The Commentariat -- March 1

On Wisconsin
(Yes, UW Badgers, That's a Double Entendre)

Ed Kilgore of The New Republic: Gov. Scott Walker is following the Southern "Moonlight & Magnolias" strategy for attracting business to Wisconsin -- "It is based on a theory of economic growth that is ... aggressively pro-corporate: relentlessly focused on breaking the backs of unions; slashing worker compensation and benefits; and subsidizing businesses in order to attract capital from elsewhere and avoid its flight to even more benighted locales." ...

... Scott Walker Is Not a Constitution-Loving Republican. Clay Barbour & Dee Hall of the Wisconsin State Journal: "Capitol Police kept more than 1,000 protestors at bay Monday, locking down the statehouse and allowing only a few dozen inside to meet with lawmakers.... The decision seemed to run counter to Capitol tradition and the spirit of the state Constitution, which says officials cannot prohibit individuals from entering the Capitol or its grounds." ...

Prohibiting protestors on either side of the debate from entering the Capitol during normal business hours or during legislative hearings or sessions, while allowing others with 'business' in the Capitol to enter, is manifestly content-based and, hence presumptively unconstitutional. -- American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, in a letter to state administration Secretary Michael Huebsch ...

I’m sure that President Obama simply misunderstands the issues in Wisconsin, and isn’t acting like the union bosses in saying one thing and doing another. -- Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor, in response to President Obama's call for respect for union members

... Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "... if voters in [Wisconsin] could do it over today they'd support defeated Democratic nominee Tom Barrett over Scott Walker by a a 52-45 margin. The difference between how folks would vote now and how they voted in November can almost all be attributed to shifts within union households. Voters who are not part of union households ... [who] report having voted for Walker by 7 points last fall and they still say they would vote for Walker by a 4 point margin. But in households where there is a union member voters now say they'd go for Barrett by a 31 point margin, up quite a bit from the 14 point advantage they report having given him in November.... Walker seems to have severely hurt his party's chances of building on their gains from 2010 next year." ...

     ... Greg Sargent: "The reason this matters is that in the days ahead, Dems and labor are going to intensify pressure on Republican state senators to break with Walker and support some kind of compromise route out of the current impasse. Walker himself seems to recognize this is a potential problem: On his call with the fake Koch, he acknowledged that Republicans in swing areas would need to be propped up by aggressive messaging." ...

... Masquerade. Eric Schroeck of Media Matters: "This morning [Monday], Fox & Friends hosted an 'upset Wisconsin parent' to discuss her objection to Wisconsin public schools' teaching of labor union history. Left unsaid during the segment: The parent, Amber Hahn, is also a local GOP official.... This is now the second time Fox has masqueraded a GOP activist as a concerned parent to attack unions." ...

Jon Stewart on Greedy Teachers. Unfortnately, Comedy Central has changed their video system, & I can no longer embed individual segments, so here's the Whole Show. It's all pretty good up till the Howard Stern interview:

... Bob Herbert: "This most recent assault on labor is part of an anti-worker movement that has been on the march for decades. Jobs have been shipped overseas. Workers have been denied their rightful share of productivity gains. Wages have been depressed and benefits in many, many instances have disappeared." ...

... Michael Cooper & Megan Thee-Brenan of the New York Times: "As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll."

Bryan Zepp Jamieson: "If America had a free press at the mainstream level that was worth a damn, then the Republican Party would be finished by now. As it is, the Republicans have to spend millions and millions of dollars on their vast right wing echo chamber. But all that would be for naught if it were not for the complicity of the mainstream media, which obediently adopts their talking points and their framings, and thus presents news as seen from the viewpoint of the GOP – and nobody else." Read on! Thanks to reader Bruce B. for the link.

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday. The report, by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, offers fresh ammunition to Democrats seeking block the Republican plan.... His report comes on the heels of a similar analysis last week by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which predicted that the Republican spending cuts would cause even greater damage to the economy." You can read Zandi's report, titled "A Federal Shutdown Could Derail the Recovedry," here.

"Billions in Bloat." Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal: "The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development. These are a few of the findings in a massive study of overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability Office.... The report ... recommends merging or consolidating a number of programs to both save money and make the government more efficient."

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "A group of House Democrats is calling on Republican leaders to investigate a prominent Washington law firm [Hunton & Williams] and three federal technology contractors, who have been shown in hacked e-mails discussing a 'disinformation campaign' against foes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In a letter to be released Tuesday, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and more than a dozen other lawmakers wrote that the e-mails appear 'to reveal a conspiracy to use subversive techniques to target Chamber critics," including "possible illegal actions against citizens engaged in free speech.' ... The e-mails ... show HBGary Federal, Berico Technologies and Palantir Technologies teaming up with a sales pitch to undermine chamber opponents.... The chamber has denied knowledge of the proposals."

It's increasingly imaginable that there would be some kind of international intervention in Libya, and I think the U.S. would be active in shaping that. -- James Dobbins of the Rand Corp.

David Sanger of the New York Times: "Today ... the success of a joint American-British effort to eliminate Libya’s capability to make nuclear and chemical weapons has never, in retrospect, looked more important."

"Zenga, Zenga." Mark Thompson of Time explains:

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors may use victim statements given at the crime scene even if the victim dies before testifying at trial, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.... The 6-to-2 ruling drew a withering dissent from Justice Antonin Scalia, the court's most outspoken advocate for the Sixth Amendment's requirement that the accused 'be confronted with the witnesses against him.' The majority's reasoning, Scalia wrote, 'is so transparently false that professing to believe it demeans this institution.' Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote for the majority, shot back, accusing Scalia of 'misreading' the rules the court set for when statements could be admitted as evidence.... Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with Scalia but declined to join his caustic comments. Justice Elena Kagan was recused from the case because she had worked on it as President Obama's solicitor general." You can read the majority opinion & dissent here (pdf). Adam Liptak of the New York Times has a report here.

Kim Severson of the New York Times: "George Holding, the United States attorney in Raleigh..., as well as a Justice Department lawyer and agents from the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service are looking at a number of campaign accounts and the records of a nonprofit group connected to [former Sen. John] Edwards.... Those who have been subpoenaed include dozens of former campaign workers, top aides, friends and [Rielle] Hunter," a woman with whom Edwards had an extramarital affair and a child.

Rep. Darrell Issa, who promised to open a new investigation every week, is now investigating his own aide.  Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "... the congressman will look into 'concerns' raised by Politico's editor-in-chief. In the meantime, press secretary Kurt Bardella remains on staff and is expected to report for work Tuesday...." ...

     ... Update: here's Politico's story -- by Jake Sherman & Marin Cogan -- on Issa's investigation of Bardella. Bear in mind wen you read it that, according to Sonmez, Politico initiated the complaint against Bardella.

News Ledes

Hurrah! New York Times: "In a lively decision that relied as much on dictionaries, grammar and usage as it did on legal analysis, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that corporations have no personal privacy rights for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act." Update: here's the ruling (pdf).

Not the Education Governor. New York Times: "Gov. Scott Walker, whose push to limit collective bargaining rights and increase health and pension costs for public workers has set off a national debate, proposed a new budget for Wisconsin on Tuesday that called for deep cuts to state aid to schools and local governments, provoking a new wave of fury.... Walker sets aside nearly $200 million for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Walker's public-private hybrid replacement for the state Department of Commerce" ...

     ... Wisconsin State Journal: "Education and local government bear the brunt of Gov. Scott Walker's first budget, a reform-minded plan that cuts about $1 billion in state aid and prevents officials from raising taxes to make up the difference." ...

     ... Not the Health Care Governor. Related: "Wisconsin would cut Medicaid spending by $500 million over the next two years, with much of the savings coming from Family Care, under Gov. Scott Walker's budget released Tuesday. But state Medicaid spending still would go up overall because the state must pay $1.3 billion over the two years to replace federal stimulus money that has been supporting the program. That money ends this year." ...

     ... Not the Environmental Governor. Related: "State-mandated recycling, in place in Wisconsin since 1995, would be eliminated under Gov. Scott Walker's budget. And payments to local governments to run those programs — a total of $32 million this year — would be halted." ...

     ... The Tough on Nonviolent Crime Governor. Related: "A program allowing some nonviolent offenders to petition for early release from prison, which some Republican critics had derided as 'catch and release,' would be ended under the budget Gov. Scott Walker introduced Tuesday."

New York Times brief: "An anti-gang dragnet has led to the arrest of 678 gang members and their associates, most of them immigrants, in 168 cities, federal officials announced Tuesday."

Washington Post: "The House on Tuesday approved a stopgap measure that would keep the federal government funded through March 18 and cut $4 billion in spending by targeting programs that President Obama has already marked for elimination."

Reuters: "A state-owned Egyptian newspaper said Wednesday that former President Hosni Mubarak was being treated for cancer in a hospital in Saudi Arabia."

Al Jazeera: "The United Nations general assembly has unanimously suspended Libya's membership of the UN Human Rights Council, citing the government's use of violence against protesters."

... Washington Post: "In a six-hour battle, rebels armed with tanks, anti aircraft guns and automatic weapons repelled an overnight attack by government troops using the same weapons in the town of Zawiya, 30 miles west of Tripoli, the Associated Press reported."

AP: "Republicans controlling the House are moving quickly to pass stopgap legislation to avoid a partial shutdown of the government when temporary funding runs out Friday." ...

... Politico: "Showing the first signs of coming off the sideline, the White House made a late bid Monday to extend the life of a stopgap government funding bill to a full month and thereby allow more time for the administration to become engaged in the House-Senate talks."

AP: "China appears to be rolling back some press freedoms, barring foreign journalists from working near a popular Shanghai park and along a major Beijing shopping street after calls for weekly protests in those spots appeared online."

Full House Fold

Art by Barry Blitt for the New York Times.Frank Rich: "Still heady with hubris from the midterms — and having persuaded themselves that Gingrich’s 1995 history can’t possibly repeat itself — radical Republicans are convinced that deficit-addled voters are on their side no matter what.... Let’s hope [the President] knows that he, not the speaker, is the player holding a full house, and that he will tell the country in no uncertain terms that much more than money is on the table."

CW: I'm not sure when or if the Times is going to get around to posting my comment on Rich's column, so here it is:

President Obama will not tell the American people what's at stake in the budget. None of us knows what his true ideology is. None of us knows how he would govern if we had a parliamentary system in which the leader of the government can pretty much govern as he wishes.

But we do know this: Prime Minister Obama would not govern as a progressive. All that progressive talk during the campaign was a vote-currying deception. Mr. Obama campaigned the way Republicans always campaign: by pretending his goals were markedly different from what they really were.

Obama perfectly followed the Republican playbook in 2008: he pretended to be a progressive who would right the wrongs of eight years of Republican rule. But when he got into the White House, he suddenly turned into a conservative who engineered a "stimulus" package that was largely Republican-style tax cuts, a healthcare law that was nearly identical to one Republicans proposed in the 20th century (& which also included the individual mandate, BTW), & a financial reform package that lets the banksters do what they want.

If you think I'm exaggerating, let's look at something that's more simple and straightforward than a complex budget or those huge bills that Obama signed into law during his first two years in office. Let's look at something over which Mr. Obama has complete control and for which he cannot claim the Congress forced him to "compromise": Here's what President Obama said in a campaign stump speech he made in the fall of 2007 in South Carolina:

 If American workers are being denied their right to organize & collectively bargain, when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a pair of comfortable shoes myself, I'll walk on that picket line with you....

Here's the video, which I first posted a couple of days ago:

Today, Republican governors in several states are attacking collective bargaining rights. Obama made one statement -- and then only in response to a reporter's question -- in which he said of the Wisconsin bill, "it appears to be an assault on unions." President Obama's comfortable shoes are nowhere to be seen. Reporters have repeatedly questioned Obama's press secretary Jay Carney about Obama's campaign promise, and Carney has dutifully obfuscated with responses like (this is not an exact quote) "People know where the President stands." Yeah, we know this: he's not standing in Wisconsin or Ohio or Indiana in those comfortable shoes.

Similarly, ever since budget season has come upon us, President Obama has been playing the part of a reliably Republican president. He has repeatedly told the American people that the government must live within its means. That's a line straight out of the Contract on America. Never mind that politicians since Alexander Hamilton -- you know, one of the fathers of the Constitution -- have said that federal deficits are a good thing. And where has President Obama been campaigning? At corporation after corporation where he has said we can "win the future" (or as Sarah Palin calls it, "WTF") by giving tax breaks to small businesses so they can innovate.

Not Word One about funding prenatal care or healthcare legislation or the EPA. Not Word One. Instead, Obama has given government workers an effective five-year pay cut by freezing their wages even as the prices of essential commodities (like grain & cotton) have soared, guaranteeing that prices of food and clothing will rise. He has also presented a budget that will cut home-heating assistance to poor families & Pell grants to college students. Hope you're not too cold while you're staying home from college.

Scott Walker made a "fireside" address the other day in which he expressed his respect for unions. ("I really do" respect unions, he emphasized.) Relying on President Obama to tell the American people the truth about what's in that noxious House budget is like relying on Scott Walker to tell the truth about how he feels about unions:

Not. Going. to. Happen.

The Commentariat -- February 26

** "War on Women," Cont'd." New York Times Editors: "Republicans in the House of Representatives are mounting an assault on women’s health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception and life-saving cancer screenings and cut nutritional support for millions of newborn babies in struggling families. And this is just the beginning."

On Scott Walker. This is the eighth governor that I've worked with in one way or another -- four Republicans, four Democrats -- and this is the first governor who takes a clear public position that he will never negotiate. The other seven were willing to take the 70 or 80 percent of what they wanted.... That's what you need to do to make government work.... Any person not willing to settle for half a loaf has never been hungry. -- Tim Cullen, the only Democratic Wisconsin State Senator to whom Walker will speak

Dana Milbank says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's conversation with Ian Murphy, a/k/a Fake Koch, shows that Walker is a hooligan. ...

... Scapegoating Fail. Greg Sargent: "Many commentators expected that conservatives would have an easy time turning Americans against public employees by foisting the blame for our economic woes upon them. Wisconsin is showing that this is turning out not to be so easy, after all."

Karen Garcia: "At the same time that President Obama announced a two-year wage freeze for federal employees, he is asking for an additional $128 billion to hire 73,000 more security force cops in Afghanistan."

Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times: the murder of four Americans by Somali pirates will likely change U.S. strategy towards piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

Gail Collins continues her Presidential Primary Book Club. This time, she reads (some of) Mike Huckabee's many books. He's changed.

In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it. -- Robert Gates

Tom Shanker of the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the chances of carrying out a change of regime in that fashion again are slim." Here's the report from the Defense Department.

This is an extraordinary admission coming from a Secretary of Defense. I can't recall anything similar ever having been said, at least not while a war was ongoing. It is a scathing rebuke of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom Gates replaced. Rumsfeld is now on a book tour touting his laughable Remembrances of All I Did Right. Gates is saying, quite bluntly, "No, Rummy, you fucked up." -- Constant Weader

Right Wing World

The Real Reason Rep. Chris Lee Resigned from Congress. Remy Stern of Gawker learns that Lee apparently also solicited, via CraigsList, & had online chats with two transgender women.

News Ledes

Reuters: "A crowd estimated at more than 70,000 people on Saturday waved American flags, sang the national anthem and called for the defeat of a Wisconsin plan to curb public sector unions that has galvanized opposition from the American labor movement. In one of the biggest rallies at the state Capitol since the Vietnam War, union members and their supporters braved frigid temperatures and a light snowfall...." ...

... The Understory: "Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’” ...

... Washington Post: "The jobs of thousands of [Wisconsin] state and local workers slipped into deeper jeopardy Friday, as Gov. Scott Walker threatened to trigger as many as 12,000 layoffs beginning next week unless lawmakers enact his plan to strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights." ...

... Wisconsin State Journal: "The enormous 'protest village' that has taken hold inside the state Capitol the past two weeks will officially end this weekend. Capitol police announced Friday that they would kick out protesters and close the Capitol doors at 4 p.m. on Sunday, a move that would allow crews to begin cleaning up after possibly the longest and most intense protests in state history." ...

... AP: "The legislative gridlock [in Wisconsin] prompted the Wisconsin Association of Schools Boards to warn districts that they have until Monday to warn teachers of possible nonrenewal of contracts. That's because if Walker's bill becomes law, it would void current teacher collective bargaining agreements that lay out protocol and deadlines for conducting layoffs."

New York Times: as expected, "Ireland ousted its discredited government on Saturday, electing new leaders who pledged to restore faith in the country after the trauma of a calamitous economic collapse. With most of the votes counted after the general election on Friday, a coalition government of the center-right Fine Gael and the Labour Party was on track to win a comfortable majority in Parliament. The next prime minister is likely to be Enda Kenny, a career Fine Gael politician...." Here's the Irish Times report, with links to related stories & audio.

USA Today: "President Obama told German Chancellor Angela Merkel today that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi should surrender power immediately because of the attacks he has made on his own people.... Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton echoed Obama's demand in a statement saying that Gadhafi's government would he held 'accountable for its violation of human rights.'" ...

... New York Times: "The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday night to impose sanctions on Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and his inner circle of advisers, and called for an international war crimes investigation into 'widespread and systemic attacks' against Libyan citizens who have protested against his government over the last two weeks." ...

... Washington Post: "Army leaders in eastern Libya who have turned against Col. Moammar Gaddafi's regime are preparing to dispatch a rebel force to Tripoli to support the beleaguered uprising there, a top military official said Saturday in Benghazi." ...

... New York Times: "A powerful tribal leader has called for the downfall of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, posing what may be the most significant challenge yet to the president, an American ally, who has been struggling to quell a popular revolt for more than two weeks. The move by the tribal leader, Sheik Hussein al-Ahmar, raised fears that the antigovernment protests, which began largely as a youth movement, could take a more violent and unpredictable turn." ...

... New York Times: "A bold effort by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to prove that he was firmly in control of Libya appeared to backfire Saturday as foreign journalists he invited to the capital discovered blocks of the city in open revolt. Witnesses described snipers and antiaircraft guns firing at unarmed civilians, and security forces were removing the dead and wounded from streets and hospitals, apparently in an effort to hide the mounting toll."

... AP: "The embattled regime of Moammar Gadhafi is arming civilian supporters to set up checkpoints and roving patrols around the Libyan capital to control movement and quash dissent, residents said Saturday." ...

... New York Times: "One day after the United States closed its embassy in Tripoli and imposed unilateral sanctions against Libya, the United Nations Security Council prepared to meet in New York on Saturday to consider imposing international sanctions, including an arms embargo and an asset freeze and travel ban against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, his relatives and key members of his government."

New York Times: "The results of the [Irish] election will not be announced until late Saturday. But an early exit poll predicted a crushing defeat for Fianna Fail, one of modern history’s most successful political parties, which has been in power for almost 60 of the last 80 years, most recently from 1997 until the present."

ABC News: "In a job typically filled by a woman, the White House has chosen the first-ever man to be the next White House Social Secretary. Jeremy Bernard, who is openly gay, will be named Special Assistant to the President and Social Secretary."