The Commentariat -- October 12

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

Their strategy is to suffocate the economy for the sake of what they think will be a political victory. They think that the more folks see Washington taking no action to create jobs, the better their chances in the next election. So they’re doing everything in their power to make sure nothing gets done. -- Obama Campaign, in an e-mail to supporters

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos applauds "... the White House many of us having been waiting for: the one that recognizes and calls out the Republican opposition for what it is, a gang of nihilists who will destroy anything standing in their path, if they think they can win." McCarter includes some examples of new White House tough talk.

The American people have every right to be angry [and] disappointed by the performance of the Congress. Of course, the American people have also elected people with hard stances, so that to some degree the American people are realizing the results of their votes. If elections have consequences — which I think they do — some of those consequences are getting what you vote for. In this case, many people voted for people who thought compromise was not something that they ought to participate in. -- Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), House Minority Whip

New York Times Editors: "... the memo, as reported by Charlie Savage in The Times, is an insufficient foundation for a momentous decision by the government to kill one of its own citizens, no matter how dangerous a threat he was believed to be.... The decision to kill Mr. Awlaki was made entirely within the executive branch.... Judicial review is required, perhaps a closed-door court similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, before anyone, especially a citizen, is placed on an assassination list."

New York Times Editors: "In awarding the 2011 Nobel in economic sciences to Christopher Sims and Thomas Sargent, the prize committee has rewarded two towering intellects — and delivered a challenge to politicians who are driven more by ideology than by serious consideration of the real-world consequences of their actions. Mr. Sims, of Princeton University, and Mr. Sargent, of New York University, were recognized for their research into the relationship between government policy and economic outcomes, as measured by growth, employment, inflation and other indicators.

David Dayen of Firedoglake: "A provocative new video from Brave New Films exposes what appear to be serious environmental crimes in Crossett, Arkansas, caused by waste product at a Georgia-Pacific plant. Georgia-Pacific is owned by Koch Industries":

The media report on the goals of Occupy Wall Street, via Daily Kos:

Fingerprinting the Poorest of the 99 Percent. Kate Taylor of the New York Times: "Taking aim at a practice she called unnecessary, costly and punitive, the speaker of the City Council, Christine C. Quinn, is asking the Bloomberg administration to justify requiring applicants for food stamps to be electronically fingerprinted. New York City, where 1.8 million people receive food stamps, is one of only two jurisdictions in the country that require applicants to be fingerprinted, according to Ms. Quinn’s office. The other is Arizona. California and Texas recently lifted a similar requirement; New York stopped using fingerprinting for food-stamp recipients statewide in 2007, but kept it in New York City at the Bloomberg administration’s request." CW: that right -- treat them like criminals because it's criminal to be poor.

... AND who are the One Percent? Check out these charts provided by Dave Gilson of Mother Jones, one more shocking than the next. If you think the protesters of Occupy Wall Street are exaggerating, these charts should change your mind. ...

Elizabeth Warren in January 2008 on "the coming collapse of the middle class." Runs about an hour; Warren begins speaking at about 5 min. in. Thanks to commenter Janice for the link:

... A more recent video featuring Warren, a/k/a Molly Erdman:

Mark Sherman of the AP: "Six and a half years after a family outing turned into a weeklong nightmare behind bars, Albert Florence is getting a Supreme Court hearing on his claim that authorities violated his constitutional rights when they twice made him to submit to strip searches in jail. The justices were to hear arguments Wednesday in a case they could use to rule on whether jails may routinely strip search people who have been arrested, no matter the reason. Florence, 36, was arrested based on a warrant for a traffic fine he already had paid. But even if the warrant had been valid, Florence said he should not have been treated like someone who could be hiding a weapon or drugs."

Michael Schuman of Time: "Slovakia's parliament unexpectedly voted against a decision reached by euro zone leaders in July to expand the powers of its $1 trillion bailout fund, a step seen by investors as crucial for combating the escalating European debt crisis. The coalition administration of Prime Minister Iveta Radicova subsequently fell. Without Slovakia's approval, the entire euro zone plan to enhance its rescue fund – by allowing it to buy sovereign bonds and recapitalize banks – will be stymied, perhaps entirely killed off.... The trouble with Slovakia shows the very weaknesses of the entire monetary union itself. There is no simple mechanism for implementing euro zone decisions, even in the face of a serious crisis like the one boiling in Europe today.... So Slovakia proves once again that the euro can only be as strong as its weakest link – whether economic (Greece) or political."

Right Wing World

The U.S. of A. Is Older than You Knew. ... and then it was actually the reason that we fought the revolution in the 16th century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown if you will. -- Rick Perry, in last night's debate, adding two centuries to our history

Philip Rucker & Amy Gardner of the Washington Post report on the Republican presidential debate held last night. The Post cosponsored the debate: "The government is the problem. That was the message Tuesday night as the eight Republican presidential hopefuls clamored to blame Washington for the nation’s economic ills. In turn, they pointed fingers at President Obama, the Federal Reserve and the government generally as the cause of the nation’s economic collapse." ...

... AND here, Post reporters have insta-fact-checked some of the candidates' whoppers. The win, as usual, goes to Michele Bachmann, who gets absolutely nothing right. CW: personally, I resent Bachmann's being in there to make women look stupid. ...

... Jeff Zeleny & Ashley Parker of the New York Times write an overview of the debate, wherein you get the barest hint of what Jonathan Bernstein tells us --

... "Rick Perry is Incredibly Bad at Debates." Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post: "... throughout the debate, he went back and forth between garbling his answers and simply disappearing for large stretches. He showed up for a debate on the economy with nothing to say on the economy other than that his economic plan wasn’t ready yet, and apparently he decided to avoid his difficulty in delivering prepared zingers by not bothering to even try any. Just incredible. CW: Perry has almost prided himself on being inaccessible to the press. That may work as governor, even of a large state like Texas, but learning to parry with the press is debate prep -- preparation a presidential candidate obviously needs & Perry badly lacks. ...

... "Race for the Worst." Michael Tomasky for the Daily Beast: "... they were all pretty terrible. But, it must be said, by degree. Romney was unbad enough to stay ahead.... Cain has become a better debater. He has mastered that first-level trick of sounding like he knows what he’s talking about. He hasn’t mastered the second-level art of actually knowing what he’s talking about, but, then, few of them do." ...

... Roger Simon of Politico: "The Republican race has turned into 'The Wizard of Oz.' Rick Perry wants a brain. Mitt Romney wants a heart. And any number of candidates are Dorothy, realizing there is no place like home and they should have stayed there." ...

It's a catchy phrase, in fact when I first heard it I thought it was the price of a pizza. -- Jon Huntsman on Herman Cain's $9.99 economic plan (video here)

... If you'd like to be reminded of how counterproductive Republicans' "economic plans" are, Binyamin Appelbaum & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times, in a straight news story, take a brief look at Herman Cain's 999 plan & Mitt Romney's corporate tax holiday. ...

Suck it up, you whiners. I am the 53 percent subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain.... Get a job, hippies. -- Erick Erickson, big-shot conservative blogger, on the 99 Percent ...

... Avenging Angel of Daily Kos has a good post explaining why 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax, which is Erickson's big whiney complaint: it's largely Ronald Reagan's fault. ...

... Annie Lowrey of Slate tells a similar Tale of the Tax-Free (of course none of us is really tax-free; Erickson just wants the 53 percent to think they're getting a bad deal. Lowrey puts more of the blame on Dubya, not Reagan.

Russell Berman of The Hill: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) made an abrupt shift in rhetoric toward the Wall Street protesters on Tuesday, saying they were 'justifiably frustrated,' just days after describing the people in the streets as 'growing mobs.' ... The majority leader blamed Obama administration policies for creating the weak economy that has spurred the demonstrations, along with public anger at so-called 'crony capitalism' in Washington." CW: Berman goes into some detail on Cantor's song-and-dance about what he "was trying to say" last week when he described Occupy Wall Street movements as "mobs" & how OWS is different from those nice, concerned citizens in the Tea Party.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Franklin E. Kameny, who transformed his 1957 arrest as a 'sexual pervert' and his subsequent firing from the Army Map Service into a powerful animating spark of the gay civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at his home in Washington. He was 86. His death was confirmed by the United States Office of Personnel Management, which formally apologized two years ago for his dismissal."

New York Times: "Congress passed three long-awaited free trade agreements on Wednesday, ending a political standoff that has stretched across two presidencies.... The approval of the deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama is a victory for President Obama and proponents of the view that foreign trade can drive America’s economic growth in the face of rising protectionist sentiment in both political parties."

AP: "Acting in rare harmony, Congress is preparing to approve three free trade agreements that advocates say will boost exports, give the economy a needed shot in the arm and help put Americans back to work. The trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama are being trumpeted as economic victories by President Barack Obama and most congressional Republicans. Democrats, traditionally wary of free trade, are more ambivalent, but all three pacts are expected to pass easily when they come up in the House and Senate on Wednesday."

AP: "Chrysler Group LLC and the United Auto Workers say that they reached a tentative deal on a new four-year contract early Wednesday that creates 2,100 new jobs.... The agreement covers 26,000 U.S. workers and is subject to ratification by Chrysler's workers." Detroit Free Press story here.

AP: "The Obama administration plans to leverage charges that Iran plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States into a new global campaign to isolate the Islamic republic. U.S. officials say the administration will lobby for the imposition of new international sanctions as well as for individual nations to expand their own penalties against Iran based on allegations that Iranian agents tried to recruit a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi envoy on American soil."

Reuters: "Resistance from fighters loyal to ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi crumbled in his home town overnight, government commanders said on Wednesday, and just two small pockets still held out."

AP: "A slew of bombings targeted Iraqi police in Baghdad on Wednesday morning, including blasts by two suicide bombers who tried to ram their vehicles through police station gates. Iraqi officials said 25 people died and dozens more were wounded in the carnage."

Politico: "The Obama administration picked 14 projects Tuesday that will undergo expedited permitting and environmental reviews with the goal of getting construction workers on the job site sooner than normal. The projects include replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York, new equipment for the air traffic control system at two Houston airports, two water treatment plants in New Mexico and a retail and affordable housing complex in D.C."

The Commentariat -- October 11

I have a comments page up on Off Times Square on Occupy Wall Street. ...

... Helen Kennedy of the New York Daily News: "The Occupy Wall Street protesters are planning to get in the face of some of New York's richest tycoons on Tuesday. A 'Millionaires March' will visit the homes -- or, more realistically, the gleaming marble lobbies -- of five of the city's wealthiest residents. On the target list: NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, conservative billionaire David Koch, financier Howard Milstein and hedge fund mogul John Paulson. Between 400 and 800 marchers plan to go to their homes to present them with oversize checks to dramatize how much less they will pay when New York State's 2% tax on millionaires expires at the end of the year. 'Ninety nine percent of the residents of New York are going to suffer from this tax giveaway so the 1% who already live in absolute luxury can put more money in their pockets,' said Doug Forand, one of the march organizers." ...

... Wall Street Journal: "Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday that he’ll allow the Wall Street protesters to stay indefinitely, provided they abide by the law, marking his strongest statement to date on the city’s willingness to let demonstrators occupy a park in Lower Manhattan." (Also linked in Monday's Ledes.)

I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans. But you sent us here to fight for you and all Americans. -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last week at a conservative Values Voters meeting

Tea Party, the acronym is Taxed Enough Already. People are tired of seeing ... Washington balloon and the federal government grow in every aspect of our lives. And enough is enough.... Tea Party is an organic movement. This is not some movement that started in Washington. It’s about the people. And that’s what, I think, the message from this election is about. Get the government in D.C. working for the people again and not the other way around.  I think the Tea Party has a lot to do with the energy that came out at the polls because they’re like the tip of the spear. They represent and reflect the frustration that Americans have at what’s going on in Washington. -- Eric Cantor, last year, on the Don Imus show

Translation: If you agree with me, you're an energetic, organic movement. If you disagree with me, you're a mob. Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post has the videos.

Vanity Fair photo.** Suzanna Andrews of Vanity Fair has a fine profile of Elizabeth Warren & how brutally bankers & their Congressional lackeys came down on her. And, yeah, Andrews' profile makes President Obama look like an opportunistic wuss & Tiny Tim look way meaner than Scrooge. ...

... AND here's the video Andrews cites in her article: "Elizabeth Warren Makes Timmy Geithner Squirm":

Karen Garcia: Jeffrey Immelt, the $15.2-million-a-year CEO of General Electric -- a company that paid no federal tax in 2010 & in fact was the recipient of federal corporate welfare over and above that, a company known for shipping jobs overseas, undercutting unions & paying its workers low wages -- was President Obama's choice to head up the Administration's Jobs Council. AND Jeff Immelt wants you to "root for" him & GE:

The ever-smarmy David Brooks begins his column by setting up a series of big lies about the Occupy Wall Street protesters -- they're hippies! -- then goes on to explain why the real heroes of American governance are his right-wing "Big Thinker" buddies who get down into the policy details only to extrapolate big ideas. ...

     ... We do love it when Driftglass beats up on Our Mister Brooks. who "has once chosen to use his national media platform to paint a group that he despises from head to toe with every peacenik, tree-hugging boogieman caricature that has terrified him since before he was in long pants." ...

     ... AND Paul Krugman joins Driftglass today. After explaining the deception inherent in the Tax Foundation figure that Brooks cites to make his case, Krugman writes, "This deliberate fraud — because that’s what it has to be — is an example of the reasons knowledgeable people don’t trust the Tax Foundation." (Emphasis added.) Ergo, Krugman says flat-out that his colleague Brooks is not a "knowledgeable person." Thanks to John F. for the link.

How RomneyCare Became ObamaCare. Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney’s landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for the new federal law.... The records, gleaned from White House visitor logs..., show that senior White House officials had a dozen meetings in 2009 with three health-care advisers and experts who helped shape the health care reform law signed by Romney in 2006, when the Republican presidential candidate was governor of Massachusetts. One of those meetings, on July 20, 2009, was in the Oval Office and presided over by President Barack Obama.... [One of these experts] told NBC News he attended one meeting ... in which [Romney] forcefully insisted on including ... the 'individual mandate' ..., a controversial provision that some of his political advisers were wary about....'”

When Democracy Goes Awry. Prof. James Fishkin, in a New York Times op-ed: "... as California, the nation’s most populous state, marks [the 100th] anniversary [of the ballot initiative], the accumulated impact of direct democracy has made it virtually ungovernable.... [But there] are reforms that people support once they really think through their implications.... If the ballot initiative process is to survive for another century, it must take into account the considered judgments of voters coming together to deliberate hard choices and not just cast a vote based on sound bites. If this succeeds it will help bring California much closer to the ideal that voters were striving for 100 years ago: legislation genuinely initiated by the people."

Right Wing World

It would be the biggest tax shift from the wealthy to the middle-class in the history of taxation, ever, anywhere, and it would bankrupt the country. -- Michael Ettlinger, an economist with the Center for American Progress on Herman Cain's "999" tax plan ...

... CW: as Herman Cain (or Herbert/Herb Cain, as he is known to Sarah Palin [video here]) surges in the polls, it's a good idea to see what he stands for. While some media outlets -- e.g., the Washington Post, give him a pass on his tax plan, we should not. Pat Garofalo of Think Progress crunched the numbers last week, and found that Cain's plan would create the largest deficit since World War II, but would increase taxes on most Americans:

... someone in the bottom quintile of earners — who currently pays about 2 percent of his or her income in federal taxes — would pay about 18 percent under Cain’s plan (9 percent on every dollar they make, plus 9 percent on every dollar they spent, which would likely be close to all of them). A middle-class individual would see his or her taxes go from about 14 percent to about 18 percent. But someone in the richest one percent of Americans would see his or her tax rate fall from about 28 percent to about 11 percent. ...

... Bruce Bartlett of the New York Times delves as deeply into Cain's 999 tax plan as one can go given Cain's lack of specificity. Read Bartlett (whose analysis is very understandable) & gasp -- again and again. Bartlett concludes:

At a minimum, the Cain plan is a distributional monstrosity. The poor would pay more while the rich would have their taxes cut, with no guarantee that economic growth will increase and good reason to believe that the budget deficit will increase. Even allowing for the poorly thought through promises routinely made on the campaign trail, Mr. Cain’s tax plan stands out as exceptionally ill conceived. ...

... BTW -- Andy Kroll of Mother Jones (May 2011): "... scrubbed from Cain's official story is his long tenure as a director at a Midwest energy corporation named Aquila that, like the infamous Enron Corporation, recklessly dove into the wild west of energy trading and speculatio n— and ultimately screwed its employees out of tens of millions of dollars.... Cain served on the board of directors throughout Aquila's ill-fated trading misadventure and the subsequent collapse of the company's retirement fund. In fact, he chaired the board's compensation committee, which ... push[ed] to get employees to invest more and more in Aquila stock.... Cain also saw fit to dole out $30 million in bonuses, not including stock options, to the top five execs at Aquila in 2002, with the company's stock plummeting."

Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post: "Conservative activists have created a Tumblr called 'We are the 53 percent' that’s meant to be a counterpunch to the viral 'We are the 99 percent' site that’s become a prominent symbol for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Tumblr is supposed to represent the 53 percent of Americans who pay federal income taxes, and its assumption is that the Wall Street protesters are part of the 46 percent of the country who don’t. 'We are the 53 percent' was originally the brainchild of Erick Erickson [a notorious right-wing blogger].... But there is some tension between the site’s critique and conservative tax policy. Part of the reason that over 40 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes is because of the continual push to lower them — a cause that conservatives have championed."

AND Hunter Walker of the New York Observer: Hank Williams, Jr., is fighting back against the forces of evil who dissed him for comparing President Obama to Hitler in a new song which [CW: I guess] is titled "I'll Keep My Shit." [Walker is too polite to report the full title.]

News Ledes

New York Times: "President Obama’s chief of staff, William M. Daley, will step down at the end of the president’s current term in January 2013, Mr. Daley told a Chicago television station. Mr. Daley, who has come under criticism for his handling of relations with lawmakers, said he was confident Mr. Obama would win re-election next year, but Mr. Daley said he would not stay on for a second term."

AP: "United against Barack Obama, Senate Republicans voted Tuesday night to kill the jobs package the president had spent weeks campaigning for across the country, a stinging loss at the hands of lawmakers opposed to stimulus-style spending and a tax increase on the very wealthy. Forty-six Republicans joined with two Democrats to filibuster the $447 billion plan. Fifty Democrats had voted for it, but the vote was not final. The roll call was kept open to allow Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. to vote. The likely 51-48 eventual tally would be far short of the 60 votes needed to keep the bill alive in the 100-member Senate." ...

     ... The Hill Update: "President Obama blasted Senate Republicans for blocking his jobs bill Tuesday night, saying the American people 'won't take 'no' for an answer.' The president said in a statement that his administration will work with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to get votes on the individual components of the bill 'as soon as possible.'"

New York Times: "Five health and environmental groups sued the Obama administration on Tuesday over its rejection of a proposed stricter new standard for ozone pollution, saying the decision was driven by politics and ignored public health concerns."

New York Times: "... the Senate passed a bill that would require the Treasury Department to order the Commerce Department to impose tough tariffs on certain Chinese goods in the event of a finding by the Treasury that China was improperly valuing its currency to gain an economic advantage. The measure passed 63 to 35, with 16 Republican votes, an unusual dynamic in the Democrat-controlled Senate. It enjoyed rare support from members of both parties despite the strong disapproval of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader...."

New York Times: "Federal authorities foiled a plot by men linked to the Iranian government to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States and to bomb a Saudi embassy, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a news conference on Tuesday."

New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey endorsed Mitt Romney’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday afternoon by praising his business and government experience, declaring, 'Mitt Romney is the man we need to lead America.'” With video. CW: okay, so now I'm think maybe Christie isn't running. ...

     ... Update: here's a more, um, expansive Times story.

CNN: "A group of union-backed organizations joined the loosely defined Occupy Wall Street movement again Tuesday, leaving behind the confines of New York's financial district for the posh neighborhoods that dot Manhattan's Upper East Side, according to multiple group representatives.... The union-organized march, meanwhile, took protesters past the homes of well-to-do residents like billionaire David Koch, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon." ...

... New York Daily News: "The attorney for an 'Occupy Wall Street' protester zapped by police pepper spray cited a double standard Tuesday in demanding the arrest of her uniformed assailant.

Republican candidates for president will debate in New Hampshire at 8:00 pm ET. It will air on Bloomberg TV or you can watch a livestream at Bloomberg.com The page linked has a TV channel-finder for Bloomberg.

AP: "President Barack Obama's jobs bill, facing a critical test in the Senate, appears likely to fail because Republicans oppose its spending components and its tax surcharge on millionaires." ...

... CNN: As the Senate prepares to vote on President Obama's jobs bill, the Obama campaign released a memo by senior strategist David Axelrod that seems designed to give wavering senators reason to vote for the bill: it makes the case that 'there is no Republican alternative that would create jobs now.'"

Reuters: "Apple Inc co-founder Steve Jobs died of respiratory arrest caused by a pancreatic tumor, according to the death certificate."

Reuters: "One-time hedge fund tycoon Raj Rajaratnam may get the longest prison sentence to date for insider trading, sending a harsh warning to anyone else who considers becoming a master of trading on confidential information. Prosecutors are seeking one of the longest sentences ever for an insider-trading defendant, arguing that the 54-year-old Galleon Group founder is "the modern face" of illegal stock trading. The sentencing, which had been delayed, is set for Thursday."

The Commentariat -- October 10

Oops, I forgot, till a friend reminded me that today is Columbus Day.

Christopher Columbus Meets Some Native Americans. Or, as another friend writes, "Happy Anniversary of the Day Columbus First Spread Syphilis to the Arawaks."... So here's to Saint Brendan, an Irish monk who -- with his crew -- may have been the first Europeans to travel west to North America in the 6th century C.E.:

Also known as Brandan and Borodon, Brendan was born about 484 A.D. near Tralee in County Kerry. He ... sailed around northwest Europe spreading the Christian faith and founding monasteries — the largest at Clonfert, County Galway.... He died at the age of 93 and he was buried at the monastery in 577 A.D.

Brendan and his brothers figure prominently in Brendan's Voyage, a tale of monks travelling the high seas of the Atlantic, evangelizing to the islands, and possibly reaching the Americas in the 6th century. At one point they stop on a small island, celebrate Easter Mass, light a fire -- and then discover the island is an enormous whale!

Maps of Columbus’ time often included an island called St. Brendan’s Isle that was placed in the western Atlantic ocean. Map makers of the time had no idea of its exact position.... It was mentioned in a Latin text dating from the ninth century called Navigatio Santi Brendani Abatis (Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot). It described the voyage as having taken place in the sixth century.... It was an important part of folklore in medieval Europe and may have influenced Columbus.

     ... As the linked account details, Brendan's claims may not be as far-fetched as they at first seem.

The government is going broke, and who can trust the stock market? There’s not much left to rely on.... [President Obama is] the greatest disappointment of my life — and I’ve been divorced twice.... I'm 67. -- Brenda Barnes, an Occupy Wall Street protester from Santa Monica, California

... This Just in. Alexander Burns of Politico: "Long-shot presidential candidate Buddy Roemer will take his support for Occupy Wall Street to the next level Tuesday when he joins a demonstration in New York. Roemer has been the lone Republican to praise Occupy Wall Street as an expression of public anger against what he calls a 'government ... controlled by special interest money.'" ...

... Jesse LaGreca of Occupy Wall Street & Daily Kos appears on ABC News' "This Week." Luckily, we have Peggy Noonan to tell the kids what to do & George Will to sneer:

... Paul Krugman on the One Percenters' reactions to the 99 Percenters: "... wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.... So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth." ...

... Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) in Nation of Change: "... the country's six largest financial institutions (Bank of America, CitiGroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) now have amassed assets equal to more than 60% of our gross domestic product.... We should break up the giant financial institutions.... Wall Street reform also must address the powerful and secretive Federal Reserve.... Under emergency provisions already in law, the Fed has the authority to provide low-interest loans to small businesses that are starving for capital so that they can create the millions of jobs our economy needs. It should do so. The Fed also has authority to make credit card issuers stop bilking consumers with sky-high fees and interest rates of 30% or more." ...

... Bernie Becker of The Hill: "Both [Herman] Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ... blamed the [Occupy Wall Street] protests on 'class warfare' fomented by Obama." With video, if you can stand to watch two old farts telling lies. ...

... Blue Texan of Firedoglake: "One of the best byproducts of the Occupy Wall Street protests is that they’ve made Republicans show their true colors. America is watching as they cast off the faux right-wing populism of the Teabaggers — which was always a pose — and unabashedly embrace the monied oligarchy." ...

... Charlie Grapski of Firedoglake: immediately after wire services published stories of a scuffle and pepper-spray incident that ultimately led to a shutdown of Washington, D.C.'s National Air & Space Museum, Patrick Howley, an assistant editor of the right-wing American Spectator admitted boasted "that he had consciously infiltrated the group on Friday with the intent to discredit the movement." Howley describes the actual protesters as "lack[ing] the nerve to confront authority. From estimates within the protest, only ten people were pepper-sprayed, and as far as I could tell I was the only one who got inside.” As Grapski writes,

As a result of Howley’s activities a large number of people were subjected to pepper-spray attacks including journalists and tourists who had nothing to do with the protest. Given the negative light that the press is attempting to spin this incident with regard to the ongoing occupations, from Wall Street and D.C. and now spreading to Main Streets across the country, the presence and admitted activities of this self-proclaimed agent provacateur should be brought to the attention of federal law enforcement officials. ...

      ... Ali Gharib of Think Progress: "The American Spectator scrubbed the original piece [by Howley] and reposted it with the words 'in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator' removed from a sentence where Howley described why he 'had infiltrated [the protests] the day before.'” ...

     ... Here's Suzy Khimm's lede in the Washington Post: "A conservative journalist has admitted to infiltrating the group of protesters who clashed with security at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on Saturday — and he openly claims to have instigated the events that prompted the museum to close." ...

     ... Hey, It's What They Do. Phoenix Woman of Firedoglake: "According to a 2010 report from the National Lawyers Guild that examined [the Battle for Seattle in 1999, the RNC protests of 2008, and the G-20 protests of 2009], most if not all of the violence therein was committed by either the cops or people working against or otherwise hostile to the goals of the protesters."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found."

Bill Keller has a fine essay on the Tea Party and their most likely standard-bearer, Rick Perry. Here's a sample, but read the whole column:

Perry brings to the campaign, besides great posture and polished good looks, an economic record that looks like a vindication of Tea Party dogma, never mind that it was made possible by a quarter of America’s known oil reserves, a lot of low-wage immigrants, a reluctance to waste government money on frills like education and health care, and a tax and regulatory environment out of the Wild West....

To this Perry adds a damn-the-pointy-heads denialism — global warming is a hoax, evolution is just “a theory that’s out there” — as well as a wink to the evangelicals, a nod to the executioner, and an ardent defense of personal liberties for those who are heterosexual and don’t need an abortion. He may not believe in evolution, but his survival-of-the-fittest view of society is pretty Darwinian.

New York Times Editors: "It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote — 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republicans, according to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice. As a result, more than five million eligible voters will have a harder time participating in the 2012 election. Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic, particularly the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities.

William Broad & Scott Shane of the New York Times: "A decade after wisps of anthrax sent through the mail killed 5 people, sickened 17 others and terrorized the nation, biologists and chemists still disagree on whether federal investigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.’s long inquiry brushed aside important clues.... The new paper raises the prospect — for the first time in a serious scientific forum — that the Army biodefense expert identified by the F.B.I. as the perpetrator, Bruce E. Ivins, had help in obtaining his germ weapons or conceivably was innocent of the crime.... Dr. Ivins, an Army anthrax specialist who worked at Fort Detrick, Md...., killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors prepared to charge him."

Kevin Soh & Aileen Wang of Reuters: "China's local governments have piled up a mountain of bad debt, some of it to finance bridges to nowhere and other white elephant projects, which now threatens to constrict growth at a time when the global economy is sputtering. It is adding to other systemic risks in China, including a sharp downturn in the property market and a rapid rise in problematic loans." ...

... David Barboza of the New York Times: "Under an economic system that favors state-run banks and companies over wage earners, the government keeps the interest rate on savings accounts so artificially low that it cannot keep pace with China’s rising inflation.... Economists say this nation’s decade of remarkable economic growth ... has to a great extent been underwritten by the household savings — not the spending — of the country’s 1.3 billion people. This system, which some experts refer to as state capitalism, depends on the transfer of wealth from Chinese households to state-run banks, government-backed corporations and the affluent few who are well enough connected to benefit from the arrangement. Meanwhile, striving middle-class families ... are unable to enjoy the full fruits of China’s economic miracle." Hmm. Why does this sound so familiar?

CW: I have no way to verify this figure, & one should bear in mind that during these Republican Administrations, Democrats often controlled Congress, which holds the purse strings even if the president signs the checks. Thanks to Doug R. for the link:

Right Wing World

Politics of the Absurd. David Catanese of Politico: "Fifteen minutes was not long enough to satisfy Joe 'The Plumber's' appetite for political glory. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher has now filed for Congress to run in Ohio's 9th District.... 'The Plumber' could benefit from a Democratic primary face-off between [Rep. Marcy] Kaptur, [the Democrat who currently holds the seat,] and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who may end up running against each other because of the loss of two congressional seats in Ohio following redistricting."

The Plutocrats Divide? Ken Vogel of Politico: "Karl Rove’s team and the Koch brothers’ operatives quietly coordinated millions of dollars in political spending in 2010, but that alliance, which has flown largely under the radar, is showing signs of fraying. And with each network planning to dwarf its 2010 effort, Republicans worry that the emerging rivalry between the two deepest-pocketed camps in the conservative movement could undercut their party’s chances of taking the Senate and White House in 2012."

As if to hammer down Krugman's point (see link above), E. J. Dionne writes that when Democratic senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren made "a proper case for liberalism," Dionne's WashPo colleague & leading conservative pundit George Will went into full attack mode. Devoting a whole column to Warren's thesis that "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own," Will "demonstrates his debating skills by first accusing Warren of being 'a pyromaniac in a field of straw men,' and then by conceding the one and only point that Warren actually made.... On the core point about the social contract, George Will and Elizabeth Warren are in full, if awkward, agreement."

Captain of the Clueless Club. CW: one of the many reasons I never cite Robert Samuelson, the Washington Post economics op-ed columnist, even when he might be correct about something: here he defends the rich against unfair attacks by people who "resent and envy" them.

Lindsey Boerma of CBS News: "Rep. Ron Paul scored a decisive victory Saturday in a mock presidential election at the Values Voter Summit, trouncing fellow Texan, Gov. Rick Perry, but an organizer of the straw poll suggested ballot-stuffing may have skewed the results.... The victory for the longtime congressman and three-time presidential contender over his Republican rivals in the presidential contest was ... surprising because Paul's principled libertarianism sometimes puts him at odds with the views of social conservatives on issues such as gay marriage and drug laws." CW: somehow I don't think this means Values Voters are suddenly in favor of free & fair elections. See New York Times editorial linked above.

Rick Perry attacks RomneyCare:

News Ledes

Wall Street Journal: "Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday that he’ll allow the Wall Street protesters to stay indefinitely, provided they abide by the law, marking his strongest statement to date on the city’s willingness to let demonstrators occupy a park in Lower Manhattan."

New York Times: "Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims, two Americans, won the Nobel economics prize on Monday “for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said."

AP: "Clashes over the weekend between Syrian soldiers and army defectors and a shooting at a funeral have killed at least 17 members of the military and 14 civilians, the latest sign of the militarization of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime, a human rights group said Monday."

Washington Post: "The trial of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the al-Qaeda suspect who allegedly tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines plane with a bomb hidden in his underwear in December 2009, will open Tuesday in Detroit amid some uncertainty about whether the Nigerian, who is representing himself, will offer a vigorous defense or attempt to use the courtroom as a political stage."