The Commentariat -- September 24

Here's Part 2 of Paul Krugman & Robin Wells' epic review of books in the New York Review of Books. Here's Part 1.

Dana Milbank: Cornpackers! ...

Stephen Colbert testifies before a House subcommittee:

     ... NBC News report. New York Times story. Time post.

At the end of the hearing, Colbert got serious:

Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "After years of focusing U.S. time and attention on the Middle East, the Obama administration is seeking to reorient its foreign policy toward Asia, largely as a way to ensure domestic economic growth in the decades ahead."

"Postcards from the Pledge." Jon Stewart examines the "fresh new ideas" reflected in the Republicans' "Pledge to America":

     ... Tanya Somanader of Think Progress has a transcript of the comparisons which Stewart highlighted of Republicans' "old ideas" & "new ideas." ...

... Michael Linden & Michael Ettlinger of the Center for American Progress: "The budget deficit would be about $200 billion larger in 2020 under the 'Pledge to America' plan than it would be under President Barack Obama’s budget, and over the next 10 years deficits would be $1.5 trillion higher than under the president’s budget." (pdf) ...

... "War on Arithmetic." Paul Krugman: "On Thursday, House Republicans released their 'Pledge to America,' supposedly outlining their policy agenda. In essence, what they say is, 'Deficits are a terrible thing. Let’s make them much bigger.'” ...

... Dana Milbank: "It took the Republicans just three minutes to violate their Pledge to America.... Their pledge..., among other things, promises to rein in an 'arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites.' Yet moments after taking the stage to face the cameras, Republican leaders appointed themselves arrogant elites. They compared themselves to the founding fathers and likened their actions ... to the signing of the Declaration of Independence." ...

... "Profile in Cowardice." Even the Washington Post's conservative Editorial Board writes, "The House Republicans' 'Pledge to America ... mixes irresponsible tax cuts with implausible spending caps and unspecified actions to control entitlement spending.... The 'Pledge' ... would increase the debt by $4 trillion -- yes, trillion -- by extending all the expiring Bush tax cuts and adding new ones, including a poorly conceived deduction for small businesses." ...

... David Corn, in Mother Jones, on what is not in the Republican "Pledge." (It's a long list.)

Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "With every election cycle comes a shadow army of benignly titled nonprofit groups like Americans for Job Security, devoted to politically charged 'issue advocacy,' much of it negative. But they are now being heard as never before.... Americans for Job Security ... spent $6 million on ads during the primary season. This week, emboldened by the [Supreme] Court ruling, the group paid close to $4 million more for ads directly attacking nine Democratic candidates for Congress.... Its deep ties to a Republican consulting operation raise questions about whether, under cover of its tax-exempt mission..., the group is largely a funnel for anonymous donations."

We don’t get our food from farms anymore. We get it from grocery stores. -- Stephen Colbert

Christina Wilkie of The Hill: "Comedian Stephen Colbert’s scheduled appearance on Capitol Hill Friday elicited mixed reactions from lawmakers.... At the hearing, the late-night talk show host will appear in the form of his fictional character...."

... Here's the Colbert segment with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Cal.), who chairs the House subcommittee on immigration:

Jason Zengerle, in GQ, profiles Rand Paul, & doesn't make young Paul sound as bad as he is. What Paul does appear to be, is totally uninformed & willing to change his views, such as they are, on everything.

Well, isn't this an effective ad from some right-wing fake-name front group called "Citizens for the Republic":

... CW: and how, pray tell, is the government going to be both "smaller" AND "more caring, one that remembers us"? Obviously, if the government is smaller, it isn't going to be "more caring."; it will have to be "less caring." And will "the government" "remember us"? Yes, maybe after we're dead from lack of care. Oh, look, even Daniel Larison of Pat Buchanan's! American Conservative agrees with me.

John Pomfret of the Washington Post: "A new generation of officials in the military, key government ministries and state-owned companies has begun to define how China deals with the rest of the world. Emboldened by China's economic expansion, these officials are taking advantage of a weakened leadership at the top of the Communist Party to assert their interests in ways that would have been impossible even a decade ago.... Today, from Washington to Tokyo, the talk is about how difficult it is to contend with the explosion of special interests shaping China's worldview."

President Obama Addresses the United Nations General Assembly, September 23, 2010:

     ... New York Times story here. AND here's the text of his speech.

The President speaks at the Millennium Development Goals Conference at the United Nations Building on his plan for global development, September 22:

     ...  Here's the text of the President's remarks.

The Commentariat -- September 23

Alex Pareene of Salon: "The Forbes Sexiest Plutocrat list is out! Big news in New York: Reasonable moderate centrist billionaire Republican mayor-for-life Michael Bloomberg lost his 'richest man in town' award to shadowy puppet-master far-right Randian climate change denialist front group-funding second-generation oil-and-gas billionaire David Koch.... Forbes says the richest are richer than ever. And the rest of Americans have had stagnant wages since the Nixon administration, basically."

Paul Krugman on the rumor that President Obama plans to replace Larry Summers with a CEO: "... the idea that business executives know what the economy needs is just wrong."

Still Crazy after All These Years. Glenn Greenwald on extremism within the Republican party:

President Clinton on "the Gift Newt Gingrich Gave America":

CBS News has the full text of the GOP's "Pledge to America." ...

It is a document with a clear theory of what has gone wrong -- debt, policy uncertainty, and too much government -- and a solid promise to make most of it worse. -- Ezra Klein, on Republicans' "Pledge to America"

... Plague on America. Ezra Klein: the GOP's so-called "Pledge to America" is "a set of hard promises that will increase the deficit by trillions of dollars, take health-care insurance away from tens of millions of people, create a level of policy uncertainty businesses have never previously known, and suck demand out of an economy that's already got too little of it." ...

... Economist Mark Thoma asks,

Why would we want to return to the policies that brought us a stagnant middle class even in the best of times, widening inequality, out of control financial markets, the biggest recession in recent memory, declining rates of health care coverage, threats to Social Security and to social insurance more generally, tax policies that reinforce trends in inequality and create big holes in the budget (amid false claims that tax cuts more than pay for themselves), and two wars whose total costs to the nation go far beyond the large budgetary costs that have brought programs such as Social Security and Medicare -- programs vital to middle and low income households -- under increasing financial pressure?

... Michael Crowley of Time points out more baloney (a pork product) in the GOP's "Pledge to America." ...

... Ben Adler of Newsweek finds some more nonsense in the GOP "plan." But he adds,

The bottom line is that any Republican attempt to adopt a coherent, forward-looking, and plausible platform is bound to be fraught with challenges and contradictions. Luckily for the GOP, it looks like it can win big this year without one.

I have never been in a tanning bed or used a tanning product.
-- John Boehner, via the Wall Street Journal

... Andy Barr of Politico: even a lot of right-wingers disparage the GOP "Pledge."

Lisa Mascaro in the Los Angeles Times: "As independent groups pour money into midterm election campaigns, Senate Democrats are trying again to advance a long-stalled bill that would require corporations to more fully disclose their political donations.... The effort is a direct response to a Supreme Court ruling in January that struck down century-old prohibitions against political spending by unions and corporations." ...

... David Axelrod in a Washington Post op-ed: there is a "... hidden factor is the audacious stealth campaign being mounted by powerful corporate special interests that are vying to put their Republican allies in control of Congress and turn back common-sense reforms that strengthen America's middle class. In Senate and House races across the country, industry-fueled front groups such as 'Americans for Job Security' have spent tens of millions of dollars on negative ads as misleading as their benign-sounding names -- aimed almost entirely at Democratic candidates."

Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "A new book by Bob Woodward ... presents three generals in the White House and State Department as the military's toughest, most persistent and most skeptical critics.... The Woodward book, however, consistently shows the three officers - retired Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, retired Gen. James L. Jones and Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute - embroiled in heated disputes with the brass."

Craig Whitlock & Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The CIA has relied on ... a constellation of agency bases across Afghanistan ... to train and deploy a well-armed 3,000-member Afghan paramilitary force collectively known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams. In addition to being used for surveillance, raids and combat operations in Afghanistan, the teams are crucial to the United States' secret war in Pakistan.... The existence of the teams is disclosed in "Obama's Wars" ... by ... Bob Woodward. But, more broadly, interviews with sources familiar with the CIA's operations, as well as a review of the database of 76,000 classified U.S. military field reports posted last month by the Web site WikiLeaks, reveal an agency that has a significantly larger covert paramilitary presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan than previously known."

Jon Stewart parries with Bill O'Reilly:

Kevin Sack of the New York Times: "On Thursday, the six-month anniversary of the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a number of its most central consumer protections take effect, just in time for the midterm elections." Los Angeles Times story here. ...

... A Case on Point: the children of Joe & Mary Thompson of Overland Park, Kansas, whom health insurance companies excluded from coverage because they are ill. ...

... Another Case on Point: Lacey McLear or Richmond, Virginia, who at age 23, cannot afford insurance but was excluded from her parents' policy. ...

... Yet Another Case on Point: Bill & Victoria Strong, whose daughter Gwendolyn was born with spinal muscular atrophy, which has required treatments so expensive the Strongs could soon reach a lifetime cap on their coverage. ...

... Constant Weader: still think it's a good idea to vote for the Republican's new "Plague on America" wherein GOP legislators promise to repeal the healthcare law?