The Commentariat -- July 7

Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "The current political debate and the nascent 2012 election season are utterly earthbound, with a tone so gloomy it’s often shocking." ...

... I've opened up a comments page for Bruni's column on Off Times Square. Comment on Bruni's thesis or what you will. I've posted my comment.

Nate Silver: "... the majority of Republican gains last year were probably due to changes in relative turnout.... The enthusiasm gap did not so much divide Republicans from Democrats; rather, it divided conservative Republicans from everyone else.... This is why Republican politicians find it difficult to compromise on something like the debt ceiling.... As long as conservative Republicans are much more likely to vote than anyone else..., Republican members of Congress have a mandate to remain steadfast to the conservatives who are responsible for electing them."

TwitterTown

     ... Full transcript here.

Never in our history has the United States defaulted on its debt. The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, for oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.  I mean, I'm happy to have those debates.  I think the American people are on my side on this. -- Barack Obama, during his Twitter townhall meeting

... Jeffrey Sparrshot of the Wall Street Journal: "President Barack Obama sidestepped a question on whether the 14th Amendment would allow the federal government to issue more debt if Congress refuses to raise the country’s legal borrowing limit. Instead, he said he expects to strike a deal with lawmakers in the coming weeks. 'I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue,' Mr. Obama said in a town-hall meeting conducted using Twitter." ...

... Sam Youngman of The Hill: "July is make or break for Obama 2012.... All Obama has to do is forge a deal with Republicans that cuts trillions from the deficit and saves the economy from going off another cliff, all while convincing his base that he is not selling them down the river again.... If he stares down the GOP and comes up with a deal that makes his base happy, Obama will be showing that he remembers two of the first rules of politics: Dance with the one who brought you — and don’t go to war without your army." ...

... BUT Kevin Drum of Mother Jones thinks Obama will do just fine by throwing progressives under the bus. He also says what I've been saying for some long while: "Obama isn't doing this because he has to. He's doing it because he wants to." ...

... NEW. Karen Garcia is biding her time, on the theory that, well, maybe ending Social Security as we know it is an Obama bluff. CW: I wish I could be so optimistic (which shows you the level to which "optimism" for Obama's next move has fallen; i.e., maybe there's an outside chance he won't screw the American people again). ...

... NEW. Glenn Greewald: Hey, liberals, you should hardly be surprised by another Obama betrayal. Thanks to commenter James T. for the link. ...

... Here's Greenwald speaking at the Socialism 2011 conference in Chicago last weekend:

... Greenwald suggests George Carlin explained it all, in perhaps the best "editorial" ever:

What I think we all agree to, is that tax reform needs to occur again. It is, however, a big complicated subject and it has unintended consequences.... When you target particular industries, you get fewer jobs. And our biggest problem right now is the job problem. -- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Minority Leader

We've seen people on the other side of the aisle who have walked away from the table to protect millionaires and billionaires. -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

Where are the jobs from the Bush tax cuts? -- Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) (Via CBS News)

... BUT. Roll Over, Obama. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "President Obama on Tuesday reiterated his insistence that Republicans agree to a 'balanced' deficit reduction package that includes both spending cuts and new taxes.... Recent reports suggest that the administration would agree to a deal including about $2 trillion in reduced spending and about $400 billion in increased revenue. Very roughly speaking, that sounds like a ratio of cuts to taxes of roughly four- or five-to-one.... Other reports have cited more lopsided ratios, albeit with smaller numbers overall.... None of these frameworks sound particularly balanced." ...

... Catfood Is Looking Tasty. Constant Weader: I knew we would get to this point: where we were just hoping President Obama wouldn't agree to a deal worse than the draconian Bowles-Simpson Catfood Commission plan. But that's where we are, if news reports are correct -- the debt ceiling deal will be worse than the Catfood Commission proposals. ...

... Here's the Deal according to Carl Hulse & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "Mr. Obama, who is to meet at the White House with the bipartisan leadership of Congress in an effort to work out an agreement to raise the federal debt limit, wants to move well beyond the $2 trillion in savings sought in earlier negotiations and seek perhaps twice as much over the next decade, Democratic officials briefed on the negotiations said Wednesday." ...

... Depending on what they decide to recommend, they may not have Democrats. I think it is a risky thing for the White House to basically take the bet that we can be presented with something at the last minute and we will go for it. -- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) ...

... AND Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue. At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action. As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal." CW: feel those bus wheels rolling over you? This is just beyond the pale. ...

... Oh, some good news. John Bennett of The Hill: "National security spending could be cut by as much as $700 billion in a deal to raise the debt limit, defense sources said. That’s almost twice the amount President Obama originally proposed." ...

... ** Michael Crowley of Time sums up why liberals are disgusted with Obama vis-a-vis the debt ceiling negotiations. My only complaint with Crowley's summary: no expletives. ...

... NEW. Bruce Bartlett, an honest Republican (no, not an oxymoron), in a Washington Post op-ed, explodes five myths about the debt ceiling.

... Nicholas Kristof: "If there were an award for Most Unconscionable Tax Loophole, this one would win grand prize.... Tycoons have bet for years that the public is too stupid or distracted to note that in many cases they’re paying just a 15 percent tax rate. What’s at stake is the 'carried interest' loophole, and President Obama is pushing to close it. The White House estimates that this would raise $20 billion over a decade. But Congressional Republicans walked out of budget talks rather than discuss raising revenues from measures such as this one." ...

... AND Krugman turns me down for a date (with the President): "... maybe it’s personal. Maybe the president just doesn’t like the kind of people ... who say that the government is not like a family, that it’s not right for the government to tighten its belt when Americans are tightening theirs, that unemployment is not caused by lack of the right skills. Certainly just about all the people who might have tried to make that argument have left the administration or are leaving soon.... To commenters saying that I need to have dinner with the president, or vice versa — been there, done that, didn’t help."

Adam Goldman of the AP profiles "John," the CIA analyst who hunted and found Osama bin Laden. ...

... John Young of Cryptome makes a pretty convincing case that the White House accidentally (on purpose?) released photos of "John." Via John Cook of Gawker.

Jim Crow, Redux, OR The Truth about Republicans. I can’t help thinking since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today. [AND on Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s move to overturn precedents that allow convicted felons to vote once they’ve finished their probation periods:] Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they’ve paid their price? Because most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics who tended to vote for Democrats. That’s why. -- President Bill Clinton, in a speech to a Campus Progress convention

Twitter may work for President Obama (who did not limit his answers to 140 characters in his TwitterTown), but it is not working well for Michele Bachmann:

That's 140 characters. The problem: Republican & fundamentalist othodoxy says there is no Palestine. Gosh, maybe Bachmann meant "Palestinians," but that would have taken 143 characters. Too bad. And congratulations, Hamas. You just got an unlikely new backer. Thanks to Eric Kleefeld at TPM.

Local News

Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: "While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) law dismantling collective bargaining rights has harmed teachers, nurses, and other civil servants, it’s helping a different group in Wisconsinites — inmates. Prisoners are now taking up jobs that used to be held by unionized workers in some parts of the state." CW: I'm not sure this is a bad thing. Read the report, watch the local news video, & let us know what you think.

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Even Minnesota’s leaders don’t know the cost of the state government’s shutdown. That’s because the people who would calculate the price tag were put out of work.  Now more than six days old, the shutdown has continued to shutter parks and toll booths and to leave thousands of government workers at home. The state’s Democratic governor and Republican lawmakers continued to wrangle, without resolution, over a $5 billion budget gap Wednesday." Weiner does collect some data on how much the state is losing in specific areas, and it's a bunch. 

News Ledes

AP: "A Mexican national was executed Thursday for the rape-slaying of a teenager after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal to spare him that was supported by Mexico and the White House. In his last minutes, Humberto Leal repeatedly said he was sorry and accepted responsibility."

AP: "The House voted Thursday to bar military aid to Libyan rebels battling Moammar Gadhafi but stopped short of prohibiting funds for U.S. involvement in a NATO-led mission now in its fourth month. Sending a muddled message in the constitutional challenge to President Barack Obama, House Republicans and Democrats signaled their frustration with American participation in a stalemated civil war but also showed their unwillingness to end the operation."

AP: "Andreas Fink, the chief executive of Icelandic payment processor DataCell, told The Associated Press that Visa and MasterCard were again processing payments to WikiLeaks after a seven-month hiatus. Fink claimed the move as a tacit admission of guilt from the credit card companies, but it may well have been accidental.Visa Europe spokesman Simon Kleine told AP that processing the payments was 'not something that we've sanctioned' and that the company was investigating."

New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued new standards for power plants in 28 states that would sharply cut emissions of chemicals that have polluted forests, farms, lakes and streams across the eastern United States for decades."

President Obama & Vice President Biden will meet with Congressional leadership to discuss raising the debt limit at 11:00 am ET. AP story here. ...

President Obama on today's debt ceiling negotiations:

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama said on Thursday that budget negotiations at the White House had been 'very constructive,' though the two sides 'were still far apart on a wide range of issues.' He said the talks would continue into the weekend, and that Congressional leaders would meet with him again on Sunday.”

San Francisco Chronicle: "A federal appeals court ordered a halt Wednesday to the armed forces' policy of discharging openly gay service members, citing the impending demise of "don't ask, don't tell" and the Obama administration's escalating criticism of antigay laws.... On Wednesday, however, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco - which had previously allowed the government to follow its own timetable - reinstated a federal judge's injunction that had briefly barred enforcement of the law last fall before it was suspended."

New York Times: "Federal officials announced on Wednesday that they had reached a settlement with a group of homeowners who sued the federal government and the State of Louisiana alleging discrimination in the state’s Road Home program, which distributed grants to those whose houses were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding."

AP: "Both the Finance Committee in the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Ways and Means Committee in the Republican-led House will consider ... three trade deals [with South Koren, Colombia & Panama] Thursday, which have drifted in political limbo since they were signed during the George W. Bush administration.... The Ways and Means legislation does not mention [a] displaced worker program, a result of GOP insistence that the trade agreements should not be encumbered by a program that some Republicans say is too expensive and of questionable merit." CW: anybody who thinks Republicans are worried about jobs need look no further than this.

New York Times: "Amid speculation that he would soon be removed from office, Kenneth E. Melson, the top official at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, met with Congressional staff members this week to defend himself.... The lawmakers have been investigating an A.T.F. program called Operation Fast and Furious in which federal agents knowingly let weapons slip across the Mexican border in the hope of tracing them to drug cartels. Two of the guns later turned up in Arizona, where an American Border Patrol agent was killed in a shootout." Melson’s account is described in this letter from Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, & Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to AG Eric Holder.

Reuters: "Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee [Independent former R] signed into law a bill that would require voters to show identification at the polls in 2012, with a photo required before casting a ballot in 2014, his office announced on Wednesday.... Democratic governors in at least five states -- North Carolina, Montana, Missouri, Minnesota and New Hampshire -- have vetoed voter ID bills this year." See President Clinton's comments on this, above.