The Commentariat -- July 7

Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "The current political debate and the nascent 2012 election season are utterly earthbound, with a tone so gloomy it’s often shocking." ...

... I've opened up a comments page for Bruni's column on Off Times Square. Comment on Bruni's thesis or what you will. I've posted my comment.

Nate Silver: "... the majority of Republican gains last year were probably due to changes in relative turnout.... The enthusiasm gap did not so much divide Republicans from Democrats; rather, it divided conservative Republicans from everyone else.... This is why Republican politicians find it difficult to compromise on something like the debt ceiling.... As long as conservative Republicans are much more likely to vote than anyone else..., Republican members of Congress have a mandate to remain steadfast to the conservatives who are responsible for electing them."

TwitterTown

     ... Full transcript here.

Never in our history has the United States defaulted on its debt. The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, for oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.  I mean, I'm happy to have those debates.  I think the American people are on my side on this. -- Barack Obama, during his Twitter townhall meeting

... Jeffrey Sparrshot of the Wall Street Journal: "President Barack Obama sidestepped a question on whether the 14th Amendment would allow the federal government to issue more debt if Congress refuses to raise the country’s legal borrowing limit. Instead, he said he expects to strike a deal with lawmakers in the coming weeks. 'I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue,' Mr. Obama said in a town-hall meeting conducted using Twitter." ...

... Sam Youngman of The Hill: "July is make or break for Obama 2012.... All Obama has to do is forge a deal with Republicans that cuts trillions from the deficit and saves the economy from going off another cliff, all while convincing his base that he is not selling them down the river again.... If he stares down the GOP and comes up with a deal that makes his base happy, Obama will be showing that he remembers two of the first rules of politics: Dance with the one who brought you — and don’t go to war without your army." ...

... BUT Kevin Drum of Mother Jones thinks Obama will do just fine by throwing progressives under the bus. He also says what I've been saying for some long while: "Obama isn't doing this because he has to. He's doing it because he wants to." ...

... NEW. Karen Garcia is biding her time, on the theory that, well, maybe ending Social Security as we know it is an Obama bluff. CW: I wish I could be so optimistic (which shows you the level to which "optimism" for Obama's next move has fallen; i.e., maybe there's an outside chance he won't screw the American people again). ...

... NEW. Glenn Greewald: Hey, liberals, you should hardly be surprised by another Obama betrayal. Thanks to commenter James T. for the link. ...

... Here's Greenwald speaking at the Socialism 2011 conference in Chicago last weekend:

... Greenwald suggests George Carlin explained it all, in perhaps the best "editorial" ever:

What I think we all agree to, is that tax reform needs to occur again. It is, however, a big complicated subject and it has unintended consequences.... When you target particular industries, you get fewer jobs. And our biggest problem right now is the job problem. -- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority Leader

We've seen people on the other side of the aisle who have walked away from the table to protect millionaires and billionaires. -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

Where are the jobs from the Bush tax cuts? -- Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) (Via CBS News)

... BUT. Roll Over, Obama. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "President Obama on Tuesday reiterated his insistence that Republicans agree to a 'balanced' deficit reduction package that includes both spending cuts and new taxes.... Recent reports suggest that the administration would agree to a deal including about $2 trillion in reduced spending and about $400 billion in increased revenue. Very roughly speaking, that sounds like a ratio of cuts to taxes of roughly four- or five-to-one.... Other reports have cited more lopsided ratios, albeit with smaller numbers overall.... None of these frameworks sound particularly balanced." ...

... Catfood Is Looking Tasty. Constant Weader: I knew we would get to this point: where we were just hoping President Obama wouldn't agree to a deal worse than the draconian Bowles-Simpson Catfood Commission plan. But that's where we are, if news reports are correct -- the debt ceiling deal will be worse than the Catfood Commission proposals. ...

... Here's the Deal according to Carl Hulse & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama, who is to meet at the White House with the bipartisan leadership of Congress in an effort to work out an agreement to raise the federal debt limit, wants to move well beyond the $2 trillion in savings sought in earlier negotiations and seek perhaps twice as much over the next decade, Democratic officials briefed on the negotiations said Wednesday." ...

... Depending on what they decide to recommend, they may not have Democrats. I think it is a risky thing for the White House to basically take the bet that we can be presented with something at the last minute and we will go for it. -- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) ...

... AND Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue. At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action. As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal." CW: feel those bus wheels rolling over you? This is just beyond the pale. ...

... Oh, some good news. John Bennett of The Hill: "National security spending could be cut by as much as $700 billion in a deal to raise the debt limit, defense sources said. That’s almost twice the amount President Obama originally proposed." ...

... ** Michael Crowley of Time sums up why liberals are disgusted with Obama vis-a-vis the debt ceiling negotiations. My only complaint with Crowley's summary: no expletives. ...

... NEW. Bruce Bartlett, an honest Republican (no, not an oxymoron), in a Washington Post op-ed, explodes five myths about the debt ceiling.

... Nicholas Kristof: "If there were an award for Most Unconscionable Tax Loophole, this one would win grand prize.... Tycoons have bet for years that the public is too stupid or distracted to note that in many cases they’re paying just a 15 percent tax rate. What’s at stake is the 'carried interest' loophole, and President Obama is pushing to close it. The White House estimates that this would raise $20 billion over a decade. But Congressional Republicans walked out of budget talks rather than discuss raising revenues from measures such as this one." ...

... AND Krugman turns me down for a date (with the President): "... maybe it’s personal. Maybe the president just doesn’t like the kind of people ... who say that the government is not like a family, that it’s not right for the government to tighten its belt when Americans are tightening theirs, that unemployment is not caused by lack of the right skills. Certainly just about all the people who might have tried to make that argument have left the administration or are leaving soon.... To commenters saying that I need to have dinner with the president, or vice versa — been there, done that, didn’t help."

Adam Goldman of the AP profiles "John," the CIA analyst who hunted and found Osama bin Laden. ...

... John Young of Cryptome makes a pretty convincing case that the White House accidentally (on purpose?) released photos of "John." Via John Cook of Gawker.

Jim Crow, Redux, OR The Truth about Republicans. I can’t help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today. [AND on Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s move to overturn precedents that allow convicted felons to vote once they’ve finished their probation periods:] Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they’ve paid their price? Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics who tended to vote for Democrats. That’s why. -- President Bill Clinton, in a speech to a Campus Progress convention

Twitter may work for President Obama (who did not limit his answers to 140 characters in his TwitterTown), but it is not working well for Michele Bachmann:

That's 140 characters. The problem: Republican & fundamentalist othodoxy says there is no Palestine. Gosh, maybe Bachmann meant "Palestinians," but that would have taken 143 characters. Too bad. And congratulations, Hamas. You just got an unlikely new backer. Thanks to Eric Kleefeld at TPM.

Local News

Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: "While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state." CW: I'm not sure this is a bad thing. Read the report, watch the local news video, & let us know what you think.

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Even Minnesota’s leaders don’t know the cost of the state government’s shutdown. That’s because the people who would calculate the price tag were put out of work.  Now more than six days old, the shutdown has continued to shutter parks and toll booths and to leave thousands of government workers at home. The state’s Democratic governor and Republican lawmakers continued to wrangle, without resolution, over a $5 billion budget gap Wednesday." Weiner does collect some data on how much the state is losing in specific areas, and it's a bunch. 

News Ledes

AP: "A Mexican national was executed Thursday for the rape-slaying of a teenager after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal to spare him that was supported by Mexico and the White House. In his last minutes, Humberto Leal repeatedly said he was sorry and accepted responsibility."

AP: "The House voted Thursday to bar military aid to Libyan rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi but stopped short of prohibiting funds for U.S. involvement in a NATO-led mission now in its fourth month. Sending a muddled message in the constitutional challenge to President Barack Obama, House Republicans and Democrats signaled their frustration with American participation in a stalemated civil war but also showed their unwillingness to end the operation."

AP: "Andreas Fink, the chief executive of Icelandic payment processor DataCell, told The Associated Press that Visa and MasterCard were again processing payments to WikiLeaks after a seven-month hiatus. Fink claimed the move as a tacit admission of guilt from the credit card companies, but it may well have been accidental.Visa Europe spokesman Simon Kleine told AP that processing the payments was 'not something that we've sanctioned' and that the company was investigating."

New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued new standards for power plants in 28 states that would sharply cut emissions of chemicals that have polluted forests, farms, lakes and streams across the eastern United States for decades."

President Obama & Vice President Biden will meet with Congressional leadership to discuss raising the debt limit at 11:00 am ET. AP story here. ...

President Obama on today's debt ceiling negotiations:

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama said on Thursday that budget negotiations at the White House had been 'very constructive,' though the two sides 'were still far apart on a wide range of issues.' He said the talks would continue into the weekend, and that Congressional leaders would meet with him again on Sunday.”

San Francisco Chronicle: "A federal appeals court ordered a halt Wednesday to the armed forces' policy of discharging openly gay service members, citing the impending demise of "don't ask, don't tell" and the Obama administration's escalating criticism of antigay laws.... On Wednesday, however, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco - which had previously allowed the government to follow its own timetable - reinstated a federal judge's injunction that had briefly barred enforcement of the law last fall before it was suspended."

New York Times: "Federal officials announced on Wednesday that they had reached a settlement with a group of homeowners who sued the federal government and the State of Louisiana alleging discrimination in the state’s Road Home program, which distributed grants to those whose houses were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding."

AP: "Both the Finance Committee in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Ways and Means Committee in the Republican-led House will consider ... three trade deals [with South Koren, Colombia & Panama] Thursday, which have drifted in political limbo since they were signed during the George W. Bush administration.... The Ways and Means legislation does not mention [a] displaced worker program, a result of GOP insistence that the trade agreements should not be encumbered by a program that some Republicans say is too expensive and of questionable merit." CW: anybody who thinks Republicans are worried about jobs need look no further than this.

New York Times: "Amid speculation that he would soon be removed from office, Kenneth E. Melson, the top official at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, met with Congressional staff members this week to defend himself.... The lawmakers have been investigating an A.T.F. program called Operation Fast and Furious in which federal agents knowingly let weapons slip across the Mexican border in the hope of tracing them to drug cartels. Two of the guns later turned up in Arizona, where an American Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout." Melson’s account is described in this letter from Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, & Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to AG Eric Holder.

Reuters: "Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee [Independent former R] signed into law a bill that would require voters to show identification at the polls in 2012, with a photo required before casting a ballot in 2014, his office announced on Wednesday.... Democratic governors in at least five states -- North Carolina, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota and New Hampshire -- have vetoed voter ID bills this year." See President Clinton's comments on this, above.

The Commentariat -- July 6

I've posted another Open Thread on Off Times Square for today. I've added my comment on Maureen Dowd's column. There's another lively discussion going on today. And teevee shows!

The differences in this debate could not be clearer. Republicans want to end Medicare and target the middle class while protecting millionaires and billionaires. We are focused on cutting wasteful spending and ending special treatment for the wealthy elite and the well-connected. That’s what this debate is all about. -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

 I meant to post this sooner, after a reader mentioned it, and I forgot. So better late than never:

Twitter: "... at 2pm Eastern Time, the White House will hold its first Twitter Town Hall, and United States President Barack Obama will answer Twitter users’ questions about the American economy -- live at askobama.twitter.com.... Tweet your questions on the economy and be sure to include the hashtag #AskObama.  You can track the conversation in three great ways: Watch the event live at http//askobama.twitter.com,  follow live Tweets from @townhall, or search the hashtag #AskObama."

David Rogers of Politico (yes, Politico) has a terrific summary of where the debt ceiling talks stand. ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time on "The Five Stages of Washington Theatrics." ...

... New York Times Editors: "The poor and disabled people who rely on Medicaid to pay their medical bills could be in grave jeopardy in this sour I’ve-got-mine political climate.... President Obama ... must be careful not to trade away his goal of near-universal coverage to burnish his credentials as a deficit-cutter." ...

... So I guess we can say we’re beginning to talk about something with this rather pathetic response from the majority leader. I’m not happy about that. -- Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), on the Sense of the Senate Resolution (pdf) proferred by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which declares, "It is the sense of the Senate that any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1,000,000 or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort." ...

While today, obviously, we’re not going to have anything really serious to talk about — it’s just a sense of the Senate — my sense is that very quickly we’re going to have something before us that actually is real. -- Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)

... Apparently, nothing irritates Republicans more than the prospect that millionaires and billionaires might be asked to share in the burden of deficit reduction. -- Adam Jentleson, spokesperson for Reid ...

... Both Sessions and Corker are multi-millionaires. -- Constant Weader

... Steve Wamhoff of Citizens for Tax Justice: "Many corporate leaders have noted that other OECD (European) countries have lowered their corporate tax rates in recent years, but fail to mention that these countries have also closed corporate tax loopholes while the U.S. has expanded them. As a result, the U.S. collects less corporate taxes as a share of GDP than all but one of the 26 OECD countries for which data are available." (pdf) ...

... Fanatic to Brooks: "To Hell with Deficit Reduction." Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: After David Brooks criticized Republican “'fanatic[s]' with a 'sacred fixation' on tax cuts," Paul Ryan responded on Laura Ingraham's radio talk show: "What happens if you do what he’s saying, is then you can’t lower tax rates.... If you take away the tax loopholes without lowering tax rates, then you deny Congress the ability to lower everybody’s tax rates and you keep people’s tax rates high." That is, Ryan refuses to close tax loopholes to reduce the deficit, but he might close them in exchange for some other new tax breaks (probably for the rich). CW: as Paul Krugman and others have said many times (here, for instance, and here), so-called "deficit hawks" like Ryan do not care about the deficit at all; they just use the deficit as an excuse to cut government spending. ...

... PLUS, Digby writes: "The only 'loopholes' they [Republicans] want closed are those that benefit working people --- like the Earned Income Tax Credit." ...

... Jim Newell of Gawker: "So why won't Republicans accept this deal? Probably not because New York Times elite Republican David Brooks waited so long to point out how sweet it is. Instead, there are 17 days remaining until the Administration's imposed deadline for a debt-ceiling deal, which is 17 more days to wean concessions from the concession-friendly Democratic party." CW: besides the serious point Newell makes, this is a pretty funny post, & comes complete with this photo we can never get enough of:

... "Bloggers Bop ... Brooks." Reid Epstein of Politico: Aw, poor Brooks is getting no love from the left or the right. CW: But he got the love from me, because -- despite the fallacy of his opening argument & even if, as I suspect, Karl Rove (who has no love for the Tea Party) ghost-wrote the piece -- his admissions that his party was overrun with immoral fanatics was a great ideological breakthrough for Our Mister Brooks.

NEW. Jamie Dimon, America's Biggest Welfare King (Would Not Stoop to Driving a Pink Cadillac). Jesse Eisenger of ProPublica: The "bailout never ended. 'In effect, we nationalized the biggest banks years ago," [former investment banker Herbert] Allison said. 'We implicitly guaranteed them. The taxpayers are still the ultimate owners of the risk in those banks -- they just don't get equity returns for that ownership.' So when taxpayers hear a bank chief, like Jamie Dimon, complaining, it's worth keeping in mind that his 10-figure paycheck is largely coming courtesy of us."

News Flash. Ezra Klein: "Most authorities don’t think the stimulus failed. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for instance, says it created between 1.2 million and 4.6 million jobs 'compared to what would’ve happened otherwise.' IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com all estimate that the laws ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. Economists Mark Zandi and Alan Blinder put it at 2.7 million jobs."

NEW. Joe Klein of Time: Illegal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. has fallen from about 500,000 a year to less than 100,000. Klein says this is because "Increased surveillance and fencing have made it tougher to cross the border. Decreased economic activity in the U.S. has made border-hopping a less attractive option. And life seems to have gotten significantly better, with greater options for success, in Mexico. This is lovely news." CW: I've always said that the long-term solution to the problem of illegal immigration was a better standard of living in the sending countries. I did not say a lower standard of living in the U.S. was a great idea, but that's what we've got.

John Broder of the New York Times: "In the next weeks and months, Lisa P. Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is scheduled to establish regulations on smog, mercury, carbon dioxide, mining waste and vehicle emissions that will affect every corner of the economy. She is working under intense pressure from opponents in Congress, from powerful industries, from impatient environmentalists and from the Supreme Court, which just affirmed the agency’s duty to address global warming emissions, a project that carries profound economic implications.... No other cabinet officer is in as lonely or uncomfortable a position as Ms. Jackson, who has been left, as one adviser put it, behind enemy lines with only science, the law and a small band of loyal lieutenants to support her." CW: I have to say I was afraid Jackson would be a Ken Salazar-type doll, but she is proving to be one tough lady. Three cheers!

New York Times Editors: "News of the World, a sex-and-celebrity pillar of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire," is accused of having hacked into the cellphone of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old British girl who had gone missing. "A lawyer for Milly’s family, Mark Lewis, said that after she vanished but before her body was found, News of the World hacked into her cellphone, recording anguished voice messages from relatives and friends.... When the phone’s memory was full, the paper’s operatives deleted some messages to make room for new ones. This baffled the police and made Milly’s family think she was alive, deleting the messages herself. News of the World faced prosecutions and lawsuits for hacking phones of movie stars and British royals. That was slimy. The news that it violated the privacy of a family during a criminal inquiry sends it off a moral precipice." ...

... Jeremy Peters & Brian Stelter of the New York Times: "... the widening voice-mail hacking scandal at the British tabloid News of the World threatens to stain the company’s image in a way that other embarrassing incidents at News Corporation’s far-flung media properties — which also include the Fox networks and The New York Post — have not."

Adam Serwer of American Prospect: "... Jewish voters remain firmly in the Democratic camp, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. But no matter — 'Jews abandoning Democrats' is one of those zombie memes sustained by the futile efforts of Jewish conservatives to make it a self-fulfilling prophesy, and as long as it remains a seductive storyline for political reporters and commentators, it’ll never die no matter how many times it’s shown to be false."

Jim Dwyer of the New York Times: Oh, there's still a case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. (Link corrected.)

Right Wing World *

The legislation the President has asked for – which would increase taxes on small businesses and destroy more American jobs – cannot pass the House, as I have stated repeatedly.  The American people simply won’t stand for it.  And their elected representatives in Congress won’t vote for it. -- Speaker John Boehner, in a press release ...

... The American people won't stand for it, Mr. Speaker? Actually, yes they will, you Lying Scum, Sir. In fact, an overwhelming majority has consistently demanded it. Look at the responses to Question 14 on these WashPo/ABC News polls.

Dog Whistling to the Radical Right. Ed Kilgore of The New Republic, on what Michele Bachman really means when she prominently & repeatedly describes herself as a "Constitutional conservative": "... the ... label hints broadly at a more audacious agenda ultimately aimed at bringing back the lost American Eden of the 1920s, if not an earlier era.... Restoring the Founders’ design ... means overturning Roe v. Wade and abandoning the idolatrous fiction of church-state separation."

Eve Conant of the Daily Beast: "Former (and current) Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Confederates, and other representatives of the many wings of the 'white nationalist' movement are starting to file paperwork and print campaign literature for offices large and small, pointing to rising unemployment, four years with an African-American president, and rampant illegal immigration as part of a growing mound of evidence that white people need to take a stand. Most aren’t winning—not yet. But they’re drawing levels of support that surprise and alarm groups that keep tabs on the white-power movement...." ...

... OR, as Jeff Neumann of Gawker puts it, "The current field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates is pretty boring. You've got several grouchy old men, a pizza magnate, and a walking anal sex joke. So why not a white supremacist? Sure, the GOP has noted xenophobes like Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, but they lack the panache of an openly racist candidate. But that could soon change, as 1990s throwback David Duke prepares to embark on a tour of 26 states to feel out his chances of putting the 'white' back in the White House."

WPA did not bring us out of the depression. The war did. We look back at the stimulus, nearly a trillion dollars gone down the drain. -- Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, who is stupider than shit, to wit: ...

... Steve Benen, in a post titled "The Biggest Stimulus of All Time": "Shelby may find this confusing, but the war helped the economy because the government was spending like crazy. Indeed, during the war, policymakers spent an enormous amount of money, imposed extremely high tax rates, and took on massive debts — and the economy soared."

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

President Obama holds a Twitter townhall at 2:00 pm ET. (See the July 7 Commentariat for the video.) ...

     ... Update: the New York Times Caucus report by Michael Shear on the Twitterfest is amusing. ...

     ... AND: "On average, Mr. Obama took 2,099 characters to answer his questions, the equivalent of about 15 Twitter messages."

New York Times: "Mexican truckers will be able to carry goods deep into the United States, and vice versa, under a deal signed Wednesday in Mexico City to keep a 17-year-old promise. As part of the deal, Mexico will eliminate tariffs on $2.3 billion of American goods and agricultural products as soon as the first Mexican truck obtains a permit and is allowed to enter the United States. As a preliminary step, the tariffs will be reduced 50 percent by the end of this week."

New York Times: "Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn emerged from a meeting on Wednesday with Manhattan prosecutors, characterizing the session as 'constructive.'”

New York Times: "Starting this week..., the White House will start sending condolence letters to families of troops who commit suicide in combat zones, which include Afghanistan, Iraq and some other areas that provide support services to combat operations. But families of military personnel who kill themselves in the United States and on foreign bases not considered combat zones will not receive the letters."

Washington Post: "In a marked shift, Republicans are now willing to close some tax loopholes as part of a final deal to raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Wednesday. But Cantor said that raising taxes was still off limits in negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline." ...

     ... The Hill Update: "Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) rejected the idea of a deal to increase the debt ceiling that includes closing tax loopholes while remaining revenue neutral. 'Our focus on tax loopholes seems to be putting Republicans on their heels on the issue of revenues. But if Republicans are going [to] say we can only close these loopholes in a revenue-neutral way, it is like taking one step forward and then two steps back,' Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday. 'The point isn’t to get rid of these loopholes simply to pay for new tax breaks elsewhere, it’s to do it in a way that contributes to the reduction of the debt.'" CW: exactly right.

AP: "House Republicans are siding with food companies resisting the Obama administration's efforts to pressure them to stop advertising junk food for children. Some food companies say the government is going too far with guidelines proposed earlier this year by several government agencies."

New York Times: "New allegations emerged on Wednesday in a scandal over phone-hacking by News Corporation newspapers in Britain, threatening to draw in Prime Minister David Cameron as political pressure mounted on Rebekah Brooks, a top executive of the company" (which is one of Rupert Murdoch's holdings). ...

     ... Story has been updated with a new lede: "Britain’s political establishment ventured onto new and perilous ground on Wednesday as more startling allegations emerged in the voicemail-hacking scandal, with government leaders promising to scrutinize the operations of freewheeling newspapers owned by News Corporation and others that were once seen as too politically influential to challenge."

AP: "More than a dozen men accused of taking part in a series of sexual assaults on an 11-year-old girl are expected in court Wednesday in a case that has divided and horrified their southeast Texas town.... The case shined a sometimes unflattering spotlight on Cleveland, [Texas,] after some in the town of about 9,000 residents suggested the girl was culpable in part for what happened, claiming she wore makeup and looked older. Some also accused her parents, immigrants from Mexico, of not watching her more closely.... Also complicating the case was a belief by many in the predominantly black neighborhood where several of the suspects live that the arrests were racially motivated. All of the suspects are black...."

AP: "Roger Clemens ... is going on trial Wednesday.... Like other players who have been indicted in baseball's steroids era, Clemens has not been charged with drug crimes but instead is accused of lying about drug use. Clemens told a House committee under oath in 2008 that he never used performance-enhancing drugs during a standout 23-season career...."

The Commentariat -- July 5

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I have added comments. 

"As His Batshit Chickens Come Home to Roost." Driftglass blames David Brooks for his decades-long promotion of ideas & policies that have led to what Brooks now complains is an immoral, unreasoning gang of Republicans. A tour-de-force (on Driftglass's part, not Brooks'). ...

... AND, while we're at it, Driftglass has figured out a way to save the economy AND give in to Republican demands to cut the deficit. It's the "Rewarding Wealth Producers and Penalizing Moochers Patriotic American Values Re-alignment" Act. The act will make things a little tough on denizens of Sarah Palin's Alaska & Rand Paul's Kentucky, ferinstance, but it's all for the good of the country. ...

... New York Times Editors: "In addition to demanding trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit, [Congressional Democrats Republicans] are now vowing not to act without first holding votes in each chamber on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.... It won’t be enough for Democrats to merely defeat the amendment when it comes up for a vote.... They also need to rebut the amendment’s false and dangerous premises." ...

... Gene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Obama’s in-your-face attitude [on the debt ceiling "negotiations"] seems to have thrown Republicans off their stride. They thought all they had to do was convince everyone they were crazy enough to force an unthinkable default on the nation’s financial obligations. Now they have to wonder if Obama is crazy enough to let them. The difficult work of putting the federal government on sound fiscal footing can’t begin as long as a majority in the House rejects simple arithmetic on ideological grounds." ...

... BUT. Know How to Hold Fold 'Em. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Obama administration officials are offering to cut tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid in negotiations to reduce the federal budget deficit, but the depth of the cuts depends on whether Republicans are willing to accept any increases in tax revenues. Administration officials and Republican negotiators say the money can be taken from health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes without directly imposing new costs on needy beneficiaries or radically restructuring either program." CW: because poor people have to die in the service of billionaires & big corporations. ...

'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion' -- this is the important thing -- 'shall not be questioned.' -- Tim Geithner, pulling a copy of the Constitution from his pocket & reading a section of the Fourteenth Amendment

... CW: I don't like Tim Geithner & I don't like his inteviewer Mike Allen of Politico, but this video is interesting. As expected, Geithner pushes the "confidence v. uncertainty" meme. But at about 39:30 min. in (cursor forward), Geithner invokes the Fourteenth Amendment option. Whether or not President Obama ultimately resorts to the Fourteenth Amendment, obviously, he has placed that option "on the table" during negotiations. As I've said, if Obama caves to Republican pressure & cuts essential programs for Americans in need, it's because he wants to. He knows he doesn't have to. Thanks to Jim Fallows for the link & the guidance:

... Moderate Republican David Frum, a former Bush II speechwriter: "Why don't the Democrats rebel? Presumably, they elected Obama to stand up for their shared principles. But he's not standing up. He's rolling over. Or being rolled." Thanks to reader Doug R. for the link.

Just in case you thought the WashPo editorial page was worth perusing, there's this from regular columnist & another former Bush II speechwriter Marc Thiessen: AG Eric Holder is "... pursuing his ideologically driven crusade against the CIA’s interrogators." CW: Oh, it gets worse from there. The real crime is giving this disreputable hack real estate in a major newspaper. 

Edward Wyatt of the New York Times on Prof. Elizabeth Warren & the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which she has organized: "... with no clear signal as to who will run the bureau, many bankers are now worrying that the opposition to Ms. Warren may produce a leaderless consumer bureau." 

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "... a new breed of 'super PACs' and other independent groups are poised to spend more money than ever to sway federal elections.... The rise of these independent groups, which can raise unlimited amounts of money..., could end up defining the 2012 campaign. But some of the groups could also pose a threat to established campaigns, which may find it difficult to stop them from wandering off message or committing strategic blunders. One rogue super PAC in Southern California has upended a Republican congressional campaign by producing a crude video depicting the female Democratic candidate as a stripper giving tax money to gang members." (CW: the words "crude video" appear in the WashPo article as "cru de video"; I thought it was some new wine!)

Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) "has begun a campaign, called Off the Sidelines, to mobilize women across the country, in advance of the national elections next year and as evidence emerges that the slow but steady progress made by women in elective politics has begun to stall. In the past few months, Ms. Gillibrand has activated her network of donors to help female candidates, emerged as a headliner among audiences of women, tried to recruit female candidates, advised women thinking about running, and started a Web site, offthesidelines.org."

Al Hunt of Bloomberg News on the rapid evolution of American attitudes toward gay marriage & how so many politicians (Obama) are still skirting the issue. In the lede, Hunt gives us one more reason to love Mario Cuomo.

Alissa Rubin & Rod Nordland of the New York Times: Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Gen. David Patraeus & Gen. David Rodriguez, who runs day-to-day operations, are all leaving Afghanistan at about the same time. "From an American policy standpoint, the changing of the guard means little, but from the Afghan standpoint, in which a leader’s personality can determine the policy, the triple departure, along with President Obama’s June 22 speech on the withdrawal of troops, has stoked fears of abandonment, especially for Afghans who have depended on the Americans."

Missed this one. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "President Obama announced Friday that he would nominate Thomas J. Curry to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees hundreds of national banks.... Mr. Curry’s nomination responds to the demands of Senate Democrats that the White House replace the acting head of the comptroller’s office, John G. Walsh, whom they regard as obstructing key aspects of the law passed last year to overhaul financial regulation."

Right Wing World *

Flip, Flip, Flop, Flip-Flop. Maeve Reston of the Los Angeles Times: "Mitt Romney has struggled to craft a consistent economic message in recent weeks — first blaming President Obama for driving the country deeper into recession and then backing off that charge during a visit to Pennsylvania. On Monday in southern New Hampshire, he appeared to offer those conflicting messages within one sentence:

The recession is deeper because of our president; it's seen an anemic recovery because of our president.

      ... Reston writes, "Those statements — that the president had driven the economy deeper into recession but also that an 'anemic' recovery had occurred — not only seemed to be contradictory, but also at odds with what Romney has previously argued. In a June..., Romney said Obama 'didn't create the recession, but he made it worse and longer.' Later..., he was quoted by NBC as saying the state's voters '...but [Obama] made it worse.' But when asked to elaborate on those statements..., he backtracked: 'I didn't say things are worse.' On Monday in Amherst, he combined both messages."

* Where a single sentence may be internally inconsistent.

News Ledes

President Obama makes brief remarks in the Brady Press Room about the deficit reduction talks:

** New York Times: "Members of the Afghan Parliament came to blows Tuesday as a majority for the first time began to discuss impeaching President Hamid Karzai, signaling the near-total breakdown of relations between the Parliament and the president as the country teeters on the brink of a constitutional crisis."

Guardian: "President Barack Obama is attempting to block the execution in Texas on Thursday of a Mexican man because it would breach an international convention and do "irreparable harm" to US interests. The White House has asked the US supreme court to put the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia on hold while Congress passes a law that would prevent the convicted rapist and murderer from being put to death along with dozens of other foreign nationals who were denied proper access to diplomatic representation before trials for capital crimes. The administration moved after the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, brushed aside appeals from diplomats, top judges, senior military officers, the United Nations and former president George W Bush to stay Leal's execution because it could jeopardise American citizens arrested abroad as well as US diplomatic interests." CW: pardon my ignorance, but can't the President do this unilaterally?

New York Times: "The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would prosecute in civilian court a Somali accused of ties to two Islamist militant groups.... In an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York, the Somali, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was charged with nine counts related to accusations that he provided support to the Shabab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen. Mr. Warsame ... was captured on April 19, and a plane carrying him arrived in New York City around midnight Monday, officials said." The article contains a link to the indictment.

The Hill: "The Senate as early as Wednesday could vote on a 'Sense of the Senate' bill that says taxpayers earning $1 million or more each year should 'make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit-reduction effort.' The bill ... was introduced last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Reid filed a cloture motion on the bill on Tuesday afternoon, meaning a vote to end debate could take place as early as late Wednesday or, more likely, Thursday." ...

... Cornyn Goes Full Emily Litella. NBC News: "Though he may have hinted over the weekend that he would consider raising revenue in order to avoid a government shutdown, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) says not so fast. 'We're not for raising taxes through the front door or back door during a fragile economic recovery....'" Sen. Cornyn told Andrea Mitchell.

The Audacity of Betrayal. New York Times: "President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressional Republicans on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cutting deal, pledging to put popular entitlement programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescence to some higher taxes."

New York Times: "Manhattan prosecutors are scheduled to meet on Wednesday with the lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to discuss whether the sexual assault case against him can be resolved through a dismissal or a plea, according to a person briefed on the matter."

New York Times: "Obama administration officials believe that Pakistan’s powerful spy agency ordered the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had written scathing reports about the infiltration of militants in the country’s military, according to American officials. New classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, Saleem Shahzad, 40, from the capital, Islamabad, and after the discovery of his mortally wounded body, showed that senior officials of the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, directed the attack on him in an effort to silence criticism...."

Reuters: "Prosecutors will drop sexual assault charges against ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn at his next court appearance in two weeks, or earlier, because of doubts about the credibility of the alleged victim, he New York Post said Tuesday." CW: remember to consider the source.

AP: "The initial cleanup along the oil-fouled Yellowstone River could be tested Tuesday as rising waters make it harder for Exxon Mobil Corp. to get to areas damaged by the crude spilled from a company pipeline."