The Krugman Blue Plate Special

Krugman teases his upcoming column with this:

... AND here's his column on the Republicans' "War on Logic": "A Republican report about the 'cost' of health care reform points to spending that would occur even if we didn’t have reform." ...

... Krugman debunks another right-wing myth/lie/excuse for cutting Social Security benefits: that "in the program’s early years, nobody could have imagined the increases in life expectancy that have actually occurred, so nobody could have imagined that we’d have as many beneficiaries relative to the number of people of working age." ...

... In his NYT Magazine article on the European economic crisis, which I am slogging through now (& which I also linked last week), Krugman mentions this episode of "Yes, Minister." If you get thru Krugman, give yourself a treat & watch the segment. It's not LOL funny, but remember it's British humor:

Tucson Shootings -- January 16

Frank Rich: "In March 2010, few of our leaders wanted to see what Giffords saw — that the vandalism and the death threats were part of a tide of insurrectionism that had been rising since the final weeks of the 2008 campaign."

Jon Meacham, the former editor of Newsweek, who seems to be working for PBS now, advocates for restoring the assault weapons ban:

     ... Here's the transcript.

Mark Rudd, a one-time member of the Weather Underground, explains in a Washington Post opinion piece why he engaged in political violence at age 22.

New York Times: "On a day when Representative Gabrielle Giffords’s condition was upgraded to serious from critical, her husband, Mark Kelly, spoke publicly for the first time on Sunday. He left his wife’s hospital bedside to take the stage at a memorial service for Gabriel Zimmerman.... Mr. Kelly told the several hundred mourners ... at the Tucson Museum of Art that ... his wife was 'improving a little bit each day. She’s a fighter.' ... At almost the exact same time, about a half-hour’s drive east, another shooting victim — Dorwan Stoddard, 76, known as Dory to friends — was eulogized at a church filled with hundreds of mourners." ...

... AP: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords condition is improving and she is now in serious condition at a hospital after being shot in the head about a week ago."

The Los Angeles Times has posted the video which caused Pima Community College to suspend Jared Loughren.

Jo Becker & other New York Times reporters write a long piece about Jared Loughner's troubled life.

William Yardley, et al., of the New York Times: "A week after a gunman killed six people and injured 13 others, ... a gun show at the county fairgrounds went forward as planned on Saturday and the Safeway supermarket where the shooting occurred reopened for business."

The Commentariat -- January 16

Art by Mark Lazenby for the New York Times.Matthew Wald of the New York Times: "The previous Congress failed to pass climate change legislation, and the new House is openly hostile to the idea. But what the government has not mandated, the economy is doing on its own: emissions of global warming gases in the United States are down."

** Hey, Teabaggers, the Founding Fathers Would Have Hated Your Guts:

New York Times Editors outlines the consequences, should House Republicans get their way & repeal of the Affordable Care Act is successful.

Christina Romer, former chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, in a New York Times op-ed: "My hope is that the centerpiece of the [State of the Union] speech will be a comprehensive plan for dealing with the long-run budget deficit." She pretty much embraces the Cat Food Commission recommendations, but she does go on to advocate for new revenue sources. ...

... CW: President Obama is going to have a hard time crafting a State of the Union speech that beats his Tucson address. Garry Wills really loved it! In a New York Review of Books column, Wills likens the Tucson speech to -- the Gettysburg Address AND President Lincoln's second inaugural speech. ...

... Dan Balz of the Washington Post makes much of Sen. John McCain's Washington Post op-ed in which McCain praises the President's speech. Balz suggests the op-ed is an olive branch to President Obama. CW: Balz places a lot of the blame for the icy relationship between McCain & Obama on the President; I don't.

TuniLeaks! Scott Shane of the New York Times: "Cables from American diplomats in Tunisia portray a deepening ambivalence toward the rule of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, expressing alarm about popular resentment of the blatant corruption of the country’s first family but also gratitude for Mr. Ben Ali’s cooperation against terrorism and the stability he long imposed. Those cables, from the cache obtained by the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks and made public in recent weeks, helped fuel the anger on the streets that culminated Friday with Mr. Ben Ali’s flight after 23 years in power. Posted on a site created last month called TuniLeaks, the diplomats’ disgusted and lurid accounts of the kleptocratic ways of the president’s extended family helped tip the scales, according to many Tunisian commentators."...

     ... CW: somebody (& I really can't recall who) told me last week or so that she thought the Obama Administration did protest too much about their horror & shock at the WikiLeaks cables. It's beginning to look as if that someone got it right. Are Julian Assange & Bradley Manning just (witting or unwitting) tools of the State Department? I'm just asking. ...

     ... Update: it was a friend who sent me a link to this essay by William Engdahl, writing in VoltaireNet.

Paul Breer, writing in Think Progress, provides a little introduction to Reince Priebus, the new RNC chair. Key point: "While Priebus was chair of the Wisconsin GOP, the state party engaged fomented voter fraud conspiracies and hatched a voter caging plot with well-funded right-wing allies to suppress minority votes."

Annie Groer of Politics Daily: "Michael Reagan blasted as 'falsehoods and lies and conspiracy theories to sell books,' the suggestion by half-brother Ron Reagan that their father may have had Alzheimer's disease while still in the White House. " ...

... Here's the underlying Parade article by Ron Reagan: "My Father, the President," written in recognition of the 100th anniversary of President Reagan's birth.

Michael Shields of Reuters: "Serving as California governor cost Arnold Schwarzenegger at least $200 million, the bodybuilding star turned actor and politician told a newspaper in his native Austria, insisting 'it was more than worth it.'"

Senator Teabag. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Last week, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) posted a lecture on his YouTube channel where he explains in great detail his views on the Constitution. As part of the lecture, which is essentially a lengthy defense of his radical tenther interpretation of the Constitution, Lee claims that federal child labor laws are unconstitutional." With video, if you care to watch Prof. Teabag's expound on his theory of the Constitution.