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Friday
Aug192011
The Commentariat -- August 20
The President's Weekly Address:
... The transcript is here. AP story here.
I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square.
** Prof. Alexander Keyssar, in a Washington Post op-ed, puts the Republican agenda in historical perspective: "... viewed collectively, it’s difficult not to see a determined campaign to dismantle a broad societal bargain that served much of the nation well for decades. To a historian, the agenda of today’s conservatives looks like a bizarre effort to return to the Gilded Age, an era with little regulation of business, no social insurance and no legal protections for workers. This agenda, moreover, calls for the destruction or weakening of institutions without acknowledging (or perhaps understanding) why they came into being." CW: next question: why isn't President Obama telling this story? Perhaps he's one who doesn't understand it.
** Henry Blodgett, the Business Insider: "A former senior analyst at Moody's has gone public with his story of how one of the country's most important rating agencies is corrupted to the core. The analyst, William J. Harrington, ... has made his story public in the form of a 78-page 'comment' to the SEC's proposed rules about rating agency reform, which he submitted to the agency on August 8th. The comment is a scathing indictment of Moody's processes, conflicts of interests, and management."
Colleen Curtis of the White House: "Creating a judicial pool for the 21st Century, one with intellect, fair-mindedness and integrity that resembles the nation that it serves, is a top priority for President Obama and his administration. In fact, the President’s nominations for federal judges embody an unprecedented commitment to expanding the racial, gender and experiential diversity of the men and women who enforce our laws and deliver justice. Unfortunately, the delays these nominees are encountering on Capitol Hill are equally unprecedented:"
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "By the standard definition of job creation during a presidency, [Obama] is on track to be the first president to have negative growth in the modern era.... The president and his supporters have to cook the books a bit to make the job numbers sound good." For the book-cooking, Kessler dings the President with a Pinocchio.
Charles Blow: "America needs the electrifyingly charismatic candidate Barack Obama once was, not the eerily inhuman robot of a president that he has become." ...
... No Electricity or Charisma in Sight. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling (CW: a reliable, left-leaning polling firm): "There's been plenty of bad news for Barack Obama this month in the form of his approval numbers, but our polling finds that his problems go deeper than that. Democratic enthusiasm about voting in next year's election has hit a record low this month."
Greg Sargent: Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) has been pushing for a super-committee on jobs and has developed several possible ways to move forward on it. He & other Democrats will ask Congress to choose from among the proposals. Key to two of the proposals: they would contain a "trigger" that would kick in if the committee couldn't agree on jobs legislation. If Republicans just say no, Larson's proposals will at least have called their bluff. ...
... Ezra Klein Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office ...immediately shot down [the Larson proposals]. The response: Deficit reduction will spur job creation and, therefore, the supercommittee does not need to take on an additional mission."
Kurt Andersen, writing in the New York Times, likens our current political malaise to an autoimmune disease: "debilitating..., treatable, but ... incurable.... The most troubling thing about [Rick] Perry (and Michele Bachmann and so many more), what’s new and strange and epidemic in mainstream politics, is the degree to which people inhabit their own Manichaean make-believe worlds. They totally believe their vivid fictions."
Another Weekend at Bernie's:
... John Amato of Crooks and Liars: "This Saturday [Sen.] Bernie [Sanders (D-Vt.)] will be joining in discussion with the Blue America community for a question and answer session at Crooks and Liars at 2pm (ET). We hope you will be able to join in the discussion."
On Wisconsin. New York Times Editors: "Harsh state judicial campaigns financed by ever larger amounts of special interest money are eating away at public faith in judicial impartiality. There are few places where the spectacle is more shameful than Wisconsin, where over-the-top campaigning, self-interested rulings, and a complete breakdown of courthouse collegiality and ethics is destroying trust in its Supreme Court."
Right Wing World *
"Man-made Climate Change Myth." Joel Achenbach & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: That the planet has warmed is a fact hardly anyone disputes — it has been measured with instruments on land and sea and in space. That humans have contributed to the warming through industrial activities is a theory supported by multiple scientific organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA." Tell that to Republican p
hey're snuffing out the America that I grew up in. -- John Boehner, on President Obama & the 111th Congress, July 2010 ...
John Boehner was born in 1949. Does he feel nostalgic for the higher marginal tax rates of the America he grew up in? For the much larger labor union share of the workforce? The threat of global nuclear war? It’s difficult for me to evade the conclusion that on an emotional level, conservative nostalgics like Boehner are primarily driven by regret at the loss of social privilege by white men."
Clay Risen, who wrote the Opinionator blog for the Times this week, runs down some reactions to Rick Perry, most of the negative, whether from left or right. Funny thing is, Perry is leading in Republican polls by a wide margin. ...
... Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune: Five Myths about Rick Perry. CW: on Myth 3, Smith doesn't say that the obvious reason Perry pushed for the mandatory inoculation of young girls with the human papillomavirus vaccine was that the vaccine producer Merck has numerous ties to Perry & is a Perry campaign contributor (see this undated AP story). ...
... Texas Ranks Dead Last in Job Creation/Labor Force. Think Progress: "While over 126,000 net jobs were created in Texas over the last two and a half years, the labor force expanded by over 437,000, meaning that overall Texas has added unemployed workers at a rate much faster than it has created jobs." Includes a swell dead-last chart. Thanks to Bob M. for the link. ...
... AND there's this, from a July Wall Street Journal report by Ana Campoy & Sara Murray: "About 300,000 of the new Texas jobs were in government. Well over half of them, fueled by the surging population, were at public schools. Employment in the state's public sector has jumped 19% since 2000 [when Perry took office]. Now layoffs loom. State budget cuts, championed by Mr. Perry to address a big budget shortfall, are prompting school districts around the state to lay off hundreds of teachers and other workers...." The rise in the private sector, only 9 percent.
... Marie Diamond of Think Progress: "A top Bank of America executive was caught on camera yesterday whispering to Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), 'Bank of America. We’ll help you out.' ... It’s no mystery why banking executives are rushing to give Perry their support. Of all the GOP candidates, Perry is the most fervently opposed to banking regulation. As Matt Yglesias pointed out, in his book Fed Up, Perry expresses the extreme view that all banking regulation and consumer financial protection is unconstitutional." With video. ...
... Here's Matt Yglesias' post, "The Ten Weirdest Ideas in Rick Perry's Fed Up."
Secret Agent Bachmann. I went to work in that system because the first rule of war is ‘know your enemy.’ -- Michele Bachmann, explaining why she worked for the IRS ...
... Washington Post Editors: "We find it disturbing that someone seeking to lead this country and become its government’s CEO would view any of its agencies as the enemy and government service as honorable only if it takes the form of undercover opposition.... The Internal Revenue Service and the 107,621 (as of fiscal 2010) people who work there aren’t responsible for the law or the level of taxation. For those, you can thank Ms. Bachmann and her fellow members of Congress."
* Where scientists are conniving, lying, fearmongering conspirators against god or something.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Leaders of the unions that have been on strike against announced on Saturday that they were ending the walkout even though the two sides had not reached an overall settlement for a new contract."
Los Angeles Times: "Iranian authorities sentenced two Americans arrested and detained along the Iran-Iraq border to eight years in prison, state television cited an unnamed judicial source as saying on Saturday. The men, who have already been held in prison for more than two years in Iran, have 20 days to appeal their convictions on charges of illegal entry onto Iranian territory and espionage."
New York Times: "Six months after the outbreak of the revolt against his 42 years in power, Col. ’s hold on his Tripoli stronghold shows signs of slipping. Residents of Tripoli, the capital, who for months had hesitated to talk openly over the phone, said in calls Friday night that they believed Colonel Qaddafi’s flight or ouster could be imminent." ...
... Guardian: "Muammar Gaddafi's 41-year grip on power in Libya looked more precarious than ever on Friday night, as rebel forces advanced on the capital from three directions after breaking out of the once-besieged town of Misrata.... Gaddafi's army outside Tripoli is trapped in a series of besieged and shrinking enclaves, with rebels controlling more than two thirds of the country." ...
... Al Jazeera has a liveblog on Libya here.
New York Times: " said on Saturday that it would recall its ambassador to , the latest development that threatened to undermine a decades-old cold peace between the two countries that had begun to fray since the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt." ...
... New Lede: "Diplomats scrambled to avert a crisis in relations between and on Saturday, and the Israeli government issued a rare statement of regret for the killing of three Egyptian security officers by an Israeli warplane."
New York Times: "Federal officials and lawmakers, along with the drug industry and doctors’ groups, are rushing to find remedies for critical shortages of drugs to treat a number of life-threatening illnesses, including bacterial infection and several forms of .... So far this year, at least 180 drugs that are crucial for treating childhood leukemia, breast and , infections and other diseases have been declared in short supply — a record number."
New York Times: "After nearly two decades in prison for the murder of three young boys, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., commonly known as the West Memphis Three, stood up in a courtroom here on Friday, proclaimed their innocence even as they pleaded guilty, and, minutes later, walked out as free men.... An award-winning documentary, 'Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,' was released after their convictions, bringing them national attention."
Guardian: "Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, has been ordered by a court to reveal who instructed him to access the voicemails of model Elle Macpherson and five other public figures, including Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader. Mulcaire is due to reveal these details by the end of next week in a move that will throw further light on the scale of phone hacking at the now defunct News International tabloid."
Cape Cod Times: President Obama & his daughters went book-shopping in Vineyard Haven before the President headed to the links.
Still Crazy in Arizona. KTAR: "Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has denied that he 'promised' Tea Party leaders in Arizona to investigate the validity of Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate to determine the president's eligibility for the 2012 election ballot. Arpaio said he met in his office Thursday with a Tea Party group which presented him with 242 signatures asking for the investigation."
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