The Commentariat -- July 17

Both Maureen Dowd & Frank Bruni write fairly interesting columns, each on a matter having to do with law and order. ...

     ... Dowd laments that the prosecution in the Roger Clemens perjury case made such a boneheaded error that the judge had to declare a mistrial. ...

     ... Bruni discusses an incident in which a gun-totin' Arizona state legislator allegedly pointed her loaded gun at an Arizona Republic reporter. "... the only state that still forbids concealed weapons is Illinois, said Chad Ramsey, Federal legislation director for the Brady Campaign." Bruni notes that "... a cavalier attitude about guns persists and even flourishes." ...

     ... I've posted a "Law & Order" comments page on Off Times Square. I'll add my comments soon.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The Obama administration and Congress must raise the federal debt ceiling by Aug 2. That is all there is to it.... I expect that they will find a way to increase the debt ceiling on time. If they also figure out how to even partially address our long-term fiscal problems during their negotiations over the next couple of weeks, that would be a big plus. But it is not necessary right now." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the idea that if families are tightening their belts, the government should do the same, is as deeply intuitive as it is deeply wrong. But the susceptibility of politicians — including, alas, the president — and pundits to these wrong ideas demands a deeper explanation." That explanation, Krugman suggests, is this:

     ... Mike Konczal: "... there’s been a wide refocusing of the mechanisms of our society towards the crucial obsession of oligarchs: wealth and income defense." ...

... Reid Wilson of the National Journal: John Boehner has been trying to teach Econ 101 basic arithmetic to Tea Party members of the House. He even brought an expert in. With charts! If you only have three apples but you promised Johnny four apples. ...

... David Leonhardt of the New York Times: We're living through a tremendous consumer bust, & the nature of the proposed deficit-reduction proposals is only going to make it worse.

You've Never Heard of Mike Mondelli, but He Knows All about You. Ylan Mui of the Washington Post on the "fourth bureau" -- private companies that track your personal data, including "auto warranties, cellphone bills and magazine subscriptions..., purchases of prepaid cards and visits to payday lenders and rent-to-own furniture stores..., whether your checks have cleared and ... public records [that] mention ... your name." Sometimes the fourth bureau makes mistakes; good luck getting the errors corrected. ...

     ... PLUS, five facts about the fourth bureau. You won't like them.

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times analyzes the sources of President Obama's big campaign fund haul: "More than half a million people have donated to the president’s campaign or his joint fund with the Democratic National Committee..., and the two accounts gained a combined record-breaking $86 million for the campaign by the end of June. But Mr. Obama’s bundlers — 271 in all — accounted for at least 40 percent of the total, according to the campaign’s estimates."

"Murdoch's Watergate?" Carl Bernstein in Newsweek: "The circumstances of the alleged lawbreaking within News Corp. suggest more than a passing resemblance to Richard Nixon presiding over a criminal conspiracy in which he insulated himself from specific knowledge of numerous individual criminal acts while being himself responsible for and authorizing general policies that routinely resulted in lawbreaking and unconstitutional conduct. Not to mention his role in the cover-up." ...

... Don Van Natta of the New York Times: for more than four years, "senior Scotland Yard officials assured Parliament, judges, lawyers, potential hacking victims, the news media and the public that there was no evidence of widespread hacking by the tabloid." Yet they were sitting on "a treasure-trove of evidence: 11,000 pages of handwritten notes listing nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims whose phones may have been hacked by The News of the World.... At best, former Scotland Yard senior officers acknowledged in interviews, the police have been lazy, incompetent and too cozy with the people they should have regarded as suspects. At worst, they said, some officers might be guilty of crimes themselves." ...

... NEW. Max Read of Gawker notes that Rebekah Brooks' arrest today, just two days ahead of her scheduled testimony before a parliamentay committee "helps her more than hurts her," & it helps Scotland Yard, too, who could not have been looking forward to any testimony that suggested their complicity o participation in aspects of the scandal.

Right Wing World

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times on the Bachmann Formula: "... he political rise has its roots in her dogged pursuit of an amendment to the State Constitution prohibiting same-sex marriage ... and her mixing of politics with her evangelical faith. The 'Bachmann marriage wars' ... offer a case study in the congresswoman’s ability to seize an issue and use it to circumvent the party establishment — the same tactic, analysts say, that made her a Tea Party star in Washington and a hot commodity on the campaign trail.

Local News

Rick Ungar of Forbes: one outcome of the "fake" Wisconsin Democratic primary forced because the state Republican party mounted "fake" Democratic challengers (they're called Republicans): the little ploy cost taxpayers $400,000, in a state which Gov. Scott Walker has claimed was "broke." Ungar writes, "Walker’s willingness to blow taxpayer money in so cynical a fashion ... speaks ... to Mr. Walker’s true character and convictions...." CW: Americans know elections cost money, and it's a cost of governance we're generally glad to pay, but this was, as even Republicans admitted, a "fake" primary, since all of the challengers came from the GOP. It was, by every account, a GOP stunt. The taxpayers should not pay for it; the Republican party should. Maybe to help pay for it, "Fake Koch" will write them a check.

News Ledes

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post maps out what steps Congress is likely to take next in relation to raising the debt ceiling. Actually raising the debt ceiling does not seem to be one of the steps.

New York Times: "President Obama said Sunday that he would nominate Richard Cordray, the former attorney general of Ohio, to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mr. Cordray came to national attention for his aggressive investigations of mortgage foreclosure practices during his one term as attorney general. He has already joined" the CFPB "as the head of its enforcement division."

Guardian: "Rebekah Brooks has been arrested by police investigating allegations of phone hacking by the News of the World and allegations that police officers were bribed to leak sensitive information.... An arrest by appointment on a Sunday is unusual." The Telegraph has a liveblog on scandal developments. ...

     ... The New York Times reports some of the media responses to Brooks' arrest. Here's the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal report.

     ... ** UPDATE: "Britain's top police officer, Sir Paul Stephenson, announced his shock resignation as he was brought down by his failure to tell senior figures, including the prime minister, that Scotland Yard had hired a former News of the World executive as an adviser while refusing to reopen inquiries into phone hacking." AND this from the Guardian on what precipitated Stephenson's resignation. ...

     ... Telegraph: "The News of the World allegedly hacked into the mobile phones of [actor] Jude Law and his personal assistant while they were in New York, opening the way for News International to be prosecuted in the United States.... The Sun said it has carried out an investigation and found there is 'no foundation' to the claim." ...

     ... Telegraph: "A senior Scotland Yard officer has told The Sunday Telegraph that News International executives – including Mr Murdoch’s son James – are being investigated for any alleged role in covering up the extent of “industrial scale” phone hacking." ...

... Telegraph: " Pressure on News Corporation to make fundamental changes to its business increased last night after it was revealed that members of the BSkyB board are to meet in special session to discuss James Murdoch’s future as chairman and leading shareholders said the company should sell off its UK newspaper business."

Haaretz: "Wishing to avoid an American veto at the Security Council, the Palestinian Authority is considering turning directly to the United Nations General Assembly in September in order to gain international recognition of Palestinian statehood."

Reuters: "Temperatures averaged up to 15 degrees above normal, with most peaks in the 90s but triple digit heat expected to strike from Montana to New Mexico, according to lead meteorologists for The Weather Channel and The National Weather Service."

** The Hill: "House Republican leaders have missed a 36-hour deadline President Obama set during a Thursday meeting for lawmakers to give him a plan to avert a national default. The deadline came and went Saturday morning without a response from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Instead, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) plan to move the Cut, Cap and Balance Act on the floor next week, which would require passage of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution before the debt limit is raised." ...

     ... CW: perhaps this CNN story -- that Tea Party oganizations are ramping up pressure on members of Congress -- explains the House leadership's irresponsibility. ...

... BUT Washington Post: "Even as President Obama and congressional leaders focus on a fallback plan to lift the nation’s debt ceiling, top Democrats and Republicans have begun to map a new way to craft the same sort of ambitious deficit-cutting plan they abandoned last week. As part of the deal being discussed to raise the debt ceiling, leaders on Capitol Hill are forming an especially powerful congressional committee that would be charged with drawing up a new 'grand bargain,' possibly by the end of the year."