The Commentariat -- August 17, 2012

Presidential Race

If the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more — neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign. -- Jim Messina, Obama campaign manager to Matt Rhoades, Romney campaign manager; via Greg Sargent ...

... As Steve Kornacki says, "an offer Mitt will definitely refuse" ...

... Update from Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "Mitt Romney's presidential campaign Friday rejected a new call from the Obama campaign to release five years of tax returns, while trumpeting a surge in support for the Republican ticket since Romney chose Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate."

John Stanton of BuzzFeed: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office isn’t backing down from its charges Mitt Romney may have not paid taxes over the years and demanding he release a decades worth or returns -- despite Romney's assertion Thursday that he's paid at least 13 percent in taxes over the last decade. 'We'll believe it when we see it. Until Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, Americans will continue to wonder what he's hiding. Romney seems to think he plays by a different set of rules than every other presidential candidate for the last thirty years, all of whom lived up to the standard of transparency set by Mitt Romney's father and released their tax returns," Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson told Buzzfeed ... Thursday." ...

David Firestone of the New York Times: "At some level, Mr. Romney doesn't seem to understand that voters don't automatically trust the assurances and promises of politicians. He and his wife seem genuinely shocked that they are being pressed to provide paperwork.... This haughty trust-me attitude -- why can't we escape these pestering questions and run on our own obvious goodness and decency? -- extends to the rest of Mr. Romney's campaign."

... Ezra Klein: "I find it a bit difficult to believe that Romney has paid more than 13 percent every year.... One thing he could be doing when he says he paid more than 13 percent every year for the past 10 years is referring to the rate he paid on his taxable income as opposed to his [adjusted gross income]. That would make it easy for him to say that he paid more than 13 percent, but he wouldn't have paid more than 13 percent by the normal standards of accounting." ...

... David Dayen: "Also, there's the matter that 13% is an obscene federal income tax rate for someone with the income of a Mitt Romney." Dayen's whole post is quite good. ...

... CW: one aspect of Romney's MYOB statement I meant to zero in on yesterday was: "But every year I've paid at least 13 percent and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, well the number gets well above 20 percent." First, the "gifts to charity" are of course tax deductions, so his charitable giving is a loss to the government. Second, we know from the part of his 2010 tax returns he's released that the Romneys' contributions to "charity" are overwhelmingly to the Mormon Church. So every year he is literally taking millions from Washington & sending it to Salt Lake City. Third, it is notable that in Romney's mind, paying taxes to the federal government & more-or-less tithing to his church are kinda the same thing. He seems incapable of separating church and state. That is not surprising -- his faith teaches that Jesus made a special post-resurrection trip to the U.S. & that the U.S. Constitution is a sacred document. The First Amendment, from this point-of-view, would be a sacrilege. And I would guess anything other than an originalist interpretation of the Constitution would be, too.

Ginger Gibson of Politico: "... after the 10-minute and 11-second news conference [yesterday], Romney shed no new light on how he would overhaul the 47-year-old federal health care program for senior citizens and how (or if) his program differs from that of his running mate's much-maligned proposal that is part of an effort to slash the federal budget deficit." CW: Gibson all but says Romney either doesn't know what he's talking about or he's obfuscating. This is a straight news story. ...

... Sam Baker of The Hill: "Republicans insist they're playing offense on Medicare and argue the fall campaign will prove that Democrats do not have the upper hand on the issue.... [Ryan's] budget proposals for the past two years kept the $716 billion in Medicare cuts that he is now attacking, while repealing the rest of the healthcare law. That has led to an awkward handful of news cycles in which Romney had to distance himself from his new running mate's embrace of Medicare cuts.... Democrats argue the Ryan pick has shifted the focus from jobs to Medicare, where they feel they have the advantage, while muddling Romney's Medicare attack against Obama. And neither Republican is making a detailed pitch for his Medicare plan."

... Kate Pickert of Time has a good explanation of what the ObamaCare cuts actually do. "The idea ... that the Affordable Care Act struck a dangerous blow to Medicare that will change the program in fundamental ways is untrue. Under the new law, Medicare will remain a wildly popular, public single-payer health insurance system that provides comprehensive coverage to millions of Americans."

New York Times Editors: "A careful presidential campaign would put distance between itself and a businessman like [Sheldon] Adelson [whose business is under investigation for a number of possibly illegal activities]. Instead, this one is cultivating him. Mr. Romney recently met with him in Israel, and Mr. Ryan this week paid homage to him and other big donors in a private casino for high-rollers on the 36th floor of Mr. Adelson's Venetian hotel. By allowing Mr. Adelson to have such an outsize role in their race, the candidates themselves are placing a very risky bet.

I'm not one [of those] people who votes for something then writes to the government to ask them to send us money. I did not request any stimulus money. -- Paul Ryan, 2010

In 2009, Ryan wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis asking for stimulus money to cover costs on two energy conservation projects in his home state of Wisconsin. In the letter, Ryan said the funds would help create jobs and reduce 'energy consumption' in the state. At least one of the companies received the requested cash. -- Gregory Krieg, ABC News

I never asked for stimulus. I don't recall … so I really can't comment on it. I opposed the stimulus because it doesn't work, it didn't work. -- Paul Ryan, Wednesday

After having these letters called to my attention I checked into them, and they were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security or Veterans Affairs are handled. This is why I didn't recall the letters earlier. But they should have been handled differently, and I take responsibility for that. Regardless, it's clear that the Obama stimulus did nothing to stimulate the economy, and now the President is asking to do it all over again. -- Paul Ryan, yesterday in a statement

Watch, especially, Maddow's discussion with Ezra Klein, which begins at about 12:30 in.

... Alan Semuels of the Los Angeles Times: reporters keep hounding Paul Ryan on why he's just flip-flopped on major positions he's held for years. ...

... Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "Ryan has built his image on being a straight-talking intellectual statesmen who is willing to fight for what he thinks is needed, regardless of the political costs. This is likely part of the reason why Romney, who suffers from a perception of being overly malleable, selected Ryan as his VP." CW: so how's that workin' out for ya, Paul?

Sandra Fluke, in an NBC commentary, lists some of the stunning "anti-woman" votes Paul Ryan has cast. Fluke's larger point is that "Ryan's record on women's issues is so far outside the mainstream that many find it unbelievable.... If voters assume no one could be that bad, and don't learn the truth about Ryan's record, Romney/Ryan will have the opportunity to put their vision for women's health and economic security into action." ...

     CW: This is a problem on other issues -- like their planned cuts to social welfare programs. The other day I made a comment on Politico (I think it was) where I mentioned George Bush's unfunded wars. I got the same response Fluke did -- people wrote in saying things like "prove it." (I did, in a follow-up comment.) People who take the trouble to read and comment on political articles obviously are actively interested in politics. Yet many are woefully ignorant. Millions of voters probably view GOP policies as "too bad to be true."

Fun & Games with Paul Ryan. Matt Miller of the Washington Post teaches you on how to recognize when altar boy Paul Ryan is lying. (Yeah, I know -- when his lips are moving.) Miller is really offended.

     ... CW: The video Miller links to crashed my Adobe Flash program 5 times. The 2-minute clip that (I think) the Miller-linked video covers begins 4:50 into the video below. I watched the whole segment; despite his best effort, Hume was never able to get Ryan to give truthful answers to his major questions:

I mean, I think that he's a practical conservative. He's got a very conservative voting record, but he's not a knuckle-dragger, all right? -- John Boehner, in praise of Paul Ryan ...

... CW: Digby has a very substantive post on Boehner & Ryan. But what struck me was the gaffiness of Boehner's remark. He is calling his teabagger buddies "knuckledraggers." Since Boehner made his comments on Fox "News," they probably were all watching. I don't think dissing his knuckledragger caucus improves Boehner's chances of retaining his leadership position.

Paul Harris of the Guardian looks into "Opsec," the group that is swiftboating President Obama.

Andy Borowitz publishes Paul Ryan's "Song of Himself." Apologies to Walt Whitman. Thanks to Kate M. for the link.

@alan: not sure about that:

Congressional Races

Alex Koppelman of the New Yorker uses moderate Republican Chris Shays' whopping defeat to wrestler lady Linda McMahon in Connecticut's U.S. Senate Republican primary as inspiration for a review of the state of the Congress -- and the polarization of the nation.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The first criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood came to an abrupt end Friday when Kansas prosecutors dropped all charges against a local affiliate accused of failing to determine the viability of fetuses before abortions were performed."

New York Times: "The anxieties of an unexpected landing in war-ravaged Syria were compounded for passengers on an Air France flight when they were asked by the crew if they couldn't possibly, you know, come up with some cash to help out with the refueling."

AP: "Unemployment rates rose in 44 U.S. states in July, the most states to show a monthly increase in more than three years and a reflection of weak hiring nationwide."

Salon: "In a decision as predictable as it was stomach-churning, three members of the Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot were found guilty Friday of hooliganism for a protest in a cathedral last winter. The judge declared that they had engaged in 'homosexual propaganda' and 'imitated demonic attacks.' The women, Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova -- who have already spent six months in jail -- received a sentence of two years imprisonment." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "At his daily briefing, White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the administration is 'disappointed by the Pussy Riot verdict. While we understand the group's behavior was offensive for some, we have concerns about the way these young women were treated by the Russian judicial system.'"

Guardian: "A major diplomatic row over the fate of the fugitive Julian Assange erupted after the WikiLeaks founder was offered political asylum by Ecuador to escape extradition from Britain over allegations of serious sexual assaults. The [British] foreign secretary, William Hague..., said Assange would be arrested if he leaves the embassy in London where he has lived for nearly two months. Ecuador's decision has also angered the Swedish authorities...."

AP: "A federal court on Thursday gave five Florida counties four extra days of early voting in this fall's elections. The Republican-controlled Florida legislature last year cut the state's number of early-voting days to 8 from 12. But the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the changes won't happen in Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe counties, which are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

AP: "Iraqi officials said Friday that a blistering string of attacks across the country the previous day ultimately killed at least 93 people, as the extent of the violence grew clearer and mourners started to bury their dead."

The Commentariat -- August 16, 2012

My latest column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Ross Douthat's post touting Paul Ryan. The NYTX front page is here.

David Plotz of Slate: in a new book, Michael Grunwald of Time argues that the Obama stimulus "has been an astonishing, and unrecognized, success." Plotz interviews Grunwald.

Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) has an excellent piece in Salon ripping Tim Geithner.

New York Times Editors: the Pennsylvania voter ID "lawsuit was an opportunity to sweep away barriers to full citizenship. Judge [Robert] Simpson should have placed his court on record supporting the country's first principles." He didn't.

Azam Ahmed & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "A criminal investigation into the collapse of the brokerage firm MF Global and the disappearance of about $1 billion in customer money is now heading into its final stage without charges expected against any top executives."

Presidential Race

Flim-Flam Man Flip-Flop-Flip-Flop-Flips. Benjy Sarlin of TPM: Paul Ryan, in his ongoing evolution from active supporter to newfound critic of the Affordable Care Act's $716 billion in Medicare savings, now claims he actually opposed the cuts before he embraced them (and then turned against them again later).... The confusing new wrinkle is the latest example of Ryan's awkward contortions as he tries to reconcile the Romney campaign's new promise to restore the $716 billion in cuts with Ryan's previous decision to include the same exact cuts in two Republican budgets he wrote.... So the score now stands at: Ryan says he wouldn't have cut Medicare. Then Obama made those cuts. Then Ryan voted to reverse them. Then he decided to bring them back in the Republican budget. Now he opposes them and thinks they hurt seniors." Got that? There will be a test.

Greg Sargent: "In a remarkable bit of political theater, Mitt Romney carefully divulged a bit more information about his tax returns, confirming for the first time that for the past 10 years, he has paid at least 13 percent in taxes.... The problem with this response, of course, is that it only gives Dems another hook to call for the release of his returns, by challenging him to prove his claim.... Jay Rosen has dubbed the Romney effort the 'post truth campaign.' It’s also the post transparency campaign. If it works -- and it very well could work -- think of the precedent it will set." With video. ...

... Dan Amira of New York: "All it means is that his tax rate is not the thing that Romney is terrified of showing to the American public."

Number one, I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security. I flat guarantee you. -- Vice President Joe Biden, on Tuesday

Thanks to contributor MAG for calling this to our attention:

Paul Tough has a long piece in the New York Times Magazine titled "Obama & Poverty" that examines how President Obama has dealt with the issue of poverty & looks back at his work as a community organizer. CW: haven't read it yet.

** Dana Milbank: "Forgive me, but I'm not prepared to join this walk down Great Umbrage Street just yet. Yes, it’s ugly out there. But is this worse than four years ago, when Obama was accused by the GOP vice presidential nominee of 'palling around with terrorists'? Or eight years ago, when Democratic nominee John Kerry was accused of falsifying his Vietnam War record? What's different this time is that the Democrats are employing the same harsh tactics that have been used against them for so long, with so much success. They have ceased their traditional response of assuming the fetal position when attacked, and Obama's campaign is giving as good as it gets -- and then some." CW: couldn't agree more. I gagged when I read Dan Balz's stupid piece last night; I purposely didn't link it, but here it is. The gist: it's so wrong to pick on Mitt. (See also Krugman's piece on "demagoguery" below.)

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "... a group of former special operations and C.I.A. officers started a campaign Tuesday night accusing Mr. Obama of recklessly leaking information about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and other security matters to gain political advantage. The new group, called the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund, using shorthand for 'operational security,' describes itself as nonpartisan, but some of its leaders have been involved in Republican campaigns and Tea Party groups. A 22-minute video ... featured on its Web site appears to be aimed squarely at the president, echoing charges made previously by Mitt Romney and other Republicans. The Obama campaign immediately compared the effort to the so-called Swift Boat advertisements against Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign."

Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: Mitt Romney claimed on Wednesday, "'Look, no one is talking about deregulating Wall Street.' Actually, Mr. Romney has made deregulation of Wall Street and 'every street' a central component of his campaign. On the regulation page of his website -- a misnomer; it's really the deregulation page -- Mr. Romney says that 'regulations function as a hidden tax on Americans' and pledges to 'tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed on the economy' by: Repealing the Affordable Care Act, repealing Dodd-Frank, amending Sarbanes-Oxley and providing multi-year lead times before companies must come into compliance with new environmental rules.'"

Paul Krugman writes an excellent post summarizing the Ryan budget plan(s). It's what you need to know.

"The Truth Has a Well-Known Demagogic Bias." Also from Krugman: what's wrong with the conventional Beltway "wisdom"? It assumes -- and asserts -- that GOP plans can't possibly be as bad as they are.

Charles Blow: "... by hammering Romney on his strength, the Obama campaign forced him to make a disastrous choice for a running mate. According to a Gallup report issued on Monday, the response to the Ryan pick 'is among the least positive reactions to a vice presidential choice Gallup has recorded in recent elections.' Score one for Team Obama."

Angie Holan of PolitiFact: "While the [Obama] health care law reduces the amount of future spending growth in Medicare, the law doesn't actually cut Medicare. Savings come from reducing money that goes to private insurers who provide Medicare Advantage programs, among other things. The money wasn't 'robbed.' We rated the statement Mostly False." There's more detail here. ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic also has a simple explanation of a somewhat complex Mediscare flim-flam: "Obama takes money away from the health care industry and uses it to help people pay their medical bills. Some of those people include seniors already getting help with their drug bills and free preventative care. Ryan and, by implication, Romney takes the same money from the health care industry. But they also take away those new benefits for seniors, even as they find room in their tight budgets to cut taxes for the wealthy." ...

... Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: "... Mitt Romney's new promise to restore the Medicare cuts made by President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law could backfire if he's elected.... By repealing [the cuts] Romney would move the insolvency date of the [Medicare] program closer, toward the end of what would be his first term in office.... Obama's cuts were not directly aimed at Medicare's 48 million beneficiaries; instead they affect hospitals, insurers, nursing homes, drug companies and other service providers. Simply undoing the cuts ... would cause Medicare to spend money faster."

... Here's another guy explaining the differences. He's pretty good at it:

... Gail Collins, as usual, isn't very serious. But she gets at one important point: "Ryan's passion for health care cost-cutting is actually not directed at Medicare so much as Medicaid. The seniors who could really take a hit would be the ones in nursing homes who've already run through their own savings." CW: for some reason (Ayn Rand), that guy really has it in for poor people.

Halimah Abdullah of CNN: Speaking to Brit Hume of Fox "News," Paul Ryan goes all wobbly & fuzzy on budget figures.

Tim Egan: "... the true Romney is a phantom -- lost long ago to reinventions and calculations."

What She Said. We have been very transparent to what's legally required of us. There's going to be no more tax releases given. It will only give them more ammunition. There's nothing we're hiding. -- Ann Romney

What She Meant. The lawyers tell us nobody can make us release our returns, so I told Mitt he's releasing those returns over my dead body. The travesties in those returns would bury Mitt. We're not hiding anything -- we're hiding everything. It's our turn, for Pete's sake. -- Ann Romney

There's nothing we're hiding. We just don't want Obama to see our returns because there's plenty of ammunition in them to bury Mitt. (Or something like that.) -- Ann Romney

Here's our next Treasury Secretary Erskine Bowles praising Paul Ryan:

     ... Eric Pfeiffer of Yahoo! News: "A video of former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles began circulating in conservative news outlets today. In the clip, the Democratic co-chair of President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform gives high praises to Paul Ryan's budget plan.... The video was shot on September 8, 2011, but was just uploaded to YouTube yesterday. What's striking is that not only does Bowles, a former U.S. Senate candidate from North Carolina, praise Ryan's effort, but he is also highly critical of the budget offered by President Obama." ...

      ... CW: I am apoplectic over the idea Obama might nominate this guy -- or someone like him -- for Treasury Secretary. I hope this video at least pisses off Obama enough that Bowles is out. Anybody who praises Ryan's arithmetic prowess & calls his budget "sensible, straightforward, honest, serious" is a full-blown idiot who probably can't balance a checkbook, much less a federal budget.

Andy Borowitz found a leaked memo from Romney to Ryan.

Congressional Races

Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Jolted by concerns over the wave of Medicare-themed Democratic attacks sparked by Paul Ryan's vice presidential nomination, House Speaker John Boehner held a Tuesday evening conference call aimed at soothing jittery Republican members...." ...

... Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly: "Unless the jittery Members were among the four House Republicans (one of whom is retiring) who voted against Ryan's budget resolution earlier this year, instead of the 235 who voted for it, then it seems a little cowardly of them to complain about being 'tied' to a bill they voted for so recently. Since the bill represented pretty much the entire GOP agenda for this Congress, I can't imagine they didn't think it would come up on the campaign trail.... Boehner apparently advised them to get right on those talking points about Obama's massive cuts to Medicare, without mentioning they had voted for that, too, in the Ryan budget."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The United Nations Security Council decided on Thursday to terminate the United Nations observer mission in Syria, where the increasingly violent rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad's government has left diplomatic peacemaking efforts paralyzed. But the Council agreed to keep a much smaller United Nations office in the country, holding out hope that a political solution was still possible."

Arizona Republic: "As young undocumented immigrants on Wednesday celebrated the start of a new federal program allowing them to apply to stay and work temporarily in the United States, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer issued an executive order ... that state agencies are required to deny [driver's] licenses and other public benefits to all undocumented immigrants, even those who gain approval under President Barack Obama's new 'deferred action' program.... Earlier in the day, Maricopa County Community Colleges announced that students who get work authorization through deferred action would be eligible to apply for in-state tuition, but hours later, district officials said they would reconsider the decision because of Brewer's order." CW: I hope federal marshals come after her.

Reuters: "South African riot police opened fire on striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine on Thursday, killing at least a dozen men in the deadliest episode of a week of union violence."

Bloomberg News: "The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits was little changed last week, bringing the average over the past month to the lowest level since late March, a sign the labor market has stabilized after employment picked up in July."

New York Times: "The government of Ecuador is prepared to allow Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, to remain in its embassy in London indefinitely under a type of humanitarian protection, a government official said in Quito on Wednesday night. Mr. Assange has been holed up in the embassy for two months seeking asylum." ...

     ... Update: the story has a new lede: "Ecuador forcefully rejected British pressure to announce Thursday that it was granting political asylum to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who has been holed up for two months in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London trying to avoid extradition to Sweden." The Guardian is liveblogging the story.

AP: "The trial for an Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly Fort Hood shooting has been put on hold while an appeals court considers his objections to being forcibly shaved. All court proceedings for Maj. Nidal Hasan were put on hold Wednesday. He had been scheduled to enter a plea. According to a defense motion, Hasan indicated he wanted to plead guilty for religious reasons. Hasan is an American-born Muslim."

Reuters: "The mayor of Dallas declared a state of emergency ... on Wednesday to combat the spread of West Nile virus infections.... There have been more cases of West Nile virus reported so far this year than any year since the disease was first detected in the United States in 1999, the Centers for Disease Control said on its website."

AP: "As Gen. William 'Kip' Ward traveled around the world as the head of the military's U.S. Africa Command, he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in excessive hotel costs and allowed unauthorized family members to travel on his government plane, according to a Pentagon investigation. Ward ... is facing possible demotion for the alleged lavish spending.... It was not immediately clear whether Ward also could face criminal charges."

The Commentariat -- August 15, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is a two-fer, debunking both Joe Nocera's column & Roger Cohen's. What a couple of ignoramuses. The NYTX front page is here.

Mitt Romney Will Give You Bedsores. Really. Julie Creswell & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "... profits at the health care industry giant HCA, which controls 163 hospitals from New Hampshire to California, have soared, far outpacing those of most of its competitors. The big winners have been three private equity firms -- including Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney..., that bought HCA in late 2006.... Among the secrets to HCA's success: It figured out how to get more revenue from private insurance companies, patients and Medicare by billing much more aggressively for its services than ever before; it found ways to reduce emergency room overcrowding and expenses; and it experimented with ways to reduce the cost of medical staff, a move that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over concerns about patient care." Thanks to contributor Calyban for the link.

Presidential Race

** Nicholas Cafardi, former dean of Duquesne University's School of Law, in a Catholic Reporter commentary, argues that President Obama is far more pro-life than is Mitt Romney. Cafardi makes some shocking charges against Romney that make this opinion piece a must-read. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

Maureen Dowd: Paul Ryan is "the cutest package that cruelty ever came in.... Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans? ... Like Mitt Romney, Ryan truly believes he made it on his own, so everyone else can, too. He shrugs off the advantage of starting as the white guy from an affluent family, able to breeze into a summer internship for a Wisconsin Republican senator as a college student.... [CW: his uncle got him the job.] People who intend to hurt other people should wipe the smile off their faces."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Representative Paul D. Ryan's budget blueprint assumes the same amount of Medicare savings as President Obama's health care law, even though Mitt Romney and Mr. Ryan have said those cuts would be devastating to millions of older Americans on Medicare." ...

... Pear doesn't explain this very well. Ezra Klein does a little better, but it's still confusing. Right now, both Obama & RR take about $700BB from Medicare. The difference -- until Romney & Ryan change their minds -- is that Obama re-invests the $$ in other healthcare spending, while RR claim they will use it to pay down the deficit -- which is the same thing as saying it's gone. (Actually, they'll probably spend it on defense contractors.) Oh. And RR are flim-flamming the public. Which goes without saying. ...

... The Secret Plan. Juliet Lapidos of the New York Times has no idea where Romney stands on Medicare. That would be because Romney refuses to say. ...

... CW: news reports suggest Romney decided on Ryan weeks ago, yet he still hasn't come up with a phony, slick way to "explain" how gutting Medicare is really saving it, he & Ryan are in complete agreement, and blah blah. Since Medicare is a major issue, especially for the GOP old fogey base, this is stunning evidence of Romney's inability to govern even himself. As we keep saying, there is something wrong with that guy. ...

... The Secret Plan, Ctd. Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post: "The Romney campaign is willing to discuss its proposals on taxes 'in the light of day,' vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Tuesday evening -- just not until after the election."

The Obama campaign responds to the RR's false claims about Medicare with this Web video:

Alexander Burns of Politico: "Mitt Romney leveled his harshest criticism of President Obama's reelection campaign to date in Ohio Tuesday, declaring that Obama should 'take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.'" CW: I'm not sure how vilifying a major American city is good campaign strategy, by Willard works in mysterious ways. ...

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "The Obama campaign's response -- an emailed statement from Press Secretary Ben LaBolt -- was simple and to the point: 'Governor Romney's comments tonight seemed unhinged, and particularly strange coming at a time when he's pouring tens of millions of dollars into negative ads that are demonstrably false.' ...

... Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Vice President Joe Biden dug in when it came to apologizing for his earlier remark, made at a Virgina campaign event where the AP described the crowd as having a couple hundred African-American attendees, about Republicans and Wall Street wanting to put 'y'all back in chains.'" Biden's clarification:

... Here's what Congressman Ryan said. He said, 'We believe a renewed commitment to limited government will unshackle our economy.' The Speaker of the House said, used the word 'unshackled' as well, referring to their proposals. The last time these guys unshackled the economy, to use their term, they put the middle class in shackles.... I'm using their own words. I got a message for them. If you want to know what's outrageous, it's their policies and the effects of their policies on middle class America.

... David Edwards of Raw Story: John Sununu, "the chairman of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's national steering committee, on Tuesday angrily shouted for [Soledad O'Brien] a CNN anchor to 'put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead' after she tried to fact check Republican claims about Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) plan to overhaul Medicare." CW: Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. Sununu's problem? He can't handle the truth. Watch the exchange. O'Brien demonstrates what journalists are supposed to do -- Bob Schieffer, David Gregory, et al., are you watching?:

Later, O'Brien fact-checked Romney, Sununu, et al.:

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "On the stump, Mr. Romney has spent most of the last year condemning Washington, describing himself as an outsider who would shake up the Capitol and bring a consultant's eye and private-sector experience to the operations of government.... '[Romney] really prides the fact that he never spent a day in Washington and now he’s picked a guy as his V.P. who has never spent a day out of it, in his adult life,' [Obama campaign strategist David] Axelrod said. ...

** ... "Paul Ryan Didn't Build That." Sally Kohn of Salon: "Paul Ryan is a living, breathing GOP example of how public infrastructure and private entrepreneurship work hand-in-hand. Paul Ryan's great-grandfather started a construction company to build railroads and, eventually, highways." The projects the Ryan companies worked on were government-funded. "A current search of Defense Department contracts suggests that 'Ryan Incorporated Central' has had at least 22 defense contracts with the federal government since 1996, including one from 1996 worth $5.6 million.... Paul Ryan very directly and very significantly benefited from the federal spending he now rails against." ...

... Charles Pierce: Ryan's "entire life, and the history of his entire family, makes a lie out of everything the man has said in his political career, and a sham out of every policy position he purports to hold."

Paul Campos in Salon on Erskine Bowles -- admirer of Paul Ryan -- v. Paul Krugman for Treasury Secretary. CW: I wrote to both the campaign & the White House on the Bowles rumor. I got back an inappropriate form letter from the campaign & nada from the WH.

Ha Ha. Michael Linden of the Center for American Progress poses 5 budget questions for the Mittster. What the questions point to is the absolute, positive, total, complete failure of R-money/R-ayn's figures to come within a trillion dollars of adding up.

Fox "News": "Fact Check: Ryan budget plan doesn't actually slash the budget. Here are a few little-known facts about Paul Ryan's supposedly slash-and-burn budget plan.

• Government spending increases almost every year over the next decade. 
• Tax and other revenue rises year after year.   
• The 10-year deficit is still $3 trillion. 

     ... CW: took me a little while to get this up. I fainted when I read the source.

Sam Baker of The Hill: "Rep. Paul Ryan’s record on abortion and contraception could help widen a gender gap that is already hurting Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in several key states.... Romney and Ryan have both staked out staunchly conservative positions on abortion. Ryan, who is Catholic, opposes abortion except when the life of the mother is at risk. Romney believes in additional exceptions for rape and incest.

Bryan Bender & Brian MacQuarrie of the Boston Globe: "In 2009, as Rep. Paul D. Ryan was railing against President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package as a 'wasteful spending spree,' he wrote at least four letters to Obama's secretary of energy asking that millions of dollars from the program be granted to a pair of Wisconsin conservation groups...."

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: Paul Ryan has "... close ties to the donors and activists who have channeled Tea Party anger into a $400 million political machine, financed by a network of conservative and libertarian donors that now rivals, and occasionally challenges, the Republican establishment behind Mr. Romney. Mr. Ryan is one of a very few elected officials who have attended the Kochs' biannual conferences, where wealthy donors sit in on seminars on runaway government spending and the myths of climate change.... He ... spent his formative years immersed in the Republican Party's supply-side wing, working for lawmakers and conservative policy advocates like Jack Kemp. He has appeared for years at rallies, town hall meetings, and donor briefings for groups like the Club for Growth ... and Americans for Prosperity."

Atlas Shuddered. Prof. Jennifer Burns in a New York Times op-ed: Paul "Ryan is ... what [Ayn Rand] called 'a conservative in the worst sense of the word.' As a woman in a man's world, a Jewish atheist in a country dominated by Christianity and a refugee from a totalitarian state, Rand knew it was not enough to promote individual freedom in the economic realm alone. If Mr. Ryan becomes the next vice president, it wouldn't be her dream come true, but her nightmare."

Congressional Races

See also today's Ledes.

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "The fight over Medicare ... is rapidly intensifying in House and Senate races around the nation after the selection of Representative Paul D. Ryan as the Republican vice-presidential candidate. Congressional Democrats and some analysts say that development could transform the fight for control of Congress, given his role as the author of a House-approved budget plan that would reshape Medicare."

Frank Newport of Gallup: "Ten percent of Americans in August approve of the job Congress is doing, tying last February's reading as the lowest in Gallup's 38-year history of this measure. Eighty-three percent disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job."

News Ledes

ABC News: "Ecuadorean officials said today that they would announce their final decision on whether to grant asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tomorrow, but also claimed that the British government had threatened to raid the country's London embassy to get Assange back."

Welcome, Kids. The Future Thanks You. New York Times: "Long lines of illegal immigrants hoping for the opportunity to stay in the United States without fear of being deported stretched for blocks in cities around the country on Wednesday as they sought to apply for a new federal initiative that allows young immigrants to defer deportation."

Washington Post: "A security guard at the Family Research Council was shot and wounded Wednesday morning after a scuffle with a man who expressed disagreement with the group's conservative views in the lobby of the group's headquarters in downtown Washington, authorities said."

New York Times: "A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday refused to grant an injunction on a new voter identification law that Democrats say could harm President Obama's re-election chances by unfairly targeting minorities, college students and others in a key swing state.... The American Civil Liberties Union is expected to appeal the decision to the State Supreme Court, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. A tie would affirm the law."

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Tommy Thompson won a fierce Republican primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday on the theme of electability, as voters agreed with the former governor's claim that he represented the best chance to win the seat in November and help the GOP regain control of the Senate."

Hartford Courant: "Linda McMahon, the former CEO of wrestling juggernaut WWE<, once again won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, crushing former Congressman Christopher Shays by a 3-to-1 ratio."

Miami Herald: "Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson easily won his primary challenge Tuesday, advancing his bid for a third term in the U.S. Senate to the Nov. 6 general election when he'll face conservative Republican U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV...." ...

... AP: "Veteran Republican Rep. John Mica turned back a challenge from tea party freshman Rep. Sandy Adams in their Florida GOP primary Tuesday, but in a surprise, another longtime GOP congressman, Cliff Stearns, was trailing his tea party challenger in the state. Political newcomer and veterinarian Ted Yoho was ahead of Stearns, a 12-term lawmaker, by less than 900 votes.... Yoho's anti-incumbent campaign was helped by a television ad that had actors dressed as politicians in suits eating from a trough alongside pigs and throwing mud at each other." ...

... Palm Beach Post: "Republican U.S. Rep. Allen West and Democrat Patrick Murphy will square off in the Nov. 6 general election for a Palm Beach-Treasure Coast congressional seat after winning Tuesday primaries...."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration will kick off one of the most sweeping changes in immigration policy in decades Wednesday, allowing an estimated 1.7 million young undocumented immigrants to apply for the temporary right to live and work openly in the United States without fear of deportation..... On Tuesday, officials surprised advocacy groups by posting the application forms online one day early. Advocates across the country are planning workshops Wednesday...."

New York Times: "Standard Chartered, the British bank, has agreed to pay New York's top banking regulator $340 million to settle claims that it laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in tainted money for Iran and lied to regulators."