The Commentariat -- September 17
President Obama's weekly address:
... The transcript is here; AP story here.
Oh, it's Constitution Day, and not surprisingly the Tea Party is mucking it up. Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Tea Party groups, armed with lesson plans and coloring books, are pushing schools to use the day to teach a conservative interpretation of the Constitution, where the federal government is a creeping and unwelcome presence in the lives of freedom-loving Americans. Progressive groups, accusing the Tea Party of selectively reading the founding document, have responded with a campaign to “take back the Constitution.” They are urging Americans and lawmakers to sign a pledge to honor the whole Constitution, even the parts many Tea Party supporters would prefer to ignore — say, the amendments allowing an income tax, and granting birthright citizenship. And they are trying to get people to see the Constitution not as a limit on federal power but as the spirit behind progressive laws."
"The Apotheosis of Washington," ceiling of the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.... Jonathan Alter has a very good piece in the Washington Monthly on "America's Lost Decade"; i.e., the Dubya years. Alter looks both to past eras -- all the way back to "the Washington Era" -- George, that is -- & to a possible one to come: "If Perry is elected, he has pledged to 'make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can.' He and his supporters may have forgotten that it was Washington [D.C.] that helped build everything from the interstate to the Internet."
I've posted an Off Times Square comments page titled "Let's Talk about Death."
"Let's Talk about Death"
Peter Capatano of the New York Times reviews some of the commentary on Ron Paul's remarks during the most recent Republican presidential debate & the audience's "let him die" reaction: "... those who saw last week’s 'Texas death penalty cheer' — in which Rick Perry’s role in Texas’s execution rate was roundly applauded, twice, by an audience at a Republican debate — and judged it an aberration were proven wrong on Monday, when something strangely similar happened." ...
... In this MoveOn.org video, a woman named Susan Grigsby tells what happened when her then-55-year-old brother lost his job & health insurance:
... New York Times Editorial Board: "After granting a stay of execution to Duane Buck just hours before he was to be put to death in Texas on Thursday, the Supreme Court must now review the case or, at the very least, order a lower federal court to consider Mr. Buck’s plea for a new sentencing hearing. It cannot allow a terrible injustice to stand." The state used Buck's race as proof of "future dangerousness," a requirement for a death sentence in Texas.... The gross racism in Mr. Buck’s case is proof again that the death penalty is cruel and unusual because it is arbitrary and discriminatory, as well as barbaric, and must be abolished." CW: read the whole editorial; then ask yourself where the "unworried" Gov. Rick Perry was in all this. ...
... Update: David Savage of the Los Angeles Times has the answer to "Where's Perry?": "Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst did not respond to pleas urging them to grant Buck a 30-day reprieve. Perry, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, was campaigning in Iowa on Thursday, leaving Dewhurst to preside over the execution. After the stay was issued, Dewhurst's office said he would have no comment. A Perry spokeswoman in Austin said, 'This is a matter before the courts.'" ...
... As David Dayen writes in Firedoglake: "Hanging over this is the extreme surety with which Perry touts the 'very thoughtful, very clear process' for death sentencing in Texas. That’s obviously not true in this case, and hopefully this will force a reckoning from major media on other cases."
... AP (via the NYT): "Hundreds of thousands of people are rallying behind Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis — not just because they oppose capital punishment but because they believe the state could put an innocent man to death. The case is fraught with drama: The murder of an off-duty police officer. Conflicting eyewitness testimony. Last-minute court decisions sparing a condemned man's life and global dignitaries who say they fear an innocent man could die." ...
... From last fall, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on the death penalty; NPR interview by Nina Totenberg -- audio here; transcript here. (The whole interview is pretty interesting.) ...
... CW: "I Do Not Fear Death." -- Roger Ebert in a Salon essay, which I highly recommend. It isn't often you find a meaning-of-life essay on mostly-political Websites. This would be one of those rare occasions in which you do. By coincidence, a friend asked me the same meaning-of-life questions earlier this week, & Ebert's answers are so like mine it would be creepy if I didn't feel that millions of other people of a certain age have reached the same general conclusions. Thanks to my friend Kate M. for directing me to Ebert's piece, which is excerpted from his memoir Life Itself.
Many voters seem to think that government has the power to protect them from the consequences of their sins. -- David Brooks ...
... CW: Matt Yglesias is apparently one of the few Washington-watchers on my side v. Brooks' blame-it-on-us POV. Yglesias writes, "That something along these lines has become something like the conventional wisdom in Washington is, to me, maddening." Yglesias cites "a story about bus drivers in Nevada "getting laid off as a result of state/local budget woes. Are those soon-to-be-unemployed bus drivers really suffering for their sins? ... The amazing thing about this crisis is the extent to which suffering and responsibility are completely out of proportion with one another.... The government has done immensely more to protect creditors, shareholders, and managers of major banks from the negative consequences of their sins than it’s done to protect bus drivers."
Rachel Maddow on Ronald Reagan, the GOP and Christian fundamentalism:
Matthew Dickinson on recent criticisms, direct & implied, of White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley. Dickinson argues that the criticisms are unfair. Via Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post.
Steve Benen: an Iowa family finds "Obamacare" works for them.
Right Wing World
Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: Rick Perry was for TARP before he was against it. But since he lives in Right Wing World, he denies he ever favored TARP, evidence to the contrary. Shortly after Congress failed on its first vote to pass TARP, Perry -- as head to the National Governors' Association, urged Washington legislators "to leave partisanship at the door and pass an economic recovery package." In a related flip-flop, Perry once bashed Wall Street as "being run on greed"; now he favors repealing financial reform. CW: in other words, he's for whatever will get him elected, even if he has to lie about it. ...
... But maybe we shouldn't be too quick to give Perry the Hypocrisy Prize. Here's Marie Diamond of Think Progress: [House Speaker John] "Boehner had the audacity to rebuke 'too big to fail' banks [in a speech this week], despite voting to bail out those very banks and fighting tooth-and-nail against Wall Street reform."
CW: I'm not sure why the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board is just getting around to this, but better late than never: Justice Clarence Thomas's "spousal income and his ties with a real estate developer who paid for some of Thomas' air travel raise disclosure questions.... To our mind, Thomas has been too free in forming such connections. But regardless of his off-the-bench activities, he should follow — and not just make — the law."
News Ledes
"The Buffett Rule." New York Times: " on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers."
New York Times: the NYPD shut down Wall Street before a long-planned protest over the financial system could take place today.
Los Angeles Times: "The daughters of two legendary Democratic politicians have died: Kara Kennedy, the oldest child of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, and Eleanor Mondale, the daughter of former Vice President Walter F. Mondale." Both women had been battling cancer." Both women were 51 years of age. ...
... The New York Times obituary for Kara Kennedy is here. ...
... The New York Times obituary for Eleanor Mondale Poling is here.
Chicago Tribune: "Charles H. Percy, a brilliant businessman who represented Illinois for nearly 20 years in the U.S. Senate, once headed the chamber’s powerful Foreign Relations Committee, and harbored unrealized ambitions to run for the presidency, died early Saturday. He was 91." Washington Post obituary here.
New York Times: "The and said late Friday that they had reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract." Detroit Free Press story here, with links to related documents.
AP: "Dozens of employees at Honolulu's airport were fired or suspended after an investigation found workers did not screen checked bags for explosives, the Transportation Security Administration said Friday."
Friends in High Places. AP: "The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors — including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama — moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show. Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work."
AP: "Facing a potentially destabilizing diplomatic clash, President Barack Obama heads to the United Nations next week already looking beyond a potential vote on Palestinian statehood and toward laying the groundwork for the resumption of stalled Middle East peace talks."
New York Times: "Treasury Secretary made an unusual appearance at a meeting of euro zone finance ministries. Mr. Geithner had been invited to offer some advice on fixing Europe’s sovereign debt and banking problems. European leaders, who have been slow to react to the root causes of the problem, emerged from the meeting dismissive of Mr. Geithner’s ideas and, in some cases, even of the idea that the United States was in a position to give out such pointers."
Everybody's a Crook. New York Times: "Federal ethics officials are expected to recommend that the Justice Department begin a criminal investigation into actions taken by David M. Becker, the former general counsel of the , who determined the agency’s proposal for compensating victims of the Bernard Madoff when he had a financial interest in the outcome. A possible criminal referral from the Office of Government Ethics is expected to be part of a report issued next week by H. David Kotz, the inspector general of the S.E.C...."
AP: "Revolutionary fighters struggled to regroup Saturday outside the loyalist stronghold of Bani Walid after being beaten back by fierce resistance from followers of Moammar Gadhafi, temporarily quieting one battlefield while commanders leading a second offensive tried to open a new front into Gadhafi's tightly defended hometown."
AP: "The defense lawyer for two Americans jailed in Iran moved ahead with bail arrangements on Saturday, as international efforts intensified to seal a freedom-for-bail deal for the two men, convicted of spying. Attorney Masoud Shafiei told The Associated Press he was in court, 'following up the case' of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal. Shafiei said he hopes Iran's judiciary will clear the way for payment of $1 million in exchange for the Americans' release." ...
... NBC News Update: "A bail application for two U.S. men sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran for alleged espionage was in limbo Saturday, after it was signed by one judge, but a second judge failed to appear as expected...."
Emory Wheel: "Former U.S. President and Distinguished Professor Jimmy Carter discussed his thoughts on topics ranging from the 2012 presidential election to his love of country singer-songwriter Willie Nelson at the 30th annual Carter Town Hall Wednesday evening.... Students erupted into applause when Carter declared the 2010 Supreme Court decision allowing for unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns as 'one of the stupidest rulings ever consummated or perpetrated on the American people.'”
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