The Commentariat -- July 5, 2012

I have a long piece in today's New York Times eXaminer titled "When the Supreme Court Leaks." The NYTX front page is here.

Quote of the Day. I tried to maintain order among the various taxpayers who would come to the forest and gradually learned an essential lesson about life -- that human beings no more become more civil when you put them in the woods than bears become domesticated if you put them in your parlor. (Henry David Thoreau, that fathead, was so very wrong about this.) -- Charles Pierce, on his youthful work as a public parks employee (Read the whole essay.) ...

... AND for those who think privatization of public services is a great idea, here's a story on point from Ihosvani Rodriguez of the Orlando Sun Sentinel about an incident in nearby Hallandale Beach: "As lifeguards are paid and trained to do, Tomas Lopez rushed down the beach to rescue a drowning man -- and then got fired for it. The problem: Lopez stepped out of the beach zone his company is paid to patrol, a supervisor said Tuesday." A spokesperson said the company was concerned it would be sued. "Hallandale Beach began outsourcing its lifeguards in 2003 as a money-saving measure." CW: imagine if Lopez were in a union: (a) he'd be making more than $8.75/hour to save lives, & (b) the company couldn't get away with firing him for saving a life. ...

     ... Update: Ihosvani Rodriguez & Megan O'Matz of the Orlando Sun Sentinel: "The Hallandale Beach lifeguard who was fired earlier this week for leaving his zone to help rescue a nearby swimmer will get an offer to go back to work, his top boss said Thursday. The offer will also be extended to two other lifeguards who were fired in connection to the incident. Several other lifeguards who have since resigned from their jobs in protest will also be welcomed back." Lopez said he would not accept the offer to return.

NEW: one of our contributors reminded me of the LIBOR scandal. Here's Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post explaining why it's such a big deal.

E. J. Dionne: "... it is dangerous to turn the Founders into quasi-religious prophets who produced a text more like the Bible or the Talmud." CW: I wonder if E.J. knows that this is literally what Mormons have done -- or so I've heard. They believe the Constitution is "sacred text." Read Dionne's column & tell me what you think. It strikes me -- tho Dionne doesn't hint at this -- that the "originalism" conservative jurists pretend is a valid and essential way to read the Constitution is nothing more than a handy pretext to promote their own agendas. Just pretend you're channeling Madison or Hamilton & rule "accordingly," then blame the founders. Nino Scalia keeps attesting he can't even understand his colleagues -- he often says or writes "it boggles the mind that anyone would think such-and-such." Yet he pretends he knows the thought processes of men of diverse views who have been dead for 200 years & can apply them to situations with which the Founders were never confronted.

Michael Grunwald of Time: the next times there's a powerful "Derecho," millions might not lose power for days on end -- and that's thanks to the much-derided stimulus bill.

Ever wonder why Mitt Romney was chosen to run the winter Olympics? Wonder no more. Jules Boycoff & Alan Tomlinson, in a New York Times op-ed: Though the International Olympics Committee "has been periodically tarnished by scandal -- usually involving the bribing and illegitimate wooing of delegates -- those embarrassments divert us from a deeper problem: the organization is elitist, domineering and crassly commercial at its core.... The I.O.C., which champions itself as a democratic 'catalyst for collaboration between all parties of the Olympic family,' is nonetheless run by a privileged sliver of the global 1 percent.... Competitions drenched in privilege, like the equestrian events, should be ditched (with apologies to Ann Romney's horse Rafalca, who will be competing in dressage in London)."

Gail Collins answers reader questions (well, maybe hypothetical reader questions) about the November election.

Ben Jacobs of Salon follows Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail. Entertaining.

Rep. Joe Walsh (RTP-Illinois) still thinks it's a pretty good idea to castigate his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth, a veteran who lost her legs when the helicopter she was piloting in Iraq was shot down, for talking about her military service. For a little background on what a great guy Formerly Deadbeat Joe is, Kaili Joy Gray of Daily Kos will fill you in.

Presidential Race

Gerry Mulaney of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney said on Wednesday that the individual mandate in President Obama's health care law was 'a tax,' just days after his campaign said the candidate had rejected that characterization." In case you have forgotten your 5th-grade science class where you learned what a weasel looked like, here's a refresher:

     ... Update: here's the fullblown New York Times story, by Jeremy Peters. ...

     ... Steve Kornacki of Salon has a good follow-up on the flip-flip, tracking Rupert Murdoch's frustration with the amateurish campaign. Also, here's how Kornacki characterizes Mitt's parsing: "Romney tried to invent a loophole, claiming that state-level mandates don't require Supreme Court approval, and therefore don't need 'to be called taxes in order for them to be constitutional.'" ...

     ... Michael Scherer of Time has an excellent piece on what he calls "Romney's Latest, Greatest Twist on the Individual Mandate." ...

Ann & Mitt Romney, jet-skiing on Lake Winnipesaukee Monday.

Luckily, the Romneys don't have to settle for just that cheesy little jet-ski two-seater.     ... AND the professional conservanuts at Rupert's Wall Street Journal pile on: "... for the sake of not abandoning his faulty health-care legacy in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney is jeopardizing his chance at becoming President. Perhaps Mr. Romney is slowly figuring this out, because in a July 4 interview he stated himself that the penalty now is a 'tax' after all. But he offered no elaboration, and so the campaign looks confused in addition to being politically dumb. This latest mistake is of a piece with the campaign's insular staff and strategy that are slowly squandering an historic opportunity.... The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault.... Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is assailing Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch rich man, and the rich man obliged by vacationing this week at his lake-side home with a jet-ski cameo."

Romney's Mystery Money. Associated Press: "For nearly 15 years..., Mitt Romney's financial portfolio has included an offshore company that remained invisible to voters.... Based in Bermuda, Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd. was not listed on any of Romney's state or federal financial reports. The company is among several Romney holdings that have not been fully disclosed, including one that recently posted a $1.9 million earning -- suggesting he could be wealthier than the nearly $250 million estimated by his campaign. The omissions were permitted by state and federal authorities overseeing Romney's ethics filings, and he has never been cited for failing to disclose information.... Sankaty was transferred to a trust owned by Romney's wife, Ann, one day before he was sworn in as Massachusetts governor in 2003...."

Paul Krugman: "Romney wasn't so much a captain of industry as a captain of deindustrialization, making big profits for his firm (and himself) by helping to dismantle the implicit social contract that used to make America a middle-class society. So now he proposes bringing the skills and techniques he used in business to the White House."

Right Wing World *

Benjy Sarlin of TPM: Jonathan Krohn, the teen conservative idol turned liberal heretic, is on the receiving end of a world of abuse from right wing pundits this week.... The Daily Caller led the charge. Gregg Re started things off with a profanity-filled screed from a spurned conservative who attended Krohn's big CPAC speech in 2009 and apparently demanded anonymity to tell Re the 17-year-old was a 'douche.'"

* Where adults bullying teenagers is A-okay, especially if the grown-up remembers to call the kid an obscene name or two.

News Ledes

Orlando Sun Sentinel: "A judge Thursday ordered George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, released on $1 million bail but called the defendant a manipulator and said it appeared he had been preparing to flee the country. It was not clear how long it would take the 28-year-old Zimmerman to arrange his release."

NBC News: "A 96-year-old former Arizona governor and former U.S. diplomat says he holds no grudges against the U.S. Border Patrol agents who he says detained him at a checkpoint for more than a half-hour in stifling heat after his pacemaker apparently set off a radiation sensor. Raul H. Castro says although he wasn't mistreated, agents could have been more sensitive to his age and condition."

Bloomberg News: "Fewer Americans than forecast filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance payments last week, easing concern that the labor market was deteriorating."

Bloomberg News: "Global central banks went on the offensive against the faltering world economy, cutting interest rates and increasing bond buying as a round of international stimulus gathers pace. In a 45-minute span, the European Central Bank and People's Bank of China cut their benchmark borrowing costs, while the Bank of England raised the size of its asset-purchase program."

Toledo Blade: "Demonstrating a tough line on trade with China, the Obama Administration will file an unfair trade complaint today against China's new duties on some American-made cars and sport utility vehicles, including the Toledo-made Jeep Wrangler.... President Obama is expected to refer to the WTO trade action in his speech today in suburban Toledo as he begins his two-day "Betting On America Bus Tour" through northern Ohio and western Pennsylvania." Via Time.

AP: "WikiLeaks said Thursday it was in the process of publishing material from 2.4 million Syrian emails -- many of which it said came from official government accounts. WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison told journalists at London's Frontline Club that the emails reveal interactions between the Syrian government and Western companies, although she declined to go into much further detail."

Guardian: "In an apparent response to reports that the US has increased its military presence in the Gulf, the commander of [Iran's] Revolutionary Guards' air force said on Wednesday that missiles had been aimed at 35 US military bases in the Gulf as well as targets in Israel, ready to be launched in case of an attack."

New York Times: "The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a man-made disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture, a high-level parliamentary inquiry concluded on Thursday, in a report that also warned that the plant may not have stood up to earthquake damage -- a worrying concern as the quake-prone country starts to bring its reactor fleet back online." ...

... AP: "Nuclear power returned to Japan's energy mix for the first time in two months Thursday, hours before a parliamentary investigative commission blamed the government's cozy relations with the industry for the meltdowns that prompted the mass shutdown of the nation's reactors.... Thursday's resumption of operations at a reactor in Ohi, in western Japan, already had been hotly contested."

Reuters: "Mexico's election officials on Wednesday recounted votes from more than half the polling booths in Sunday's presidential and congressional elections, responding to claims of fraud and requests for recounts in areas where the race was tight. Officials with the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) said the recount would not significantly change preliminary results of the presidential vote...."

New York Times: "A potentially explosive re-examination of the circumstances behind the death of , the symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, has galvanized Palestinian suspicions that he was poisoned and led the Palestinian Authority to agree in principle on Wednesday to an exhumation of his remains, possibly within days."

AP: "... tens of thousands of Americans may ... lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.

New York Times: "After decades of controversy, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new H.I.V. test on Tuesday that for the first time makes it possible for Americans to learn in the privacy of their homes whether they are infected."

Independence Day

Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "... how is our foundational assertion of equality faring on this July Fourth? As to social parity, it has seldom looked more robust. As to economic equality and the political equality with which it is inextricably intertwined, the picture is bleak." ...

... In celebration of Independence Day, the New York Times features an op-ed by pop philosopher Kurt Andersen whose thesis today is -- "What has happened politically, economically, culturally and socially since the sea change of the late '60s isn’t contradictory or incongruous. It&'s all of a piece. For hippies and bohemians as for businesspeople and investors, extreme individualism has been triumphant. Selfishness won." I would give this the "I Thought of It When I Was Drunk{ prize, tho Andersen claims he came up with it during a panel discussion. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people will figure this is some totally awesome commentary, man. ...

... Erik Loomis in AlterNet: "We are recreating the Gilded Age, the period ... when corporations ruled this nation, buying politicians, using violence against unions, and engaging in open corruption. During the Gilded Age, many Americans lived in stark poverty, in crowded tenement housing, without safe workplaces, and lacked any safety net to help lift them out of hard times.... Republicans [are] more committed than ever to repealing every economic gain the working-class has achieved in the last century and the Democrats seemingly unable to resist...." Loomis lists eight ways corporations, politicians and courts are trying to recreate the Gilded Age. ...

... Exhibit 1. Debtors' Prisons Come to Our Dickensian Wonderland. Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: communities are using fines as a primary source of revenue, & assigning for-profit, private probation companies to collect the fines. When poor people can't afford to pay, they go to jail even though it is unconstitutional to imprison people for inability to pay fines. "Richard Garrett [of Childersburg, Alabama] has spent a total of 24 months in jail and owes $10,000, all for traffic and license violations that began a decade ago."

Exhibit 2: N. C. Aizenman & Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "A growing number of Republican state leaders are revolting against the major Medicaid expansion called for under President Obama's health-care overhaul, threatening to undermine one of the law's most fundamental goals: insuring millions of poor Americans. The Supreme Court opened the door Thursday when it announced that although the rest of the law is constitutional, the federal government cannot punish states that refuse to adopt the measure’s more generous eligibility rules for Medicaid." CW: Yo, Marvin Schwalb -- gotcha beat in our "Worst Governors" contest today. ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "That didn't take long. Republican lawmakers from across the country are saying no to the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid -- even though it means turning down a sweetheart deal from the federal government that would create jobs in their states and, more important, provide millions of low-income Americans with health insurance.... They really think this is a bad idea to be opposed at all costs -- which says something about their fanatical devotion to anti-government philosophy, their cold indifference to their most vulnerable constituents, or some combination of the two." ...

... David Dayen of Firedoglake: "I don't know why ... anyone would believe that logic will rule the day, and red state governors will go against their entire ideological worldview and spend taxpayer dollars -- however small -- to cover poor people, in many states largely people of color."

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: neither party wants to talk about healthcare reform. ...

... New York Times Editors: "It's past time for the White House and the Obama campaign to ... begin" aggressively defending the Affordable Care Act. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. CW: Reality Chex readers & I have been saying this for some time. I'm glad we've got a chorus at the New York Times. Maybe Obama will listen now. That appalling, deceitful hit job by David Brooks yesterday should be inspiration enough. (See my NYTX column on Brooks to get a glimmer of just how deceitful it was.) ...

... ** Jonathan Chait of New York: people like David Brooks really need to quit pretending Republicans will spend a nickel insuring the poor & the sick.

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "Even as they promised to hand authority to elected leaders, Egypt's ruling generals were planning with one of the nation’s top judges to preserve their political power and block the rise of the Islamists, the judge said."

Tales from the Court

Paul Campos, in Salon, on the ACA decision: "My source insists that 'most of the material in the first three quarters of the joint dissent was drafted in Chief Justice Roberts' chambers in April and May.' Only the last portion of what eventually became the joint dissent was drafted without any participation by the chief justice. This source insists that the claim that the joint dissent was drafted from scratch in June is flatly untrue." ...

... Mark Tushet of Balkinization: "The evidence that the initial conference vote was 5-4 to strike down the ACA is pretty strong. Not only is there the internal stylistic evidence, but there were rumors before the decision to that effect. Within a couple of weeks of the arguments, I heard a rumor, sourced to a law clerk, that the Court had voted to strike the ACA down.... Several weeks later I heard that ... the Medicaid expansion was going to invalidated. And, on June 2, Ranesh Ponuru stated that he had heard from inside the Court that the initial vote was 5-4, but that the Chief Justice had gotten 'squishy.' ...

... Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy has the text of what Ponuru said on June 2:

... there's an initial vote the same week, on the Friday of the oral arguments. And my understanding is that there was a 5-4 vote to strike down the mandate and maybe some related provisions but not the entire act. Since then, interestingly, there seem to have been some second thoughts. Not on the part of Justice Kennedy, but on the part of Chief Justice Roberts, who seems to be going a little bit wobbly. So right now, I would say, [the outcome of the case] is a little bit up in the air….

... John Fund of the National Review: "The week before the Supreme Court announced its decision, the White House was clearly hinting to many in the media and on Capitol Hill that they expected a 5-4 opinion that would hinge on the taxing-power issue.... I've learned from my own sources that after voting to invalidate the mandate, the chief did express some skepticism aboutjoining the four conservatives in throwing out the whole law. At the justices' conference, there was discussion about accepting the Obama administration's argument, which was that, if the individual mandate was removed, the provisions governing community rating and guaranteed issue of insurance would have to go too but that the rest of the law might stand. The chief justice was equivocal, though, in his views on that point."

Local News

David Firestone of the New York Times: "Gov. Rick Snyder [R] of Michigan surprised his fellow party members in the legislature today by vetoing three bills. One would have required an identification card to get an absentee ballot. Another would have limited third-party registration drives by requiring groups like the League of Women Voters to get mandatory training by the state. (The league should probably be training the state.) The third would require voters to check a box on their ballot affirming that they are citizens."

News Ledes

President Obama spoke at a naturalization ceremony for active duty service members:

Hallelujah, There Is a God (Particle)! New York Times: "Physicists working at CERN's Large Hadron Collider said Wednesday that they had discovered a new subatomic particle that looks for all the world like the Higgs boson, a potential key to understanding why elementary particles have mass and indeed to the existence of diversity and life in the universe.... The discovery could lead to a new understanding of how the universe began."

Washington Post: "Pakistan agreed Tuesday to reopen its border crossings to U.S. and NATO military transit after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized for a deadly U.S. airstrike last year."

Guardian: "Talks have begun in Istanbul between Iranian scientists and their counterparts from six major powers in an attempt to resolve an impasse over Iran's nuclear aspirations, as both Tehran and Washington raised the military stakes in a perilous standoff in the Gulf."

New York Times: "An Afghan soldier opened fire on NATO soldiers, wounding five of them before fleeing, in the latest in a spate of attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on their coalition allies, Western and Afghan officials said Wednesday."

AP: "A JetBlue Airways pilot who left the cockpit during a flight and screamed about religion and terrorists has been found not guilty by reason of insanity, though a federal judge ordered he be sent to a mental health facility for further examination. The judge issued the ruling during a bench trial Tuesday in Amarillo for Clayton F. Osbon, noting he suffered from a 'severe mental disease or defect.' Osbon's attorney, Dean Roper, declined to comment."

Vive Le Socialisme! Reuters: "France's new Socialist government announced a raft of tax rises worth 7.2 billions euros on Wednesday, including heavy one-off levies on wealthy households and big corporations, to plug a revenue shortfall this year from feeble economic growth."

AP: "Hundreds of thousands from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic were preparing to spend the Fourth of July like America's founders did in 1776, without the conveniences of electricity and air conditioning."

Al Jazeera: "Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, sees no reason why Yasser Arafat's body should not be exhumed following an Al Jazeera report that he may have died of poisoning, his spokesman said on Wednesday.... A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera found that Arafat's final belongings -- his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh -- contained elevated levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element."

The Commentariat -- July 3, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "I Never Believe David Brooks." I never do. The NYTX front page is here.

The Government We Deserve. Pew Research Center: "... just 55% of the public knows that the Supreme Court upheld most of the health care law's provisions; 45% say either that the court rejected most provisions (15%) or do not know what the court did (30%). Among those aware that the court upheld most of the law, 50% approve of the decision while 42% disapprove."

Understanding Mitt. Lisa Miller of New York: "... living high on the socioeconomic ladder can, colloquially speaking, dehumanize people. It can make them less ethical, more selfish, more insular, and less compassionate than other people.... 'While having money doesn’t necessarily make anybody anything,' [Prof. Paul] Piff says, 'the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people. It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.'" CW: this is a six-pager. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the printer version to load, so you'll have to page thru from the linked first page.

Jeff Toobin: Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion on the Affordable Care Act "was a singular act of courage," but "this should have been an easy case."

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "Conservatives want their judges to consider themselves card-carrying members of the conservative movement, and at the same time they want those judges' rulings, when handed down, to be treated with unquestionable legitimacy even by those who disagree with the decisions.... Having excoriated liberals for calling the court partisan, conservatives are now gnashing their teeth because the court failed to be as partisan as they wanted. That makes the complaints about politics supposedly driving Roberts' decision ring hollow. They wanted politics to drive the decision. They just wanted it to go their way."

Jonathan Chait: John Roberts' legal theory on the constitutionality of the ACA makes no sense (and neither does that of the conservatives justices, who don't even try). But it accomplished what he wanted to do, making it "results-oriented."

Fear of Taxes. Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post: Get over it, people. "Taxation ... can be an extremely efficient way to achieve social ends as well as fund the government, and any fair conservative economist would recognize this."

Incidential Economist: "Obamacare is the biggest tax increase in history … if you ignore history. The I/E created a chart to disprove the GOP biggest-tax-increase-ever talking point. ...

... More from Kevin Drum on the "biggest tax increase" story. He adds, "no news outlet interested in accuracy should let it pass without challenge." Good luck with that. Of course, we may not hear this talking point for long on account of Romney's little "tax problem": see the Michael Shear story under today's "Presidential Race" for that.

Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post: okay, the Court has ruled on ObamaCare. Are you businesspeople who were clinging to the uncertainty apron all better now? Are you "certain" yet?

** Re: the Affordable Care Act, please read Victoria D.'s comment in today's Commentariat. Letters like the one she received can only help.

Ken Silverstein, in a New York Times op-ed: "Despots and crooks love to bring their money to America, not only for prestige but also because our corporate secrecy laws, like those of Switzerland and Luxembourg, make it almost impossible for law enforcement agencies to figure out who has money sheltered here."

Gene Robinson: "About one-fourth of all households [in the Washington, D.C. area] have no electricity, the legacy of an unprecedented assault by violent thunderstorms Friday night. Critics have blasted the Obama administration's unfruitful investment in solar energy. But if government-funded research managed to lower the price of solar panels to the point where it became economical to install them on residential roofs, all you global warming skeptics would have air conditioning right now. I'm just sayin'."

"Backpack" Vouchers. Ed Kilgore of Washington Monthly: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's program to give vouchers to every kid should frighten Americans "because the basic idea of 'strapping public funds to kids' backs' and sending it wherever parents choose is at the heart of Mitt Romney's education platform." CW: and another reminder of why I despise Jeb Bush. He can be polite & reasonable-sounding, but that sucker is a prime mover in the privatization of education -- a key element in the Return to Gilded Age Rules.

Marc Ambinder in GQ: "According to ongoing discussions with Obama aides and associates, if the president wins a second term, he plans to tackle another American war that has so far been successful only in perpetuating more misery: the four decades of The Drug War."

CW: a note to everyone who says "I'm not going to vote for Obama. He betrayed me when he did/didn't do ... whatever": The Bully Pulpit Argument. Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns & Money: "Plans to transform American domestic politics that involve heroic presidential daddies imposing major social change on powerful interests by sheer force of will are indistinguishable from having no plan at all."

Sometimes conservatives grow up. Patrick Gavin of Politico has the story.

Presidential Race

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney's presidential campaign threw cold water on a central Republican attack line on Monday, saying that President Obama's health care mandate should be thought of as a penalty and not a tax. That message ... contradicts top Republican Party officials and leaders in Congress, who have spent the last several days eagerly accusing the president of levying a new tax. By straying from the party message, Mr. Romney's campaign offered a fresh example of his difficulty in carrying the conservative mantle on health care...."

Not Going to Talk about Healthcare. Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal: Mitt Romney's "campaign has been giving off clear signals that it doesn't want to make health care a major part of the election."

Not Going to Talk about Immigration, Either. Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Mitt Romney last week told a private group of potential supporters and business and media elites, including Rupert Murdoch, that he was treading carefully around the issue of immigration to avoid looking like a 'flip-flopper.'" CW: interesting post.

Not Going to Talk about My Personal Finances, Either. CW: Haven't had time to read this Vanity Fair story, but it looks good. Here's the blurb: "For all Mitt Romney's touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney's fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate." ...

... Alexander Burns of Politico, commenting on the Vanity Fair story: "Romney's larger approach to the 2012 campaign: accepting a certain amount of heat over his lack of detail and transparency, in order to deny his critics and political opponents information they might use to attack him." Strategy translation: if you knew about the skeletons in Mitt Romney's closet, you would not elect him dogcatcher (even tho he's got a kennel on the top of his car), so the closet will remain closed. And we're counting on the press to "respect the candidate's privacy."

CW: so it looks like Romney's entire campaign message boils down to this: "The economy sucks and I'm white."

O Say, Can You Say "Marseillaise"? Steve Benen: Some Republicans -- Karl Rove & the National Review, fer instance -- have been claiming that President Obama will be spending the 4th in Paris attending fundraisers. Not true. "There is, of course, an underlying smear here, with the right falsely trying to connect Obama to France. But I'm curious: if a Parisian fundraiser from American donors is controversial, why aren't Romney's fundraisers in communist China equally problematic?"

Right Wing World

Let's Cuff the Attorney General. Steve Benen: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (RTP-Utah) goes on the teevee to raise the prospect of having the House sergeant-at-arms apprehend AG Eric Holder. CW: yes, making the black AG do the perp walk would be a great visual. I have no idea what the sergeant-at-arms would actually do with Holder once he "took control of" him because no one is going to prosecute Holder. Will they lock him up in the basement of the Capitol Building?

Local News

"Chris Christie, Still Auditioning for V.P., Calls Reporter an 'Idiot.'" Star-Ledger Editorial Board: "Christie signs laws against bullying while serving a prime example of the problem." The news story is here. CW: Marvin Schwalb has a point. See yesterday Comments on the Commentariat. ...

... But I still think Florida's Rick Scott win the "America's Worst Governor" contest. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: an analysis has "found that 98.4 percent of the 2,625 people included on" Rick Scott's first list of "potential noncitizens" are eligible voters. CW: and Republican-run Lee County, where I live is the worst! Here's my case: Christie is calling New Jersey citizens "idiots" & "numbnuts"; Scott is disenfranchising the idiots in Florida.

Amanda Crawford of Bloomberg News: in Colorado Springs, the home of the anti-tax movement & a bastion of conservatism, is now experiencing -- in the wake of the disastrous fires -- the obvious downside of Norquist-think: fewer essential public services -- including police. And it is likely to get worse.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Andy Griffith, an actor whose folksy Southern manner charmed audiences for more than 50 years on Broadway, in movies, on albums and especially on television -- most notably as the small-town sheriff on the long-running situation comedy that bore his name -- died on Tuesday at his home on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. He was 86." The Times has an "Andy Griffith -- In Performance" video feature here. I recommend "What It Was, Was Football," which was my introduction to Griffith.

New York Times: "The United States has quietly moved significant military reinforcements into the Persian Gulf to deter the Iranian military from any possible attempt to shut the Strait of Hormuz and to increase the number of fighter jets capable of striking deep into Iran if the standoff over its nuclear program escalates."

AP: "The Obama administration is moving toward decisions that would further cut the number of U.S. nuclear weapons, possibly to between 1,000 and 1,100, reflecting new thinking on the role of nuclear weapons in an age of terror, current and former officials say."

Reuters: "Firefighters grappling with the two most destructive wildfires on record in Colorado reported progress on Monday...." The Denver Post's coverage is here.

New York Times: "A prominent human rights advocacy group accused the Syrian authorities on Tuesday of building an 'archipelago' of at least 27 torture centers where abuse of the government’s opponents points to a crime against humanity." Guardian story here. ...

... AP: "Syrian President Bashar Assad said he regrets the shooting down of a Turkish jet by his forces, and he will not allow tensions between the two neighbors to deteriorate into an 'armed conflict,' a Turkish newspaper reported Tuesday." ...

... Al Jazeera: "International powers have agreed that a transitional government should be set up in Syria to end the bloodshed there but left open the question of what part President Bashar al-Assad might play in the process. Peace envoy Kofi Annan said after talks in Geneva on Saturday that the government should include members of Assad's administration and the Syrian opposition and pave the way for free elections."

AP: "Iraqi officials on Tuesday said at least 25 people were killed and 40 others wounded in a series of blasts in central Iraq as insurgents seek to undermine the Shiite-led government."

Guardian: "US and Pakistani officials have expressed optimism that Islamabad is close to reopening its Afghan border to Nato troop supplies after a seven-month blockade, a move that could significantly reduce tension between the two countries."

AP: "British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline will pay $3 billion in fines -- the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history -- for criminal and civil violations involving 10 drugs that are taken by millions of people. The Justice Department said Monday that GlaxoSmithKline PLC will plead guilty to promoting popular antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin for unapproved uses. The company also will plead guilty to failing to report to the government for seven years some safety problems with diabetes drug Avandia...."

New York Times: "Robert E. Diamond Jr., the chief executive of Barclays, resigned on Tuesday, less than a week since the British bank agreed to pay $450 million to settle accusations that it had tried to manipulate key interest rates for its own benefit." The Guardian is liveblogging the story; other executives are expected to resign.

Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. sharply criticized lawmakers Monday for voting to hold him in contempt of Congress last week, saying Republicans have made him a 'proxy' to attack President Obama in an election year."

New York Times: "... Fermilab physicists said Monday that its Tevatron, now shuttered but once the world’s most powerful physics machine, had fallen just short of finding a long-hypothesized particle. Known as the Higgs boson, it explains why things in the universe have mass, and is a cornerstone of modern physics despite never being seen."