The Commentariat -- September 26

Off Times Square today highlights the Amazon.com sweatshop in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Links to related stories are on OTS.

Contra Ross Orderliness-before-Justice Douthat, his bosses at the New York Times write in an editorial: "It is time Americans acknowledged that the death penalty cannot be made to comply with the Constitution and is in every way indefensible." So why do they keep Douthat on? To defend the indefensible? ...

... E. J. Dionne: "... winning this battle [against capital punishment] will require converting Americans who are not liberals. The good news is that many are open to persuasion.... If a majority is open to persuasion, the best persuaders will be conservatives, particularly religious conservatives and abortion opponents, who have moral objections to the state-sanctioned taking of life or see the grave moral hazard involved in the risk of executing an innocent person." ...

... Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "After decades of new laws to toughen sentencing for criminals, prosecutors have gained greater leverage to extract guilty pleas from defendants and reduce the number of cases that go to trial, often by using the threat of more serious charges with mandatory sentences or other harsher penalties. Some experts say the process has become coercive in many state and federal jurisdictions, forcing defendants to weigh their options based on the relative risks of facing a judge and jury rather than simple matters of guilt or innocence. In effect, prosecutors are giving defendants more reasons to avoid having their day in court."

** "Whatever Happened to the American Left?" Prof. Michael Kazin in a New York Times op-ed: "... the left must realize that when progressives achieved success in the past, whether at organizing unions or fighting for equal rights, they seldom bet their future on politicians. They fashioned their own institutions — unions, women’s groups, community and immigrant centers and a witty, anti-authoritarian press — in which they spoke up for themselves and for the interests of wage-earning Americans."

The least charitable view ties it directly to campaign donations. The most charitable view, it’s a bunch of Wall Street hacks in the position of economic advisers who truly believe that giving billions to banks will trickle down to the middle class.... There are a lot of progressives, and frankly everyday voters, who wish this White House would cut their ties with Wall Street, stop the sucking up to Wall Street. -- Adam Green, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, on the subprime mortgage settlement agreement being negotiated between banks and states attorneys general & the DOJ ...

... Sellout! Again! Edward-Issac Dovere of Politico: The subprime mortgage settlement, "a collaboration between the Justice Department and the 50 state attorneys general..., would mean a lump-sum payment from the banks in exchange for a release from liability. But with negotiators in Washington this week trying to finalize a deal, it’s become the latest flashpoint of left-wing disenchantment with Obama." CW: I'll say. Read the whole article

Paul Krugman: "European policy makers ... don’t seem at all ready to acknowledge a crucial fact — namely, that without more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in Europe’s stronger economies, all of their rescue attempts will fail."

Karen Garcia has an excellent post on the New York Times' so-called "coverage" of the Wall Street protests, "coverage" of which I briefly complained yesterday. To find out what's going on in downtown Manhattan, a few short blocks (and in NYC, they are short blocks) from Times Square, you have to go to Qatar (Al Jazeera) & London (the Guardian). The Times sent a fucking arts critic! Hey, it's like street theater. ...

... Jim Fallows of The Atlantic decries an NYPD officer's pepper-spraying women who were obeying police & doing to provoke them during the Wall Street demonstrations. (Includes video different from the one I posted yesterday, tho of the same incident.) ...

... Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times reports that a police spokesman said the officer acted "appropriately." A retired NYPD deputy chief who used to run the Disorder Control Unit pretty much said, "Yeah, well, better than clubbing 'em with a night stick."

They're Taking Away Our Freedoms (and this time, it's true.) Dorothy Samuels of the New York Times: States have passed "a huge number of new abortion restrictions, traceable in part to the 2010 mid-term elections, which increased the number of anti-abortion governors and state legislatures controlled by abortion opponents, who keep concocting new schemes to make terminating a pregnancy a right on paper only. The spate of new laws comes on top of many state and federal abortion curbs already in place."

As a Solicitor General, your job is to try to figure out how to persuade nine Supreme Court justices to take a particular position. And now my job is to figure out how to persuade eight. -- Elena Kagan, Solicitor General before becoming a Supreme Court Justice ...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The first justice in more than 40 years who had never been a judge, [Elena] Kagan established herself quickly as a forceful and insightful questioner on a court filled with strong personalities. While Kagan’s writings as an academic did not suggest a strong legal philosophy, her opinions and dissents from the bench have shown a conversational, confident writer, at times as sarcastic and cutting as a veteran."

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A handful of advocates, armed with nothing more than their keyboards, have put many of the country’s largest retailers, including Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Wal-Mart, on the spot over their indirect and, until recently, unnoticed roles in funneling money to Christian groups that are vocal in opposing homosexuality."

Matt Miller of the Washington Post argues for a third party. "... with America on the road to slow decline, the stakes are too high for 'inadequate' and 'retrograde' to be our only choices." If you think Miller's idea is a good one, maybe your eyes won't glaze over when you try to read (I couldn't begin to finish it) his idea for a rousing stump speech by some independent candidate. Loser.

If You Believe This, I've Got a Bridge...." Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: President Obama asserted last week that Republicans in Congress are holding up reconstruction of the Brent Spence Bridge between Ohio & Kentucky by not passing the American Jobs Act. Er, not exactly.

And You Think the Government Is Bad? Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post reviews the shady history of Hewlitt-Packard's management, and the massive losses caused by its board & their hand-picked incompetent CEOs. It's a soap opera with no happy ending. If there's a cliffhanger, it's -- Will Meg Whitman, HP's newest CEO, do as ineffective a job for HP as she did running her campaign for U.S. Senate?

Right Wing World

Has anybody been watching the debates lately? You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. -- Barack Obama, at a California fundraiser yesterday

CW: Yet another profile of Fox "News"' Roger Ailes, this one by that phoney Howie Kurtz. But Kurtz does discover something I wouldn't, since I don't watch Fox:

Privately, Fox executives say the entire network took a hard right turn after Obama’s election, but, as the Tea Party’s popularity fades, is edging back toward the mainstream. While Fox reporters ply their trade under Ailes’s much-mocked 'fair and balanced' banner, the opinion arm of the operation has been told to lower the temperature. After the Gabrielle Giffords shooting triggered a debate about feverish rhetoric, Ailes ordered his troops to tone things down. It was, in his view, a chance to boost profits by grabbing a more moderate audience.

Yesterday on Off Times Square we were discussing colorful language, so reader Bob M. sent me a link to a video of Gov. Rick Perry, well, using colorful language when he thought he was off-camera. The backstory is here, but I couldn't get the video to load. So I looked for a YouTube version, and here it is:

... While I was looking, I found this video by Steve Brooks, uploaded in 2010. I kinda love it:

Prof. Matthew Sutton, in a New York Times op-ed, on how fundamentalist Christian apocalyptic fears/hopes are driving political discourse as right-wing candidates cash in on & stoke them. CW: while the views of these fundamentalists are, well, nuts, the Republicans' embrace & exploitation of them is alarming. Reading Sutton's piece should make you think twice about home-schooling, too.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Senate leaders reached an agreement Monday evening that is almost certain to avert a federal government shutdown.... The new pact, which the Senate approved 79 to 12 and the House is expected to ratify next week, will keep federal agencies open until Nov. 18 at a level of spending that represents a 1.5 percent cut from this year’s levels.... Senate leaders agreed to a compromise that provides less money for disaster relief than Democrats sought, but also strips away spending cuts that Republicans had advanced." New York Times story here.

Washington Post: "The constitutionality of the 2010 health-care law will likely be determined by the Supreme Court this term, meaning the decision could come next summer in the thick of the 2012 presidential campaign.... Although the department declined further comment, the logical next step for the Obama administration is to ask the justices to make what would be the final determination on the law’s fate."

The Hill: "Facebook confirmed it filed paperwork on Monday to start its own political action committee. 'FB PAC will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,' said a spokesman...."

President Obama spoke at a campaign event in San Diego, California this afternoon & at campaign events in Los Angeles this evening.

     ... Los Angeles Times story here: "Raise my taxes, please."

President Obama participated in a townhall meeting this morning. AP: "President Barack Obama is on the road selling his jobs plan — and his re-election hopes — to plugged-in networkers in Silicon Valley and around the country. He was to appear Monday at a town hall-style event hosted by the career-focused social networking site LinkedIn to pitch his nearly $450 billion jobs proposal as he travels through California scooping up campaign cash."

Washington Post: "With time running out, Congress returns Monday to try to pass a short-term funding measure to avert a government shutdown and avoid yet another market-rattling showdown over the federal budget. The Democratic-led Senate, which on Friday blocked a GOP House measure to fund the government through Nov. 18, will vote late Monday on its own version of the bill."

AP: "President Barack Obama charged Sunday that the GOP vision of government would 'fundamentally cripple America,' as he tried out his newly combative message on the liberal West Coast."

AP: Americans "Joshua Fattal ... and Shane Bauer ... spoke for the first time in public about their ordeal of more than two years at the hands of Iranians — accused of spying for their country by illegally walking across the Iran-Iraq border."

Reuters: "Protesters in Sanaa are preparing for a long, messy revolt after President Ali Abdullah Saleh offered no clear path to a handover on his return to Yemen from three months of convalescence after an attempt on his life."

Washington Post: "A group of defectors calling themselves the Free Syrian Army is attempting the first effort to organize an armed challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, signaling what some hope and others fear may be a new phase in what has been an overwhelmingly peaceful Syrian protest movement."

Reuters: "Scottish prosecutors have asked Libya's interim rulers for help in tracking down information which could lead to others, even deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi, being charged over the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland."

The Commentariat -- September 25

Whether you can win or not in a fight that’s worth fighting, get caught trying. -- Bill Clinton

Activist Sally Kohn offers up some ideas in this Washington Post op-ed that are pretty impractical, but some of you-all will like them. Most of her ideas are do-able and reasonable.

... I've posted a comments page for Kohn's op-ed on Off Times Square.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times never really answers his own question, but he gives you reason to answer it for yourself: "HAS American political life become a carnival so invasive, indiscriminate and sometimes even crude that it repels some of the best potential officeholders and almost guarantees that the most important business of the country won’t be properly done?

As Karen Garcia noted in a blogpost some months ago, if you want to find out about protests in New York City, you'll have better luck going to Al Jazeera than to the New York Times. On today's front page, the Times has teeny links to two blogposts about the protests (both linked under today's Ledes), one of which has a glaring error -- at least at this writing the post embedded the same video twice, although the caption accompanying one of the videos refers to another one, which was not posted. But wait! The Times front page does link to a "real" article (as opposed to a blogpost) about the protesters by one Ginia Bellafante, who devotes her report to documenting how few, how clueless & how disorganized the young protesters are. See, they're as dumb as teabaggers.

Ross Douthat argues that Troy Davis's death sentence was a real boon for him, because if he'd received a lesser sentence, his case would not have got all that public attention. Douthat doesn't dwell on the fact that part of Davis's good fortune included being executed for a crime in which it turned out there was plenty of reasonable doubt of his guilt. Instead, Douthat argues, "Abolishing capital punishment ... would tell the public that our laws and courts and juries are fundamentally incapable of delivering what most Americans consider genuine justice. It could encourage a more cynical and utilitarian view of why police forces and prisons exist, and what moral standards we should hold them to. And while it would put an end to wrongful executions, it might well lead to more overall injustice." In other words, capital punishment is a good thing because it "sends a message" that our justice system works, and we should have confidence in it.

Really? In a comment, Gemli from Boston responds. Read Gemli's whole comment, & recommend it, please:

When I was young and innocent, and didn't know the difference between liberals and conservatives, I read a quote that said as far as criminal justice was concerned, 'Conservatives prefer unfairness to disorder.' I always thought that was an exaggeration just to make a point. Who could be so lacking in human empathy that one could punish someone, even put them to death, with a cloud of innocence hanging over them? But here is an entire column making that case.

** "The Fraying of a Nation's Decency." Anand Giridharadas of the New York Times highlights the Morning Call story we linked last week on Amazon.com's Allentown, Pennsylvania, sweatshop (If you haven't read the Morning Call story, it's here, and it's horrifying.). "Amazon.com, the books-to-diapers-to-machetes Internet superstore, is a perfect snapshot of the American Dream, circa 2011.... And what the story revealed about Amazon could be said of the country, too: that on the road to high and glorious things, it somehow let go of decency....Far beyond official Washington, we would seem to be witnessing a fraying of the bonds of empathy, decency, common purpose.... It doesn’t feel like one nation when a company like Amazon, with such resources to its name, treats vulnerable people so badly just because it can.... People who run companies like Amazon operate as though it never occurred to them that it could have been them crawling through the aisles.... What is creeping into the culture is simple dehumanization, a failure to imagine the lives others lead."

CW: Several readers have asked me privately about the White House "We the People" petition facility, which allows citizen to post petitions to the Obama administration. Any petition that receives at least 5,000 signers will receive "consideration" from White House staff. As Karen Garcia reports, "The winner and undisputed champion on the White House's new citizen petition webpage is the legalization of marijuana." Read Garcia's post, which I think is about right. In today's Off Times Square Kate Madison highlights another petition to recognize the Wall Street protesters. IMHO, the so-called petition capability is a way to shut you up by giving you the satisfaction you've "done something" for the causes that interest you. Since the site also requires you to provide basic information about yourself in order to sign a petition (which is SOP) & provides you the "opportunity" to get e-mails from the White House, obviously "We the People" is also a tool for the re-election campaign. Expect a fundraising letter in your inbox. But heck, maybe President Obama will get into the weed.

When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point. -- Barack Obama, ca. 2006

Right Wing World

"Nice Try." Maureen Dowd: "[Rick] Perry is proving to be [Mitt] Romney's best asset." ...

... Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Martin of Politico: "With the party’s front-runner sagging, Chris Christie is reconsidering pleas from Republican elites and donors to run for president in 2012.... The New Jersey governor has indicated he is listening to big-money and Republican influence-makers, and will let them know in roughly a week whether he has moved off his threat-of-suicide vow...."

News Ledes

New York Times: "In his first speech since returning to Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh confirmed on Sunday that his deputy remained authorized to sign a transfer-of-power agreement that would lead to early presidential elections, but he did not make any new concessions."

New York Times: "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Sunday granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving."

AP: "After eight months of contract-wrangling and negotiations that dragged past a strike deadline, supermarket workers in Southern California will stay on the job.... Members of the region's United Food and Commercial Workers voted to ratify a new contract with three major grocery chains..., averting a strike of more than 60,000 workers that could have crippled the industry and left shoppers scrambling."

AP: "Pakistan's army chief will convene a special meeting of senior commanders Sunday following U.S. allegations that the military's spy agency helped militants attack American targets in Afghanistan, the army said."

Reuters: Pope Benedict said on Saturday the Catholic Church could not accept gay marriage and urged young people to root out evil in society and shun a 'lukewarm' faith that damages their Church. The 84-year-old pope ended the third day in his homeland with a rally for more about 30,000 young people at a fairground outside the southern city of Freiburg, a Catholic area where he received the warmest welcome of his trip so far."

CNN: "Two American hikers freed last week from an Iranian prison are expected to arrive in the United States on Sunday. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were released by Iran on Wednesday and were flown to Muscat, Oman's capital, where they enjoyed several days of freedom after more than two years in prison." ...

... New York Daily News: Actor & activist "Sean Penn played a real-life role in the mediation that secured the release of two American hikers who were held captive in Iran for more than two years. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his ally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to release the hikers after the South American leader was lobbied by pals in U.S. 'intellectual circles,' Reuters reported. One of those Americans was Penn, who flew to Venezuela to meet with Chavez and push him to talk to Ahmadinejad."

AP: "About 80 people were arrested Saturday as demonstrators who were camped out near the New York Stock Exchange marched through lower Manhattan, police said. The 'Occupy Wall Street' protest is entering its second week. Demonstrators said Saturday they were protesting against bank bailouts and the mortgage crisis; some also held signs decrying Georgia's execution of Troy Davis.... At Manhattan's Union Square, police tried to corral the demonstrators using orange plastic netting.... Activists posted the videos online. One video appears to show officers using pepper spray on women who already were cordoned off." New York Times item here. Two videos here. Al Jazeera video above. ...

... Firedoglake has a liveblog here.

Guardian: "Police have been accused of heavy-handed tactics after making 80 arrests on Saturday when protesters marched uptown from their makeshift camp in a private park in the financial district. Footage has emerged on YouTube showing stocky police officers coralling a group of young female protesters and then spraying them with mace, despite being surrounded and apparently posing threats of only the verbal kind":

     ... The Times post -- linked above -- makes reference to this video, but does not embed it.

     ... CW Note: this video is of the full speech to the CBC. I had posted a clip earlier.

AP: "In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and 'put on your marching shoes' to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity. And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too."

The Commentariat -- September 24

President Obama's weekly address on strengthening the American education system:

     ... The transcript is here. Reuters: "Young people in the United States are falling behind their overseas peers in reading, math and science, President Barack Obama said on Saturday, calling education reform an essential part of economic recovery."

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

** Profs. Theodore Marmor & Jerry Mashaw in a New York Times op-ed: "Where politicians once drew on a morally resonant language of people, family and shared social concern, they now deploy the cold technical idiom of budgetary accounting.... The language of sociology and common culture has been replaced by the language of economics and individualism. ...

... BUT this ad, which Ben Smith says the DNC is actually airing heavily & is not just dropping on the YouTubes in hopes bloggers & other unimportant media outlets will pick it up, somewhat belies the professors' contention (or maybe Obama is finally getting it):

... Via Steve Benen, more evidence the Obama administration is serious about jobs:

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic asks a couple of political scientists -- & Guy Molyneux & John Sides -- why Americans love the elements of Obama's jobs plan but don't love Obama so much. CW: I'd add, ... and Republicans are superb at vilifying Obama & ridiculing his policies.

Aaron Pressman of Reuters: "The Federal Reserve's 'Operation Twist' to bring down bond yields and stimulate the economy is likely to cause pain for the nation's largest pension funds.... Hit both by falling stock prices and falling bond yields, the 100 largest pension plans of public U.S. companies have assets covering only 79 percent of their liabilities as of the end of August, down from 86 percent at the end of 2010...."

Anna Palmer of Politico: "Congress may be leading the government toward a shutdown, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers from leaving town to raise money. Before a vote Monday to keep the government open beyond Sept. 30 and FEMA funded, Republicans and Democrats have plans outside of Washington to host fundraisers and other party committee events."

Charlie Cook of the National Journal on how Republicans could defeat healthcare legislation. Presume "Obamacare" makes it through the courts more-or-less intact. Now presume the Republican presidential candidate wins in 2012. Then presume Republicans retain control of the House, but with a smaller majority. Next presume Republicans take control of the Senate, even by one senator, &/or get fake Democratic senators to vote with them. The House could repeal Obamacare, the Senate could pass it via reconciliation -- as a budgetary bill that does not allow for a filibuster (which requires 60 votes) & President G. O. Poop could sign the repeal. CW: All of Cook's scenarios are plausible, BTW. And they would work for any policies that are primarily budgetary in nature. Don't think it will happen? Vote Republican & you'll find out.

Olga Pierce, et al., of ProPublica: So-called (& so-named) "independent" redistricting advocacy groups "are being quietly bankrolled by corporations, unions and other special interests. Their main interest in the once-a-decade political fight over redistricting is not to help voters in the communities they claim to represent but mainly to improve the prospects of their political allies or to harm their enemies. The number of these purportedly independent redistricting groups is rising, but their ties remain murky. Contributions to such groups are not limited by campaign finance laws, and most states allow them to take unlimited amounts of money without disclosing the source."

Matthew Lee of the AP: "The Obama administration has managed to buy time and may have staved off an embarrassing and politically awkward showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. It may also have maneuvered itself into a corner. The U.S. and the rest of the international diplomatic Quartet of Mideast peacemakers endorsed specific timelines for restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks Friday.... Committing to those detailed deadlines raises potentially unrealistic hopes...."

Chris Bowers of Daily Kos: "Scared by [Elizabeth] Warren's rapid rise [as a candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts], the forces of Wall Street have suddenly made her a top target." The Politico "charges" against Warren, which Bowers cites, are beyond ridiculous. CW: She's getting the Obama treatment. Read the whole article.

Right Wing World *

"Yikes." Juana Summers of Politico: "The conservative commentariat spoke with near-unanimity Friday on Rick Perry’s debate performance: The Texas governor didn’t just lose, he bombed.... His second consecutive weak outing set off alarm bells on the right, where too many cringeworthy moments raised questions about Perry’s durability, his seriousness and ability to compete on a stage with Barack Obama.... Perry’s nationally televised face-plant revived dormant talk — and hopes — about the possibility of new candidates entering the race. With almost no one willing to defend a performance marked by meandering or inaccurate answers, botched canned lines and the damaging adoption of the left’s critique of conservatives on immigration, it’s hard to imagine how things could have gone much worse for Perry.... Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor, summed it up with one word: 'yikes.'” ...

... New York Times Editors: "Thursday night’s Republican debate was a particular cacophony of illogic as all of the candidates pandered to a base that is frighteningly unrepresentative of most Americans who want their elected officials to work for the greater good." Later in the editorial, the writers equate Rick Perry with Dr. Strangelove. ...

... Gail Collins feels sorry for Republicans because their field of presidential candidates is so lousy and their frontrunner, Rick Perry, is seriously not ready for primetime. ...

... More Bad News for Perry. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Thursday’s Google/Fox News debate in Florida was the most watched Republican event so far, according to Nielsen." ...

... Peter Catapano covers the field of reactions to the crowd's booing a gay soldier serving in Iraq & to Rick Santorum's answer to the soldier's question, an answer I would call a good demonstration of how Santorum got its well-earned definition. ...

... BUT the major Republican candidates (along with the minor ones, excepting those above -- Huntsman, Santorum & Johnson), who had nothing to say on Thursday, are still remarkably tongue-tied. Via Emily Friedman of ABC News:

No response. -- Mitt Romney

No response. -- Rick Perry

No response. -- Ron Paul

There was booing and cheering throughout the debate – Michele didn’t comment on any of it. -- Michele Bachmann's spokeswoman

If you don’t have time to explain your whole position on that, you can very easily be taken out of context so I don’t even want to comment on that. -- Herman Cain

Decline to comment. -- Newt Gingrich

      Update: via Steve Benen: yesterday on Fox "News," Rick Santorum condemned the booing of an American soldier, tho he maintains he never heard it.

* Where even Republicans may not want another uninformed, inarticulate Texas governor to lead their party. Oh, and they don't wanna talk about teh gays.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke at a Congressional Black Caucus function this evening.

Miami Herald: "... businessman Herman Cain won a surprise victory at the Republican Party of Florida’s nationally watched presidential straw poll Saturday in a sign that frontrunner Rick Perry is in deep trouble. Cain’s landslide victory, with 37 percent of the vote, exceeded the combined total for Perry and Mitt Romney, who only garnered 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively."

New York Times: "A day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned to this battered country calling for a cease-fire, his forces escalated attacks on the opposition on Saturday, leaving more than 40 people dead across the capital."

New York Times: "President Obama on Saturday broke with his usual practice of golfing with three junior aides and for the first time teed up with former President Bill Clinton, who has written a new book on the government’s role in the 21st-century economy."

New York Times: "The public assault by the Obama administration on the Pakistani intelligence agency as a facilitator of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan has been met with scorn in Pakistan, a signal that the country has little intention of changing its ways, even perhaps at the price of the crumpled alliance."

AP: "UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel has resigned over a $2.3 billion rogue trading loss.... The move ends days of speculation about whether Gruebel could retain his position following the latest scandal to hit Switzerland's biggest bank."

AP: "Finance ministers and central bankers are pushing for bold action by the Group of 20 nations to get the global economy back on track, while wavering over helping Greece avoid a destabilizing default." The G-20 is meeting for three days in Washington, D.C.

AP: "NASA's dead six-ton satellite fell to Earth early Saturday morning, starting its fiery death plunge somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean. Details were still sketchy, but the U.S. Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center and NASA say that the bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. That doesn't necessarily mean it all fell into the sea. NASA's calculations had predicted that the former climate research satellite would fall over a 500-mile swath."

AP: "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday proposed Vladimir Putin as presidential candidate for 2012, almost certainly guaranteeing Putin's return to the office four years after he was legally forced to step aside.... Putin, who currently serves as prime minister..., [during a speech that followed Medvedev's endorsement, made] a surprising suggestion that Russia's wealthy should pay higher taxes than average citizens."

AP: "Facing discontent within his German flock, Pope Benedict XVI made a gesture of meeting with victims of clerical sex abuse as he called for Roman Catholics in the former communist East to rediscover their faith. The pontiff celebrated Mass with some 30,000 people early Saturday, unhindered by an incident on the edge of the security zone in which a man fired an air gun at a security guard about an hour before the service, Vatican and local officials said."

Daily Beast: "While publicly pressuring Israel to make deeper concessions to the Palestinians, President Obama has secretly authorized significant new aid to the Israeli military that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker busters, Newsweek has learned.... The GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators — potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites — were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office."

New York Times: "Stony-faced, the chief executive and chief financial officer of Solyndra, the bankrupt solar company, took the Fifth Amendment on Friday before a House subcommittee as they were verbally pummeled by committee members until Democrats complained that the badgering was becoming unseemly."