The Commentariat -- August 3, 2012
New York Times Editors: "What are Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Draghi waiting for? Slower growth? Higher unemployment? Lower output?"
Paul Krugman: "President Obama, if re-elected, can, and should, replace [Ed DeMarco, the acting director of the agency that runs Fannie & Freddie,] through a recess appointment. In fact, he should have done that years ago.... Mr. Obama has made plenty of mistakes. But the DeMarco affair nonetheless demonstrates, once again, the extent to which U.S. economic policy has been crippled by unyielding, irresponsible political opposition. If our economy is still deeply depressed, much — and I would say most — of the blame rests not with Mr. Obama but with the very people seeking to use that depressed economy for political advantage."
Tim Egan has a few thoughts on Nino Scalia's contribution to democracy. Like this: "Secretive donor money in federal elections went from 1 percent in 2006 to 44 percent in 2010, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions." And this: "Fewer than 200 people in a nation of 313 million comprise 80 percent of all super PAC donations."
A Brave Senate Finance Committee Tackles Tax Reform. Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "... members of the Senate Finance Committee congratulated themselves for agreeing to jettison 20 [tax breaks], including a $5,000 credit for first-time home buyers in the District and a cash-incentive program for wind-energy projects that has been derided as benefiting foreign companies. But their failure to weed out dozens more pet provisions clouded prospects for a far-reaching simplification of the nation’s tax laws advocated by President Obama, GOP challenger Mitt Romney and congressional leaders in both parties." Among them: "An accelerated write-off for owners of NASCAR tracks." Well, of course, some of these guys are "great friends" of Mitt's. (And of a senator on the Finance Committee, too, no doubt.)
Dave Weigel posts on the closing arguments in the Pennsylvania voter fraud trial.
AND Teddy Partridge of Firedoglake finds "the best obit correction ever: the New York Times on Gore Vidal."
Presidential Race
Chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him [Mitt Romney]….Mitt Romney made $20 million in 2010 but paid only 14 percent in taxes…probably less than you. Now he has a plan that would give millionaires another tax break. And raises taxes on middle class families by up to two thousand dollars a year. -- Voiceover in Obama ad ...
... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "This ad is tough, but we cannot fault the accuracy of its key points. To some extent, the Romney campaign has been hoist with its own petard by refusing to provide sufficient detail that shows how the numbers add up in Romney’s tax and budget plans. So we are left with the judgment of a respected and independent third party. We hold campaign ads to a high standard, particularly attack ads.... For the first time in this frequently nasty campaign, we award a rare Geppetto Checkmark for a campaign ad."
Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: " on Thursday continued his swing-state offensive against ’s tax-cut plans, deriding them as a boon to the rich at the expense of everyone else — 'trickle-down tax-cut fairy dust,' he called them at a college here."
Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "After a rocky trip to Europe and Israel in which his remarks drew complaints from British and leaders, flew Thursday to Colorado, an important swing state, to try to regain his footing and refocus his campaign on his core message of renewing the economy."
Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Obama touted his record on women's issues and stressed the women in his personal story as he addressed a major gathering of women bloggers on Thursday. 'Women’s issues are front and center as they should be. But the conversation has been oversimplified a bit,' he told the BlogHer conference in New York, speaking live via video from Orlando, Fla. 'Women are not a monolithic bloc, not an interest group. You make up more than half our country and our workforce, not to mention 80 percent my household if you count my mother-in-law.'"
Jamelle Bouie of the American Prospect: "Obama’s attacks on Romney’s financial life — Bain Capital, his tax returns, his ostentatious wealth — are meant to present the former Massachusetts governor as an unscrupulous plutocrat, indifferent to the lives of ordinary Americans. But the goal of that is to soften Romney for the main event — an all-out attack on his economic plan." ...
... More Secret Mitt. Benjy Sarlin of TPM: "A new study describing Mitt Romney’s tax cut proposals as an average tax increase for 95% of Americans is 'a joke,' according to Romney adviser Eric Ferhnstrom. But policy aides offered no indication they plan to offer more details on Romney’s plan in order to clarify how it would be paid for...." ...
... David Firestone of the New York Times: "The Romney campaign’s increasingly desperate attempts to dismiss a new study of its tax plan are a pretty good sign that the study is devastating. That isn’t to say the campaign is trying to counter it with actual specifics.... The Tax Policy Center ... has one of the more reliable and unbiased computer models of the nation’s tax system. But for the far right (also known as the Republican center), any tax analysis that doesn’t swallow the prosperity gospel of tax-cut magic is, therefore, liberal." ...
... Paul Krugman: "Obama['s tax plan] is inadequate; Romney['s] is intensely, screamingly irresponsible. On top of that, Romney is scamming voters, claiming not only that he can make up the lost revenue by closing unspecified loopholes, but that he can do so in a way that doesn’t shift the tax burden away from the rich onto the middle class. He can’t, as a matter of sheer arithmetic — which is the point of that Tax Policy Center study. The Romney campaign isn’t even trying to make a substantive argument in response — they’re just calling names."
Maggie Haberman of Politico: "On Sean Hannity's radio show, Mitt Romney just told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to 'put up or shut up' on the unsubstantiated allegations he's made about the GOP hopeful not paying his taxes for ten years.... But the 'put up' line was a bit surprising, since Romney is the one under fire for not releasing his returns..., and only he, in this specific instance, has the documents in question that someone is asking be 'put up.'"
Fred Kaplan of Slate: "Romney's foreign policy ideas are really quite scary.... Romney took this trip to pass a fairly simple test: to demonstrate a bedrock comfort and competence on the world stage. He failed that test.... In comparing Romney’s foreign policy to Obama’s...: They’re the same, except when Romney’s is more reckless or mysterious. Not a good bumper sticker."
... AND in Sporting News.... "Ann Romney's horse fails to win dressage but avoids offending British." Sam Jones of the Guardian: "... the 15-year-old bay Oldenburg mare acquitted herself rather well. True, she and her rider, Jan Ebeling, may have been left well behind by Britain's Carl Hester, Germany's Dorothee Schneider and Denmark's Anna Kasprzak but, by Romney standards, her performance was a positive triumph. Never for a second during her seven-minute performance did a hoof stray dangerously mouthwards, nor did she do anything at all to offend or upset the host nation. From the moment she entered the Greenwich Park equestrian arena at 12.15 on Thursday afternoon, the most famous political horse since Caligula toyed with making a consul of Incitatus seemed in her element."
News Ledes
AP: "Syria reached out to its powerful ally Russia on Friday, as senior officials pleaded with Moscow for financial loans and supplies of oil products — an indication that international sanctions are squeezing President Bashar Assad's regime.... Rebels fought regime forces in the Syrian capital only two weeks after the government crushed a revolt there."
New York Times: "Cass Sunstein, 57, who projected an air of disheveled academic detachment while becoming one of the Obama administration’s most provocative figures, announced Friday that he was leaving government to return to Harvard Law School."
Houston Chronicle: "A federal judge in Galveston on Thursday partially blocked new Texas registration laws that critics say amount to vote suppression because they prevent large voter registration drives. U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa blocked the state from enforcing five provisions of the laws that its defenders say are aimed at preventing voter fraud."
NBC News: "House Republicans will file a civil suit against Attorney General Eric Holder during the August recess, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has told NBC News."
Bloomberg News: "Payrolls in the U.S. climbed more than forecast in July, boosted by a pickup in employment at automakers, even as the jobless rate unexpectedly rose to a five-month high. The increase of 163,000 followed a revised 64,000 gain in June payrolls that was less than initially reported.... Unemployment rose to 8.3 percent."
New York Times: " lost more than $800 million on its food and beverage services over the last 10 years, largely because of waste, employee theft and lack of proper oversight, government auditors have found."
AP: "Growing use of generic medicines has reduced U.S. health care spending by more than $1 trillion over the past decade, according to an industry-funded study released Thursday. The fourth annual report, produced for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, found use of generic prescription drugs in the U.S. saved about $193 billion last year alone."
Washington Post: "Two federal agencies and Congress said Thursday that they were investigating an incident at Reagan National Airport in which commuter jets headed in opposite directions closed to within about 1,650 yards of one another at a combined speed of 436 mph.... Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood ... praised the air traffic controller who recognized that the planes were closing on each other at a high speed. The controller ordered one pilot to abort his approach to National and turn south. The three planes, all operated by US Airways, carried 192 passengers and crew members, the airline said. They all reached their destinations safely."
Reuters: "U.S. Representative Diane Black won the primary election by a comfortable margin over Lou Ann Zelenik, noted for her fierce opposition to the Islamic Center built in Murfreesboro..., although it was outside the congressional district she sought to represent. Zelenik was backed by a wealthy conservative businessman from Nashville, who paid for ads attacking Black over the mosque and Islam. Zelenik charged that Black had not opposed the mosque vigorously."
Space: "The 1-ton Curiosity rover, the heart of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, is slated to touch down inside the Red Planet's Gale Crater on Sunday night (Aug. 5)."
Politico: "The House officially reprimanded Rep. Laura Richardson on Thursday for improperly using her official staff to conduct campaign work and personal errands, the latest blow to the California Democrat’s bid for a fourth term in Congress."
Guardian: "Former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was formally charged with phone hacking and will appear in court next month.... Six other journalists from the News of the World, including David Cameron's former spin doctor Andy Coulson, have been officially charged and will appear at the same court on 16 August."
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Reader Comments (9)
Just finished Tim Egan's scathing column: "Fifty Shades of Scalia." Read it in today's NYT if you have not. He makes Scalia look like the arrogant, crude, 19th century little twit that he so thoroughly is.
But the quote in the article I liked the best was about MittWitt's recent trip to Israel with his BFF, Sheldon Adelson. Those two must be having an "affair de billione!" Hey, maybe what Egan is telling us is that they are heavy into B&D. Leashes, chains, strapping their gold cages on tops of cars.
..."You can see this imbalance at work in the person of Sheldon Adelson, the orange-haired, creepy-voiced casino magnate who has promised to contribute up to $100 million to super PACS to knock out President Obama. If you wonder why Mitt Romney was reduced to a pandering stooge in Israel a few days ago, you can blame the traveling companion who held the candidate’s leash — Adelson."
How I wish Obama, instead of referring to Romney's economic plan as "trickle down fairy dust," would use the analogy John Kenneth Galbraith offered up when he was saying that supply-side economics was not a new theory, that David Stockman had said that SSE was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy: This was "What an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through o the road for the sparrows." SO much better and plain enough for those dimmer lights to understand.
Several things. First, from my NYT comment that may go up on the site before 9 p.m. tonight:
I'd like to thank Wikileaks for a great David Brooks satire, right down to the knowing superiority Mr. Brooks oozes twice a week. I thought the Keller piece was on the money, but this one tops it. When "Brooks" ends with, "As an ambitious executive, it’s important that you believe that you will deserve credit for everything you achieve. As a human being, it’s important for you to know that’s nonsense," he's saying that you should be a Republican at work and a Democrat at home. Priceless!
Next, love the Galbraith analogy, PD.
Also, in re JJG's point from last night (some of us check back late in the evening), it's true that the percentage of morons in the universe may not have increased, but rather the ubiquity of cameras and microphones seems to make them more prominent than those who hang back and say little. Having to fill over a 700 hours a month on "news" stations necessitates hunting down anyone who is willing to say something outrageous that can then be parsed and debated ad infinitum. Of course, being photogenic helps, just in case someone tunes in and thinks he's watching Juneau Shore.
Re: "the best obit correction ever" on Gore Vidal.
Well, that’s a relief! Nazi instead of fascist; Al, not a cousin, but …and finally sex with Howard before but not after. Picky, picky, but most important stuff to get right.
At the end of “Palimpsest” Gore says this:
“A right-wing radio windbag called Rush Limbaugh, after the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress, declared, ‘the age of Lenin and Gore Vidal is over.’ I am inclined to dust off my six-shooters: Billy the Kid will ride again––unless he meant Lennon, not Lenin.”
@ Jack Mahoney : Thank You. Everyone should go back and read JJG yesterday.
" In today's world we think more about what matter least." I wish I had written that.
Matt Taibbi's piece in the NYTX is a good read–-Sandy Weill is changing lanes, entering onto a road worth going down. A shame that he was once responsible for all the debris. I'd be interested if anyone here knows the reason for Taibbi's obvious distain for Sorkin.
"Q.: Would you say you, yourself, are better off financially than you were when Obama became president, not as well off, or in about the same shape as then financially? Why?"
Washington Post first headlined this feature on their Home page with a header something to the effect: "...Are you better off after Obama." Talk about slanting an article...and this is a similar tactic used by pollsters. WAPO subsequently 'toned the header down" to focus on the year 2008 and not the President. But I dislike the initial tactic. Is it for headline grabbing? Probably. Easy for respondents to say, "my life is worse since Obama. The economy is in the toilet since Obama." It is an unfair method of questioning.
And, it certainly tends to color the responses.
It makes it easy to go negative.
That said, Q.: how do you feel Congress is doing?
No-brainer answer here!!
This just in! Mitt's overseas trip was a success. Charles Krauthammer said so in today's Washington Post. Of course CK is going to approve of any criticism of Palestinians and lauding Israel. Other than London... Who cares what the Brits think anyway? According to CK, it's all the press's fault that they didn't see how wise Mitt is.
Admittedly, it's not hard to pick on Scalia but Egan did do his usual nice job. This morning I wrote this comment which may be posted one of these hours:
"The Law is an interesting creature. Unlike science, which originates in and celebrates observation and a recognition and appreciation of the real, the kind of Law that a Scalia brain is comfortable with starts with Truth (Originalism) and applies it willy-nilly, whether it fits the facts or not.
Unlike a scientist who seeks underlying truths so accurate and precise that they can predict behaviors before they occur, a Scalia mind forces a complicated world into a narrow compass and blames the obvious contortion on someone else: in his case, the Founders. Then when the world doesn't fit, (26 people controlling nearly half of a purported democracy's wealth, where all are equally entitled to the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, snigger, snigger), it's obviously the world's fault. It's the world, not the Law that needs to be changed. The Founders' Original Intent is always right, even when it's obviously wrong.
Apparently, Mr. Scalia still misses his Daddy."
Since then, I've had this additional thought: Maybe the most appropriate and emblematic Republican icon should be the little Dutch Boy, bravely thrusting his finger into the dike holding back the floodwaters of history. We consider the little boy heroic because what he did solved a problem; it was a reasonable delaying action; a real dike can be strengthened and a flood tide will ebb.
The Right, which has become home to all those whose politics are just another way of saying "I wish it were not so," though, is not heroic. Just dumb little boys.