The Commentariat -- July 19
"The Tables Are Turned" Joe Nocera: Rupert Murdoch has happily dished it out, but he doesn't know how to take it. ...
... I've posted a Nocera page on Off Times Square for today. ...
... John Burns of the New York Times: the Murdoch hacking scandal is posing a threat to the survival of British PM David Cameron, who has extremely close ties to Murdoch & his minions. ...
... Jo Becker & Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "... a small group of [News Corp.] executives pursued strategies for years that had the effect of obscuring the extent of wrongdoing in the newsroom of The News of the World.... And once the hacking scandal escalated, they scrambled in vain to quarantine the damage. Evidence indicating that The News of the World paid the police for information was not handed over to the authorities for four years. Its parent company paid hefty sums to those who threatened legal action, on condition of silence. The tabloid continued to pay reporters and editors whose knowledge could prove embarrassing even after they were fired or arrested for hacking. A key editor’s computer equipment was destroyed, and e-mail evidence was lost."
** Joe Conason in the National Memo: "Former President Bill Clinton says that he would invoke the so-called constitutional option to raise the nation’s debt ceiling 'without hesitation, and force the courts to stop me' in order to prevent a default, should Congress and the President fail to achieve agreement before the August 2 deadline. Sharply criticizing Congressional Republicans in an exclusive Monday evening interview with The National Memo, Clinton said, 'I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy.'" CW: the former President took the words right out of my mouth. I've been saying exactly this for weeks, even as numerous commenters on Off Times Square, not to mention Constitutional expert Larry Tribe, argued I was dead wrong. ...
... "Unbalanced Approach." Jason Furman, National Economic Council director, in a White House blog, rips apart the House's Cut, Cap & Balance bill. ...
... "Ryan Plan on Steroids." Dylan Matthews in the Washington Post: in a conference call with news outlets, "Furman called CCB a 'extreme, radical, unprecedented' proposal, and [White House Communications Director Dan] Pfeiffer described it as 'the Ryan plan on steroids.' Perhaps most interesting was that Pfeiffer and Furman emphasized strongly the negative economic impacts of immediate cuts, noting that CBO director Doug Elmendorf has said a $100 billion annual cut would have a noticeable impact on near-term GDP growth. They insisted that Obama’s preferred debt plan would heavily backload spending cuts....” ...
...Jonathan Cohn: "Would securing a major deficit reduction package reduce opposition to government spending and, perhaps, build support for liberal initiatives in the future," as President Obama has claimed? "... three prominent public opinion experts ... were skeptical, although not without qualification." ...
... George Packer of the New Yorker: "What does either side have to offer the tens of millions of Americans who have settled into a semi-permanent state of economic depression? Virtually nothing. But if responsibility were fused with conviction — if politics were a vocation in Washington toda — the [needy] would be represented at the negotiating table." CW: a very fine essay that encapsulates what's the matter with Washington. ...
... "Scribblers & Madmen." Paul Krugman: a major reason Republicans don't understand Keynesian economics is that they listen to a cadre of professional economists who don't understand macroeconomics either.
As Kate Madison noted in yesterday's Off Times Square, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a Draft Elizabeth Warren campaign. You can sign on here. ...
... Peter Schroeder of The Hill: "Elizabeth Warren ... said Monday she would think about running for Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) seat in 2012":
... Noah Bierman of the Boston Globe: "Elizabeth Warren ... will spend early August assessing whether to try to unseat Senator Scott Brown, an adviser said." ...
... Steven Syre of the Boston Globe: "The president would have done better simply by nominating Warren to run the national consumer agency she invented.... The president would have helped himself by nominating Warren, too. Standing up for consumers by nominating an able watchdog chief opposed by a wall of bankers is a good political alternative to what the president actually did - choosing someone else in an apparent concession." ...
... Lee Fang of Think Progress: harassing Elizabeth Warren pays off for Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.).
Dana Milbank: "The remarkable thing about what happened on the Senate floor Monday night was that it was utterly unremarkable. The matter under consideration – the nomination of the first openly gay man to serve on the federal bench – would at one time have been a flashpoint in the culture wars. But Paul Oetken was confirmed without a word of objection on the Senate floor and with hardly a mention in the commentariat." ...
... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "... the federal bench is currently losing judges twice as fast as new ones are being confirmed.... The moment President Obama took office, Senate Republicans launched an unprecedented game of obstruction against his judicial nominees, slowing the judicial confirmation to just over half what it was during at this point in the last two presidencies."
Right Wing World *
Steve Benen finds another "not very bright" Congressman -- Todd Rokita (R-Ind.) -- who doesn't have a clue about what raising the debt limit means, so Benen decides a rebranding is in order: let's call it "The Pay America's Bills Act," and maybe dimwits like Rokita will understand. CW: I doubt it. As Benen himself point out, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has become willfully ignorant about the debt limit. ...
... Brian Beutler of TPM: one big reason for the willful ignorance? Conservative interest groups like the malevolent Club for Growth insist they vote for draconian budget cuts. ...
... Update: here's a letter (pdf) from a coalition of right-wing nut jobs telling members of Congress they will withhold their support from any who vote for the McConnell plan & will "rally organizations and activists" against them & any candidates who express support for raising the debt ceiling. ...
... AND Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress has perhaps the looniest conspiracy theory of all time from perhaps the dimmest bulb of all -- Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas): President Obama probably manufactured & timed the debt ceiling crisis to coincide with his 50th birthday. ...
... Max Read of Gawker comes up with a short list of some of Rep. Gohmert's other theories & escapades. This man is a United States Congressman.
NEW. New York Times Editors: "It used to be that a sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution was the only promise required to become president. But that no longer seems to be enough for a growing number of Republican interest groups, who are demanding that presidential candidates sign pledges shackling them to the corners of conservative ideology. Many candidates are going along, and each pledge they sign undermines the basic principle of democratic government built on compromise and negotiation.... Only one candidate, Jon Huntsman Jr., has refused to sign any pledge, saying he owes allegiance to his flag and his wife."
Bachmann Predicted the World Would End in 2008. Dave Weigel: "An audio tape of Michele Bachmann praying for You Can Run, But You Cannot Hide Ministry.... Bachmann says 'We are in the last days' and 'the Harvest is at hand.' The clip is from 2008, from that brief period when it looked like Bachmann might lose re-election.... It is a jarring thing to hear from the contender to the 2012 GOP nomination":
... As she weighs in on critical debates like whether or not to let the U.S. default on its obligations, it’s troubling that Bachmann is rooting for the apocalypse. -- Marie Diamond of Think Progress
Could It Be Impeachment Time? Josh Gerstein of Politico: In a letter to AG Eric Holder, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus accused President Obama "of committing 'an apparent crime' when he recorded a video in the White House as part of a raffle to raise money for his reelection campaign. The letter is here [pdf].
* Where even remedial lessons won't help.
News Ledes
President Obama on the status of debt ceiling & deficit negotiations & on the proposal by the Senate's "Gang of Six":
Sign me up. -- Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) (Via Wall Street Journal)...
... Washington Post: "President Obama on Tuesday hailed an ambitious new deficit-reduction plan that is gaining momentum in the Senate, saying it could provide the vehicle to break an impasse over raising the federal borrowing limit while cutting the nation’s debt. Appearing at the regular White House news briefing, Obama said the bipartisan proposal is 'broadly consistent' with the approach he has advocated in that it reduces discretionary spending and tackles health-care spending and entitlements while also raising additional revenue." Update: the New York Times story is here. See video above.
Guardian: "In a hesitant performance in front of MPs on Tuesday, punctuated by long pauses before many of his answers, [Rupert Murdoch,] the News Corporation chairman and chief executive, said it was 'the most humble day of my life'. He appeared to have little knowledge of key events and figures who played a prominent part in events that have consumed his company."
The Hill: "Liberal Democrats are stepping up their attacks on President Obama for his plan to extend a payroll tax break by a year. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) blasted Obama last week for his 'stupid Social Security tax holiday,' arguing that money would be better used on more stimulative spending."
Another DOJ Screw-up. New York Times: "Embarrassed Justice Department officials rushed on Tuesday to correct their own filing in a lawsuit over the 2001 anthrax letters after learning that it appeared to contradict the ’s conclusion that , an Army scientist, prepared the deadly powder in his Army laboratory."
New York Times: "The Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences..., recommended on Tuesday that all insurers be required to cover contraceptives for women free of charge as one of several preventive services under the new health care law."
New York Times: " will endorse a bill to repeal the law that limits the legal definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman, the White House said Tuesday, taking another step in support of gay rights."
New York Times: James W. Margulies, "a lawyer who helped to plot a $100 million securities fraud scheme that sold fundamentally worthless stocks to a series of investors, including Yale University, was convicted of grand larceny on Tuesday, prosecutors said."
Politico: "Rolling the dice on default, the House pushed further to the right in the debt debate Tuesday, even as a fledgling Senate deficit plan raised hopes that some bipartisan consensus may yet emerge from the crisis — if only the nation can get past its Aug. 2 deadline.... [There was] a tough, almost party line 234-190 vote Tuesday evening as the leadership muscled through its so-called Cut, Cap and Balance bill, championed by party conservatives."
Not Ready for Prime Time. Time: Bachmann team uses "unusual force" to rough up ABC News reporter Brian Ross, who was following Bachmann to her vehicle to ask her a question.
New York Times: "Demand for same-sex marriage in New York is so great that the city has decided to cap at 764 the number of couples who can be wed at clerks’ offices on Sunday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday."
Washington Post: "Republican lawmakers moved ahead Monday on a doomed plan to amend the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced federal budget, one day after President Obama met with the top two House GOP leaders in hopes of reaching a debt-limit agreement that could win approval from the hostile House."
Reuters: "Libyan and U.S. officials have met in secret, with Tripoli seeking talks with no preconditions, but Washington saying it delivered the clear message that Muammar Gaddafi must go. The face-to-face meeting occurred at the weekend as Libyan government forces fought rebels for control of the oil port of Brega, which insurgents said on Monday they now had surrounded in what would be a major boost to their campaign. Tripoli denied this."
AP: "Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Philadelphia archbishop Cardinal Justin Rigali on Tuesday, sending him into retirement as the archdiocese faces accusations that it covered up a long-running priest sex abuse scandal. The pope named conservative Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput to succeed him." Philadelphia Inquirer story here.
Reuters: "News Corp independent directors are fully behind Rupert Murdoch, a board member told Reuters on Monday, as his iron grip on his vast media empire came under question because of the hacking scandal that already has consumed his London newspaper company." CW: see Bloomberg report in yesterday's Ledes.
Wall Street Journal: "Worries about government debt rocked capital markets on both sides of the Atlantic Monday, as fears that the Greek crisis will spread combined with concerns at the standoff over the U.S. debt ceiling. The selloff started in Europe, hitting bonds and stocks in countries regarded as vulnerable to contagion from Greece, and spread to the U.S. where the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at its lowest level since late June after a wild session."
New York Times: "The fate of [Wisconsin Democratic state senator Dave Hansen] ... will be decided by voters on Tuesday."
McClatchy News: "The Justice Department has called into question a key pillar of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of mailing the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized Congress a decade ago.... Justice Department lawyers have acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab — the so-called hot suite — didn't contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001.The government said it continued to believe that Ivins was 'more likely than not' the killer."
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