The Commentariat -- September 28

I've posted a comments page on Off Times Square on Frank Rich's column, linked yesterday. Write on this or something else.

Timothy Homan of Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News." CW: Too bad "journalistic discretion" prevents Homan from directly stating what economists think of the Republican "plan," but he sure hints at it here:

A reduction in government spending, the end of the payroll- tax holiday and an expiration of extended unemployment benefits would cut GDP by 1.7 percent in 2012, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli in New York. ...

... Of course, as Steve Benen points out, "I don’t imagine this will make much of a difference to Congress. Republicans, after all, 'do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities,' even though they occasionally claim 'every economist' agrees with the GOP agenda.... The choice for Congress seems to down to recovery and jobs vs. negligence and ignorance." CW: I'd say ignorance is the clear frontrunner here.

"Governing by Crisis." New York Times Editors: "... the country will probably be wrung through several more near-shutdowns as the 2012 budget process stumbles along, all prompted by conservatives in the House who will use any choke point to achieve their obsessive goal of shrinking government. Republicans should think of the broad American public, rather than catering to the extreme elements of their base, the next time they push the government to the brink." Right.

Jonathan Chait, now of New York Magazine, writes a great little post on "class warfare," the "hypersensitivity of the rich," & their outsized influence on powerful politicians & media elites like Our Mister Brooks. ...

... E. J. Dionne: "There is no such thing as a self-made person":

... Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post tries to figure out Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe & what his strategy is for 2012. The big question is whether the course correction we've seen in September -- the newly-aggressive Obama -- is a hiccup or a guide to the next 14 months. ...

... A Fine Example of the "New" Obama: If asking a millionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a class warrior, a warrior for the middle class, I will accept that; I’ll wear that as a badge of honor. Because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against the middle class in this country for a decade now. -- Barack Obama in Colorado yesterday

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post on why the Obama White House is taking the Affordable Care Act directly to the Supreme Court: "(1) the Obama administration will definitely handle the case; ... (2) the review might not have been granted — or gone against the administration; & ... (3) the move shows confidence." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick of Slate cites numerous expert opinions on how the Supremes will handle the ACA case. She argues that since the Chief Justice likely does not want to make the Court part of a presidential election contest, there's a good chance the Court will kick the can down the road, possibly until 2015, when the major provisions go into effect.

... Duke Helfand of the Los Angeles Times: "The price of health insurance provided by employers for families jumped 9% this year over 2010 as rising healthcare expenses contributed to the largest premium increases in six years, a national survey shows.... Employers picked up most of the cost, but workers continued to struggle to keep up with the growth in their share, which has far outpaced any growth in their earnings."

Tom Friedman Is a Sap. Rick Hertzberg does a masterful job of demonstrating how Tom Centrist Friedman is ludicrously obtuse. If you've ever taken Friedman seriously, you owe it to yourself & your country to read Hertzberg's takedown. If, BTW, you're confused by the end, don't blame Hertzberg; it's Friedman who is just plain nonsensical. See also Matt Taibbi's take on Our Mister Brooks -- who "really is a sap" -- under today's Right Wing World. These guys work for the New York Times! Friedman has three Pulitzers!

Ezra Klein on why a third party presidential candidate, if s/he won, wouldn't solve any of the problems third-party advocates cite. CW: what Klein doesn't mention, and what I think is most obvious, is that a third-party president would have absolutely no clout with Congress. Nobody on the Hill would have her back. Various presidents (Jimmy Carter, Billary Clinton) have been accused of not cementing good relations with Congress to get things done. What kind of relationship would a third-party candidate -- one who defeated the preferred candidate of every Member of Congress -- have with Congress?

Karen Garcia: "Thousands of U.S. Postal Service employees are in danger of losing their jobs, thanks to a wholly manufactured budget crisis created by Congressional Republicans. On paper, the Post Office is nearly bankrupt because of a law forcing it to prepay medical retirement benefits so far into the future (75 years) that the presumed beneficiaries haven't even been born yet. The pension fund is actually flush with cash overpayments, $47 billion in the past four years alone."

Contra economist Michele Bachmann, whose policy for full employment is to eliminate the minimum wage, Chris Isidore of CNN Money reports, "Getting the economy going will require more than just creating a large number of low-wage positions, said Paul Osterman, economics professor at MIT. Raising the minimum wage to get more cash to the working poor is just as crucial, he said. About 20% of American adults who have jobs are earning only $10.65 an hour or less, according to Osterman's analysis. Even at 40 hours a week, that amounts to less than $22,314, the poverty level for a family of four." Thanks to Doug R. for the link.

Vale, Mens Rea. Gary Fields & John Emschwiller of the Wall Street Journal: "For centuries, a bedrock principle of criminal law has held that people must know they are doing something wrong before they can be found guilty.... This legal protection is now being eroded as the U.S. federal criminal code dramatically swells. In recent decades, Congress has repeatedly crafted laws that weaken or disregard the notion of criminal intent.... Overall, more than 40% of nonviolent offenses created or amended during two recent Congresses—the 109th and the 111th, the latter of which ran through last year — had 'weak' mens rea requirements at best..." CW: AND how stupid is this? --

In 1998, Dane A. Yirkovsky, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, man with an extensive criminal record, was back in school pursuing a high-school diploma and working as a drywall installer. While doing some remodeling work, Mr. Yirkovsky found a .22 caliber bullet underneath a carpet.... He put it in a box in his room, the records show. A few months later, local police found the bullet during a search of his apartment.... Federal officials contended that possessing even one bullet violated a federal law prohibiting felons from having firearms. Mr. Yirkovsky pleaded guilty to having the bullet. He received a congressionally mandated 15-year prison sentence, which a federal appeals court upheld but called 'an extreme penalty under the facts as presented to this court.' Mr. Yirkovsky is due to be released in May 2013.

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: a town clerk in Upstate New York says that because of her religious beliefs, she won't sign marriage licenses for gay couples seeking them, but she has delegated the authority to a deputy -- who shows up by appointment only. Can she do that? The courts are likely to decide.

CW: Yesterday I embedded a BBC interview of independent trader Alessio Rastani, whose view of the market was so radical that the thought arose among the conoscenti that he might be a "Yes Man," a group who perpetrate elaborate hoaxes "to get at the truth." I kinda ignored the buzz, because the general consensus was that Rastani was a real trader. Felix Salmon of Reuters makes the case for yes & no. Salmon's explanation of who typical "independent traders" are, however, is interesting; in fact, his whole post is entertaining. Read it; then remind yourself that Republicans think regulating the financial industry is bad for business.

CW Correction: some while back I link to this Washington Post story about the DOJ's spending $16 a pop for muffins served at a conference. Turns out, according to Ruth Marcus of the Post: "About that $16 muffin — it didn’t actually cost that much.... As it turns out, the receipt on which the Justice Department’s inspector general based that assessment was written in a kind of catering short-hand. The muffin billing actually included: free meeting space, complimentary coffee, fresh fruit, assorted baked goods, taxes and tip. In short, a decent price for a continental breakfast."

Right Wing World *

There is no better motto for the federal government than that of a pizza place. It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and you’re high as a kite and the stuff in your fridge is weirding you out — if you order it, pizza will come. Pizza will come! Oh, pizza will most definitely come. And if you vote for me, America, I promise you that I will deliver. -- Kenan Thompson, impersonating Herman Cain

I think it’s great! I’m going to use that in my next debate: If you vote for me, America, I will deliver. -- Herman Cain, reacting to the skit ...

... The SNL bit & Cain's reaction appears in this Fox "News" interview of Cain, beginning at about 4:40 minutes in:

The Meaning of Repulican Straw Polls & the Iowa Primary. Dana Milbank: "The straw polls are tilted by a small and unrepresentative sample of voters choosing the most ideological candidates. But it seems to me that makes the straw polls a close approximation of the Republican primary electorate. There are 3 million people in Iowa, for example, of whom just more than 600,000 are registered Republicans. But the 2008 Iowa Republican caucus had 120,000 participants. Of those, 60 percent were self-described evangelicals or born-again Christians."

"Why David Brooks Really Is a Sap." After mocking David Brooks' "Newspaper Op-Ed Writing 101" style, Matt Taibbi gets into the substance of Brooks' big lie on taxing the overtaxed super-rich: "I defy David Brooks to come out publicly and explain how it's fair that he should pay more than twice the tax rate that [billionaire John] Paulson or George Soros pays.... If we can't even get rich pundits to object to being personally screwed by the system, if we can't even get those people to talk about it, it'll be a long time before we get around to seriously considering making changes."

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones asks why Republicans are still courting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in an effort to get him to run for president even though he's said he would commit suicide before h'd run. "Answer: because Republicans are in a panic. They don't trust Romney, they're increasingly worried that Perry is unelectable, they think Bachmann is a nutcase, and the rest of their field are just fill-ins. So Christie is their once and future saviour. He yells at constituents! He killed a tunnel that liberals loved! He yells at teachers! He cut budgets! He yells at Democratic legislators! What's not to like?" ...

     ... Dan Amira of New York Magazine totes up five things wingers won't like: Christie's positions on illegal immigration, gun control, climate change, Race to the Top, & -- as Stewart highlighted -- religious prejudice. ...

     ... Travis Waldron of Think Progress adds another: "... Christie (R) recently signed an anti-bullying law that advocates have heralded as the nation’s toughest and a major step forward in the fight to prevent students from being bullied for any number of reasons, including their sexual orientation."

So, Monday I linked this New York Times op-ed by Prof. Matthew Sutton, on how fundamentalist Christian apocalyptic fears/hopes are driving political discourse as right-wing candidates cash in on & stoke them. ...

... Here's Sutton, appearing on Lawrence O'Donnell's show:

... THEN, right on cue, along comes some nut to yell at President Obama that he is the Antichrist. In this clip, the Antichrist seems more intent on making sure the accuser doesn't lose his jacket. Sly devil:

... This is the trouble with these Hollywood events. You never know when Mel Gibson is going to show up. -- Jon Stewart

* Where the crazies rule.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A federal judge on Wednesday upheld most of the sections of Alabama’s far-reaching immigration law that had been challenged by the Obama administration, including portions that had been blocked in other states."

New York Times: "The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced on Wednesday that it had arrested 2,901 immigrants who have criminal records, highlighting the Obama administration’s policy of focusing on such people while putting less emphasis on deporting illegal immigrants who pose no demonstrated threat to public safety."

New York Times: "A 26-year-old man from a town west of Boston was charged Wednesday with plotting to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol using remote-controlled aircraft filled with plastic explosives. The suspect, Rezwan Ferdaus..., is an American citizen and has a physics degree from Northeastern University..., according to an F.B.I. affidavit. Mr. Ferdaus also tried to provide detonation devices, weapons and other resources to Al Qaeda to carry out attacks on American soldiers stationed overseas, law enforcement officials said."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to settle the constitutional question over the 2010 health-care law this term, meaning that the decision will probably come next summer in the thick of the presidential campaign. The Justice Department asked the justices to review the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which is the only appeals court to say Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. The law requires almost every American to have health insurance." The New York Times has a more expansive story here.

President Obama gave his annual back-to-school speech this afternoon.

President Obama participated in an Open for Questions forum this morning.

New York Times: "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the fugitive former leader toppled from power a month ago, has likely taken refuge near the Algerian border under the protection of sympathetic nomadic tribesman who have fought for him, officials of the new Libyan government said Wednesday."

New York Times: "Seeking to stake a claim in the tablet computer market alongside Apple and Samsung, Amazon.com on Wednesday revealed plans to begin selling a color touchscreen tablet. Named the Kindle Fire, the device has a 7-inch touchscreen, weighs 14.6 ounces and is outfitted with a dual-core processor. But the most important feature may be the price. At $199 the Fire is less than half the price of the Apple iPad, which starts at $499." CW: wonder if Amazon will give free Kindle Fires to all those temps in Allentown; nah, but the temps had better work fast to move those Kindles outta there, or they're toast.

Guardian: German negotiators are at loggerheads withtheir French counterparts over pledges to quadruple the eurozone's €440bn (£382bn) bailout fund ahead of a crucial vote in the Bundestag on Thursday that could decide the fate of the currency zone. Attempts by Berlin to write off up to 50% of Greek debts as part of a wider rescue package faced stiff opposition from France, which is concerned many of its banks would need to find extra funds to cope with the resulting losses." The Guardian is running a liveblog on the negotiations here. ...

... New York Times: "Europe took another step in its slog toward approval of a broader bailout fund for overly indebted countries Wednesday, as Finland’s parliament agreed to contribute its share despite an unresolved dispute over its demand for collateral from Greece."

New York Times: "The Greek Parliament voted late Tuesday in Athens to back a hugely unpopular property tax, one of a series of new austerity measures. The vote could clear the way for a crucial injection of international financing meant to at least temporarily stave off a default on government debt."

Los Angeles Times: the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, accused of manslaughter in the death of entertainer Michael Jackson, began yesterday. The New York Times story is here.