The Commentariat -- October 24

I've posted a comment page on Off Times Square on the world's human population hitting the 7-billion mark. Write on this or something else.

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "President Obama pledged at the beginning of his term to boost the nation’s crippled housing market and help as many as 9 million homeowners avoid losing their homes to foreclosure. Nearly three years later, it hasn’t worked out. Obama has spent just $2.4 billion of the $50 billion he promised. The initiatives he announced have helped 1.7 million people. Housing prices remain near a crisis low. Millions of people are deeply indebted, owing more than their properties are worth, and many have lost their homes to foreclosure or are likely to do so. Economists increasingly say that, as a result, Americans are too scared to spend money, depriving the economy of its traditional engine of growth." See also today's Ledes.

"Occupy Newsrooms." David Carr of the New York Times: As their CEOs and other top executives led Gannett & the Tribune company into the ground, laid off thousands of journalists & instituted other cost-cutting measures that shortchanged their readers, their boards of directors awarded these same undeserving executives huge bonuses & golden parachutes. "As newspapers all over the country struggle to divine the meaning of the Occupy protests, some of the companies that own them might want to listen closely to see if there is a message there meant for them." ...

     ... Update: Karen Garcia has a great comment on Carr's article. I couldn't decide which part to highlight here, so read the whole comment (#105) here. ...

... Noreen Malone of New York Magazine: Occupy Wall Street, along with 72 percent of New York State voters, oppose Gov. Andrew Cuomo's push to let the state's "millionaire's tax" expire. So after OWS protesters occupied an event Cuomo was attending, he went vindictive, albeit against different protesters (because who cares? those anarchists are all the same): "This weekend, he tried to get Albany's mayor, his friend and fellow Democrat Jerry Jennings, to kick Albany's protestors out of a city park at the official 11 p.m. closing time." Jennings eventually declined Cuomo's "request," citing precedent.

Michael Holden of Reuters: "Those who took part in Britain's worst rioting for decades this summer were young, poor, and less educated but contrary to claims by politicians, only a minority were gang members, official data released on Monday showed.... Prime Minister David Cameron blamed 'criminality,' saying that street gangs were at the heart of the problem, and rejected accusations that government austerity measures had alienated youths in poorer communities."

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "Bank of America is shifting a huge collection of Merrill Lynch derivatives contracts onto its own federally-insured balance sheet," and the Fed is encouraging BoA to do so. That is, when these instruments go belly-up, taxpayers will bail out BoA -- again. At the same time, "Barack Obama is apparently expressing willingness to junk big chunks of Sarbanes-Oxley in exchange for support for his jobs program." That is, "companies are saying they can't attract investment unless they can hide their financials from investors," & Obama is willing to go along with the subterfuge. "If anyone thought OWS has already done its job, and Washington has gotten the message already, think again."

I believe from the bottom of my being that we’ll eventually have to restore Glass-Steagall. The only question is, How much agony do we have to go through before we do it? We know the solution, but do we have the will? -- former Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) ...

... James Stewart of the New York Times: nobody likes the Volcker Rule, as written, including Paul Volcker. CW: this is a slightly complicated, but readable, article that will reinforce your impression that Dodd-Frank is a huge pile of unenforceable verbiage.

M. J. Lee of Politico: "The Treasury Department is making a full-fledged effort to knock back Republican claims that overregulation is slowing down economic growth." You can read the Treasury blogpost, by Jan Eberly, here.

Jared Bernstein in a New York Times op-ed: small business are not big job creators, no matter what politicians repeatedly tell you. ...

... James Surowiecki of the New Yorker makes the same point, albeit using different data.

Dave Weigel, a libertarian, defends Teddy Kennedy against Joe Nocera's charge that Teddy unfairly maligned Judge Robert Bork, & this was the cause of the everlasting breakdown of commity in the Senate. Actually, Weigel points out, Teddy's critique of Bork's theory of law was right on. CW: half the time, Nocera has no idea what he's talking about. The other half of the time, he's telling you how great his super-rich business acquaintances are. Weirdly, he recently described himself as a liberal. No. Joe Nocera is not a liberal. In my comment on this particular wrong column, I blamed Reagan for nominating Bork, not Democrats for excoriating Bork's legal theses. Other commenters also call out Nocera's ridiculous claim.

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "If the Supreme Court decides to review President Barack Obama’s health reform law, it will also have to choose which issues it wants to hear — and that decision could have a significant impact on the law’s final fate." Haberkorn provides a handy overview of each of the six cases the Court could hear. ...

... AND Part-Timers Don't Count. Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "The news came as a shock: Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, would not offer health benefits to new part-time employees.... Only 16 percent of employers offer health insurance to part-timers.... The health-care law that Congress passed last year is unlikely to change that. While part-time workers will have access to new, subsidized coverage on the individual market, the Obama administration’s signature legislative achievement provides little incentive for employers to cover workers who are not full-time staff." CW: in other words, the ACA is another incentive for employers to classify more workers as part-timers -- as if they didn't do this enough already to avoid providing benefits & decent wages.

New York Times Editors: Last week California "unveiled the country’s first comprehensive, statewide cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.... Beginning in 2013, the program places a steadily declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions from 600 power plants, refineries and other sources that produce most of the state’s emissions.... California provides proof that bold action on a large scale is still possible even though Washington remains sadly gridlocked."

... Prof. Joel Cohen, in a New York Times op-ed, on the exploding world population. The article is chockful of scary statistics. "... we need to measure our growth in prosperity: not by the sheer number of people who inhabit the earth, and not by flawed measurements like G.D.P., but by how well we satisfy basic human needs; by how well we foster dignity, creativity, community and cooperation; by how well we care for our biological and physical environment, our only home." ...

... Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "As the global population reaches the 7-billion mark..., ecological distortions are becoming more pronounced and widespread. Sometimes local needs are depleting water, fish and forests; other times food and fuel needs in one region of the world are transforming ecosystems in another. Under either scenario, however, expanding human demands are placing pressure on resources, particularly on world water supply and fisheries."

Right Wing World *

Mitch McConnell: it's wrong to make millionaires pay for programs that benefit firefighter, teachers & construction workers, even though the overwhelming majority of Americans think they should:

     ... Steve Benen decodes McConnell's thesis: First, he shifts the discussion to small businesses, but "the number of businesses affected is ridiculously small, making McConnell’s claim patently dishonest.... The GOP line doesn’t address the underlying problem because, as McConnell explained yesterday, Republicans don’t care about the underlying problem. What matters is the integrity of conservative ideology, not keeping teachers and cops on the job."

E. J. Dionne: "Republicans have boxed themselves into ... the idea that government can do any good. Thus they have confined themselves to endless fiddling with the tax code. Almost everything conservatives suggest these days is built around the single idea that if only government took less money away from the wealthy, all our problems would magically disappear.... 'Tax the poor' is a lousy political slogan. That’s why Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and Perry’s flat tax are doomed to fail." ...

... AND Richard Oppel & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "As several leading Republican presidential candidates embrace a flat tax as a core campaign position, one contender stands out in not doing so: Mitt Romney, who has a long record of criticizing such plans and famously derided Steve Forbes’s 1996 proposal as a 'tax cut for fat cats.' Lately, though, his tone has been more positive. 'I love a flat tax,' he said in August." CW: I love it when Mitt finds something else to reverse himself on. For every policy, Mitt has at least two positions, usually three: the old one, the new one and the newest one. ...

... CW: If you want to know all the gory details of Mitt's great success at Bain Capital (and if making money is your definition of success, it was a great success), Bejamin Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine has 'em. My eyes glazed over by page 4.

* Where 75 percent of the 99 percent are unfair to millionaires.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke at campaign events in Los Angeles, California, this evening. AP: "President Barack Obama waded into the domain of the stars Monday as he hit the California fundraising circuit in one of his busiest donor outreach trips of the season."

President Obama met with homeowners at a private residence, then made remarks about the housing situation. See video above. The AP story is here. The transcript is here:

President Obama spoke at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, this afternoon. Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama raised campaign cash in one of the states hardest hit by the recession, telling about 300 supporters in Las Vegas that he has kept his promises even as his agenda remains unfinished."

Salon: "Around 4 a.m. Sunday morning, a bottle of Gatorade containing an explosive chemical concoction was hurled into Occupy Maine’s home base in Portland’s Lincoln Park — causing a small but dangerous explosion. No one was injured, and the Portland police are actively investigating the incident." Portland Press Herald story here.

Guardian: "Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, has announced that the whistleblowing website is suspending publishing operations in order to focus on fighting a financial blockade and raise new funds. Assange, speaking at a press conference in London on Monday, said a banking blockade had destroyed 95% of WikiLeaks' revenues. He added that the blockade posed an existential threat to WikiLeaks and if it was not lifted by the new year the organisation would be 'simply not able to continue'."

New York Times: "With his jobs plan stymied in Congress by Republican opposition, President Obama on Monday will begin a series of executive-branch actions to confront housing, education and other economic problems over the coming months, heralded by a new mantra: 'We can’t wait' for lawmakers to act.... Mr. Obama will kick off his new offensive in Las Vegas, ground zero of the housing bust, by promoting new rules for federally guaranteed mortgages...." ...

... AP: "Fewer U.S. companies expect to hire new workers in coming months, as business economists grow increasingly pessimistic about the overall economy's growth in the coming year. Nearly 85 percent of economic experts surveyed expect the economy to grow at a meager 2 percent or less over the next 12 months, according to the National Association for Business Economists. In July only 23 percent of the survey's respondents predicted such slow growth."

New York Times: "Millions of Tunisians cast votes on Sunday for an assembly to draft a constitution and shape a new government, in a burst of pride and hope that after inspiring uprisings across the Arab world, their small country could now lead the way to democracy.... Results are expected to be tallied within days."

AP: "The U.S. has pulled its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns, blaming President Bashar Assad's government for the threats. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after 'credible threats against his personal safety.'"

Reuters: "U.S. and North Korean negotiators began a two-day meeting in Geneva on Monday, the second such encounter since six-party talks on nuclear disarmament collapsed more than two years ago. The session, which follows talks in New York in late July, is aimed more at managing tensions on the divided Korean peninsula than resuming stalled regional talks on ending the North's nuclear programs."

Al Jazeera: "Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has swept to a landslide re-election in Argentina's presidential election, winning more than 50 per cent of the vote with most ballots counted. Kirchner, a centre-leftist who succeeded her late husband as president in 2007, had claimed 53 per cent of votes with 75 per cent of results returned, with her main rival, socialist candidate Hermes Binner, trailing far behind on 17 per cent."

AP: "Afghan and NATO coalition forces killed or captured about 200 insurgents in eastern Afghanistan during two operations targeting the lethal Haqqani network, which has links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, the U.S.-led coalition said Monday." ...

... Guardian: "The US reacted with dismay on Sunday after the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said that he would side with Pakistan in the event of any war with America.... The remark, which went further than other Karzai outbursts critical of the US, was viewed negatively not only in the US but in Afghanistan where opponents accused him of hypocrisy given Kabul's difficult relationship with Pakistan."

Reuters: "Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Mo'tassim was shown in video footage broadcast on Sunday smoking, nursing wounds and making dismissive remarks to his captors, apparently shortly before his death last week."

The Commentariat -- October 23

Prof. Alexander Stille in a New York Times op-ed: "... one dispossessed group after another — blacks, women, Hispanics and gays — has been gradually accepted in the United States, granted equal rights and brought into the mainstream. At the same time, in economic terms, the United States has gone from being a comparatively egalitarian society to one of the most unequal democracies in the world. The two shifts are each huge and hugely important: one shows a steady march toward democratic inclusion, the other toward a tolerance of economic stratification that would have been unthinkable a generation ago."

Gretchen Morgenson & Louise Story of the New York Times: "While American financial institutions have sought to limit any damage by reducing their loans and thus lowering their direct exposure to Europe’s problems, the recent rescue of the Belgian-French bank Dexia shows that there are indirect exposures that are less known and understood — and potentially worrisome." ...

... Good luck figuring out this dizzying New York Times graph demonstrating the interconnections between U.S. and European banks.

Contrary to earlier indications, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports Occupy Wall Street and welcomes protesters from around the world:

I've never brought a whiff of my political activities into the work I've done for NPR World of Opera. What is NPR afraid I'll do — insert a seditious comment into a synopsis of Madame Butterfly? ... This sudden concern with my political activities is also surprising in light of the fact that Mara Liaason reports on politics for NPR yet appears as a commentator on FoxTV, Scott Simon hosts an NPR news show yet writes political op-eds for national newspapers, Cokie Roberts reports on politics for NPR yet accepts large speaking fees from businesses. -- Lisa Simeone ...

... Andrew Jones of Raw Story: "National Public Radio (NPR) has continued its decision to remove itself from anything associated with Lisa Simeone after her participation in an anti-war protest in Washington. The network will no longer distribute 'World of Opera,' a show Simeone hosts.... WDAV, the station that produces 'World of Opera,' refused to drop the radio music personality and will distribute the show on its own starting November 11th. Earlier in the week, Simeone was fired from the radio documentary program 'Soundprint,'" which is independently produced by airs on some 35 NPR affiliates.

Jeffrey Fleishman & Alexandra Sandels of the Los Angeles Times: Tunisia, which "inspired revolution across the Arab world, is facing another bellwether moment that may again foreshadow what happens throughout the Mideast in the intensifying battle between secularists and Islamists over the role of religion in shaping public life." See also today's Ledes.

Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "For decades, Germany’s role in Europe has been to supply the cash, not the leadership. With fresh memories of war, the continent was cautious about German domination — and so were the Germans themselves. But the economic crisis has shaken Europe’s postwar model, and Germany increasingly calls the shots. As countries struggle to pay their debts, only Chancellor Angela Merkel has enough money to haul them out of trouble. And the price Merkel is demanding — more control over how they run their economies — is setting off alarm bells in capitals across the continent."

Right Wing World

Still a Cold Fish. Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Ever since he stepped onto the national stage, [Mitt] Romney has been criticized as being unable to connect with voters — partly because of past positions out of step with many in his party and partly because of what some say is a wooden, detached personality.... When voters exposed themselves emotionally, Romney offered little empathy. When they sought his support for their causes, Romney didn’t show them that he cared. Romney was scripted when he could have been spontaneous. He was boardroom cool when he could have been living room warm."

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "On the campaign trail, [Herman Cain] talks up his business experience, casting himself as a 'problem solver' and Washington outsider. But the role that helped propel Mr. Cain into politics was that of an ultimate Washington insider: industry lobbyist. From 1996, when he left the pizza company, until 1999, Mr. Cain ran the National Restaurant Association, a once-sleepy trade group that he transformed into a lobbying powerhouse. He allied himself closely with cigarette makers fighting restaurant smoking bans, spoke out against lowering blood-alcohol limits as a way to prevent drunken driving, fought an increase in the minimum wage and opposed a patients’ bill of rights — all in keeping with the interests of the industry he represented." ...

... Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: in an effort to blunt widespread criticism of his 999 tax plan, Herman Cain made a speech in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday in which he "offered new details on his tax plan that he says would reduce taxes both for people who are poor and businesses that invest in low-income areas like Detroit.... But ... millions of Americans would still likely face a tax increase under Cain’s proposals." ...

... Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: Among those new details is a description of the "opportunity zones" Cain envisions: "for a jurisdiction to qualify, it would have to adopt a number of conservative policies that may seem unpalatable to liberals, including eliminating the minimum wage, instituting school vouchers, and declaring the area 'right-to-work' – or non-union." So if you want a job in Detroit, don't expect to get paid a big fat minimum wage or be allowed to join a union. BTW, "Two days after admitting that this facet of his plan was secret, Cain now claims that those criticizing his plan 'didn’t read it.'” Well, no, they didn't read what wasn't there. CW: in this short post Garofalo manages to expose Herman Cain as one nasty human being.

"Birthers Eat Their Own." Dana Milbank: "The people who brought you the Barack Obama birth-certificate hullabaloo now have a new target: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a man often speculated to be the next Republican vice presidential nominee. While they’re at it, they also have Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and perhaps a future presidential candidate, in their sights. Each man, the birthers say, is ineligible to be president because he runs afoul of the constitutional requirement that a president must be a 'natural born citizen' of the United States. Rubio’s parents were Cuban nationals at the time of his birth, and Jindal’s parents were citizens of India.... This suggests they were going after Obama..., not because of the president’s political party [but] ... because of his race.... [They rely] on a rather expansive interpretation of 'natural born.'” ...

... Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post: "Following an article in the Washington Post stating that the senator had embellished the story of his family’s arrival from Cuba to the United States, Sen. Marco Rubio’s Senate Web site biography has now been changed.... But as of Friday night, the day the Post story was published and about 24 hours after he conceded it was inaccurate, the senator updated the second sentence of his Web site biography to clarify that his parents arrived in the U.S. in 1956."

Pat Garofalo: In the speech House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) chose not to give when he realized the University of Pennsylvania would allow poor people to attend, he would have said, "Be nicer to rich people." Garofalo has the details. CW: evidently Leader Cantor doesn't actually want to tell us peasants we should be nicer to poor people; he just wanted to reassure a toney crowd that he would continue to be nice to rich people.

News Ledes

Star-Ledger: the Justice Department has closed a five-year-old corruption probe of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) brought by then-U.S. attorney (now New Jersey governor) Chris Christie during the height of Sen. Menendez' 2006 re-election fight.

Bloomberg News: "Bobby Jindal, a Republican who championed stronger ethics laws in his first term as Louisiana governor, won re-election against nine other candidates in an open primary, according to the Associated Press. Jindal earned 65.8 percent of the vote in yesterday’s ballot, negating the need for a November general election, according to the AP, which declared him the winner. Tara Hollis, a Democrat and schoolteacher making her first bid for public office, came in second with 17.9 percent of the vote, with 100 percent of precincts reporting." Times-Picayune story here.

New York Times: "The leader of the transitional government declared to thousands of revelers in a sunlit square here on Sunday that Libya’s revolution had ended, setting the country on the path to elections, and he vowed that the new government would be based on Islamic tenets."

New York Post: "Filth-ridden Zuccotti Park is a breeding ground for bacterial infection loaded with potential health-code violations that pose a major risk to the public, an expert who inspected the area warned. 'It’s like Walmart for rats,' Wayne Yon, an expert on city health regulations, said yesterday.... He noted the lack of lavatory facilities, as neighbors repeatedly complain about protesters defecating in the area and the stench of urine." ...

... Chicago Tribune: "Chicago police arrested about 130 Occupy Chicago protesters starting about 1 a.m. today after the group returned to Grant Park for the second weekend Saturday night and tried to maintain a camp in the park after its official closing time. Police estimated that the crowd that showed up for a rally earlier in the evening peaked at around 3,000 people by the time protesters arrived Congress Plaza at Michigan Avenue and Congress Parkway after a march from Federal Plaza in the Loop." ...

... Elsewhere around the Nation World:

     ... Washington Post: "Numerous local and federal agencies are involved in what has been described as 'sensitive and delicate' discussions about the future of the Occupy DC camp in McPherson Square downtown, but as of now the protest will be able to continue, Park Service officials and police said Saturday. With the number of tents in the park growing and with protesters vowing to stay into winter, officials with the National Park Service, Park Police, District mayor’s office, U.S. Attorney’s office, D.C. Attorney General’s office, District police department and Interior Department have been in constant contact about the situation." ...

     ... AP: "Police say 11 Occupy Cincinnati protesters were arrested early Sunday after refusing to leave a downtown square." ...

     ... ABC News: "A crowd of 100 protesters, some from New York City’s Occupy Wall Street movement and others from Occupy New Haven, came together in a show of solidarity on Saturday afternoon on General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt’s front lawn in New Canaan, Conn. Many of those who came from New York were responding to an invitation posted on Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly web site that read: 'In the land of the free they tax me but not G.E!'” ...

     ... AP: "Protesters camped out in front of Oakland City Hall in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement showed no signs of going away Saturday despite warnings from city officials that they were breaking the law and should not stay there overnight." ...

     ... ** CBS Sacramento: "Most of the Occupy protests have been in large cities, but now part-time protestors are showing up in smaller cities." CW: this story & the accompanying video feature Off Times Square contributor Elizabeth Adams. I can't get the video up on Reality Chex, but I've asked the station to check their code.

     ... CBS News: "Albuquerque police subdued a 48-year-old man who lunged with a knife at a group of protesters gathered Friday evening near the University of New Mexico in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. About 100 people were in the area when Miguel Aguirre - described by police as a homeless man who also was drunk - pulled out a knife and attempted to stab several protesters. No one was injured." ...

     ... UK Telegraph: in London, the dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, who originally welcomed Occupy London protesters, has done an about-face & has asked the 250 protesters who are occupying its churchyard to leave.

CNN: "Under pressure and amid threats of candidates boycotting the state, the Nevada Republican Party pushed back the date of its caucus to February 4. The state's GOP central committee voted in overwhelming favor of the new date on Saturday."

AP: "An autopsy confirmed that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi died from a gunshot to the head, the country's chief pathologist said Sunday, just hours before Libya's new leaders were to declare liberation and a formal end to an eight-month civil war to topple the longtime ruler's regime." ...

... Washington Post: "Nearly 7,000 prisoners of war are packed into dingy, makeshift jails around Libya, where they have languished for weeks without charges and have faced abuse and even torture, according to human rights groups and interviews with the detainees. The prisoners will pose an early test of the new government’s ability to rein in powerful militias and break from the cruel legacy of Moammar Gaddafi...."

AP: "Tunisians began voting Sunday in their first truly free elections, the culmination of a popular uprising that ended decades of authoritarian rule and set off similar rebellions across the Middle East."

Reuters: "European Union leaders piled pressure on Italy on Sunday to speed up economic reforms to avoid a Greece-style meltdown as they began a crucial two-leg summit called to rescue the euro zone from a deepening sovereign debt crisis."

AP: "Saudi Arabia’s ruling monarchy moved into a critical period of realignment Saturday after the death of the heir to the throne opened the way for a new crown prince: most likely a tough-talking interior minister who has led crackdowns on Islamic militants but also has shown favor to ultraconservative traditions such as keeping the ban on women voting ... Sultan’s half brother, Prince Nayef."

The Commentariat -- October 22

I've posted an Open Thread for comments on Off Times Square.

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here. Reuters: "President Barack Obama sought on Saturday to cast himself as a strong leader on foreign policy, highlighting a U.S. pullout from Iraq and the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as success stories."

To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he'd be on Mount Rushmore by now. -- Andrew Sullivan

First the Republicans were about to impeach Obama for intervening in Libya (even though he sent no combat troops there) and then when his strategy works spectacularly they say he didn't do anything. -- Calyban

Glenn Greenwald: we're bringing the troops home from Iraq because the Iraqi government wouldn't let them stay. ...

... Indeed, here's how Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian reports the story: "The US suffered a major diplomatic and military rebuff on Friday when Iraq finally rejected its pleas to maintain bases in the country beyond this year. Barack Obama announced at a White House press conference that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of December, a decision forced by the final collapse of lengthy talks between the US and the Iraqi government on the issue. The Iraqi decision is a boost to Iran...." CW Note: this is the Guardian's front-page news report, not an opinion piece. The story goes a long way to explain what I couldn't figure out earlier -- why Obama used a Friday afternoon news dump to make his announcement. ...

     ... Update. The New York Times now has this story by Tim Arango & Michael Schmidt: "President Obama’s announcement on Friday that all American troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year was an occasion for celebration for many, but some top American military officials were dismayed by the announcement, seeing it as the president’s putting the best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of Wired: "... the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas. The State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security does not have a promising record when it comes to managing its mercenaries.... You can also expect that there will be a shadow presence by the CIA, and possibly the Joint Special Operations Command...."

Kate Zernicke of the New York Times: "... conservatives and Tea Party activists have rushed to discredit the comparison [between the Tea Party & Occupy Wall Street]. They have portrayed the Occupy protesters as messy, indolent, drug-addled and anti-Semitic, circulated a photo of one of them defecating on a police car.... While Occupy forces find fault in the banks and super-rich, the Tea Party movement blames the government for the economic calamity brought on by the mortgage crisis, and sees the wealthy as job creators who will lift the country out of its economic malaise. To them, the solution is less regulation of banks, not more." CW: oligarchs on the right have a deeply-vested interest in creating a division between Tea Party & OWS protesters. It is not surprising that they, and Tea Party leaders with an interest in maintaining their own power, will make huge efforts to sever the natural ties between the two movements.

Risa Goluboff & Dahlia Lithwick in Slate: "... a look at the history of voting rights in this country shows that the current state efforts to suppress minority voting — from erecting barriers to registration and early voting to voter ID laws — look an awful lot like methods pioneered by the white supremacists from another era that achieved the similar results.... The reasons [given] for introducing all of these new rules echo the pretextual rationales of the Jim Crow era.... The underlying goal of these restrictions is also unchanged: to shape an electorate that will vote for particular kinds of politicians."

Jared Bernstein: "The whole tax reform thing is really overplayed. Yes, there are gross complexities and inefficiencies in the current system — and btw, such complications can easily be replicated in any other system, including a flat tax. Our best move would be to simplify our current system — get rid of loopholes (e.g., deferral of foreign earnings), distortions (favoring of debt financing, special rates for unearned income, some of the large tax expenditures like the mortgage interest deduction), and we’d be fine. Remember, our biggest problem is pretax–jobs, income, wages, inequality. And despite rhetoric to the contrary, we can’t solve that through tax reform (though with plans like 9-9-9, we can make it worse)." YOu can watch the Kudlow segment at the linked site; only Bernstein is worth hearing.

Alex Massie of the (UK) Spectator: how weak is the field of Republican presidential candidates? Not much worse than either the Republican or Democratic fields in earlier years.

CW: I haven't been following the Fisker "scandal," but if you have, here's the lowdown from David Roberts of Grist: "ABC News and iWatch have a big new report out that desperately tries to lend an air of scandal to another Department of Energy loan guarantee. It's a remarkable package, nearly 3,000 words and three ABC News segments full of handwaving and innuendo suggesting that there's something shady going on, using the word 'Solyndra' as often as possible, but in the end there's ... nothing. Not a single bit of evidence of wrongdoing or corruption.... It just describes the loan program working exactly as it was intended to, but in a tone of dark insinuation." Roberts backs up his contention.

CW: look for the right-wing media to be pumping out more stories like this one from Rupert Murdoch's New York Post: "A married mother of four from Florida ditched her family to become part of the raggedy mob in Zuccotti Park -- keeping the park clean by day and keeping herself warm at night with the help of a young waiter from Brooklyn.... Ironically, [she] is married to a banker!" Iin case you missed the subtlety here, the Post wants you to know: OWS protesters are depraved!

CW: There's are aspects of the climate change study linked in yesterday's Ledes that I missed: per Brad Plumer of the Washington Post, the study -- which used a massive database & which confirms global warming -- was conducted by climate change skeptics. Oh, and funded in part by our good friends & industrial polluting Koch brothers!

Jon Stewart reacts to the death of Muammar Gaddafi -- and at about 6:20 min. in, to the right wing's response to the news:

Right Wing World

Does Eric Cantor Ever Tell the Truth? About Anything? Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) abruptly canceled his speech on income inequality scheduled for this afternoon at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Cantor placed the blame squarely on the university, saying they changed the attendance policy at the last minute.... In a statement just released by the university, the school disputes Cantor’s explanation, saying the speech was always billed as 'open to the general public.'”

What If There's a Mutiny... Reuters: "Staff members in New Hampshire for Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann have resigned en masse, a Republican familiar with the situation said on Friday, in a fresh blow to her 2012 hopes." ...

... But the Captain Doesn't Notice? Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: Later, Bachmann says in a radio interview it's news to her. 

It Depends on What the Meaning of "Exile" Is. Oh, and What the Meaning of "Follow" Is. Steve Benen: "Throughout the day, [Sen. Marco Rubio's {R-Fla.}] office has been engaged in some pretty aggressive pushback [links that follow are to cited works], publishing a piece in Politico, circulating a Miami Herald article in which he recently told his parents’ story accurately, and generally putting a spin on the word 'exile.' But for all of his righteous indignation, Rubio’s personal bio still includes this claim:

In 1971, Marco was born in Miami to Cuban-born parents who came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover.

     ... That’s just not true. 1956 does not 'follow' 1959. It’d be easy for the senator and his office to fix this. When Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) got caught plagiarizing on his website, the senator blamed it on a staff error and took down the content. Notice, however, that Marco Rubio refuses to do back down...."

Steve Kornacki of Salon: Marco Rubio has bigger problems than making misstatements about his parents' immigration. If he was sloppy about his family history, he's been even sloppier about keeping track of campaign money & party credit card expenses. "This is the sort of stuff that could raise serious red flags during the V.P. vetting process. And you’ve got to imagine that after the Palin experience of 2008, the next GOP nominee will be a little more careful."

Philip Elliott & Shannon McCaffrey of the AP: "After captivating Republicans hungry for an alternative to Mitt Romney, [Herman Cain] has made a series of stumbles that have left some questioning if he's ready for the White House." CW: Some??? 

Former House Speaker & Future President Gingrich Would Smack Down Those Supremes. Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic: "Newt Gingrich has expressed many reckless ideas in his long public life. Here is the latest: He wants Congress to subpoena federal judges whose decisions it disagrees with so that legislative committee members can hector those judges in public for 'dictating' the law to the American people. This, Gingrich concludes, would 're-balance' the Constitution in a way that he thinks is appropriate." This, of course, is "unconstitutional under any reasonable interpretation of the document or its subsequent precedent." ...

... Kevin Burke, President of the American Judges Association: in his "campaign manifesto..., Gingrich calls for using 'the clearly delineated powers available to the president and Congress to correct, limit or replace judges who violate the Constitution.' In support of his platform, Gingrich said that 'President Thomas Jefferson abolished over half the federal judgeships.'" Noting that Gingrich is an historian who should have got his history right, Burke delves into what Jefferson did & why -- and why Jefferson was unsuccessful in his attempt to politicize the Supreme Court. "By rebelling against Jefferson's wishes, the Senate sent a message that the independence of the judiciary was not open to political manipulation. Political manipulation seems to be a central tenant of Gingrich's present views on the judiciary, and that is where his fidelity to history and facts fall short." Thanks to a reader for the link.

News Ledes

AP: "Iraq's prime minister said Saturday that U.S. troops are leaving Iraq after nearly nine years of war because Baghdad rejected American demands that any U.S. military forces to stay would have to be shielded from prosecution or lawsuits. The comments by Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, made clear that it was Iraq who refused to let the U.S. military remain under the Americans' terms."

** AP: "The government's promise of lifetime health care for the military's men and women is suddenly a little less sacrosanct as Congress looks to slash trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Republicans and Democrats alike are signaling a willingness — unheard of at the height of two post-Sept. 11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — to make military retirees pay more for coverage." CW Translation: now that we don't need so many people to lay down their lives fighting wars we authorized, we think we can get away with making enlistment a little less attractive. Oh, and those of you who signed up thinking you'd have healthcare for life -- Suckers!

Haircut. AP: "The eurozone's 17 finance ministers have agreed that banks must accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, and a new report suggests that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary." Related New York Times story here. ...

     ... AP Update: "EU finance ministers neared agreement Saturday on forcing banks to raise just over euro100 billion ($140 billion) to make sure they have enough reserves to weather further losses on their Greek debt holdings and market turmoil...."

Reuters: "Muammar Gaddafi's body lay still unburied as Libya's new men of power wrangled over its fate and a formal announcement the war was over, a move the outgoing premier said on Saturday should mean free elections in the middle of next year. Mahmoud Jibril, an expatriate academic who has been prime minister in the Western-backed rebel government, confirmed he was stepping down...." ...

... New York Times: "International calls mounted Friday for Libya’s interim leaders to provide a fuller accounting of the final moments before Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s violent, messy death, as new videos circulated that showed him and his son Muatassim alive, apparently while in the custody of the former rebels."

AP: "Democrats and Republicans are in rare accord on one thing: Growers with million-dollar incomes shouldn't reap farm subsidies. Eighty-four senators voted Friday to discontinue certain farm subsidies for people who make more than a million dollars in adjusted gross income. The vote represents a sea change in how the heavily rural Senate views farm support." CW: I read several versions of this story, & none tells where this amendment stands in the House, which is to say, I guess the House hasn't considered it. If the deficit supercommittee rewrites the farm subsidy laws, this vote may be moot anyway.

AP: Ninety-two-year-old "folk music legend Pete Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New York City's tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores."

AP: "Nevada Republicans are debating whether to bow to national pressure and delay the state's presidential nomination contest. More than 200 of the party's top volunteers and leaders are scheduled to meet Saturday in Las Vegas to decide when Nevada's caucuses should be held."