The Commentariat -- September 25

Whether you can win or not in a fight that’s worth fighting, get caught trying. -- Bill Clinton

Activist Sally Kohn offers up some ideas in this Washington Post op-ed that are pretty impractical, but some of you-all will like them. Most of her ideas are do-able and reasonable.

... I've posted a comments page for Kohn's op-ed on Off Times Square.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times never really answers his own question, but he gives you reason to answer it for yourself: "HAS American political life become a carnival so invasive, indiscriminate and sometimes even crude that it repels some of the best potential officeholders and almost guarantees that the most important business of the country won’t be properly done?

As Karen Garcia noted in a blogpost some months ago, if you want to find out about protests in New York City, you'll have better luck going to Al Jazeera than to the New York Times. On today's front page, the Times has teeny links to two blogposts about the protests (both linked under today's Ledes), one of which has a glaring error -- at least at this writing the post embedded the same video twice, although the caption accompanying one of the videos refers to another one, which was not posted. But wait! The Times front page does link to a "real" article (as opposed to a blogpost) about the protesters by one Ginia Bellafante, who devotes her report to documenting how few, how clueless & how disorganized the young protesters are. See, they're as dumb as teabaggers.

Ross Douthat argues that Troy Davis's death sentence was a real boon for him, because if he'd received a lesser sentence, his case would not have got all that public attention. Douthat doesn't dwell on the fact that part of Davis's good fortune included being executed for a crime in which it turned out there was plenty of reasonable doubt of his guilt. Instead, Douthat argues, "Abolishing capital punishment ... would tell the public that our laws and courts and juries are fundamentally incapable of delivering what most Americans consider genuine justice. It could encourage a more cynical and utilitarian view of why police forces and prisons exist, and what moral standards we should hold them to. And while it would put an end to wrongful executions, it might well lead to more overall injustice." In other words, capital punishment is a good thing because it "sends a message" that our justice system works, and we should have confidence in it.

Really? In a comment, Gemli from Boston responds. Read Gemli's whole comment, & recommend it, please:

When I was young and innocent, and didn't know the difference between liberals and conservatives, I read a quote that said as far as criminal justice was concerned, 'Conservatives prefer unfairness to disorder.' I always thought that was an exaggeration just to make a point. Who could be so lacking in human empathy that one could punish someone, even put them to death, with a cloud of innocence hanging over them? But here is an entire column making that case.

** "The Fraying of a Nation's Decency." Anand Giridharadas of the New York Times highlights the Morning Call story we linked last week on Amazon.com's Allentown, Pennsylvania, sweatshop (If you haven't read the Morning Call story, it's here, and it's horrifying.). "Amazon.com, the books-to-diapers-to-machetes Internet superstore, is a perfect snapshot of the American Dream, circa 2011.... And what the story revealed about Amazon could be said of the country, too: that on the road to high and glorious things, it somehow let go of decency....Far beyond official Washington, we would seem to be witnessing a fraying of the bonds of empathy, decency, common purpose.... It doesn’t feel like one nation when a company like Amazon, with such resources to its name, treats vulnerable people so badly just because it can.... People who run companies like Amazon operate as though it never occurred to them that it could have been them crawling through the aisles.... What is creeping into the culture is simple dehumanization, a failure to imagine the lives others lead."

CW: Several readers have asked me privately about the White House "We the People" petition facility, which allows citizen to post petitions to the Obama administration. Any petition that receives at least 5,000 signers will receive "consideration" from White House staff. As Karen Garcia reports, "The winner and undisputed champion on the White House's new citizen petition webpage is the legalization of marijuana." Read Garcia's post, which I think is about right. In today's Off Times Square Kate Madison highlights another petition to recognize the Wall Street protesters. IMHO, the so-called petition capability is a way to shut you up by giving you the satisfaction you've "done something" for the causes that interest you. Since the site also requires you to provide basic information about yourself in order to sign a petition (which is SOP) & provides you the "opportunity" to get e-mails from the White House, obviously "We the People" is also a tool for the re-election campaign. Expect a fundraising letter in your inbox. But heck, maybe President Obama will get into the weed.

When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point. -- Barack Obama, ca. 2006

Right Wing World

"Nice Try." Maureen Dowd: "[Rick] Perry is proving to be [Mitt] Romney's best asset." ...

... Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Martin of Politico: "With the party’s front-runner sagging, Chris Christie is reconsidering pleas from Republican elites and donors to run for president in 2012.... The New Jersey governor has indicated he is listening to big-money and Republican influence-makers, and will let them know in roughly a week whether he has moved off his threat-of-suicide vow...."

News Ledes

New York Times: "In his first speech since returning to Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh confirmed on Sunday that his deputy remained authorized to sign a transfer-of-power agreement that would lead to early presidential elections, but he did not make any new concessions."

New York Times: "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Sunday granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving."

AP: "After eight months of contract-wrangling and negotiations that dragged past a strike deadline, supermarket workers in Southern California will stay on the job.... Members of the region's United Food and Commercial Workers voted to ratify a new contract with three major grocery chains..., averting a strike of more than 60,000 workers that could have crippled the industry and left shoppers scrambling."

AP: "Pakistan's army chief will convene a special meeting of senior commanders Sunday following U.S. allegations that the military's spy agency helped militants attack American targets in Afghanistan, the army said."

Reuters: Pope Benedict said on Saturday the Catholic Church could not accept gay marriage and urged young people to root out evil in society and shun a 'lukewarm' faith that damages their Church. The 84-year-old pope ended the third day in his homeland with a rally for more about 30,000 young people at a fairground outside the southern city of Freiburg, a Catholic area where he received the warmest welcome of his trip so far."

CNN: "Two American hikers freed last week from an Iranian prison are expected to arrive in the United States on Sunday. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were released by Iran on Wednesday and were flown to Muscat, Oman's capital, where they enjoyed several days of freedom after more than two years in prison." ...

... New York Daily News: Actor & activist "Sean Penn played a real-life role in the mediation that secured the release of two American hikers who were held captive in Iran for more than two years. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his ally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to release the hikers after the South American leader was lobbied by pals in U.S. 'intellectual circles,' Reuters reported. One of those Americans was Penn, who flew to Venezuela to meet with Chavez and push him to talk to Ahmadinejad."

AP: "About 80 people were arrested Saturday as demonstrators who were camped out near the New York Stock Exchange marched through lower Manhattan, police said. The 'Occupy Wall Street' protest is entering its second week. Demonstrators said Saturday they were protesting against bank bailouts and the mortgage crisis; some also held signs decrying Georgia's execution of Troy Davis.... At Manhattan's Union Square, police tried to corral the demonstrators using orange plastic netting.... Activists posted the videos online. One video appears to show officers using pepper spray on women who already were cordoned off." New York Times item here. Two videos here. Al Jazeera video above. ...

... Firedoglake has a liveblog here.

Guardian: "Police have been accused of heavy-handed tactics after making 80 arrests on Saturday when protesters marched uptown from their makeshift camp in a private park in the financial district. Footage has emerged on YouTube showing stocky police officers coralling a group of young female protesters and then spraying them with mace, despite being surrounded and apparently posing threats of only the verbal kind":

     ... The Times post -- linked above -- makes reference to this video, but does not embed it.

     ... CW Note: this video is of the full speech to the CBC. I had posted a clip earlier.

AP: "In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and 'put on your marching shoes' to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity. And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too."

The Commentariat -- September 24

President Obama's weekly address on strengthening the American education system:

     ... The transcript is here. Reuters: "Young people in the United States are falling behind their overseas peers in reading, math and science, President Barack Obama said on Saturday, calling education reform an essential part of economic recovery."

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

** Profs. Theodore Marmor & Jerry Mashaw in a New York Times op-ed: "Where politicians once drew on a morally resonant language of people, family and shared social concern, they now deploy the cold technical idiom of budgetary accounting.... The language of sociology and common culture has been replaced by the language of economics and individualism. ...

... BUT this ad, which Ben Smith says the DNC is actually airing heavily & is not just dropping on the YouTubes in hopes bloggers & other unimportant media outlets will pick it up, somewhat belies the professors' contention (or maybe Obama is finally getting it):

... Via Steve Benen, more evidence the Obama administration is serious about jobs:

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic asks a couple of political scientists -- & Guy Molyneux & John Sides -- why Americans love the elements of Obama's jobs plan but don't love Obama so much. CW: I'd add, ... and Republicans are superb at vilifying Obama & ridiculing his policies.

Aaron Pressman of Reuters: "The Federal Reserve's 'Operation Twist' to bring down bond yields and stimulate the economy is likely to cause pain for the nation's largest pension funds.... Hit both by falling stock prices and falling bond yields, the 100 largest pension plans of public U.S. companies have assets covering only 79 percent of their liabilities as of the end of August, down from 86 percent at the end of 2010...."

Anna Palmer of Politico: "Congress may be leading the government toward a shutdown, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers from leaving town to raise money. Before a vote Monday to keep the government open beyond Sept. 30 and FEMA funded, Republicans and Democrats have plans outside of Washington to host fundraisers and other party committee events."

Charlie Cook of the National Journal on how Republicans could defeat healthcare legislation. Presume "Obamacare" makes it through the courts more-or-less intact. Now presume the Republican presidential candidate wins in 2012. Then presume Republicans retain control of the House, but with a smaller majority. Next presume Republicans take control of the Senate, even by one senator, &/or get fake Democratic senators to vote with them. The House could repeal Obamacare, the Senate could pass it via reconciliation -- as a budgetary bill that does not allow for a filibuster (which requires 60 votes) & President G. O. Poop could sign the repeal. CW: All of Cook's scenarios are plausible, BTW. And they would work for any policies that are primarily budgetary in nature. Don't think it will happen? Vote Republican & you'll find out.

Olga Pierce, et al., of ProPublica: So-called (& so-named) "independent" redistricting advocacy groups "are being quietly bankrolled by corporations, unions and other special interests. Their main interest in the once-a-decade political fight over redistricting is not to help voters in the communities they claim to represent but mainly to improve the prospects of their political allies or to harm their enemies. The number of these purportedly independent redistricting groups is rising, but their ties remain murky. Contributions to such groups are not limited by campaign finance laws, and most states allow them to take unlimited amounts of money without disclosing the source."

Matthew Lee of the AP: "The Obama administration has managed to buy time and may have staved off an embarrassing and politically awkward showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. It may also have maneuvered itself into a corner. The U.S. and the rest of the international diplomatic Quartet of Mideast peacemakers endorsed specific timelines for restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks Friday.... Committing to those detailed deadlines raises potentially unrealistic hopes...."

Chris Bowers of Daily Kos: "Scared by [Elizabeth] Warren's rapid rise [as a candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts], the forces of Wall Street have suddenly made her a top target." The Politico "charges" against Warren, which Bowers cites, are beyond ridiculous. CW: She's getting the Obama treatment. Read the whole article.

Right Wing World *

"Yikes." Juana Summers of Politico: "The conservative commentariat spoke with near-unanimity Friday on Rick Perry’s debate performance: The Texas governor didn’t just lose, he bombed.... His second consecutive weak outing set off alarm bells on the right, where too many cringeworthy moments raised questions about Perry’s durability, his seriousness and ability to compete on a stage with Barack Obama.... Perry’s nationally televised face-plant revived dormant talk — and hopes — about the possibility of new candidates entering the race. With almost no one willing to defend a performance marked by meandering or inaccurate answers, botched canned lines and the damaging adoption of the left’s critique of conservatives on immigration, it’s hard to imagine how things could have gone much worse for Perry.... Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor, summed it up with one word: 'yikes.'” ...

... New York Times Editors: "Thursday night’s Republican debate was a particular cacophony of illogic as all of the candidates pandered to a base that is frighteningly unrepresentative of most Americans who want their elected officials to work for the greater good." Later in the editorial, the writers equate Rick Perry with Dr. Strangelove. ...

... Gail Collins feels sorry for Republicans because their field of presidential candidates is so lousy and their frontrunner, Rick Perry, is seriously not ready for primetime. ...

... More Bad News for Perry. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Thursday’s Google/Fox News debate in Florida was the most watched Republican event so far, according to Nielsen." ...

... Peter Catapano covers the field of reactions to the crowd's booing a gay soldier serving in Iraq & to Rick Santorum's answer to the soldier's question, an answer I would call a good demonstration of how Santorum got its well-earned definition. ...

... BUT the major Republican candidates (along with the minor ones, excepting those above -- Huntsman, Santorum & Johnson), who had nothing to say on Thursday, are still remarkably tongue-tied. Via Emily Friedman of ABC News:

No response. -- Mitt Romney

No response. -- Rick Perry

No response. -- Ron Paul

There was booing and cheering throughout the debate – Michele didn’t comment on any of it. -- Michele Bachmann's spokeswoman

If you don’t have time to explain your whole position on that, you can very easily be taken out of context so I don’t even want to comment on that. -- Herman Cain

Decline to comment. -- Newt Gingrich

      Update: via Steve Benen: yesterday on Fox "News," Rick Santorum condemned the booing of an American soldier, tho he maintains he never heard it.

* Where even Republicans may not want another uninformed, inarticulate Texas governor to lead their party. Oh, and they don't wanna talk about teh gays.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke at a Congressional Black Caucus function this evening.

Miami Herald: "... businessman Herman Cain won a surprise victory at the Republican Party of Florida’s nationally watched presidential straw poll Saturday in a sign that frontrunner Rick Perry is in deep trouble. Cain’s landslide victory, with 37 percent of the vote, exceeded the combined total for Perry and Mitt Romney, who only garnered 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively."

New York Times: "A day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned to this battered country calling for a cease-fire, his forces escalated attacks on the opposition on Saturday, leaving more than 40 people dead across the capital."

New York Times: "President Obama on Saturday broke with his usual practice of golfing with three junior aides and for the first time teed up with former President Bill Clinton, who has written a new book on the government’s role in the 21st-century economy."

New York Times: "The public assault by the Obama administration on the Pakistani intelligence agency as a facilitator of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan has been met with scorn in Pakistan, a signal that the country has little intention of changing its ways, even perhaps at the price of the crumpled alliance."

AP: "UBS chief executive Oswald Gruebel has resigned over a $2.3 billion rogue trading loss.... The move ends days of speculation about whether Gruebel could retain his position following the latest scandal to hit Switzerland's biggest bank."

AP: "Finance ministers and central bankers are pushing for bold action by the Group of 20 nations to get the global economy back on track, while wavering over helping Greece avoid a destabilizing default." The G-20 is meeting for three days in Washington, D.C.

AP: "NASA's dead six-ton satellite fell to Earth early Saturday morning, starting its fiery death plunge somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean. Details were still sketchy, but the U.S. Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center and NASA say that the bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. That doesn't necessarily mean it all fell into the sea. NASA's calculations had predicted that the former climate research satellite would fall over a 500-mile swath."

AP: "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday proposed Vladimir Putin as presidential candidate for 2012, almost certainly guaranteeing Putin's return to the office four years after he was legally forced to step aside.... Putin, who currently serves as prime minister..., [during a speech that followed Medvedev's endorsement, made] a surprising suggestion that Russia's wealthy should pay higher taxes than average citizens."

AP: "Facing discontent within his German flock, Pope Benedict XVI made a gesture of meeting with victims of clerical sex abuse as he called for Roman Catholics in the former communist East to rediscover their faith. The pontiff celebrated Mass with some 30,000 people early Saturday, unhindered by an incident on the edge of the security zone in which a man fired an air gun at a security guard about an hour before the service, Vatican and local officials said."

Daily Beast: "While publicly pressuring Israel to make deeper concessions to the Palestinians, President Obama has secretly authorized significant new aid to the Israeli military that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker busters, Newsweek has learned.... The GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators — potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites — were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office."

New York Times: "Stony-faced, the chief executive and chief financial officer of Solyndra, the bankrupt solar company, took the Fifth Amendment on Friday before a House subcommittee as they were verbally pummeled by committee members until Democrats complained that the badgering was becoming unseemly."

The Commentariat -- September 23

Happy Autumnal Equinox. It falls at 5:04 am ET today.

By William Morris.In his column Paul Krugman fleshes out some numbers he's been reporting on in blogposts: "Detailed estimates from the Congressional Budget Office ... show that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. That’s growth, but it’s slow, especially compared with the 100 percent rise in median income over a generation after World War II. Meanwhile, over the same period, the income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income distribution, rose by 480 percent.... In 2005 dollars, the average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million. So do the wealthy look to you like the victims of class warfare?" CW Note: Krugman also gives Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren a plug for her remarks about "class warfare"; see video in yesterday's Commentariat. ...

... I've posted a Krugman page on Off Times Square.

Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: "The improvised, on-the-fly financial system that replaced Bretton Woods after 1971 has failed. The great challenge facing the world leaders gathering for the annual World Bank-International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington this weekend is to figure out what will replace it. For the past 40 years, capital has moved freely around the globe, with currencies fluctuating according to market forces and countries intervening to affect those flows according to their domestic interests. It has all proved remarkably prone to financial crises.... This is no way to run a global economy. But it’s not clear whether there is enough political will to find a new framework, because it would require many countries to sacrifice something dear to them."

Tim Egan: Republican environmental policies are so anti-scientific & so bought-and-paid-for by polluters that they're going to kill us. But President Obama has been passive on environmental issues, & passive doesn't get you an energized base that helps win elections. Doom!

Obama Names Names! Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "President Obama publicly castigated House Speaker John Boehner [yesterday] at a rally in Ohio, singling him out by name four times for his opposition to passage of his $447 billion jobs bill.... In an email blast after the speech, Obama for America campaign manager Jim Messina urged supporters to call Boehner directly to let him know 'what Americans like you think.' ... But ... many Democrats have also publicly voiced reluctance to 'pass it right away....'” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ... says he might not consider bringing the jobs bill up for a vote until at least next month." Video of the speech is in yesterday's Ledes.

Brian Beutler of TPM: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) -- who's a close ally of three Democrats on the [deficit-reduction supercommittee] -- says they would be doing a disservice to advance deficit reducing legislation without knowing its impact on economic growth."

Steve Benen: "We’ve set the bar for success so low [for Congress], avoiding shutdowns is somehow deemed an accomplishment.... And so long as congressional Republicans remain radicalized, there’s no reason to think conditions will improve after this Congress, either. The public didn’t recognize or appreciate it, but 2009 and 2010 were pretty extraordinary for getting stuff done in Washington, despite Republican efforts to break the Senate.... Worst of all, this is what Americans said they wanted when they voted last year." BTW, we're set for a shutdown in exactly one week.

NEW. Eric Lipton & John Broder of the New York Times: "The government’s backing of [of the solar panel manufacturer] Solyndra, which could cost taxpayers more than a half-billion dollars, came as the politically well-connected business began an extensive lobbying campaign that appears to have blinded government officials to the company’s financial condition and the risks of the investment, according to a review of government documents and interviews with administration officials and industry analysts."

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "The Obama administration has to decide by Monday whether it wants to directly ask the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of its signature health reform legislation. Since the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the health law in August, the administration can either ask the full court to take another look at the case or ask the Supreme Court to review it and issue a final decision.... If it doesn’t file by Monday or get an extension, the Justice Department would have no other option than to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the 11th Circuit’s decision."

I don’t understand how she can be down 20 points one week and is now up 2. What is going on? -- Sen. Scott Brown, on a poll showing Elizabeth Warren beating him by two points in the Massachusetts senate race, overheard by a passing Hill staffer & reported in TPM

Tim Mak of Politico: "Former President Bill Clinton suggested Thursday that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was ideologically in line with 'militant subgroups in Israel' and was too willing to let the Jewish state do whatever it wants." ...

... Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "Who's to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process? Former President Bill Clinton said today that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- whose government moved the goalposts upon taking power, and whose rise represents a key reason there has been no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal."

CW: I'm hoping this is the last piece I'll ever link to about Ron Suskind's Confidence Men, his "insider" look at a "dysfunctional" Obama White House. Jacob Weisberg of Slate has a well-supported takedown of Suskind & his methodology. The title of his post: "Don't Believe Ron Suskind; His book about Obama is as spurious as the ones he wrote about Bush."

Right Wing World

CW: I know "incredulous" isn't a real word, but Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post is just incredulous at just how clueless the Republican presidential candidates were in last night's debate. ...

... Glenn Kessler fact-checks the debate. He doesn't actually end with a Four-Pinocchio condemnation, but he does note that he has quatri-pinocchio'd at least one of the same false claims earlier, and the candidates delivered many more outright inventions. ...

... Bill Adair at PolitiFact also reviews some of the candidates' statements, some of which he rates as true, but he also came up with a couple of "falses" & one "pants-on-fire" (the same Romney falsehood Kessler cited: "President Obama went around the world and apologized for America"). ...

... FactCheck.org: "The GOP presidential candidates debated for the second time in six days — tossing out a variety of false and misleading claims on everything from Social Security to vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases." The article goes on to enumerate some of the whoppers.

... The audience low point? Booing a gay soldier stationed in Iraq who is concerned Republican candidates might cut back on advances made for gays & lesbians in the military:

     Here's The Hill headline to a report by Cameron Joseph: "Gay soldier booed at GOP debate; candidates stay mum." ...

... Can't Any Texas Governor Complete a Sentence? (and this one was scripted; evidently, Gov. Garble forgot his line):

Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of -- against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment? Was it -- was before -- he was before the social programs from the standpoint of -- he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against first -- Roe v. Wade? I mean we'll wait until tomorrow to see which Mitt Romney we're really talking to tonight. -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in last night's debate ...

... Garance Franke-Ruta of The Atlantic: "Mitt Romney subtly laid out a line of attack against Rick Perry last night that raised questions about the Texas governor's sometimes garbled syntax and increasingly apparent difficulty giving mid-length answers to policy questions.... No wonder Romney's attack strategy was to say over and over that you can't understand what Perry is trying to say -- as well as to argue with him on policy." ...

... "Texas Toast?" Jonathan Martin & James Hohmann of Politico: "... in his third debate in a month ... Perry gave a foreign policy answer that offered no indication he’s thought about how to respond to threats against America, twice bobbled attacks on Mitt Romney’s well-documented departures from conservative orthodoxy, called immigration hard-liners heartless and, in what was otherwise his best answer of the evening, stretched the truth in the course of delivering a well-rehearsed line about why he mandated pre-teen girls to be vaccinated against HPV." ...

... "Another Rick Perry Whopper." FactCheck.org: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry makes another wildly false claim in a new Web ad — saying that the U.S. poverty rate has hit an 'all-time high.' In fact, the rate is the highest since 1993, but 7.3 percentage points lower than it was in 1959, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent annual tally." Includes video of ad.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Shortly after President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority formally requested the Security Council to grant full United Nations membership on Friday, international powers reached an agreement on terms to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinians, diplomats and Obama administration officials said."

New York Times: "An impasse between the House and Senate over a bill to keep the government open after Sept. 30 and provide financial aid to natural disaster victims got worse on Friday as the Senate easily shot down a House bill passed in the early hours of Friday morning."

New York Times: " The Obama administration, increasingly alarmed by the spillover effects of Europe’s financial crisis, has begun an intensive lobbying campaign to persuade Chancellor >Angela Merkel of Germany and other leaders to act decisively to stem any contagion from the Greece debt crisis."

Congress hasn't been able to fix this, so I will. -- Barack Obama

President Obama will allow states waivers of No Child Left Behind standards:

President Obama spoke about No Child Left Behind this morning.  New York Times: "President Obama on Friday will offer to waive central provisions of the No Child Left Behind law for states that embrace his educational agenda, essentially ending his predecessor’s signature accountability measure, which has defined public school life nationwide for nearly a decade." Video above.

Washington Post: "Washington lurched toward another potential government shutdown crisis Friday, as the House approved a Republican-authored short-term funding measure designed to keep government running through Nov. 18 that Democrats in the Senate immediately vowed to reject."

Washington Post: "State and federal officials on Friday were again to meet with representatives of the nation’s largest banks, trying to finalize a much-anticipated settlement over shoddy foreclosure practices that remains elusive a year after the abuses first garnered national attention.... New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ... has expressed concern that the pending settlement could release banks from liability for misdeeds that go beyond flawed and fraudulent foreclosure documents.... Schneiderman has insisted that he would not sign onto a deal he views as too lenient on the banks. Attorneys general from a handful of other states, including Delaware and Nevada, have expressed similar concerns."

New York Times: "U.S. EPA plans to enforce smog rules that were put in place under George W. Bush, now that President Obama has asked the agency to wait until 2013 to move on still-stricter air quality standards for ozone, Administrator Lisa Jackson told lawmakers on Capitol Hill [Thursday].... Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said turning to the 2008 standard is better than reverting to the 'outdated and nonprotective' standard that preceded it." CW: this is actually a pleasant surprise; the conventional wisdom was that the EPA would stick with the Clinton-era standards, which are worse than the Bush standards.

AP: "The world's major economic powers are pledging to launch a bold effort to deal with a chronic slowdown in growth and a European debt crisis threatening to push the global economy into another recession.... The statement by the Group of 20 major economies was issued late Thursday and pledged that the countries, which represent 85 percent of the global economy, would do what was necessary to restore financial stability...."

New York Times: "In their third debate in as many weeks, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas engaged in a sometimes heated back and forth over immigration, health care and entitlements, their rivalry dominating a stage that included seven other candidates struggling to catch up in the race for the Republican presidential nomination."

AP: "Nearly two decades after embarking on historic peace talks with Israel, Palestinians prepared to sidestep that troubled route on Friday to seek U.N. recognition of an independent state — hoping to leverage this dramatic move on the world stage to realize their dream of an independent homeland. Earlier in the week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rebuffed an intense, U.S.-led effort to sway him from the statehood bid, saying he would submit the application to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon as planned."

New York Times: "President Ali Abdullah Saleh made a dramatic and sudden return to Yemen on Friday after nearly four-months in Saudi Arabia, seeking to reinsert himself at the center of a slowly fracturing country mired in bloody clashes on the streets of its capital. His return, announced by state news agencies, appeared unlikely to immediately quell the fighting, which has left more than 70 people dead since Sunday in fierce street battles between government forces and soldiers who have sided with antigovernment protesters."

Space: "A decommissioned NASA satellite is expected to plummet to Earth today (Sept. 23), and agency officials are monitoring the dead spacecraft closely to try to narrow down when and where the debris will fall. According to NASA, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, will make its fiery descent through the atmosphere some time this afternoon or early evening (Eastern Daylight Time), but while it is still too soon to tell where pieces of the defunct satellite will land, scientists have been able to rule out North America from the potential impact zone. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "A wayward NASA satellite may yet fall to Earth in the United States. On Friday morning, the space agency issued an update about its defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, which is dropping out of the sky more slowly than anticipated. 'Re-entry is expected late Friday, Sept. 23, or early Saturday, Sept. 24, Eastern Daylight Time,' NASA said."

AP: "A startling find at one of the world’s foremost laboratories that a subatomic particle seemed to move faster than the speed of light has scientists around the world rethinking Albert Einstein and one of the foundations of physics. Now they are planning to put the finding to further high-speed tests to see if a revolutionary shift in explaining the workings of the universe is needed — or if the European scientists made a mistake."

Live Science: "Many 9/11 conspiracy theories revolve around explosions that were seen and heard in the World Trade Center's Twin Towers prior to their collapse. Despite scientific investigations that have explained the processes that brought down the skyscrapers, some conspiracy theorists suggest the plane impacts were just red herrings, to distract from the fact that 9/11 was an 'inside job....' Now a materials scientist, [Christen Simensen of SINTEF], has come up with a more scientific explanation for the mystery booms, and says his model of the Twin Towers collapse leaves no room for conspiracies." CW: Aah, he's probably part of the vast conspiracy.