The Commentariat -- April 26, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is ostensibly on Charles Blow's uncritical post re: Mitt Romney's "victory" speech Tuesday night. But since Blow totally missed it, my column is most useful, I think, as a rundown of what a bunch of crap Romney's speech was. The NYTX front page is here with links to some great stuff. NYTX is in the last week of its subscription drive, so if you were of a mind to sign up, now would be a good time to do so. ...  

... If I coulda, I woulda defended Krugman in the Krugman-Bernanke brouhaha, but I told NYTX editor Chris Spannos I wasn't smart enough. He contacted economist Dean Baker, who is smart enough. Tho Baker was reluctant, he has weigned in, coming down on Krugman's side. Here's Baker's post. The "debate" started with this article, to be printed in this week's New York Times Magazine, in which Krugman criticizes Bernanke for not sticking to his own principles & doing more to manipulate the economy to encourage jobs growth -- which is half of the Fed's charter. In response to a question from New York Times reporter Binyamin Appelbaum, Bernanke responded that Krugman was "absolutely incorrect." In a blogpost, Krugman replied, "... as I see it, in effect he [Bernanke] declared that he has been assimilated by the Fed Borg." ...

... Charles Pierce's review of Ross Douthat's book about religious stuff is priceless.

Here's an American Crossroads (Karl Rove) anti-Obama ad that just makes me like the President better:

Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone interviews President Obama.

Episode 2 of "Money, Power & Wall Street." You have to play through at the end of the video to see the full episode:

Jared Bernstein enters into the World-Where-Facts-Matter & reviews scholarly research that all shows that raising the tax rate on high-income earners has no negative impact on the economy.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "An increasing number of the nation’s large banks — U.S. Bank, Regions Financial and Wells Fargo among them — are aggressively courting low-income customers ... with alternative products that can carry high fees. They are rapidly expanding these offerings partly because the products were largely untouched by recent financial regulations, and also to recoup the billions in lost income from recent limits on debit and credit card fees."

Nicholas Kristof: autopsies of dozens of veterans' brains show evidence of a disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., raising the question, "Could blasts from bombs or grenades have a catastrophic impact similar to those of repeated concussions in sports, and could the rash of suicides among young veterans be a result?"

Dream Act -2.0. Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: Sen. Marco Rubio's (RTP-Fla.) "alternate" Dream Act "puts Obama in a box. Democrats are reluctant to see Rubio's efforts as anything other than a political gambit to repair his party's tarnished image with Hispanics and boost his own profile as a potential vice-presidential pick or future White House contender. But if Obama does not at least try to work with Rubio, he could risk losing a centerpiece of his appeal to Hispanic voters — that he is their fiercest ally in Washington and that the GOP is to blame for lack of action on fixing the country's immigration ills." ...

... CW: Obama should call Rubio into the Oval, tell Rubio he knows what he's up to, then green-light the plan, if Rubio ever gets it written down, even tho the plan leaves these kids as 2nd-class noncitizens. This is the only way Obama can one-up Romney's certain embrace of the plan, which Romney says he's "studying."

The Presidential Race

"The Wrong Message." Fareed Zakaria: "Recently the president and his advisers have focused on taxing the rich and tackling inequality. The 'Buffett rule' tax on millionaires has become Obama’s bumper sticker. The proposal is reasonable — but does not deserve the attention Obama is showering on it. It raises a trivial sum.... It adds one more layer to a tax code that is already the most complex and corrupt in the industrialized world. If the president wants to be bold, he could propose comprehensive tax reform and eliminate the hundreds of deductions, exemptions, credits and loopholes, many of which Congress sells in exchange for campaign contributions.... Warren Buffett has said that, in the midst of the economic slowdown, his strategy was to invest in America. That's the Buffett rule Obama should follow."

Gail Collins: "We are now in for six months of Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama, and with the polls showing the race to be very close, you could argue that it is going to be really exciting. Except for the fact that it's Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama."

Jed Lewison of Daily Kos makes the case that, with two exceptions, Mitt Romney hasn't been much of a flip-flopper. On the contrary, he has stuck to his newly-honed conservative guns.

Jamelle Bouie of American Prospect: "In his victory speech last night, the former Massachusetts governor offered a startlingly dishonest take on the last three and a half years of the Obama presidency." Bouie, by contrast, offers a starltingly honest take.

Right Wing World *

"The Wonk Gap." Steve Benen: right-wing experts, even when they know better, will say anything, do anything to score points for their side. Case in point, economist Glenn Hubbard, once a Dubya's economist, now working for Romney, "has a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that President Obama's budget plan includes a secret plan to raise everyone's taxes by 11%. Commenting on the piece, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Hubbard's argument is 'completely made up,' and a 'remarkably hackish observation for an economist.'"

Tim Noah of The New Republic: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last week became, I think, the highest-ranking Republican poobah to say, pretty much outright, that we need to soak the poor. More remarkable still, he said we need to do it in order to avoid raising taxes on the rich!" Here's that sniveling little weasel on the Utoobz:

* From which no fact returns unmutilated. -- Akhilleus

News Ledes

Reuters: "The family of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, killed almost a year ago by American special forces in a military town in northwest Pakistan, left Pakistan for Saudi Arabia early on Friday morning, the family lawyer told Reuters. The move ends months of speculation about the fate of the three widows and 11 children, who were detained by Pakistani security forces after the May 2 raid. 'Yes, they're being deported to Saudi Arabia,' said Aamir Khalil, the family lawyer. 'It is a special flight.'"

San Diego Union-Tribune: "Sgt. Gary Stein, the Camp Pendleton-based Marine who made national headlines for his disparaging remarks about President Barack Obama on Facebook, has been thrown out of the Corps."

Washington Post: "A measure that would reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act was approved by the Senate Thursday with broad bipartisan support, despite some Republican objections to key provisions. The battle over those differences now moves to the House, where Republicans are pushing an alternative version of the bill."

New York Times: "The drama of former Senator John Edwards's trial took a few more twists on Thursday as Andrew Young ... admitted submitting misleading financial statements to a wealthy benefactor who thought he was helping the senator hide a mistress." ...

     ... News & Observer: "Andrew Young, the former aide for John Edwards, acknowledged under a rough cross-examination Thursday afternoon that much of the money obtained from two wealthy supporters went into the construction of his $1.5 million Orange County home." The News & Observer's Edwards page is here.

AP: "A military judge rejected a defense motion Thursday to consolidate some of the charges against [Pfc. Bradley Manning].... Col. Denise Lind was still considering a defense motion to dismiss the most serious charge against [him] — aiding the enemy — which carries a maximum life sentence. She said problems with a Fort Meade Internet connection had slowed her work on that matter and might delay her ruling until a later date."

AP: "The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits remained stuck near a three-month high last week, a sign that hiring has likely slowed since winter. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000. It was little changed from the previous week's figure, the highest since Jan. 7."

AP: "Chrysler followed its strong first-quarter sales with a big profit, sending its 2009 brush with financial death farther into the rearview mirror. The Auburn Hills, Mich., company made a net profit of $473 million, its best quarter in 13 years, mainly on the back of strong U.S.sales."

Washington Post: "The United States has begun launching drone strikes against suspected al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen under new authority approved by President Obama that allows the CIA and the military to fire even when the identity of those who could be killed is not known.... The policy shift marks a significant expansion of the clandestine drone war against an al-Qaeda affiliate that has seized large ­pieces of territory in Yemen and is linked to a series of terrorist plots against the United States. U.S. officials said that Obama approved the use of 'signature' strikes this month and that the killing of an al-Qaeda operative near the border of Yemen's Marib province this week was among the first attacks carried out under the new authority."

New York Times: "Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once a powerful warlord, was convicted by an international tribunal on Thursday of 11 counts of aiding and abetting war crimes committed in Sierra Leone during that country's civil war in the 1990s. The ruling, announced by Presiding Judge Richard Lussick of Samoa, said Mr. Taylor was guilty of involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, rape, slavery and the use of child soldiers. The court, however, said the prosecution failed to prove that Mr. Taylor had direct command responsibility for the atrocities in the indictment."

New York Times: "The front-runner for the French presidency, the Socialist candidate François Hollande, said on Wednesday that if elected he would ask other European leaders to renegotiate a fiscal treaty in order to promote growth."

Washington Post: "Israel’s military chief said in an interview published Wednesday that he believes Iran will choose not to build a nuclear bomb, an assessment that contrasted with the gloomier statements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pointed to differences over the Iran issue at the top levels of Israeli leadership." Here's the interview of Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz in Haaretz.

Washington Post: "Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday convicted Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of contempt for defying its orders to reopen an old corruption case against the president, but the justices spared Gilani any prison time. The sentence was symbolic, lasting only until judges left the courtroom. But Gilani's political future remains clouded with the possibility that he could still be removed from office."

AP: "Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country's claims of military prowess."

Guardian: "Rupert Murdoch has admitted to the Leveson inquiry there was a 'cover-up' at News International over the phone-hacking scandal. Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive, giving his second day of evidence to the inquiry in London, said he was 'misinformed and shielded' from what was going on at the News of the World, adding that there was a 'cover-up'."

Neither Snow nor Rain ...

... But Republicans will stay these couriers.

Matt Taibbi is right about this:

... Politics ... plays a huge part in [the financial woes of the U.S. Post Office]. In 2006, in what looks like an attempt to bust the Postal Workers' Union, George Bush signed into law the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006....

The transparent purpose of this law, which was pushed heavily by industry lobbyists, was to break a public sector union and privatize the mail industry. Before the 2006 act, the postal service did one thing, did it well, and, minus the need to generate profits and bonuses for executives, did it cheaply. It paid for itself and was not a burden to taxpayers. Post offices also have a huge non-financial impact: In a lot of small towns, the post office is the town....

This is a classic example of private-sector lobbyists using the government to protect its profits and keep prices inflated. Sen. Sanders is pushing a bill that would delay the end of Saturday delivery for two years, and prevent a number of post-office closings, but the writing is on the wall, unless there's a public outcry.

On the other hand, postal workers can be their own worst enemies. I installed my mailbox about ten years ago after some workers ran into my old one. Before installing it, I went to the Post Office to find out the specifications on where to place it. (I would have phoned, but you can't phone the local offices here. Very convenient.) A postal worker told me the distance from the street & the height. The base had to be from 36" to 42" from the ground, he said. I installed it at 38", and over the years it sank about two inches, which is not surprising, considering it was sitting on a bed of Florida sand. That seemed fine with the P.O.D. for a decade.

Shortly after I had my latest eye surgery, I found a notice in my box from the letter carrier telling me I had to raise the box 10 inches. He chose to drop this missive on IRS Day. Perfect!

When I went to the local P.O.D. to ask if I could get a reprieve, the postmistress (what a quaint term!) told me that if I didn't raise the box within a few days, the carrier would stop delivering mail. I took off my shades & showed her my black eyes & said -- truthfully -- that my doctor told me not to do any heavy lifting for a month. She said then I should purchase a box at the P.O.D. or forget about getting mail.

I called my useless Congressman, Connie Mack (CoMa) (RTP-Fla.), to see if he had received other complaints about the P.O.D.'s new requirement. A nice young man told me this was news to him, but he'd take my information. The only info he wanted was my Zip code, not even my name, so obviously, CoMa had no intention of following up with the Post Office. That's constituent service, CoMa-style.

My husband told me there was no way I could lift the box as I had done too good a job cementing it in. Last Friday, the P.O.D. stopped delivering our mail. So I spent a good part of Saturday digging a huge hole around the post & got it loose. Luckily, a neighbor happened by when it came time to lift the box, and he helped me remove the post & reposition it at the new, U.S.P.S.-approved height.

This is obviously a minor matter, but it's a good example of why people hate the gummit. (Yes, I know the U.S.P.S. is not technically the government.) Every contact with a government agency is an encounter with a stone wall. I'm just thankful I didn't have a serious problem, as so many people do when they contact a government representative. If Democrats want to "sell" the government as a positive force in society, they would do well to encourage their employees and representatives to act a little less like autocrats and a little more like the human beings they probably are when they get off work.

Please feel free to share your own run-ins -- postive or negative -- with the government. Change your name if you must!

The Commentariat -- April 25, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer looks at the New York Times' coverage of Mitt Romney's most recent flip-flops. the NYTX front page is here. (Highly recommended: Belen Fernandez on "10 of Thomas Friedman's Dumbest 'Big Ideas.'" Oh, she knows more.) You can contribute here.

President Obama slow-jams the news with Jimmy Fallon & The Root:

Part 1 of Fallon's interview of the President begins here. Play through to Parts 2, 3 & 4:

"Frontline"'s "Money, Power & Wall Street," Episode 1. Thanks to contributor Dave S. for the link:

The Inquisition Lives! (Really.) Norman Birnbaum of The Nation has a good post on "The Vatican's Latest Target in the War on Women -- Nuns."

Michael Schmidt & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "... the misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia, ranges from personnel, including at least one veteran supervisor, who knowingly took prostitutes to their hotel rooms to at least two employees who had encounters with women who investigators now believe were not prostitutes.... Of the dozen originally implicated, a total of three will remain; six have resigned; two have been dismissed; and one has retired." ...

... Carol Leonnig & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Some Secret Service employees accused of misconduct in the Colombian prostitution scandal are privately contending that their conduct didn't warrant dismissal because senior managers tolerated similar behavior during official trips.... Several of the men who agreed to resign under pressure last week are also considering reversing their decisions and fighting to keep their jobs.... The prospect of Secret Service agents sharing embarrassing tales about rank-and-file employees and superiors partying to the hilt could bring more anguish to an agency reeling from scandal."

Maureen Dowd reports from Greensboro, North Carolina, on the John Edwards trial. ...

... Robin Bravender of Politico: Campaign finance law experts from across the political spectrum, including some former Federal Election Commission officials, say the Justice Department is wasting its time and resources and setting a terrible precedent in the John Edwards case.... Even some campaign finance reform groups are arguing that it's overreach."

Jessica Greenberg of the New York Times: "Hospital patients waiting in an emergency room or convalescing after surgery are being confronted by an unexpected visitor: a debt collector at bedside. This and other aggressive tactics by one of the nation's largest collectors of medical debts, Accretive Health, were revealed on Tuesday by the Minnesota attorney general, raising concerns that such practices have become common at hospitals across the country."

Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "Wal-Mart..., now under fire over allegations of foreign bribery in Mexico, has participated in an aggressive and high-priced lobbying campaign to amend the long-standing U.S. anti-bribery law that the company might have violated. The push to revisit how federal authorities enforce the statute has been centered at a little-known but well-funded arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where a top executive of Wal-Mart has sat on the board of directors for nearly a decade."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Justice Department told the Supreme Court on Tuesday evening that it had provided incorrect information to the justices in an immigration case. The department, in a seven-page letter, expressed regret for failing in its 'special obligation to provide this court with reliable and accurate information at all times.'" Such letters "are quite rare." Post includes a copy of the letter.

Mike Allen of Politico: "A forthcoming biography of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ... by author Manuel Roig-Franzia ... reveals an immigration hell for Rubio's Cuban-born maternal grandfather, who was ordered deported from Florida because he flew in from Cuba without a visa, a decade before Rubio’s birth. Roig-Franzia ... writes that the grandfather's treatment during his 1962 run-in with federal authorities 'was not unlike the present-day experiences of many Mexicans and Central Americans who come to the United States legally but later run afoul of visa laws and find their lives irreversibly upended.'”

The Presidential Race

Ezra Klein with the most depressing thought for the day: "If Romney wins the election, it's almost a sure bet that Republicans win control of both the House and the Senate. And that matters. Right now, the GOP's agenda is the Ryan budget, and that's entirely fiscal: It's a premium support plan for Medicare, and tax cuts, and deep cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other domestic programs. All that can be passed through budget reconciliation -- which is to say, all that can be made immune to the filibuster. So if Romney wins and the Republicans take control, they could accomplish quite a lot on party-line votes, even if their majorities are slim, and Democrats are opposed. Indeed, Romney could end up being a fairly transformational president for conservatives...."

Reid Epstein of Politico reports on Mitt Romney's speech last night.

Paul Krugman has this exactly right: "... there's a dangerous lack of focus in the Obama campaign, all too reminiscent of previous episodes. Above all, Obama isn't telling a clear story about the economy." Read his whole post. (I can't link to the Edward Luce column he cites because Luce writes for the Financial Times which has an annoying subscriber requirement.)

Jamelle Bouie of American Prospect on student aid: "... neither Obama nor Romney has proposed anything appropriate to the scale of the problem [of the high cost of higher education].... To a large degree, Romney and Obama embody their respective platforms. The former Massachusetts governor came from a life of incredible wealth and privilege, and wants to defend it with the tools of government. President Obama, by contrast, rose from more modest means, and — at the very least — wants a government that will facilitate mobility for all Americans." ...

... Alexander Burns of Politico finds an instance of Romney 5.0 (or whatever) quite specifically expressing opposition to the government's getting "too involved in student loans." Now that Romney 6.0, contra the GOP Congress, is supporting Obama's push to extend low interest rates to students, Burns tried to get a straight explanation out of the Romney camp on the flip-flop. Surprise! No luck.

Dana Milbank: Russell "Pearce, the former Republican president of the Arizona Senate, is the author and self-described 'driving force' behind ... that state's law — endorsed by Romney -- cracking down on illegal immigrants. Pearce told The Post's Felicia Sonmez this month that Romney's 'immigration policy is identical to mine,' and he told reporters this week that Romney 'absolutely' gave him the impression that he saw the Arizona law as a national model. Democrats ... called Pearce to testify Tuesday before Congress on the eve of the Supreme Court's review of the Arizona law. Republicans boycotted the hearing.... [Pearce] argued, correctly, that the law reflects 'by far the majority opinion of my party.' This is why Romney will have trouble making it disappear." Read the whole column.

Greg Sargent: "In the last few days, Romney has signaled that he is Etch-A-Sketching away his previous positions on immigration and on student loans.... Both of these turnarounds are being widely covered in the press as mere process stories, as if they're as inevitable and unremarkable as a campaign staffing up in advance of the general.... He's paying little price in the way of pundit scorn for flip-flopping right back to the center again."

CW: I missed this post by Alec MacGillis in The New Republic about Willard's "middle-class" upbringing. The Washington Post apparently puts absolutely no fact-checkers at the disposal of their editors & reporters, so they must rely on the candidates' sanitized, nonfactual versions of their biographies. MacGillis points out that a Post "biographical" sketch of Romney's youth "is off on just about every count.... It requires willful blindness to ignore the advantages that carried him through his first decades in life. And it's the job of the rest of us to hold him to the basic facts of his biography, even as he now tries his best to blur them."

Right Wing World

Steve Benen: Speaker Boehner places the blame on Democrats for Republicans' objections to extending the low student loan interest rate. CW: Boehner has accomplished a feat of sociopathic "logic" that could occur only in Right Wing World. Benen explains. ...

... Speaking of right-wing "logic," Thomas Edsell got into the weeds a bit in a Campaign Stops post for the New York Times. It goes like this: income inequality isn't as bad as you think because the government(s) effectively raise their incomes with social safety net programs. So now we're going to cut social safety net programs (but we won't tell you that will of course drive people further into poverty -- it's good for their dignity or something).

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post has a short-course on the history of ALEC -- and how it became a dirty word. ...

... AND Aaron Blake of the Post tells us more than we will ever want to know about Romney's new international policy advisor Richard Grenell.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Justices across the ideological spectrum appeared inclined to uphold a controversial part of Arizona's aggressive 2010 immigration law, based on their questions on Wednesday at a Supreme Court argument."

New York Times: "The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that its expectations for domestic economic growth during the current year have increased modestly since January, but it reduced its growth forecast for 2013 and 2014."

New York Times: "Federal prosecutors ... spent Wednesday morning laying out the crumbling relationship between former Senator John Edwards and Andrew Young, the key witness in the government's case against Mr. Edwards, painting a vivid portrait of the frantic final months of a cover-up that ended Mr. Edwards's political career." News & Observer story here; the paper's Edwards page is here.

ABC OTUS News: "Less than a month after hearing a challenge to the controversial Obama health care law brought by 26 states, the Supreme Court today will explore the relationship between the federal government and the states on another hot-button issue: immigration. At issue is S.B. 1070 - Arizona's strict immigration law that empowers local police to enforce federal immigration laws. It was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer who says that the law was needed to combat illegal immigration."

New York Times: "With a political firestorm cascading over the British government's ties to his media empire, Rupert Murdoch faced rare public scrutiny about his ties to elected officials on Wednesday, seeking to deflect suggestions that he sought to use his links to powerful public figures to further corporate commercial interests." ...

     ... NEW Lede: "With a political firestorm cascading over the British government’s ties to his media empire, Rupert Murdoch presented himself to a judicial inquiry on Wednesday as a blunt-talking businessman with a wide variety of interests and acquaintances who nevertheless did not seek to use his considerable power to manipulate British governments over the last several decades."

... The Guardian's liveblog of the Rupert Murdoch testimony includes a live feed of the proceedings.

Reuters: "Britain's economy has fallen into its second recession since the financial crisis after a shock contraction at the start of 2012, heaping pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron's government as it reels from a series of political missteps."

ABC News: The Government Accountability Office "said in a new report that the Pentagon has squandered millions in taxpayer dollars on expensive and complex weapons systems by spending first and asking questions later." Highlights of the GAO report are here, with a link to the full report.

AP: "The retired top CIA officer who ordered the destruction of videos showing waterboarding says in a new book that he was tired of waiting for Washington's bureaucracy to make a decision that protected American lives. Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw the CIA's once-secret interrogation and detention program, also lashes out at President Barack Obama's administration for calling waterboarding torture and criticizing its use."

ABC OTUS News: "Although Newt Gingrich lost the Delaware primary by an overwhelming 29 percent to Mitt Romney, the former speaker of the House still did not announce the suspension of his presidential campaign Tuesday night." ...

     ... CNN Update: "Newt Gingrich will officially end his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and formally express his support for Mitt Romney next week, two sources close to Gingrich tell CNN. While details are still being worked out, Gingrich is likely to hold his final campaign event Tuesday in Washington, DC where he will make the announcement surrounded by his family and supporters." CW: Book a small room, Newt. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Newt Gingrich told Mitt Romney on Wednesday morning that he would suspend his presidential campaign next week and begin working to turn out conservative voters for Mr. Romney and Republican candidates in the fall election, Mr. Gingrich's spokesman said in an interview."

AP: "A senior North Korean army official says his country is armed with 'powerful mobile weapons' capable of striking America."