The Commentariat -- October 8

President Obama's weekly address:

     ... The transcript is here. Reuters story here.

I've posted an Open Thread for the weekend on Off Times Square.

Erik Wasson of The Hill: "The Congressional Budget Office on Friday confirmed that President Obama’s jobs bill would be fully paid for over ten years and also gave its seal of approval to Senate Democrats' version that includes a surtax on millionaires. The CBO said that the original Obama stimulus bill would involve $447 billion in tax cuts and new spending — the same estimate given by the administration. It said the bill would raise $450 billion over ten years. The result is a $3 billion decrease in deficits over ten years. The Senate Democrats' bill, which replaces Obama’s taxes on the upper middle class with a 5.6 percent surtax on those with annual incomes above $1 million, raises $453 billion over ten years and reduces deficits by $6 billion. The tax kicks in in 2013."

Occupy Wall Street

CUNY Prof. Frances Fox Piven, in a Guardian op-ed, contrasts Occupy Wall Street protesters and Tea Party members. ...

... Mark Egan of Reuters: the Occupy Wall Street movement may be the start of a new protest era akin to that of the 1960s. While interim protests against foreign wars were largely ideological, the protests of the '60s against the war & against racial inequality were personal; i.e., people were protesting what was happening to them. The same is true of Occupy Wall street. ...

... Thom Hartmann talks with Andy Kroll of Mother Jones & Joshua Holland of AlterNet about the economics behind the Occupy America movement:

... David Maris in Forbes: "There has been a lot said about the lack of vision, lack of specific demands, and a disparity of beliefs and goals among the Occupy Wall Street protesters in the media in the past several weeks. A survey of the protestors shows that none of these criticisms are true. ... The protesters, knowingly or not, are fairly unified a few basic beliefs. ...

... "If white people catch a cold, we get the flu":

... David Dayen of Firedoglake: "The billionaire mayor of New York City can blame his own police department for the growth of the Occupy Wall Street protests, which surged after incidents of police brutality and illegal arrests and will only continue to grow as his police continue to use nightsticks and pepper spray. But now, he’s claiming that the protests are costing municipal workers their jobs.... [CW: see Friday's Ledes.] Bloomberg ... [is] protecting oligarchs by holding up the jobs of sanitation workers and firefighters and transit workers as a kind of human sacrifice." ...

... The "C" in CNBC must stand for "Clueless":

... It’s no real surprise that the same pundits who derided subprime lending victims as 'suckers,' vigorously defended the righteousness of bailed-out banks paying million dollar bonuses, believe tax havens prevent tyranny, and cited Glenn Beck as a new economic indicator would find the Wall Street protests offputting. But their comments merely highlight how out-of-touch they are with the common American, as they cater all day, every day to the Wall Street crowd. -- Pat Garofalo of Think Progress

Now for a word from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor:

     ... So, um, what was Cantor himself doing when he endorsed the Tea Party movement? Wasn't that "pitting Americans against Americans?" ...

... Even Jay Carney, President Obama's maddenly measured & mild-mannered press secretary, gets Cantor:

I sense a little hypocrisy unbound here -- what we're seeing on the streets of New York is a an expression of democracy. I think I remember how Mr. Cantor described protests of the Tea Party -- I can't understand how one man's mob is another man's democracy. -- Jay Carney

... I see the president's rhetoric of envy inflaming the public and saying, 'Go get yours because rich people don't deserve it.' I see [Obama's words] as inflaming this Paris mob that I hope doesn't result in a lawlessness where they say, 'Well, gosh, those nice iPads through the window should be mine and why don't I throw a brick through the window to get them because rich people don't deserve to have them when I can't have them. -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) ..

... Justin Sink of The Hill: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Friday that he believes the Occupy Wall Street protests stem from divisive rhetoric from President Obama, who has called for the richest Americans to pay increased taxes to help close the budget deficit." CW: we have a two-fer from Li'l Randy today. See also Right Wing World.

Welcome Back to Tennessee, Jim Crow. Ansley Haman of the Chattanooga (Tennessee) Times Free Press: Dorothy Cooper, a 96-year-old black woman who lives in public housing, provided "a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her voter registration card and her birth certificate" to the state's drivers license bureau in order to get the picture ID that is now required at Tennessee polling places. The state worker turned down Cooper's request because Cooper didn't provide a marriage license verifying her married name. Cooper has been voting regularly for decades. "In Nashville on Tuesday afternoon, a coalition of organizations announced an effort to repeal the [Tennessee 'voter fraud'] law. Groups such as the ACLU of Tennessee, various chapters of the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and Tennessee Citizen Action announced a petition drive and get-out-the-vote effort." Via Think Progress. ...

... CW: Cooper is exactly the kind of voter these draconian state laws -- passed by Republican legislatures throughout the country -- are trying to suppress; i.e., someone who is likely to vote Democratic. But these laws aren't just anti-Democratic; they're anti-democratic. Earlier this week [in a story I linked a few days ago], President Obama said he had directed the Justice Department to take "a look at what’s being done across the country to ensure that people aren’t being denied access to the franchise." Here's hoping those DOJ lawyers are smart enough to look at not just what the laws say but also how they are being applied against people like Dorothy Cooper.

Floyd Norris of the New York Times: "Two months ago, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the bond rating of the United States government. So far, at least, the move has done wonders for investors in the very bonds that the rating agency disparaged. The rating downgrade, along with continued turmoil in European markets and fears that the United States might be entering a new recession, caused a flight to safety among investors. And, notwithstanding the agency’s opinion, money flooded into Treasuries and the demand for American dollars grew. Since then, Treasury bonds have been one of the few investments that have produced good profits."

Right Wing World *

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "At the Values Voters summit in Washington, prominent evangelical leader Robert Jeffress told reporters that Mormonism was a cult and that Romney was not a Christian.... Speaking with reporters later,Jeffress made his allusion clear. 'Mormonism is not Christianity,' he declared. 'It’s not politically correct to say, but Mormonism is a cult.'” The New York Times story is here.

Philip Rucker: "Calling for a new 'American century,' Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney laid out a muscular agenda for promoting U.S. interests abroad, saying [in Charleston, South Carolina] Friday that he would expand naval and missile defense systems and repair relationships with Israel, Mexico and other U.S. allies." ...

... Greg Sargent: Mitt Romney keeps telling lies, and news media are letting him get away with it. "... readers of these accounts could easily come away believing that Obama has apologized for America and doesn’t think it’s an exceptional nation. In short, they may very well come away deceived — with the unwitting help of the news orgs that are meant to be serving them." CW: if you read Philip Rucker's account above, you will have to conclude that among those news media letting Romney get away with lies is the Post, for which Sargent also works. ...

... Steve Benen: "If someone makes a bogus claim, he or she is merely wrong. When someone repeats the bogus claim after learning the truth, they’re lying. When someone builds a national campaign message around the obvious falsehood, they’re shamelessly lying.... The underlying point of the 'apology' attack, though, is far more insidious — Romney desperately wants Americans to question the president’s love of country. The 'apology' claim is a lie, but it’s also an ugly smear.... The fact that Romney repeats this incessantly says a great deal about his character, or in this case, the lack thereof. Romney will never apologize for America? Fine. But how about an apology to America?" ...

... ALSO from Benen: "In September, the U.S. economy added 103,000 jobs overall, but the private sector added 137,000 jobs. The total was dragged down by the loss of 34,000 jobs.... As government at every level cuts spending, this necessary leads to public-sector layoffs, affecting, among others, teachers, police officers, and firefighters. For Republican policymakers, this is a feature, not a bug. In the GOP worldview, the economy will improve when hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers lose their jobs....The only thing standing in the way [of a better jobs outlook] is a major political party that’s convinced unemployment will get better after they fire a lot of teachers and cops." ...

... Okay, even more from Benen: "Leading Republican officials — including [Eric] Cantor, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry — believe Americans who don’t make enough money to be eligible for income taxes should see their tax burdens go up. It’s the kind of far-right class warfare conservatives prefer not to acknowledge.... For the Majority Leader [Cantor], activists who want millionaires and billionaires to sacrifice are guilty of 'pitting Americans against Americans.' But Republicans, including Cantor, who want the middle class to face a tax hike are just being sensible. Here’s a simple follow-up for Capitol Hill reporters: ask Cantor to explain the difference."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) put a hold on a bipartisan, paid-for Iraqi refuge aid bill because he

(a) is stupid
(b) is xenophobic
(c) is cruel
(d) can
(e) all of the above.

* Has co-opted real-world media.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators streamed across the threshold of Washington Square Park on Saturday afternoon after a spirited but conflict-free march from the financial district. As a throng of protesters filled the historic public space, at the heart of Greenwich Village, a chant rose up — from voices young, old and in-between — casting their movement as an intractable majority fed up with the nation’s financial inequities."

NBC News: "Washington's National Air and Space Museum was closed Saturday afternoon after sign-wielding demonstrators tried to storm the building on the National Mall. At least one person was pepper sprayed when the crowd pinned a guard against a wall and another guard came to his rescue, Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas told NBC station WRC." The Washington Post has a short piece here.

San Diego Union-Tribune: "About 1,500 protesters kicked off Occupy San Diego ... Friday as they marched from Children’s Park to Civic Center Plaza downtown, chanting 'We got sold out. They got bailed out.' The demonstration, which is planned to last indefinitely, reflects similar protests that the Occupy Wall Street movement started a few weeks ago in New York and have spread to other cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Seattle."

New York Times: "... new e-mails provide further evidence of high-level cheerleading on behalf of Solyndra, a maker of innovative tubular rooftop solar panels that declared bankruptcy last month and laid off 1,100 workers.... [Steven Skinner,] a senior Energy Department official, pushed hard for the government’s $535 million loan to the now-bankrupt California solar energy company Solyndra even after he had disclosed that his wife’s law firm represented the company and he had promised to recuse himself from matters related to the loan application, according to e-mails provided to Congressional investigators by the administration." ...

... Washington Post: "Energy Department officials were warned that their plan to help a failing solar company by restructuring its $535 million federal loan could violate the law and should be cleared with the Justice Department, according to newly obtained e-mails from within the Obama administration. The e-mails show that Energy Department officials moved ahead anyway with a new deal that would repay company investors before taxpayers if the company defaulted."

AP: "Federal authorities in California vowed to shut down dozens of pot growing and sales operations in a major crackdown, saying the worst offenders are using the cover of medical marijuana to act as storefront drug dealers."

Reuters: "Germany and France were split ahead of crucial talks on Sunday over how to strengthen shaky European banks and fight financial market contagion to prepare for a possible Greek default. Under strong U.S. and market pressure Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy will try to bridge differences on how to use the euro zone's financial firepower to counter a sovereign debt crisis that threatens the global economic recovery. A ratings downgrade on both Italy and Spain by Fitch Ratings on Friday underscored the grim climate."

AP: "In what could mark a turning point in U.S.-Pakistani relations, Pakistani forces have arrested a handful of al-Qaida suspects at the CIA's request and allowed the U.S. access to the detainees, U.S. and Pakistani officials said."

AP: "Activists say clashes between security forces and protesters have broken out in a city in northeastern Syria as thousands of people turn out for the funeral of a slain Kurdish opposition leader. Mashaal Tammo was killed Friday by masked gunmen who burst into an apartment in the city of Qamishli."

Reuters: "Ivy League professors dropped by anti-Wall Street protest camps in Boston and New York on Friday to school the demonstrators on theories that bolster their demands to end inequality in the American economy."

Yahoo! News: "The leader of the [Westboro Baptist] church, Margie Phelps, has declared her group intends to picket the funeral of [Steve] Jobs as way of 'condemning him for teaching sin to others.' ..."

AFP: "The US ambassador to the Philippines has apologised for his controversial remark that 40 percent of male tourists visit the country for sex, according to the foreign department. Harry Thomas sent the apology through a cell phone text message to Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario on Friday, a spokesman said." CW: this guy is a diplomat?