Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc ofcommunities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmedkilled in fivestates since the storm made landfall late Thursdayas a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.
New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”
The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Floridaand two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~
Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”
Help!
To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>
OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.
OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.
Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.
Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.
New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~
~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”
New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”
Click on photo to enlarge.
~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI."
Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”
New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”
Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”
Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."
I've added a comments page on Off Times Square on the judiciary -- that third branch of government we so often ignore, a branch which GOP presidential candidates are only too happy to excoriate.
CW: Why I Think Barack Obama Will Be a Two-Term President:
The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don’t work even harder than we did in 2008, then we’re going to have a government that tells the American people, ‘you are on your own.’ If you get sick, you’re on your own. If you can’t afford college, you’re on your own. If you don’t like that some corporation is polluting your air or the air that your child breathes, then you’re on your own.... I reject an argument that says we’ve got to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from exploiting people who are sick. And I reject the idea that somehow if we strip away collective bargaining rights, that we’ll be somehow better off. We should not be in a race to the bottom where we take pride in having the cheapest labor and the most polluted air and the least protected consumers. -- Barack Obama, at a San Francisco fundraiser ...
... Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.... Obama’s pitch to donors has increasingly sought to raise the stakes for the 2012 race, and the interruptions of resounding applause and handsome fundraising hauls show his message is striking a chord."
In a Q&A with Justin Elliott of Slate, historian Michael Kazin puts Occupy Wall Street in historical context & looks at what the future of OWS may be: "... protests like this have to progress from tactic to strategy if they are going to endure. They have to either start their own organization — as the sit-in movement started SNCC — or link up with other organizations." ...
... Michael Scherer of Time has this video, shot by a protester, of "a protester [Michael Thomas Olsen -- see today's Ledes], who happened to be an Iraq War veteran, was bleeding from the head, having been hit by a projectile of unknown origin. (In addition to rocks being thrown at the time, the police fired non-lethal beanbag rounds and tear gas canisters.) Other protesters ran to his aid. A police officer tossed an explosive deterrant into the crowd. It detonated near to the wounded protester’s head":
... Read Scherer's whole post: "The effect has been devastating for the local mayor, who was already facing a nascent recall effort. In the age of social media, such incidents have enormous viral potential. Nearly a day after the event, Quan, who has gone through several police chiefs in recent months, issued a statement of near complete contrition." ...
... Mayor Quan's statement is here, via the San Francisco Chronicle. Reporters Aimee Allison writes, "Yesterday, the ACLU of Northern California and the National Lawyers’ Guild demanded a full investigation [of the police crackdon on Occupied Oakland]. ...
... Nicholas Kristof: "... while alarmists seem to think that the [OWS] movement is a 'mob' trying to overthrow capitalism, one can make a case that, on the contrary, it highlights the need to restore basic capitalist principles like accountability. To put it another way, this is a chance to save capitalism from crony capitalists." ...
... Jesse McKinley & Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "After weeks of cautiously accepting the teeming round-the-clock protests spawned by Occupy Wall Street, several cities have come to the end of their patience and others appear to be not far behind." ...
... Kate Linthicum, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "More than a month into the Occupy movement, officials are beginning to talk openly of moving protesters out of their encampments in parks and public squares around the country. But many activists show no signs of budging as the movement continues to generate heavy media attention and support from liberal circles. Looming large is the cautionary spectacle of Oakland."
Only the Military Can Create Jobs! Dean Baker: "Faced with the prospect of cuts to the Defense Department's budget, the defense industry is pushing the story of the military spending fairy on members of Congress. They are telling them that these cuts will lead to the loss of more than 1 million jobs over the next decade. Believers in the military spending fairy say things like "the government can't create jobs," but also think that military spending creates jobs.... [Actually,] during a downturn where there are lots of unemployed workers, any government spending will create jobs, regardless of whether or not it is on the military. In fact, military spending is likely to create fewer jobs than spending in most other areas (e.g. education, health care, conservation) because it is more capital intensive. When the economy is near full employment, military spending is a drag on the economy. It pulls resources away from private sector uses...."
Rule of Thumb. Every time President O'Bipartisan agrees to a Republican-backed bill or program, you and/or a decent, deserving neighbor will be screwed. Karen Garcia has two cases on point:
... (1) "... GOP leaders have agreed to pass the most right-wing portion of the president's American Jobs Act: ending a requirement that the government withhold three percent of payments to federal contractors to ensure tax compliance. [See also yesterday's Ledes.] But but but -- only on condition that it becomes harder for poor& people to qualify for Medicaid." Garcia, with a little help from Brian Beutler of TPM, explains how many currently-Medicaid-eligible seniors will have their benefits cut. "... in these times of social unrest and ever widening income disparity, the Democrats still buy into the conservative ideology that programs to further enrich the wealthy must always be paid for by our country's most vulnerable citizens."
... (2) Behind closed doors and in the presence of a phalanx of big corporate CEOs who will benefit from the laws, President O'Bipartisan signed three free trade agreements negotiated by George W. Bush & backed primarily by Republicans in Congress. "... the 250,000 jobs it is forecast to create by Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce boosters will not be American jobs. That's why it was delayed. The Democrats insisted on adding a little token assistance to middle-aged American textile workers who are expected to lose their jobs to 40-cent/hour North Korean wage slaves allowed to work in the DMZ." ...
Just for you literary critics, Charles Pierce of Esquire does a masterful job of analyzing a short paragraph of a Paul Ryan speech, a speech Ryan delivered at the Heritage Foundation, so you know it is loaded with Ayn Randian dog whistles & red meat for the selfish. I came away thinking Ryan should be institutionalized, whether he's massively deceptive or pathetically deluded, he is one sick puppy. ...
Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, 'dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.' Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care? -- Paul Ryan ...
... Paul Krugman: "Just for the record: why is this petty? Why is it anything but a literal description of GOP proposals to weaken environmental regulation and repeal the Affordable Care Act? So Ryan is outraged, outraged, that Obama is offering a wholly accurate description of his [Ryan's] party’s platform.... You really have to be somewhat awed when people who routinely accuse Obama of being a socialist get all weepy over him saying that eliminating protections against pollution would lead to more pollution." ...
... ** Update: Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine has the most complete takedown of Paul Ryan & his crazy worldview. "Ryan cannot process the realities of this world because they are so at odds with the imagined world of his ideology. After his speech, he was asked about the CBO’s report on inequality, and he brushed it off, falling back on Rand-esque lingo the virtuous rich ... and parasitic poor...."
CW: here's a thought: middle-class conservatives are stupid. Some pretty good evidence: Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "Middle-class conservatives have become completely convinced that 'good' tax policies include a flat tax, lower capital gains rates, and repeal of the estate tax, all of which are designed to benefit the rich almost exclusively."
I, like you, get a little incensed when you think about how much good all of you do, whether it’s volunteer hours, charitable giving we do, serving clients and customers well.... To the bank’s critics, I say, 'You ought to think a little about that before you start yelling at us.' -- Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, to BoA employees ...
Nobody cares how upset you are at being yelled at, ace. In 2009, the taxpayers of the United States gave you 20 billion reasons to shut your piehole. -- Charles Pierce, Esq.
New York Times Editors: "The revised No Child Left Behind Act that passed out of the Senate education committee last week goes too far in relaxing state accountability and federal oversight of student achievement. The business community, civil rights groups and advocates of disabled children are rightly worried that the rewrite of the law would particularly hurt underprivileged children."
** E. J. Graff in the American Prospect: "According to the Guttmacher Institute, widely considered the most reliable source of accurate facts on the reproductive debates, nine out of ten abortions take place in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. That’s not a fetus; it’s an embryo — a little cluster of cells smaller than a thumb.... To me, what matters is that new life happens. It doesn’t particularly matter which new life happens, whether human or mushroom.... I find it absolutely impossible to believe that spiritual magic strikes when a sperm fertilizes an egg, divides into a blastocyst, or curls into an embryo. If it’s okay to abstain from sex, or to use contraception, then it’s okay to clean out a uterus of those gathering storm cells as well.... Legislating others’ behavior based on a spiritual belief (and while Larimore says she’s not religious, her justification is still a belief) strikes me as theocratic, even totalitarian."
Dave Weigel of Slate: What Elizabeth Warren & Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrickactually said. Surprise: it isn't what the hit jobs on Warren claim. ...
Susan Saulny of the New York Times: "If Herman Cain feels his management skills are up to any challenge, some of his former staff members think he should have started with the disorder in his own campaign." ...
... Mark Benjamin of Time: Herman Cain's smokin' campaign guru Mark Block has had an unusual political career, marred by a charge of corruption, which he settled.
Paul Wallsten of the Washington Post: "Republicans who are eager to repair the party’s battered image among Hispanic voters and unseat President Obama next year have long promoted a single-barrel solution to their two-pronged problem: putting Sen. Marco Rubio on the national ticket.... But Rubio’s role in recent controversies, including a dispute with the country’s biggest Spanish-language television network and new revelations that he had mischaracterized his family’s immigrant story, shows that any GOP bet on his national appeal could be risky."
ANDthis column might not actually be by Paul Krugman. For one thing, the headshot seems somehow ... different.
Local News
CW: I'm a week late on this, but it's worth noting. AP: "The League of Women Voters sued [last] Thursday to block Wisconsin's new voter photo identification law, arguing that the state constitution clearly only bars children, felons and the mentally incompetent from voting, not people who lack photo IDs. In its lawsuit filed in Dane County [Madison] Circuit Court, the League's state chapter contends that Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-led Legislature had no authority to bar a class of people -- those who don't have an appropriate photo ID -- from voting."
(Fort Myers, Florida) News-Press: "U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, the Republican congressman from Fort Myers, is entering the race for the U.S. Senate." CW: CoMa is my Congressman, so it's nice of him to finally do something for those of us in Southwest Florida -- give us a reason to work to re-elect Sen. Bill Nelson, a ConservaDem.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "The Air Force has been secretly flying armed Reaper drones on counterterrorism missions from a remote civilian airport in southern Ethiopia as part of a rapidly expanding U.S.-led proxy war against an al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa, U.S. military officials said."
Washington Post: "Amid a flurry of counter-proposals from the deficit-reduction committee, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday rejected a Democratic offer to slash $3 trillion from future debts because it contained significant tax increases."
San Francisco Chronicle: California "Gov. Jerry Brown this morning unveiled a 12-point proposal aimed at shrinking the costs of public employee pension benefits in California in part by raising the retirement age for most new employees from 55 to 67."
Guardian: "Scott Olsen, the Iraq war veteran who suffered serious head injuries after being hit by a projectile fired by police during the Occupy Oakland protests, has woken up and is lucid as he awaits surgery, hospital officials and family members have said.... He has been upgraded from critical to fair condition."
The Hill: "A Pentagon official who was being investigated for what whistleblowers called incompetence, extravagant spending, cronyism and 'tyrannical' management has resigned. The Defense Department announced Thursday that Clifford Stanley, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, has submitted his resignation to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta."
Philadelphia Daily News: "Two women accused of participating in the ghoulish, deadly activities inside a filthy West Philadelphia abortion clinic, calmly told a judge on Thursday that they were guilty. The guilty pleas by Adrienne Moton 34, and Sherry West, 52, leave seven defendants to be tried in the ... crimes that took place inside Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Women's Medical Society.... Gosnell, 70, could face the death penalty.... He is accused cutting the spinal cords of seven babies born alive at his clinic. He is also charged with the third-degree murder of Karnamaya Mongar, 41, a clinic patient who died in November 2009 from an overdose of drugs prescribed by Gosnell."
New York Times: "European leaders, in a significant step toward resolving the euro zone financial crisis, early Thursday morning obtained an agreement from banks to take a 50 percent loss on the face value of their Greek debt."
San Francisco Chronicle: "Seeking to cool the violent tone set by Tuesday night's street clashes with Occupy Oakland protesters, police pulled down barricades Wednesday near City Hall, dramatically reduced their presence and said they would allow nightly demonstrations in the area until 10 p.m. Hundreds of protesters responded Wednesday night by packing the amphitheater at Frank Ogawa Plaza, where they voted to hold a citywide general strike on Nov. 2, when workers and students will be urged to stay home to show support of the Occupy movement." AP story here. ...
... Oakland Tribune: "In what appears to be the first serious injury nationwide in the Occupy Wall Street movement, a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran lay in an Oakland hospital Wednesday night with a critical skull fracture, adding a new level of intensity in a mass demonstration that has swept the country and led to clashes with police. Scott Thomas Olsen, 24, of Daly City, was struck in the head above his right eye with a tear-gas canister during a massive confrontation Tuesday night in which protesters threw rocks and bottles at police officers who deployed tear gas and fired bean bags to disperse the crowd of about 1,000." ...
AP: "Young South Africans brought their frustration over poverty and joblessness to the streets Thursday, responding to a call by the tough-talking youth leader of the governing African National Congress who has clashed with older party leaders over economic policy."
AP: "A Palestinian official says the Palestinian presidentwill meet with the leader of the militant Hamas movement next month to discuss uniting dueling governments in the West Bank and Gaza. The meeting will be the first between President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas' Khaled Mashaal since they signed a surprise reconciliation agreement in May."
AP: "The wife of disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff says the couple tried to kill themselves after he admitted to his loved ones that he'd stolen billions of dollars in the largest Ponzi scheme in history."
I've put up a comments page on Off Times Square on Occupy protesters' recent battles with authorities.
Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt. In addition, the report said, government policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, doing less to reduce the concentration of income." CW: What could possibly be wrong with that? The report is here. ...
... ** Cheaters Always Win. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone ticks off a few reasons you're losing & banks are "winning." Well, the banks can't lose: they have a "cheat code." OWS protesters aren't jealous of bankers, as the right claims; they just bank bankers to quit cheating & play by the same rules we 99 Percent do. ...
... ** Kevin Carey in The New Republic: "THE STUDENTS IN ZUCCOTTI PARK are right to focus on the injustices of student debt: Many of them are indentured to the very banks that destroyed the economy and along with it the jobs students need to pay their loans back.... But much of the guilt lies with higher education institutions themselves. They have spent billions on vanity building projects, administrative overhead, and money-losing sports programs in order to compete for status and fame. Students and parents have been left with the bill."
I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. I support what they do. -- Elizabeth Warren, candidate for U.S. Senate, Massachusetts, on the Occupy protests ...
... Greg Sargent: "National Republicans are now attackingElizabeth Warren for embracing the protests.... The conservative effort to turn blue collar whites and independents against the protesters and their broader populist message — exploiting a traditional cultural fault line in our politics — will now unfold in the context of a high profile political campaign." ...
... Prof. James Miller, in a New York Times op-ed, says Occupy's "fetishization of participatory democracy" may allow extremists to hijack the Occupy movement, as happened in the protest movements of the 1960s. CW: Miller is pretty dismissive of the protesters, but we did see this "democratic process" occur in Atlanta, where protesters decided not to allow civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) to speak. I watched video of the Lewis battle, & frankly, I thought the protesters were beyond naive & foolish. Their "reason" for not allowing Lewis to speak: some didn't want to privilege one person over others. Well, there was no reason others couldn't speak, was there? ...
Thanassis Cambanis of The Atlantic: Tahrir Square = Liberty Park, Manhattan? Not exactly.
Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: Here's the headline & subhead: "Obama jobs plan vs. GOP proposal: No comparison, really. Obama's American Jobs Act would raise economic demand and boost employment, while Republicans' Jobs Through Growth Act would do little except protect corporate profits." Hiltzig writes, "The GOP plan is shot through with measures aimed at protecting corporate profits, including a cut in the corporate tax rate, attacks on the power of unionized workers, the repeal of financial regulations and incentives for U.S. corporations to repatriate overseas earnings. In job-creating terms, these are entirely beside the point.... One big element of the GOP plan ... is enactment of a balanced budget amendment. If that got passed during this period of economic strain, [an expert economist] said, 'it would be catastrophic.'" ...
... Mark Drajem & Catherine Dodge of Bloomberg News: "Republican presidential candidates have accused [President] Obama of stifling job creation by imposing rules on businesses, and House Republicans have vowed to rein in proposed regulations on everything from the environment to health care to banking." BUT "Obama’s White House has approved fewer regulations than his predecessor George W. Bush at this same point in their tenures, and the estimated costs of those rules haven’t reached the annual peak set in fiscal 1992 under Bush’s father, according to government data reviewed by Bloomberg News." ...
... Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: Mitt Romney's chief economic advisor Glenn Hubbard tells the Wall Street Journal & NPR that Obama's revamped mortgage assistance plan "could be a very big deal" and is "a good plan." Hubbard would like the plan, of course; it is based largely on his ideas. CW: let's see how Romney manages to twist this one.
CW: I've watched only Part 1 of Leno's interview of President Obama, & it's actually substantive. I'll check out the rest later:
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: No, Barack Obama 2012 is not analgous to Harry Truman 1948: for one thing, the economy was improving when Truman narrowly won re-election.
David Rogers of Politico: "With time running out, House and Senate leaders are inserting themselves more into behind-the-scenes deficit talks, exchanging proposals and trying to help the so-called supercommittee avert the threat of a $1.2 trillion across-the board spending cut if no agreement is reached.... The level of activity goes well beyond what has been reported to date with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid taking the lead in reaching out to Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a series of recent meetings. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the two co-chairs of the panel, participated in the closely guarded discussions last week, and Boehner Tuesday hosted a meeting in his office with both House and Senate Republicans on the 12-member panel."
Right Wing World
The Real Story Hiding behind the Border Fence. Both Republican David Frum & libertarian Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic say the GOP presidential candidates are outdoing each other with badder & badder border fence plans (Bachmann: build a double wall! Cain: electrocute some Mexicans!) as a base-pandering subterfuge: in fact, these pro-business Republicans are vehemently opposed to workplace enforcement -- a practice that would actually cut down on illegal immigration. Frum notes that: "Herman Cain [is] a past chief lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, one of the most powerful of the anti-enforcement lobbies in Washington." Thanks to Haley S. for the link. Haley would "love to see someone challenge Cain's present 'electric fence' position and his work with the National Restaurant Association." CW: me too.
I don't care about that. -- Rick Perry, when asked about the millions in tax benefits his flat-tax plan would provide for wealthy taxpayers
Great for the Rich/Bad for the Poor. Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ... today released some details on his flat tax proposal. The plan would give Americans the option of determining their taxes based on an alternate system that has one tax rate and fewer deductions." According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, "the highest-income households (at the 99th percentile) in every structure of family analyzed always benefit from opting into the Perry plan.The poorest households, on the other hand, do not. That’s primarily because the Perry plan, at least as currently described, does not seem to have refundable tax credits. The lowest tax liability a family can have under the family plan is $0, whereas under current law families that are poor enough can actually have a negative tax liability." With chart. ...
... "Thanks for Nothing." Clive Crook of The Atlantic states the obvious: besides the fact that Perry's flat tax isn't flat, "The comical thing is that this new tax would be voluntary: taxpayers could choose to be taxed under the existing code if they preferred. This is simpler? To know which code saves you money, you would obviously have to calculate your taxes under both systems. You or your adviser would still have to comprehend the "carve-outs that make the current code so incomprehensible". Maybe if you opted for the Perry tax you would be able to file on a postcard -- but before making that choice you'd need to do your taxes the old way first." ...
... James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute. Oh, and Perry's plan would raise much less revenue than is raised under the current tax code. ...
... Note to Perry:
Mitt Takes the Fifth. Greg Sargent: "Today, Mitt Romneyrefused to take a position on the big battle in Ohio over the ballot initiative to repeal Governor John Kasich’s law rolling back the collective bargaining rights of public employees. The fight is a hugely important one to conservatives, with right wing money flowing into the state, and conservative bloggers erupted in fury at Romney, asking how it is that he can be running for president when he isn’t willing to take a firm stand against the scourge of public employees." It now appears likely voters will repeal the anti-union law. ...
... BUT. He Was For It Before He Was Whatever. Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "The really strange thing about Romney's decision to hedge this morning is that in the past he has explicitly endorsed at least one of the [two initiatives]." BUt again. Even though he wouldn't take a position, he was in Ohio specifically to thank Kasich volunteers. Read the details. Romney's pretzeling is beyong comprehension. ...
... AND That's Because.... Steve Benen: Mitt Romneydoes not have the courage to take a stand on anything that might rattle the crazies, like Rick Perry's new foray into birtherism: "Romney criticizes Perry comments all the time. But when Perry dabbles in unhinged conspiracy theories, the Romney campaign prefers to remain silent." ...
... Mitt Romney, Avatar of America's Decline. Joe Conason in the National Memo: since Mitt Romney has had to disavow his experience as governor of Massachusetts, where his signature achievement was the GOP horror of universal health coverage, a/k/a RomneyCare, he has made his business acumen his qualification for the presidency. But at Bain Capital, Romney specialized in mergers & takeovers that "led to worsening economic inequality, executive recklessness, stock manipulation, and a laser-like focus on the short term -- in short, all of the ills that underlie American economic decline. Those same incentives have been trained on the political system to ensure decisions that benefit those same overpaid, seemingly sociopathic bankers and investors -- now known as the 'one percent.'" ...
... The Economist says Romney as capitalist superman was not as super as his admirer/detractor Benjamin Wallace-Wells claimed in the lo-o-o-ong New York Magazine piece I linked a few days ago.
Daniel Stone of the Daily Beast: "Herman Cain, the multimillionaire businessman who has made tax fairness a central part of his surging presidential campaign, missed paying his state income taxes for 2006 while undergoing treatment for cancer, prompting Georgia to file a tax lien against him that wasn’t settled until late 2008.... The Republican’s campaign ... portray[ed] the unpaid taxes as an oversight while Cain was undergoing cancer treatment and the state’s lien as an excessive response that shows the need for tax reform."
Michael Sheridan of the New York Daily News: a "strange Herman Cain ad" is found "hidden" on YouTube; Cain's campaign manager is featured smoking a cigarette:
... "This Is Herman Cain Boning up on Foreign Policy!" Prof. Daniel Drezner in Foreign Policy: "Every time I think I'm done picking on Herman Cain's absence of foreign policy thought, his campaign pulls me back in! ... This story clearly represents the Cain campaign's efforts to push back on the notion that he doesn't know enough about foreign affairs. And so we get ... the following:
Almost every day, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is handed a one-page briefing from his chief foreign policy adviser on news from around the world....
... This kind of spin on Cain's foreign policy interest ... is just f***ing absurd."
... AND Herman Cain remains solidly pro-choice even in the same paragraph he says he's "pro-life from conception." Read his position(s) here. This has to be some sort of Acme of Double-Speak. Is there an award for that?
Unbelievable! Pat Robertson says the Republican base is pushing its presidential candidates to take positions that are "too extreme." For those of you unfamiliar with Robertson, he's a televangelist whom Marie Diamond of Think Progress describes as "one of the most radical, hate-spewing figures in America":
Alex Leary of the St. Pete Times has a recap of Sen. Marco Rubio's shifting story on the immigration of his Cuban parents to the U.S. Bottom line: Rubio's parents were a non-political couple who came to the U.S. seeking permanent residence in 1956. They were not political exiles who fled Castro's Cuba as Rubio claimed on his official Senate biography. Castro's revolution forces did not take over Cuba until January 1, 1959.
News Ledes
Boston Globe: "Alan Khazei, at one point favored to win the Democratic primary to challenge US Senator Scott Brown next year, is withdrawing from the race."
President Obama spoke on college affordability at in Denver today. Christian Science Monitor: "President Obama on Wednesday is launching a new plan to lower the cost of paying back student loans for millions of borrowers – the latest installment in his bid to move a jobs agenda that bypasses a gridlocked Congress. At nearly $1 trillion, federal and private student loans now exceed US credit-card debt, posing a formidable repayment burden for many borrowers at a time of near-double digit unemployment." ...
... New York TimesUpdate: "President Obamaon Wednesday ended a three-day Western trip that was heavier on politics than policy, rallying thousands of college students whose enthusiasm belied the struggle he will have to win this state again in 2012."
New York Times: "Federal prosecutors are expected to file criminal charges on Wednesday against Rajat K. Gupta, the most prominent business executive ensnared in an aggressive insider trading investigation, according to people briefed on the case.... The case against Mr. Gupta, 62, who is expected to surrender to F.B.I. agents on Wednesday, would extend the reach of the government’s inquiry into America’s most prestigious corporate boardrooms." ...
... AP Update: "A former Goldman Sachs board member on Wednesday surrendered to federal authorities to face criminal charges stemming from a massive hedge fund insider trading case.Rajat Gupta was taken into federal custody, but the charges were not immediately disclosed."
Oakland Tribune: "Occupy Oakland demonstrators clashed all over downtown Oakland on Tuesday night with police who lobbed tear gas at least three times in futile attempts to fully disperse the more than 1,000 people who took to the streets after the early-morning raid of the movement's encampment. The rolling protest came about 12 hours after hundreds of police from across the Bay Area rousted about 300 people from the two-week old camp at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Tensions escalated after protesters vowed to return to the plaza, which was left with tents overturned and food, carpet, personal belongings and mounds of trash strewn on the lawn."
New York Times: "New fissures and disagreements emerged on Tuesday on the eve of a European Union summit meeting promoted as the moment for agreement on a comprehensive solution to the two-year-old euro crisis. Crucial financial measures were left unresolved, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy faced strong opposition inside his governing coalition to major changes demanded by the Europeans." ...
... AP Update: "The European Central Bankhas loaned euro56.9 billion ($65.3 billion) to 181 banks for a year as part of its efforts to steady the banking system against the turmoil of the eurozone debt crisis. The 371-day loans announced Wednesday give eurozone banks a chance to lock up all the funding they want for longer than the usual 3-month maximum and reduce uncertainty about their finances."
AP: "NATOpostponed a definite decision to end its bombing campaign in Libya as consultations continued Wednesday with the U.N. and the country's interim government over how and when to wind down the operation. Last week, the alliance announced preliminary plans to phase out its mission on Oct. 31. NATO's governing body — the North Atlantic Council, or NAC — was expected to formalize that decision Wednesday."
AP: in Seoul, South Korea, "U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday called North Korea a 'serious threat' and told U.S. troops that the Pentagon will strengthen its presence in this region to guard against North Korean provocations."
AP: "The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs — a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War. The final components of the B53 bomb will be broken down Tuesday at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo.... The completion of the dismantling program is a year ahead of schedule ... and aligns with President Barack Obama's goal of reducing the number of nuclear weapons."
I've posted an Open Thread for comments on today's Off Times Square.
Chris Matthews, Sam Stein & John Heilemann compare President Obama & Mitt Romney's approaches to governance:
... Andrew Leonard of Salon asks, "Can Obama fix Geithner's housing bust?" As Zach Goldfarb oulined in the Washington Post (see yesterday's Commentariat for link), "The responsibility for the failure to move aggressively to help struggling homeowners ... gets blamed fairly definitively on the treasury secretary. Geithner was consistently more worried about the health of the financial sector than he was about the housing sector and actively discouraged Obama from diverting resources toward helping homeowners.... [Maybe] the Obama administration is finally getting its act together and tackling the real problems. But it’s much easier to look at the plan and say 'too little, too late,' than to nod along with the mantra 'we can’t wait.'” ...
... "Can Obama fix Geithner's housing bust?" Apparently not. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The federal government’s expansion of a mortgage refinancing program could reduce the monthly payments of up to one million homeowners, but analysts said the modest scope of the plan meant it would probably do little to heal the housing market or help the broader economy." ...
... Derek Kravitz of the AP: "The Obama administration is hoping at least 1 million [underwater] borrowers will take advantage of its refinancing program under more lenient rules unveiled Monday. Homeowners who are current on their payments will be eligible to refinance no matter how much their home's value has dropped. Still, it's unclear how many borrowers will benefit. Lenders will remain under no obligation to refinance a mortgage they hold." ...
... The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don't live here anymore. -- Dean Edward Hill of Cleveland State University, on poverty in the suburbs ...
... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The poor population in America’s suburbs ... rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations. The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010."
CW: maybe it's inevitable, given the realities of politics & policy, but Michael Scherer of Time makes the case that Obama has gone from being a transformational candidate to a transactional one. The hopey-changey thing? It's now he hopes he can win re-election.
Manhattan-based brand consultant David Intrator discusses the nature of the Occupy Wall Street movement. TruthDig reporter Alexander Reed Kelly tells how he met Intrator. Share this one with your conservative friends! Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link:
New York Times Editors: "... Community Board 1, which represents residents and businesses in Lower Manhattan, is expected to vote Tuesday evening on a resolution that endorses the right to protest and opposes 'the use of excessive and unnecessary force by the City of New York' or the owners of the park, Brookfield Properties. (The resolution also endorses the extension of the 'millionaire’s tax' in New York State to soften cuts to education and other services.) The community calls on everyone involved, including protesters and elected officials, to address the problems this event has created around the park." CW: hope they also suggested port-a-potties & other sanitation aids. ...
... Arun Gupta of Salon: In three deindustrialized cities [-- Allentown, Pennsylvania, Youngstown Ohio, & Toledo, Ohio --] Occupy protesters find friendly cops, determination and despair." ...
Richard Cohen, who is the Washington Post's idea of a liberal -- i.e., he's a David Brooks-type blowhard -- goes looking for anti-Semitism in Zuccotti Park & can't find any of it, despite the best effort of wingers, especial Bill Kristol, to decry OWS as an anti-Semitic movement. "The smear is in deadly earnest, a reminder that the devious tactics of the Old Left have been adopted by the New Right. (No accident, maybe, that the practitioners are the descendants of lefties.)" Cohen still thinks Occupy Wall Street is a stupid diversion, "a conspiracy to have left-leaning writers make jackasses of themselves by imparting grave and grand meaning to what is little more than a vast sleepover."
Brian Beutler of TPM: a report issued by the Government Accountability Office "implies ... that ... repealing ObamaCare would consign us to swift, ugly fiscal and health care crises. The health care reform law will extend subsidized private health insurance to millions of Americans, paid for with new taxes and Medicare savings. But it also included numerous demonstration projects and reforms intended to rein in the growth of health care costs, and thus Medicare spending. Some of them have great promise — if they can survive." CW: this is something the CBO & independent economists have also emphasized: if you want the deficit to skyrocket while killing off & sickening millions of Americans, let Republicans repeal the ACA. Every Republican candidate for president has promised to do that -- Mitt Romney claims he would do so on his first day in office, evidently figuring he can just executive-order a Congressional law out of existence.
One More Time. In case you were still thinking maybe Joe Nocera was half-right (his half-witted column is here) about Democrats being responsible for the bad blood in the Senate on accounta Teddy Kennedy's picking on that nice Robert Bork, Driftglassshould shut down your last lingering pro-Nocera brain waves.
Right Wing World
The "I'm Crazier than You" Primary, Con'd. Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perryhas released an economic plan full of long-held conservative goals, including personal accounts for Social Security, an optional flat tax, major spending cuts and a series of tax cuts. The 'Cut, Balance and Grow' plan, which Perry first unveiled in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and will formally announce in a speech in Gray Court, South Carolina on Tuesday, puts Perry to the political right of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the GOP presidential race." Perry's Wall Street Journal op-ed is here. ...
... Update. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Rick Perry’s decision to embrace a flat tax as a central part of his economic plan, as several other Republican candidates have, is providing an opportunity for President Obama’s campaign. The president’s advisers are eager to characterize the advocates of a flat tax as shills for the wealthy in the United States.... That’s just what his campaign argued in a new memorandum issued Tuesday morning by Mr. Obama’s policy director, James Kvaal. Kvaal's memo is here (pdf). ...
... Perry Bacon & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Welcome to Rick Perry 2.0. The Republican Texas governor is retooling his presidential campaign, shuffling staff and touting a bold but controversial new tax plan, hoping to rebound from a recent plunge in the polls." ...
... Yep. And as part of his "retooled" campaign, Perry thinks it's "fun" to remind his troglodyte base that Obama might not be a legitimate president because he was born in the black African nation of Kenya. Who wouldn't want a president with such a great sense of humor?
... Dana Milbank: "If at first you don’t secede, try the birther movement. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who more than once has dipped his cowboy boot into the secessionist swamp, has found a new outlet for his fringe instincts. The Republican presidential candidate has revived questions about President Obama’s birth certificate." ...
... What a Chump! Steve Kornacki of Slate: "Flirting with birtherism has always been an awful play for a politician with national ambitions, an easy way to get yourself tagged as a fringe figure.... That Perry has faded so badly in the polls this fall is a direct result of the skepticism and even hostility from GOP elites that his performance has provoked." ...
... So Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post wonders, "how long can Romney refrain from embracing the crazy?"
AP: "Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann’s former New Hampshire staffers say they were deceived and treated as second-class citizens before they quit in frustration last week. In a news release, the five former staffers said ... they could not continue working for her because her national campaign team had been 'rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel' to them and 'abrasive, discourteous, and dismissive' of the state’s voters."
Their storyline is that there must be some villain out there who’s keeping this administration from succeeding. -- Mitch McConnell, on Democrats
... After running through more than a year's worth of McConnell's promises to sandbag the President, Steve Benen thinks he knows who the villain is. ...
... Here Lewison rolls the videotape. "So Mitch McConnell went on CNN's State of the Union yesterday and claimed Republicans haven't been obstructing efforts by Democrats and the Obama administration to take action on the jobs crisis. Either he was lying through his teeth, or there's a really good Mitch McConnell impersonator on YouTube who's been saying the exact opposite for the past three years:
Senate Republicans Call for More Gridlock. Jamison Foser of Media Matters: "... after years of gridlock caused by Republicans filibustering nearly everything — even jobs bills in the middle of an unemployment crisis ... two Republican senators, Jeff Sessions (AL) and Olympia Snowe (ME), want to make it harder for the Senate to pass important legislation. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Sessions and Snowe propose requiring a supermajority for passage of appropriations bills." CW: remember, Olympia Snowe is a "moderate" Republican.
More Expanding Fish Stories from Senator Marco: Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "National Public Radio has raised more questions about the biography of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who told a reporter two years ago a story of his family’s departure from Cuba that does not mesh with his current accounts." Rubio told NPR's Robert Siegel in 2009 that the Castro government held Rubio's mother in Cuba for nine months in 1960. No, it didn't.
Local News
Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University, in Slate: "Last week, Florida Gov. Rick Scott [CW: a/k/a America's Worst Governor] called for reductions in state appropriations for particular academic disciplines so that public universities can focus resources on producing graduates in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math.... For some reason, he seemed especially concerned that Florida universities might be producing too many anthropologists.... His approach to both higher education and economic development is misguided and counterproductive. The notion that we must strip away academic programs not seemingly relevant to workforce development reflects a simplistic and retrograde view of the role of higher education in the American economy." Crow elaborates.
Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a far-reaching Florida law that requires public assistance applicants to take a drug test, saying the law probably violates a constitutional ban on unreasonable search and seizure." CW: Gov. Scott's wife owns a chain of walk-in clinics that do drug-testing. The clinic business used to belong to Scott, but rather than sell it because it created a conflict-of-interest, he "transferred" it to the Missus when he became governor.) Gov. Scott campaigned on & initiated the drug-testing law. ...
... Voter Supression, Florida Style. Daytona Beach News-Journal: "Prepping 17-year-olds for the privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy is nothing new for civics teachers, but when [teacher] Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students pre-registered, she ran afoul of Florida's new and controversial election law. Among other things, the new rules require that third parties who sign up new voters register with the state and that they submit applications within 48 hours.... Cicciarelli hadn't registered with the state before beginning the registration drive. And she didn't submit the forms to the elections office on time." Thanks to Charlie Pierce of Esquire, who has a great post on this. And thanks to a reader for directing me to the Pierce blogpost.
Quinnipiac University: "Ohio voters support 57 - 32 percent the repeal of SB 5 [which slashed collective bargaining rights for public employees and is] the centerpiece of Gov. John Kasich's legislative program.... Gov. Kasich's standing is in the same negative neighborhood as SB 5, with Ohio voters disapproving of his job performance 52 - 36 percent, down from 49 - 40 percent disapproval in September's survey...."
The Ledes
The Hill: "The White House announced Tuesday that it supports passage of a House Republican bill intended to boost job creation and due up for a vote on Thursday. The bill repeals a requirement that the federal government withhold 3 percent of payments to contractors as a down payment toward future taxes owed. It was intended to increase compliance with tax laws, but the provision has been delayed repeatedly."
AP: "A federal judge blocked part of North Carolina's new abortion law Tuesday, ruling providers do not have to place an ultrasound image next to a pregnant woman so she can view it, nor do they have to describe its features and offer her the chance to listen to the heartbeat. The law was set to take effect Wednesday, but U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles' decision puts a key section of it on hold until she can hear more arguments."
Reuters: "President Barack Obamais taking steps to ease the burden of student loans, the White House said Tuesday, potentially helping millions of cash-strapped college graduates in a tough economy. Obama plans to accelerate a plan to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of income, bringing it forward to start in 2012 from 2014."
Los Angeles Times: "Tuesday's pre-dawn sweep of the Occupy Oakland encampment, which resulted in about 80 arrests, came after the diverse community of protesters refused to allow police and fire officials -- as well as at least two ambulance crews -- access to the area to provide services, city officials said. Oakland had issued repeated warnings to the campers over the last week, citing an increase in public urination and defecation, rats and fire hazards from cooking. The greatest concern, however, stemmed from violence." ...
... San Francisco ChronicleUpdate: "Police fired tear gas Tuesday night into a crowd of several hundred protesters backing the Occupy movement who were seeking to retake an encampment outside Oakland City Hall that officers had cleared away more than 12 hours earlier."
New York Times: "Tunisia’s moderate Islamist political party emerged Monday as the acknowledged leader in elections for a constitutional assembly and began talks to form a unity government with a coalition of liberals in a rare alliance that party leaders hailed as an inclusive model for countries emerging from the tumult of the Arab Spring."
Washington Post: "Former Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafiwas buried in a secret location on Tuesday, officials of the interim government said, ending a four-day spectacle in which his bloody body was displayed to a public celebrating his gory death as a fitting end to decades of repression."
Reuters: "Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faced growing pressure on Tuesday over European Union demands for swift economic reforms with a member of his cabinet warning that the government could fall over the issue. EU leaders ... have demanded that Berlusconi present firm plans for growth and reducing Italy's massive debt in time for a summit meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. However an emergency cabinet meeting late on Monday ended without agreement after Berlusconi's coalition allies in the Northern League party refused to budge on their opposition to raising the pension age to 67 years."
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