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The Commentariat -- November 18
Natasha Lennard, the New York Times stringer whom the NYPD arrested when she was covering the Brooklyn Bridge Occupy movement October 2, on why she has quit the mainstream media: "... if the mainstream media prides itself on reporting the facts, I have found too many problems with what does or does not get to be a fact — or what rises to the level of a fact they believe to be worth reporting — to be part of such a machine." ...
... In my column in today's New York Times eXaminer, I study David Brooks' sudden affinity for populism:
In his column in today’s New York Times, David Brooks lashes out at European elites.... It is for ... Wall Street moguls that Brooks has turned populist for a day. It is not for you.
... the New York Times eXaminer front page is here.
Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Total up the systemic failures in law enforcement and public policy that led to the devolution of our once-vibrant middle-class democracy, and is it any wonder that people took to the streets and sparked a movement to remake our country? Occupy Wall Street’s challenge ... is to channel its rage and hopes into strategies that will alter the course of American capitalism. As the great organizer Bayard Rustin put it, from protest to politics." ...
... Juan Gonzalez in the New York Daily News: "They aren’t going anywhere. During a long and turbulent day of street protests, the ragtag rebels of Occupy Wall Street served notice that their two-month-old movement against the nation’s big banks and corporations is now stronger than ever."
... Greg Sargent: Quinnipiac’s polling director, Maurice Carroll, thinks the Occupy movement may be the reason support has grown for a millionaires' tax to help balance the New Jersey state budget. Quinnipiac reports that, "To balance the state budget, New Jersey voters support 64-28 percent the so-called Millionaire’s Tax, up from a high of 55-34 percent February 10." Sargent writes, "Readers, it’s time to start documenting little tells like this one from around the country. If you see anything in your states or districts that capture the ways the debate is shifting, please send them my way." ...
... BUT -- Here's a Surprise -- Matthew Goldstein & Jennifer Ablan of Reuters: "The cognitive disconnect between the protesters and the captains of finance is alive and well.... In conversations with nearly two dozen current and former bankers, finance professionals and money managers across the United States, the prevailing sentiment is that the anger at Wall Street's elite is misguided and misdirected. Blame the politicians and policymakers in Washington, many of them say...."
Steve Benen: Republicans are hammering President Obama because the national debt just exceeded $15 trillion. So let's see how we got here. Benen has a nifty timeline that begins with President Reagan. And there's this more recent history, expressed in a bar graph:
Much Ado about Nothing?
Paul Krugman: "So the supercommittee will fail — and that’s good. For one thing, history tells us that the Republican Party would renege on its side of any deal as soon as it got the chance.... Also, any deal reached now would almost surely end up worsening the economic slump." ...
... CW: Krugman does not explain, however, the automatic or "sequestered" cuts that are to take effect when the supercommittee fails. For that, Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution has the short answer, which I also linked in yesterday's Commentariat:
... the law calls for a sequester that ... would cut spending $1.2 trillion, half from defense and half from nondefense.... CBO estimates that the proportion borne by discretionary programs would be 71 percent and the proportion borne by nonexempted mandatories would be 13 percent (with the remainder taking the form of debt service savings).... Those who are willing to accept such cuts should worry about the likely effects on our competitiveness, on the disadvantaged, on public safety, on veterans, and on the ability of the federal government to responsibly administer a wide variety of laws and programs in a way that does not lead to greater fraud and abuse. ...
... CW Update: it turns out the future may not be nearly as bad as Sawhill suggests. Rather, as Jay Newton-Small of Times lays out, if the SuperCommittee fails to reach agreement, as is more than likely, Congress could take any number of paths. Newton-Small finds the following the path most likely to be taken:
On Monday night, after U.S. markets close and after both sides hold outraged press conferences blaming each other for failure, supercommittee members slink out of town, joining their colleagues for Thanksgiving break.... The committee hopes no one, especially Wall Street and the ratings agencies, notices. Some time in 2012, lawmakers find a way to avoid the sequestration either by enacting tax reform or repealing the sequestration or some combination. ...
... AND Lori Montgomery & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "If the congressional 'supercommittee' cannot agree on a plan to tame the federal debt by next week’s deadline, as now appears likely, here’s what will happen: nothing. The automatic spending cuts that were supposed to force the panel to deliver more palatable options would not take effect until January 2013. That leaves lawmakers a full year to devise alternatives." ...
... Michael Tomasky in the Daily Beast on the GOP "deficit reduction" plan: "The actual Republican position as of this writing submits to $250 billion in semi-phony revenues but seeks to add $3.7 trillion to the 10-year deficit. And the supercommittee is a panel that, remember, is charged with reducing the deficit. This is more politics by hostage-taking, just like during the debt-ceiling fiasco.... They want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.... They’ve said to the Democrats, in other words, that they will agree to minor revenue increases now, but only on the firm condition that the Democrats accept depleting the Treasury by 15 times as much over the next decade." ...
... MEANWHILE, Most Americans Don't Care. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: "In a Politico/George Washington University national poll, 50 percent — yes, half the country! — said they were 'not at all familiar' with the supercommittee while 38 percent said they were only 'somewhat familiar' with it. That means that almost nine out of every ten Americans lack even the vaguest notion of what the supercommittee is — much less what its tasked with doing.
It's not democracy. It's Di Giorno. -- Jon Stewart, on how pizza became a vegetable ...
... Mary Clare Jalonick of the AP: "... Congress wants pizza and french fries to stay on school lunch lines and is fighting the Obama administration's efforts to take unhealthy foods out of schools. The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year.... Food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes and lobbied Congress.... The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now."
Monday. I’m going to be in Portland in the morning. I’m going to be visiting some of our labs in California in the afternoon. That’s two. I can’t remember what the third thing is. -- Nancy Pelosi, in response to Rick Perry's request to debate her Monday
Justin Gillis of the New York Times: "At least some of the weather extremes being seen around the world are consequences of human-induced and can be expected to worsen in coming decades, a United Nations panel reported on Friday."
Right Wing World
The Double Life of an Historian/Opinion Writing Salamander. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: gee, it turns out Newt Gingrich was "advising" quite a few corporate clients, even though this very same Newt Gingrich is running for president as the "Washington outsider" former Speaker of the House. Speaking of "history," the history of his relationship with the Gundersen Lutheran Health System provides a nice insight: First Newt takes their money; then he writes a pro-Gundersen op-ed (without revealing his financial relationship with them); then -- a whole few weeks later -- when his op-ed position became unpopular with the GOP base, he just reversed his position. Somehow, I don't think he returned Gundersen's money. Advice to Gundersen: do not trust a creature who slithers out from under rocks. ...
... Dan Eggen of the Washington Post has a startling lede & more hilarious details: "A think tank founded by GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich collected at least $37 million over the past eight years from major health-care companies and industry groups, offering special access to the former House speaker and other perks, according to records and interviews.... The health center advocated, among other things, requiring that 'anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year must purchase health insurance or post a bond,' a type of insurance mandate that has since become anathema to conservatives. The group also pushed proposals to build centralized electronic medical records and use such data to research treatment effectiveness, both central features of President Obama’s health-care reforms." In other words,NewtCare looks a lot like RomneyCare looks a lot like ObamaCare.
Just Joking. Again. Maybe. Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Herman Cain says he was kidding when he said he had asked Henry Kissinger to serve as his secretary of state in a hypothetical Cain administration. 'Dr. Kissinger turned my offer down to be secretary of state,' Cain told the Milwaulkee-Journal Sentinel’s editorial board in a video clip published Monday.... Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon earlier told reporters that Cain was joking and had not asked Kissinger to serve in his administration. On the campaign trail in Iowa on Tuesday, Cain avoided questions about Kissinger on Tuesday; that is, until he was told that his campaign had said he was joking...." With video. ...
... AND Cain advocates for the dumbing-down of the presidency:
We need a leader, not a reader. -- Herman Cain, Anti-Intellectual-in-Chief
... Via Adam Sorensen of Time
... Mark Preston & John King of CNN: "Presidential candidate Herman Cain will receive protection from the United States Secret Service, the agency confirms to CNN. Cain will be the first [2012 GOP presidential] candidate ... to be placed under the protection of this federal law enforcement agency.... Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan ... told CNN that the Cain campaign requested coverage, and the review found that it met the criteria. It is not yet clear why Cain is getting Secret Service protection." ...
... CW: Oh, I don't know. Maybe this is why: Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "Lately..., physical skirmishes involving the press ... [have] emerged from the fever-pitch of the Cain road show."
Local News
United Republic, a campaign-finance-reform coalition, on how SuperPacs are about to take Wisconsin. as both sides gear up for a recall of Gov. Scott Walker. Walker spent $300K for ads in the first week alone.
Howard Fischer of the Arizona Daily Star: "The Arizona Supreme Court ruled late Thursday that Gov. Jan Brewer illegally fired Colleen Mathis from the Independent Redistricting Commission.... They said Brewer can oust a commissioner only for substantial neglect of duty or gross misconduct, and nothing the governor alleged in her letter firing Mathis rises to that level. Commission spokesman Stuart Robinson said the order means Mathis is once again chairing the five-member panel. Thus, she can call a meeting to decide what to do next with the draft congressional and legislative maps the commission had approved before her firing -- maps that Brewer and Republicans want changed." Thanks to Fred D. for the link.
News Ledes
AP: "Days after losing the job he held for nearly a half century, former Penn State coach Joe Paterno was diagnosed with a treatable form of lung cancer." ...
... ABC News: "The lawyer for accused Penn State child molester Jerry Sandusky said today he can defeat a potential prosecution by attacking the credibility of key witness Mike McQueary and the accounts of two alleged victims."
Al Jazeera: "Tens of thousands of Islamist and secular protesters have gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square and in Alexandria for a mass rally to press the ruling military to hand power to a civilian government." With video.
AP: "The House is voting on a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, a step some see as the only way to fix a Congress deeply divided over how to put its fiscal affairs in order." ...
... Reuters Update: "A measure that would amend the Constitution to require the government to balance its books each year fell short in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday. By a vote of 261 to 165, largely along party lines, the bill fell short of the two-thirds majority that constitutional amendments need to pass the House and Senate."
New York Times: "Hours before Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most prominent democracy campaigner, announced her return to formal politics on Friday, disclosed that he was sending Secretary of State on a visit there next month, the first by a secretary of state in more than 50 years."
AFP: "President Barack Obama Friday seized on Boeing's biggest-ever deal for commercial jets as a multi-billion dollar vindication of his bid to mine booming Asia for American jobs. Obama officiated as the US aviation giant signed a deal to build at least 230 medium-range 737s worth $21.7 billion for Lion Air, a regional carrier based in Indonesia, where he is attending an East Asia summit."
AP: "Pope Benedict XVI is making his second trip to Africa, where he plans to outline the church's future for the continent with the fastest growing number of faithful. Even in Benin, the heartland of the voodoo tradition, the number of Catholics has grown by nearly half in the past decade, adding more than half-a-million converts."
Los Angeles Times: "Thirty years after Natalie Wood died off Santa Catalina Island, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced Thursday that it was reopening the investigation into one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries. Wood, 43, was boating off the island on Thanksgiving weekend 1981 with her husband, Robert Wagner, fellow actor Christopher Walken and others when she somehow went overboard and died. Officials at the time ruled her death an accident, but there has been much speculation since over whether there was more to the story." ...
... AP Update: "Actor Robert Wagner is not a suspect in the 30-year-old drowning of his actress wife, Natalie Wood, and there is nothing to indicate a crime, even though the investigation has been reopened, a sheriff's detective said Friday.... Officials would not say why they were taking another look at the case, although the captain of the boat where the couple had stayed blamed Wagner for Wood's death."
Occupy around the U.S. in yesterday's Day of Action:
... Occupy Wall Street Journal: "Tens of thousands took action Thursday, November 17 to demand that our political system serve all of us — not just the wealthy and powerful. The NYPD estimated [Thursday] night’s crowd at 32,500 people, at the culmination of the day of action. Thousands more also mobilized in at least 30 cities across the United States. Demonstrations were also held in cities around the world."
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