The Commentariat -- October 15

The President's Weekly Address. The transcript is here:

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

Occupy ...

Today is to be an international day of protest. To find out if there are any organized protests in your area, go to the Daily Kos page OccupyWallStreetEvents.com ...

... ** Linette Lopez of the Business Insider: Occupy Wall Street protesters are in the initial stages of planning a national convention to be held July 4, 2012. Lopez writes, "... if this is carried out, Occupy Wall Street could shift the course of American politics at its highest levels." CW: Read the details. They're pretty interesting.

... Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "... the primary challenge of opposing the 50-headed hydra of Wall Street corruption ... is that it's extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen by the public or put on TV." Taibbi offers some policy suggestions that are consistent with the protests. ...

... Timmy Geithner pretends to get with the program. You can see how uneasy the subject makes him:

... Apparently Baron von Bloomberg has an evolving story of why he decided not to close Zuccotti Park. The propertyowners, Brookfield, are not confirming the Mayor's story that unnamed "city officials" threatened them with retaliation if they closed down the park for cleaning. David Nir of Daily Kos reports. ...

On the off chance they were intending to arrest him for injuring the captain's fist with his jaw, I strongly suggest that you decide not to add insult to injury and avoid such a retaliatory move. -- Attorney Ron Kuby, whose client Felix Rivera-Pitre was videotaped being punched by a white-shirted NYPD officer, in a letter to the NYPD & Manhattan DA ...

     ... Here's the video, via the New York Observer, which has another video here of a police officer on a motorscooter rolling over a protester's leg. As Drew Grant of the Observer writes, "not for the ... faint of heart."

Greg Sargent: Republican Senators, having unanimously killed President Obama's jobs bill, which according to a Moody's estimate would have created 1.9 million jobs, have come up with their own so-called "jobs bill." Sen. Rand Paul has claimed, without providing evidence or any details, that the GOP bill would create 5 million jobs. Sometime. But according to a Moody's analyst, the GOP bill "could hurt the economy in the near term. 'Putting the emphasis on balancing the budget now is likely to push the economy back into recession.'” (Emphasis added.)

Whose Program Is This Anyway? Ryan Reilly of TPM: "As House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) continues to try to pin the flawed 'gun walking' tactic employed in Operation Fast and Furious on the Obama administration, it's becoming increasingly clear that problems with ATF's Phoenix division date back at least into the Bush era. TPM has obtained the documents relating to another Bush-era ATF operation ... which deployed the 'gun walking' tactic.... In fact, ATF officials wrote in 2007 that the gun walking tactic had 'full approval' of the U.S. Attorney's Office being run by an interim Bush appointee and that the U.S. Embassy in Mexico was 'fully on-board.' ... Issa's investigators have had the documents and emails on the 2007 case for months, but he hasn't said anything much about them." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

Joe Nocera has been reading Since Yesterday, "by Frederick Lewis Allen, a popular historian of the 1930s and 1940s. Published in 1940, it turned out to be a shrewd, concise, wonderfully written account of America in the ’30s." The similarities between then and now are striking. CW: I read Since Yesterday as a young teen to find out what had come before me; needless to say, it's an easy read.

Andrew Zajac of Bloomberg News: "About 25 percent of millionaires in the U.S. pay federal taxes at lower effective rates than a significant portion of middle-income taxpayers, according to a legislative analysis. Preferential treatment of investment income and the reduced impact of payroll taxes on high earners lets about 94,500 millionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than 10.4 million 'moderate-income taxpayers,' representing about 10 percent of those making less than $100,000 a year...."

CREDO: "On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to let women die by passing a bill that would make it legal for hospitals to refuse to perform a life-saving abortion on a woman as an emergency procedure. In response to that vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) sent out a fundraising email asking supporters to donate to help protect the health of women. But three out of fifteen of the DCCC's top candidates who would receive that money voted [for the bill]." To tell the DCCC to "either stop fundraising off attacks on women's health or stop fundraising for anti-choice Democrats," you can sign CREDO's petition (which unfortunately will put you on CREDO's mailing list forever).

Here's a serious tearjerker. Thanks to a reader for the link:

Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "The [Japanese] government’s failure to act quickly [to contain the failed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant], a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan’s leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens’ groups that conduct testing on their own."

Right Wing World *

Karen Garcia: "The Republican cavalcade of lunatics ... have served their purpose by deflecting attention away from what passes for government in Washington. Liberal pundits in general and MSNBC in particular have used their public arenas to shoot fish in a barrel every single day to save them the trouble of thinking, and to make the failure that is Obama look good.... The inconvenient truth is that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are mirror images of each other. Each panders to his supposed base. Each is a right-of-center fiscal conservative. Their insurance company giveaway health plans are identical."

Hey, Herman Cain Has a "Buffett Rule," too. Zach Roth of Yahoo! News: "If the '9-9-9' tax plan promoted by Herman Cain, a leading Republican presidential candidate, had been the law of the land last year, Warren Buffett would very likely have paid no income taxes, according to an analysis prepared for Yahoo News and The Lookout by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. At most, Buffett would have paid taxes on just 1 percent of his income."

Steve Kornacki of Salon makes a pretty good case for how crazy the right has become in the "Obama Era." Using Rush Limbaugh as a barometer, Kornacki notes that Rushbo "practically endorsed" Mitt Romney in 2008 at a time when Romney was touting RomneyCare; now Rush derides Romney daily. Kornacki writes,

It’s not that hard to imagine an alternate universe in which Romney somehow won the White House in 2008, then muscled through a national version of his Massachusetts law — with Republican support. But it was Obama who won, and when he tried to do the same thing, virtually every Republican in America accused him of destroying capitalism.

Not Ready to Be First Lady. Dan Gilgoff of CNN gives us a two-fer. (1) Anita Perry -- wife of Rick -- blames President Obama for her son's having to quit his job to work on the Perry campaign. According to Mom there,

My son had to resign his job because of federal regulations that Washington has put on us. He resigned his job two weeks ago because he can't go out and campaign with his father because of SEC regulations.... My son lost his job because of this administration. ...

      ... (2) She says the media & Rick's opponents have been "brutalizing" him "because of his faith." Here, Mrs. P was apparently referring to those who questioned or condemned the governor for refusing to disavow remarks of Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Perry friend & supporter, in which Jeffress called Mormonism -- Mitt Romney's faith -- a non-Christian cult. ...

      ... CW: So it's Obama's fault the Perry boy has to follow slightly ethical standards when he changes jobs (isn't the Perry campaign paying the kid?), and it's the media's fault that Perry won't stand up to religious intolerance. This woman, who is a nurse, needs a doctor. My non-professional diagnosis: severe persecution complex.

... Oh, wait. There's more. Jacob Bernstein of the Daily Beast: "Mrs. Perry is also fending off claims from people who say that her own career amounts to a series of conflicts of interests, in which she and the folks she works with benefit from her association with the governor. Since 2003, Mrs. Perry has worked for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA), where she’s raised roughly $1.5 million as a $60,000-a-year contract employee.... A report in the Austin American-Statesman noted that a significant portion of Mrs. Perry’s salary at TAASA comes indirectly from the governor’s 'political donors, state contractors, and companies that do business with the state or have issues before the legislature.' Indeed, of 37 major donors to the organization, the paper reported, only three have 'no ties to the governor or state business.'”

... Then again, maybe we shouldn't fault Perry & Jeffress ...

CW: the AP reported that "the United States is ... sending about 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to [act as advisers] ... against a guerrilla group accused of horrific atrocities. Here is the President's letter to Congressional leaders. (Also linked in today's Ledes.) ...

     ... AND here is Rush Limbaugh's "news" report on the development. The headline: "Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians." And you wonder why wingers don't know WTF is going on? Is this satire or is Rush a living self-parody or is he genuinely insane or what?

* Is a diversion from Right Wingish World, which is, well, real.

Local News

CW: America's Worst Governor, Con'd. The Demise of the 7-7-7 Plan. Michael Bender of the St. Pete Times: Florida Gov. Rick Scott, campaigned on a promise "to create 700,000 jobs in seven years beyond estimates for job growth over the same span. State economists last year predicted Florida would add 1 million jobs in that time." During the campaign, he also urged Floridians to "hold him accountable." However, after backtracking several times on his job-grown promise, Scott now says he "could argue" he doesn't have to create any jobs. "I just have to make sure we don't lose jobs."

News Ledes

AP: "The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, The Associated Press has learned. The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively end more than eight years of U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, despite ongoing concerns about its security forces and the potential for instability." ...

     ... Politico Update: "The Obama administration is knocking down a report that all but a small security force will be pulled from Iraq by the end of the year, saying instead that discussions are still ongoing."

AP: "An American drone strike in southern Yemen has killed seven al-Qaida-linked militants, including the media chief for the group's Yemeni branch and the son of a prominent U.S.-born cleric slain in a similar attack last month, government officials and tribal elders said Saturday. In the capital, meanwhile, forces loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire on tens of thousands of protesters, killing at least nine and wounding scores, according to medical officials and witnesses."

Occupy Wall Street moves uptown to Times Square for the biggest U.S. demonstration yet:

     ... And speaking of Times Square, no word yet from, um, the Times on the demonstration right next door.

AP: Occupy Wall Street "supporters in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday waved signs such as 'you can't eat money.' About 200 people in Tokyo joined the global protests, and Philippine supporters in Manila marched on the U.S. Embassy to express support for Occupy Wall Street and to denounce 'U.S. imperialism' and U.S.-led wars and aggression." ...

     ... NBC News Update: "Italian police fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters after some smashed shop and bank windows, torched cars and hurled bottles.... A small group of violent protesters broke away from the main demonstration in the Italian capital.... The ANSA news agency said some protesters trashed offices of the Defense Ministry and of a labor agency, smashing windows with clubs, throwing paper bombs and firecrackers and setting cars on fire. Most of the violence took place near the Colosseum." NEW. Al Jazeera story here, with video. ...

     ... AP Update: "Thousands of demonstrators protesting corporate greed filled Times Square on Saturday night, mixing with gawkers, Broadway showgoers, tourists and police to create a chaotic scene in the midst of Manhattan."

     ... ** The Guardian is liveblogging world events.

     ... NEW. The New York Daily News has a good liveblog of events in New York City. Police arrested about 20 protesters at a Citibank branch on La Guardia Place (near Washington Square Park).

     ... Firedoglake: In Cleveland, Ohio, after Occupy Cleveland obtained a city permit to erect small tents, individual members of the police force provided tents to the protesters.

AP: "The United States is venturing into one of Africa's bloodiest conflicts, sending about 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to support a years-long fight against a guerrilla group accused of horrific atrocities. The Obama administration said the troops will advise, not engage in combat, unless forced to defend themselves.... The first of the troops arrived in Uganda on Wednesday, the White House said, and others will be sent to South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo." ...

     ... Update: the text of the President's letter to Congressional leaders is here.

NEW. NBC News: "The number of donors who raise big money for President Barack Obama jumped in the last three months as he builds a war chest for what will likely be the costliest presidential election ever. At least forty-one people have raised at least half a million dollars for the president, compared to 27 in Obama's first report, according to an analysis of campaign data released Friday. The big donors [are] known as 'bundlers.' ..."

New York Times: "The Obama administration announced Friday that it was scrapping a long-term care insurance program created by the new health care law because it was too costly and would not work. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said she had concluded that premiums would be so high that few healthy people would sign up. The program, which was intended for people with chronic illnesses or severe disabilities, was known as Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, or Class."

Reuters: "A Long Island man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday after admitting to stealing more than $195 million from thousands of investors in the course of a five-year, $400-million Ponzi scheme. Nicholas Cosmo, 40, was ordered by U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley to repay $179 million to more than 4,000 investors who thought they were investing in short-term commercial bridge loans through Cosmo's two Long Island-based companies, Agape World Inc and Agape Merchant Advance."

Guardian: "The prime minister lost his first Conservative cabinet minister on Friday when Liam Fox [the Defence Secretary] folded under the pressure of relentless revelations about a close friend and the access he gained to the heart of government."

The Commentariat -- October 14

Paul Krugman on the GOP presidential candidates: "... since economic policy has to deal with the world we live in, not the fantasy world of the G.O.P.’s imagination, the prospect that one of these people may well be our next president is, frankly, terrifying." ...

... I've set up a page on Off Times Square for readers to comment on Krugman's column. Or whatever. ...

... On his blog, Krugman juxtaposes these two stories:

     ... "More than Anything Else, I'm Sorry for Myself...." Max Abelson of Bloomberg News: "An era of decline and disappointment for bankers may not end for years, according to interviews with more than two dozen executives and investors. Blaming government interference and persecution, they say there isn’t enough global stability, leverage or risk appetite to triumph in the current slump." ...

     "... Because I Only Make 5-1/2 Times What You Do." Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "... the average salary in the [banking] industry in 2010 was $361,330 — five and a half times the average salary in the rest of the private sector in the city ($66,120). By contrast, 30 years ago such salaries were only twice as high as in the rest of the private sector. Here's the point, graphically put:

Karen Garcia is withering in her criticism of Democratic efforts to co-opt Occupy Wall Street. ...

... AND after listing some top Democrats who are big Wall Street beneficiaries -- either in campaign contributions or fat incomes, Glenn Greenwald asks,

... does the Center for American Progress really believe that the protest movement named OccupyWallStreet was begun — and that people are being arrested and pepper-sprayed and ready to endure harsh winters and marching to Jamie Dimon’s house — in order to devote themselves to ensuring that these people remain in power? Does CAP and the DCCC really believe that most of the protesters are motivated — or can be motivated — to turn themselves into a get-out-the-vote machine for Obama’s re-election and the empowerment of Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Party?"

Prof. Mark Barenberg, et al., in a New York Times op-ed: "In the past month, the National Labor Relations Board has come under furious attack from Republicans in Congress, and decades-old workers’ rights are at risk. Backed by a well-financed lobbying and publicity offensive, Republicans are using a recent labor-law complaint against Boeing to achieve a radical goal that goes far beyond the legal issues in the case: unraveling workers’ rights that have been part of the fabric of our social contract since the Great Depression."

Jeff Zeleny & Monica Davie of the New York Times on President Obama's trip to Michigan today -- his ninth since becoming president: "As the presidential race intensifies, Michigan will become more than a trove of 16 electoral votes. It will be a virtual laboratory for some of the most central themes of the campaign in a state that embodies the changing face of the nation’s economy." ...

... BUT. Irony Alert. Steve Rattner, Obama's former car czar, writes, "The small car that is being made at the Lake Orion plant – the Chevrolet Sonic – was originally scheduled to be made in South Korea.... That was because with a traditional Detroit cost structure, cars like the Sonic cannot be made profitably in the U.S. But as part of the new agreement with the United Auto Workers in connection with the 2009 auto rescue, the U.A.W. agreed to permit 40% of the workers in the facility to be paid so-called 'Tier II' wages, roughly half of what a traditional U.A.W. member earns.... So while the U.S. gained 1,800 jobs, they came at a significant price." Via Ben Smith.

Amy Chozick & Tanzina Vega of the New York Times: "The European edition of The Wall Street Journal accounts for less than 1 percent of total business at its parent company, the News Corporation. But the controversy this week over an unorthodox circulation deal that resulted in the resignation of the newspaper’s publisher could carry outsize influence among investors already concerned about ethical practices at the [Murdoch] company, analysts said Thursday." News Corp's annual shareholders meeting is next Friday.

Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News: "The Social Security Administration has failed to inform tens of thousands of Americans it accidentally released their names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers in an electronic database widely used by U.S. business groups. The federal agency has kept silent about a potentially harmful security breach of the personal data of about 14,000 people each year, ignoring recommended reporting guidelines for such confidentiality breaches and violating the intent, at least, of the U.S. Privacy Act, which protects personal information of private citizens." Those whose data the SSA releases are individuals the agency erroneously thinks are dead. Forty-six states require entities who have breached privacy to inform the victims; the federal government has no such law. "Most of those erroneously listed as dead who were contacted for this story said they only found out about the agency's mistakes when they suffered adverse events like frozen bank accounts, canceled cellphones..., etc."

Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee speaks to NBC News's Andrea Mitchell. What a woman! (and no, I don't mean Mrs. Greenspan):

Right Wing World

CW Note to Self: must continue to pick on $9.99 Pizza Plan. ...

     ... ** Which sometimes forces me to go to the HuffPost -- where Amanda Terkel notes that Cain's 999 plan looks suspiciously like the tax code for the old video game SimCity. And some say the GOP is no longer a serious party. ...

     ... Tim Egan is always a good read: "By almost any measure — social, political, economic, logical — Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan is nuts, nuts, nuts.... Cain is proposing the largest shift in tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and middle class in the nation’s history. Oh, and he apparently would scrap the two great government programs that keep millions clinging to fragile middle-class status — Social Security and Medicare...." ...

     ... Ezra Klein asks Prof. Edward Kleinbard, a tax law expert, to run the 999 numbers. The post even includes longish (by my standards) formulas to explain the calculations. Bottom line: for a family of four earning $50,000/year "Cain’s plan would increase the family’s tax bill by thousands of dollars.... The poor and middle class will face a big tax hike ... and the rich will get a huge tax cut." ...

... I don't run ads. BUt. Here's a 999 plan I might be able to get with. Via Ben Smith:

Mitt Romney, front row 2nd from left, and his Bain Capital buddies have fun raking in the dough (at the expense of companies it liquidated & of employees it put out of work), ca. 1970s. Bain Capital photo via Boston Globe. ... Jim Newell of Gawker: "If this does not appear in an attack ad at some point in the next year, then various rival campaigns will have failed."

News Ledes

CNN: "Protests swelled in cities nationwide Friday as police forces struggled to either corral or remove demonstrators from downtown parks and plazas in the latest development of the monthlong Occupy Wall Street movement. Scores of protesters were arrested in Denver, Seattle, San Diego and New York, while similar demonstrations were scheduled to take place in Washington, Orlando and Atlanta. CNN iReporters sent in photos and video from 'occupy' protests across several American cities."

Reuters: "A U.S. appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked Alabama from enforcing part of its tough new immigration law but allowed some disputed portions to remain in effect. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, halted the controversial provision that permits Alabama to require public schools to determine the legal residency of children upon enrollment. But the court ruled the state could continue to authorize police to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally if they cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason."

AP: "Kansas City's Catholic bishop was charged Friday with not telling police about child pornography found on a priest's computer, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children. Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse."

President Obama & Republic of Korea President Lee toured GM's Orion assembly plant in Lake Orion, Michigan, & made remarks afterwards. Detroit Free Press story here. See also today's Commentariat.

Politico: "House Republicans are doing an about-face, breathing life into expensive legislation long considered dead in Congress, showing that, yes, they do believe the federal government should be spending money on domestic programs. Speaker John Boehner is starting with the mother of all public works bills — directing top aides to work with the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on a six-year highway bill to rebuild the nation’s transportation infrastructure. The last such highway bill cost $286 billion — House Republicans have not released cost projections for a new one."

New York Times: "The cleanup of the Lower Manhattan park that has been occupied by protesters for nearly a month was canceled Friday shortly before it was supposed to begin, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts to evict them from their encampment. The announcement was made by the Bloomberg administration around 6:20 a.m., about 40 minutes before workers were scheduled to enter Zuccotti Park...." More expansive AP story here. ...

... Seattle Times: "Seattle police Thursday night arrested several Occupy Seattle protesters who refused to leave a tentlike structure set up in Seattle's Westlake Park. Amid chanting and beating drums, saxophone music, cheers and jeers, 10 protesters were removed from the tent and hauled into paddy wagons."

New York Times: "... hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam received the longest prison sentence ever for insider trading on Thursday, capping an aggressive government campaign that has ensnared dozens and may help deter the illegal use of confidential information on Wall Street. Judge Richard J. Holwell of Federal District Court in Manhattan sentenced Mr. Rajaratnam, 54, the former head of the Galleon Group hedge fund, to 11 years in prison. A jury convicted Mr. Rajaratnam of securities fraud and conspiracy in May after a two-month trial."

New York Times: "The trial of a man accused of trying to blow up a commercial airliner with a bomb sewed into his underwear ended Wednesday, just a day after it had begun, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused, abruptly announced that he would plead guilty to all of the federal counts against him. Prosecutors and federal agents seemed stunned, if pleased, and declared that the plea was evidence that the American court system, as opposed to a military tribunal, could bring a suitable outcome to a terrorism case."

The Commentariat -- October 13

I've posted a question on today's Off Times Square: Why would anyone vote Republican?

The Seven Biggest Lies about the Economy. Thanks to commenter Calyban for the link:

... NEW. Prof. Nouriel Roubini has a pretty good gloss on how we got in this mess. And he reminds us, "Any economic model that does not properly address inequality will eventually face a crisis of legitimacy. Unless the relative economic roles of the market and the state are rebalanced, the protests of 2011 will become more severe, with social and political instability eventually harming long-term economic growth and welfare."

Photo via the Monkey Cage."Barack Obama Is a Negative Campaigner." John Sides of the Monkey Cage: "Some commentators seem to assume or imply that Obama’s 2008 message of unity and bipartisanship meant that he didn’t 'go negative' in the heat of that campaign. He did. And he will." With stats to prove it. ...

... Senate Republicans voted down the American Jobs Act yesterday, but President Obama "will not take no for an answer." Here's a video he released last night (oh, and he elliptically disses Herman Cain's disastrous 999 plan):

David Roberts of Grist: "The debate over upcoming EPA regulations is a perfect microcosm of contemporary U.S. politics, in all its unreality and venality.... Two things have been fairly well established about these rules: Their benefits far exceed their costs and they are enduringly popular with the American people. Yet inside the Beltway bubble, it's perfectly legitimate to argue that they would cripple the $14 trillion U.S. economy or, incredibly, that preventing them amounts to a jobs bill.... The latest evidence comes from a nationwide poll ... like so many polls before it -- that the public overwhelmingly supports clean air protections across demographic and party lines. Via Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post.

I am sorry that this week my Republican colleagues have proven once again that the only jobs they care about are their own.They voted against a plan creating 2 million jobs because they believed it was good Republican politics. -- Majority Leader Harry Reid, from the Senate floor

New York Times Editors: "... the unanimous decision by Senate Republicans on Tuesday to filibuster and thus kill President Obama’s jobs bill was still a breathtaking act of economic vandalism.... The Republicans offer no actual economic plans, only tired slogans about cutting regulations and spending, and ending health care reform.... Republican candidates fear the Tea Party too much to acknowledge that economists are solidly behind government intervention to awaken growth.... The record is increasingly clear who is advocating real ideas, and who is selling an empty vessel." ...

... CW: AND remember this, which perhaps I haven't emphasized enough: the public favors Obama's jobs plan. Here's one polling result, but a number of other polls reflect the same findings.

Unbelievable! Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "Yesterday PPP released numbers showing Herman Cain leading Mitt Romney 30-22 in Iowa and our monthly look at the national picture finds the exact same numbers.  Cain is up 30-22 on Romney with Newt Gingrich sneaking past Rick Perry for 3rd place at 15% to Perry's 14% with Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul tied for 5th at 5%, Jon Huntsman 7th at 2%, Rick Santorum 8th at 1%, and Gary Johnson 9th with less than 1%." (CW: PPP is a left-leaning pollster with a good track record.)

Graph by Public Policy Polling.In a long New York Times Magazine piece, Matt Bai makes a stab at figuring out who the Republican "party establishment" is and how they're looking at the 2012 election. The article is mildly interesting. ...

... AND Reid Wilson of the National Journal says, "At the moment, there is no such thing as the Republican establishment."

... Dana Milbank: "Boehner and his Republican colleagues aren’t necessarily wrong in their desire to expand trade with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, as they did Wednesday, or to prevent a tit-for-tat with China. But the Republican support for the free-trade deals, and the leadership’s refusal to consider the China legislation, show where the power still resides in Washington. For all the talk of populist foment – the Tea Party on the right and the new Occupy Wall Street movement on the left – business interests remain firmly in control. Forced to choose between their voters and their donors, lawmakers don’t hesitate before choosing the latter."

Prof. Martin Feldstein in a New York Times op-ed: the only way to stop a drop in U.S. home values is by "permanently reducing the mortgage debt.... To halt the fall in house prices, the government should reduce mortgage principal when it exceeds 110 percent of the home value.... If the bank or other mortgage holder agrees, the value of the mortgage would be reduced to 110 percent of the home value, with the government absorbing half of the cost of the reduction and the bank absorbing the other half." CW: Feldstein headed President Reagan's economic council. see also today's Ledes. Let's see: the banks made bad loans & now I have to pay for half of the cost of their screw-ups. Seems fair. ...

... Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "A handful of the nation’s largest banks have begun giving away scores of properties [in cities across the country] that are abandoned or otherwise at risk of languishing indefinitely and further dragging down already depressed neighborhoods. The banks have even been footing the bill for the demolitions — as much as $7,500 a pop. Four years into the housing crisis, the ongoing expense of upkeep and taxes, along with costly code violations and the price of marketing the properties, has saddled banks with a heavy burden. It often has become cheaper to knock down decaying homes no one wants."

** It's Working! CW: You'll have to get into the weeds to ferret out the numbers, but this new Time Magazine poll shows that Americans favor Occupy Wall Street & their views over the Tea Party & their views. ...

     ... Update. Steve Benen breaks down the poll numbers & concludes, "... the establishment seems to assume Tea Partiers are sensible patriots, worthy of considerable attention, while Occupy Wall Street includes a bunch of hippies, not worth taking seriously. Americans, in general, appear to believe otherwise." ...

     ... Update 2: Here's the New York Daily News headline in its front-page story: "Occupy Wall Street Is Twice as Popular as the Tea Party."

... NEW. Charlie Rose had a good discussion of Occupy Wall Street on his show last night with Paul Krugman, Jaren Bernstein, Bill Buster & Marshall Ganz. You can watch the segment here. Thanks to commenter Meredith for the heads-up. ...

Left-Wing Billionaires Caught Helping the Middle Class!

Occupy Wall Street Is a George Soros Plot! Mark Egan & Michelle Nichols of Reuters: "According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009, Soros' Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation. Disclosure documents also show Tides ... gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.... Adbusters [is] an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street."

Warren Buffett Makes Insidious Deal with Supercommittee! Alan Fram of the AP: "In an exchange of letters between the billionaire investor and a Republican congressman that Buffett sent the committee this week, Buffett is offering to release his federal tax returns — with a condition. 'If you could get other ultra rich Americans to publish their returns along with mine, that would be very useful to the tax dialogue and intelligent reform,' Buffett wrot"

Yesterday a reader sent me a link to this video produced by the Massachusetts GOP which cuts, alters the video & remixes the audio to make Elizabeth Warren sound like a scary, rock-throwing radical hippie:

... So Massachusetts Democrats respond with this parody starring scary Scott Brown:

... ** Scott Brown Is Just Like Elizabeth -- Dole. Exactly Like Her. Alex Katz of the Boston Globe: "In a message to students, the Massachusetts senator uses the exact words as remarks delivered by the former North Carolina senator [Elizabeth Dole] at her campaign kickoff in 2002":

I was raised to believe that there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference. From an early age, I was taught that success is measured not in material accumulations, but in service to others. I was encouraged to join causes larger than myself, to pursue positive change through a sense of mission, and to stand up for what I believe. -- Scott Brown, 2111/Elizabeth Dole, 2002

     ... "Brown’s staff acknowledged yesterday the words originally were Dole’s and said their presence in Brown’s message was the result of a technical error."

This kind of plagiarism makes me wonder how many things about Scott Brown are really genuine. The fact that he can’t come up with a personal values statement of his own, that he has to steal someone else’s, I think is very instructive of what kind of politician he is. -- Rodell Mollineau, president of left-leaning American Bridge 21st Century, which uncovered the theft

      ... CW: Hey, Scott. Way to teach the kids about plagiarism. I've been trying to do that myself (see Off Times Square, "Plagiarism Explained, to Dummies."

Right Wing World

Glenn Kessler, the WashPo's fact-checker, does not comment on the merits of making the tax code less progressive, as Herman Cain's 999 plan most certainly does, but he does examine Cain's statements about the potential impacts of his plan on Americans at various income levels: "Just like it would be wrong to claim pizza is a low-calorie meal, Cain’s description of the plan’s impact on working Americans is highly misleading." Kessler also gives a pretty good rundown of how the plan would kick in (or not -- Kessler says there's no way the tax code could so quickly be modified). ...

... The Washington Post's Editors are less circumspect than Kessler: "Mr. Cain’s plan is problematic, but not for the reasons his fellow presidential contenders claim. Rather than putting the country on a sustainable fiscal path, it risks not producing enough revenue to fund the government’s needs. It would turn the current progressivity of the tax code upside-down, giving a windfall to the wealthy and hiking the tax burden for the least well-off.... The appealing simplicity of Mr. Cain’s plan is deceptive. Rather, it is simplistic — not to mention fiscally irresponsible and fundamentally unfair."

Steve Benen on Michele Bachmann's latest conspiracy theory, expressed in last night's debate: President Obama is secretly planning to dissolve Medicare -- you know, the way the right wing is. And he told her so! Well, at least he mumbled it to her. CW: Hey, maybe she heard it through a filling in her teeth.

News Ledes

President & Mrs. Obama welcome Republic of Korea President Lee & his wife Kim Yoon-ok to the state dinner.

President & Mrs. Obama hosted a state dinner for President Lee & First Lady Kim Yoon-ok this evening.

Presidents Obama & Lee held a joint press conference early this afternoon. Washington Post: "President Obama pledged Thursday to hold Iran accountable for 'dangerous and reckless behavior' in pursuing an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. In his first comments on the purported murder-for-hire scheme unveiled Wednesday by the Justice Department, Obama described the U.S. allegations as well supported by evidence and said they would contribute to stronger enforcement of existing sanctions against Iran." Video of the press conference (which was fairly tedious but did contain some news, as reflected in the Post report) is here.

President & Mrs. Obama & Vice President Biden welcomed South Korean President Lee Myung-bak & First Lady Kim Yoon-ok to the White House this morning. You can watch the ceremony here.

New York Times: "Responding to what he called unsanitary conditions at the private park in Lower Manhattan that has served as home base to the Occupy Wall Street protest for more than three weeks, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Wednesday night that protesters would be made to leave temporarily as the property was cleaned in stages." ...

     ... Update: :There was much talk among the protesters at Zuccotti Park on Thursday about cleaning up after themselves to stave off eviction. But by early afternoon, only a handful had translated words into action and begun the daunting task of ridding the park of the accumulated detritus of a four-week occupation." ...

     ... Update 2: MoveOn.org thinks the mayor will make the "temporary" move permanent & is circulating a petition to ask the mayor to cancel the eviction. You can sign the petition here. ...

     ... Update 3: PPPC also has a petition to Baron von Bloomberg.

Reuters: "Libyan government fighters have captured Muammar Gaddafi's son Mo'tassim as he tried to escape the battle-torn city of Sirte, National Transitional Council (NTC) officials said. The capture of the deposed leader's national security adviser, and the first member of the Gaddafi family, is a big boost to Libya's new rulers, whose forces are still battling pro-Gaddafi fighters in his home town of Sirte."

AP: "More U.S. homes are entering the foreclosure process, but they're taking ever longer to get sold or repossessed by lenders. The number of U.S. homes that received a first-time default notice during the July to September quarter increased 14 percent compared to the second quarter.... That increase signals banks are moving more aggressively now against borrowers...."

AP: "President Barack Obama's campaign raised more than $70 million combined for his re-election and the Democratic party during the summer, an amount that gives him a clear advantage over his Republican rivals but is less than his initial fundraising effort."

AP: "The Wall Street Journal says its publisher in Europe resigned after an internal investigation determined that he had tried to influence editorial content to favor a partner in a cut-price circulation deal. The report on the newspaper's website Thursday appeared to differ from a statement by its owner, News Corp. subsidiary Dow Jones, which said Tuesday's resignation of publisher Andrew Langhoff was unrelated to a circulation deal with the Netherlands-based Executive Learning Partnerships. The Wall Street Journal is the U.S. crown jewel of the many papers in Rupert Murdoch's global media empire...." A more expansive Guardian report is here. The Journal article is here.

Reuters: "Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday called a confidence vote on his government, saying a collapse of his center-right coalition now would be catastrophic for the country and its economy. Under pressure over corruption and sex scandals and facing criticism for his center-right government's erratic handling of the economic crisis, Berlusconi has accused the left-wing opposition of 'obsessively' seeking to drive him from office."