The Commentariat -- May 29

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square.

Maureen Dowd has a pretty good column on Christine Lagarde, the French Finance Minister, whom the IMF is likely to tap as its new chief.

If you're thinking of becoming something as mundane and quintessentially American as an anti-war activist, you might want to read this story by Colin Moynihan & Scott Shane of the New York Times, which details the extraordinary F.B.I. investigation of self-described Austin, Texas anarchist Scott Crow, who has never been convicted of anything more serious than trespassing during demonstrations. As the authors write, "Other targets of bureau surveillance, which has been criticized by civil liberties groups and mildly faulted by the Justice Department’s inspector general, have included antiwar activists in Pittsburgh, animal rights advocates in Virginia and liberal Roman Catholics in Nebraska." ...

... Speaking of FBI investigations, David Willman of the Los Angeles Times profiles Bruce Ivins, whom the FBI suspected of being the anthrax killer. Ivins died several days after taking an overdose of Tylenol, and before he could be charged. Especially if you are a woman, I think you'll find this just about the creepiest profile of anyone you've ever read. The FBI's investigation by many accounts was sub-par. Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), who was a target of the anthrax attacks, thinks there's more to the story, & Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), a physicist who represents the district from which the anthrax letters were mailed has called for a 9/11-style commission to conduct an independent investigation.

The most important rule [for Congressional witnesses] is the 80/20 rule: If they’re talking 80 percent of the time and you’re talking 20 percent, you’re winning. If it’s 60/40, it means you’re arguing, and if it’s 50/50, it means you’ve lost and you’d better throw in the towel. -- Tom Korologos, a Washington éminence grise, on how to get through a Congressional hearing ...

... Congressman, you are causing problems. -- Elizabeth Warren, to House Oversight Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC) ...

... Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times on the insult/breach of protocol heard 'round the Beltway.

I posted a link to Bob Reich's essay on the Senate spending cap bill (Corker-McCaskill) some while back, but if you didn't feel like reading it, maybe you'd like to watch the video where he says the same thing:

Nicholas Kristof's column on the economic ascendance of India is popular among Times readers.

Dog Pee Can't Stop Santorum:

We're not political. This is not a political event ... Maybe she's coming because she knows we have a half a million people in town and thinking she can start her [campaign]? -- Ted Shpak of Rolling Thunder, on Sarah Palin's surprise announcement that she would participate in a Washington, D.C. Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally intended to highlight veterans' & MIA issues

You might not get a promotion if you ... are a British immigration official who puts his wife on the terror watch list while she's in Pakistan so she can't get back into the U.K. & leave her there for three years while you live it up. 

Right Wing World *

Another Republican says he thinks he could have beat President Obama in the general election had he bothered to run -- former Bush budget director & anti-union, anti-family-planning Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels.

For an excellent commentary on Texas Gov. Rick Perry's coyote-shooting incident, see Gingia's comment (# 82 -- highlighted) here. Short version: didn't happen, or if it did was illegal & irresponsible.

This article by David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post slants right; that is, it contrasts the Tea Party with Democrats in the typical he-said/he-said fashion. But I'm linking it because of this assertion by Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.): "They are lying. We've got facts." I'm going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt and take it he really drinks the Kool-Aid, which shows you how scary the Tea Party is. I'm thinking I'll take a liar -- McConnell, Boehner, most of 'em -- over a faith-based zealot -- Huizenga, maybe Paul Ryan. You can't reason with either group, of course, but you may be able to horse-trade with the liars.

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

More on America's Worst Governor from the St. Pete Times "The Buzz": "... the Republican Party of Florida is robo-calling voters to drum up support for Gov. Rick Scott, who might be America's most-disliked governor.... The automatic, pre-recorded calls feature Scott's voice derided the hometown projects he vetoed from the budgets as 'special interest waste.' Not the kind of message that fellow Republicans, who crafted the budget, wanted to hear. Especially when those special interests included hungry and needy seniors, homeless veterans, paralysis victims, etc." Before his speech announcing the budget vetoes of "special interest waste," Scott "was preceded by representatives of some heavy-hitting special interests:" real estate development and business lobbyists. "Not every interest was represented at the event. Scott's office and RPOF staffers used sheriff's deputies to block Democrats from the event...."

News Ledes

The President speaks at a memorial service in Joplin, a week after the tornado:

President Obama visits Joplin:

AP: "Face to face with the legions of homeless and the bereaved, President Barack Obama on Sunday toured the apocalyptic landscape left by Missouri's killer tornado, consoled the community and committed the government to helping rebuild shattered lives." New York Times story here.

The Commentariat -- May 28

Vice President Biden delivers the Presidential Weekly Address, this week on the recovery of the American auto industry:

I've added an Open Thread on Off Times Square for today. ...

... Gail Collins continues her book tour of Republican presidential candidates, this time settling on Fed Up! by Texas governor Rick Perry. Kate Madison & I have posted our comments on Collins' column -- which is good, because once again, as they so often do on weekends, the Times trolls have held back our comments. ...

... AND in case you'd really like to know more about Gov. Perry, Peter Boyer, now of Newsweek/The Daily Beast, interviews Perry and opens with the same dead coyote featured in Collins' column. Perry is getting a lot of mileage out of that one dead canine. ...

... Not to diminish the importance of shooting coyotes, but Andrew Leonard reminds us that Rick Perry's claim he produced a "Texas miracle" proved to be a big fat lie; his tax-cutting mantra, which he & the Texas legislature are just now making worse, has left Texas in a spiraling state of crisis.

Demagoguery. def.: Making use of popular prejudices & false claims & promises in order to gain power. Karen Garcia realizes "demagogue" is the right's new word to describe Democrats who point out the fallacies of Republican policies: "... it seems like these overpaid pundits and columnists and hacks are all getting their marching orders from some centralized Reactionary Word Bank." Garcia plumbs Lexis-Nexis for some recent print examples. Of course, she couldn't leave out Brooks.

Marjorie Censer of the Washington Post: The Army's Comanche helicopter "is one of 22 major Army weapons programs canceled since 1995, ringing up a price tag of more than $32 billion for equipment that was never built. A new study, commissioned by the Army and obtained by The Washington Post, condemns the service’s efforts as 'unacceptable.'”

Earlier in the week, Ezra Klein sent Paul Ryan 8 questions about his budget. Ryan, or his office, responded here. Klein answers two of Ryan's responses here. This is all kind of wonkish & in the weeds (tho Klein is a very good explainer), but even a cursory reading shows you that Ryan has to bob, weave & mischaracterize relevant facts to formulate his answers. CW: Ryan is either stupid or deceptive; he can't be both. You decide.

Bloomberg: "Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking U.S. House Democratic leader, in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s 'Political Capital with Al Hunt,' airing this weekend, predicted that negotiators will agree on a plan to cut $3 trillion to $6 trillion in U.S. spending in time to raise the debt limit before an Aug. 2 deadline." During the interview, Clyburn also said -- contrary to rumors that Democrats in the Biden deficit negotiations will agree to Medicare cuts -- Democrats will not agree to reduced Medicare benefits at all. Transcript. ...

... Which is especially significant because ... David Kurtz of TPM: to save themselves from the Ryan Medicare debacle, "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ... announced he will not support raising the debt ceiling unless big Medicare cuts are part of the deal. Translation: Unless Democrats get us off the hook by agreeing to deep Medicare cuts (meaning Democrats can no longer attack Republicans for wanting to eliminate Medicare), then we're going to force the federal government into default on its debt." More from Brian Beutler of TPM here. ...

... Steve Benen: "This is no small admission. The Senate’s leading Republican is saying, publicly and on the record, that without Medicare cuts, he’ll try to create an economic calamity on purpose."

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "You hear a lot about state officials trying to fight the Affordable Care Act, whether by challenging it in the federal courts or refusing to implement its provisions. But plenty of states officials are enthusiastic about the law. And perhaps none are moving as quickly, or effectively, to follow through on the law as Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley."

Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: There are "about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation’s oil output by 25 percent within a decade — without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska. There is only one catch: the oil ... can be extracted only by using hydraulic fracturing, a method that uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and hazardous chemicals to blast through the rock.... The technique, also called fracking, has been widely used in the last decade to unlock vast new fields of natural gas, but drillers only recently figured out how to release large quantities of oil.... As evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies, the federal government and regulators in various states are considering tighter regulations on it."

New York Times Editors: "Pandering on Israel [by both Republicans and Democrats] in the hopes of winning Jewish support is hardly a new phenomenon in American politics, but there is something unusually dishonest about this fusillade." The editors particularly call out Mitt Romney: "It is one thing to make noise on the campaign trail. It is quite another to lead a quest for peace." ...

... Steve Benen adds, "There’s probably no point in even hoping Republicans will be responsible on this, since it’s likely many of them don’t even believe their own rhetoric. But congressional Democrats have to be more sensible — not for Obama’s sake, but for the sake of Israel’s future and that of the peace process."

Right Wing World *

Dana Milbank writes a largely positive column about Herman Cain, former Godfather's Pizza CEO, who is more popular among Republican voters than Pawlenty, Bachmann, Huntsman & Santorum. "Yet there is no escaping a sense that the Hermanator is not ready for his starring role. When he formally launched his campaign on May 21, he proclaimed, 'We need to reread the Constitution,' referring to 'a little section in there that talks about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ ” That’s from the Declaration of Independence."

* Where facts just don't matter.

News Ledes

New York Times: President Obama is expected to name Army Gen. Martin Dempsey as new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The article profiles Dempsey.

New York Times: "A Taliban suicide bomber on Saturday infiltrated a heavily guarded governor’s compound in northern Afghanistan where top NATO and Afghan officials from the region were meeting, killing several people there, including the highly regarded police commander Gen. Daoud Daoud, Afghan officials said."

New York Times: "A federal judge in Virginia has declared unconstitutional a century-old law banning political contributions from corporations, a ruling that, if upheld, could have major implications for the rules governing campaign fund-raising and spending."

Reuters: "NATO carried out a rare daytime air strike on Tripoli on Saturday after a fifth straight night of attacks, adding to military and diplomatic pressure on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to quit after 41 years of power."

Washington Post: "Egypt opens the Gaza border crossing, easing a four-year blockade. Hundreds of Palestinians headed to this desert border crossing Saturday morning to be the first to enter Egypt under newly eased restrictions for residents of the Gaza Strip. Some described the permanent opening of the gateway after four years of strict restrictions as the first step in regaining their dignity." Al Jazeera story here.

Washington Post: "U.S. officials say Iran is dispatching increasing numbers of trainers and advisers — including members of its elite Quds Force — into Syria to help crush anti-government demonstrations that are threatening to topple Iran’s most important ally in the region."

AP: "North Korea freed an American it held for a half year for reportedly proselytizing, handing him Saturday to a U.S. envoy who said Washington had not promised to provide aid in exchange for the man's release. The envoy, Robert King, accompanied Eddie Jun on a flight from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and told reporters after arriving in Beijing that Jun would be reunited with his family in the United States 'within a day or two.'"

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The [Wisconsin] state Department of Justice asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to immediately vacate a judge's decision that voided a plan by Gov. Scott Walker to greatly limit collective bargaining for public workers. In its filing, the department said Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi made so many errors in a ruling Thursday that the Supreme Court should throw out her decision even before it hears oral arguments in the case June 6."

News You Can Use. AP: "The Kroger Co. is pumping up its fuel discount program, more than tripling the number of grocery stores where regular shoppers can get up to a $1-a-gallon discount on a tankful of gas." ...

... AND This. Reuters: "The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from 'coffee shops' and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year."

The Commentariat -- May 27

Paul Krugman: "... the Ryan plan is turning into a political disaster for Republicans, not because the plan’s critics are lying about it, but because they’re describing it accurately." ...

... I've posted a comments page for Krugman on Off Times Square. You can comment on Our Mister Brooks, too, who writes what he thinks is a related column about reasonable Republicans working with Democrats to fix Medicare. I've added my own comment on Krugman, which the Times moderators are holding back, so you can read it here. Update: Commenter Denis Neville shreds Brooks.

Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Art by Alex Gross for the New York Times.Rick Perlstein in a New York Times op-ed: "January was the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, and the planet nearly stopped turning on its axis to recognize the occasion. Today is the 100th anniversary of Hubert H. Humphrey’s birth, and no one besides me seems to have noticed... His diminution is ... an impediment to understanding our current malaise as a nation, and how much better things might have been had today’s America turned out less Reaganite and more Humphreyish." ...

...  The full text of Humphrey's landmark 1948 convention speech supporting civil rights is here. The page also links to a video clip. Audio of the full speech is here, but the quality is awful.

Which of these two high school kids is likely to become Speaker of the House? (Answer at the bottom of this post.)

A Cautionary Tale. Donald Marron: "... the United States defaulted on some Treasury bills in 1979. And it paid a steep price for stiffing bondholders." ...

... Bill Clinton Cannot Keep His Foot out of His Mouth. When he wasn't giving Paul Ryan cover for his disastrous budget plan (see yesterday's Commentariat), he was giving the whole Republican party cover to default on the debt. Frank James of NPR: At a fiscal summit, Clinton said, "If we defaulted on the debt once for a few days, it might not be calamitous." At the request of an astonished White House, a Clinton spokesperson retracted his remark, saying the former President "misspoke." CW: Yeah, he does that a lot.

CW: I've been trying to ignore this story, but it won't go away. Do not, however, expect breathless, wall-to-wall links here. Jim Rutenberg & Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "Sarah Palin is fortifying her small staff of advisers, buying a house in Arizona — where associates have said she could base a national campaign — and reviving her schedule of public appearances. The moves are the most concrete signals yet that Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, is seriously weighing a Republican presidential bid." ...

... BUT let's hope Chris Cillizza is right: "Talk of a 2012 presidential bid by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has reached fever pitch (again) after news broke this week of an East Coast bus tour to historical sites, a possible home purchase in Arizona and a new film biopic.... But, for all the chatter..., there remains no evidence in any early voting primary or caucus state that she or her political team are doing anything to lay the groundwork for a 2012 bid." CW: for what it's worth, I tend to agree with Cillizza. All this is just Palin saying, "Look at me! Look at me!" She does that a lot. ...

     ... CNN Update: and Fox "News" isn't changing Palin's status. Fox canned Newt Gingrich & Rick Santorum some time ago, but let Mike Huckabee remain on the air. CW: it seems to me if you want to know who is & who isn't running on the Republican ticket, just check Fox's lineup. Roger Ailes is always the first to know. 

Alexander Bolton & Josiah Ryan of The Hill: Senate Republicans are holding pro-forma sessions during next week's recess to prevent President Obama from making recess appointments, a move that may be specifically aimed at keeping the President from appointing Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Joe Klein: Why has Bibi Netanyahu twisted President Obama's words? Because he can, & because his lies allow him to continue building settlements on Palestinian lands. "Given his congressional support, Netanyahu may be able to get away with playing so bold a hand — but it is inappropriate behavior for an American ally, and you can bet that Obama won't forget it." ...

... The Editors of the Jewish Daily Forward were equally dismayed by Netanyahu's belligerent speech to Congress, which they see as making them choose between Netanyahu and Obama; they suggest their choice will be Obama.

Jon Chait of The New Republic: that radical left-wing news outlet NPR joins the ranks of misguided Washington elites who claim public debt is "the biggest problem facing the nation." Evidently all those out-of-work Americans & irreversible climate change are not too important. CW: NPR has done this before.

Right Wing World *

The only people in Washington, DC who have voted to cut Medicare have been the Democrats, when they voted to cut $500 billion in Medicare during Obamacare. -- Speaker John Boehner ...

... But It Ain't So. Greg Sargent: almost all House Republicans and most Senate Republicans "did vote to pass the Ryan budget.... According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Ryan plan cuts the amount of Medicare spending on seniors in relation to overall health care costs. It also reduces the amount of annual Medicare spending as a share of GDP." CW: the Democratic cuts to Medicare were to Medicare Advantage, a costly, unpaid-for Bush prescription drug program that the Affordable Care Act phases out, depending on how effectively the various Advantage plans work. People on Medicare Advantage can switch to plans that are more cost-effective.

Paul Ryan Lobs a Hail Mary that Lands out of Bounds. Amy Sullivan of Time: don't believe (1) everything you read in Politico, (b) anything Paul Ryan tells you, (c) that Roman Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan (the "Pope of America") endorses Ryan's budget. (1) Politico grossly misread Dolan's letter -- a response to a letter from Ryan, who was smarting because the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (who report to Dolan) said they were concerned that Ryan's budget hurt the poor; (2) Politico misread Dolan's letter because Ryan untruthfully spun it as an endorsement, which it wasn't; (3) Archbishop Dolan agrees with the U.S. Catholic bishops -- Ryan's budget appears to add "further burdens to the poor ... and the vulnerable." ...

... AND/BUT I worship the ground that Paul Ryan walks on.
-- Dick Cheney (link to disturbing video)

      Theology Question of the Day: Will Saint Peter let Saint Paul into heaven after Paul lied to and about the Pope of America, AND after Peter finds out Paul's number one disciple is Dick Cheney?

Ben Smith: Tiffany's backs up Gingrich's story, claims it gave "identical" deals to more than 1,000 other customers & never lobbied wife Callista's committee. No mention of Gingrich's claim that he's "frugal."

Grass Roots, Republican Style. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post: American Action Network, "a Washington advocacy group that spent millions of dollars on Republicans in the 2010 election and claimed to have broad grass-roots support, actually drew all of its first-year revenue from fewer than a dozen well-heeled donors, according to a recent tax filing.... 82 percent of the group’s initial revenues came from three donors...." And now, for the laugh-o-licious definition of grass-roots backing: "Jim Landry, the group’s spokesman... not[ed] that more than 215,000 people had indicated they liked the group’s Facebook page."

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Miami Herald: "Gov. Rick Scott signed Florida's $69-billion budget Thursday, using his line item veto power to chop more than half of a billion dollars in spending. Many of the cuts were for higher education construction projects, and health and human service programs." CW: Click on the audio that accompanies the post for more detail.

___________

If you guessed "Both," you'd be right. That's Gingrich and Pelosi. Maybe I should have asked, "Which of these two ... would you want to be Speaker of the House?" More creepy high school photos of Republican presidential hopefuls here. But, writes Joshua Green, "A quick office straw poll here at The Atlantic, conducted amidst uproarious laughter, confirms that this is, in fact, the single worst year book photo that most of us have ever seen."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Leaders of the Group of 8 wealthiest industrialized nations pledged on Friday to send billions of dollars in aid to Egypt and Tunisia, hoping to reduce the threat that economic stagnation could undermine the transition to democracy."

New York Times: "A Serbian judge gave preliminary approval on Friday to transfer Ratko Mladic to The Hague to be prosecuted for war crimes, including genocide. But his lawyer said he would appeal to block the transfer, saying Mr. Mladic’s health was too frail to face trial."

New York Times: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Pakistan on Friday in what officials described as an effort to measure Pakistan’s commitment to fighting Islamic extremism after the killing of Osama bin Laden badly strained relations with the United States. It did not appear to go well."

AP: President Obama signed a four-year extension of the Patriot Act by autopen shortly before the act was set to expire.

Another Reason Not to Vote Republican. New York Times: New Jersey "Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday that New Jersey would become the first state to withdraw from a 10-state trading system, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, declaring it an ineffective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions."

AP: Italian "Premier Silvio Berlusconi has taken his claim that he is being persecuted by leftist judges to the G-8 summit, telling a clearly perplexed President Barack Obama that in Italy they represent 'almost a dictatorship'. His comments carried on Italian TV news broadcasts from Deauville, France, set off a barrage of criticism Friday from Italian magistrates and his political opponents."

Reuters (item): "Russia believes Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy and Moscow is prepared to mediate to facilitate his departure from power."