The Commentariat -- September 30

I have a comments page up on Off Times Square, the subject of which is President Obama & Civil Liberties. Write on this or something else.

[Anwar] Al-Awlaki was born here, he’s an American citizen, he was never tried or charged for any crimes. To start assassinating American citizens without charges - we should think very seriously about this.... If the American people accept this blindly and casually, that we now have an accepted practice of the President assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys, I think it’s sad. -- Rep Ron Paul (R-Texas) ...

... Glenn Greenwald: "After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and it was the U.S.).  It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its."

Yesterday I linked to a New York Times op-ed by Fred Bergsten, an Assistant Treasury Secretary under Jimmy Carter, who wrote that reducing the U.S. trade deficit would greatly improve the U.S. economy and the jobs situation; lowering the trade deficit would, in effect, be a tax-free stimulus. David Dayen of Firedoglake gets into the weeds on legislation that has been floating around Congress, some of which is about to come up for a Senate vote, that -- by imposing tariffs on China -- would move toward doing exactly what Bergsten proposes. But, oh, there are impediments, as Dayen explains, even though members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have favored such legislation in the past. ...

... Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post cites academic studies that demonstrate the disastrous effect China has had on U.S. jobs -- and why the legislation is needed. Among the findings: "Between 2001 and 2010, the U.S. trade deficit with China cost Americans 2.8 million jobs.... Most of those jobs — 1.9 million — were in manufacturing.... As China’s productivity soared during the past decade, the value of its currency should have risen correspondingly. Instead, China purchased dollars..., [thus] depressing the yuan and making Chinese exports about 28 percent cheaper than they would be if the yuan had been allowed to appreciate...."

News You Can Use. Ann Carrns of the New York Times: "Starting Saturday, big banks must comply with a new regulation that caps the fees they can charge merchants for processing debit card purchases. But some consumers are already seeing the impact of the change, in the form of higher fees charged on their checking accounts, as banks seek to recoup lost revenue. Bank of America is the latest bank to say it will begin charging a monthly fee for checking accounts that use debit cards. Starting early next year, the bank will charge $5 a month, in any month that the customer uses a debit card to make a purchase." (Emphasis added.) Here's a more detailed NYT article on the same subject. ...

Plum Island. AP photo.More News You Can Use, If You Want to Buy an Island. Edward Wyatt of the New York Times: "Deep within President Obama’s proposals to raise revenue and reduce the deficit lies a method that has garnered bipartisan support, something rare in Washington these days. It involves selling an island, courthouses, maybe an airstrip, generally idle or underused vehicles, roads, buildings, land — even the airwaves used to broadcast television. Among the listings: Plum Island, N.Y., off the North Fork of Long Island, which the government has already begun marketing as 840 acres of 'sandy shoreline, beautiful views and a harbor.' As former home to the federal Animal Disease Center, it may need a bit of 'biohazard remediation,' making it a real fixer-upper."

Paul Krugman: "Despite what Republican presidential candidates are saying, regulation and taxes are not responsible for America’s weak job growth." ...

... In a blogpost, Krugman asks: "If fear of future regulations and taxes is holding business back, as everyone on the right asserts, why didn’t the Republican victory in the midterms set off a surge in employment?" ...

... Meanwhile, Some of the Newly Unemployed Don't Have to Worry. "Pay for Failure." Eric Dash of the New York Times: "The eye-popping severance package continues to thrive in spite of the measures put in place in the wake of the financial crisis to crack down on excessive pay.... Last week, Léo Apotheker was shown the door after a tumultuous 11-month run atop Hewlett-Packard. His reward? $13.2 million in cash and stock severance, in addition to a sign-on package worth about $10 million.... At the end of August, Robert P. Kelly was handed severance worth $17.2 million in cash and stock when he was ousted as chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon.... A few days later, Carol A. Bartz took home nearly $10 million from Yahoo after being fired...."

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones takes a more nuanced position on President Obama's failure to be a civil libertarian than did Jonathan Turley in the L.A. Times op-ed linked in yesterday's Commentariat. While Serwer concedes that the Obama polices are no different from Bush's (Turley says Obama's policies are worse than Bush's), he notes that Obama, unlike Bush (for much of his tenure), has Congressional cover. That is, Bush just did what he did, while Obama is acting under Congressional authority. Serwer cites New York Times reporter Charlie Savage:

... once Congress adjusted statutes late in the Bush years to kind of retroactively approve what the government had been doing, the rule of law concerns sharply diminished. But the civil libertarian concerns remained. Now we know that Obama was not the civil libertarian many of his supporters hoped he would be; he was just a rule of law guy.

... Savage's speech, delivered at a Harvard Law-Brookings forum on "Law, Security & Liberty" on September 17, 2011, is here. If you have 40 minutes to listen to Savage, it will be 40 minutes well-spent:

Steve Benen adds to John Dickerson's post linked yesterday on the criticism (by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and others) that President Obama has not shown "leadership": Benen writes, "... the president’s critics are raising the wrong complaint. For the right, the criticism should be that Obama may be an effective leader, but he’s effectively leading the nation in a liberal direction they disapprove of. For the left, the criticism should be that Obama isn’t leading the nation to the left quickly or aggressively enough. But to characterize him as a passive bystander is absurd."

Nathaniel Popper of the Los Angeles Times: "The race is on to tap one of the most vital sources of campaign cash — Wall Street — and the early results are not looking good for President Obama. The president's campaign struggled this week to sell out a fundraising dinner Friday at Manhattan's gilded Four Seasons restaurant despite its being hosted by America's No. 1 capitalist, Warren Buffett.... The dinner for 100 was also a relative bargain at $10,000 a plate; recent fundraisers in Hollywood and New York have gone for $35,800 a pop." ...

... Justin Elliott of Salon has a rundown of the big-bucks donors to Republicans & Democrats who will make their money talk in 2012.

The Obama Strategy. Jackie Calmes & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "With his support among blue-collar white voters far weaker than among white-collar independents, President Obama is charting an alternative course to re-election should he be unable to win ... industrial states traditionally essential to Democratic presidential victories.... What buoys Democrats are the changing demographics of formerly Republican states like Colorado..., Virgnia and North Carolina. With growing cities and suburbs, they are populated by increasing numbers of educated and higher-income independents, young voters, Hispanics and African-Americans, many of them alienated by Republicans’ Tea Party agenda." ...

... BUT Ron Brownstein & Scott Bland of the National Journal: "New census data show that the Great Recession and its aftermath have battered virtually every state in the nation — and that some of the heaviest blows have landed on states that may loom the largest in the 2012 presidential election."

Kathleen Hennessey of the Los Angeles Times: "The group that powered Joe Miller, Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell to Republican primary victories is back in action. Tea Party Express, the California-based political action committee, has endorsed Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock in his bid to unseat six-term Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar."

Right Wing World

... right to work is the way to go if you want good jobs. -- Mitt Romney, claiming that states that don't allow "closed shop" unions create more and better jobs

Josh Hicks of the Washington Post fact-checks Romney's assertion: "Romney’s remarks appeared rooted in actual Labor Department data, even though he spouted some numbers that didn’t match his own analysis. Regardless, the former governor exaggerates the importance of these statistics, and he fails to acknowledge that factors other than labor laws play a role in determining job growth. Romney earns two Pinocchios for his claim that 'good jobs' and job growth result from right to work laws. His statistics are technically correct but his reasoning is too simplistic and ultimately could be misleading to ordinary people."

Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post on Rick Perry's misplaced regrets: "I'm sorry for the things I said that might cost me votes."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris will no longer take part in a national foreclosure probe of some of the nation's biggest banks, which are accused of pervasive misconduct in dealing with troubled homeowners. Harris removed herself from talks by a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies investigating abusive foreclosure practices because the nation's five largest mortgage servicers were not offering California homeowners relief commensurate to what people in the state had suffered, Harris told The Times on Friday."

AP: "The Pentagon has decided that military chaplains may perform same-sex unions, whether on or off a military installation. The ruling announced Friday by the Pentagon's personnel chief follows the Sept. 20 repeal of a law that had prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military."

President Obama spoke at an event honoring outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen late this morning. Voice of America: "U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey will be sworn as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Friday. President Barack Obama will be in attendance when the 37-year veteran becomes the nation's top uniformed officer, replacing retiring Navy Admiral Mike Mullen. Mr. Obama nominated Dempsey to succeed Mullen in May, only a month after Dempsey assumed the post of chief of staff of the Army."

** New York Times: "In a significant and dramatic strike in the campaign against Al Qaeda, the Defense Ministry [in Yemen] said American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading figure in the group’s outpost in Yemen, was killed on Friday morning. In Washington a senior Obama administration official confirmed that Mr. Awlaki was dead. But the circumstances surrounding the killing remained unclear. It was not immediately known whether Yemeni forces carried out the attack or if American intelligence forces, which have been pursuing Mr. Awlaki for months, were involved in the operation." ...

     ... ** Updated Lede: "Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who was a leading figure in Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate and was considered its most dangerous English-speaking propagandist, was killed in an American drone strike that deliberately targeted his vehicle on Friday, officials in Washington and Yemen said. They said the strike also killed a radical American colleague traveling with Mr. Awlaki who edited Al Qaeda’s online jihadist magazine." (Emphasis added.) ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Yemen’s official news agency reported that the young Web-savvy American thought to be behind Inspire, a magazine for Al Qaeda, was killed in the same Friday strike that killed the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The report, citing an unnamed defense official, said the man, Samir Khan, was killed in the strike, along with two other people, and identified him as an American citizen and a computer specialist."

Washington Post: "Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged Thursday making the final decision to allow [Solyndra,] a struggling solar company, to continue receiving taxpayer money after it had technically defaulted on a $535 million federal loan guaranteed by his agency.... Also Thursday, a law enforcement official confirmed that the criminal probe of Solyndra is focused on whether the company and its officers misrepresented the firm’s finances to the government in seeking the loan or engaged in accounting fraud."

Washington Post: "After a remarkable run as the most successful atom smasher in the world, the Tevatron — a four-mile underground ring about 50 miles west of Chicago — will smash no more. At 2 p.m., Pier Oddone, director of Fermilab, the Energy Department facility that operates the Tevatron, will command the shutdown of the mammoth machine. Operators will switch off dual beams of particles that have been colliding since 1985, sprouting terrific sprays of fleeting particles that offered a glimpse of the subatomic world."

The Hill: "Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, at the moment Democrats in Congress don't have enough votes to pass President Obama's jobs bill, but Durbin added that that situation would change." The WLS Radio report is here.

Can You Hear Us Now? Crain's New York: "The city's most experienced agitators — the labor and community groups that typically organize local marches, rallies and sit-ins — have been largely missing from the Occupy Wall Street protest.... But that's about to change. A loose coalition of labor and community groups said Thursday that they would join the protest next week.... The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks...."

Los Angeles Times: "Pakistani political leaders meeting Thursday in the capital [Islamabad] denounced U.S. allegations that the country's premier spy agency assisted insurgents in attacking American targets in Afghanistan, but also stressed the need to keep lines of communication open with Washington."