The Commentariat -- September 12

New York Times Editors: "Even supporters of the death penalty used to consider execution a solemn state responsibility, not an occasion for celebration. But the crowd of Republicans who gathered at the Reagan Library last week to watch their presidential candidates debate actually applauded and cheered when a moderator noted that Texas had executed 234 inmates under Gov. Rick Perry, by far the most under any governor in modern times. Then came Mr. Perry’s blithe denial that he had ever struggled with a single one of those state killings. Texas has a 'thoughtful, a very clear process,' he said, which ensures everyone a fair hearing, so there is no need to lose sleep over the possibility of executing an innocent person.... Voters should have serious doubts about a man who seems to have none." ...

... I've put up a comments page on Off Times Square on the editorial above. Write on this or something else.

Steven Mufson & Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post: "For the very richest Americans, low tax rates on capital gains are [a] gift. As a result of a pair of rate cuts, first under President Bill Clinton and then under Bush, most of the richest Americans pay lower overall tax rates than middle-class Americans do. And this is one reason the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the country is widening dramatically. The rates on capital gains — which include profits from the sale of stocks, bonds and real estate — should be a key point in negotiations over how to shrink the budget deficit, some lawmakers say.... The theory justifying low capital gains taxes has many philosophical fathers but none as influential as Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman who was treated as an economic seer for decades." CW: read the whole article & see who your friends are (and in some cases surprisingly, aren't).

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: President Obama presented a credible jobs proposal; the Republican candidates for president are clueless; Rick Perry is a liar or dumber than a Martian.

Louise Story & Graham Bowley of the New York Times: "It has become more likely for stock prices to make large swings — on the order of 3 percent or 4 percent — than it has been in any other time in recent stock market history, according to an analysis by The New York Times of price changes in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock market index since 1962."

Michael Barbaro, et al., of the New York Times: "Democrats are expressing growing alarm about President Obama’s re-election prospects and, in interviews, are openly acknowledging anxiety about the White House’s ability to strengthen the president’s standing over the next 14 months."

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "Republican Bob Turner is poised to pull a huge upset in the race to replace Anthony Weiner as the Congressman from New York's 9th Congressional District. He leads Democrat David Weprin 47-41 with Socialist Workers candidate Christopher Hoeppner at 4% and 7% of voters remaining undecided."

Paul Krugman recommends this article by Sylvia Nasar, published in Bloomberg News: "Keynes, Schumpeter and the Great Post-War Mistake." Krugman & Nasar will discuss her book Grand Pursuit: A History of Economic Genius at the 92nd Street Y on September 27th. ...

... NEW. There's not much in this Krugman post I can quote because his own words are few. The title is "Satire is Dead," and the star of the post is JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who, well, is a living parody of the evil banker in John Ford's film "Stagecoach."

Karen Garcia wrote some great posts while I was on the road (or recuperating from being on the road). Here's my favorite because I love it when real Americans give fake politicians their comeuppance.: Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) "more than met his match when a busload of National Nurses United (NNU) members converged on his Richmond office last week to demand that he pay attention to the suffering people in his district and in the whole country for a change.... The Cantor protest was just one of scores across the nation on September 1, as part of the nurses' ongoing campaign to tax Wall Street and save Main Street."

AND words of wisdom from Driftglass on why he sometimes finds a blank page intimidating, after all.

Janny Scott of the New York Times: The Times has obtained tapes of Jacqueline Kennedy speaking with historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., shortly after her husband's assassination. "The eight and a half hours of interviews had been kept private at the request of Mrs. Kennedy.... The transcript and recording ... offer an extraordinary immersion in the thoughts and feelings of one of Mrs. Kennedy.... The interviews ... are packed with intimate observations and insights of the sort that historians treasure." ...

... ABC News is airing a two-hour program on the tapes. at 9:00 pm ET Tuesday. They have a page on the Kennedys here and a breathliess promo of their Tuesday show here:

President Obama spoke last evening at "A Concert of Hope":

... The White House Website has more video of the September 10 and 11 observances.

Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post: some Afghans who have been released from Guantanamo say Afghanistan is worse today than it was a decade ago when the U.S. "swooped in, promising to rebuild, secure and transform Afghanistan."

Right Wing World

NEW. Chris Moody of Yahoo! News: "At Monday's Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Fla, Michele Bachmann is reportedly planning to criticize Rick Perry for calling Social Security 'a Ponzi scheme,' but ... Bachmann ... made similar comments about the program just last year, and she also said last year that younger workers should be 'weaned off' the program. During an interview with the Fox Business channel in February 2010, Bachmann ... called Social Security's structure 'a tremendous fraud' and said that anyone who ran a business modeled after the program would be 'thrown in jail.'"

** "Repeal the 20th Century. Vote GOP." Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post: "Theirs is a magical world in which the gulf oil spill and the Japanese nuclear disaster never happened and there was never a problem with smog, polluted rivers or contaminated hamburger. It is a world where Enron and Worldcom did not collapse and shoddy underwriting by bankers did not bring the financial system to the brink of a meltdown. It is a world where the unemployed can always find a job if they really want one and businesses never, ever ship jobs overseas...." CW: so once again, I ask, "Why doesn't Obama tell it the way opinion writers do?"

Marin Cogan & Jake Sherman of Politico: "House Republicans may pass bits and pieces of President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, but behind the scenes, some Republicans are becoming worried about giving Obama any victories — even on issues the GOP has supported in the past. And despite public declarations about finding common ground with Obama, some Republicans are privately grumbling that their leaders are being too accommodating with the president."

** Dick Cheney, Still a Loose Cannon & Proud of It. Bob Woodward in the Washington Post: during his vice presidency, Cheney "wanted a military strike [on a Syrian nuclear reactor] in the face of 'low confidence' intelligence that the reactor was part of a nuclear weapons program. Cheney said he wanted the United States to commit an act of war to send a message, demonstrate seriousness and enhance credibility — a frightening prospect given the doubts. Two participants in the key National Security Council meeting in June 2007 said that after Cheney, the 'lone voice,' made his arguments, Bush rolled his eyes."

Ken Vogel of Politico: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s humble origins and down home straight talk are central to his political identity, but for years Perry has enjoyed lavish perks and travel – mostly funded by a group of deep-pocketed supporters – that are allowed under his state’s lax ethics and campaign rules. Some of the same Texas donors who have funded Perry’s political rise also have footed the bills for Perry and his family to jet around the world, stay in luxury hotels and resorts, vacation in tony Colorado ski towns, attend all manner of sporting events and concerts, and to maintain, entertain – and even pay the cable bill – at the 4,600-square-foot mansion with a heated pool that taxpayers are renting him at a cost of about $10,000 a month.... Watchdog groups and political opponents have argued Perry’s acceptance of such perks feeds a corrupt pay-to-play political culture in Texas." CW: With examples of why it pays to shower Gov. Goodhair with favors. ...

... Damage Control. Rick Perry in a USA Today op-ed: As President, I'll fix Social Security -- hint, hint, by cutting benefits for younger Americans. CW: I bet you will. ...

... Linked to Perry's op-ed is this USA Today editorial analysis: "Social Security ... is the main reason that the percentage of seniors in poverty has dropped to roughly 10% from what many experts believe was more than 50% during the Great Depression... which makes Texas Gov. Rick Perry's views on Social Security both curious and troubling.... Social Security is most certainly not a Ponzi scheme [as Perry has claimed]." ...

... NEW. Pat Garofalo of Think Progress with a "Memo to Rick Perry": "Perry misleadingly says that the program has 'dire financial challenges' that require big changes (which Perry didn’t deign to explain)... One simple step — lifting the payroll tax cap so that more wages for the wealthy are subject to the payroll tax — guarantees Social Security’s solvency for 75 years."

Composite of GOP flier by Politico.... Preying on Prejudice. Maggie Haberman of Politico: "New York Republicans have sent out a kitchen-sink mailer in the hotly-contested Queens congressional special election depicting a mosque superimposed over the scarred Ground Zero site on one side, and Democrat David Weprin alongside President Barack Obama on the other. The mailer is one of a string that the New York State Republican Party sent out in this close race between state Assembly member Weprin and Republican businessman Bob Turner for the 9th congressional district seat that was held by scandal-singed Democrat Anthony Weiner."

Local News

Jennifer Peltz of the AP: "... the upcoming trial of a campaign operative charged with stealing $1.2 million from Mayor Michael Bloomberg promises to be can't-miss drama for political junkies.... Prosecutors say [the operative, John] Haggerty, got then-candidate Bloomberg to underwrite an elaborate 2009 poll-watching effort, but then mounted a meager operation and used most of the money instead to buy himself a house. Haggerty says he did the job he was paid for and didn't do anything illegal."

News Ledes

New York Times: Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said today "that Ohio’s proposed new Congressional map gives him a chance to retain his seat in the Cleveland area.... With Ohio losing two Congressional seats due to steep population losses, Mr. Kucinich had feared that the Republican General Assembly would wipe out his district entirely..... But the new Congressional map proposes a district along Lake Erie that retains some of Mr. Kucinich’s current constituency, though he could end up running against a fellow Democrat, Representative Marcy Kaptur."

I'm sending this bill to Congress today, and they ought to pass it immediately. -- President Barack Obama

New York Times: "The White House said on Monday that it would cover most of the cost of his payroll tax cut and other job initiatives by limiting the deductions that can be claimed on the tax returns of wealthier taxpayers. President Obama, repeating what is clearly going to be the mantra for his stump speeches this fall, called on lawmakers Monday to 'pass this bill' — his $447 billion jobs package. [See video above.] ... Republicans were quick to signal their continuing opposition to the tax increases..., which have been suggested by the administration before." Story includes facsimile of bill.

National Journal:"Open Internet regulations, or network-neutrality rules, have cleared the final regulatory hurdle before getting on the books, a Federal Communications Commission spokesman said on Monday. The rules, which limit how cable and phone companies can treat legal Internet traffic, are strongly opposed by Republicans in Congress, who have unsuccessfully attempted to repeal them on several occasions."

Politico: "Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty endorsed Mitt Romney for president Monday, praising his onetime rival for his 'leadership ability' and the 'depth and scope of [his] private-sector experience.'" With video.

Reuters: "A furnace exploded at the Marcoule nuclear waste treatment site in southern France on Monday, killing one person, but there was no leak of radioactive material outside the furnace, France's ASN nuclear safety watchdog said. The facility at Marcoule is a nuclear waste management site that does not include any reactors. The explosion took place near a furnace, an spokesperson for ASN, the watchdog, told Reuters."

AP: "The 9/11 memorial plaza planned to open its gates [to the public for the first time] at 10 a.m. Monday under tight security." ...

     ... Updated AP story here.

New York Times: "Fears about Europe’s deteriorating finances intensified on Sunday as new doubts about the health of French banks, as well as Germany’s willingness to help Greece avert default, left investors bracing for another global stock market downturn this week." ...

New York Times: " Leading figures of the deposed government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi continued to flee from Libya or surface in rebel custody on Sunday, including one of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons, as the de facto government announced new steps toward restarting the economy and bringing the country under its full control."

ABC News: "The FBI has questioned and cleared some 300 people in the last 72 hours and still no hard evidence has emerged to corroborate early alarms of a potential Sept. 11 anniversary terror attack, U.S. officials told ABC News, leaving potentially deadly questions unanswered and security still on high alert."

The Commentariat -- September 11

Maureen Dowd writes what we've all been saying: "When the president stays insulated with his little circle that doesn’t know how to push his messages, and he lets the nihilist Republicans go unchallenged in their crazy claims to be saving the country they’re hurting, he sets the stage for Rick Perry. It’s still impossible to sum up what Obama’s presidency is about right now, except saving his own job." ...

... I've posted a comments page on Dowd's column on Off Times Square. Write on this or something else.

Paul Krugman: "What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons."

President Bill Clinton on the heroes of Shanksville Flight 93. CW: try not to tear up:

     ... President Bush's speech is here. Vice President Biden's speech is here. ...

... Peter Kaplan of New York Magazine on New Yorkers, before and after 9/11.

Alexander Cockburn of Nation of Change: "You can find America's future in blueprints minted in business-funded think tanks 30 to 40 years ago at the dawn of the neo-liberal age: destruction of organized labor, attrition of the social safety net, erosion of government regulation and a war on the poor that will be fought without mercy at every level. Last year, the New York police stopped and questioned 601,055 people — predominantly blacks and Hispanics — and those numbers were up 13 percent for the first six months of this year.... Whoever the Republican presidential candidate may be, they face in Obama an opponent who agrees with at least half of what they say. In 40 years, I've not seen a gloomier political landscape."

Alexander Bolton of The Hill: Economists say President Obama's jobs plan could help the economy; Wall Street was unimpressed. ...

... Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "The dismal state of the economy is the main reason many companies are reluctant to hire workers, and few executives are saying that President Obama’s jobs plan — while welcome — will change their minds any time soon." ...

... Frank Rich and Adam Moss of New York Magazine assess President Obama's jobs speech. ...

... George Packer of the New Yorker: the night Obama faced off against the nihilists. ...

... Rick Hertzberg: "... Lincoln didn't have to deal with so many of the sort of people of the type we would today call 'Republicans.'”

Gory Videogame Producers Get Bog Tax Breaks. David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "Those tax incentives — a collection of deductions, write-offs and credits mostly devised for other industries in other eras — now make video game production one of the most highly subsidized businesses in the United States.... Video game developers receive such a rich assortment of incentives that even oil companies have questioned why the government should subsidize such a mature and profitable industry."

Right Wing World

Andy Borowitz: "The Department of Homeland Security said today that it was studying several 'credible threats' made to the United States government in a two-hour broadcast Wednesday night from a location believed to be the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.... In reviewing the two-hour tape, Homeland Security officials said they found threats to some of the most essential functions of the US government, from Social Security to the Federal Reserve.... But the most terrifying moment in the tape came when [one] speaker received thunderous applause from the audience after threatening to execute people." For reference, see the Commentariat of September 8 and 9; thanks to reader Bonnie for the link. ...

... That was funny. This is not -- and as unbelievable as it seems, it's true. Judd Legum of Think Progress: on the eve of the September 11 anniversary, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced that in order to offset the costs of Hurricane Irene emergency relief, Republicans have written a bill that, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) explains: "slashes funding for grants to equip and train first responders by 40 percent. This is on top of the 19 percent cut in FY 2011. The House defense appropriations bill provides $12.8 billion to train and equip troops and police in Afghanistan — yet the House provides only $2 billion for first responders here at home." CW: No, they have no shame.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: The wingnut blogosphere went nuts because PBS "edited" a transcript of President Obama's jobs speech -- yeah, they dild when the White House sent them an "as-delivered" update. AND PBS "edited" the speech to remove an embarrassing Obama "gaffe" about Abraham Lincoln 's founding of the GOP -- a remark which was not only accurate, it's a fact that Republicans have long embraced. Johnson writes, "The multi-level idiocy of this latest wingnut freakout is impressive. Not only did PBS have a perfectly good reason for changing their transcript, the wingnuts are completely wrong about Lincoln, too."

News Ledes

Al Jazeera: "The Taliban government in Afghanistan offered to present Osama bin Laden for a trial long before the attacks of September 11, 2001, but the US government showed no interest, according to a senior aide to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, Taliban’s last foreign minister, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview that his government had made several proposals to the United States to present the al-Qaeda leader, considered the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, for trial for his involvement in plots targeting US facilities during the 1990s."

U.K. Telegraph: "A group of Muslim protesters set fire to an American flag outside the US embassy in London during a minute's silence to mark the moment that the first hijacked airliner hit the World Trade Center 10 years ago." With video.

NBC has a nice panoramic image of the September 11 Memorial in New York City.

See the Live Feeds above & the President's Calendar below for the public appearances of President Obama First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden & Dr. Jill Biden today.

The New York Times' September 11 memorials story is here. I expect it will be updated throughout the day. ...

... Here's a New York Times liveblog. ...

... New York Times: "Amid all the dignitaries who gather Sunday on the site of the World Trade Center to pay tribute to those who died there 10 years ago, two will inevitably stand out: President Obama and former President George W. Bush, whose terms in office are bookends for considering how America has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, particularly in its response to terrorism."

... The Washington Post story is here.

AP: "A decade after 9/11, the day that changed so much for so many people, the world's leaders and citizens paused to reflect Sunday. But there were also those — including a former Malaysian prime minister — who reiterated old claims that the U.S. government itself was behind the attacks."

Washington Post: "Two Afghans were killed and nearly 80 NATO soldiers were wounded after a truck packed with explosives hidden under firewood rammed into the entrance of a military base in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said Sunday. The Taliban took responsibility for the attack. In a statement on the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the militant group said Afghans became the biggest victims of response to the attacks."

New York Times: "Cliff Robertson, the ruggedly handsome actor who won an Oscar for 'Charly' but found himself frozen out of jobs for almost four years after he exposed a prominent Hollywood studio boss as a forger and embezzler, died Saturday on Long Island. He was 88 and lived in Water Mill, N.Y."

The Commentariat -- September 10

In his weekly address, President Obama marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks:

... The transcript is here. ...

... The New York Times has a special report on the decade after September 11, 2001.

Joe Nocera: "... far more than tax relief, small businesses need credit. That is what the president should be pushing for."

Charles Blow: President Obama "isn’t only battling a calcifying cynicism about the inefficacy of government in general, he’s battling the rapidly hardening public perception that he himself is a product of what I call the doughnut doctrine of leadership — soft, glazy, hollow in the middle and ideally suited for getting dunked."

President Obama discussed the American Jobs Act yesterday in Richmond, Virginia -- CW: and he held me up in traffic on I-95 South for 45 minutes:

Right Wing World

"The Execution Cheer." Peter Capatano of the New York Times has a rundown of opinions regarding Rick Perry's record as the Execution Governor, and the big cheers that went up among the audience in the Republican debate this week when Perry defended his record and "Texas Justice." ...

... The most important link Capatano makes is to Marie Diamond's Think Progress post. Diamond debunks Perry's contention that the Texas judicial system is always fair:

... during Perry’s tenure as governor, DNA evidence has exonerated at least 41 people convicted in Texas, Scott Horton writes in Harper’s. According to the Innocence Project, 'more people have been freed through DNA testing in Texas than in any other state in the country, and these exonerations have revealed deep flaws in the state’s criminal justice system.' Some 85 percent of wrongful convictions in Texas, or 35 of the 41 cases, are due to mistaken eyewitness identifications.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Egypt’s ruling military council announced a security crackdown Saturday, saying it would make full use of the country’s emergency law to ensure safety a day after an attack by protesters on the Israeli Embassy prompted Israel to withdraw its diplomats. The crisis exposed the fragility of the Egyptian government’s control of the streets as well as Israel’s vulnerability in a region reshaped by protests since winter."

New York Times: "Bells tolled 40 times here Saturday afternoon as the names were read — those of the 40 passengers and crew who died 10 years ago after terrorists hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 and, with passengers in rebellion, slammed it into a field in southwestern Pennsylvania." 

... The Hill: "In emotional speeches, former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton paid tribute to the 40 passengers and crew who were killed when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa., on September 11, 2001." See President Clinton's speech in the September 11 Commentariat. ...

Washington Post: "Israel airlifted its ambassador home and sought U.S. intervention with Egypt to help secure its embassy here early Saturday, hours after thousands of Egyptian protesters besieged the building, with several managing to gain entry and fling Hebrew-language documents from a balcony. Protesters knocked down a 12-foot concrete wall that had been built last week to protect the embassy, which is near the top floor of a 21-story residential building in the upscale Dokki area. At least two protesters scaled the front of the building to pull down the Israeli flag, hanging from the 20th floor. It was the second time in recent weeks that demonstrators had removed the flag." ...

... New York Times: "Israel evacuated most of its embassy staff [in Cairo, Egypt] at dawn Saturday after six members had been trapped in the embassy for hours by a mob of protesters who attacked and invaded its offices overnight. The attack was the second time in a month that an angry mob stormed the Cairo embassy and tore down its flag. Coming a week after Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador over its refusal to apologize for a deadly raid on a Turkish ship, it left Israel was facing crises in relations with its two most important regional allies, with ambassadors in neither country."

AP: "Al-Qaida may have sent American terrorists or men carrying U.S. travel documents to launch an attack on Washington or New York to coincide with memorials marking the 10th anniversary of 9/11, government officials say. One U.S. official says al-Qaida dispatched three men, at least two of whom could be U.S. citizens, to detonate a car bomb in one of the cities."

AP: "A pair of spacecraft rocketed toward the moon Saturday on the first mission dedicated to measuring lunar gravity and determining what's inside Earth's orbiting companion — all the way down to the core."

AP: "Japan's new trade minister resigned Saturday over a remark seen as insensitive to nuclear evacuees, dealing a blow to a government that took office just eight days ago in the hopes it could better tackle the daunting tsunami recovery."