The Commentariat -- September 15

Unlike Sen. Merkley (see below), I'm plumb out of good ideas, so I've posted an Open Thread on today's Off Times Square.

Senator Merkley's Excellent Idea. Greg Sargent: "Senator Jeff Merkley [D-Oregon] ... is calling on both parties to agree to submit every proposal offered by the supercommittee to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to be evaluated for the impact it will have — on jobs.... 'We need to have every proposal that the super-committee brings out to have it scored by its jobs impact,' Merkley told me.... He plans to urge Democratic and GOP leaders to agree to this standard, and hopes to build a campaign to make it happen. here’s precedent for the CBO scoring proposals for jobs impact." ...

... Steve Benen: Merkley's idea "seems like such a no-brainer, I’ll look forward to the creativity Republicans will draw upon to oppose it."

Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: A CNN poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans say creating jobs is more important than reducing the deficit (65%-29%) & they trust President Obama more than Congressional Republicans to manage the economy. What's more, the poll results indicate that the most popular Obama proposals are those that require spending. ...

... BUt. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: the popularity of Obama's plan doesn't stop ConservaDems from attacking him personally and the plan itself. ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "Today [Wednesday] the Democratic congressional caucus, in a dazzling display of circular firing squaddishness, unloaded on President Obama's jobs bill.... Republicans must be laughing their asses off right now. For a brief moment it looked as if maybe, just maybe, Obama had put them in a tough spot.... But now? All they have to do is lay low and let Democrats do the dirty work of undermining the bill for them." ...

... Mackenzie Weinger of Politico: "With frustration and disappointment mounting from stinging defeats in Tuesday’s two special elections and over Obama’s jobs plan, the media is [sic.] filled on Thursday with Democrats on the record publicly questioning and doubting the president and some of his policies, and a few even unleashing biting criticism." ...

... "With Friends like These...." Steve Benen: "... let this be the latest in a series of reminders — it’s easy to get frustrated with President Obama at times, but he’d be in a far better position if he had more reliable congressional allies to partner with." ...

... AP: "Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Republicans won't support President Barack Obama's jobs plan, but he still wants them to vote on the sweeping $450 billion economic recovery effort. 'We are going to have the Republicans belly up to the bar to turn down this plan,' Reid said during a virtual town hall meeting with supporters Wednesday." CW: I guess out there in the hinterland Reid doesn't have access to new about what his esteemed Democratic colleagues are doing. ...

... CW: So James Carville has some pretty good advice for President Obama. It is not anything that Off Times Square commenters haven't said before. And don't expect Obama to listen to Carville any more than he listens to us. But Carville has a three-step "program" -- "Fire, indict, fight" -- that is right on. Carville, naturally, does not mince words.

Jason DeParle & Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times delve into the findings of the U.S. Census report on poverty.

Steve Kornacki of Salon on the perilous road Elizabeth Warren is taking in her effort to win the Massachusetts Senate seat held by Republican Scott Brown, and perhaps to save the Democrats' Senate majority. ...

... Oh, No! Ben Smith: The Massachusetts GOP issued "a press release ... which points out that Elizabeth Warren couldn't name a Red Sox player when she was asked yesterday."

Rod Nordland & David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "The growing influence of Islamists in Libya raises hard questions about the ultimate character of the government and society that will rise in place of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s autocracy. The United States and Libya’s new leaders say the Islamists, a well-organized group in a mostly moderate country, are sending signals that they are dedicated to democratic pluralism. They say there is no reason to doubt the Islamists’ sincerity."

Right Wing World

As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country. -- James Carville

On the Danger of Saving Your Daughter's Life. Gail Collins writes, Michele "Bachmann’s strong points are her passion and determination, while her weak ones include a rather free-floating relationship with reality.... “I had a mother last night come up to me ... she told me her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter,” Bachmann told one TV interviewer after another.... Would a contender for the White House ... just blurt out something they heard from a stranger that could discourage parents from accepting vaccinations that could save their children’s lives? The Bachmann campaign did not respond to my questions about who the woman was or what the candidate did to check out the information. So I guess maybe, yeah." ...

     ... CW Note: the Times has once again held back my comment on Collins' column, but you can read it in today's Off Times Square.

Fowl Economics. Bob Reich: "... governors have as much influence over job growth in their states as roosters do over sunrises.... If governors try hard enough, though, they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety. Rick Perry seems to have done exactly this.... Texas has ... been specializing in minimum-wage jobs. From 2007 to 2010, the number of minimum wage workers there rose ... nearly 150 percent. And 9.5 percent of Texas workers earn the minimum wage or below -- compared to about 6 percent for the rest of the nation.... A few years ago Michele Bachmann remarked that if the minimum wage were repealed 'we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.' ... In short, the Perry (and Bachmann) model of job growth condemns Americans to lower and lower living standards. That’s nothing to crow about."

Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: "Taking the GOP’s anti-tax ideology to its logical conclusion, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced today his own 'American Jobs Act' ... which would completely eliminate corporate income taxes.... The two-page bill changes the tax code to replace any mention of the current '35 percent' tax rate with '0 percent.' Corporations are already sitting on trillions in cash, so cutting their taxes would likely do very little to help the economy, but would balloon the deficit by depriving the government of about $300 billions in revenues annually."

Local News

America's Worst Governor Favors Second Amendment over First. Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald: "A federal judge Wednesday blocked a Florida gun law that restricted doctors from asking patients about firearms. Judge Marcia G. Cooke said doctors had a First Amendment right to ask about firearms, and she rapped the state’s lawyers for failing to provide more than anecdotal evidence to show the law was needed.... Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the 'Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act' into law June 2nd vowed to appeal."

News Ledes

President Obama awards the Medal of Honor to Dakota Meyer:

     ... New York Times: "President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor on Thursday to [Dakota Meyer,] a young former Marine who ignored orders to stay put and fought his way five times into an ambush in an Afghan ravine, helping to rescue three dozen comrades and to recover the remains of four dead American servicemen." ...

... President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to Dakota Meyer this afternoon. AP: "Dakota Meyer saved 36 lives from an ambush in Afghanistan and the former Marine will collect the nation's highest military honor at the White House on Thursday. While he is receiving the Medal of Honor, Meyer's slain comrades will be memorialized in hometown ceremonies at his request."

New York Times: "Worried that Europe’s debt impasse posed a growing threat to the global economy, the world’s major central banks moved Thursday to assure investors that European banks would not run short of American dollars, as they nearly did at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. The banks, in a coordinated action intended to restore market confidence, agreed to pump dollars into the European banking system in the first such show of force in more than a year."

Reuters: "President Barack Obama, yielding to pressure from his political base, has backed off a proposal to reform Social Security retirement benefits in a high-stakes deficits deal Congress needs to reach this year."

New York Times: "An armed drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency this week killed a top Qaeda operative responsible for plotting terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, two American officials said on Thursday. The killing of Abu Hafs al-Shariri occurred Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks."

New York Times: "UBS said on Thursday that a rogue trader in its investment bank had lost $2 billion, a fresh blow to the struggling Swiss bank. Police in London have arrested European equities trader, Kweku Adoboli, in connection with the case.... Shares of UBS dropped more than 8 percent on Thursday, while the broader European banking sector was up." Guardian story here.

New York Times: "The United Automobile Workers agreed early on Thursday to extend contracts with General Motors and Chrysler after the parties were unable to reach new deals by the time the old pacts expired at midnight."

Reuters: "Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron flew in to Tripoli under heavy guard on Thursday, to be welcomed by the new leaders the French and British air forces helped install in Libya, three weeks after rebel forces overthrew Muammar Gaddafi." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "The leaders of Britain and France visited Libya on Thursday in a triumphal but heavily guarded tour intended to boost the country’s revolutionary leaders, whose forces were propelled to power with NATO’s help last month by routing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his military in the most violent conflict of the Arab Spring uprisings."

AP: "The Palestinians will ask the Security Council next week [September 23] to accept them as a full member of the United Nations, the top Palestinian diplomat said Thursday — a move that comes in defiance of Washington's threat to veto the statehood bid. The remarks by Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki put an end to speculation that the Palestinians might avoid a showdown with the United States by sidestepping the Security Council and going directly to the U.N. General Assembly to seek a lesser status of a non-member observer. The U.S. does not wield veto power in the General Assembly, and a Palestinian bid there would be expected to win majority approval."

Reuters: "China's Foreign Ministry urged U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday not to resort to 'excuses' for trade protectionism after U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid pushed for legislation aimed at forcing China to loosen controls on its currency."

The Commentariat -- September 14

New York Times Editors: "The latest figures from the Census Bureau shows the devastating cost of the recession and why putting Americans back to work must be Washington’s top priority.... With 14 million Americans out of work and 46 million living in poverty, the real human cost of more obstruction and inaction is undeniable and inexcusable." ...

... I've put up a comments page on the above editorial and related content on today's Off Times Square.

Jackie Calmes & Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The possibility of major parts of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill becoming law, and of further steps next week by the Federal Reserve, have forecasters saying that the decisions Washington makes in the weeks ahead could have a substantial effect on economic growth and unemployment. At a minimum, the stimulus could be insurance against the headwinds blowing from Europe’s debt crisis and the impact of the recent government spending cuts in this country.... The economy’s weakness, as well as polls showing low approval ratings for both Mr. Obama and Congressional Republicans, seem to have raised the prospects of a policy response." ...

... Sam Youngman of The Hill: The White House sees President Obama's jobs initiative as a win-win for the President. Even if the bill doesn't pass, it gives him a campaign issue on which most Americans agree with him, not the Republicans in Congress.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: Because Republicans believe President Obama is likely to win Pennsylvania again in 2012, they plan to change the winner-take-all electoral college vote (which almost all states have) to a plan that would likely give the GOP candidates more electoral college votes than President Obama.

Brian Beutler of TPM: "The Congressional Budget Office would be stepping out of bounds if it endorsed specific legislation or even hazy policy objectives. But it's hard to read CBO chief Doug Elmendorf's testimony to the joint deficit Super Committee Tuesday as anything other than a de facto endorsement of President Obama's broad strategy to boost the economy: legislation that spends money to hire people and reduces payroll taxes in the near-term, and that reduces deficits by even greater amounts in the middle and end of the decade." ...

... Steve Benen: "Taken together, every credible observer with a pulse — the Fed, the CBO, a wide variety of economists, the financial industry, the bond market, business leaders — are all saying more or less the same thing. They all want policymakers to approve short-term stimulus and oppose drastic short-term budget cuts. GOP officials, of course, desperately want to do the opposite. It’s against this backdrop that House Republicans believe 'every economist' agrees the GOP is on the right track. It’s hard to overstate how ridiculous that claim really is."...

     ... CW Note: here's where Benen gets that "every economist agrees the GOP is on the right track:

As every economist and every rating agency has made clear, getting our deficit under control is the first step to help get our economy growing again and to create jobs. -- Michael Steel, spokesman for Boehner

Dee Dee Myers on the President's sales job on jobs: "Too often, this president comes across like the World’s Most Rational Man. Of course, keeping his head when everyone around him is losing theirs is one of his great strengths. But if he’s going to close the sale —that won’t be enough. If he wants people to buy what he’s selling, he has to appeal to hearts as well as heads. He has to make them feel it."

Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: Once again the President, along with his top economic aide Gene Sperling, muddle the message, this times on the American Jobs Act, when both indicated in interviews they would take half a loaf. "Addressing a hypothetical situation ... risks undercutting his own message ... [and] is one of the easiest ways to step on your own story.... You can simply say a question is hypothetical and you're not going to address it unless the facts change.... If you want to be successful in communicating a consistent message, that's exactly what you have to do." CW: what Lewison doesn't say, perhaps because it's so obvious, that this is Obama once again making his favorite unforced error: we'll call it "The Pre-Game Cave."

The fundamental question, is not how we got here but where you want the country to go. -- Doug Elmendorf, CBO Director ...

... Dana Milbank: the deficit-reduction supercommittee has wasted its first two hearings, the first on speechifying & the second "devoted in large part to trading blame for the deficit.... There are skeptics who say prospects are bleak that the supercommittee will come up with anything resembling a comprehensive solution to the deficit problem. I think those skeptics are too optimistic."

Joe Stephens & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The Obama White House tried to rush federal reviewers for a decision on a nearly half-billion-dollar loan to the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra so Vice President Biden could announce the approval at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory, newly obtained e-mails show.... The August 2009 e-mails ... show White House officials repeatedly asking OMB reviewers when they would be able to decide on the federal loan and noting a looming press event at which they planned to announce the deal. In response, OMB officials expressed concern that they were being rushed to approve the company’s project without adequate time to assess the risk to taxpayers, according to information provided by Republican congressional investigators. Solyndra collapsed two weeks ago, leaving taxpayers liable for the $535 million loan." ...

... NEW. Michael Grunwald of Time on the so-called "Solyndra scandal," and how it has little impact on the fact that green technology is booming. And as Grunwald reminds us, facts don't matter once Republicans latch on to an anti-Obama narrative. CW: But we knew that, didn't we?

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "Wal-Mart is slated to announce Wednesday that it will spend billions of dollars over the next five years to train female workers around the world and support women-owned businesses.... For years, it was embroiled in a massive sex-discrimination lawsuit that alleged that the company paid women less than their male counterparts and passed them over for promotions. This summer, the Supreme Court blocked the case from receiving class-action status, and attorneys for the women involved said they plan to file individual complaints. [A Wal-Mart executive] said that Wednesday’s initiative has been in the works for about a year and is not related to the suit. The company has launched similar sweeping programs in recent years centered on issues for which it had been vilified."

Nate Silver writes about Congressional special election spin -- what is true & what is hype.

Elizabeth Warren pulls out all the stops in her campaign announcement. It's pretty terrific:

Ezra Klein: "In practice, expect [Elizabeth] Warren to spend the next year or so running against ... Wall Street.... Unlike most Democrats, she’s not tainted by the bailout. Unlike most Republicans, she’s not held back by a mistrust of all regulation. She can run the campaign against Wall Street that many have been hoping to see for the last three years.... And [Scott] Brown’s [R-Mass.] record, which includes opposing the bill’s bank tax, watering down the Volcker rule, and receiving more than $140,000 in contributions from the financial industry, is going to make the question of what exactly he was doing a bit harder to answer." ...

... Glen Johnson of the Boston Globe: "Should Elizabeth Warren be fortunate enough to win the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s US Senate nomination next year, state voters could see an election contest that rivals the concurrent presidential campaign."

AP: "A 101-year-old woman was evicted from the southwest Detroit home where she lived for nearly six decades after her 65-year-old son failed to pay the mortgage. Texana Hollis was evicted Monday and her belongings were placed outside the home. Her son, Warren Hollis, said he didn't pay the bill for several years and disregarded eviction notices.... Wayne County Chief Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Hollises took out an adjustable-rate mortgage in 2002. A default and foreclosure notice was filed in November." CW: Okay, the son is an irresponsible idiot. I'd still like to know what bank granted a 92-year-old woman an adjustable-rate mortgage. ...

     ... A Detroit Free Press story indicates that the evicting agency was the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, which purchased the property at auction in December 2010. The story does not report who the original lender was.

Right Wing World *

Liar, Liar. Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: As evidence that he couldn't't be bought, Rick Perry said in Monday's Republican debate that he had taken only $5,000 from Merck, the manufacturer of the HPV vaccine which Perry executive-ordered Texas girls to have. "But campaign disclosure records portray a much deeper financial connection with Merck than Perry’s remarks suggest. His gubernatorial campaigns ... have received nearly $30,000 from the drugmaker since 2000, most of that before he issued his vaccine mandate, which was overturned by the Texas legislature. Merck and its subsidiaries have also given more than $380,000 to the Republican Governors Association (RGA) since 2006, the year that Perry began to play a prominent role in the Washington-based group, The [RGA gave] his campaign at least $4 million over the past five years...." ...

     ... Right Wing Hunter has a clip of the Bachmann-Perry exchange in which Perry claims the Merck contribution was $5,000. The producter won't allow me to embed the clip here.

A "Willfully Ignorant Allegation":

... Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: "... raising the debt ceiling is not — I repeat, IS NOT — like giving the president a blank check or adding more to the national credit card.... It is imperative that ‘blank check’ gibberish from a top-tier presidential candidate be corrected."

* Where facts are irrelevant & stupid lies are applause lines.

News Ledes

At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, President Obama urges Congress to pass the American Jobs Act:

New York Times: "The United States faced increasing pressure on Tuesday as the Palestinian quest for statehood gained support from Turkey and other countries, even as the Obama administration sought an 11th-hour compromise that would avoid a confrontation at the United Nations next week."

New York Times: A little-known Republican businessman from Queens, channeling voter discontent with President Obama into an upset, won election to Congress on Tuesday from the heavily Democratic district in New York City last represented by Anthony D. Weiner. The Republican, Bob Turner, a retired cable television executive, defeated Assemblyman David I. Weprin, the scion of a prominent Democratic family in Queens, in a nationally watched special election."

AP: "Harvard Law professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren officially launched her Democratic campaign for U.S. Senate on Wednesday by greeting commuters at a rail station in Boston before embarking on a tour of the state."

AP: "A key federal report into what caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history was being readied for release as early as Wednesday amid revelations that BP made critical mistakes on the well and failed to tell its partners and the U.S. government when it realized it."

NEW. Los Angeles Times: "The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday approved a rule requiring the nation's largest banks to submit 'living wills' to help regulators shut them down in an orderly way if they are seized on the brink of failure. The requirement was a key component of last year's sweeping overhaul of financial regulations and is designed to avoid the chaos that took place during the 2008 financial crisis. Under the law, the largest banks and financial firms would be required to have plans in place for their liquidation...."

New York Times: "The American ambassador to Afghanistan said on Wednesday that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network appeared to be responsible for an hours-long assault against the United States Embassy in Kabul and nearby NATO bases. But he downplayed the attack as 'harassment' rather than a significant military assault." ...

... AP: "NATO warplanes pounded targets in a number of strongholds of support for fugitive dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the alliance said Tuesday, as an offensive by revolutionary forces on a key loyalist town stalled."

Reuters: "Muammar Gaddafi is still in Libya and in good spirits, with a powerful army behind him, the ousted leader's spokesman said on Wednesday. Gaddafi's whereabouts have been unknown for months and most of his entourage have fled or gone into hiding...."

New York Times: "The Iranian judiciary on Wednesday contradicted an assurance by Iran‘s president that two Americans arrested two years ago while hiking the Iran-Iraq frontier and imprisoned on espionage charges would be freed within two days as a humanitarian gesture, state media reported.... The apparent conflict over the Americans’ legal status could reflect a worsening rift between [President] Ahmadinejad [who announced the Americans' imminent release] and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s spiritual leader and highest authority, who is closely allied to the court."

New York Times: "France brushed off concerns about its biggest banks Wednesday, insisting that it had no plans to nationalize any of them despite a credit rating downgrade linked to their exposure to the limping Greek economy. The reassurance, which helped lift European markets, came as the leaders of France and Germany prepared to speak with their Greek counterpart amid worries that Athens may default on its heavy debt load."

AP: "The leaders of Greece, France and Germany will seek ways to contain the spiraling debt crisis and prevent it from further roiling global financial markets in a teleconference on Wednesday evening."

The Commentariat -- September 13

Joe Nocera recalls his reactions to 9/11. In his recollections, Nocera observes, 

I remember something else about those initial days after the terrorist attack. I’d bump into friends, liberals like me — or so I thought — who were suddenly railing about Muslims, or how the police needed to start racial-profiling and locking up people who 'looked suspicious.'

After 9/11, we invaded Afghanistan — justifiably — to take the fight to our enemies. But we also invaded Iraq, an unjustified war for which 9/11 provided the cover. We have killed Osama bin Laden and many other Al Qaeda leaders, but 9/11 has also given us waterboarding, Guantánamo, and the gradual erosion of some of our civil liberties, which we foolishly accept in the name of security.

I've added a Nocera comments page to Off Times Square. Write about this or something else.

Stupid Econ 101. Shrink the Government because the Private Sector Is So Cost-Effective. Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "Despite a widespread belief that contracting out services to the private sector saves the federal government money, a new study suggests just the opposite — that the government actually pays more when it farms out work. The study found that in 33 of 35 occupations, the government actually paid billions of dollars more to hire contractors than it would have cost government employees to perform comparable services. On average, the study found that contractors charged the federal government more than twice the amount it pays federal workers."

UPDATE: Stupid Econ 102. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "... President Obama is expected to seek hundreds of billions of dollars in savings in Medicare and Medicaid, delighting Republicans and dismaying many Democrats who fear that his proposals will become a starting point for bigger cuts in the popular health programs." A document by Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) "criticizes the idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67, from 65, and notes..., 'This policy does nothing to control costs; it simply shifts substantial costs from Medicare to other parts of government and to private and public employers.'”

Jesse Holland of the AP: "President Barack Obama is moving at a historic pace to try to diversify the nation's federal judiciary: Nearly three of every four people he has gotten confirmed to the federal bench are women or minorities. He is the first president who hasn't selected a majority of white males for lifetime judgeships. More than 70 percent of Obama's confirmed judicial nominees during his first two years were "non-traditional," or nominees who were not white males. That far exceeds the percentages in the two-term administrations of Bill Clinton (48.1 percent) and George W. Bush (32.9 percent)...."

A Protest Grows in Brooklyn. M. Powell (I guess) of the New York Times: since taxpayers/homeowners bailed out the banks, why won't the banks bail out homeowners? Some citizens are appealing to their municipalities to retaliate; and some town boards are doing just that.

"The Misuse of Life without Parole." New York Times Editors: "In the last decade in Georgia, one of the few states with good data on the sentence, about 60 percent of offenders sentenced to life without parole were convicted of murder. The other 40 percent were convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery, sex crimes, drug crimes and other crimes including shoplifting. Nationwide, the racial disparity in the penalty is stark. Blacks make up 56.4 percent of those serving life without parole, though they are 37.5 percent of prisoners in all state prisons.The overuse of the sentence reflects this excessively punitive era.... A fair-minded society should not sentence anyone to life without parole except as an alternative to the death penalty." (Emphasis added.)

Paul Krugman: "... the two years or so after 9/11 were a terrible time in America – a time of political exploitation and intimidation, culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq. It’s probably worth pointing out that I’m not saying anything now that I wasn’t saying in real time back then, when Bush had a sky-high approval rating and any criticism was denounced as treason. And there’s nothing I’ve done in my life of which I’m more proud." ...

... AND this reader response to Paul Krugman's earlier blogpost, published under the title "A Furor over Paul Krugman's 9/11 Post." The post was link in yesterday's Commentariat. ...

... Greg Sargent provides some egregious examples of Karl Rove & Rudy Giuliani in 2004, & Charlie Black, a top McCain 2008 advisor, using 9/11 scare tactics for political gain. ...

... George Lakoff, in Nation of Change, writes a thoughtful piece explaining how conservatives -- led by the Great American Villain Dick Cheney -- used framing the 9/11 attack, the media and intimidation to consolidate power.

What conservatives really want is to run the country and the world on conservative principles: to control reproduction (no abortion); to control what is taught (no public education); to control religion (conservative Christianity); to control race and language (mass deportation of Hispanic immigrants); to guarantee cheap labor (no unions); to continue white domination (no affirmative action); to continue straight domination (no gay marriage); to control markets (eliminate regulation, taxation, unions, worker rights, and tort cases); to control transportation (privatize freeways); to control elections (institute bars to voting).

President Obama spoke to NBC News' Brian Williams over the weekend:

Jeff Zeleny & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The decision on Monday by Tim Pawlenty, a former Republican presidential rival, to support Mr. Romney’s campaign signals the beginning of an effort by some party leaders to try to slow the ascent of Mr. Perry — or to push him to explain positions that are considered provocative.... The endorsement was a visible marker in a quietly continuing battle for the soul and direction of the Republican Party between traditional party leaders and grass-roots conservatives."

Right Wing World

The Candidates Debate

This is as much as I can tolerate:

Dan Balz & Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post: "The debate helped to underscore divisions between the establishment and tea party wings of the party, and the battle for tea party support will continue to be an important subplot of the nomination fight."

Dana Milbank: "On the defensive from beginning to end, Perry resorted to the time honored tradition of making up stuff."

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post reports on more instances of the candidates' "resorting to the time-honored tradition."

New York Times reporters fact-check Perry's claims about Social Security, his fact-free attacks on the 2009 stimulus law, his fast-changing views on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Bachmann's distortions about Medicare & the ACA, Romney's version of death panels and more.

Andy Kroll of Mother Jones on Perry's great idea of "freeing up" Wall Street to create jobs and grow the economy -- because that has worked so well in the past:

Let's not forget, it was all those 'freed,' under-regulated banks, mortgage companies, and investment firms that imploded the economy. Years of deregulatory policy under Democratic and Republican presidents — including tearing down the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, which walled off commercial banking from more risky investments and speculation, and passing the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000, which essentially transformed Wall Street into a casino — helped bring the financial markets to their knees in 2008.

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "For all their promises to put the nation’s books back in order, the candidates offered little that would suggest that Americans might actually have to give anything up to do it. Instead, they repeatedly insisted that economic growth could take care of the problem or that — in the hoariest of all political claims — rooting out waste is the answer."

Tom Curry of NBC News: "A Republican debate that was expected to be a showdown between the two heavyweights, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, turned into something resembling a football pile-on with five of the GOP contenders swarming over the Texas governor. What’s emerging from the GOP presidential debates is a portrait of Perry — painted by his opponents — as one scary guy, a threat both to young and old."

Charles Babington of the AP: Rick Perry's "rivals attacked [his Texas] record as never before, led by a newly energized Mitt Romney and hard-charging Michele Bachmann."

Greg Sargent: Rush Limbaugh warns Republican presidential candidates, specifically Mitt Romney & Michele Bachmann, for all candidates "that it’s politically risky to protest the claim that Social Security is a criminal enterprise"; i.e., a Ponzi scheme, as Rick Perry has called it.

News Ledes

NY1 has updated results for the New York 9th Congressional District special election. In this solidly Democratic district the Republican candidate Bob Taylor is leading Democrat David Weprin 11:30 pm ET. ...

     ... BTW, Glenn Thrush of Politico writes in a tweet that (despite Republican hype), "Not to dismiss the NY special: But any race that includes David Weprin -- for a seat that will soon disappear -- is a bellwether of nuthin'"

No Surprise Here. New York Times: "Three Transportation Security Administration officers have been charged with accepting bribes to let couriers smuggle painkillers and cash undetected through security checkpoints at airports in New York and Florida, federal prosecutors said Tuesday."

Boston Globe: "After weeks of testing the political waters, Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor and Wall Street critic, will officially announce her run for the US Senate tomorrow morning against Republican incumbent Scott Brown."

President Obama on how the American Jobs Act will modernize America's schools:

President Obama spoke at the Fort Hayes, Ohio, Arts & Academic High School this afternoon. AP: "President Barack Obama is visiting a school undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation to sell his proposal for creating more jobs. And it's no coincidence that the school is in Ohio, the home state of House Speaker John Boehner, a critic of the president's proposal to tax the rich to pay for his plan."

New York Times: "Democrats on Tuesday sought to avoid a jolting upset in a heavily Democratic House district last represented by Anthony D. Weiner, dispatching hundreds of volunteers around Brooklyn and Queens in an effort to turn people out to vote. The Republican candidate, Bob Turner, who held a six-point lead in a poll released on Friday, expressed confidence that victory was within reach, and that the city’s Democratic machine would not be able to overcome his momentum and push his opponent, Assemblyman David I. Weprin, to victory."

New York Times: "The Republican presidential candidates aggressively confronted Gov. Rick Perry at a debate here on Monday night, and pressed him to explain his views on Social Security and his decade-long record in Texas, including an effort to require the vaccination of schoolgirls and granting children of illegal immigrants a college tuition break."

Guardian: "Rockets are being fired at the US embassy in Kabul, say police in Afghanistan. The Taliban has claimed responsibility and says the attackers are armed with rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s and suicide vests." This page is a liveblog. AP story here.

NBC News: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told NBC News Tuesday that two Americans given eight-year prison sentences for spying and entering the country illegally will be released 'in a couple of days' in what he called a 'humanitarian gesture.'” Includes video. ...

... AP: "An Iranian court Tuesday set bail of $500,000 each for two American men arrested more than two years ago and convicted on spy-related charges, clearing the way for their release a year after a similar bail-for-freedom arrangement for the third member of the group, their defense attorney said. Lawyer Masoud Shafiei said the court would begin the process to free Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal after payment of the bail, which must be arranged through third parties because of U.S. economic sanctions on Iran." CW: is this paying ransom for hostages, or what?

AP: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday sought to calm market fears that Greece is heading for a chaotic default on its debts as Europe struggles to contain a crippling financial crisis. Her comments come a day after her deputy raised the possibility of a default, and come ahead of another telephone discussion between Greece's finance minister and his German counterpart." ...

... Bloomberg: "Greece has a 98 percent chance of defaulting on its debt in the next five years as Prime Minister George Papandreou fails to reassure investors his country can survive the euro-region crisis."

Politico: "The national poverty rate in 2010 hit 15.1 percent — the highest level since 1993, according to a report Tuesday from the Census Bureau.The report also indicated that median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower last year than any year since 1997."

New York Times: "A parliamentary panel investigating the phone hacking scandal within the British outpost of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire said on Tuesday that it would recall his son, James Murdoch, to answer more questions about his knowledge of the affair. Guardian story here.

The Hill: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) for president on Monday."