The Commentariat -- February 8
We don't seek to aid the rich, but those lower- and middle-income families who are most strapped by taxes and the recession. -- President Ronald Reagan, 1983
Gene Robinson: "On the planet that today's GOP leaders call home, [President Ronald] Reagan would qualify as one of those big-government, tax-and-spend liberals who are trying so hard to destroy the American way of life.... [Today] Democrats sound and act almost like Reaganites." ...
... To-wit, Dana Milbank on President Obama's "I-love-business speech." ...
... Robert Reich on Obama's flirtation with the Chamber:
I’ve been watching (and occasionally trying to deal with) the Chamber for years, and all I know is it has a deep, abiding belief in cutting taxes on the wealthy, eroding regulations that constrain Wall Street, cutting back on rules that promote worker health and safety, getting rid of the minimum wage, repealing the new health-care law, fighting unions, cutting back Medicare and Social Security, reducing or eliminating corporate taxes, and, in general, taking the nation back to the days before the New Deal.
Bob Herbert: "Forget the fairy tales being spun by politicians in both parties — that somehow they can impose service cuts that are drastic enough to bring federal and local budgets into balance while at the same time developing economic growth strong enough to support a robust middle class. It would take a Bernie Madoff to do that."
Speaking of spin, the White House is soliciting your innovative ideas:
About Those Earmarks.... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: Across the country, local governments, nonprofit groups and scores of farmers, to name but a few, are waking up to the fact that when Congress stamped out earmarks last week, it was talking about their projects, too. Tensions are particularly acute in districts where new conservative lawmakers, many of whom criticized [earmars] throughout their campaigns, are coming face to face with local governments and interest groups who were counting on federal dollars to help shore up their own collapsing budgets."
Constitutional law Prof. Laurence Tribe in a New York Times op-ed on why the Supreme Court Justices will rule the Affordable Care Act constitutional: "Since the New Deal, the court has consistently held that Congress has broad constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.... Even if the interstate commerce clause did not suffice to uphold mandatory insurance, the even broader power of Congress to impose taxes would surely do so.... Given the clear case for the law’s constitutionality, it’s distressing that many assume its fate will be decided by a partisan, closely divided Supreme Court."...
... CW: if you think Tribe's op-ed is a reminder to the conservative Supremes to respect precedent, you just might be right. Also, the Times doesn't say so, but Tribe, who is a former professor of Barack Obama's, has done (maybe is doing) volunteer work for the Obama Administration. (The anecdote that opens this April 2010 NYT story is terrific).
Judicial Crisis. Jerry Markon & Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post: "Federal judges have been retiring at a rate of one per week this year, driving up vacancies that have nearly doubled since President Obama took office.... Experts blame Republican delaying tactics, slow White House nominations and a dysfunctional Senate confirmation system."
Jonathan Weisman & Damian Paletta of the Wall Street Journal: "President Barack Obama's budget proposal is expected to give states a way to collect more payroll taxes from businesses, in an effort to replenish the unemployment-insurance program.... The proposal would ... [raise] the amount of wages on which companies must pay unemployment taxes to $15,000, more than double the $7,000 in place since 1983."
Zachary Roth of Yahoo News: "Despite record levels of long-term unemployment, some states are choosing to walk away from a total of almost $1 billion in federal jobless benefits, according to a new report (pdf)."
Manu Raju of Politico: "A handful of moderate Senate Democrats are looking for ways to roll back the highly contentious individual mandate — ... a sign that red-state senators are prepared to assert their independence ahead of the 2012 elections.... And it’s not just health care. The senators are prepared to break with the White House on a wide range of issues: embracing deeper spending cuts, scaling back business regulations and overhauling environmental rules. The moderates most likely to buck their party include Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana — all of whom are up for reelection in 2012 and represent states Obama lost in 2008." ...
... CW: if you live in any of the named states, please write to your senator and tell her/him you're appalled.
Robert Fisk of the (U.K.) Independent: "Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama's envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by [saying] ... "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy.' ... The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a 'personal capacity'. But there is nothing 'personal' about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises 'the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government's behalf in Europe and the US'."
Even in past examples where presidents have sent someone 'respected' or 'close' to a foreign leader in order to lubricate an exit, the envoys in question were not actually paid by the leader they were supposed to squeeze out. -- Nicholas Noe, political researcher ...
... Helene Cooper & David Sanger of the New York Times: "... lacking better options, the United States is ... relying on the existing [Egyptian] government to make changes that it has steadfastly resisted for years.... After two weeks of recalibrated messages..., the Obama administration is still trying to balance support for some of the basic aspirations for change in Egypt with its concern that the pro-democracy movement could be 'hijacked,' as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it.... The result has been to feed a perception ... that the United States ... is putting stability ahead of democratic ideals, and leaving hopes of nurturing peaceful, gradual change in large part in the hands of Egyptian officials — starting with [Egyptian Vice President Omar] Suleiman — who have every reason to slow the process." ...
... Glenn Greenwald is back with a look at Our Man in Cairo, Omar Suleiman:
Given the long-obvious fact that the Obama administration has been working to install Suleiman as interim leader as a (dubious) means of placating citizen anger, the above-referenced NYT article today offers a long and detailed profile of the new Egyptian 'Vice President.' Unfortunately, the paper of record wasn't able to find the space to inform its readers about Suleiman's decades-long history as America's personal abducter, detainer and torturer of the Egyptian people, nor his status as Israel's most favored heir to the Mubarak tyranny....
When Vice President Cheney called Mubarak a good friend and a U.S. ally, it is telling that his example of Mubarak’s friendship — Egyptian assistance during the liberation of Kuwait — is two decades old. He omitted that Mubarak held out for $14 billion in debt forgiveness before he chose sides. -- Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Institute
... Marian Wang of ProPublica: "The American-made tear gas used to disperse pro-democracy protesters in Egypt earlier this week was sold to the country after government review, a State Department spokeswoman told us.... The State spokeswoman, Nicole Thompson, said she didn’t immediately know when the approval was given for Egypt." Via David Sirota tweet.
What Robert Gibbs Is Not:
Goodbye & Good Riddance. Ben Smith of Politico: "The Democratic Leadership Council, the iconic centrist organization of the Clinton years, is out of money and could close its doors as soon as next week, a person familiar with the plans said Monday." ...
... BUT. Ezra Klein: the DLC may have lost the war, but they won the battle.
Right Wing News
Planet Republican. Andrew Leonard of Salon: As U.S. gas prices rise, watch for this: "Republicans busily rewriting history in a tired effort to prove that an unregulated free market is the answer to all our energy woes." Leonard shows how Fred Upton, chair of the House Energy Committee, has already falsely credited Ronald Reagan for cheap oil.
Fox Feud. Steve Benen: Last week, "the deranged media personality" Glenn Beck explained the Egyptian uprising with "truly bizarre conspiracy theories -- even by his standards -- involving caliphates, communists, and radical theocrats, all of whom are coordinating their efforts for 'the coming insurrection' and the 'new world order.' ... The Weekly Standard's William Kristol, a Fox News contributor, [wrote], "[H]ysteria is not a sign of health.... When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left..., hee's marginalizing himself...." ... National Review's Rich Lowry, who's also a Fox News contributor, praised Kristol for taking 'a well-deserved shot at Glenn Beck's latest wild theorizing. ... Apparently, Beck caught wind of all of this, and lashed out at Kristol on his radio show this [Monday] morning." ...
... BUT, Adam Serwer points out, there's not much daylight between Beck's crazy theory & the crap Kristol & Lowry spew. ...
... AND Alex Pareene of Salon: "The beautiful thing about this feud is that both sides employ both spot-on, devastating assessments of each other and their usual off-the-wall nonsense talk."
Local News
More in our continuing series "Worst Governor Ever." Mark Caputo & Steve Bousquet of the Miami Herald: "At a highly partisan tea-party event on Monday, Gov. Rick Scott unveiled his first budget proposal, one that makes sweeping changes to state government by slashing billions in taxes and spending. Scott ... wants to eliminate 7 percent of the state’s government jobs, which would mean about 6,700 state-worker layoffs. He wants even more cuts the following year. Scott’s proposal ... provoked a lukewarm response from fellow Republicans in the state Capitol. Democrats, unions and state workers could barely contain their bitterness over Scott’s calls to cut billions from schools, pensions and health programs."
Today, Governor Scott proposed his jobs-killing budget, which absolutely will increase unemployment in Florida and would continue the failed Republican policies of the past decade that have left the Sunshine State with one of the worst economies in the nation. In addition to killing jobs, the Governor’s budget slashes funding for Florida’s children, cuts disability programs for the most vulnerable in our society, and slashes veterans funding while at the same time more than doubling spending on his personal office. -- Rod Smith, Florida Democratic Party Chairman
News Ledes
Reuters: "The U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote to block funding for President Barack Obama's signature healthcare overhaul when it takes up a budget plan next week, House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said on Tuesday."
Al Jazeera: "Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian vice-president, warned on Tuesday that his government 'can't put up with continued protests' for a long time, as tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters rallied in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the sixteenth day in a row." ...
... AP: Wael Ghonim, "a young leader of Egypt's anti-government protesters, newly released from detention, joined a massive crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the first time Tuesday and was greeted with cheers, whistling and thunderous applause when he declared: 'We will not abandon our demand and that is the departure of the regime.' Many in the crowd said they were inspired by ... Ghonim, the 30-year-old Google Inc. marketing manager who was a key organizer of the online campaign that sparked the first protest on Jan. 25 to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Straight from his release from 12 days of detention, Ghonim gave an emotionally charged television interview Monday night where he sobbed over those who have been killed in two weeks of clashes and insisted, 'We love Egypt ... and we have rights.'" ...
... BBC News: "At least 297 people were killed in the unrest in Egypt in the last two weeks, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. 'It was the police's excessive use of force and illegal tactics that caused the vast majority of these deaths,' HRW researcher Heba Morayef told the BBC World Service. 'The majority of deaths occurred on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th, and the primary cause was live gunfire,' Ms Morayef added." Includes audio. ...
... Bullshit Offensive. AP: "President Hosni Mubarak set up a committee Tuesday to recommend constitutional amendments to relax presidential eligibility rules and impose term limits — seeking to meet longtime popular demands as a standoff with protesters seeking his ouster enters its third week. Mubarak's decrees were announced on state television by Vice President Omar Suleiman, who also said that Mubarak will set up a separate committee to monitor the implementation." ...
... Reuters: "Egypt has a plan and timetable for the peaceful transfer of power, the vice president said on Tuesday, as protesters called more demonstrations to show their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak remains potent.... Protesters camped on Cairo's Tahrir Square accused the government of merely playing for time, and swore they would not give up until the current 'half revolution' was complete." ...
... AP: "The Obama administration is urging Egyptian leaders to include more people in a national dialogue on reform but won't endorse demands from protesters for the immediate resignation of embattled President Hosni Mubarak."
New York Times: "Iran’s opposition has challenged its hard-line leaders to allow a peaceful demonstration — ostensibly in support of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.... While similar requests have recently been met with flat refusals or utter disregard..., refusal to grant permission for such a rally would be seen by opposition supporters and perhaps others as hypocritical."
Guardian: "Julian Assange's Swedish lawyer was shown scores of text messages sent by the two women who accuse him of rape and sexual assault, in which they speak of 'revenge' and extracting money from him, an extradition hearing was told."
AP: "A Swedish legal expert said Tuesday there were serious irregularities in the way prosecutors built their sex crimes case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange." ...
New York Times: "North and South Korea held discussions on Tuesday, the first inter-Korean dialogue since an artillery exchange in November that killed four South Koreans and brought the countries to the brink of war."
AP: "Chechen warlord Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for last month's suicide bombing at a Moscow airport and threatened more such attacks as a growing Islamic insurgency tries to force Russia to surrender control over its southern Caucasus region."
AP: "Prosecutors say they will request a trial against Premier Silvio Berlusconi over accusations he paid for sex with a 17-year-old girl and then used his influence to intervene on her behalf."
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