The Commentariat -- July 29
I've posted an Open Thread for today on Off Times Square.
Paul Krugman reiterates in his column a point he made is a blogpost earlier this week -- that "News reports [specifically, about the debt crisis] portray the parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of 'centrist' uprising, as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides." It ain't.
Greg Sargent: "... the White House is circulating a new set of talking points to outside allies and surrogates, instructing them on a new way to make this case: If Boehner has his way, the debt ceiling debate will steal Christmas.... On MSNBC..., David Plouffe made a similar claim, pointing out that the Boehner plan would ensure that 'this whole debt ceiling spectacle' will be repeated again a few months from now over the holidays. The debt ceiling debate would ruin Christmas,' Plouffe said. He was apparently ad-libbing the line, but now it’s found its way into the White House’s official talking points." ...
... Grinch or Anti-Christ? Elizabeth Dias of Time: "On Wednesday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Speaker Boehner informing him of its opposition to his deficit reduction proposal and arguing that 'future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons.' [CW: Boehner is Roman Catholic.] On Thursday, religious organizations went from polite protest to full-scale mobilization.... And nearly a dozen religious leaders were arrested inside the Capitol on Thursday while praying and protesting a budget that would balance itself on the backs of the poor with cuts in crucial areas, like Medicaid and food stamps.... Prayer vigils, led by different religious leaders, continue outside the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill." ...
... No Winners in the Republican Civil War. Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The stunning events that played out Thursday night ... was both a failure of leadership and a failure by those who wouldn’t follow.... The damage to Boehner’s credibility as speaker and to the Republican Party more generally could well linger well beyond the outcome of this episode. Republicans have now steered themselves into a position that could make an ultimate resolution of the debt-ceiling standoff that much more difficult.... If there is to be a compromise — and the outlines of a plausible agreement were under active discussion on Capitol Hill before the House bill was pulled — it is likely to be one that badly splits the Republicans in the House." ...
Buckets of crazy. -- House GOP Aide, explaining why Speaker Boehner couldn't round up enough votes to pass a bill that won't pass the Senate anyway ...
... Jennifer Steinhauer & Robert Pear of the New York Times write a somewhat amusing account of the uncertainty in the House yesterday. At various points both Democrats & Republicans were sure their side had the votes on Boehner's deficit plan. ...
... Dana Milbank: "... the thwarting of the Boehner Plan ... displayed how ungovernable the House Republican majority is. With the nation just days from a default, the chamber is at the mercy of a handful of people who believe they are on a mission from God." ...
... Reader Doug R. found this commentary by Mark Price on the front page of Fox "News"'s Website. Price makes a strong case for raising the debt ceiling & blames "both parties." Strikingly, Price calls out Democrats for being willing to make cuts to Medicare & Social Security "that will surely hurt working and middle-income families the hardest" and Republicans for being unwilling to close corporate loopholes or raise taxes on the wealthy, "the one group to benefit handsomely from the last decade of economic growth." Doug says he hopes "millions of right wingers will read [Price's piece]. CW: me too. ...
... NEW. Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic reviews the judicial philosophies of the Supremes & reasons that they would either refuse to hear a case against President Obama for invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, or -- if they agreed to hear it -- seven of the nine would decide in favor of Obama. ...
... Michael Tomasky, writing in the Daily Beast, makes a strong case for Obama's invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, and outlines the reasons Obama is reluctant to do so. Tomasky concludes that none of Obama's reasons justify his allowing Treasury to go into default. ...
... Mike Lillis of The Hill: "President Obama should invoke the 14th Amendment to hike the debt ceiling unilaterally as a last resort to prevent a government default, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday.... The remarks align Hoyer with a number of other House Democratic leaders...." CW: Hoyer is the second-ranking Democrat in the House. This is pretty remarkable. Top Congressional legislators are saying, "Go ahead, Mr. President; overrule us." ...
... Unions have made a big ad buy going after members of Congress who won't raise the debt ceiling. Here's the ad targeting Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada (the appointee who replaced John Ensign):
Chart of the Day. The next time some Republican talks about tax-and-spend Democrats, whip out this New York Times chart. The contrast between new costs incurred by the Bush Administration & new costs incurred & projected under the Obama Administration is stunning:
... NEW. Ezra Klein comments on the chart: "Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring.... It’s clear now that [the Bush tax cuts] lowered [revenue] indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost." ..
Klein in Bloomberg News: Democrats are going to lose the debt-ceiling battle. But, come the end of 2012 when the Bush tax cuts expire, they are in position to win new revenues.
Michael Grunwald of Time: "President Obama will announce a near-doubling of fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, and the Big Three automakers — GM, Ford and Chrysler — will support it.... Obama was right to cut a deal with the Big Three, along with Honda and Hyundai, up front. Every U.S. President since Nixon has talked about ending our dependence on Middle East oil, but these standards represent the most significant effort to do something about it in a long time."
CW: I guess "dictator" is the new "Hitler." Debbie Wasserman Schultz used it to describe Tea Party Republicans (see yesterday's Commentariat), & now, tit-for-tat, Constitutional scholar Michele Bachmann is using it to describe a potential Fourteenth-Amendment move by President Obama:
Tim Egan writes than many on the right in Europe & the U.S. say the "manifesto" by Nowegian anti-Muslim terrorist & mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik is "correct" or "good" or "great." He cites, among others, Pat Buchanan, an Italian member of the European Parliament & the denizens of GlennBeckistan. (Beck himself likened the young victims of Breivik to "Hitler youth.") CW: my comment on Egan's column is posted on Off Times Square. ...
Right Wing World *
... Amy Sullivan of Time has a good post on the right's tortured double-standard claim that Norwegian Christian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik "can't be a Christian" (oh, and neither can Barack Obama and Bill Clinton), but Islamic terrorists are definitely serious Muslims following their faith into terrorism territory. ...
... Allow Jon Stewart to elaborate:
... PLUS, in Right Wing World, liberals attack conservatives, but conservatives are always nice to liberals:
President Obama, quit lying. Have you no shame, sir? In three short years, you’ve bankrupted this country. -- Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), in an anti-Obama video ...
... Have you no decency? -- Joe Walsh, to his wife Laura's attorney, who asked that the Congressman's drivers license be suspended until he paid court-ordered child support ...
... Deadbeat Dad. Abdon Pallasch of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, a tax-bashing Tea Party champion who sharply lectures President Barack Obama and other Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes more than $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife and three children, according to documents his ex-wife filed in their divorce case in December." Thanks to reader Jeanne B. for the link. ...
... "Deadbeat Party." Gene Lyons in Salon: "How does 'deadbeat Republicans' sound? Because the simple fact is that the GOP under George W. Bush put two wars, a Medicare drug benefit, and tax cuts heavily slanted toward the rich on the national credit card. Now that the bill's due, they're planning to skip town and stick Democrats with the charges." Thanks to Jeanne B.
What's a Potential Presidential Candidate to Do? Carrie Dann of NBC News: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a staunch states rights advocate, was "fine" with New York State's gay marriage law last week, saying the law was "their call," but he isn't anymore.
* Where Christians are always good people and the elites are deadbeats (CW: which I guess is okay if they're Christian deadbeats).
News Ledes
Politico: "House Republicans will bring up Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s debt limit package Saturday just to vote it down, an attempt to show that the legislation is dead in the lower chamber, according to GOP leadership sources." ...
... AND barely an hour later, the Senate blocked Boehner's bill. No link. ...
... New York Times: "House Republicans muscled through a revised debt limit plan without a single Democratic vote on Friday night and headed toward a confrontation with the Senate, where Democrats were anxiously awaiting the newly passed measure so they could reject it. President Obama has also threatened to veto it." Boehner added a requirement for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. ...
... Washington Post: "House Republican leaders moved Friday to bring their debt-limit bill to a vote after recrafting it to appease tea party-allied conservatives, but President Obama said the plan has 'no chance of becoming law' ...."
Politico: "Stepping up pressure on divided Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Friday he’d take the lead and move his bill to raise the national debt limit as President Barack Obama called for a bipartisan deal to avert an economy-shaking default next week. Calling his plan 'the last train out of the station,' Reid said there are only hours to act before Tuesday’s Treasury deadline, so he plans to file a procedural motion Friday to move towards a final vote in the next few days." ...
... Politico: "House Republican leaders plan to tie a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to their two-step debt-ceiling bill — a move that is turning momentum back toward Speaker John Boehner’s plan." CW: I guess it doesn't matter that the Senate won't pass such a bill & the President would veto it if they did. ...
... New York Times: "The reverberations of Washington’s impasse over a debt deal are already being felt in the short-term credit markets, a key artery of the economy that daily supplies trillions of dollars of credit. Over the last week, big banks and companies have withdrawn $37.5 billion from money market funds that invest in Treasury debt and other ultra-safe securities, the biggest weekly drop this year."
President Obama spoke about fuel efficiency standards this morning. Here's a Reuters story.
AP: Abdel-Fattah Younis, "the head of the Libyan rebel armed forces, was shot and killed Thursday just before arriving for questioning by rebel authorities, their political leader said in a carefully worded statement to reporters that gave few etails on who was behind the killing."
President Bush explains the "My Pet Goat" incident:
... Here's a related print story from Reuters.
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