The Commentariat -- October 31
... The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze 2011: 4,000 pumpkins, more than 1,000 volunteers and 14 artists working at the Van Cortlandt Manor in the Hudson Valley created a mighty impressive art installation which you can visit through November 6. More fabulous photos here. More info here. Thanks to Doug R. for the link.
"Weaponized Keynesians." Paul Krugman: Republicans know government spending creates jobs; they say so every time there's a chance military spending will be cut; they just don't want you "to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay." ...
... I have a comments page on Krugman on Off Times Square.
John Burns of the New York Times: "In a city where demonstrations of every kind are part of the daily syncopation, there has rarely been any with quite the same potential for amplifying the protesters’ cause as the one that has settled in recently on the historic forecourt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, setting off a painful crisis of conscience for the Church of England.... With bishops squaring off against bishops, priests against priests, and the church hierarchy in disarray over whether to take steps to force the dismantling of the camp — not to mention Prime Minister David Cameron’s parachuting into the debate from 10,000 miles away in Australia, where he has attending a Commonwealth summit meeting — the St. Paul’s story has been front-page news and a feast for the television newscasts."
"Judges for Sale." Adam Cohen of Time: "A blistering new report details how big business and corporate lobbyists are pouring money into state judicial elections across the country and packing the courts with judges who put special interests ahead of the public interest.... These super spenders are the usual suspects: mainly big business, corporate lobbyists, and trial lawyers. Also high on the list: a disturbing category called 'unknown.' In many states, disclosure laws are so weak that special interests can buy judicial elections without the public even finding out.... We are getting courts that are filled with judges whose first loyalty is not to justice – or to the general public – but to insurance companies, big business and other special interests." You can read the report, written by three respected judicial watchdog groups, here. ...
... Justice, Sold. Adele Stan of AlterNet: when the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas, a group called Citizens United came to his rescue, & in tandem with another right-wing group ran ads against the Judiciary Committee Chair Joe Biden & two other Democratic committee members. Years later, as we know too well, Clarence Thomas & Co. came to the rescue of Citizens United in "a case whose outcome is commonly described as having opened the floodgates of corporate money into the nation's election system." And there's much more. "At a time when Americans' faith in their institutions of governance is at record lows, the continuing presence of Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court undermines the very underpinnings of democracy. It's time for him to go." Thanks to a reader for the link.
CW: As linked in today's Ledes, Jon Corzine's investment firm filed for bankruptcy. According to Reuters, the cause was Corzine's made bad bets on European sovereign debt. That said, what alarmed me was this note from Ben Smith, commenting on the Corzine failure: "Jon Corzine has been a top Obama bundler and a top prospect to serve as Secretary of the Treasury in the second term, or in some top economic job before then." Really? Jon Corzine? His last private sector gig was as CEO of Goldman Sachs! Ir this is true -- and I don't know that it is -- and this is what a second Obama Administration is going to look like, then those who argue that it doesn't matter which political party is in power are closer to right than I realized.
In case you read the Washington Post's lead story by Lori Montgomery (which I had not previously linked because a two-second scan suggested to me it was a warmed-over Halloween story), the gist of which was "Oh, no! Social Security is broke! We have to cut it now!" go back and unread it. Dean Baker rips it to shreds: "News outlets generally like to claim a separation between their editorial pages and their news pages. The Washington Post has long ignored this distinction in pursuing its agenda for cutting Social Security, however it took a big step further in tearing down this barrier with a lead front page story that would have been excluded from most opinion pages because of all the inaccuracies it contained." Baker goes on to list the inaccuracies. ...
... Paul Krugman, in a post titled, "Social Security Bait & Switch...," explains two ways to look at Social Security, two ways that cannot be "combined," as Montgomery does. ...
... CW: Citing Baker & Krugman, I wrote a note to the corrections editor at the Post & suggested the paper just print a big ole "Never Mind" on the story. I'm pretty sure they'll have a huge retraction splattered across the top of the front page any day now. ...
... Ted Mann of The Atlantic: "The case that the paper deliberately misconstrues the facts is an incomplete one — and can't be going over well with The Post. But the overall lack of clarity and understanding about one of the nation's most cherished social programs is alarmingly persistent, especially in what is supposed to be an era of budget and deficit hawks." ...
... BUT as Digby points out, the Montgomery article must be music to the ears of those 100 members of Congress who want the deficit reduction supercommittee to go big. Hey, let's whack Social Security benefits because Social Security is in the red! "Right now Occupy Wall Street is focused on the malefactors of great wealth. But there are other issues that are quite urgent and this Super Committee nonsense is one of them. I don't know if there's any way of stopping this train, and I suspect our greatest friend right now is partisan gridlock."
Monica Davey of the New York Times: "With a federal decision anticipated soon on whether an oil pipeline will be allowed to run from Canada through the nation’s midsection, lawmakers in Nebraska are being summoned on Tuesday to an unexpected legislative session over the issue, which has stirred up a level of rancor that few had predicted." A week-old Omaha World-Herald story is here, with video.
Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times: "Clyde Williams, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton and a leading Democratic strategist with ties to President Obama, is laying the groundwork for a possible race against the 80-year-old [Charles] Rangel [NY], a elder who has represented his district in Harlem for half of his life."
** Novelist Mona Simpson eulogizes her brother Steve Jobs.
Right Wing World
E. J. Dionne: Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) speech last week at the Heritage Foundation is evidence the GOP is "worried that it is losing control of the political narrative.... Ryan offered the classic defense of inequality, arguing that what really matters is upward mobility, and that the United States has more of it than those horrible welfare states in Europe.... The only problem is that upward mobility has declined as inequality has grown, and social mobility is now higher in Europe than it is in the United States.... All of this explains why efforts to taint Occupy Wall Street as nothing more than a bunch of latter-day hippie radicals haven’t worked. It’s also why Obama, by sharpening his arguments about what’s fair and what’s unfair, has finally stopped his slide in the polls."
You Absolutely, Positively Knew This Was Coming. Jonathan Martin, et al., of Politico: "EXCLUSIVE! Two Women Accused Cain of Inappropriate Behavior. The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by [Republican presidential candidate Herman] Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures. During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to Politico." ...
... AND You Knew This Was Sure to Follow. Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post: "The presidential campaign of Republican Herman Cain is pushing back against allegations that he engaged in inappropriate behavior with at least two women when he was head of the National Restaurant Association.... A spokesman for the candidate denied that anything inappropriate happened and said that the matter was resolved more than a dozen years ago." ...
... Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast: "Despite [Cain's spokesperson J. D.] Gordon’s characterization of the 'political trade press' assailing his boss, what is at issue here is a single report in Politico — one whose allegations Cain has declined to flatly deny." ...
... CW: to try to clear that up, what the Cain camp is denying is that Cain did anything "inappropriate"; it is not denying that the women brought the charges. ...
... Eric Wempel of the Washington Post on the Cain denial confirmation of the story. Wempel provides a sort of short course on how the nondenial denial works. CW: I should add that the reason the women didn't come forward and allow their names to be used was that, according to the Politico story, they signed confidentiality agreements as part of their settlements, which is SOP. Herman Cain is finding out what it's like to be the frontrunner for a presidential nomination -- and why some other possible candidates choose not to run this particular gauntlet. ...
... Here are the varying Cain & Cain camp responses to the Politico story (Note: does not include Update 2 below, which is a still newer version of the attempted coverup):
... Update 1. THIS Is Damage Control? Jonathan Martin of Politico: "Herman Cain said in his speech today that the National Restaurant Association’s general counsel and the human resources department conducted an investigation into allegations about his conduct in the late-90s. But the head of the association’s human resources department at the time said in an interview with POLITICO last week that she was unfamiliar with any complaints from female employees about Cain." Mary Ose, the former human resources officer, denied Cain's latest version of events.
... Update 2. THIS Is Damage Control? Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Earlier in the day, Herman Cain explicitly denied knowledge of any settlement or financial payout related to allegations of sexual harassment, telling Fox News: ''At the Restaurant Association -– outside of the Restaurant Association, absolutely not. If the Restaurant Association did a settlement I wasn’t even aware of it and I hope it wasn’t for much because nothing happened. So if there was a settlement it was handled by some of the other officers who worked for me at the time.' But just a few hours later, in an interview with the cable network's Greta Van Susteren, he recalled specific details about the allegations and one of the two settlements first reported by POLITICO."
... Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Today on Face The Nation, GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain claimed that Planned Parenthood wants to 'kill black babies' and is part of an organized effort to commit 'genocide' against the black community.... Politifact previously evaluated Cain’s claim that Planned Parenthood was created to 'kill black babies' and deemed it 'a ridiculous, cynical play of the race card.' With video. ...
... Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Herman Cain's two top campaign aides ran a private Wisconsin-based corporation that helped the GOP presidential candidate get his fledgling campaign off the ground by originally footing the bill for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel ... something that might breach federal tax and campaign law, according to sources and documents.... Prosperity USA was owned and run by Wisconsin political operatives Mark Block and Linda Hansen, Cain's current chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, respectively." Yes, yes, that's the same smokin' Mark Block of the weird Cain campaign ad, & the same Mark Block who paid a $15,000 fine & got run out of politics for three years because of -- election law violations."
Just for fun, David Sessions of the Daily Beast does a replay of Bachmann's Greatest Whoppers. CW: What Sessions doesn't mention is that Bachmann doubled down on some of these claims after various news outlets pointed out they were nonsense. I'm not sure she knows yet that John Adams, a founding father & the second POTUS, is not the same guy as his son John Quincy Adams, the 6th POTUS. You may feel confident in applying the pants-on-fire award above to Our Mizz Bachmann, too.
... Really, Rick? 2.5 Million Jobs? Big Whup. Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post: "Given the magnitude of the problem, Perry’s promise of creating at least 2.5 million jobs ... over a four-year term, would only put a dent in the jobless rate." ...
... Really, Rick? We Get Our Oil from "Countries that Hate Us"? Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "As governor of Texas, Perry should know better than to pretend that the United States gets its oil from countries that hate it. In fact, the oil comes from our allies.... So this is a highly misleading line to insert in a television advertisement."
News Ledes
New York Times: "In a surprise move that jolted Europe and put his political future in play, Prime Minister announced Monday that his government would hold a referendum on a new aid package for Greece, putting austerity measures — and potentially membership in the euro zone — to a popular vote for the first time."
... President Obama signed an executive order to reduce drug shortages early afternoon. AP: "Acting once again ahead of Congress, President Barack Obama is directing the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to reduce drug shortages, an escalating problem that has placed patients at risk and raised the possibility of price gouging."
President Obama met with former British PM Tony Blair this morning.
AP: "Thousands of schoolchildren around the Northeast had one of the earliest snow days in memory Monday after a storm dumped as much as 30 inches of wet, heavy snow that snapped trees and power lines, caused widespread power failures and threatened to disrupt Halloween trick-or-treating. Communities from Maryland to Maine that suffered through a tough winter last year followed by a series of floods and storms went into now-familiar emergency mode as shelters opened, inaccessible roads closed, regional transit was suspended or delayed, and local leaders urged caution." New York Times story here.
Reuters: "The United Nations' cultural agency will decide later on Monday whether to give the Palestinians full membership of the body, a vote that could boost their bid for recognition as a state at the United Nations. UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have sought to join as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on September 23. Washington has vowed to veto full U.N. membership for the Palestinians in the U.N. Security Council and could cut funding to UNESCO if it votes to make them full members." ...
... New York Times Update: " defied Washington’s threat of an American funding cutoff on Monday and approved a bid for full membership by a vote of 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions."
New York Times: "Shares in MF Global Holdings [a firm run by former Sen. & New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine] were halted for trading early on Monday, as the brokerage prepared to file for bankruptcy protection and sell some of its assets to the Interactive Brokers Group, according to people briefed on the matter. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a statement that it had suspended doing any business with MF Global until the firm 'is fully capable of discharging the responsibilities set out in the New York Fed’s policy.' MF Global is a primary dealer, meaning that it is one of 22 firms allowed to trade directly with the Fed and make a market in securities like Treasury notes." ...
... Update: "Federal regulators have discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money has gone missing from MF Global in recent days, prompting an investigation into the brokerage firm, which is run by Jon S. Corzine.... The recognition that money was missing scuttled at the 11th hour an agreement to sell a major part of MF Global to a rival brokerage firm. MF Global ... filed for bankruptcy on Monday. Regulators are examining whether MF Global diverted some customer funds to support its own trades as the firm teetered on the brink of collapse."
Reuters: "Beacon Power Corp filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, just a year after the energy storage company received a $43 million loan guarantee from a controversial Department of Energy program."
AP: The "7 billioneth baby" is born in Manila, the Philippines -- and elsewhere.
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