The Commentariat -- August 21
Maureen Dowd: "President Obama ... shouldn’t be driven by the Washington schedule. He should be setting it. At long last, he promised a clear economic plan. Unfortunately, he had the fierce urgency of next month, when Congress gets back to town. Americans are rattled and want action. They don’t know or care what Congress’s schedule is. They just see the president not doing anything." ...
... I've posted a Dowd page on Off Times Square.
Kraft Foods Will Be Watching You. Shan Li & David Sarno of the Los Angeles Times: "The commercial applications of facial recognition are in contrast to those being used by law enforcement to identify specific individuals. Companies, at least at this point, mostly just want to pinpoint a demographic based on age and gender to tailor their ads. But even this facial recognition-lite alarms privacy advocates, given that it could greatly popularize and expand use of the technology."
Right Wing World
Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman makes his case & attacks his opponents. The full interview, which is a Web extra:
Who Do That Voodoo? The GOP Do. Greg Ip of the Economist in a Washington Post op-ed: "The economic ideology of the Republican Party has changed in recent years.... Liberals and conservatives in the United States ... have largely agreed that the government should have at least some role in smoothing out the ups and downs of the business cycle — what economists call 'macroeconomic stabilization,' that is, containing inflation in good times and boosting employment in bad. But this is the consensus that many Republicans in effect now reject.... They almost surely have it wrong."
The fact is, government doesn’t create jobs, otherwise the last two-and-a-half years of stimulus would have worked. -- Rick Perry, lying through his teeth ...
... Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: With a young and fast-growing population, a large and expanding military presence and an influx of federal stimulus money, the number of government jobs in Texas has grown at more than double the rate of private-sector employment during Perry’s tenure.... Last June, private-sector employment in Texas declined by 0.6 percent while public-sector jobs increased by 6.4 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, government employees account for about one-sixth of the workforce in Texas. The significant role of government in Texas’s relative prosperity stands in stark contrast to the 'go-it-alone' image cultivated by Perry, who credits a lack of government interference for fostering a business-friendly environment in Texas."
... The stimulus did not work, obviously all it did was create more debt in this country. It didn’t create any jobs, as far as I can tell, except for maybe those federal regulators that were increased. -- Rick Perry, lying though his teeth ...
... Marie Diamond & Travis Waldron of Think Progress: Rick Perry has "accepted more stimulus money than any other state besides California, and used the funds to close 97 percent of Texas’ massive budget deficit. The Houston Chronicle reported that as of July 2010, federal stimulus funds created or saved 47,700 jobs in the Lone Star State.... So far, Texas has used $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money to keep schools open, ensure Medicaid coverage for children, and put more people to work on infrastructure projects.... Ironically, Perry once aggressively pursued the federal aid he now denounces...." Thanks to Bob M. for the link.
... Pay to Play. Nicholas Confessore & Michael Luo of the New York Times: "Over three terms in office, [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry’s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry’s ascent."
Paul West of the Los Angeles Times: Rick Perry's "campaign released a video in which the Texas governor strides toward the camera in chaps, ready to saddle up. Asked to distinguish himself from his predecessor, George W. Bush, he replied, 'I went to Texas A&M. He went to Yale.' That class-conscious contrast — brash populist versus starchy elite — plays most acutely against fellow Republican Mitt Romney, the literal son of the Republican establishment who embodies the party's upper-crust past." You can see Perry's campaign ad here.
Byron York of the Washington Examiner: "Former Bush advisor Karl Rove says he believes former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will enter the Republican presidential race sometime around Labor Day. Appearing on Fox News Saturday morning, Rove said Palin 'has a schedule next week that looks like that of a candidate, not a celebrity.' Rove also cited a new campaign-style video Palin has released on her recent visit to the Iowa State Fair as evidence Palin is gearing up for a run."
News Ledes
New York Times: "The lawyer for the woman who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault said on Sunday that he would formally ask the judge overseeing the criminal case to disqualify the Manhattan district attorney’s office from the prosecution and appoint a special prosecutor."
New York Times: "For the first time in months, witnesses in Tripoli reported heavy fighting across the capital late Saturday night, even as rebel forces claimed to have encircled the city by taking major towns to its east, west and south." Al Jazeera story here. Al Jazeera's liveblog on Libya is here. ...
... New York Times Update: "Rebels surged into the Libyan capital Sunday night, meeting only sporadic resistance from troops loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and setting off raucous street celebrations by residents hailing the end of his 42 years in power. The rebel leadership announced that insurgents had captured two of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons, including Seif al-Islam, his heir apparent. The leadership also announced that the elite presidential guard protecting the Libyan leader had surrendered." ...
... Al Jazeera Update: "International leaders have urged Muammar Gaddafi to concede defeat in his struggling to hold onto power in Libya as scenes of celebration broke out in central Tripoli as rebels advanced into the heart of the capital. 'Tonight, the momentum against the Gaddafi regime has reached a tipping point. Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant,' said US President Barack Obama. Obama also called on the opposition Transitional National Council, which Washington recognises as Libya's legitimate governing authority, to demonstrate leadership, respect human rights, preserve the institutions of the Libyan state and move towards democracy." ...
... CBS News Update: "A rebel leader told Al Jazeera that Qaddafi has refused to surrender, and that his guards shot at rebels as they were closing in, killing one of them. There are many rumors, but the truth of Qaddafi's whereabouts are currently unknown."
Huh. More than 6,000 Years Old? New York Times: "A team of Australian and British geologists have discovered fossilized, single-cell organisms that are 3.4 billion years old and that the scientists say are the oldest known fossils on earth."
AP: "Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs."
AP: "Militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired a barrage of rockets and mortars on southern Israel early Sunday, striking an empty school and a dozen other targets, as U.S. and Egyptian diplomats were scrambling to keep the new convulsion of Israeli-Palestinian violence from escalating." ...
... Haaretz: "Members of Knesset from Israel's leading opposition party, Kadima, urged the cabinet on Sunday to launch a military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the barrage of rockets that struck Israel over the weekend and the deadly terrorist attack that predeced on Thursday."
Cape Cod Times: President Obama ... attended a party at the Oak Bluffs home of Charles Ogletree yesterday evening. "Ogletree, a frequent summer visitor on the island [of Martha's Vineyard], is a well-known law professor who taught both the president and first lady Michelle Obama when they were students at Harvard Law School, according to pool reports, which indicated that about 100 people attended the party."
... CBS News Update: "President Obama embarked Sunday on what looked like vacation by normal standards: a morning at the beach with his wife and daughters and a (partial) round of golf on a local course. But first, the administration announced it believed the Muammar Qaddafi's regime, amidst rebel advances on the Libyan capital, was not long for this world."