The Commentariat -- August 6

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

CW: Another day with no Off Times Square comments. My host Squarespace has not answered any of my e-mails today. I'm fairly pissed off.

Paul Krugman: inquiring minds want to know -- why doesn't Obama just extend the payroll tax cut "which Republicans, who love tax cuts, would support." Because "Republicans have already rejected a payroll tax cut." They had to be negotiated into accepting the cut authorized in December 2010 & they flat out rejected such a cut in the latest negotiations. Why, again? Because Republicans "love tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts for ordinary workers, many of whom will be those hated lucky duckies whose incomes are too low to pay income tax, are if anything something Republicans dislike." CW: this is a stunning fact that every American voter should know, but they don't. Because Democrats -- including the DINO President -- won't tell them. A conspiracy theorist might think Congressional Democrats & Obama are covering for Republicans. ...

... BUT Maybe Not:

Republicans will have to explain to their constituents why they voted to end Medicare three times and raise seniors’ health care costs in order to protect tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires and Big Oil. Republicans will have to defend the indefensible. -- Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), DCCC Chairman ...

... Kyle Trygstad of Roll Call: "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched an initiative Thursday to apply pressure to Republicans during the August recess for proposed cuts to entitlement programs.... Over the next month, the campaign will target 44 Republicans with some combination of radio ads, billboards, gas station advertising, community meetings, door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, virtual phone banks and automated calls.... Among the 44 Republicans are a long list of freshmen, Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) and a total of 12 incumbents from California and Florida, where redistricting offers the party potential pickup opportunities." ...

... Here's an ad by the DCCC. Their Website MillionairesOverMedicare.com includes a petition you can sign "tell[ing] Republicans that ending Medicare is unacceptable":

... MEANWHILE, Karen Garcia reports on "the Incredible Pivoting President": "With a straight face and nary a peep from the corporate media -- just days after neglecting to extend longterm unemployment benefits and the payroll tax holiday -- [President Obama] is performing his umpteenth Pivot to Jobs! He will be touring middle America in a big bus, Palin-style.... He'll be spinning faster than an Olympian vying for the gold medal."

Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: John Boehner is urging his caucus to talk up a Balanced Budget Amendment because -- he's a canny politician. He knows it will never pass, he caters to his Tea Party members AND he deflects attention from the unpopular cuts Republicans actually want.

Greg Sargent: "... the Tea Party is declining in public support even as its influence in Washington has, if anything, peaked.... The numbers suggest the Tea Party is rapidly sliding back into fringe status — yet its disproportionate influence over the political conversation is as strong as ever. It’s yet another way that the Congressional debate is way to the right of public opinion."

In case the better-than-expected jobs report has lulled you into believing the fairy tale called "Prosperity Is Right around the Corner," Catherine Rampell of the New York Times will snap you out of Fairyland with this graph:

... AND there's this analysis from economist Dean Baker, writing in TruthOut: "This rate of job growth is below the 90,000 a month needed to keep pace with the growth of the labor force. Consistent with this fact, the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) fell slightly to 58.1 percent, tying its previous low for the downturn." Read the whole analysis. ...

... AND Floyd Norris of the New York Times: corporate profits rise as workers' incomes decline. "... corporate profits accounted for 14 percent of the total national income in 2010, the highest proportion ever recorded.... Employees have always received more than half the total national income, until now. In 2010, the percentage of national income devoted to wages and salaries fell to 49.9 percent, and it slipped a little more to 49.6 percent in the first quarter of this year." ...

"The Decade of Lost Children." Charles Blow: One of the greatest casualties of the great recession may well be a decade of lost children. According to ... a report issued last month by the Children’s Defense Fund, the impact of the recession on children’s well-being has been catastrophic."

Coming to America? I Wish. Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: "The tent protest movement dominating Israel for three weeks focuses on the cost of living but is really about something deeper — the nature of the country’s social contract. Many Israelis feel that their sacrifices are not being repaid.... The shift from state-dominated quasi socialism to markets and privatization — a shift that arguably saved the country from economic collapse in the 1980s — has been accompanied by some sense of loss of community, spiking prices and the accumulation of great wealth in a few hands." More on the protest here.

Mark Greenbaum in the New York Times: "the [37th] Congress [1861-1863] was able to pass laws of incredible breadth and significance for both the immediate stability and future growth of the United States. Congress’s work in these early years of the Civil War helped lay the track not simply for the Union’s victory, but the groundwork for the nation’s educational, socio-economic and physical expansion. The 37th Congress, in the words of the historian Leonard Curry, set the 'blueprint for modern America.'”

Thank You, GOP. Jake Tapper of ABC News: "The federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade the rating of U.S. debt from its current AAA value, a government official told ABC News.... Reasons behind the possible downgrade ... would be the political confusion surrounding the process of raising the debt ceiling and lack of confidence that the political system will be able to agree to more deficit reduction. According to a source, Republicans refusing to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal also likely would be part of the reason cited.... After the bill passed in the Senate, Moody's Investor Service affirmed its AAA rating on U.S. sovereign debt but lowered its outlook to 'negative.' ... A downgrade of U.S. debt likely will cause interest rates of all kinds to edge up and that would cost the U.S. and consumers billions of dollars." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Standard & Poor’s removed the United States government from its list of risk-free borrowers on Friday night, citing concern about the rising burden of the federal debt. The nation’s rating was reduced to AA-plus for its long-term debt, one notch below the top rating of triple-A." ...

     ... Paul Krugman: "... it’s hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies. The people who rated subprime-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy? Really? Just to make it perfect, it turns out that S&P got the math wrong by $2 trillion, and after much discussion conceded the point — then went ahead with the downgrade. More than that, everything I’ve heard about S&P’s demands suggests that it’s talking nonsense about the US fiscal situation."

When Bad Guys Do Good Things:

     ... As Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast writes, "Chris Christie is still a misogynistic bully who's going to ruin the state of New Jersey, but with conservatism being so characterized by anti-Muslim bigotry, he puts the 'guts' that make a thrill go up the leg of television pundits to good use." Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link. ...

     ... CW: BTW, in his remarks in the video, Christie said state senators from "both parties" asked nominee Sohail Mohammed irrelevant & inappropriate questions about his ties to terrorism & Hamas. But I checked news & opinion stories like this one, and didn't find any evidence of Democratic senators grilling Mohammed on his religion or questioning his patriotism. Quite the opposite. (If anybody finds a story citing Democrats, let me know, please.) So even in an otherwise "heroic" moment, Christie blows it, painting Democrats with the same Islamophobic brush as Republicans, when it just ain't so. This would not be the first time Gov. Christie flat-out lied.

Right Wing World *

Jed Lewison of DailyKos: "it seems that nobody wants to go to Rick Perry's campaign kickoff "Day of Prayer" religious revival rally scheduled for Saturday in Houston. The stadium ... seats just north of 70,000 ... but only 8,000 people have said they will come. Perry invited every governor of every state to attend his political cynical rally, but just one accepted his invitation: Sam Brownback of Kansas. And now Brownback is backing away.... It's not just his lack of respect for the idea behind the First Amendment, it's also that he's invited some genuinely crazy people to participate in his event." ...

... Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "Though Mr. Perry has been criticized for spearheading an event that burnishes his conservative Christian credentials as he considers running for president, the prayer rally is only the latest instance — albeit the highest profile one — of the governor of the nation’s second-largest state emphasizing his Christian beliefs and blurring the line between church and state." ...

... Prof. Paul Horwitz, in a New York Times op-ed: "Just as the Constitution allows Mr. Perry to stake his political future on 'The Response,' it allows the rest of us to answer back."

John Cohen of the Democratic National Committee on Mitt Romney's "Mystery $$ Million" (see also yesterday's Right Wing World): "A federal campaign finance law prohibits a straw donor from making a federal contribution through a corporate entity.... Two independent campaign finance watchdog organizations, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, have called on the Justice Department to investigate possible criminal behavior surrounding the matter." ...

     ... Ben Smith: "The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, which favor stricter campaign finance regulation, file a complaint with the FEC.... They're also asking for a criminal investigation from the Justice Department."

... Uppity Blacks Eat Soul Food and Laugh While You Hunt for A Job You Can't Get Because of Welfare Queens, Affirmative Action, and Carjackers. -- Translation by Dave Weigel of Slate

Evidently 75-year-old Republican pilot Myrtle Rose thinks flying in air space restricted because the President was in town is something to joke about: "Oh, dear, maybe I should send him a belated birthday card and say, 'You should have stayed home and Michelle baked you a birthday cake.'" That is, it's Obama's fault. Two F-16s were deployed, which she thought came alongside her to "admire her vintage plane." CW: I hope she has to pay a fine equal to the $9,000/hour it costs to deploy each F-16, plus costs of the FAA investigation.

* The Land of Milk and Honey God and Money.

Local News

Andy Kroll of Mother Jones: "Amount spent on all [Wisconsin] state races in 2010: $3.75 million. Amount spent on recall elections targeting eight state senators: $31 million.... While the spending is more or less even, here's the big difference between the two sides: The left-leaning groups usually disclose their donors, while the right-leaning groups mostly don't."

News Ledes

Politico: "One day after lowering the nation's platinum triple-A credit rating, Standard & Poor's analysts warned Saturday that the U.S. government could face a second downgrade if the economy continues to struggle and the government fails to make the cuts outlined in the debt ceiling agreement."

Calling on Jesus, Flouting the Constitution. New York Times: "Standing on a stage surrounded by thousands of fellow Christians on Saturday morning, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas called on Jesus to bless and guide the nation’s military and political leaders and 'those who cannot see the light in the midst of all the darkness.' ... The governor ... delivering a message to the Lord at a Christian prayer rally he created, while using his office’s prestige, letterhead, Web site and other resources to promote it. Mr. Perry said he wanted people of all faiths to attend, but Christianity dominated the service and the religious affiliations of the crowd. The prayers were given in Jesus Christ’s name, and the many musical performers sang of Christian themes of repentance and salvation."

Washington Post: "Standard & Poor’s announced Friday night that it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time, dealing a symbolic blow to the world’s economic superpower in what was a sharply worded critique of the American political system. Lowering the nation’s rating to one notch below AAA, the credit rating company said 'political brinkmanship' in the debate over the debt had made the U.S. government’s ability to manage its finances 'less stable, less effective and less predictable.' It said the bipartisan agreement reached this week to find at least $2.1 trillion in budget savings 'fell short' of what was necessary to tame the nation’s debt over time and predicted that leaders would not be likely to achieve more savings in the future." See New York Times story & related content above. Guardian story here. ...

... New York Times: "China, the largest foreign holder of United States debt, said Saturday that Washington needed to 'cure its addiction to debts' and 'live within its means,' just hours after the rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s long-term debt.... Though Beijing has few options other than to continue to purchase United States Treasury bonds, Chinese officials are clearly concerned that China’s substantial holdings of American debt, worth at least $1.1 trillion, is being devalued."

** New York Times: "The Shabab militant Islamist group withdrew on Saturday morning from Mogadishu, the bullet-ridden capital of Somalia, and the city is now under government control for the first time in years.... But in the last few months, the Shabab, who have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, have suffered heavy losses, both from American drone attacks on their leaders and from steady urban fighting against a superior, better-armed, 9,000-soldier strong African Union peacekeeping force." Al Jazeera story here, with video.

Washington Post: "A NATO helicopter crashed during an operation against the Taliban near the Afghan capital late Friday night, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office said 31 U.S. troops and seven Afghan soldiers were killed." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "In the deadliest day for American forces in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter on Saturday, killing 30 Americans, including some Navy Seal commandos from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as 8 Afghans, American and Afghan officials said."

New York Times: "As European leaders on Friday tried to calm fears that the region’s sovereign debt problems were spinning beyond politicians’ control, Italy’s prime minister said finance ministers from the Group of 7 industrial nations would meet 'within days' to discuss the volatile financial crisis. The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, whose nation has been viewed as the next potential debt-laden domino to fall, also announced a number of measures Italy would take to restore the confidence of investors and creditors."

Al Jazeera: "Dozens of people have been killed by security forces in Syria amid nationwide protests in support of the flashpoint city of Hama on the first Friday of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, reports say. The Local Co-ordination Committees of Syria, an activist organisation in the country, said 24 people had been killed across several cities."

Al Jazeera: "Andrzej Lepper, a Polish populist politician who rose from pig farmer to deputy prime minister, has died aged 57 in what police suspect to be a suicide. The PAP news agency said Lepper had hanged himself and that his body was discovered by a family member. Lepper was briefly deputy prime minister in a coalition government but was later disgraced by bribery and sex scandals."

Where Are the Media?

Commenter Denis Neville Dissents:

Marie Burns (yesterday) is “cautiously optimistic -- if not entirely confident -- that the media, in one form or another, would be the catalyst that once again put an end to the darker forces that threaten us.”

Where are today’s media watchdogs that have the stature and credibility of Murrow or Cronkite? Today’s media is not what it used to be, nor is its audience. Content and quality of major television news networks reduced and their audiences much smaller; newspapers with quality journalists shrinking and disappearing; libraries and book stores closing; and only a tiny area of the Internet with quality hard news (including RealityChex).  Despite our communications revolution, or because of it, there is an ever shrinking audience as fewer and fewer citizens consume less and less news, and an absence of hard news about the complex issues of today that citizens need in order to hold government and business accountable. Instead there is only crime, celebrities, scandal, and soft news. How many people have access to quality media sources?  During these hard times, how many can afford them? How many in our attention deficit society are paying attention to our attention deficit media? Or even care as they struggle just to survive?

The New York Times? The politically subordinate Times reported on the Guantanamo Bay documents from WikiLeaks, but refused to call torture by its name and would not use the word in reference to waterboarding.

The Washington Post? a.k.a. Fox on 15th Street, trying again to win yet another Pulitzer for bad reporting, as Dean Baker likes to say.

MSNBC?; Establishment liberalism is allowed. But being too hostile to the political and financial powers is a definite no-no. No corporate employee will survive if he or she fails to adhere to the prevailing ethos and the interests of the corporation. Recall how GE and MSNBC executives forced Keith Olbermann to stop criticizing Fox News personalities as part of a deal that GE and Murdoch’s News Corp agreed to in order to safeguard their non-media interests. Look what happened to Cenk Uygur. MSNBC, which very much considers itself "part of the establishment," demands that its on-air personalities reflect that status. How many journalists practice self-censorship? How many purposefully avoid reporting anything that might be perceived as being adversarial to the political and financial establishment?  How many are themselves a part of that elite establishment?

Bill Moyers in a recent interview with Rachel Maddow explained that

the corporate climate that prevails at large media companies significantly restricts and constrains what can be said. A form of self-censorship arises based on knowledge of what the corporate culture will and will not tolerate. I served time at CBS News seven years in all. I was here at MSNBC for the launch of it 15 years ago. I worked at NBC. But I saw in every one of those environments the growth of the shadow of self censorship... I happen to know that when I was here, Newt Gingrich and Henry Kissinger did their best to mute my influence on The Nightly News because of the freedom and independence Andy Lack, who was then the president of NBC News, had given me. It's up there all the time, like gathering storm clouds…I must say out of the Murdoch scandal has come a reminder of the importance of a free and independent press.  The journalists who have been dogging this story for the last six years worked for The Guardian, which is one of the great newspapers in the western world. The Guardian is run by a trust -- a public trust, set up by the founding family to make sure that The Guardian would always be commercially and editorially independent. We have been reminded that in the end, democracy depends upon maybe even just a few independent voices, free of any party or commercial allegiance.

Where has our media been in uncovering Murdoch and Fox news in our nation?  Not at MSNBC.

Naomi Wolf has warned about the erosion of democracy and fascism creeping into America. She feared that Americans could not see the warning signs:

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree -- domestically -- as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government -- the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors -- we scarcely recognize the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of ‘homeland’ security -- remember who else was keen on the word ‘homeland’ -- didn't raise the alarm bells it might have. It is right beneath our very noses.

The warning bells are ringing…the Obama administration is trumping the Bush administration in spades closing our open society; repressive laws and militarism; the influx of corporate money into politics, swamping it with special interests that buy influence for policies and politicians; runaway inequality and class warfare; aggressive union busting tactics by business and government to break labor unions and prevent workers from organizing; an economic collapse and an erosion of stability with millions of home foreclosures and shredding of social services, turning a financial crisis into a social crisis; a right-wing populist movement that puts economic terrorism and its own agenda before the interests of the nation, that wants to crush its opponents, that is managed and manipulated by shadowy political operatives and financed by a few billionaires (Koch brothers) who support their warped version of radical populism; armed militias to deal with the exaggerated fears of immigrants; deep polarization with hateful rhetoric; contempt for human rights because of the fear of enemies and the need for security; the approval of torture, summary executions, assassinations, and indefinite imprisonment of prisoners without due process; so-called enemies (Muslims) turned into scapegoats in a patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe; the squelching of any debate; a nation controlled by lobbyists and private interests, Wall Street, the military-industrial complex etc., etc.

Senator Huey Long of Louisiana once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.”

This process is already far along in the USA.

It does not require a lurid march on Washington to take root. “The best propaganda is that which works invisibly, penetrates the whole of life without the public having any knowledge of the propagandistic initiative,” wrote Joseph Goebbels. Most Germans never noticed the early Nazi transformation of German society.

The really dangerous American fascist ... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection. - Henry A. Wallace, New York Times, April 9, 1944

So, Ms. Burns, how has the media catalyst been doing so far in dealing with these darker forces that now threaten us?

The Commentariat -- August 5

** There's no Off Times Square today; because of a software glitch that has yet to be fixed, a significant number of commenters (including significant me) can't post comments. If I post a page later, it will be on Krugman's column. If you want to e-mail me your comments, I'll post them in the order received when I get up & running again. My e-mail address is ConstantWeader@gmail.com (Clicking on the link will bring up an e-mail form.) ...

... Paul Krugman: "It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery." ...

... "The Second Coming of Herbert Hoover":

... Floyd Norris of the New York Times on the Great Recession II: "It has been three decades since the United States suffered a recession that followed on the heels of the previous one. But it could be happening again. The unrelenting negative economic news of the past two weeks has painted a picture of a United States economy that fell further and recovered less than we had thought." ...

... Low-Information, No-Plan Legislators. Ezra Klein: "A dramatic gap has opened between the economy as Washington sees it -- and wants to intervene in it -- and the economy that actually exists.... Where will the recovery come from? The problem is that no one has an answer. And as one hopeful hypothesis after another is dashed, the markets are beginning to panic.... Today there's more stability, but we seem to have stabilized into an era of high unemployment, low growth and endless risk. Rather than recovering from the crisis, it is almost as if we have settled into it."

Nate Silver: "... the economy is struggling, and that’s a gigantic problem for Mr. Obama.... The stock market is among the least of a president’s worries.... The past few weeks have probably been bad for the re-election efforts of almost everyone in Washington, and today won’t have made them better." ...

... Here's something President Obama can worry about: Torey Van Oot of the Sacramento Bee: "The California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus marked the commander-in-chief's 50th birthday by releasing a resolution that supports exploring a potential primary challenge in 2012 to the first-term Democratic president. The resolution, approved at a caucus meeting last weekend, criticizes Obama for 'negotiating away Democratic Party principles to extremist Republicans,' and cites entitlement cuts on the table in the recent budget negotiations, the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and 'disregard of his promises to the Labor movement' as some of many grievances the caucus has with Obama's performance so far." The post includes a copy of the full resolution.

** Mark Bittman of the New York Times: from tainted turkey to taxes. Essential reading for our conservative friends.

CW: an academic study confirms & quantifies what I've been saying for years. Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The decline in organized labor’s power and membership has played a larger role in fostering increased wage inequality in the United States than is generally thought, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review this month. The study ... found that the decline in union power and density since 1973 explained a third of the increase in wage inequality among men since then, and a fifth of the increased inequality among women."

Just ten days after President Obama was sworn into office, Tom Brandt -- or his headline writer -- of the Eastern Echo (Ypsilani, Michigan) explained why Republicans would have such a confrontational relationship with Obama:

CW: the other day, Al Sharpton mentioned on-air that the rural airports for which the House bill cut funding were mostly in states with key Democratic Senators. I thought he might be exaggerating. But if you read Dana Milbank you'll see just what John Mica (R-Fla.), chair of the House transportation committee, was up to when he wrote the bill cutting funding. This idiot and his Congressional collaborators cost us taxpayers a billion dollars or so & put 80,000 Americans out of work for two weeks. Mica's real goal, BTW: weakening unions.

Jeremy Scahill of The Nation on "water treatment" at Guantanamo -- a sickening horror story:

Harold Cook, a Texas Democrat writing in the Texas Tribune, sure came up with a lot of reasons Gov. Rick "Perry Shouldn't Run for President."

Right Wing World

CW: some while back an Obama-hating leftie called me out, in print, for asserting that, among other things, Obama would be better than Mitt Romney on gay rights; ergo, it was okay for progressives to vote for the Republican presidential candidate. So there's this from Ben Smith: "Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has joined Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Sen. Pennsylvania Rick Santorum in signing a pledge to oppose same-sex marriage on a number of specific fronts." Read the terms of the pledge & see if you think Obama would sign it. ...

... Mystery Money. Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "Two campaign reform groups are asking the Justice Department to investigate a mysterious $1 million contribution to a political committee backing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney from an obscure company that shut down shortly after making the donation. The contribution to Restore Our Future, a so-called 'super PAC' formed by three former Romney political aides, drew scrutiny following an NBC News report on Thursday . The firm that gave the money, called W Spann LLC, was formed in March – with no listed officers or directors — made the contribution in April, then dissolved itself in July...."

Like Rep. Steve King (RTP-Iowa), Stephen Colbert is outraged by Obamacare's wanton new policy of providing reproductive health coverage for women:

This is hard to fathom. It came up on TimesWire (see the middle entry):

     ... CW: When I clicked on the link, I got a slightly raunchy "op-ed" with a NYT Web address that belittles Tom Friedman (oh no!). The writer is ID'd as a co-producer of "The Daily Show." Extremely strange.

News Ledes

AP: "With tens of thousands of jobs, more than $1 billion and their reputations on the line, Senate Democrats gave way Friday to a power play by House Republicans in order to end a partial two-week shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration. With lawmakers scattered for Congress' August recess, the consent of only two senators was required to pass a bill restoring the FAA's operating authority through Sept. 16. President Barack Obama signed it into law hours later."

New York Times: "In a verdict that brought a decisive close to a case that has haunted this city since most of it lay underwater nearly six years ago, five current and former New Orleans police officers were found guilty on all counts by a federal jury on Friday for shooting six citizens, two of whom died, and orchestrating a wide-ranging cover-up in the hours, weeks and years that followed." Read the whole article. Times-Picayune story here. Related videos here.

President Obama spoke about efforts to prepare veterans for the workforce this morning. Reuters: "President Barack Obama on Friday will propose a $120 million package of new tax credits for businesses that hire U.S. veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan...."...

     ... Update: here's a post-event AP report. See video above.

Bloomberg News: "Employers added more jobs than forecast in July, the jobless rate fell and wages climbed, easing concern the U.S. economy is grinding to a halt.Payrolls rose by 117,000 workers after a 46,000 increase in June that was more than originally estimated...."

Al Jazeera: "Syrian troops have killed at least 45 civilians in a tank assault to occupy the centre of Hama, according to an opposition activist, as President Bashar al-Assad seeks to crush a five-month-old uprising against his rule. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said that Washington believes President Bashar al-Assad's government was responsible for more than 2,000 deaths in the crackdown, repeating that Washington believes Assad has 'lost his legitimacy to govern the Syrian people'."

Al Jazeera: "A Libyan rebel spokesman has claimed that a NATO airstrike on the western city of Zlitan has killed Khamis Gaddafi, one of the sons of Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi."

Al Jazeera: "European markets have plunged on deepening fears regarding a debt crisis in the European Union and concerns about US economic growth. London's FTSE-100, Paris' CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX indices all opened down over 3 per cent on Friday.... Earlier, Asian markets also tumbled, after heavy losses in European and US trading through the day on Thursday."

AP: "A jury convicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs of child sexual assault, in a case stemming from two young followers he took as brides in hat his church calls 'spiritual marriages.' ... Jeffs, who acted as his own attorney, stood mostly mute for his closing argument, staring at the floor, for all but a few seconds of the half hour he was allotted."