The Commentariat -- November 26

My New York Times eXaminer column contrasts former New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, who died yesterday, with the current crop of Times op-ed writers. See yesterday's Ledes for Wicker's obituary. The New York Times eXaminer's front page is here.

We have a Weekend Open Thread up for Off Times Square.

Christina Hoag of the AP: "Occupy LA, a 485-tent camp surrounding City Hall ... has remained largely a peaceful commune. Police arrive on site only when called in to investigate petty crimes. Marches have resulted in only about five spontaneous arrests — the other 70 or so involved protesters who deliberately got arrested to make a political statement. City leaders are now hoping that peace can withstand what could be its biggest test. The city has given campers a 12:01 a.m. Monday to clear out of the park, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a Friday afternoon news conference." ...

... Stacey Patton in the Washington Post: Black Americans are greatly underrepresented in the Occupy movement. Patton suggests some reasons. "Beyond a lack of leaders to inspire them to join the Occupy fold, blacks are not seeing anything new for themselves in the movement. Why should they ally with whites who are just now experiencing the hardships that blacks have known for generations?" ...

... I’m not mad at the tea party for being so loud. I’m mad at the progressives for be ing so quiet the past couple of years and not having that fire and that intensity at the grass-roots level to give both parties something to respond to that’s not just cut, cut, cut. You hear people talking about a disappointment [in Obama] and this kind of thing. I’m still of the view it was never, ‘Yes, he can.’ It’s supposed to be, ‘Yes, we can.’ And the ‘we’ was not evident in a couple of those years. -- Van Jones ...

... Joseph Williams of Politico: "While still a high-value target for conservatives, the charismatic [Van] Jones has ... become a superstar of the resurgent left, founding — with MoveOn.org — the American Dream Movement, a grass-roots political force modeled after the tea party. His issue is no longer just green jobs, but to push back against the right’s domination of economic policy and social issues that he dates to the 2010 election." ...

... Naomi Wolf in the Guardian: "As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.... Logic ... implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces ... to make war on peaceful citizens.... Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams." ...

     ... In a post titled "How Bullshit Magically Turns into Fact," Karoli, who also writes for Crooks and Liars, debunks Wolf's "sources." Wolf may not necessarily be wrong, Karoli concludes, but she's got bupkus on which to base her conspiracy theory. ...

... CW: In yesterday's Off Times Square, Valerie L. T. recommended watching the Democracy Now! panel discussion about the Occupy Movement. She writes, "If you don’t have the time to listen to the entire show, I encourage you to tune in to hear William Greider and Naomi Klein. They start speaking about 24 minutes into the show." I have not yet had a chance to listen (supersize it; this is a fussy video I can't enlarge):

Tom Hayden in Nation of Change: "The pepper spraying of eleven UC Davis students is a startling visual revelation of a pattern repeated over two decades: the widespread use of a potent chemical compound to subdue political protesters, prison inmates and inner city youths, in spite of numerous warnings by health officials of potentially life-threatening effects."

Here's the First Family standing with the Occupy Black Friday boycott:

Oh God! Joel Siegel of ABC News: "Critics of President Obama felt little holiday cheer after the president did not thank God in his Thanksgiving-themed weekly Internet address. They immediately took to Twitter and the Internet to voice anger and disbelief.... Obama mentioned God once in a closing "God bless you," to Americans watching the Internet address. However, the President explicitly thanked God earlier in the week in his written Thanksgiving proclamation.... Three of the Republican presidential candidates – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum – issued Thanksgiving statements that omitted any references to God. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry mentioned God in their statements."

Right Wing World

Reid Epstein of Politico: "To hear the Republican presidential candidates tell it, the U.S. Constitution is the guiding light of democracy, a bedrock document so perfect and precise that it shouldn’t be challenged, interpreted or besmirched by modern-day judges. Except for all the parts the GOP candidates themselves want to change. The same candidates promising to appoint strict constructionist judges clearly think the Framers, for all their wisdom and foresight, forgot a few things, which they now want to tack on with an array of proposed constitutional amendments that would bulk up the document." ...

... They probably got their ideas from John Hodgman:

Gail Collins reads Ron Paul: "Basically, Paul seems to want to revert to the 18th century, when every bank could set its own monetary policy and every community ran its own schools — presuming, of course, the community wanted to pay for them. 'The founders of this country were well educated, mostly by being home-schooled or taught in schools associated with a church,' he reasons. Those of us who were not born in the gentry could presumably go back to sewing and reaping hay."

CW: I tried to watch this video of David Brooks & Charlie Rose bewailing Obama's failure to force Democrats on the defunct Supercommittee to "cut entitlements," followed by Brooks' applauding Mitt Romney for his plan to partially privatize Medicare. I quit about halfway thru, but maybe you can tough it out. As Heather of Crooks & Liars asks, "Who needs Fox News when we've got PBS?"

The Ledes

AP: "Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters of firing on two army checkpoints in the northwest and killing 25 soldiers, then retaliated by closing a key border crossing used by the coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan.The incident Friday night was a major blow to already strained relations between Islamabad and U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan." New York Times story here.

AP: "U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year..., senior U.S. military officers say. At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will be sent to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital."

It's a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood. "Black Friday's typical jostling and jockeying took a more ominous turn during this year's bargain-hunting ritual with a shooting, a pepper spraying and other episodes of violence that left several people injured."

Los Angeles Times: "The City Hall park where Occupy Los Angeles protesters are camped will be closed at 12:01 a.m. Monday, according to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, triggering what officials hope will be an end to the nation's largest remaining Occupy camp. But police might not immediately begin removing protesters who linger.... Officials hope in the coming days to help protesters move their belongings and to find beds in homeless shelters for those at the camp who need them."

AP: "Three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo caught flights out of Egypt early Saturday, according to an airport official and an attorney for one of the trio."

AP: "NBA players and owners ... reached a tentative agreement early Saturday to end the 149-day lockout and hope to begin the delayed season with a marquee tripleheader Dec. 25. Most of a season that seemed in jeopardy of being lost entirely will be salvaged if both sides approve the handshake deal."

Reuters: "Arab officials will prepare plans for sanctions against Syria on Saturday over its failure to let Arab League monitors oversee an initiative aimed at ending a violent crackdown on protesters seeking an end to President Bashar al-Assad's rule."

The Commentariat -- November 25

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled, "Life Lessons from the New York Times Op-Ed Page: How to Cut-and-Paste, and Still Get It Wrong." You can read it here. (You may not be surprised to discover that Our Mister Brooks plays a starring roll.) The front page of NYTX is here. ...

... Paul Krugman: on the 99.9 Percent: "'We are the 99 percent' is a great slogan. It correctly defines the issue as being the middle class versus the elite (as opposed to the middle class versus the poor). And it also gets past the common but wrong establishment notion that rising inequality is mainly about the well educated doing better than the less educated; the big winners in this new Gilded Age have been a handful of very wealthy people, not college graduates in general."

** Today's Off Times Square topic is Black Friday. For some reason.

Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Over the past year..., capitalism has fairly rolled over democracy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Europe, where financial institutions and large investors have gone to war under the banner of austerity, and governments of nations with not-very-productive or overextended economies have found that they could not satisfy those demands and still cling to power.... What the markets are doing, is, in essence, extending to the realm of once-equally-sovereign nations the one-dollar-one-vote principle that our Supreme Court enshrined in its Citizens United decision last year."

Prof. Robert Frank, in a New York Times op-ed, on "How to End the Black Friday Madness": "Inspired by the 9-9-9 proposal of the Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, I call it the 6-6-6 plan — an across-the-board 6 percent national sales tax (on top of any existing state and local sales taxes) in effect from 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving to 6 a.m. on Black Friday." CW: Black Friday always reminds me of the film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" a story (based on a 1935 novel by Horace McCoy) about Depression-era dance marathons. In both, desperate Americans put themselves under extreme stress and complete with other desperate people for a few extra bucks the rich toss out as part of a scheme to further enrich themselves. ...

... Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times: "As the busiest retail weekend of the year begins late Thursday night, the differences between how affluent and more ordinary Americans shop in the uncertain economy will be on unusually vivid display.... Many affluent shoppers will avoid the [Black Friday] scene altogether.... Still, a deal is a deal.... Neiman Marcus sold out of pewter-color Ferraris (luggage set matching the interior included) at $395,000 each within 50 minutes of making 10 of them available through its 'fantasy' holiday catalog late last month." ...

... A statement from Adbusters is here. Related AP story here. ...

... Update: Karen Garcia has a lovely post on "The Nightmare before Christmas." Don't miss the comparative photos. ...

... Update 2. Borowitz Report: "In what economists are hailing as a clear sign of economic recovery, Walmart customers across the USA jammed into stores on Black Friday, sometimes killing each other to buy useless shit.... Dr. [Davis] Logsdon said that the increased violence and mayhem at retail outlets across the country was 'a testament to the greatness of the American consumer.”

Aaron Davis & Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Funding cuts for school lunches, home energy assistance, child support enforcement, HIV care, Race to the Top grants and other government programs will come quicker than advertised following the failure this week of the congressional 'supercommittee.' ... Members of Congress cast the breakdown as likely having little to no effect on federal spending over the coming year.... But in state capitals, where legislatures are bound by requirements to balance budgets, the committee’s failure cocked a trigger on $1.2 trillion in cuts that must, by law, be built into spending plans that governors will begin releasing within weeks."

Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "A smaller share of Americans currently serve in the Armed Forces than at any other time since the era between World Wars I and II, a new low that has led to a growing gap between people in uniform and the civilian population...."

CW: I finally forced myself to read this profile of Arianna Huffington by Vanessa Grigoriadis, writing in New York Magazine. The profile is long, informative and seems balanced. It will not give you new insights into the meaning of life. ...

... As an antidote, here's a brief profile of Andy Borowitz by Paul Farhi of the Washington Post. ...

... Today Our Mister Brooks writes (well, copies from others) a saccharine column in which he excerpts "life lessons" from septuagenarians-plus for the edification of the young. In a column I'll link later, I've summed up the lessons Brooks has chosen to share:

Cheating on your wife can lead to divorce. Also, cheating on your wife makes you feel ashamed. If you drink too much, you might cheat on your wife, which has the aforementioned downsides. When a loved one dies, you will feel really sad. When a child is hit by a car, God is more likely to mend the child's injuries than are doctors. (We do not learn why God let the driver of that car hit the child. Perhaps that will be a life lesson for another day.) When you yourself get sick, it's nice to have friends and be cheerful.

... Here is Andy Borowitz, whose Thanksgiving gift to us is an illumination of that last lesson.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Tom Wicker, one of postwar America’s most distinguished journalists, who wrote 20 books, covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy for The New York Times and became the paper’s Washington bureau chief and an iconoclastic political columnist for 25 years, died on Friday at his home near Rochester, Vt. He was 85." You can read Wicker's account of JFK's assassination here.

Chicago Tribune: "Maggie Daley, who dedicated herself to children’s issues and the arts while also zealously guarding her family’s privacy during 22 years as Chicago’s First Lady, died a little after 6 p.m. Thursday, more than nine years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 68." With links to related stories.

AP: "A week into his new job, Premier Mario Monti is running out of time to reassure nervous investors that his government has a strategy to deal with Italy's crippling debts.The nation's borrowing rates skyrocketed Friday after a grim set of bond auctions, with a new auction looming Tuesday."

Reuters: "Sprint Nextel may be forced to abandon the biggest advantage it has over its rivals - unlimited data services for a flat fee - because of heavy data users and a shortage of wireless airwaves."

Reuters: "Former MF Global Chief Executive Jon Corzine is expected to testify at a congressional hearing next month, a committee aide said on Friday, tamping down speculation that the former head of the bankrupt brokerage would decline to take part."

AP: "Anti-Wall Street demonstrators in encampments around the country spent Thanksgiving serving turkey, donating time in solidarity with the protest movement and, in some cases, confronting police."

The New York Times story on Black Friday is here.

New York Times: "As huge crowds of demonstrators gathered in Tahrir Square on Friday, state television reported that the generals running Egypt had appointed a politician from the era of deposed president Hosni Mubarak to lead the cabinet, potentially hardening the lines between the interim military rulers and protesters demanding their exit. At the same time, stepping directly into the crisis, the Obama administration urged the generals to transfer power immediately to a civilian government 'empowered with real authority.'" The Al Jazeera story is here, with video....

... AP: "Family and friends of three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo waited anxiously Friday for news that they had been released from police custody. Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. A court in Egypt ordered the release of the students, a lawyer in Philadelphia confirmed Thursday." ...

     Update: "A Cairo airport official says the first of three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo has left Egypt. Luke Gates, 21, left Cairo early Saturday morning on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany."

Al Jazeera: "Syria is facing the prospect of economic sanctions as an Arab League deadline to sign a protocol allowing rights monitors into the country or face punitive measures passed with no apparent response from Damascus. As the deadline expired on Friday, fresh anti-government protests were reported in various towns across Syria and activists said three people had been killed." New York Times story here.

AP: "Moroccans began voting for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change."

New York Times: "Quashing recent speculation of a softening in Germany’s hard-line stance on the euro, Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated on Thursday her firm opposition either to bonds issued jointly by the euro zone countries or to an expansion of the role of the European Central Bank as quick responses to the sovereign debt crisis."

Washington Post: "AT&T and T-Mobile on Thursday moved closer to abandoning their proposed $39 billion merger, saying they have withdrawn their application from the Federal Communications Commission."

Thanksgiving Day

"Guernica," U.C. Davis Edition.... CW: I debated about posting this link, but the "reviewers" make some good points. For several reasons, this appears to be is a genuine amazon.com page, but I can't be sure. If it is the real deal, by the time you get to it, the page may have changed, causing you to wonder why I posted the link. ...

... Also, the reader who sent me the link said she found it on Brilliant at Breakfast. Jill of BoB has more on the science of pepper spray. plus video of Rachel Maddow's segment on the same.

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

CW: When he was an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama had a reputation as a pretty good poker player. It occurred to me a long while back that maybe he knew how to play a lousy hand when he let John Boehner back out of the debt ceiling deal. Ezra Klein, who's making a different point, also makes mine: "Imagine if the Democrats offered Republicans a deficit deal that had more than $3 in tax increases for every $1 in spending cuts, assigned most of those spending cuts to the Pentagon, and didn't take a dime from Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare beneficiaries. Republicans would laugh at them. But without quite realizing it, that's the deal Republicans have now offered to the Democrats." ...

... Matt Yglesias of Slate agrees with Klein's analysis: "It's possible that by refusing to agree to a relatively modest tax increase relative to current policy (i.e., relative to full extension of the Bush tax cuts) the congressional Republicans have locked into place a much more left-wing deal in which the majority of deficit reduction is done by tax hikes and a majority of spending cuts come on the national security side.... if Obama gets re-elected, [the Republicans will] have fumbled the policy substance in a catastrophic way and put in place a budget framework that's much more left-wing than the one Obama was begging them to agree to a few months ago." CW: this is why the 2012 election is so important, as Yglesias says.

The U.S. Financial Crisis, Explained in Irish (via Charles Pierce):

Mark Viera of the New York Times: "Local judges have recused themselves from handling the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse case, and lawyers for two Penn State officials who were indicted for perjury have begun to raise questions about the background of the prosecution’s chief witness, himself a Penn State assistant coach." There's a related AP story here. The Times also has an in-depth report on incidents involving Victim 1.

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "Less than a week before U.N. negotiators convene in South Africa for a new round of talks aimed at forging a global climate pact, a hacker has released an apparent second round of e-mails from the University of East Anglia in Britain that seek to portray climate scientists in a negative light. ...

     ... Bryan Walsh of Time: "They've apparently got bupkis."

Nontheists. Kimberly Winston in the Washington Post: "... scores of ... atheists, young and old, have made ... videos for a new campaign designed to build community and support among nontheists around the world. Dubbed 'We Are Atheism,' the campaign was launched this fall by three students at the University of Kansas." ...

... Supertheists. Elizabeth Tenety in the Washington Post: this weekend, the Roman Catholic Church will begin using a new English translation of the liturgy. The article includes the Church's guide for the changes to the people's parts in the liturgy.

On the front page of the New York Times is a six-part video by food writer Melissa Clark with helpful advice on how to cook a turkey. For classic hints on fowl preparation, we turn to this old chestnut from "Julia Child":

... AND here's hoping your Thanksgiving goes better than Loudon Wainwright III's. "Thanksgiving" begins 3 minutes in. Another classic (P.S. If all does not go well, consider your family "normal"):

Right Wing World

"In His Own Words." Mitt Romney Endorses Obama in 2012. From Buzzfeed. For the backstory, see yesterday's Right Wing World. Plus, more from CBS News on Romney's "intentionally" deceitful ad. You can see the PolitiFact rating to the left.

Marc Ambinder of the National Journal: "During [Tuesday] night's debate, Newt Gingrich moved in a direction that is decidedly orthogonal to the party's conservative base on immigration. Whether Newt stays in his new position is to-be-determined. But if he does, it might produce from the probable Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, the type of reaction that President Obama's campaign advisers would relish." The post includes the text of the Gingrich-Romney exchange. And here's a DNC video on topic:

From last Thursday, Jon Stewart sums of the Republican race for president:

... AND Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post sums up Tuesday night's debate: "Romney and Gingrich won. Romney because he is still the putative frontrunner and the likely nominee, and he did not mess up tonight. Gingrich because he held his own in the spotlight, unlike some of the previous anti-Romneys in this primary campaign. Otherwise, Perry still looked tired, Bachmann still sounded kooky, Huntsman was still too moderate, Ron Paul was still Ron Paul, and Cain still gave no sense he belonged on stage, even among this cast of characters.

If you want to know how bad guys look when they dress up in suits to have their portraits made, the photo that accompanies Ezra Klein's post (linked above) answers that burning question:

The GOP Congressional leadership, in April. Bloomberg photo.

News Ledes

AP: "Los Angeles and San Francisco are seeking long-term solutions to the entrenched encampments by anti-Wall Street protesters, hoping to end the drain on resources and the frayed nerves among police and politicians. Officials in both cities have considered providing protesters with indoor space that would allow the movement to carry out its work in more sanitary, less public facilities." ...

     ... Oops! Missed this one: Yahoo! News: "More than a dozen news organizations are demanding a meeting with the NYPD after as many as 10 journalists were arrested--and dozens of others harassed -- while trying to cover last week's raid on Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park. The New York Times is helping coordinate the news organizations' complaints with the NYPD."

New York Times: "Two Egyptian generals offered an unusual apology on Thursday for the killings of protesters in Tahrir Square, the iconic landmark of the country’s revolution, as violence around the huge plaza eased decisively after five days of intense clashes between security forces and protesters demanding an end to military rule. On what had been the front line of the confrontation, army troops in black helmets and visors replaced the police — reviled by many protesters...." Al Jazeera story here, with video. ...

     ... AP Update: "Egypt's military rulers said Thursday that parliamentary elections starting next week will he held on schedule despite spreading unrest. The military also rejected protesters' demands that it im mediately step down...."

Reuters: "France pressed Germany on Thursday to let the European Central Bank act decisively to halt a stampede out of euro zone government bond markets that has raised doubts about the survival of the single currency. French President Nicolas Sarkozy met German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in Strasbourg, seeking a trade-off between EU treaty change to impose greater fiscal discipline on euro zone states, demanded by Germany, and more emergency help from the central bank."

It isn't Thanksgiving in the country from which the pilgrims fled, so the Leveson inquiry into tabloid hacking goes on. The Guardian's liveblog is here, and it has star power.

Reuters: "Prospects for the $39 billion sale of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA unit to AT&T darkened after the U.S. telecoms giant said it would take a $4 billion charge in case of failure and the pair gave up on one avenue of regulatory approval. The companies have not given up hope of sealing the deal but analysts said it now looks less likely than ever."