The Commentariat -- July 29

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

Paul Krugman reiterates in his column a point he made is a blogpost earlier this week -- that "News reports [specifically, about the debt crisis] portray the parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of 'centrist' uprising, as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides." It ain't.

Greg Sargent: "... the White House is circulating a new set of talking points to outside allies and surrogates, instructing them on a new way to make this case: If Boehner has his way, the debt ceiling debate will steal Christmas.... On MSNBC..., David Plouffe made a similar claim, pointing out that the Boehner plan would ensure that 'this whole debt ceiling spectacle' will be repeated again a few months from now over the holidays. The debt ceiling debate would ruin Christmas,' Plouffe said. He was apparently ad-libbing the line, but now it’s found its way into the White House’s official talking points." ...

... Grinch or Anti-Christ? Elizabeth Dias of Time: "On Wednesday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Speaker Boehner informing him of its opposition to his deficit reduction proposal and arguing that 'future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons.' [CW: Boehner is Roman Catholic.] On Thursday, religious organizations went from polite protest to full-scale mobilization.... And nearly a dozen religious leaders were arrested inside the Capitol on Thursday while praying and protesting a budget that would balance itself on the backs of the poor with cuts in crucial areas, like Medicaid and food stamps.... Prayer vigils, led by different religious leaders, continue outside the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill." ...

... No Winners in the Republican Civil War. Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The stunning events that played out Thursday night ... was both a failure of leadership and a failure by those who wouldn’t follow.... The damage to Boehner’s credibility as speaker and to the Republican Party more generally could well linger well beyond the outcome of this episode. Republicans have now steered themselves into a position that could make an ultimate resolution of the debt-ceiling standoff that much more difficult.... If there is to be a compromise — and the outlines of a plausible agreement were under active discussion on Capitol Hill before the House bill was pulled — it is likely to be one that badly splits the Republicans in the House." ...

Buckets of crazy. -- House GOP Aide, explaining why Speaker Boehner couldn't round up enough votes to pass a bill that won't pass the Senate anyway ...

... Jennifer Steinhauer & Robert Pear of the New York Times write a somewhat amusing account of the uncertainty in the House yesterday. At various points both Democrats & Republicans were sure their side had the votes on Boehner's deficit plan. ...

... Dana Milbank: "... the thwarting of the Boehner Plan ... displayed how ungovernable the House Republican majority is. With the nation just days from a default, the chamber is at the mercy of a handful of people who believe they are on a mission from God." ...

... Reader Doug R. found this commentary by Mark Price on the front page of Fox "News"'s Website. Price makes a strong case for raising the debt ceiling & blames "both parties." Strikingly, Price calls out Democrats for being willing to make cuts to Medicare & Social Security "that will surely hurt working and middle-income families the hardest" and Republicans for being unwilling to close corporate loopholes or raise taxes on the wealthy, "the one group to benefit handsomely from the last decade of economic growth." Doug says he hopes "millions of right wingers will read [Price's piece]. CW: me too. ...

... NEW. Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic reviews the judicial philosophies of the Supremes & reasons that they would either refuse to hear a case against President Obama for invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, or -- if they agreed to hear it --  seven of the nine would decide in favor of Obama. ...

... Michael Tomasky, writing in the Daily Beast, makes a strong case for Obama's invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, and outlines the reasons Obama is reluctant to do so. Tomasky concludes that none of Obama's reasons justify his allowing Treasury to go into default. ...

... Mike Lillis of The Hill: "President Obama should invoke the 14th Amendment to hike the debt ceiling unilaterally as a last resort to prevent a government default, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday.... The remarks align Hoyer with a number of other House Democratic leaders...." CW: Hoyer is the second-ranking Democrat in the House. This is pretty remarkable. Top Congressional legislators are saying, "Go ahead, Mr. President; overrule us." ...

... Unions have made a big ad buy going after members of Congress who won't raise the debt ceiling. Here's the ad targeting Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada (the appointee who replaced John Ensign):

Chart of the Day. The next time some Republican talks about tax-and-spend Democrats, whip out this New York Times chart. The contrast between new costs incurred by the Bush Administration & new costs incurred & projected under the Obama Administration is stunning:

... NEW. Ezra Klein comments on the chart: "Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring.... It’s clear now that [the Bush tax cuts] lowered [revenue] indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost." ..

Klein in Bloomberg News: Democrats are going to lose the debt-ceiling battle. But, come the end of 2012 when the Bush tax cuts expire, they are in position to win new revenues.

Michael Grunwald of Time: "President Obama will announce a near-doubling of fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, and the Big Three automakers — GM, Ford and Chrysler — will support it.... Obama was right to cut a deal with the Big Three, along with Honda and Hyundai, up front. Every U.S. President since Nixon has talked about ending our dependence on Middle East oil, but these standards represent the most significant effort to do something about it in a long time."

CW: I guess "dictator" is the new "Hitler." Debbie Wasserman Schultz used it to describe Tea Party Republicans (see yesterday's Commentariat), & now, tit-for-tat, Constitutional scholar Michele Bachmann is using it to describe a potential Fourteenth-Amendment move by President Obama:

Tim Egan writes than many on the right in Europe & the U.S. say the "manifesto" by Nowegian anti-Muslim terrorist & mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik is "correct" or "good" or "great." He cites, among others, Pat Buchanan, an Italian member of the European Parliament & the denizens of GlennBeckistan. (Beck himself likened the young victims of Breivik to "Hitler youth.") CW: my comment on Egan's column is posted on Off Times Square. ...

Right Wing World *

... Amy Sullivan of Time has a good post on the right's tortured double-standard claim that Norwegian Christian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik "can't be a Christian" (oh, and neither can Barack Obama and Bill Clinton), but Islamic terrorists are definitely serious Muslims following their faith into terrorism territory. ...

... Allow Jon Stewart to elaborate:

... PLUS, in Right Wing World, liberals attack conservatives, but conservatives are always nice to liberals:

President Obama, quit lying. Have you no shame, sir? In three short years, you’ve bankrupted this country. -- Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), in an anti-Obama video ...

... Have you no decency? -- Joe Walsh, to his wife Laura's attorney, who asked that the Congressman's drivers license be suspended until he paid court-ordered child support ...

... Deadbeat Dad. Abdon Pallasch of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, a tax-bashing Tea Party champion who sharply lectures President Barack Obama and other Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes more than $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife and three children, according to documents his ex-wife filed in their divorce case in December." Thanks to reader Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... "Deadbeat Party." Gene Lyons in Salon: "How does 'deadbeat Republicans' sound? Because the simple fact is that the GOP under George W. Bush put two wars, a Medicare drug benefit, and tax cuts heavily slanted toward the rich on the national credit card. Now that the bill's due, they're planning to skip town and stick Democrats with the charges." Thanks to Jeanne B.

What's a Potential Presidential Candidate to Do? Carrie Dann of NBC News: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a staunch states rights advocate, was "fine" with New York State's gay marriage law last week, saying the law was "their call," but he isn't anymore.

* Where Christians are always good people and the elites are deadbeats (CW: which I guess is okay if they're Christian deadbeats).

News Ledes

Politico: "House Republicans will bring up Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s debt limit package Saturday just to vote it down, an attempt to show that the legislation is dead in the lower chamber, according to GOP leadership sources." ...

     ... AND barely an hour later, the Senate blocked Boehner's bill. No link. ...

... New York Times: "House Republicans muscled through a revised debt limit plan without a single Democratic vote on Friday night and headed toward a confrontation with the Senate, where Democrats were anxiously awaiting the newly passed measure so they could reject it. President Obama has also threatened to veto it." Boehner added a requirement for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. ...

... Washington Post: "House Republican leaders moved Friday to bring their debt-limit bill to a vote after recrafting it to appease tea party-allied conservatives, but President Obama said the plan has 'no chance of becoming law' ...."

Politico: "Stepping up pressure on divided Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Friday he’d take the lead and move his bill to raise the national debt limit as President Barack Obama called for a bipartisan deal to avert an economy-shaking default next week. Calling his plan 'the last train out of the station,' Reid said there are only hours to act before Tuesday’s Treasury deadline, so he plans to file a procedural motion Friday to move towards a final vote in the next few days." ...

... Politico: "House Republican leaders plan to tie a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to their two-step debt-ceiling bill — a move that is turning momentum back toward Speaker John Boehner’s plan." CW: I guess it doesn't matter that the Senate won't pass such a bill & the President would veto it if they did. ...

... New York Times: "The reverberations of Washington’s impasse over a debt deal are already being felt in the short-term credit markets, a key artery of the economy that daily supplies trillions of dollars of credit. Over the last week, big banks and companies have withdrawn $37.5 billion from money market funds that invest in Treasury debt and other ultra-safe securities, the biggest weekly drop this year."

President Obama spoke about fuel efficiency standards this morning. Here's a Reuters story.

AP: Abdel-Fattah Younis, "the head of the Libyan rebel armed forces, was shot and killed Thursday just before arriving for questioning by rebel authorities, their political leader said in a carefully worded statement to reporters that gave few etails on who was behind the killing."

President Bush explains the "My Pet Goat" incident:

   ... Here's a related print story from Reuters.

The Commentariat -- July 28

The question for today's Off Times Square is "How's Obama Doing?"

The Washington Post has a handy chart that compares the Boehner & Reid deficit reduction/debt ceiling proposals.

** The Plot to Kill Social Security. Robert Scheer of TruthDig brings clarity to the debt ceiling crisis, & demonstrates how Republicans, Wall Street & the ratings agencies are conspiring to use "what should have been an uneventful moment" to cut social programs which are entirely unrelated to the debt and deficit. CW: this is really a good plot summary, with an emphasis on "plot."

** S&P Runs the Debt Limit Show. Bob Reich: Ratings agency "Standard & Poor’s has ... warned it might lower the nation’s credit rating even if Democrats and Republicans make a deal to raise the debt ceiling. Standard & Poor’s insists any deal must also contain a credible, bipartisan plan to reduce the nation’s long-term budget deficit by $4 trillion — something neither Harry Reid’s nor John Boehner’s plans do.... If Standard & Poor’s had been doing the job it was supposed to be doing between 2000 and 2008, the federal budget wouldn’t be in a crisis — and Standard & Poor’s wouldn’t be threatening the United States with a downgrade.... So why has Standard & Poor’s decided now’s the time to crack down on the federal budget — when it gave free passes to Wall Street’s risky securities and George W. Bush’s giant tax cuts for the wealthy, thereby contributing to the very crisis its now demanding be addressed? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the Street pays Standard & Poor’s bills?"

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz talks to Politico about Republicans' irresponsibility re: raising the debt limit (audio only):

... Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) says conservative members of Congress are "deceiving the American" people with their "bizarro" assertion that the Senate can incorporate a balanced budget amendment in the deficit reduction bill. (McCain favors a BBA):

     ... Here's a print story by Shannon Travis of CNN.

... David Corn of Mother Jones: Speaker Boehner, other Republicans & Karl Rove's Crossroads/GPS (in an ad) perpetuate the "Obama wants a blank check" lie, and the media let them get away with it.

Ta-Nahisi Coates explains the Emancipation Proclamation to President Obama, who views it as a good example of practical compromise:

Rendering the hallowed Proclamation as a seminal act of hippy-punching is understandably attractive to the Very Serious People of Washington. But, in Mr. Obama’s case, it also evinces a narrow politicocentric view of democracy that holds that the first duty of a loyal opposition is to stay on message and fall in line.

NEW. Class Warfare, Billionaire Edition. Michael Winship of Salon: it is so wrong to pick on those nice gentlemen who brought us the financial crisis & got filthy rich bringing down the world economy, paid little for it & are back in the money again.

NEW. Karen Garcia must have a mole in Obama's Chicago campaign HQ (maybe it's frequent Obama shill NYT commenter Winning Progressive) because she sure is good a digging up first drafts of Obama campaign e-mails. This one from Jim Messina is a hoot.

NEW. Glenn Greenwald: "... every Terrorist plot is immediately exploited as a pretext for expanding America's Security State; the response to every plot: we need to sacrifice more liberties, increase secrecy, and further empower the government. The reaction to the heinous Oslo attack by Norway's political class has been exactly the opposite: a steadfast refusal to succumb to hysteria and a security-über-alles mentality." Read the whole post. ...

... Linda Greenhouse on how the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City, combined with the ascendance of a conservative Congress, a shell-shocked president and a compliant Supreme Court, severely limited the Constitutional right of habeas corpus.

Chris Matthews talks to Reagan/Bush I economic advisor Bruce Bartlett about the sources of the deficit & other stuff related to the economy. Thanks to reader Bob M.:

What about Bears? Kirk Johnson of the New York Times: as climate change forces more and more bears into areas occupied by humans & as more & more people take advantage of recreational areas that are bear habitats, expect more bear-human encounters, not all of which will end happily. Public policy varies from incident to incident. CW: a bear visits my lake cottage regularly, and I don't like it at all.

News Ledes

Legal Times: In Washington, D.C., "U.S. District Judge Richard Leon issued a series of orders this morning denying motions to dismiss or relocate former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod's defamation lawsuit against conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart."

Politico: Democrats are proposing a compromise debt-ceiling bill in which "Congress could still get a second crack at voting on the debt limit within months. But rather than linking the vote to Congress approving the recommendations of a new 12-member committee — as it would be in Boehner’s bill — Democrats prefer McConnell’s proposal that allows President Barack Obama to lift the debt ceiling unless two-thirds of both chambers override his veto of a disapproval resolution, the officials said."

Guardian: "Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail." Payne, whom News of the world editor Rebekah Brooks had befriended, previously had been told she was not a target, but new information disputes that. Brooks gave Payne a telephone.

New York Times: "Though [House Republicans] appeared to be just shy of enough votes to assure passage of the [Boehner] plan that would allow a debt limit increase in two stages, lawmakers and top aides expressed confidence they could win over enough members to prevent a humiliating defeat for the speaker and the party."

     ** ... Update: story has a new lede: "House Speaker John A. Boehner abruptly delayed an expected vote on Republican debt ceiling legislation late Thursday as it became clear the Republican leadership did not have the votes needed for passage."

New York Times: "Officials said Wednesday that the [Treasury] department would address [how it will pay bills] ... later this week unless it became clear that Congress would vote by Aug. 2 to let the government borrow more money.... The implication is that the government will need to pay bills in the order that they come due."

Time: House & Senate leaders are working behind the scenes to merge the Boehner debt/deficit bill with a proposed Senate bill. ...

... Washington Post: "House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (S.C.), Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.) and Caucus Vice-Chairman Xavier Becerra (Calif.) said after a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday that they are calling on Obama both to veto a short-term deal and sign an executive order invoking the Constitution’s 14th Amendment to avert default on Aug. 2." ...

... Washington Post: Federal workers are both worried & angry about a possible government default, which could imperil their paychecks.

New York Times: "... Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation."

Washington Post: "The White House is waging an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to reassure core Democratic activists, following weeks of criticism from liberals who fear that President Obama has given too much ground in his debt-ceiling talks with Republicans."

New York Times: "A lawyer [Kenneth Thompson] for the hotel housekeeper [Nafissatou Diallo] who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in May said Wednesday that taped conversations, two of them made a day after the encounter, prove that his client had no intention of exploiting the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn to make money.... After listening to the recording on Wednesday, Mr. Thompson told reporters at a news conference that Ms. Diallo’s statements had been mischaracterized."

The Commentariat -- July 27

Today's Off Times Square asks "Now What?"

Not to worry. The Obama 2012 campaign is going well. From The Final Editon:

Get your ass in line. -- Speaker John Boehner to House Republican caucus ...

AND here's a headline you don't often see in the right-leaning Politico: "GOP in Chaos." ...

... ** Paul Krugman takes down both David Brooks & Tom Friedman in one short blogpost: Republicans crazies have created "the clearest, starkest situation one can imagine short of civil war," yet "the cult that is destroying America ... the cult of centrism -- portray[s] it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship." ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM: "... the conventions of journalistic 'objectivity', as currently defined, frequently make journalists violate their biggest duty, which is honesty with readers. The top headline running now on CNN reads: 'They're all talking, but no one is compromising, at least publicly. Democratic and GOP leaders appear unwilling to bend on proposals to raise the debt ceiling.' By any reasonable measure, this is simply false, even painfully so."

No Way, No How. I want to eliminate any expectation that the Fed through any mechanism could offset the impact of a default on the government debt. -- Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, to a Congressional committee

Why are we going through this trauma/drama now? Felix Salmon of Reuters: because back in December 2010, Harry Reid thought making House Republicans have "skin in the game" would be a great tactical move for Democrats. Really. Thus guy narrowly beat Sharron Angle! and he doesn't know how crazy Teabaggers are?

"We get the sacrifice. They share the wealth." -- Nancy Pelosi, speaking to union workers about the Republican "vision"

Prof. David Barash in a New York Times op-ed, reviews aspects of game theory and elephant mating practices! and concludes that "The president is best advised to ... declare that the other side has foregone all pretense at rational legitimacy, and simply proceed to govern as best he can for the good of the country." ...

... New York Times Editors: The Reid & Boehner deficit reduction "plans each call for cutting federal spending by trillions of dollars over the next 10 years without bringing in any additional revenue. They are a choice between bad and worse. Americans will inevitably be harmed as government programs are cut sooner than they should be in this weak economy and far deeper than they need to be because of the Republicans’ refusal to accept any tax increases — even on the wealthiest Americans." ...

... Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "This week, there were three events in the world of exceedingly complicated financial markets that showed growing concern about the state of the debt negotiations in Washington: The dollar fell sharply against other currencies. Investors who make short-term loans to the government demanded a higher interest rate. Investors who wanted to buy insurance against a U.S. default on its debt had to pay vastly more." CW: of course it isn't "the govenment" who will pay those higher interest rates, it's you, the taxpayer. Thank your Republican representative.

In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office.
-- Barack Obama, in his speech to the nation Monday ...

... Economist Dean Baker: "President Obama does not have the most basic understanding of the nature of the budget problems the country faces. He apparently believes that there was a huge deficit on an ongoing basis as a result of the policies in place prior to the downturn. In fact, the deficits were relatively modest. The huge deficits came about entirely as a result of the economic downturn brought about by the collapse of the housing bubble." [emphasis added] Via Karen Garcia ...

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos runs down a list of influential conservative groups who oppose Speaker Boehner's deficit reduction plan; those who favor it are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce & Americans for Tax Reform -- both "establishment" Republican groups who are more interested in business than ideology. ...

... Locked out of the House It Built. Binhamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent millions of dollars last year helping elect Republicans to Congressional seats, is struggling to convince the House it helped to build that the debt ceiling must be increased." ...

... Steve Benen runs down some recent polls and finds, "... any fair reading of the polls over the last couple of months, as the Republicans’ debt-ceiling crisis has intensified, finds that while the public is broadly frustrated, the GOP fares the worst — by a wide margin. Republicans are seen as too unwilling to compromise, too reckless, too wedded to bad ideas, too indifferent to the needs of the middle class and seniors, and too reluctant to even consider a balanced agreement with additional revenue. Democrats aren’t winning any popularity contests, but compared to the GOP’s current standing, Dems enjoy vastly more public support." ...

... AND as Joan McCarter of Daily Kos points out, these poll results are a stark warning to Democrats as well as to Republicans. Nonetheless, Republicans are leading clueless Democrats (Obama) "merrily down the path" to entitlement cuts, which will neutralize what would have been the key campaign issue of 2012.

Truth to Power. In his last New York Times column on the economy, David Leonhardt does tell it as it is.

Ben Smith of Politico: "The Navy Times ... reported last week that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus stripped the Silver Star from a Vietnam swift boat veteran, Capt. Wade Sanders.... Sanders is now in jail on child pornography charges. But he's best known as the man who introduced John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and, ironically, vouched for the authenticity of Kerry's service."

News Ledes

A Rare Union Victory in Our Banana Republic. New York Times: "Workers in southern Virginia at Ikea’s only factory in the United States voted Wednesday to belong to a union. Employees at the Swedwood plant in Danville, Va., voted 221-69 to have the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers represent them in collective bargaining, union and plant officials said."

Politico: "... Republicans prepared to bring to a House vote Thursday a two-step $2.5 trillion debt ceiling bill that will avert default next week but threatens more conflict — and renewed instability — in six months. Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remain in conversation over how to defuse the building confrontation.... But with stocks falling again Wednesday, he fight between Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama has become ... personal.... Fifty-three senators, 51 Democrats and two independents, signed a letter to Boehner on Wednesday vowing to oppose the House bill." New York Times story here. ...

... Making It Even Worse. The Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will rework his two-step plan to raise the debt ceiling after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found the bill would not cut as much spending as promised." ...

     ... Washington Post: "... even before the [CBO] report, some House conservatives had already come out against the plan, arguing that it doesn’t cut deeply enough. On Tuesday, Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio) said that fewer than 218 Republicans would support the measure, meaning that Boehner would need the backing of some Democrats to pass the measure on Thursday. Democratic leaders, meanwhile, insist that few, if any, of their members will back the plan." ...

... New York Times: "Thanks to an inflow of tax payments and maneuvering by the Treasury Department, the government can probably continue to pay all of its bills for several days after Aug. 2, providing potentially critical breathing room for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, according to estimates by several Wall Street banks and a Washington research organization. The consensus is that the government will not run short of money until Aug. 10, when it would be unable to cut millions of Social Security checks without borrowing more money." CW: Good. Now the loonies will have a whole week to say, "See, I told you there was no crisis." ...

... Reuters: "Prioritizing debt payments to avoid a default would be 'deeply disruptive' to the economy, Standard & Poor's global head of sovereign ratings said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday." ...

... New York Times: "A House Financial Services oversight panel on Wednesday will give lawmakers their first chance to ask senior executives at Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s about their judgments in putting the government on notice that its top-flight credit rating is at risk."

Los Angeles Times: "Congressional offices were deluged with feedback Tuesday after President Obama urged Americans to make their voices heard on the gridlocked debt ceiling debate.

AP: "A suicide bomber hiding explosives in his turban assassinated the mayor of Kandahar on Wednesday, just two weeks after President Hamid Karzai's powerful half brother was slain in the southern province that is critical to the U.S.-led war effort."

USA Today: "First lady Michelle Obama, who has made the fight against childhood obesity a major part of her platform, praised McDonald's today for plans to add apples to Happy Meals and other new nutritional projects."

Guardian: Tim DeChristopher, "an activist who became a hero to campaigners for disrupting a Bush administration auction for the oil and gas industry with $1.8m (£1.1m) in bogus bids, was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday.... Environmental and leftwing campaigners, from actress Daryl Hannah to film maker Michael Moore and writer Naomi Klein, immediately denounced the sentence as excessive."