The Commentariat -- June 17
I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square. There's lots to talk about.
New York Times Editors: "Partisan brinkmanship or not, Mr. Obama ... needs to go to Congress and make his case. Congress then needs to authorize continued American support for NATO’s air campaign over Libya."
Former President Jimmy Carter, in a New York Times op-ed, reminds us that before President Reagan's "war on drugs," the U.S. had developed a sensible drug policy. Carter cites his own 1977 articulation of that policy, which he says was "widely accepted at the time." He concludes, "... the American government should support and enact the reforms laid out by the Global Commission on Drug Policy." CW: See also Rep. Hansen Clarke's remarks in the videopost in yesterday's Commentariat. In the long list of ways Ronald Reagan turned this country in the wrong direction, the war on drugs is a huge -- and too seldom-mentioned -- one.
Another Way Ronald Reagan Turned the Country in the Wrong Direction. OR Ronald Reagan -- Still Making Us Miserable. Stephanie Pappas of Live Science: Income inequality is costing Americans their happiness. "Americans are happier in times when the gap between rich and poor is smaller, a new study finds. The reason, according to research to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, is that when the income gap is large, lower- and middle-income people feel less trusting of others and expect people to treat them less fairly. The study also provides a potential explanation for why American happiness hasn't risen along with national wealth in the last 50 years. 'Income disparity has grown a lot in the U.S., especially since the 1980s,' study researcher Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia said in a statement."
Michael Grunwald of Time: "I’m thrilled the Senate voted to kill the [ethanol] industry’s fiscally and ecologically ludicrous tax credit. But it was galling — if not too surprising – to hear Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, complain that the 'ill-advised' vote would 'pull the rug out from under industry.' That’s the whole point!" Grunwald elaborates.
David Brooks writes a pretty good article about James Johnson and the Fannie Mae crisis. Since this is a Democratic scandal, he would. But the fact that Democratic paw-prints are all over it, does not make the behavior of Johnson, Barney Frank (and the unmentioned Barack Obama, who appointed Johnson to head his vice-presidential search committee) and other Democratic "leaders" any less disgusting. I hope this story, which Brooks borrows from Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner's new book Reckless Endangerment (because Brooks' columns are essentially rewrites of other people's stuff), gets more coverage in left-leaning media.
Ezra Klein: "The right way to cut Medicaid costs" is sure as hell not the Republican way.
New York Times Editors: "There is no excuse for Mr. Weiner’s behavior, but it is worth noting the cynical way lawmakers from both houses and both parties piled on to demand his resignation."
Prof. Sara Lipton, in a New York Times op-ed: "For most of Western history, the primary and most valued characteristic of manhood was self-mastery. Late antique and Roman writers, like Plutarch, lauded men for their ability to resist sexual temptation and control bodily desire through force of will and intellect. Too much sex was thought to weaken men...."
For a Feel-Really-Good post, do read Tim Egan's essay on the Canyon de Chelly.
So, here's the lede in the top story in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday defended the decision by his handpicked school board to cancel 4 percent pay raises for Chicago teachers, arguing that teachers have gotten two types of pay raises since 2003 while students got 'the shaft.'” ...
... AND here's a top headline from yesterday's Chicago Tribune: "Mayor Rahm Emanuel moved more than $1.8 million out of municipal bonds and into more broad-based funds in the months before he announced his run for office, according to disclosure records released Thursday that show assets between $6.2 million and $16.6 million." ...
... CW: I did not used to be prejudiced against millionaires & billionaires who ran for public office. I thought noblesse-oblige was okay. I've changed my mind. Not every millionaire or billionaire is isolated from reality. But so many of 'em are it tends to disqualify the very, very few who might know what it means to need a job or worry in your old age that you may die of starvation. In the news, we have millionaire Emanuel telling teachers an effective raise of 4% over eight years is swell, millionaire John Edwards asking billionaire Bunny Mellon to give him some more millions & millionaire Mitt Romney jokingly complaining he's unemployed:
I’m also unemployed. -- Mitt Romney, to some unemployed Floridians ...
... William Gibson of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: "Romney was speaking light-heartedly, but Democrats called [the remark] a clueless and insensitive reference in a state with a double-digit unemployment rate." ...
... Joshua Green of The Atlantic: "Mitt Romney's Weirdness" is becoming the conventional wisdom that will likely haunt the candidate. ...
... BUT. Michael Scherer of Time is more forgiving. He also provides the provenance of the "I'm unemployed" joke, which is a little funnier, completely appropriate, and obviously prepared & vetted by Romney's staff:
... AND. Ezra Klein: Romney's analysis of the economy is worse than his jokes about the economy. ...
... ALSO. Matt Yglesias makes perhaps the most obvious, but otherwise unmentioned, point of all: "Mitt Romney Is Not Unemployed." Yglesias explains why. CW: the important distinction Yglesias makes is one that I'm not sure Mitt -- or many national politicians -- get. At all.
... MEANWHILE, Karen Garcia finds the first draft of Barack Obama's Dinner with the President sweepstakes announcement. ...
BUT ... Looks as if the President Isn't All Bad. Peter Wallsten & Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington It was supposed to be the White House’s latest make-nice session with corporate America — a visit by Chief of Staff William M. Daley to a meeting with hundreds of manufacturing executives in town to press lawmakers for looser regulations. But the outreach soon turned into a rare public dressing down of the president’s policies with his highest-ranking aide. One by one, exasperated executives stood to air their grievances on environmental regulations and stalled free-trade deals." CW: so what I'm thinking is that if these guys -- who could not care less about the environmental impact of their factories and even less about the economic impact of their cheesy wages -- are unhappy, then Obama is doing something right. ...
... BUT, BUT. Matthew Jaffe of ABC News: "The frustrations and the fears that progressives feel about President Obama were on full display Thursday as thousands of them flocked to Minneapolis for the sixth annual Netroots Nation conference." ...
... Read more about the Netroots Nation conference here. They're livestreaming a good chunk of the proceedings.
On seizing debate opportunity re: healthcare: Me 0, Mitt 1. On doing healthcare reform the right way as governor: Me 1, Mitt 0
-- Tim Pawlenty, always ready with a pithy, tweety comeback -- four days later
Local News
Do you want to drink pee? -- Portland, Oregon, Water Bureau Administrator David Shaff, on why the bureau drained a city reservoir after a man was caught on camera urinating into it
News Ledes
Washington Post: "The Senate Intelligence Committee is looking into allegations that a CIA official in the Bush administration was asked to gather personal information on [Prof. Juan Cole,] a prominent critic of the Iraq War, in order to discredit and 'get' him.... 'The Committee is looking into this,' Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the intel committee, said in a statement.... 'Depending on what we find, we may take further action.'”
AP: "Syrian security forces fired on thousands of protesters Friday, killing a teenage boy and at least 15 other civilians as accounts emerged of more indiscriminate killing and summary executions by the autocratic regime of President Bashar Assad, activists said." Al Jazeera print, video stories here.
Reuters: "The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for U.S. economic growth on Friday and warned Washington and debt-ridden European countries that they are 'playing with fire' unless they take immediate steps to reduce their budget deficits." ...
... Washington Post: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed down Friday from insisting that private investors be made to shoulder part of any further bailout for Greece, easing fears of an imminent Greek default but raising the possibility that she could face rebellion at home."
AP: "The United Nations endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people for the first time ever Friday, passing a resolution hailed as historic by the U.S. and other backers and decried by some African and Muslim countries. The declaration was cautiously worded, expressing 'grave concern' about abuses because of sexual orientation and commissioning a global report on discrimination against gays."
** AP: "The Southern Baptist Convention has passed a resolution advocating a path to legal status for illegal immigrants. The resolution was passed on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the nation’s largest protestant denomination in Phoenix. It also calls on Southern Baptists to reject bigotry and to minister to all people, regardless of immigration status. The language is similar to the immigration reform principles President Obama has outlined." CW: this is revolutionary. And it could matter.
Reuters: "U.S. regulators could file civil fraud charges against some credit-rating agencies for their role in developing mortgage-bond deals that helped bring about the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The Journal said the Securities and Exchange Commission was reviewing the conduct of companies including McGraw Hill's Standard and Poor's and Moody's Investors Service owned by Moody's Corp on at least two mortgage-bond deals."
AP: "Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou replaced his finance minister Friday in a broad cabinet reshuffle to counter widespread anger over tough new austerity measures essential to prevent Greece from a disastrous default. The critical position which has been held by George Papaconstantinou since the debt crisis began in late 2009, will now be taken over by Evangelos Venizelos, a Socialist heavyweight who challenged Papandreou for the party leadership four years ago."
New York Times: "Syria’s most powerful businessman, a confidant and cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, announced on Thursday that he was quitting business and moving to charity work, Syrian television said. The move, if true, would suggest that Mr. Assad was so concerned about the continuing protests that he would sacrifice a relative to public anger."
The Sleaziest Man Alive. Or Ever. ABC News: "Just weeks before federal prosecutors charged John Edwards in a six-count felony indictment, ABC News has been told, the two-time Democratic presidential candidate requested millions of dollars from Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, the banking heiress whose financial support of Edwards is at the center of the criminal case."
Wall Street Journal: police removed a heckler who works for shock jock Howard Stern from Anthony Weiner's press conference yesterday & issued a disorderly conduct summons to a freelance photographer previously convicted of manslaughter.
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