The Commentariat -- September 3

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

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... Here's the transcript. It's about jobs. Funny, no mention of how killing the new ozone standards will create lots of jobs for the healthcare industry. ...

... Obama the Ozone Liar. Brad Plumer of the Washington Post on the big double-cross behind Obama's directive to halt ozone standards. To make a long story shortish, the Administration played environmentalists the way the Boner plays Obama. The current standards in place are from 1997, & scientists agree that these standards are so low that people are dying from the resulting pollutants. The Bush Administration proposed stronger standards in 2008, but not strong enough for environmentalists who sued to force higher standards. Now for the Obama double-cross: the Obama EPA told the plaintiffs they agreed with them & would be issuing stronger standards by August 2010, so please hold back on the suit. Ha ha. The EPA slipped its deadline again and again, and now it's slipping it all the way to 2013 (when there might be a Perry Administration). The worst part -- had the Obama EPA not got environmentalists to drop their suit, the Bush standards, which were more rigid than the 1997 Clinton standards, would have been put in place, or -- if the plaintiffs had prevailed in their suit -- exceeded. So hack cough, piss me off. ...

... New York Times Editors: "President Obama’s decision not to proceed with stronger air-quality standards governing ozone is a setback for public health and the environment and a victory for industry and its Republican friends in Congress.... There is still no excuse for compromising on public health and allowing politics to trump science." ...

... Karen Garcia: "You're in the O-Zone.... Just hold on, try to breathe the ozone until 2013, and he'll look at reducing pollution levels then. After the campaign, after those same businesses [that lobbied against the new regs] have donated about a billion into his war chest. I guess Malia and Sasha don't have asthma." ...

... Keith Olbermann & Brian Beutler of TPM on President O-Zone:

     ... Here's Beutler's post on Obama's directive: "The development most likely means smog standards in many states will remain lower than they would have been if President George W. Bush's lax policy had been fully pursued." ...

... NEW. Paul Krugman: "... tighter ozone regulation would actually have created jobs: it would have forced firms to spend on upgrading or replacing equipment, helping to boost demand. Yes, it would have cost money — but that’s the point! And with corporations sitting on lots of idle cash, the money spent would not, to any significant extent, come at the expense of other investment.... So, a lousy decision all around. Are you surprised?"

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... it took the Republican National Committee exactly 94 minutes to coin a new, demeaning title for Barack Obama: President Zero. In an e-mail to reporters, the committee took note of the worst jobs report in nearly a year, saying that there has been 'two and a half years of Obamanomics and nothing to show for it.'” ...

... Yeah, But: "The Conservative Recovery" Fizzles. Matt Yglesias: "... we had 17,000 thousand new private sector jobs in August, which were 100 percent offset by 17,000 lost jobs in the public sector.... This has been the trend all year. The public sector has been steadily shrinking. According to the conservative theory of the economy, when the public sector shrinks that should super-charge the private sector.... Conservatives complain about the results because the President is a Democrat.... But the policy result is what conservatives say they want." CW: as Paul Krugman & many other economists have written repeatedly, cutting government spending does not create jobs. Period. ...

** Ari Berman of Rolling Stone: "Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots.... In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process."

William Cohan, whom you may remember from the New York Times op-ed and business pages, is now at Bloomberg News. He writes that it's time to get rid of the corrupt SEC and start all over with a new regulatory agency free of conflict-of-interest. He presents some compelling evidence. ...

... Compelling evidence that Cohan got from this long piece by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, who has a singular ability to make financial stories interesting reading (not that his ethically-challenged subjects don't help): "For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation's worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG."

Brady Dennis, et al., of the Washington Post: "Federal regulators launched a broad legal assault on big banks Friday, claiming they sold nearly $200 billion in fraudulent mortgage investments to housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to massive losses during the financial crisis. The suits, brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, name 17 domestic and foreign banks as defendants." The article reports some of the implications of the suits.

We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen. -- Navy SEAL ...

... Dana Priest & William Arkin of the Washington Post: "... the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command, known by the acronym JSOC..., has grown from a rarely used hostage rescue team into America’s secret army. When members of this elite force killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May, JSOC leaders celebrated not just the success of the mission but also how few people knew their command, based in Fayetteville, N.C., even existed. This article, adapted from a chapter of the newly released 'Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State,' by Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, chronicles JSOC’s spectacular rise, much of which has not been publicly disclosed before. Two presidents and three secretaries of defense routinely have asked JSOC to mount intelligence-gathering missions and lethal raids, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in countries with which the United States was not at war, including Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines, Nigeria and Syria."

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "... more than 12,000 Iraqis have been killed in at least 1,000 suicide attacks since the American-led invasion," their usage largely a tactic of sectarian warfare.

Right Wing World

The level of ignorance among some of the Republican presidential candidates about monetary policy is stunning. Mr. Perry has been taken to task for his choice of language, but not for the substance of his remarks, which is outrageous. -- Economics Prof. Mark Gertler ...

It must be exciting to accuse him of things he hasn’t done. -- Conservative Econ. Prof. Robert Hall

... James Stewart of the New York Times: "... our political leaders and those who aspire to replace them should be debating the fiscal policies that will put Americans to work in the short term and reduce the deficit in the long term — not bashing the Fed.... Many voters seem determined to find a scapegoat for the financial crisis and its aftermath, and some candidates are only too willing to pander by serving up [Fed Chair Ben] Bernanke." CW Reminder: Bernanke is a Republican.

The Perry Oeuvre. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... blunt assertions ... in two books [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry wrote ... have drawn new scrutiny now that Mr. Perry, a Republican, is running for president." CW: this article is kind of a fun read because it lists some of Perry's greatest hits and demonstrates anew what a dangerous whacko he is.

News Ledes

New York Times: "In a strong rebuke to the Irish government, the Vatican said Saturday that it had never discouraged Irish bishops from reporting the sexual abuse of minors to the police and dismissed claims that it had undermined efforts to investigate abuse as 'unfounded.' The statement was the latest salvo in a tense diplomatic standoff since the Irish government released a report in July accusing the Vatican of encouraging bishops to ignore guidelines requiring them to report abuse cases to civil authorities." Irish Times story here. The text of the Vatican statement is here (pdf).

The Hill: "Public health advocates slammed the White House on Friday for abandoning tougher ozone regulations, and vowed to fight the Obama administration in court. The American Lung Association called the decision 'outrageous' and said it would 'severely jeopardize public health.' The association said it would restart litigation that had been put on hold following the administration's promises to strengthen standards set under then-President George W. Bush.... The EPA has estimated that the new standards could have prevented 12,000 premature deaths and 58,000 asthma attacks a year." (Emphasis added.)

Times-Picayune: "Tropical Storm Lee continues its slow, 2 mph drift onto the southeastern Louisiana coastline Saturday morning, with its ill-defined center expected to cross the coast near Morgan City sometime this afternoon, bringing maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. More than 5 inches of rain had fallen in some parts of the New Orleans area overnight, and forecasters said Lee remained a major flooding threat, predicting a minimum 15 inches of rain will fall over much of the New Orleans area before the storm makes its exit on Tuesday. It's likely some locations could receive 20 inches of rain or more." The Weather Channel report here, with links to related content.

New York Times: "Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the Libyan intelligence service — most notably suggesting that the Americans sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite that country’s reputation for torture."

The Commentariat -- September 2

I've posted a comments page on Paul Krugman's column on Off Times Square.

CW: President Obama must have blindsided EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson with his brilliant directive to the EPA to withdraw its proposed ozone limits (see today's Ledes). Here's Jackson, less than 48 hours ago,  touting the health benefits of the Clean Air Act & the regulations it applies to keep air clean:

     ... As a political tactic, Obama's move is decidedly bone-headed, & not just because it's another unnecessary cave to the GOP. As Al Sharpton & Jackson point out in the segment, the EPA is extremely popular with the American public. Not only that, Jackson argues that the EPA is actually a jobs-creator. (She doesn't elaborate on this.) So the question we must repeatedly post about this President is "What was he thinking?"

"Oh, Grow Up." New York Times Editors: "The contemptuous reaction from the House speaker, John Boehner, to the president’s request to address a joint session next Wednesday ... was appalling.... There can be no excuse for [Mr. Boehner's] lack of respect for the office, to which he is second in the line of succession. And it was distressing to watch President Obama fail, once again, to stand up to an opposition that won’t brook the smallest compromise.... The political spectacle and the final result only served to further underscore the president’s weakness.... Human rights groups ... say the CIA now functions as a military force beyond the accountability that the United States has historically demanded of its armed services." ...

... Peter Nicholas & Kathleen Hennessey of the Los Angeles Times: "An unexpected dust-up between the White House and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) about when the president could address a joint session of Congress touched off angry sniping and recriminations Thursday and raised fresh doubts about whether Obama can forge the political consensus he needs to jump-start the economy." CW: this straight news report, of the he-said/he said genre, still offers a perspective of how this trivial "issue" fits into the general pattern of the Obama-Boehner dynamic.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Despite Republican opposition to spending measures or tax cuts to spur job creation and economic growth, the president is under pressure to fight for a significant stimulus program. The demands come not only from Democrats, but also from many economists, financial analysts and executives who fear a relapse into recession. But as administration officials are well aware, another display of partisan gridlock this fall could again provoke a downgrade of the United States’ credit and market upheavals that would further batter consumer confidence." CW: it's worth reading the whole article, which has an on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand ring that so Obama & so dismaying. ...

... Writer Ian Mount in a New York Times op-ed: Argentina's "economy has grown by over 6 percent a year for seven of the last eight years, unemployment has been cut to under 8 percent today from over 20 percent in 2002, and the poverty level has fallen by almost half over the last decade.... Argentina has regained its prosperity partly out of dumb luck.... But it has also prospered thanks to smart economic measures. The government intervened to keep the value of its currency low, which boosts local industry by making Argentina’s exports cheaper abroad while keeping foreign imports expensive. It then taxed those imports and exports, using the money to pay for a New Deal-like public works binge, increasing government spending to 25 percent of G.D.P. today from 14 percent in 2003.... The stark difference between Argentina's] austere policies and low growth of the late 1990s and the pro-government, high-growth 2000s offers a test case for how to get an economy moving again. Washington would do well to pay attention."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in a Washington Post op-ed: "The president has nominated Richard Cordray, an able, experienced and thoughtful former state attorney general who has a record of achievement in protecting individuals against financial abuse, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And the Republican minority in the Senate has announced that it intends to deny any consideration of the individual whom the president has nominated pursuant to his constitutional prerogative. They will do that by blatantly distorting the Constitution, substituting a refusal to allow the constitutionally mandated nomination process for the legislative process in which they simply do not have the votes to accomplish what they want. Cordray is just the latest capable, dedicated public servant to fall victim to a Republican mugging."

Tim Egan compares Prohibition to today's radical conservative movement "to dictate the private actions of citizens." Egan writes,

... the temperance cause became a grand vehicle for the loosely organized loathing that was widespread at the time, from the Ku Klux Klan to viciously anti-immigrant groups. Those who hated, or distrusted, Roman Catholics, new arrivals from Italy, Greece..., blacks, the teeming urban mass of the working poor — they made common cause with high-minded liberals and evangelical Protestants. The bigots thought if they could deprive the disenfranchised of drink they would take away their gathering houses and political wards — the neighborhood saloons. The purists thought people would raise their eyes to God, or spend more time at home. ...

... As if to make Egan's point, Philip Rucker & Amy Gardner of the Washington Post write, "Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won’t let the GOP White House hopefuls escape. Republican primary voters keep bringing immigration up as the candidates campaign in back yards, opera houses and recreation halls across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. To a sizable chunk of those who will pick the GOP’s presidential nominee, immigration is an urgent issue, even a litmus test." CW: so you don't think a huge chunk of Republican voters is racist?

     ... Jill of Brilliant at Breakfast writes, "Republicans hated Clinton too, but you never saw this level of contempt. And good for [Richard] Wolffe for pointing out what's been obvious since January 20, 2009 -- that this country elected a black president and there are a sizable number of people, some of them Federal legislators, who simply can't deal with that." ...

You’ve taken an agency that was chugging along and turned it into one hell of a killing machine. --  Former CIA Official, on the current CIA ...

... Greg Miller & Julie Tate of the Washington Post: "In the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the [CIA] has undergone a fundamental transformation. Although the CIA continues to gather intelligence and furnish analysis on a vast array of subjects, its focus and resources are increasingly centered on the cold counterterrorism objective of finding targets to capture or kill.... The drone program has killed more than 2,000 militants and civilians since 2001, a staggering figure for an agency that has a long history of supporting proxy forces in bloody conflicts but rarely pulled the trigger on its own."

Nicholas Kristof: "Thank you, America":

When I ran for this office, I pledged to make government more open and accountable to its citizens. That’s what the new We the People feature on WhiteHouse.gov is all about – giving Americans a direct line to the White House on the issues and concerns that matter most to them. -- Barack Obama ...

... ** Matt Negrin of Politico: "The White House on Thursday announced a new way it will keep in touch with public concerns — by promising to consider online petitions that get at least 5,000 supporters. The idea behind “We the People” — as the program will be called — is that anyone with an idea or cause can go to the White House website and make a public pitch for support. If the idea gets 5,000 backers within 30 days, said White House spokeswoman Sandra Abrevaya, a “working group of policy officials” will respond. Here's the White House We the People Webpage.

Right Wing World

Eric Cantor Is "Literally" an Idiot

The national debt at the time was under $8 trillion and was $8.67 trillion when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, Today the debt stands at $14.625, meaning that while Democrats controlled the purse string, the national debt literally exploded. We are living in different times. -- Eric Cantor's spokesperson

CW: Have you ever seen a debt "literally" explode? What does it look like? Greenback confetti?

So circumstances have indeed changed since 2004 — but they have changed in a way that makes offsetting disaster relief with spending cuts elsewhere a much worse idea. Cantor’s changing line has moved in exactly the wrong direction. -- Paul Krugman, who explains the changed circumstances in this blogpost

In his regular column, Krugman writes, "Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, wants any aid for Hurricane Irene victims to be offset by cuts in other spending. He had other ideas in 2004 when Gaston hit his state.... Eric Cantor ... has done more than anyone else to make policy blackmail — using innocent Americans as hostages — standard operating procedure for the G.O.P."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A grim report on the job market and news that major banks are facing federal lawsuits hit Wall Street on Friday, sending the broader market lower as crucial financial and industrial stocks spiraled down by more than 3 percent."

Guardian: "Julian Assange could face prosecution in Australia after publishing sensitive information about government officials amongst the 251,000 unredacted cables released this week. WikiLeaks published its entire cache of US diplomatic cables without redactions to protect those named within, a move condemned by all five of the whistleblowing website's original media partners."

New York Times: "A federal judge ruled Friday that Roger Clemens, one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, will face a new trial on charges that he lied to Congress about using performance enhancing-drugs."

The Obama administration is caving to big polluters at the expense of protecting the air we breathe. This is a huge win for corporate polluters and a huge loss for public health. -- Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters ...

... Hack. Cough. Cave of the Day.* Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama said he’s directed the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw proposed rules to limit ozone emissions that lead to smog, the costliest new regulation being considered by the administration. The draft rules were faulted by Republicans and business leaders who said the regulations would be too expensive to implement. Obama said in a statement he is seeking to reduce regulatory burdens as the economy recovers." New York Times story here.

Bloomberg News: "Employment in the U.S. unexpectedly stagnated in August as employers became less confident in the strength of the recovery. The jobless rate held at 9.1 percent. Payrolls were unchanged last month, the weakest reading since September 2010, after an 85,000 gain in July that was smaller than initially estimated, the Labor Department said today...." New York Times story here.

A Big Fucking Deal. New York Times: "The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation. The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others...." CW: note that this suit was not brought by the look-forward-not-backward Obama Administration -- i.e., the Justice Department -- but Fannie and Freddie, which are independent agencies over which the Administration has minimal control.

New York Times: "By Wednesday night, crews [in Vermont] had completed makeshift roads into all of the isolated towns, state officials said.... But the roads, some of which pass through treacherous mountain landscape, are accessible only by all-terrain vehicles and four-wheel-drive trucks and cannot support regular traffic, officials said."

Talking Points Memo: "President Obama's mid-session budget review confirms what most private and government projections have recently concluded -- that the economy is considerably weaker than earlier forecasts held, and won't fully recover from the Great Recession for years. Most troubling, both for the country and for Obama politically, is that near-term unemployment is expected to remain significantly higher than expected, averaging 9 percent in fiscal year 2012."

Up to Its Old Tricks. Washington Post/Bloomberg News: "Standard & Poor’s is giving a higher rating to securities backed by subprime home loans, the same type of investments that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, than it assigns the U.S. government. S&P is poised to provide AAA grades to 59 percent of Springleaf Mortgage Loan Trust 2011-1, a set of bonds tied to $497 million lent to homeowners with below-average credit scores and almost no equity in their properties."

Washington Post: "Maryland ended its budget year solidly in the black, with a surplus of $344 million, thanks largely to higher-than-expected personal income tax payments, the state’s tax collector reported Thursday. Comptroller Peter Franchot (D), however, warned lawmakers not to spend the money given economic uncertainty and the specter of additional federal budget cuts thatcould exacerbate a projected gap for Maryland next year."

Al Jazeera: "World leaders have called for a tougher stance over Syria's bloodly crackdown on protesters, demanding new international sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. In a round of talks on the sidelines of Thursday's 'Friends of Libya' summit in Paris, the US, Britain and France discussed plans to escalate international action aimed at halting violence which the United Nations estimates has seen 2,200 people killed since mid-March." (CW Note: the Al Jazeera links didn't work for me in Firefox this morning, but worked in I/E. I'll try again later.) ...

... New York Times: "The attorney general of the central Syrian province of Hama has announced his resignation to protest the killings and arrests of demonstrators and the accusations of torture against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The attorney general, Mohammed Adnan al-Bakkour, is the highest-level official to quit over the brutal crackdown during the five months of protests."

Al Jazeera: "Libyan opposition leaders must deal with the case of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said. Clinton's comments came amid growing calls from US politicians and leading Republican presidential candidates for al-Megrahi's return to prison or even extradition."

Washington Post: "Yoshihiko Noda, the new Japanese prime minister, on Friday assembled a Cabinet designed to calm political in-fighting as the government tries to guide the massive reconstruction of its disaster-hit coastline. Noda handed key Cabinet posts to those with both ties to rival factions in the ruling party and ties to the leading opposition party."

AP: "The anticipated publication Friday of a U.N. report on violence aboard a Gaza-bound protest flotilla last year has led to a further souring of the key Mideast relationship between Israel and Turkey, after Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador. Turkey on Friday expelled the envoy and suspended military cooperation after insisting on an Israeli apology by the time the report is published." Al Jazeera story here.

* But not necessarily the Cave of the Week. This is disgusting.

Washington, D.C., as Art Form

If the characters in Washington seem all-too-familiar to you, maybe it's because you've seen them before. Here's an excerpted e-mail exchange among some friends & me:

A: You're back just in time to see Obama bitch-slapped yet again by Boehner over this stupid appearance before Congress. Fuck them, Obama should just tell the networks he wants to address the nation. They have no interest in what he says anyway. Does he never get tired of playing Pedrolino to Boehner's Il Capitano? It's like Commedia dell'Arte where he (Obama) comes, the naif of the world, bouncing by hoping to have a wonderful day and is hit in the face with a bat by the cowardly, stridently militant Capitano. Again, and again, and again. Day in, day out. This might be comedy to the Italians but it's tragedy to Americans. But I suppose it depends on what kind of American you are. If you are the kind who hopes and believes in the ideal of the American experiment, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, separation of powers and separation of church and state, and a balanced concept of the role and limitation of governments, you might find it tragic. If you're the other kind, a Teabagging Republican, you're convulsed. As Mel Brooks once said, defining comedy "If I cut my finger, that's a tragedy. If you fall into an open manhole and die, THAT's comedy."

Marie: Ha! Commedia dell'Arte is a great metaphor for the whole damned Washington show. And how about Candide? Of course, Candide finally gave up on optimism, or did so at least partially. I guess it's Barack Pangloss Obama.

A: Funny you should mention Candide, I'm reading it currently. It has quite a few eerie connections with current events. For instance, at one point, Candide and his troop, including the above mentioned, eternally and stupidly optimistic Pangloss, enter Lisbon, where the undergo natural disasters of an earthquake, a tsunami, and a fire. Sound familiar? Of course the local theologians proclaim, a la Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, that it's all God's plan and he's clearly pissed at someone, whom they determine to be Candide. He and Pangloss are readied to be sacrificed so morality can return to Lisbon ... and so it goes. He goes on about political 'philosophers' who maintain their course no matter what the facts or world conditions dictate.

It all sounds quite modern.

But Washington is too Commedia dell'Arte for all that. Voltaire, even at his broadest, is still too subtle for such as Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, who would probably want him hanged for treason. Or something.

(Dr. Pangloss's lecture on "The Best of All Possible Worlds" from Leonard Bernstein's "Candide":)

B: I just re-read Candide myself recently. The part about the Lisbon earthquake and auto de fe was quite timely and compelling. Voltaire was a comedic version of Orwell. Best of all possible worlds, my ass.