund on Friday to look over its shoulder to ensure that Rome is carrying out changes devised to keep the country from succumbing to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, signifying a new moment in global economic management. Even as political instability in Greece threatened to tip the crisis into a new and more dangerous phase, the unprecedented move by the I.M.F. to act as an overseer of Italy’s efforts to contain its ballooning debt underscored just how rapidly Italy was pivoting back to the center of the storm on the Continent."

Politico: "Major Gen. Peter Fuller, a top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was relieved of his duties Friday after comments he made to Politico disparaging Afghan President Hamid Karzai and calling the government’s leaders 'isolated from reality.' Gen. John Allen, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, ousted Fuller following what the coalition called his 'inappropriate public comments.'”