The Commentariat -- September 24

President Obama's weekly address on strengthening the American education system:

     ... The transcript is here. Reuters: "Young people in the United States are falling behind their overseas peers in reading, math and science, President Barack Obama said on Saturday, calling education reform an essential part of economic recovery."

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

** Profs. Theodore Marmor & Jerry Mashaw in a New York Times op-ed: "Where politicians once drew on a morally resonant language of people, family and shared social concern, they now deploy the cold technical idiom of budgetary accounting.... The language of sociology and common culture has been replaced by the language of economics and individualism. ...

... BUT this ad, which Ben Smith says the DNC is actually airing heavily & is not just dropping on the YouTubes in hopes bloggers & other unimportant media outlets will pick it up, somewhat belies the professors' contention (or maybe Obama is finally getting it):

... Via Steve Benen, more evidence the Obama administration is serious about jobs:

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic asks a couple of political scientists -- & Guy Molyneux & John Sides -- why Americans love the elements of Obama's jobs plan but don't love Obama so much. CW: I'd add, ... and Republicans are superb at vilifying Obama & ridiculing his policies.

Aaron Pressman of Reuters: "The Federal Reserve's 'Operation Twist' to bring down bond yields and stimulate the economy is likely to cause pain for the nation's largest pension funds.... Hit both by falling stock prices and falling bond yields, the 100 largest pension plans of public U.S. companies have assets covering only 79 percent of their liabilities as of the end of August, down from 86 percent at the end of 2010...."

Anna Palmer of Politico: "Congress may be leading the government toward a shutdown, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers from leaving town to raise money. Before a vote Monday to keep the government open beyond Sept. 30 and FEMA funded, Republicans and Democrats have plans outside of Washington to host fundraisers and other party committee events."

Charlie Cook of the National Journal on how Republicans could defeat healthcare legislation. Presume "Obamacare" makes it through the courts more-or-less intact. Now presume the Republican presidential candidate wins in 2012. Then presume Republicans retain control of the House, but with a smaller majority. Next presume Republicans take control of the Senate, even by one senator, &/or get fake Democratic senators to vote with them. The House could repeal Obamacare, the Senate could pass it via reconciliation -- as a budgetary bill that does not allow for a filibuster (which requires 60 votes) & President G. O. Poop could sign the repeal. CW: All of Cook's scenarios are plausible, BTW. And they would work for any policies that are primarily budgetary in nature. Don't think it will happen? Vote Republican & you'll find out.

Olga Pierce, et al., of ProPublica: So-called (& so-named) "independent" redistricting advocacy groups "are being quietly bankrolled by corporations, unions and other special interests. Their main interest in the once-a-decade political fight over redistricting is not to help voters in the communities they claim to represent but mainly to improve the prospects of their political allies or to harm their enemies. The number of these purportedly independent redistricting groups is rising, but their ties remain murky. Contributions to such groups are not limited by campaign finance laws, and most states allow them to take unlimited amounts of money without disclosing the source."

Matthew Lee of the AP: "The Obama administration has managed to buy time and may have staved off an embarrassing and politically awkward showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. It may also have maneuvered itself into a corner. The U.S. and the rest of the international diplomatic Quartet of Mideast peacemakers endorsed specific timelines for restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks Friday.... Committing to those detailed deadlines raises potentially unrealistic hopes...."

Chris Bowers of Daily Kos: "Scared by [Elizabeth] Warren's rapid rise [as a candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts], the forces of Wall Street have suddenly made her a top target." The Politico "charges" against Warren, which Bowers cites, are beyond ridiculous. CW: She's getting the Obama treatment. Read the whole article.

Right Wing World *

"Yikes." Juana Summers of Politico: "The conservative commentariat spoke with near-unanimity Friday on Rick Perry’s debate performance: The Texas governor didn’t just lose, he bombed.... His second consecutive weak outing set off alarm bells on the right, where too many cringeworthy moments raised questions about Perry’s durability, his seriousness and ability to compete on a stage with Barack Obama.... Perry’s nationally televised face-plant revived dormant talk — and hopes — about the possibility of new candidates entering the race. With almost no one willing to defend a performance marked by meandering or inaccurate answers, botched canned lines and the damaging adoption of the left’s critique of conservatives on immigration, it’s hard to imagine how things could have gone much worse for Perry.... Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor, summed it up with one word: 'yikes.'” ...

... New York Times Editors: "Thursday night’s Republican debate was a particular cacophony of illogic as all of the candidates pandered to a base that is frighteningly unrepresentative of most Americans who want their elected officials to work for the greater good." Later in the editorial, the writers equate Rick Perry with Dr. Strangelove. ...

... Gail Collins feels sorry for Republicans because their field of presidential candidates is so lousy and their frontrunner, Rick Perry, is seriously not ready for primetime. ...

... More Bad News for Perry. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Thursday’s Google/Fox News debate in Florida was the most watched Republican event so far, according to Nielsen." ...

... Peter Catapano covers the field of reactions to the crowd's booing a gay soldier serving in Iraq & to Rick Santorum's answer to the soldier's question, an answer I would call a good demonstration of how Santorum got its well-earned definition. ...

... BUT the major Republican candidates (along with the minor ones, excepting those above -- Huntsman, Santorum & Johnson), who had nothing to say on Thursday, are still remarkably tongue-tied. Via Emily Friedman of ABC News:

No response. -- Mitt Romney

No response. -- Rick Perry

No response. -- Ron Paul

There was booing and cheering throughout the debate – Michele didn’t comment on any of it. -- Michele Bachmann's spokeswoman

If you don’t have time to explain your whole position on that, you can very easily be taken out of context so I don’t even want to comment on that. -- Herman Cain

Decline to comment. -- Newt Gingrich

      Update: via Steve Benen: yesterday on Fox "News," Rick Santorum condemned the booing of an American soldier, tho he maintains he never heard it.

* Where even Republicans may not want another uninformed, inarticulate Texas governor to lead their party. Oh, and they don't wanna talk about teh gays.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke at a Congressional Black Caucus function this evening.

Miami Herald: "... businessman Herman Cain won a surprise victory at the Republican Party of Florida’s nationally watched presidential straw poll Saturday in a sign that frontrunner Rick Perry is in deep trouble. Cain’s landslide victory, with 37 percent of the vote, exceeded the combined total for Perry and Mitt Romney, who only garnered 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively."

New York Times: "A day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned to this battered country calling for a cease-fire, his forces escalated attacks on the opposition on Saturday, leaving more than 40 people dead across the capital."

New York Times: "President Obama on Saturday broke with his usual practice of golfing with three junior aides and for the first time teed up with former President Bill Clinton, who has written a new book on the government’s role in the 21st-century economy."

New York Times: "The public assault by the Obama administration on the Pakistani intelligence agency as a facilitator of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan has been met with scorn in Pakistan, a signal that the country has little intention of changing its ways, even perhaps at the price of the crumpled alliance."

AP: "UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel has resigned over a $2.3 billion rogue trading loss.... The move ends days of speculation about whether Gruebel could retain his position following the latest scandal to hit Switzerland's biggest bank."

AP: "Finance ministers and central bankers are pushing for bold action by the Group of 20 nations to get the global economy back on track, while wavering over helping Greece avoid a destabilizing default." The G-20 is meeting for three days in Washington, D.C.

AP: "NASA's dead six-ton satellite fell to Earth early Saturday morning, starting its fiery death plunge somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean. Details were still sketchy, but the U.S. Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center and NASA say that the bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. That doesn't necessarily mean it all fell into the sea. NASA's calculations had predicted that the former climate research satellite would fall over a 500-mile swath."

AP: "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday proposed Vladimir Putin as presidential candidate for 2012, almost certainly guaranteeing Putin's return to the office four years after he was legally forced to step aside.... Putin, who currently serves as prime minister..., [during a speech that followed Medvedev's endorsement, made] a surprising suggestion that Russia's wealthy should pay higher taxes than average citizens."

AP: "Facing discontent within his German flock, Pope Benedict XVI made a gesture of meeting with victims of clerical sex abuse as he called for Roman Catholics in the former communist East to rediscover their faith. The pontiff celebrated Mass with some 30,000 people early Saturday, unhindered by an incident on the edge of the security zone in which a man fired an air gun at a security guard about an hour before the service, Vatican and local officials said."

Daily Beast: "While publicly pressuring Israel to make deeper concessions to the Palestinians, President Obama has secretly authorized significant new aid to the Israeli military that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker busters, Newsweek has learned.... The GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators — potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites — were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office."

New York Times: "Stony-faced, the chief executive and chief financial officer of Solyndra, the bankrupt solar company, took the Fifth Amendment on Friday before a House subcommittee as they were verbally pummeled by committee members until Democrats complained that the badgering was becoming unseemly."

The Commentariat -- September 23

Happy Autumnal Equinox. It falls at 5:04 am ET today.

By William Morris.In his column Paul Krugman fleshes out some numbers he's been reporting on in blogposts: "Detailed estimates from the Congressional Budget Office ... show that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. That’s growth, but it’s slow, especially compared with the 100 percent rise in median income over a generation after World War II. Meanwhile, over the same period, the income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income distribution, rose by 480 percent.... In 2005 dollars, the average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million. So do the wealthy look to you like the victims of class warfare?" CW Note: Krugman also gives Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren a plug for her remarks about "class warfare"; see video in yesterday's Commentariat. ...

... I've posted a Krugman page on Off Times Square.

Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: "The improvised, on-the-fly financial system that replaced Bretton Woods after 1971 has failed. The great challenge facing the world leaders gathering for the annual World Bank-International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington this weekend is to figure out what will replace it. For the past 40 years, capital has moved freely around the globe, with currencies fluctuating according to market forces and countries intervening to affect those flows according to their domestic interests. It has all proved remarkably prone to financial crises.... This is no way to run a global economy. But it’s not clear whether there is enough political will to find a new framework, because it would require many countries to sacrifice something dear to them."

Tim Egan: Republican environmental policies are so anti-scientific & so bought-and-paid-for by polluters that they're going to kill us. But President Obama has been passive on environmental issues, & passive doesn't get you an energized base that helps win elections. Doom!

Obama Names Names! Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "President Obama publicly castigated House Speaker John Boehner [yesterday] at a rally in Ohio, singling him out by name four times for his opposition to passage of his $447 billion jobs bill.... In an email blast after the speech, Obama for America campaign manager Jim Messina urged supporters to call Boehner directly to let him know 'what Americans like you think.' ... But ... many Democrats have also publicly voiced reluctance to 'pass it right away....'” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ... says he might not consider bringing the jobs bill up for a vote until at least next month." Video of the speech is in yesterday's Ledes.

Brian Beutler of TPM: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) -- who's a close ally of three Democrats on the [deficit-reduction supercommittee] -- says they would be doing a disservice to advance deficit reducing legislation without knowing its impact on economic growth."

Steve Benen: "We’ve set the bar for success so low [for Congress], avoiding shutdowns is somehow deemed an accomplishment.... And so long as congressional Republicans remain radicalized, there’s no reason to think conditions will improve after this Congress, either. The public didn’t recognize or appreciate it, but 2009 and 2010 were pretty extraordinary for getting stuff done in Washington, despite Republican efforts to break the Senate.... Worst of all, this is what Americans said they wanted when they voted last year." BTW, we're set for a shutdown in exactly one week.

NEW. Eric Lipton & John Broder of the New York Times: "The government’s backing of [of the solar panel manufacturer] Solyndra, which could cost taxpayers more than a half-billion dollars, came as the politically well-connected business began an extensive lobbying campaign that appears to have blinded government officials to the company’s financial condition and the risks of the investment, according to a review of government documents and interviews with administration officials and industry analysts."

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "The Obama administration has to decide by Monday whether it wants to directly ask the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of its signature health reform legislation. Since the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the health law in August, the administration can either ask the full court to take another look at the case or ask the Supreme Court to review it and issue a final decision.... If it doesn’t file by Monday or get an extension, the Justice Department would have no other option than to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the 11th Circuit’s decision."

I don’t understand how she can be down 20 points one week and is now up 2. What is going on? -- Sen. Scott Brown, on a poll showing Elizabeth Warren beating him by two points in the Massachusetts senate race, overheard by a passing Hill staffer & reported in TPM

Tim Mak of Politico: "Former President Bill Clinton suggested Thursday that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was ideologically in line with 'militant subgroups in Israel' and was too willing to let the Jewish state do whatever it wants." ...

... Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "Who's to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process? Former President Bill Clinton said today that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- whose government moved the goalposts upon taking power, and whose rise represents a key reason there has been no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal."

CW: I'm hoping this is the last piece I'll ever link to about Ron Suskind's Confidence Men, his "insider" look at a "dysfunctional" Obama White House. Jacob Weisberg of Slate has a well-supported takedown of Suskind & his methodology. The title of his post: "Don't Believe Ron Suskind; His book about Obama is as spurious as the ones he wrote about Bush."

Right Wing World

CW: I know "incredulous" isn't a real word, but Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post is just incredulous at just how clueless the Republican presidential candidates were in last night's debate. ...

... Glenn Kessler fact-checks the debate. He doesn't actually end with a Four-Pinocchio condemnation, but he does note that he has quatri-pinocchio'd at least one of the same false claims earlier, and the candidates delivered many more outright inventions. ...

... Bill Adair at PolitiFact also reviews some of the candidates' statements, some of which he rates as true, but he also came up with a couple of "falses" & one "pants-on-fire" (the same Romney falsehood Kessler cited: "President Obama went around the world and apologized for America"). ...

... FactCheck.org: "The GOP presidential candidates debated for the second time in six days — tossing out a variety of false and misleading claims on everything from Social Security to vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases." The article goes on to enumerate some of the whoppers.

... The audience low point? Booing a gay soldier stationed in Iraq who is concerned Republican candidates might cut back on advances made for gays & lesbians in the military:

     Here's The Hill headline to a report by Cameron Joseph: "Gay soldier booed at GOP debate; candidates stay mum." ...

... Can't Any Texas Governor Complete a Sentence? (and this one was scripted; evidently, Gov. Garble forgot his line):

Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of -- against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment? Was it -- was before -- he was before the social programs from the standpoint of -- he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against first -- Roe v. Wade? I mean we'll wait until tomorrow to see which Mitt Romney we're really talking to tonight. -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in last night's debate ...

... Garance Franke-Ruta of The Atlantic: "Mitt Romney subtly laid out a line of attack against Rick Perry last night that raised questions about the Texas governor's sometimes garbled syntax and increasingly apparent difficulty giving mid-length answers to policy questions.... No wonder Romney's attack strategy was to say over and over that you can't understand what Perry is trying to say -- as well as to argue with him on policy." ...

... "Texas Toast?" Jonathan Martin & James Hohmann of Politico: "... in his third debate in a month ... Perry gave a foreign policy answer that offered no indication he’s thought about how to respond to threats against America, twice bobbled attacks on Mitt Romney’s well-documented departures from conservative orthodoxy, called immigration hard-liners heartless and, in what was otherwise his best answer of the evening, stretched the truth in the course of delivering a well-rehearsed line about why he mandated pre-teen girls to be vaccinated against HPV." ...

... "Another Rick Perry Whopper." FactCheck.org: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry makes another wildly false claim in a new Web ad — saying that the U.S. poverty rate has hit an 'all-time high.' In fact, the rate is the highest since 1993, but 7.3 percentage points lower than it was in 1959, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent annual tally." Includes video of ad.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Shortly after President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority formally requested the Security Council to grant full United Nations membership on Friday, international powers reached an agreement on terms to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinians, diplomats and Obama administration officials said."

New York Times: "An impasse between the House and Senate over a bill to keep the government open after Sept. 30 and provide financial aid to natural disaster victims got worse on Friday as the Senate easily shot down a House bill passed in the early hours of Friday morning."

New York Times: " The Obama administration, increasingly alarmed by the spillover effects of Europe’s financial crisis, has begun an intensive lobbying campaign to persuade Chancellor >Angela Merkel of Germany and other leaders to act decisively to stem any contagion from the Greece debt crisis."

Congress hasn't been able to fix this, so I will. -- Barack Obama

President Obama will allow states waivers of No Child Left Behind standards:

President Obama spoke about No Child Left Behind this morning.  New York Times: "President Obama on Friday will offer to waive central provisions of the No Child Left Behind law for states that embrace his educational agenda, essentially ending his predecessor’s signature accountability measure, which has defined public school life nationwide for nearly a decade." Video above.

Washington Post: "Washington lurched toward another potential government shutdown crisis Friday, as the House approved a Republican-authored short-term funding measure designed to keep government running through Nov. 18 that Democrats in the Senate immediately vowed to reject."

Washington Post: "State and federal officials on Friday were again to meet with representatives of the nation’s largest banks, trying to finalize a much-anticipated settlement over shoddy foreclosure practices that remains elusive a year after the abuses first garnered national attention.... New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ... has expressed concern that the pending settlement could release banks from liability for misdeeds that go beyond flawed and fraudulent foreclosure documents.... Schneiderman has insisted that he would not sign onto a deal he views as too lenient on the banks. Attorneys general from a handful of other states, including Delaware and Nevada, have expressed similar concerns."

New York Times: "U.S. EPA plans to enforce smog rules that were put in place under George W. Bush, now that President Obama has asked the agency to wait until 2013 to move on still-stricter air quality standards for ozone, Administrator Lisa Jackson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill [Thursday].... Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said turning to the 2008 standard is better than reverting to the 'outdated and nonprotective' standard that preceded it." CW: this is actually a pleasant surprise; the conventional wisdom was that the EPA would stick with the Clinton-era standards, which are worse than the Bush standards.

AP: "The world's major economic powers are pledging to launch a bold effort to deal with a chronic slowdown in growth and a European debt crisis threatening to push the global economy into another recession.... The statement by the Group of 20 major economies was issued late Thursday and pledged that the countries, which represent 85 percent of the global economy, would do what was necessary to restore financial stability...."

New York Times: "In their third debate in as many weeks, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas engaged in a sometimes heated back and forth over immigration, health care and entitlements, their rivalry dominating a stage that included seven other candidates struggling to catch up in the race for the Republican presidential nomination."

AP: "Nearly two decades after embarking on historic peace talks with Israel, Palestinians prepared to sidestep that troubled route on Friday to seek U.N. recognition of an independent state — hoping to leverage this dramatic move on the world stage to realize their dream of an independent homeland. Earlier in the week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rebuffed an intense, U.S.-led effort to sway him from the statehood bid, saying he would submit the application to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon as planned."

New York Times: "President Ali Abdullah Saleh made a dramatic and sudden return to Yemen on Friday after nearly four-months in Saudi Arabia, seeking to reinsert himself at the center of a slowly fracturing country mired in bloody clashes on the streets of its capital. His return, announced by state news agencies, appeared unlikely to immediately quell the fighting, which has left more than 70 people dead since Sunday in fierce street battles between government forces and soldiers who have sided with antigovernment protesters."

Space: "A decommissioned NASA satellite is expected to plummet to Earth today (Sept. 23), and agency officials are monitoring the dead spacecraft closely to try to narrow down when and where the debris will fall. According to NASA, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, will make its fiery descent through the atmosphere some time this afternoon or early evening (Eastern Daylight Time), but while it is still too soon to tell where pieces of the defunct satellite will land, scientists have been able to rule out North America from the potential impact zone. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "A wayward NASA satellite may yet fall to Earth in the United States. On Friday morning, the space agency issued an update about its defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, which is dropping out of the sky more slowly than anticipated. 'Re-entry is expected late Friday, Sept. 23, or early Saturday, Sept. 24, Eastern Daylight Time,' NASA said."

AP: "A startling find at one of the world’s foremost laboratories that a subatomic particle seemed to move faster than the speed of light has scientists around the world rethinking Albert Einstein and one of the foundations of physics. Now they are planning to put the finding to further high-speed tests to see if a revolutionary shift in explaining the workings of the universe is needed — or if the European scientists made a mistake."

Live Science: "Many 9/11 conspiracy theories revolve around explosions that were seen and heard in the World Trade Center's Twin Towers prior to their collapse. Despite scientific investigations that have explained the processes that brought down the skyscrapers, some conspiracy theorists suggest the plane impacts were just red herrings, to distract from the fact that 9/11 was an 'inside job....' Now a materials scientist, [Christen Simensen of SINTEF], has come up with a more scientific explanation for the mystery booms, and says his model of the Twin Towers collapse leaves no room for conspiracies." CW: Aah, he's probably part of the vast conspiracy.

The Commentariat -- September 22

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

Final Thoughts. Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic on the history of the death penalty in the U.S. You'll have to read the whole post, which is a long one, to see why Cohen says Rick Perry's "wanton and freakish" disregard for the rights of the accused could help bring an end to the death penalty.

There is nobody on this country who got rich on his own. -- Elizabeth Warren ...

Ezra Klein has a good, short analysis for laymen on what the Fed did yesterday. ...

... Mark Thoma has a bit more; his conclusion: the Fed didn't do enough. Brad DeLong.: ditto, plus. ...

... AND Paul Krugman: "... they’re trying to use a water pistol to stop a charging rhino."

More on Class Warfare from Krugman: "One is that you have to beware of the old trick of saying 'taxes', then slipping into 'income taxes'. Most Americans pay more payroll than income taxes, but the reverse is true at high incomes. So focusing only on income taxes makes it seem as if the rich pay much more of the burden than they really do." Plus other tricks of the trade designed to fool you into thinking "the rich have done enough." ...

... Krugman is no doubt talking about this "fact check" by the AP's Stephen Ohlemacher.

E. J. Dionne: "... one of the Obama administration’s most successful programs is also its most 'socialist' initiative...: the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.... Yes, this was socialism — or, perhaps, 'state capitalism' — because the government temporarily took substantial ownership in the companies.... Today, the companies are thriving. More than that: The auto industry exemplifies how unions can do their best to protect the interests of their members while also ensuring the prosperity of the companies that employ them. This month, the United Auto Workers and GM reached a tentative four-year contract that will add or save some 6,500 jobs, provide workers with a $5,000 signing bonus and enhance a profit-sharing agreement.... The union and the company are seeking to align the interests of workers and shareholders."

The Affordable Care Act Is Working. Kevin Sack of the New York Times: "Young adults, long the group most likely to be uninsured, are gaining health coverage faster than expected since the 2010 health law began allowing parents to cover them as dependents on family policies." ...

... Linda Greenhouse has a very fine post on the legal wranglings over the constitutionality of the individual mandate, an essential element of the Affordable Care Act. Greenhouse writes approvingly of "a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting in the heart of the old Confederacy, [which] offers a powerful reminder of a fact that a dismaying number of folks appear lately to have forgotten: the Civil War is over... and that p.s., the Union won."

Helene Cooper & Steven Myers of the New York Times: "A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obama tried to qualify his own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state. And President Nicolas Sarkozy of France stepped forcefully into the void, with a proposal that pointedly repudiated Mr. Obama’s approach. The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking." CW: in other words, we have willingly let Israel isolate us in the region; not good for us & ultimately not good for Israel.

Adam Goldman, et al., of the AP: "The New York Police Department put American citizens under surveillance and scrutinized where they ate, prayed and worked, not because of charges of wrongdoing but because of their ethnicity, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press. The documents describe in extraordinary detail a secret program intended to catalog life inside Muslim neighborhoods as people immigrated, got jobs, became citizens and started businesses. The documents undercut the NYPD's claim that its officers only follow leads when investigating terrorism." ...

... Timothy Williams of the New York Times: "On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Shoshana Hebshi, 35, a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother ... from a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, was on a plane flying from Denver to Detroit when something she — or another passenger in her row of seats — had done caused the government to scramble F-16 fighter planes and escort Frontier Airlines Flight 623 until it landed safely. The plane was taken to a remote part of the airport, and armed federal authorities handcuffed Ms. Hebshi and her seatmates and took them off the plane. She was placed in a jail cell, strip-searched and interrogated by the F.B.I. before eventually being released.... Ms. Hebshi says she believes she was detained because she is 'dark-skinned' — she is half Arab, half Jewish." See also Fred Drumlevich's comment on today's Off Times Square.

Skid Row, Rural South. Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The falloff of the economy of Greenwood County, [South Carolina,] a district of almost 70,000 people that once pulsed with busy factories and mills, was the steepest in the country by two counts. According to an analysis of Census Bureau figures made public on Thursday, its poverty rate more than doubled to 24 percent from 2007 to 2010, the largest increase for any county in the nation. The decline also engulfed the middle class. Median household income plunged by 28 percent over the same period...."

... Skid Row, Urban North. Sam Roberts of the New York Times: "Poverty grew nationwide last year, but the increase was even greater in New York City, the Census Bureau will report on Thursday, suggesting that New York was being particularly hard hit by the aftermath of the recession. From 2009 to 2010, 75,000 city residents were pushed into poverty, increasing the poor population to more than 1.6 million and raising the percentage of New Yorkers living below the official federal poverty line to 20.1 percent, the highest level since 2000. The 1.4-percentage-point annual increase in the poverty rate appeared to be the largest jump in nearly two decades." CW: tell it to Wall Street.

Presidential historian Matthew Dickinson is unimpressed with the so-called sensational aspects of Confidence Men, Ron Suskind's book about Obama White House infighting: "... based on reading memos and documents from thirteen previous presidencies, the scenes Suskind describes regarding dissent in the Obama White House are neither uncommon nor nearly as problematic as he would have us believe."

And speaking of books, here's another excerpt -- looks like a prologue -- from Roger Ebert's book Life Itself. Via NPR. Ebert is an easy guy to like and his style is instructive if you're thinking of writing your own memoir for the grandkids, for the public or just to organize your thoughts. Thanks to reader Haley S. for the link.

David Streitfeld of the New York Times: "As speculation swirled Wednesday that Meg Whitman might be brought in to save the troubled Hewlett-Packard, the tech world rendered a verdict: You have got to be kidding." See also today's News Ledes below.

"Let Him Die," an advocacy ad by Protect Your Care:

Right Wing World *

We're going to have a relentless focus on creating jobs. -- John Boehner, late 2010 ...

... Mike Stanfill started RepublicanJobCreation.com as a joke. He began "a chronological list of activities by the GOP beginning 2-10-2011. I'm sorry to report that none, so far, have resulted in a single new job being created in America." CW: Keep returning to Stanfill's site. As he says, "No job creation here. Seriously. Not a fucking employment sausage.... I'll keep adding to this list until the Republican House does something to create jobs. I unhappily predict this is gonna be one lonnnnng list. After all, you don't get rid of a sitting president by helping the economy."

Via AlterNet.Down the Memory Hole. Joshua Holland of AlterNet lists nine policies conservatives were for before they were against them; i.e., before Democrats adopted them. Thanks to a reader for the links to this & to RepublicanJobCreation above.

Michael McAuliff of the (ugh!) Huffington Post: "The GOP-led House Oversight Committee may be accusing the White House of a 'job killing' green energy agenda in a hearing Thursday -- but at least ten Republicans on the panel have signed letters seeking to land green energy jobs in their districts." ...

... AND. Jim Snyder of Bloomberg News: "Republican Representative Darrell Issa, who said government subsidies to specific companies can encourage corruption [& who heads the House Oversight Committee accusing Obama of "job-killing" green energy], sought U.S. help in the past for clean-energy projects in his home state of California. Issa ... wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu to support an Energy Department loan for Aptera Motors Inc., a Carlsbad, California, electric-car maker, according to a letter received by the department Jan. 14, 2010. 'Awarding this opportunity to Aptera Motors will greatly assist a leading developer of electric vehicles in my district,' Issa wrote...."

I certainly have some concerns [about the creation of a Palestinian state]. The first step in any peaceful negotiation for a two-state solution for the Palestinians is to recognize the right of Israel’s existence. They have to denounce terrorism in both word and deed. And they have to sit down and negotiate with Israel directly. Anything short of that is a non-starter in my opinion. — Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), in an interview with Time magazine, Sept. 15, 2011

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Perry is stuck in a time warp. He’s describing a situation that existed in the 1980s, not really today.... We sent Perry’s remarks to three experts on Middle East diplomacy — an Israeli, a Palestinian and an American. All three said he appeared to be remarkably uninformed. We contacted Perry’s spokesman for an explanation but as usual he did not respond. (The Perry campaign has become a fact-free zone, not responding to Fact Checker queries, ever since Perry received Four Pinocchios for his comments on climate change.)

Steve Benen posts a couple of photos you should look at.... Now, do you think Democrats will use the Perry, et al., shot the way Republicans used the Obama, et al., shot? Again and again and again? I don't. Maybe it's because Democrats don't think their voters are stupid bigots, which Republicans are pretty sure about a bloc of their voters.

Nice work, Rev. Al:

..."Romney Calls for a Tax Policy that Will Help "Us" in the Middle Class." Sarah Boxer of CBS News on Mitt Romney, Regular Joe, struggling along like "80 or 90 percent of us"; never mind that actually "he's in the bracket that President Obama is targeting with his proposed 'Buffett rule' to tax millionaires."

As if you had no idea, Michael Crowley of Time writes about why Jon Huntsman, Jr., can't gain any traction in the Republican presidential primaries. The article does provide an interesting overview of Huntsman's campaign.

* Where leaders are rewarded for hypocrisy.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A day after the Federal Reserve announced another measure to stimulate the economy, global financial markets on Thursday declined steeply as pessimism about the outlook for the economies of the United States and Europe was deepened by weak data and the Fed’s own grim assessment. The downcast mood appeared to be reflected across the board. Stocks fell in Asia, Europe and on Wall Street, where equities were down more than 3 percent as the market closed."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration for the first time Thursday openly asserted that Pakistan was indirectly responsible for specific attacks against U.S. troops and installations in Afghanistan, calling a leading Afghan insurgent group 'a veritable arm' of the Pakistani intelligence service. Last week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and a Sept. 10 truck bombing that killed five Afghans and wounded 77 NATO troops were 'planned and conducted' by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network 'with ISI support,' said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

New York Times: "Meg Whitman, eBay’s former chief executive, was named to lead Hewlett-Packard on Thursday, the company said."

President Obama speaks about the American Jobs Act at the Brent Spence Bridge:

President Obama spoke about the American Jobs Act in Cincinnati, Ohio, this afternoon. A Bridge to Somewhere. Washington Post: "Obama’s scheduled appearance at the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects the home states of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), has drawn rebukes from his two Republican rivals." AP post-speech story here.

AP: "The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell last week, though the decline isn't enough to signal improvement in the job market. Weekly applications dropped by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 423,000, the Labor Department said Thursday."

New York Times: "Proclaiming his innocence, Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday night, his life — and the hopes of supporters worldwide — prolonged by several hours while the Supreme Court reviewed but then declined to act on a petition from his lawyers to stay the execution."

New York Times: "White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas. Byrd, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup truck and pulled whip-like to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate crime murders in recent Texas history."

Washington Post: "World markets plunged Thursday after the Federal Reserve took a dramatic step to help revive the U.S. economy — and in the process sent a message that America’s financial malaise seems unlikely to dissipate any time soon. Key European and Asian indexes were down more than 4 percent. Investors took the Fed’s surprise action to purchase longer-term bonds--an effort to push down long-term interest rates even further -- as a sign that it felt the U.S. downturn could last for a long time."

AP: "The general commanding NATO's mission in Libya said Thursday that isolated groups of forces loyal to ousted strongman Moammar Gadhafi continue to be a threat to local people but are unable to coordinate their actions. Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard said in a conference call with reporters that many Gadhafi forces are surrounded with no way out. On Wednesday, NATO's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, granted approval to extend the mission for another 90 days."

AP: "Palestinian protesters have denounced President Barack Obama for his opposition to their bid to win U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state. Dozens rallied on Thursday outside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office in Ramallah."