The Commentariat -- August 23

I'm extending yesterday's Open Thread on Off Times Square.

President Obama, speaking yesterday about Libya:

     ... The transcript is here.

... Ben Smith of Politico: "leading from behind" works. "... the low-profile, inexpensive ouster of Col. Muammar Qadhafi marks an important milestone for the administration, foreign policy analysts say — perhaps the most concrete evidence that the more modest American foreign policy approach that has become Obama’s hallmark and perhaps his biggest area of contrast with his more interventionist predecessor might actually work."

Economist Dean Baker: "Joe Nocera ... really misses the boat in today's complaint about the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) costing jobs. The basic story is that the NLRB is obstructing Boeing's efforts to move production facilities from their unionized facilities in Washington State to non-union South Carolina. There are several aspects to the issue that are misrepresented in the column." Read Baker's entire post. See also my comment and Karen Garcia's in today's Off Times Square. Nocera's column is here. Thanks to commenter Kat for the link.

No Labels called every [Congressional] office, and only 40% are scheduling open town hall meetings.... No Labels activists spoke to all ... current members of the House of Representatives to find that only 175 of them scheduled meetings. The results of the phone survey also reveal that members of both parties share the blame, with 67% of Democrats and 50% of Republicans stating they had no town hall meetings scheduled for the recess period." The post includes a list of representatives who are and are not holding public townhalls this month.

Right Wing World

Alex Pareene of Salon: the view from the right: President Obama is far too weak to have accomplished what just actually happened in Tripoli.... There's no point in countering [their] arguments with reason, of course, because these are not actually fact-based responses to news, they're just rote recitations of Republican dogma: Obama weak! (Except domestically, where he is an autocrat.)" ...

... Steve Benen calls out Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham for their craven, obvious hypocrisy. Read the whole post. ...

... Weasels. Sarah Wheaton of the New York Times: Republican presidenial candidates "sought to offer tentative praise for the developments in the region without giving [President] Obama any commendation, as the president is now poised to claim credit for eliminating both Osama bin Laden and Colonel Qadaffi." ...

.. Thomas Lane of TPM: "The main GOP presidential candidates' responses to events in Libya were strikingly diverse. However, one factor they had in common was the lack of any mention of one person: the President who actually committed US forces to the conflict. The exception to this was former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. 'Ridding the world of the likes of Gadhafi is a good thing,' he wrote. 'But this indecisive President had little to do with this triumph.'"

... A least one right-winger has the guts to tell the truth: Eli Lake of the Washington Times:

Art by a friend.Dave Weigel of Slate: "Republicans have finally found a group they want to tax: poor people." Weigel, by the way, is a conservative/libertarian, but even he sees this as crazy.

David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry, faulting much of what the federal government did in the 20th century, has called Social Security a 'failure' and 'an illegal Ponzi scheme' and also cast doubt on the constitutionality of federal laws on food safety, minimum wages, bans on child labor, environmental protection and Medicare.... Now that he is running for the Republican nomination for president, his views on Social Security and other federal programs will be carefully scrutinized."

Greg Sargent: "So Paul Ryan has now made it official: After a period of deliberation, he really, truly, definitely, absolutely will not run for President. His decision is final. That means he won’t be reconsidering it next week, or the week after that, or the week after that."

The Romneys' Cheesy La Jolla Tear-down. San Diego Union-Tribune.... When One of Your Luxury Homes Just Isn't Big Enough. Christopher Cadelago of the San Diego Union-Tribune: "GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney ... is ... working on plans to nearly quadruple the size of his $12 million oceanfront manse in La Jolla. Romney has filed an application with the city to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot, single-story home ... and replace it with a two-story, 11,062-square-foot structure." ...

... Julie Weiner of Vanity Fair: "Large Things That Could Fit Inside Mitt Romney’s New House." Includes "The top-of-the-line luxury spa at the Trump International™ Hotel & Tower Las Vegas."

CW: this post is pretty ancient, but I just found the site, thanks to a friend. The issue is well-worh discussing, even now. Historian Ann Little on Michele Bachmann's flexible fundamentalism: "This seems to me like just another example of the rhetorical and moral flexibility of some evangelical Christians who think that biblical and moral rules only apply to the little people, and that Great Leaders whose salvation is utterly assured can indulge in the very things they rail against because, well, they know they’re saved." Read the whole post.

Andy Borowitz: "The mystery surrounding Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s whereabouts was resolved today as the dictator announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in a town hall meeting in Concord, New Hampshire." Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link.

News Ledes

Al Jazeera: "Australian police are investigating claims that a government MP [Craig Thomson] allegedly misused his trade union credit card to pay for sex with prostitutes. An accusation which, if proven, could bring down the minority government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard." ...

... Sydney Morning Herald: "Craig Thomson has resigned as the chairman of a parliamentary committee as the NSW Fraud Squad began examining allegations of credit card misuse when he was a union official. Mr Thomson stepped down as chairman of the House Economics Committee last night after police agreed yesterday to ''assess'' a dossier of information provided by the shadow attorney-general, George Brandis. Mr Thomson continued to deny any wrongdoing but said the controversy surrounding him was distracting the committee from its work."

New York Times: "The National Science Foundation has found no evidence of research misconduct by Michael Mann, the Pennsylvania State University climatologist who has faced waves of attacks from foes of action to curb greenhouse gases.... The office’s inquiry, limited to research done using science foundation money, went several steps beyond the investigation of Mann conducted by his university, which also cleared him."

New York Times: "Stock indexes advanced more than 2 percent Tuesday, partly helped by stronger economic data in Asia and Europe. It was the second consecutive day of gains for many stocks after weeks of turmoil that were fueled by concerns about slowing economic growth and the widening impact of sovereign debt problems."

New York Times: "An earthquake sent tremors from the nation’s capital to New York City and New England Tuesday afternoon, the result of what officials said was a 5.9 magnitude temblor based in Virginia. Buildings throughout major metropolitan centers in the northeast were evacuated after the quake, and tremors were felt as far north as Bath, Me., and as far south as Hampstead, N.C., with some limited reports of damage reported near the quake’s epicenter in Virginia, where a nearby nuclear power plant was taken offline. AMtrak trains were temporarily halted, and cellphone service was disrupted as calls flooded cellular systems." The Washington Post has updates here. ...

     ... The Washington Post now has a story here.

New York Times: "The criminal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, officially ended Tuesday after a Manhattan judge dismissed all charges at the prosecution’s request."

New York Times: "The crackle of gunfire and the rumble of explosions spread across Tripoli in renewed fighting on Tuesday and Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remained at large hours after his son Seif al-Islam made a surprise appearance at a hotel with foreign journalists, taunting the rebels and urging loyalist forces to resist." ...

     ... New Lede: "Rebel fighters flooded into Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sprawling compound on Tuesday, overwhelming what remained of its defenses and running pell-mell through the grounds, as the crackle of gunfire and rumble of explosions spread across a confused and wary Libyan capital in spasms of renewed fighting."

... Al Jazeera: "Heavy fighting is taking place in areas of Tripoli for a second day, with opposition forces concentrating their firepower on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's compound in the Bab al-Azizya district of the Libyan capital. The al-Mansoura district was also the focus of fierce clashes between government forces and opposition fighters on Tuesday, two days after the rebels marched into the heart of the city, prompting scenes of jubiliation." With video. ...

... Al Jazeera's liveblog on Libya is here. ...

New York Times: "Immigration officials have issued their first reprives for undocumented workers under a new policy put into effect by the Obama Administration. "Under the policy, immigration authorities will use powers of prosecutorial discretion in existing law to suspend the deportations of most immigrants who, although they have committed immigration violations (which generally are civil offenses), have not been convicted of crimes. In particular, officials will look to halt deportations of longtime residents with clean police records who came here illegally when they were children, or are close family of military service members, or are parents or spouses of American citizens."

New York Times: "Emergency officials from Florida to the Carolinas were closely watching Irene Tuesday as the first hurricane to seriously threaten the U.S. in three years churned over energizing tropical waters. The storm has already cut a destructive path through the Caribbean. Forecasters say the hurricane could grow to a monstrous Category 4 storm...."

New York Times: Naoto Kan, the embattled Japanese prime minister, is likely to step down by early next week, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday, a long-expected resignation that will nevertheless bring uncertainty to a country still reeling in the aftermath of its natural and nuclear disasters.

Cape Cod Times: "President Barack Obama ... spent much of his time ...dealing with the evolving situation in Libya [yesterday], then segued into an afternoon session of basketball at a local school. In the morning and early afternoon, the president stayed home, but tuned in to national and international developments. According to pool reports, Obama was briefed on Libya and the stormy possibilities of Hurricane Irene, now churning near Florida."

The Commentariat -- August 22

My keyboard is totally screwed. An open thread is the best I can do on Off Times Square. If you think I'm kidding, here's how this line comes out if I don't manipulate it:

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It's always something. -- Gilda Radner

Steve Kornacki of Salon: "... if this is, in fact, it for [Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi], it should do damage to a particularly obnoxious anti-Obama talking point from hawks on the right -- the idea that he’s excessively deferential, naïve and just plain weak on the world stage and that his foreign policy can only lead to failure and humiliation."

E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "President Obama has only one option as he ponders a world economy teetering on the edge: He needs to go big, go long and go global. Obama should not be constrained by what the Tea Party might allow subservient Republican leaders in Congress to do. He should state plainly, eloquently and in detail what he thinks needs to happen. Neither history nor the voters will be kind to him if he lets caution and political calculation get in the way."

Monica Davey of the New York Times: "In the months after a flurry of Republican wins of governors’ offices and state legislatures in 2010, perhaps nowhere was the partisan rancor more pronounced than in the nation’s middle — places like Wisconsin and Ohio, where fights over labor unions exploded. But now, at least in those states, there are signs that the same Republicans see a need to show, at least publicly, a desire to play well with others. In both states, critics dismiss the moves as desperate attempts to shore up sinking popularity ratings or disingenuous, tardy strategies to appear agreeable after already ramming through their agendas."

"Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Secret Fed Loans." Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz of Bloomberg News: "Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS)>, got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress." [Emphasis added.]

If you can stand to read it, Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker: "In several of the most important areas of constitutional law, [Clarence] Thomas has emerged as an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court.

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "The Ninth Congressional District seat to be filled in the Sept. 13 special election, became vacant this summer when [Rep. Anthony] Weiner quit over an online sex scandal. The race was widely viewed as a sleepy sideshow — a mere formality that would put David I. Weprin, a Democratic state assemblyman and heir to a Queens political dynasty, into a seat known for its deep blue hue. Instead, the race has become something far more unsettling to Democrats: a referendum on the president and his party that is highlighting the surprisingly raw emotions of the electorate."

Karen Garcia: "Just when we were finally convinced that Congress is but a giant shill for the millionaires, Roll Call comes out with its annual list of the 50 richest legislators.... The biggest surprise this year was that a relative unknown (outside of Texas, that is) beat out last year's winner, alleged arsonist and car thief Darryl Issa, to top The List. Mike McCaul, representing the 10th Congressional district (a long and winding road from Austin to Houston, courtesy of Tom Delay-machinated redistricting), saw his net worth increase by a stunning 300 percent, to $294.21 million, thanks to a very generous Sugar Daddy-in-Law. McCaul's wife is the daughter of Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel Communications, the media conglomerate most famous for being the home of Right Wing Hate Radio." Here's the Roll Call list.

Noah Bernstein in a New York Times op-ed: "... colleges and universities are making it harder for average American families to afford higher education, while making it easier for the wealthy.... Monthly payment plans, and prepayment plans ... pack a double punch. On one hand, they make it more expensive for struggling families to send their children to college. On the other hand, they make it cheaper for wealthy families to do so."

Right Wing World

NEW. Paul Krugman responds: "I guess Ross Douthat’s column requires some sort of reply.... All the critics need to show is that Texas is not in fact the miracle Perry claims. And it isn’t.... You’d expect job growth in Texas to be higher than in the rest of the country even in a recession, and the key question is whether that growth has been sufficiently high to keep up with population — and it hasn’t.... Did they hear anything we said?" You can read Douthat's fact-challenged column here. Here's a chart Krugman provides:

This is the president of the United States that has killed more jobs in America than I think any president in history, certainly in my lifetime. I think the only job he cares about is the one he’s got. -- Rick Perry

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Judging from Perry’s statements in his first week as a candidate, he doesn’t seem to care all that much about even technical accuracy; he just shoots from the hip. Unless the economy turns around in the next 18 months, Obama is on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era. That would be an accurate statement. But he also became president in the midst of the worst recession of our lifetimes — and it seems a real stretch to make him personally responsible for every one of those lost jobs, without bothering to offer a shred of evidence for the claim."

Amateur Hour. Ben Smith: Rick Perry sez Social Security is, is sort of, is not unconstitutional after all.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Goldman Sachs’ chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, has hired high-profile Washington defense lawyer Reid Weingarten. News that Mr. Blankfein had hired separate legal counsel immediately raised questions across Wall Street as to whether Mr. Blankfein himself had received a subpoena in connection to the outstanding inquiries. But a person close to the matter ... said the firm is cooperating and no executive at the firm has received an individual subpoena. Shares of Goldman, which had been trading around $111 a share all day, fell nearly 5 percent...."

Washington Post: the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial opened in Washington, D.C., today. New York Times story here.

New York Times: "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power dissolved with astonishing speed on Monday as rebels marched into the capital and arrested two of his sons, while residents raucously celebrated the prospective end of his four-decade-old rule. Colonel Qaddafi’s precise whereabouts remained unknown and news reports said loyalist forces still held pockets of the city, stubbornly resisting the rebel advance." ...

... Al Jazeera: "Heavy fighting and gun battles have broken out in areas of Tripoli after opposition fighters gained control overnight of much of the Libyan capital in their battle to end Muammar Gaddafi's decades-long rule. Clashes erupted on Monday after tanks left Bab Azaziya, Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli, to confront the rebel assault." ...

... Al Jazeera's liveblog is here.

New York Times: "Three months after authorizing Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s swift indictment after his arrest on sexual assault charges, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has decided to ask a judge to dismiss the case, a person briefed on the matter said on Sunday." ...

     ... Update: "Prosecutors in the office of Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, have filed papers requesting that all charges be dropped against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund."

Guardian: "A defiant president Bashar al-Assad warned against outside interference in Syria and shrugged off international criticism in a live interview with state television on Sunday night. His fourth address during a growing revolt against his rule was aimed as much at the international community who have sided decisively with protesters as it was at the nation.." ...

The Commentariat -- August 21

Maureen Dowd: "President Obama ... shouldn’t be driven by the Washington schedule. He should be setting it. At long last, he promised a clear economic plan. Unfortunately, he had the fierce urgency of next month, when Congress gets back to town. Americans are rattled and want action. They don’t know or care what Congress’s schedule is. They just see the president not doing anything." ...

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

Kraft Foods Will Be Watching You. Shan Li & David Sarno of the Los Angeles Times: "The commercial applications of facial recognition are in contrast to those being used by law enforcement to identify specific individuals. Companies, at least at this point, mostly just want to pinpoint a demographic based on age and gender to tailor their ads. But even this facial recognition-lite alarms privacy advocates, given that it could greatly popularize and expand use of the technology."

Right Wing World

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman makes his case & attacks his opponents. The full interview, which is a Web extra:

Who Do That Voodoo? The GOP Do. Greg Ip of the Economist in a Washington Post op-ed: "The economic ideology of the Republican Party has changed in recent years.... Liberals and conservatives in the United States ... have largely agreed that the government should have at least some role in smoothing out the ups and downs of the business cycle — what economists call 'macroeconomic stabilization,' that is, containing inflation in good times and boosting employment in bad. But this is the consensus that many Republicans in effect now reject.... They almost surely have it wrong."

The fact is, government doesn’t create jobs, otherwise the last two-and-a-half years of stimulus would have worked. -- Rick Perry, lying through his teeth ...

... Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: With a young and fast-growing population, a large and expanding military presence and an influx of federal stimulus money, the number of government jobs in Texas has grown at more than double the rate of private-sector employment during Perry’s tenure.... Last June, private-sector employment in Texas declined by 0.6 percent while public-sector jobs increased by 6.4 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, government employees account for about one-sixth of the workforce in Texas. The significant role of government in Texas’s relative prosperity stands in stark contrast to the 'go-it-alone' image cultivated by Perry, who credits a lack of government interference for fostering a business-friendly environment in Texas."

... The stimulus did not work, obviously all it did was create more debt in this country. It didn’t create any jobs, as far as I can tell, except for maybe those federal regulators that were increased. -- Rick Perry, lying though his teeth ...

... Marie Diamond & Travis Waldron of Think Progress: Rick Perry has "accepted more stimulus money than any other state besides California, and used the funds to close 97 percent of Texas’ massive budget deficit. The Houston Chronicle reported that as of July 2010, federal stimulus funds created or saved 47,700 jobs in the Lone Star State.... So far, Texas has used $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money to keep schools open, ensure Medicaid coverage for children, and put more people to work on infrastructure projects.... Ironically, Perry once aggressively pursued the federal aid he now denounces...." Thanks to Bob M. for the link.

... Pay to Play. Nicholas Confessore & Michael Luo of the New York Times: "Over three terms in office, [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry’s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry’s ascent."

Paul West of the Los Angeles Times: Rick Perry's "campaign released a video in which the Texas governor strides toward the camera in chaps, ready to saddle up. Asked to distinguish himself from his predecessor, George W. Bush, he replied, 'I went to Texas A&M. He went to Yale.' That class-conscious contrast — brash populist versus starchy elite — plays most acutely against fellow Republican Mitt Romney, the literal son of the Republican establishment who embodies the party's upper-crust past." You can see Perry's campaign ad here.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner: "Former Bush advisor Karl Rove says he believes former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will enter the Republican presidential race sometime around Labor Day.  Appearing on Fox News Saturday morning, Rove said Palin 'has a schedule next week that looks like that of a candidate, not a celebrity.' Rove also cited a new campaign-style video Palin has released on her recent visit to the Iowa State Fair as evidence Palin is gearing up for a run."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The lawyer for the woman who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault said on Sunday that he would formally ask the judge overseeing the criminal case to disqualify the Manhattan district attorney’s office from the prosecution and appoint a special prosecutor."

New York Times: "For the first time in months, witnesses in Tripoli reported heavy fighting across the capital late Saturday night, even as rebel forces claimed to have encircled the city by taking major towns to its east, west and south." Al Jazeera story here. Al Jazeera's liveblog on Libya is here. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Rebels surged into the Libyan capital Sunday night, meeting only sporadic resistance from troops loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and setting off raucous street celebrations by residents hailing the end of his 42 years in power. The rebel leadership announced that insurgents had captured two of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons, including Seif al-Islam, his heir apparent. The leadership also announced that the elite presidential guard protecting the Libyan leader had surrendered." ...

     ... Al Jazeera Update: "International leaders have urged Muammar Gaddafi to concede defeat in his struggling to hold onto power in Libya as scenes of celebration broke out in central Tripoli as rebels advanced into the heart of the capital. 'Tonight, the momentum against the Gaddafi regime has reached a tipping point. Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant,' said US President Barack Obama. Obama also called on the opposition Transitional National Council, which Washington recognises as Libya's legitimate governing authority, to demonstrate leadership, respect human rights, preserve the institutions of the Libyan state and move towards democracy." ...

     ... CBS News Update: "A rebel leader told Al Jazeera that Qaddafi has refused to surrender, and that his guards shot at rebels as they were closing in, killing one of them. There are many rumors, but the truth of Qaddafi's whereabouts are currently unknown."

Huh. More than 6,000 Years Old? New York Times: "A team of Australian and British geologists have discovered fossilized, single-cell organisms that are 3.4 billion years old and that the scientists say are the oldest known fossils on earth."

AP: "Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs."

AP: "Militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired a barrage of rockets and mortars on southern Israel early Sunday, striking an empty school and a dozen other targets, as U.S. and Egyptian diplomats were scrambling to keep the new convulsion of Israeli-Palestinian violence from escalating." ...

... Haaretz: "Members of Knesset from Israel's leading opposition party, Kadima, urged the cabinet on Sunday to launch a military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the barrage of rockets that struck Israel over the weekend and the deadly terrorist attack that predeced on Thursday."

Cape Cod Times: President Obama ... attended a party at the Oak Bluffs home of Charles Ogletree yesterday evening. "Ogletree, a frequent summer visitor on the island [of Martha's Vineyard], is a well-known law professor who taught both the president and first lady Michelle Obama when they were students at Harvard Law School, according to pool reports, which indicated that about 100 people attended the party."

     ... CBS News Update: "President Obama embarked Sunday on what looked like vacation by normal standards: a morning at the beach with his wife and daughters and a (partial) round of golf on a local course. But first, the administration announced it believed the Muammar Qaddafi's regime, amidst rebel advances on the Libyan capital, was not long for this world."