The Commentariat -- September 5

President Obama speaks about jobs at an AFL-CIO Labor Day rally in Detroit:

     ... Here's a transcript of the President's remarks. New York Times: "President Barack Obama said Monday that congressional Republicans must put their country ahead of their party and vote to create new jobs as he used a boisterous Labor Day rally to aim a partisan barb at the GOP."

Utah Phillips sings Joe Hill's "There Is Power in a Union":

I've posted a Krugman comments page on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I have commented. The Times has again held back our comments, so you'll have to read them here. ...

... "Fatal Distraction." Paul Krugman, in his regular column: "... by obsessing over a nonexistent threat [the deficit], Washington has been making the real problem — mass unemployment, which is eating away at the foundations of our nation — much worse. Although you’d never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs. The deficit obsession has blocked a much-needed second round of federal stimulus, and with stimulus spending, such as it was, fading out, we’re experiencing de facto fiscal austerity. State and local governments, in particular, faced with the loss of federal aid, have been sharply cutting many programs, and have been laying off a lot of workers, mostly schoolteachers. And somehow the private sector hasn’t responded to these layoffs by rejoicing at the sight of a shrinking government, and embarking on a hiring spree." ...

... Paul Krugman recommends this article by Kevin Hall of McClatchy news: "Politicians and business groups often blame excessive regulation and fear of higher taxes for tepid hiring in the economy. However, little evidence of that emerged when McClatchy canvassed a random sample of small business owners across the nation.... None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath." ...

... But, Krugman notes the facts have no impact on the punditocracy, as economic expert Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pontificated on ABC's "This Week" about ruinous business regulation & the NLRB, and actual (right-wing) economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin repeated his oft-told tale of doom, "We're about to be Greece!"

NEW. Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute writing in Salon, argues that Democrats should mount a primary challenge to President Obama, whom Stoller considers a disaster who has "ruined the Democratic party.... His failures have come precisely because Obama has not listened to Democratic Party voters. He continued idiotic wars, bailed out banks, ignored luminaries like Paul Krugman, and generally did whatever he could to repudiate the New Deal. The Democratic Party should be the party of pay raises and homes, but under Obama it has become the party of pay cuts and foreclosures. Getting rid of Obama as the head of the party is the first step in reverting to form."

Bob Reich in TruthOut: "The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday no jobs were created in August. Zero. Nada.... In reality, worse than zero. We need 125,000 a month merely to keep up with population growth. So the hole continues to deepen.... If this doesn’t prompt President Obama to unveil a bold jobs plan next Thursday, I don’t know what will. The problem is on the demand side. Consumers (whose spending is 70 percent of the economy) can’t boost the economy on their own. They’re still too burdened by debt, especially on homes that are worth less than their mortgages. Their jobs are disappearinig, their pay is dropping, their medical bills are soaring. And businesses won’t hire without more sales. So we’re in a vicous cycle."

Mikoto Rich & John Broder of the New York Times review actual data on whether or not environmental regulations kill jobs and whether or not offsetting factors -- gosh, like not killing people -- outweigh any loss of jobs.

To See Ourselves as Others See Us. "America's Self-Inflicted Decline." Former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser in Al Jazeera: "If the broad post-World War II prosperity that has endured for six decades comes to an end, both the United States and Europe will be responsible. With rare exceptions, politics has become a discredited profession throughout the West. Tomorrow is always treated as more important than next week, and next week prevails over next year, with no one seeking to secure the long-term future. Now the West is paying the price. President Barack Obama’s instincts may be an exception here, but he is fighting powerful hidebound forces in the United States, as well as a demagogic populism, in the form of the Tea Party, that is far worse -- and that might defeat him in 2012, seriously damaging the United States in the process." ...

... John Lanchester in the London Review of Books: "The discipline of macro-economics was born out of the study of the Great Depression, in an attempt to understand what had happened and avoid a repetition. That’s why it’s so depressing to see the developed world not just sleepwalking towards another recession, but actively embracing policies which make it more likely. Governments can’t all simultaneously cut spending while also continuing to grow their economies: it just defies common sense to think they can." CW: this is a longish essay, & longish essays on fiscal policy can be mindnumbing to many of us, but Lanchester -- a journalist & novelist -- keeps it lively. His thesis, which I presume is only partially tongue-in-cheek, is that the West would be way better off if we were all more like Belgium, which has been without a government for 15 months and therefore without a goverment like all the other Western governments that have initiated brilliant "belt-tightening" policies to strangle economic growth. Via Brad Plumer of the Washington Post, who adds a few yeah-buts, but generally supports Lanchester's thesis.

The End of the U.S. Postal Service? Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.... [Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe, has been pushing a series of painful cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers — nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force — despite a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts. The post office’s problems stem from one hard reality: it is being squeezed on both revenue and costs."

Prof. Harold Pollack on why the downwardly mobile in Chicago have tuned out politics. "But President Obama and others can lay the foundation for an angry but civil liberal populism to provide an alternative to passivity and the Tea Party." CW: as if.

Green Shoot. CW: Old news, but news to me: Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air, made a statement expressing "disappointment" in President Obama's decision to table new clean-air ozone limits, and said, in a press release, "This decision leaves me with more questions than answers. To that end, I intend to hold a hearing in the Clean Air Subcommittee with White House officials to explain these actions and the possible ramifications."

A little essay from Driftglass: "From Birtherism to Death Panels, the Modern Conservative agenda in the Age of Obama has been nothing but reckless swine and calculating traitors grabbing whatever heavy object they could lay their hands on and heaving it into traffic, hoping to cause a wreck. In other words, a relentless, national program of premeditated sabotage at a time of war and national economic emergency. And don't even get me started on their fucking governors."

Right Wing World *

** Veteran Republican Congressional Staffer Mike Lofgren in TruthOut on why he retired. CW: This is perhaps the most insightful & important bit of prose written by a Republican since Dwight Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. Lofgren doesn't have kind words for Democrats or the both-sides-do-it media phonies, but he uses his insider knowledge to expose the GOP's rotten core. Truly a must-read. Many thanks to Walt W. for the link.

Politico Live: "Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann on Sunday shifted her explanation for her poorly received campaign trail riff about a deadly hurricane and the Virginia earthquake being divine efforts to get Washington politicians to cut spending." It was "a joke"; now it's "a metaphor."

* So bad even some Republicans can't stand it.

News Ledes

AP: "While [Tropical Storm] Lee's winds have lost some of their punch, forecasters warn that its slow-moving rain clouds pose a worse flooding threat to inland areas with hills or mountains in the coming days. Flash flood watches and warnings were in effect across a swath of the Southeast early Monday, stretching from the lower Mississippi Valley, eastward to the Florida Panhandle and the southern Appalachians, according to the Hydrometeorological Predication Center."

New York Times: "Global stocks ... [are] posting steep declines [today] amid worries about the health of the U.S. economy and Europe’s sovereign debt woes."

AP: "Rebel reinforcements arrived outside one of Moammar Gadhafi's last strongholds in Libya on Monday, even as the forces arrayed against the toppled dictator gave the town a chance to surrender and avoid a fight. Thousands of rebels have converged on Bani Walid, a desert town some 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli. Gadhafi has been on the run since losing his capital last month."

Al Jazeera: "Scuffles broke out inside and outside the courtroom as the trial of Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, resumed in Cairo with police witnesses expected to reveal details about a crackdown on protesters that left hundreds dead. Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros said that court proceedings were halted just 40 minutes into Monday's session as lawyers for the prosecution and the defence had to be separated by police.At least 12 people were arrested outside the army academy where the trial is taking place as pro- and anti-Mubarak groups clashed, and some threw stones at riot police."