The Commentariat -- July 8

Catfood!

On the Off Times Square page, commenter Richard suggests, "What about doing something more substantial than signing petitions that won't be looked at or making phone calls that won't be answered? Send the White House a can of Marie's cat food with your thoughts written on it. A few million cans or even a few hundred thousand would be hard to ignore. There are quite a few million people out there that are upset right now. All they need is a direction in which to focus their anger." My can of Fancy Feast is going to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 20500, today!

Paul Krugman elaborates on his blogposts in which he concludes that President Obama has reportedly conceded not just the terms of the argument but actual economic policy proposals to Republicans because he wants to, not because he has to. ...

... I've posted a Krugman comments page on Off Times Square. You can comment on Krugman's remarks or on something else. Karen Garcia, Kate Madison & I have posted comments. I think you'd better read Madison's comment here; I'll let you know if the Times posts it. I could probably make a nice nest egg taking bets they will not! Update: Oops! My comment got whacked, too, and -- unbelievably -- so did Garcia's, which is particularly good. This is why we have Off Times Square. ...

... Jim Fallows: apparently Obama (and the Republicans) have learned nothing from Herbert Hoover's mistakes.

... Constitutional Law Prof. Larry Tribe, one of Barack Obama's former teachers, tries to explain in a New York Times op-ed why invoking the Fourteenth Amendment option on the debt-ceiling crisis won't work. CW: Pesonally, I think Tribe's "reasoning" is fallacious, but, hey, he's the expert. ...

... Which brings to mind this from the New York Times (final paragraph):

In addition to his warnings about the cost of a default, officials said, Mr. Geithner told the lawmakers the White House did not believe it had the authority, under the Constitution, to continue issuing debt if it reached the debt ceiling. Nobody in the room disputed Mr. Geithner's bleak assessment....

... House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks to Bloomberg's Peter Cook about the debt ceiling negotiations. Pelosi stands behind "no benefit cuts to Social Security & Medicare.... We should go someplace else to reduce the decifict":

     ... Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: Pelosi & Obama are to meet today at 10:00 am ET in the White House. ...

     ... Michael Grunwald of Time on what Pelosi wants (most of all, to be Speaker again).

We think that obviously there are some Democrats who don’t feel as strongly about deficit reduction as [President Obama] does. White House political advisor David Plouffe

... Gene Robinson v. David Plouffe. Robinson ticks off a list of ways to reduce the deficit without cutting -- in some cases, enhancing -- entitlement programs. "There is, indeed, a way to eliminate these strangling deficits with fairness and an eye toward a brighter future. It just happens to be the progressive way." ...

... Steve Benen: "The word of the day is 'benefits' — as in, the specific kind of entitlement cuts that Democrats simply cannot tolerate as part of the debt-reduction talks."

... Paul Bedard of USA Today: "MoveOn.org, the progressive political group that turned legions of young voters on to President Obama in 2008, warns that donors would boycott the Obama-Biden re-election campaign if the president moves ahead with cuts to Social Security in a bid to broker a deal with Republicans to raise the debt ceiling." Polls of their members "found 76 percent would be less likely to donate to or volunteer for the president's re-election if he cut Social Security, as the administration is suggesting. Worse, if he trimmed Medicare, 78 percent said they'd be less likely to help Obama." ...

... AND you knew this was coming. Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders have made a rollback of tax breaks for corporate jets a frequent talking point in recent days ... as part of the budget talks. But the drumbeat from Democrats has set off a counterattack from a small but powerful group of jet manufacturers and users, who have contributed millions of dollars over the years to lawmakers from both parties.... The industry was surprised by Mr. Obama’s focus on private jets — the president mentioned the issue six times in a news conference last week — because it was Mr. Obama who had helped create an expanded deduction last year for the industry as a way of creating jobs."

** Bankers Are Too Nice to Prosecute. Gretchen Morgenson & Louise Story of the New York Times: "As the financial storm brewed in the summer of 2008 ... Federal prosecutors officially adopted new guidelines about charging corporations with crimes — a softer approach that, longtime white-collar lawyers and former federal prosecutors say, helps explain the dearth of criminal cases despite a raft of inquiries into the financial crisis.... The Securities and Exchange Commission also added deferred prosecution as a tool last year and has embraced another alternative to litigation — reports that chronicle wrongdoing at institutions like Moody’s Investors Service, often without punishing anyone. The financial crisis cases brought by the S.E.C. — like a recent settlement with JPMorgan Chase for selling a mortgage security that soured — have rarely named executives as defendants.... The [DOJ] began pulling back from a more aggressive pursuit of white-collar crime around 2005...."

CW: The New York Times op-ed page, which has gone way downhill since the departure of Rich & Herbert, is rich today. Even David Brooks isn't half-bad. I've offered to give him my Democratic party card since I won't be needing it. ...

... Tim Egan has a fine post, exposing the majority perverts on the Supreme Court, or more accurately, allowing Justice Scalia to do it in his downright loony majority opinion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. ...

... Finally, Prof. David Goldfield provides a history lesson on the Christian fundamentalism that gave birth to the Republican party. This was news to me.

John Burns & Jo Becker of the New York Times have an interesting piece on Rupert Murdoch's political power in Great Britain -- including his personal relationship with Conservative PM David Cameron, which has turned into a bit of a sticky wicket for the Tories. "... concerns will be intensified by the expected arrest on Friday of Andy Coulson, the former editor of The News of the World and, until he resigned in January this year, Mr. Cameron’s media chief at Downing Street." CW: see today's Ledes; Scotland Yard arrested Coulson. ...

... AND, speaking of men in high places behaving very badly, John Eligon of the New York Times tries to solve the mystery of "What Happened in Room 2806": the number of the Sofitel room where former IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn encountered a maid. With graphics!

Right Wing World *

In the words of Orrin Robin Hood Hatch (R-Utah), You poor people need to get to work & pay more taxes so the rich don't have to do so much:

Listen to What I Say, Don't Watch What I Do. Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register: "The reason he’s lagging in the polls, [Tim] Pawlenty told ... The Des Moines Register’s editorial board [Thursday], is that 'this week is the first time that I’ve campaigned in earnest in Iowa.' Pawlenty has made more campaign appearances here than any other candidate except former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum."

From the Department of Dirty Tricks. Ben Smith: "A sharp-eyed Italian reader catches a bit of subliminal trickery in the latest [Karl Rove] Crossroads online ad, where the word 'TAXES' flashes very quickly in big bold letters on the screen and then resolve themselves into the word 'takes' instead." Since the ad is running online only, Smith thinks the FCC has no jurisdiction. Here's the ad & it's way scary:

* Where the rich are way too generous.

News Ledes

Here's the President this morning on the dismal jobs numbers:

For Betty Ford obituaries, see R.I.P. at the bottom of the right column.

AP: "A former KBR Inc. employee who said she was drugged and raped while working in Iraq lost her lawsuit against the military contractor Friday. The jury of eight men and three women rejected Jamie Leigh Jones’ claims a day after starting deliberations in a Houston federal courthouse. Jones, 26, said she was raped in 2005 while working for KBR at Camp Hope, Baghdad."

ABC News: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reiterated Friday that Democrats will not back any proposal to increase the debt limit that includes cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits, adding that whatever compromise comes out of the talks, it cannot 'do harm.'”

AP: "Atlantis and four astronauts rocketed into orbit Friday on NASA's last space shuttle voyage, dodging bad weather and delighting hundreds of thousands of spectators on hand to witness the end of an era. It will be at least three years — possibly five or more — before astronauts launch again from U.S. soil, and so this final journey of the shuttle era packed in crowds and roused emotions on a scale not seen since the Apollo moon shots."

President Obama spoke about the monthly jobs report this morning. And here's why -- Bloomberg News: "U.S. employers added 18,000 workers in June, the fewest in nine months, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed [to 9.2 percent], indicating a struggling labor market." CW: oh, how will we Win the Future?

Telling It like as It Is. National Journal: "The United States believes the Pakistani government 'sanctioned' the murder of a prominent Pakistani journalist [Syed Saleem Shahzad] who had been probing links between the country's security services and its Islamic militants, said Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 'It was sanctioned by the government,' Mullen told journalists at the Pentagon on Thursday. 'I have not seen anything to disabuse the report that the government knew about this'."

Politico: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor hinted last week and confirmed Friday that the House will stay in Washington during the week of July 18 – giving lawmakers more time in town to hash out details of a debt ceiling deal as the Aug. 2 deadline looms. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called off recess for the upper chamber...."

New York Times: "British police arrested a former editor of The News of the World tabloid on Friday who had also been a senior aide to Prime Minister David Cameron>, deepening the crisis swirling around Rupert Murdoch’s news empire over allegations of phone hacking and corruption. Struggling to contain the biggest scandal since he took office more than a year ago, Mr. Cameron meanwhile announced two separate inquiries into the revelations, saying 'no stone will be left unturned.'" CW: Yesterday Cameron, an ally of Murdoch's, was not turning any stones. (See links to previous stories under Infotainment further down this column.) ...

... Meanwhile, across the Channel ... New York Times: "The Paris prosecutor’s office on Friday opened a preliminary investigation into accusations that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund who is accused of sexually assaulting a New York hotel housekeeper, tried to rape a French journalist during an interview in 2003, an official at the prosecutors office said."

Reuters: "Medicaid ... is giving people unprecedented access to doctors and also improving their finances, a study co-authored by the Harvard School of Public Health has found. The study, released on Thursday, showed that new recipients of Medicaid reported better physical and mental health and were less likely to go into debt to pay their medical bills."

New York Times: "Prodded by grieving parents, Spanish judges are investigating hundreds of charges that infants were abducted and sold for adoption over a 40-year period. What may have begun as political retaliation for leftist families during the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco appears to have mutated into a trafficking business in which doctors, nurses and even nuns colluded with criminal networks." Thanks to reader Ted P. for the link.

More on the Murdoch Mess

Guardian: "Police are investigating evidence that a News International executive may have deleted millions of emails from an internal archive, in an apparent attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard's inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.... News International originally claimed that the archive of emails did not exist.... The allegation [of the deletions] directly contradicts repeated claims from News International that it is co-operating fully with police in order to expose its history of illegal news-gathering." ...

... Guardian: "Clive Goodman, the News of the World's former royal editor, has been arrested over allegations he bribed police officers for information. Goodman was convicted and jailed in 2007 after the first police investigation into phone hacking and sacked from the Sunday tabloid. He was arrested in a dawn raid at his Surrey home, which was searched by officers. In a statement the Metropolitan police said the arrest was over allegations of corruption."

The New York Times has an interactive feature on "The Anatomy of the Phone-Hacking Scandal."

New York Times: "Britain’s Parliament on Wednesday collectively turned on Rupert Murdoch, the head of the News Corporation, and the tabloid culture he represents, using a debate about a widening phone hacking scandal to denounce reporting tactics by newspapers once seen as too politically influential to challenge. But though he joined in the chorus of outrage, Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party benefits from Mr. Murdoch’s support, stopped short of calling for an immediate investigation into behavior by the Murdoch-owned News of the World and other tabloids. Such an inquiry would have to wait, he said, until the police had concluded their own criminal investigation." ...

... Daily Telegraph: "The bereaved relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan may have had their phones hacked by a private investigator working for the News of the World." Guardian story here. ...

     ... ** Rupert to Close Tabloid. New York Times Update: "The media titan Rupert Murdoch abandoned his defiance of popular and Parliamentary pressure on Thursday, sacrificing the mass-circulation British tabloid News of the World in a bid to protect his News Corporation empire from fallout as the phone hacking scandal turned yet more disturbing on suggestions that targets included not only a 13-year-old murder victim but also relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan." Guardian story here. ...

     ... Statement from James Murdoch, Chairman of News International, to his staff at News of the World. ...

     ... Eric Boehlert of Media Matters: Murdoch's hand-picked Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton previously ran News of the World & other Murdoch British publications & was the guy who "investigated" earlier allegations of hacking by News of the World personnel. Hinton claimed at the time that "there was no evidence of widespread wrongdoing." Boehlert asks, "... is Les Hinton really qualified to be publisher of one of the largest and most prestigious newspapers in America?"

     ... Guardian: Labour leader "Ed Miliband has suggested [Prime Minister] David Cameron's leadership over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal is mired by his 'close relationships' with individuals embroiled in the affair at News International." ...

     ... New York Times Update: With the closing of News of the World, "an outpouring of suspicion and condemnation came from all directions on Thursday, and was directed chiefly at the News Corporation’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, a figure as powerful as he is polarizing. The British media establishment, Facebook and Twitter users and even Mr. Murdoch’s own employees questioned his move." CW: couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Keach Hagey of Politico: "In the past ten days, [Fox News] has run more than 30 segments calling for the nonprofit group [Media Matters] to be stripped of its tax-exempt status. Its Fox Nation website has even provided a link to pre-completed complaint forms against Media Matters to send to the Internal Revenue Service. While Fox News personalities like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly have long grumbled about Media Matters, this attack on the group has been carried out across the channel’s news and opinion programs."

The Commentariat -- July 7

Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "The current political debate and the nascent 2012 election season are utterly earthbound, with a tone so gloomy it’s often shocking." ...

... I've opened up a comments page for Bruni's column on Off Times Square. Comment on Bruni's thesis or what you will. I've posted my comment.

Nate Silver: "... the majority of Republican gains last year were probably due to changes in relative turnout.... The enthusiasm gap did not so much divide Republicans from Democrats; rather, it divided conservative Republicans from everyone else.... This is why Republican politicians find it difficult to compromise on something like the debt ceiling.... As long as conservative Republicans are much more likely to vote than anyone else..., Republican members of Congress have a mandate to remain steadfast to the conservatives who are responsible for electing them."

TwitterTown

     ... Full transcript here.

Never in our history has the United States defaulted on its debt. The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, for oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.  I mean, I'm happy to have those debates.  I think the American people are on my side on this. -- Barack Obama, during his Twitter townhall meeting

... Jeffrey Sparrshot of the Wall Street Journal: "President Barack Obama sidestepped a question on whether the 14th Amendment would allow the federal government to issue more debt if Congress refuses to raise the country’s legal borrowing limit. Instead, he said he expects to strike a deal with lawmakers in the coming weeks. 'I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue,' Mr. Obama said in a town-hall meeting conducted using Twitter." ...

... Sam Youngman of The Hill: "July is make or break for Obama 2012.... All Obama has to do is forge a deal with Republicans that cuts trillions from the deficit and saves the economy from going off another cliff, all while convincing his base that he is not selling them down the river again.... If he stares down the GOP and comes up with a deal that makes his base happy, Obama will be showing that he remembers two of the first rules of politics: Dance with the one who brought you — and don’t go to war without your army." ...

... BUT Kevin Drum of Mother Jones thinks Obama will do just fine by throwing progressives under the bus. He also says what I've been saying for some long while: "Obama isn't doing this because he has to. He's doing it because he wants to." ...

... NEW. Karen Garcia is biding her time, on the theory that, well, maybe ending Social Security as we know it is an Obama bluff. CW: I wish I could be so optimistic (which shows you the level to which "optimism" for Obama's next move has fallen; i.e., maybe there's an outside chance he won't screw the American people again). ...

... NEW. Glenn Greewald: Hey, liberals, you should hardly be surprised by another Obama betrayal. Thanks to commenter James T. for the link. ...

... Here's Greenwald speaking at the Socialism 2011 conference in Chicago last weekend:

... Greenwald suggests George Carlin explained it all, in perhaps the best "editorial" ever:

What I think we all agree to, is that tax reform needs to occur again. It is, however, a big complicated subject and it has unintended consequences.... When you target particular industries, you get fewer jobs. And our biggest problem right now is the job problem. -- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority Leader

We've seen people on the other side of the aisle who have walked away from the table to protect millionaires and billionaires. -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

Where are the jobs from the Bush tax cuts? -- Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) (Via CBS News)

... BUT. Roll Over, Obama. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "President Obama on Tuesday reiterated his insistence that Republicans agree to a 'balanced' deficit reduction package that includes both spending cuts and new taxes.... Recent reports suggest that the administration would agree to a deal including about $2 trillion in reduced spending and about $400 billion in increased revenue. Very roughly speaking, that sounds like a ratio of cuts to taxes of roughly four- or five-to-one.... Other reports have cited more lopsided ratios, albeit with smaller numbers overall.... None of these frameworks sound particularly balanced." ...

... Catfood Is Looking Tasty. Constant Weader: I knew we would get to this point: where we were just hoping President Obama wouldn't agree to a deal worse than the draconian Bowles-Simpson Catfood Commission plan. But that's where we are, if news reports are correct -- the debt ceiling deal will be worse than the Catfood Commission proposals. ...

... Here's the Deal according to Carl Hulse & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama, who is to meet at the White House with the bipartisan leadership of Congress in an effort to work out an agreement to raise the federal debt limit, wants to move well beyond the $2 trillion in savings sought in earlier negotiations and seek perhaps twice as much over the next decade, Democratic officials briefed on the negotiations said Wednesday." ...

... Depending on what they decide to recommend, they may not have Democrats. I think it is a risky thing for the White House to basically take the bet that we can be presented with something at the last minute and we will go for it. -- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) ...

... AND Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue. At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action. As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal." CW: feel those bus wheels rolling over you? This is just beyond the pale. ...

... Oh, some good news. John Bennett of The Hill: "National security spending could be cut by as much as $700 billion in a deal to raise the debt limit, defense sources said. That’s almost twice the amount President Obama originally proposed." ...

... ** Michael Crowley of Time sums up why liberals are disgusted with Obama vis-a-vis the debt ceiling negotiations. My only complaint with Crowley's summary: no expletives. ...

... NEW. Bruce Bartlett, an honest Republican (no, not an oxymoron), in a Washington Post op-ed, explodes five myths about the debt ceiling.

... Nicholas Kristof: "If there were an award for Most Unconscionable Tax Loophole, this one would win grand prize.... Tycoons have bet for years that the public is too stupid or distracted to note that in many cases they’re paying just a 15 percent tax rate. What’s at stake is the 'carried interest' loophole, and President Obama is pushing to close it. The White House estimates that this would raise $20 billion over a decade. But Congressional Republicans walked out of budget talks rather than discuss raising revenues from measures such as this one." ...

... AND Krugman turns me down for a date (with the President): "... maybe it’s personal. Maybe the president just doesn’t like the kind of people ... who say that the government is not like a family, that it’s not right for the government to tighten its belt when Americans are tightening theirs, that unemployment is not caused by lack of the right skills. Certainly just about all the people who might have tried to make that argument have left the administration or are leaving soon.... To commenters saying that I need to have dinner with the president, or vice versa — been there, done that, didn’t help."

Adam Goldman of the AP profiles "John," the CIA analyst who hunted and found Osama bin Laden. ...

... John Young of Cryptome makes a pretty convincing case that the White House accidentally (on purpose?) released photos of "John." Via John Cook of Gawker.

Jim Crow, Redux, OR The Truth about Republicans. I can’t help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today. [AND on Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s move to overturn precedents that allow convicted felons to vote once they’ve finished their probation periods:] Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they’ve paid their price? Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics who tended to vote for Democrats. That’s why. -- President Bill Clinton, in a speech to a Campus Progress convention

Twitter may work for President Obama (who did not limit his answers to 140 characters in his TwitterTown), but it is not working well for Michele Bachmann:

That's 140 characters. The problem: Republican & fundamentalist othodoxy says there is no Palestine. Gosh, maybe Bachmann meant "Palestinians," but that would have taken 143 characters. Too bad. And congratulations, Hamas. You just got an unlikely new backer. Thanks to Eric Kleefeld at TPM.

Local News

Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: "While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state." CW: I'm not sure this is a bad thing. Read the report, watch the local news video, & let us know what you think.

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Even Minnesota’s leaders don’t know the cost of the state government’s shutdown. That’s because the people who would calculate the price tag were put out of work.  Now more than six days old, the shutdown has continued to shutter parks and toll booths and to leave thousands of government workers at home. The state’s Democratic governor and Republican lawmakers continued to wrangle, without resolution, over a $5 billion budget gap Wednesday." Weiner does collect some data on how much the state is losing in specific areas, and it's a bunch. 

News Ledes

AP: "A Mexican national was executed Thursday for the rape-slaying of a teenager after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal to spare him that was supported by Mexico and the White House. In his last minutes, Humberto Leal repeatedly said he was sorry and accepted responsibility."

AP: "The House voted Thursday to bar military aid to Libyan rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi but stopped short of prohibiting funds for U.S. involvement in a NATO-led mission now in its fourth month. Sending a muddled message in the constitutional challenge to President Barack Obama, House Republicans and Democrats signaled their frustration with American participation in a stalemated civil war but also showed their unwillingness to end the operation."

AP: "Andreas Fink, the chief executive of Icelandic payment processor DataCell, told The Associated Press that Visa and MasterCard were again processing payments to WikiLeaks after a seven-month hiatus. Fink claimed the move as a tacit admission of guilt from the credit card companies, but it may well have been accidental.Visa Europe spokesman Simon Kleine told AP that processing the payments was 'not something that we've sanctioned' and that the company was investigating."

New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued new standards for power plants in 28 states that would sharply cut emissions of chemicals that have polluted forests, farms, lakes and streams across the eastern United States for decades."

President Obama & Vice President Biden will meet with Congressional leadership to discuss raising the debt limit at 11:00 am ET. AP story here. ...

President Obama on today's debt ceiling negotiations:

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama said on Thursday that budget negotiations at the White House had been 'very constructive,' though the two sides 'were still far apart on a wide range of issues.' He said the talks would continue into the weekend, and that Congressional leaders would meet with him again on Sunday.”

San Francisco Chronicle: "A federal appeals court ordered a halt Wednesday to the armed forces' policy of discharging openly gay service members, citing the impending demise of "don't ask, don't tell" and the Obama administration's escalating criticism of antigay laws.... On Wednesday, however, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco - which had previously allowed the government to follow its own timetable - reinstated a federal judge's injunction that had briefly barred enforcement of the law last fall before it was suspended."

New York Times: "Federal officials announced on Wednesday that they had reached a settlement with a group of homeowners who sued the federal government and the State of Louisiana alleging discrimination in the state’s Road Home program, which distributed grants to those whose houses were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding."

AP: "Both the Finance Committee in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Ways and Means Committee in the Republican-led House will consider ... three trade deals [with South Koren, Colombia & Panama] Thursday, which have drifted in political limbo since they were signed during the George W. Bush administration.... The Ways and Means legislation does not mention [a] displaced worker program, a result of GOP insistence that the trade agreements should not be encumbered by a program that some Republicans say is too expensive and of questionable merit." CW: anybody who thinks Republicans are worried about jobs need look no further than this.

New York Times: "Amid speculation that he would soon be removed from office, Kenneth E. Melson, the top official at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, met with Congressional staff members this week to defend himself.... The lawmakers have been investigating an A.T.F. program called Operation Fast and Furious in which federal agents knowingly let weapons slip across the Mexican border in the hope of tracing them to drug cartels. Two of the guns later turned up in Arizona, where an American Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout." Melson’s account is described in this letter from Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, & Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to AG Eric Holder.

Reuters: "Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee [Independent former R] signed into law a bill that would require voters to show identification at the polls in 2012, with a photo required before casting a ballot in 2014, his office announced on Wednesday.... Democratic governors in at least five states -- North Carolina, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota and New Hampshire -- have vetoed voter ID bills this year." See President Clinton's comments on this, above.

The Commentariat -- July 6

I've posted another Open Thread on Off Times Square for today. I've added my comment on Maureen Dowd's column. There's another lively discussion going on today. And teevee shows!

The differences in this debate could not be clearer. Republicans want to end Medicare and target the middle class while protecting millionaires and billionaires. We are focused on cutting wasteful spending and ending special treatment for the wealthy elite and the well-connected. That’s what this debate is all about. -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

 I meant to post this sooner, after a reader mentioned it, and I forgot. So better late than never:

Twitter: "... at 2pm Eastern Time, the White House will hold its first Twitter Town Hall, and United States President Barack Obama will answer Twitter users’ questions about the American economy -- live at askobama.twitter.com.... Tweet your questions on the economy and be sure to include the hashtag #AskObama.  You can track the conversation in three great ways: Watch the event live at http//askobama.twitter.com,  follow live Tweets from @townhall, or search the hashtag #AskObama."

David Rogers of Politico (yes, Politico) has a terrific summary of where the debt ceiling talks stand. ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time on "The Five Stages of Washington Theatrics." ...

... New York Times Editors: "The poor and disabled people who rely on Medicaid to pay their medical bills could be in grave jeopardy in this sour I’ve-got-mine political climate.... President Obama ... must be careful not to trade away his goal of near-universal coverage to burnish his credentials as a deficit-cutter." ...

... So I guess we can say we’re beginning to talk about something with this rather pathetic response from the majority leader. I’m not happy about that. -- Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), on the Sense of the Senate Resolution (pdf) proferred by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which declares, "It is the sense of the Senate that any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1,000,000 or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort." ...

While today, obviously, we’re not going to have anything really serious to talk about — it’s just a sense of the Senate — my sense is that very quickly we’re going to have something before us that actually is real. -- Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)

... Apparently, nothing irritates Republicans more than the prospect that millionaires and billionaires might be asked to share in the burden of deficit reduction. -- Adam Jentleson, spokesperson for Reid ...

... Both Sessions and Corker are multi-millionaires. -- Constant Weader

... Steve Wamhoff of Citizens for Tax Justice: "Many corporate leaders have noted that other OECD (European) countries have lowered their corporate tax rates in recent years, but fail to mention that these countries have also closed corporate tax loopholes while the U.S. has expanded them. As a result, the U.S. collects less corporate taxes as a share of GDP than all but one of the 26 OECD countries for which data are available." (pdf) ...

... Fanatic to Brooks: "To Hell with Deficit Reduction." Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: After David Brooks criticized Republican “'fanatic[s]' with a 'sacred fixation' on tax cuts," Paul Ryan responded on Laura Ingraham's radio talk show: "What happens if you do what he’s saying, is then you can’t lower tax rates.... If you take away the tax loopholes without lowering tax rates, then you deny Congress the ability to lower everybody’s tax rates and you keep people’s tax rates high." That is, Ryan refuses to close tax loopholes to reduce the deficit, but he might close them in exchange for some other new tax breaks (probably for the rich). CW: as Paul Krugman and others have said many times (here, for instance, and here), so-called "deficit hawks" like Ryan do not care about the deficit at all; they just use the deficit as an excuse to cut government spending. ...

... PLUS, Digby writes: "The only 'loopholes' they [Republicans] want closed are those that benefit working people --- like the Earned Income Tax Credit." ...

... Jim Newell of Gawker: "So why won't Republicans accept this deal? Probably not because New York Times elite Republican David Brooks waited so long to point out how sweet it is. Instead, there are 17 days remaining until the Administration's imposed deadline for a debt-ceiling deal, which is 17 more days to wean concessions from the concession-friendly Democratic party." CW: besides the serious point Newell makes, this is a pretty funny post, & comes complete with this photo we can never get enough of:

... "Bloggers Bop ... Brooks." Reid Epstein of Politico: Aw, poor Brooks is getting no love from the left or the right. CW: But he got the love from me, because -- despite the fallacy of his opening argument & even if, as I suspect, Karl Rove (who has no love for the Tea Party) ghost-wrote the piece -- his admissions that his party was overrun with immoral fanatics was a great ideological breakthrough for Our Mister Brooks.

NEW. Jamie Dimon, America's Biggest Welfare King (Would Not Stoop to Driving a Pink Cadillac). Jesse Eisenger of ProPublica: The "bailout never ended. 'In effect, we nationalized the biggest banks years ago," [former investment banker Herbert] Allison said. 'We implicitly guaranteed them. The taxpayers are still the ultimate owners of the risk in those banks -- they just don't get equity returns for that ownership.' So when taxpayers hear a bank chief, like Jamie Dimon, complaining, it's worth keeping in mind that his 10-figure paycheck is largely coming courtesy of us."

News Flash. Ezra Klein: "Most authorities don’t think the stimulus failed. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for instance, says it created between 1.2 million and 4.6 million jobs 'compared to what would’ve happened otherwise.' IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com all estimate that the laws ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. Economists Mark Zandi and Alan Blinder put it at 2.7 million jobs."

NEW. Joe Klein of Time: Illegal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. has fallen from about 500,000 a year to less than 100,000. Klein says this is because "Increased surveillance and fencing have made it tougher to cross the border. Decreased economic activity in the U.S. has made border-hopping a less attractive option. And life seems to have gotten significantly better, with greater options for success, in Mexico. This is lovely news." CW: I've always said that the long-term solution to the problem of illegal immigration was a better standard of living in the sending countries. I did not say a lower standard of living in the U.S. was a great idea, but that's what we've got.

John Broder of the New York Times: "In the next weeks and months, Lisa P. Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is scheduled to establish regulations on smog, mercury, carbon dioxide, mining waste and vehicle emissions that will affect every corner of the economy. She is working under intense pressure from opponents in Congress, from powerful industries, from impatient environmentalists and from the Supreme Court, which just affirmed the agency’s duty to address global warming emissions, a project that carries profound economic implications.... No other cabinet officer is in as lonely or uncomfortable a position as Ms. Jackson, who has been left, as one adviser put it, behind enemy lines with only science, the law and a small band of loyal lieutenants to support her." CW: I have to say I was afraid Jackson would be a Ken Salazar-type doll, but she is proving to be one tough lady. Three cheers!

New York Times Editors: "News of the World, a sex-and-celebrity pillar of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire," is accused of having hacked into the cellphone of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old British girl who had gone missing. "A lawyer for Milly’s family, Mark Lewis, said that after she vanished but before her body was found, News of the World hacked into her cellphone, recording anguished voice messages from relatives and friends.... When the phone’s memory was full, the paper’s operatives deleted some messages to make room for new ones. This baffled the police and made Milly’s family think she was alive, deleting the messages herself. News of the World faced prosecutions and lawsuits for hacking phones of movie stars and British royals. That was slimy. The news that it violated the privacy of a family during a criminal inquiry sends it off a moral precipice." ...

... Jeremy Peters & Brian Stelter of the New York Times: "... the widening voice-mail hacking scandal at the British tabloid News of the World threatens to stain the company’s image in a way that other embarrassing incidents at News Corporation’s far-flung media properties — which also include the Fox networks and The New York Post — have not."

Adam Serwer of American Prospect: "... Jewish voters remain firmly in the Democratic camp, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. But no matter — 'Jews abandoning Democrats' is one of those zombie memes sustained by the futile efforts of Jewish conservatives to make it a self-fulfilling prophesy, and as long as it remains a seductive storyline for political reporters and commentators, it’ll never die no matter how many times it’s shown to be false."

Jim Dwyer of the New York Times: Oh, there's still a case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. (Link corrected.)

Right Wing World *

The legislation the President has asked for – which would increase taxes on small businesses and destroy more American jobs – cannot pass the House, as I have stated repeatedly.  The American people simply won’t stand for it.  And their elected representatives in Congress won’t vote for it. -- Speaker John Boehner, in a press release ...

... The American people won't stand for it, Mr. Speaker? Actually, yes they will, you Lying Scum, Sir. In fact, an overwhelming majority has consistently demanded it. Look at the responses to Question 14 on these WashPo/ABC News polls.

Dog Whistling to the Radical Right. Ed Kilgore of The New Republic, on what Michele Bachman really means when she prominently & repeatedly describes herself as a "Constitutional conservative": "... the ... label hints broadly at a more audacious agenda ultimately aimed at bringing back the lost American Eden of the 1920s, if not an earlier era.... Restoring the Founders’ design ... means overturning Roe v. Wade and abandoning the idolatrous fiction of church-state separation."

Eve Conant of the Daily Beast: "Former (and current) Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Confederates, and other representatives of the many wings of the 'white nationalist' movement are starting to file paperwork and print campaign literature for offices large and small, pointing to rising unemployment, four years with an African-American president, and rampant illegal immigration as part of a growing mound of evidence that white people need to take a stand. Most aren’t winning—not yet. But they’re drawing levels of support that surprise and alarm groups that keep tabs on the white-power movement...." ...

... OR, as Jeff Neumann of Gawker puts it, "The current field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates is pretty boring. You've got several grouchy old men, a pizza magnate, and a walking anal sex joke. So why not a white supremacist? Sure, the GOP has noted xenophobes like Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, but they lack the panache of an openly racist candidate. But that could soon change, as 1990s throwback David Duke prepares to embark on a tour of 26 states to feel out his chances of putting the 'white' back in the White House."

WPA did not bring us out of the depression. The war did. We look back at the stimulus, nearly a trillion dollars gone down the drain. -- Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, who is stupider than shit, to wit: ...

... Steve Benen, in a post titled "The Biggest Stimulus of All Time": "Shelby may find this confusing, but the war helped the economy because the government was spending like crazy. Indeed, during the war, policymakers spent an enormous amount of money, imposed extremely high tax rates, and took on massive debts — and the economy soared."

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

President Obama holds a Twitter townhall at 2:00 pm ET. (See the July 7 Commentariat for the video.) ...

     ... Update: the New York Times Caucus report by Michael Shear on the Twitterfest is amusing. ...

     ... AND: "On average, Mr. Obama took 2,099 characters to answer his questions, the equivalent of about 15 Twitter messages."

New York Times: "Mexican truckers will be able to carry goods deep into the United States, and vice versa, under a deal signed Wednesday in Mexico City to keep a 17-year-old promise. As part of the deal, Mexico will eliminate tariffs on $2.3 billion of American goods and agricultural products as soon as the first Mexican truck obtains a permit and is allowed to enter the United States. As a preliminary step, the tariffs will be reduced 50 percent by the end of this week."

New York Times: "Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn emerged from a meeting on Wednesday with Manhattan prosecutors, characterizing the session as 'constructive.'”

New York Times: "Starting this week..., the White House will start sending condolence letters to families of troops who commit suicide in combat zones, which include Afghanistan, Iraq and some other areas that provide support services to combat operations. But families of military personnel who kill themselves in the United States and on foreign bases not considered combat zones will not receive the letters."

Washington Post: "In a marked shift, Republicans are now willing to close some tax loopholes as part of a final deal to raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Wednesday. But Cantor said that raising taxes was still off limits in negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline." ...

     ... The Hill Update: "Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) rejected the idea of a deal to increase the debt ceiling that includes closing tax loopholes while remaining revenue neutral. 'Our focus on tax loopholes seems to be putting Republicans on their heels on the issue of revenues. But if Republicans are going [to] say we can only close these loopholes in a revenue-neutral way, it is like taking one step forward and then two steps back,' Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday. 'The point isn’t to get rid of these loopholes simply to pay for new tax breaks elsewhere, it’s to do it in a way that contributes to the reduction of the debt.'" CW: exactly right.

AP: "House Republicans are siding with food companies resisting the Obama administration's efforts to pressure them to stop advertising junk food for children. Some food companies say the government is going too far with guidelines proposed earlier this year by several government agencies."

New York Times: "New allegations emerged on Wednesday in a scandal over phone-hacking by News Corporation newspapers in Britain, threatening to draw in Prime Minister David Cameron as political pressure mounted on Rebekah Brooks, a top executive of the company" (which is one of Rupert Murdoch's holdings). ...

     ... Story has been updated with a new lede: "Britain’s political establishment ventured onto new and perilous ground on Wednesday as more startling allegations emerged in the voicemail-hacking scandal, with government leaders promising to scrutinize the operations of freewheeling newspapers owned by News Corporation and others that were once seen as too politically influential to challenge."

AP: "More than a dozen men accused of taking part in a series of sexual assaults on an 11-year-old girl are expected in court Wednesday in a case that has divided and horrified their southeast Texas town.... The case shined a sometimes unflattering spotlight on Cleveland, [Texas,] after some in the town of about 9,000 residents suggested the girl was culpable in part for what happened, claiming she wore makeup and looked older. Some also accused her parents, immigrants from Mexico, of not watching her more closely.... Also complicating the case was a belief by many in the predominantly black neighborhood where several of the suspects live that the arrests were racially motivated. All of the suspects are black...."

AP: "Roger Clemens ... is going on trial Wednesday.... Like other players who have been indicted in baseball's steroids era, Clemens has not been charged with drug crimes but instead is accused of lying about drug use. Clemens told a House committee under oath in 2008 that he never used performance-enhancing drugs during a standout 23-season career...."