The Commentariat -- June 21

Bob Reich explains in less than 2 minutes, 15 seconds, what's wrong with the American economy:

I've posted a Nocera & Brooks comments page on Off Times Square. Joe Nocera writes about why the banks should lose their argument against raising capital requirements, and David Brooks thinks all that money we're pouring into Afghanistan is like a little Marshall Plan that isn't working out all that well. The connecting theme seems to be -- YOU LOSE. Write on either or something else. I've posted my comments.

Here's the post by economist Simon Johnson on the capital requirements clause the banks are fighting. In his column, Nocera mentions the Johnson post.

** Law Prof. Bruce Ackerman in a New York Times op-ed compares Obama's decision to pretend he does not have to comply with the War Powers Act vis-a-vis Libya with Dubya's stunts redefining "torture": "... from a legal viewpoint, Mr. Obama is setting an even worse precedent. Although Mr. Yoo’s memos made a mockery of the applicable law, they at least had the approval of the Office of Legal Counsel. In contrast, Mr. Obama’s decision to disregard that office’s opinion and embrace the White House counsel’s view is undermining a key legal check on arbitrary presidential power. This is a Beltway detail of major significance. Unlike the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the White House counsel is not confirmed by the Senate." ...

Gene Robinson piles on: "... Obama, with uncommon disregard for both language and logic, takes the position that what we are doing in Libya does not reach the 'hostilities' threshold for triggering the War Powers Act, under which presidents must seek congressional approval for any military campaign lasting more than 90 days. House Speaker John Boehner said Obama’s claim doesn’t meet the 'straight-face test,' and he’s right.... The law remains in force and, while presidents of both parties routinely find ways around it, they usually find a more credible dodge than asking, 'War? What war?'” ...

... Russell Berman of The Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is under siege from factions on the left and the right as the House considers whether to strike funding for the U.S. military mission in Libya."

Michael Powell of the New York Times: in New Jersey (and New York) the governor(s) make sure that the wealthy do not have to pay their "share" in the oft-repeated, if inaptly-named, "shared sacrifice" meme. The governors eschew tax hikes for the wealthy even as they demand cuts in pension funds for state workers. CW: this is a news story, not an opinion piece. It's what is.

New York Times Editors on the Supremes' decision for Wal-Mart: "Without a class action, it will be very difficult for most of the women potentially affected to pursue individual claims. The average wages lost per year for a member of the rejected Wal-Mart class are around $1,100 — too little to give lawyers an incentive to represent such an individual. For the plaintiffs, for groups seeking back pay in class actions, and for class actions in general, it was a bad day in court." ...

... Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times elaborates. ...

... Dahlia Lithwick on why the Supremes' Wal-Mart decision is absurd: the men on the Court (Breyer excepted) decided the women represented in the suit "didn't have enough in common," or as Lithwick notes, "Wal-Mart ... seems to have figured out that the key to low-cost discrimination lies in discriminating on a massive scale."

... Left to their own devices most managers in any corporation—and surely most managers in a corporation that forbids sex discrimination—would select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria for hiring and promotion. -- Antonin Scalia, majority opinion in Wal-Mart v. Dukes

... The court's devotees of strict construction and plain meaning are so enamored of the printed word that they often seem inclined to accept no other type of evidence of pay discrimination. Just as [Lily] Ledbetter never received an embossed letter from Goodyear indicating that she was being systematically underpaid, so, too, the hundreds of women with claims about sex discrimination at the hands of Wal-Mart must be wrong: After all, the company's announced policy forbids it.... The whole purpose of this type of class action civil rights suit is to smoke out unwritten policies and unspoken bias. -- Dahlia Lithwick

Law & Lit Prof. Stanley Fish has a good post today on the Supreme Court's interpretations of the free speech guarantee of the First Amendment. Not every act that may imply a certain political or other intent should fall under the speech protection of the First Amendment.

Alex Pareene of Salon: when the New York state legislature gets around to passing gay marriage legislation [could happen any time -- appears they're short only one vote], it will give President Obama a convenient opportunity to complete his "evolution" on gay marriage. CW: though Pareene does note that on this particular issue, Obama's hesitation is political, the following paragraph is a good lesson to us libruls on the overall policy leanings of the President:

Liberals have a tendency (much more pronounced in 2007 and 2008 but still evident) to imagine that Barack Obama is just as liberal as them. Because he's obviously smart, because he dabbled with genuine leftism in his youth, and because he opposed Iraq, liberals think he's actually Paul Krugman, forced by electoral circumstance (or cowardice) to talk and govern like George H.W. Bush. Coincidentally, this is also Newt Gingrich and Stanley Kurtz's thesis. It's silly when they say he's hiding his socialism behind a veneer of centrism and it's silly when liberals say he's doing the same.

Wow! Labor Department Sides with Labor. Melanie Trottman of the Wall Street Journal: "The Obama administration Monday said employers should disclose more information about the consultants they hire to respond to union bargaining or organizing campaigns, a move long sought by organized labor and opposed by employers.... The Labor Department proposal effectively sides with unions, who have argued for a decade that the advice exception needs to be narrowed.... But business groups criticized the proposal, saying many administration actions are showing favor to unions."

Stewart on Stewart -- and Wallace -- and Fox "News":

Dana Milbank: governors of both parties claim their policies create jobs. But the numbers for their states are all anemic. ...

... Rachel Maddow has more on Republican governors:

What a Shock -- Congressional Republicans Transfer More Costs to States. Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "When congressional Republicans cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget 16 percent as part of a deal with President Obama in April to keep the government running, they hailed it as a blow to a federal bureaucracy.... But now that the agency has detailed how it is making the $1.6 billion cut for fiscal 2011, the reality is somewhat different. Because the EPA passes the vast majority of its money through to the states, it has meant that these governments — not Washington — are taking the biggest hits. Already constrained financially at home, state officials have millions of dollars less to enforce the nation’s air- and water-quality laws, fund critical capital improvements and help communities comply with new, more stringent pollution controls imposed by the federal government." CW: the good news -- a rich guy in New Jersey will pay less in federal taxes. The bad news -- a poor guy in Mississippi will pay more in state taxes.

David Leonhardt of the New York Times seems to have just discovered why so many Americans have such unhealthy diets: "unhealthy food is often a lot cheaper than healthy food." Leonhardt notes some of the calories/dollar differences, plus, "you would have to spend about $5 to buy 2,000 calories at McDonald’s ... and $60 to buy 2,000 calories worth of lettuce." CW: now, extrapolte this: this is yet another way the rise in income disparity makes Americans less healthy; they make their purchases calorie-wise and pound-foolish.

Massimo Calabresi of Time on Texas Gov. Rick Perry's difficult two-step: "Conjuring up the ghost of the popular George W. Bush while letting his despised doppelganger rest, forgotten, will be a challenge for candidate Perry if he joins the race."

NEW. Kate Pickert of Time: under pressure from the Congress, the White House & the press, McKinsey comes clean-ish on its "independent analysis" of the "likely" outcome of the Affordable Care Act. ...

... NEWER. Paul Krugman: "McKinsey has now released some (not all) of the details from its mystery study. True to form, the company now claims that a study touted as evidence that companies 'will' drop coverage was 'not predictive.' Uh-huh.... It was basically a poll — which is a really bad way to assess how firms will make decisions about whether or not to maintain health coverage."

Right Wing World *

Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: Fox "News" cuts Jon Stewart's 5-second criticism of Fox "News" veep Bill Sammon. "Fox News Sunday's avoidance of Sammon fits a pattern of the network publicly avoiding uncomfortable questions about the controversial Sammon while it touts the credentials of the news bureau he manages."

Jacques Billeaud & Bob Christie of the AP: "... Sen. John McCain has ignited a barrage of criticism by saying that there is 'substantial evidence' that illegal immigrants are partly responsible for wildfires in the state. McCain is standing by the statement he made over the weekend..., but immigrant rights advocates say the state's senior senator is using illegal immigrants as scapegoats. Authorities have said humans started the three major blazes in Arizona, but investigators don't know any more details."

Senator Snakeoil. Eric Lipton of the New York Times: Sen. Orrin Hatch "was the chief author of a federal law enacted 17 years ago that allows companies to make general health claims about their ["health supplement"] products, but exempts them from federal reviews of their safety or effectiveness before they go to market. During the Obama administration, Mr. Hatch has repeatedly intervened with his colleagues in Congress and federal regulators in Washington to fight proposed rules that industry officials consider objectionable.... Mr. Hatch has been rewarded with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, political loyalty and corporate sponsorship of his favorite causes back home. His family and friends have benefited, too, from links to the supplement industry."

* Where facts never intrude, but money does.

News Ledes

Malia, Sasha & Michelle Obama meet with former South African President Nelson Mandela at his home. AP photo.Independent Online News: "US First Lady Michelle Obama had an unscheduled meeting with Nelson Mandela at his Houghton, Joburg, home on Tuesday, the second day of her visit to South Africa. After being shown Mandela prison memorabilia at the Nelson Mandela Foundation just around the corner, Obama was suddenly whisked off to meet the former president."

Guardian: "Barack Obama is set to reject the advice of the Pentagon by announcing on Wednesday night the withdrawal of up to 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by November next year, in time for the US presidential election. The move comes despite warnings from his military commanders that recent security gains are fragile. They have been urging him to keep troop numbers high until 2013."

New York Times: "Leon E. Panetta was confirmed unanimously by the Senate on Tuesday as the new secretary of defense, placing him in charge of the final stage of the withdrawal in Iraq and the Obama administration’s military policy in Afghanistan. The 100-to-0 vote in favor of Mr. Panetta, a former House member and White House official who most recently served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, showed strong Congressional confidence in his ability to hold what lawmakers described as one of the most demanding jobs in the capital."

New York Times: "Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece won a crucial vote of confidence late Tuesday, with all 155 lawmakers of the Socialist Party expressing their support for his beleaguered government, above the absolute majority of 151 votes required by Greece’s 300-seat Parliament."

New York Times: "In an effort aimed at countering a House Republican plan to defund American military operations in Libya, Senators John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a Democrat, and John McCain, a Republican, announced the introduction of a joint resolution on Tuesday authorizing the limited use of United States Armed Forces in Libya. Under the resolution, which could be voted on as early as this week, the president is 'authorized to continue the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in Libya, in support of United States national security policy interests' for one year after passage of the resolution."

New York Times: "Legislative leaders said on Tuesday that they had reached a tentative deal with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on renewing New York’s rent laws, capping property taxes for homeowners, and raising tuition at state universities, among other outstanding issues. But the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, said his caucus had not yet decided whether to bring to a vote the most contentious issue facing the Legislature: A bill introduced by Mr. Cuomo and approved by the Democratic-controlled Assembly to legalize same-sex marriage in New York. Thirty-one state senators have endorsed the marriage measure, one vote short of the number needed to pass in the 62-member senate."

President Obama and I have a difference of opinion on how to help a country we both love. But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who’s the better American. -- Jon Huntsman, in announcing his run for president ...

... New York Times: "Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah, officially announced he was running for president on Tuesday, telling an audience of supporters and reporters gathered at a park facing the Statue of Liberty that he would be a better leader than President Obama, for whom he served as the  ambassador to China until recently."

AP: "President Barack Obama will move the United States a step closer to ending the war in Afghanistan when he announces plans Wednesday to bring thousands of American troops home, beginning next month." Los Angeles Times story here.

National Journal: "The FEC this week sent a letter demanding Crossroads GPS, the Karl Rove-backed nonprofit that pumped millions of dollars in anonymous donations into last year's Congressional campaigns, disclose its contributors. The request appears unlikely to be honored but it could signal an effort to tighten regulations on controversial third-party groups."

New York Times: "Federal health officials on Tuesday released their final selection of nine graphic warning labels to cover the top half of cigarette packages beginning next year, in the first major change to those warnings in more than a quarter-century, over the opposition of tobacco manufacturers." Article includes the pictures.

AP: "Radioactive tritium has leaked from three-quarters of U.S. commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried piping, an Associated Press investigation shows. The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation."

New York Times: "A spokesman for Pakistan’s military confirmed on Tuesday that a senior officer has been detained and is under investigation for suspected ties to militants. The BBC’s Urdu-language news service first reported that Brig. Gen. Ali Khan, who was serving in the general headquarters of Pakistan’s military in Rawalpindi, was taken into custody last month.