The Commentariat -- September 7

Karen Garcia has an excellent post on the know-nothing Congress returning to do nothing except pass legislation written by their corporate buddies. She also delves into the weird results of a Rasmussen poll that finds the know-nothing American "likely voter" thinks teabaggers are smarter than the average Congressman. She adds a hilarious finale. ...

... I've put up an Off Times Square comments page on Garcia's post.

Click on cartoon to see slightly larger image.... Pollak's Website is here. Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link.

The Resurrection, Alpha Version. Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "The White House is in the midst of rebranding the president as a pragmatic problem solver prepared to set aside ideology to address a compelling need (see last week’s concession on ozone regulations), a reasonable man in an era dominated by extreme views.... He is frustrated ... at some of his own aides ... that he has been unable to rise above the morass of Washington and recapture the spirit that helped him win election. The frustration has led to internal divisions among some advisers over the scope of his economic address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night."

David Espo of the AP: "President Barack Obama is expected to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and federal spending Thursday night to get Americans working again. Republicans offered Tuesday to compromise with him on jobs — but also assailed his plans in advance of his prime-time speech." ...

To those who say that our expenditures for Public Works and other means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance.... [W]e must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy to end our present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise measures against its return. -- President Franklin Roosevelt ...

... David Woolner, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute writing in Salon, advocates for a real WPA-style jobs program. "The American people ... have heard enough talk of cuts, cuts, cuts when, in the spirit of the New Deal, they would much rather heed a call to 'build, baby, build.'" ...

... Economics Prof. Lawrence Katz, in a New York Times op-ed, suggests several jobs-creation initiatives: a "net job-creation tax credit ... for private-sector employers...; "increased federal spending of at least several hundred billion dollars a year for the next two years"; and a revamped "work force investment and re-employment system." ...

... CW: Although I disagree with at least half of his ideas, William Walker, who heads a commercial real estate financing company has what will surely be my favorite Lede of the Week in a New York Times op-ed, and it's only Tuesday:

PRESIDENT OBAMA needs to go big. Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman of the president’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, may have suggestions, but considering that Fortune 100 companies have killed 2.9 million jobs in America over the past decade while adding 2.4 million abroad, that may not be the best input. I’m an entrepreneur and I’m creating jobs. Here are eight suggestions." (Emphasis added.)

From the Communications Workers of America:

Why are you taking a big bite out of our active military benefits, our disabled benefits to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent of Americans? -- Dennis Holland, an unemployed engineer from Fort Myers, Florida, to Rep. Connie Mack (CoMa) (R-Fla.) The Naples News does not report any coherent response from CoMa. ...

... Americans United for Change, a labor-backed PAC: "When Republicans returned to their districts for their August recess, over and over again, they faced 'waving fingers' and shouts from their hometown over the GOP's lack of focus on job creation and their more-than-willingness to bring our economy to the brink of a recession to protect tax cuts for big oil and multi-millionaires." The site has a terrific interactive map that highlights comments & questions to MOCs made by ordinary Americans.

Andrew Leonard of Salon: on the Friday before Labor Day, the best time to release bad news (ask President O-Zone), Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac bury the news of their big suits against big banks -- a move many Americans have been waiting for since late 2008.

We said working folks deserved a break , so within one month of me taking office, we signed into law the biggest middle-class tax cut in history, putting more money into your pockets. -- President Obama, Labor Day speech 2011 ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post. Uh, no, you didn't. CW: Also, I'd give more weight to statement made in a prepared speech than to one made off-the-cuff.

Brad Plumer of the Washington Post writes "everything you need to know about patent reform in one post."

Robert Fisk of the U.K. Independent wonders why, on the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, almost no one has discussed the motivations of the terrorists, which were bound up in our support of Israel. Thanks to Kate M. for the link.

Right Wing World

"Tonight's Republican Debate -- the 19th Century or the Stone Age?" Bob Reich: "Listen tonight, if you can bear it, for anything other than standard Republican boilerplate since the 1920s — a wistful desire to return to the era of William McKinley, when ... immigrants were almost all European, big corporations and robber barons ran the government, the poor were desperate, and the rich were lived like old-world aristocrats. In the late 1050s and 1960s, the Republican Party had a brief flirtation with the twentieth century.... But the Republican Party that emerged in the 1970s began its march back to the 19th century. By the time Newt Gingrich and his regressive followers took over the House of Representatives in 1995, social conservatives, isolationists, libertarians, and corporatists had taken over once again." ...

... Oh, this is kinda fun. That sweetheart Karl Rove assesses the Republican presidential field:

    ... Ben Smith comments on Rove's assessment of Gov. Perry's book F'ed Up!: "It's hard to overstate what a liability "Fed Up!" -- published just last year -- is for a guy who is otherwise an extremely strong candidate. You have to take him at his word that he would never have written it if he'd planned to run; and he doesn't seem to have settled on a strategy for dealing with it."

Philip Rucker & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney put forward a sweeping economic plan here Tuesday that he projected would boost annual economic growth by 4 percent, create 11.5 million new jobs and lower the nation’s unemployment rate to 5.9 percent over four years.... Romney’s prescription for the country’s ailing economy includes overhauling federal tax, regulatory, trade and energy policies. His is a collection of business-friendly ideas that fit neatly within the mainstream of the Republican Party, but with a few innovative proposals sprinkled throughout, namely tougher stances on China and labor unions." Here's the sweeping plan in pdf format. ...

     ... ** NEW. Jared Bernstein, writing in Salon gives us a concise, comprehensive review of Romney's "bold" plan: "By locking in the Bush high-end cuts, cutting the corporate tax, capping spending at 20 percent (implying large entitlement cuts), shifting health costs, cutting Social Security benefits, and punting on short-term job creation, this is far from a jobs plan that could help the middle class. It's more likely to prolong the downturn, hasten the growth of income inequality, and increase economic insecurity." (Emphasis added.)

     ... Ezra Klein comments. The Romney plan is the usual Republican fare -- deregulate, drill, death to unions -- but at least he has some actual conservative economists on his team. ...

     ... Eh. Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post: not only would Romney's "bold" plan be unlikely "to pump up the economy in the short-term," his promises of economic growth are hardly better than what the Congressional Budget Office has already projected under present conditions.

     ... Andy Kroll of Mother Jones: Romney's new plan is just like his old plan. But, hey, it's longer -- 160 pages of the same ole same ole. ...

     ... Chart Fraud. Oliver Willis grabs a chart from Romney's big plan in which "Romney counts negative job growth while Bush was president 2007- Jan 2009 as part of the 'Obama Recovery.' Talk about creating your own reality that has no resemblance to the truth." CW: I couldn't decide whether or to put the Romney plan in Right Wing World till Willis decided it for me. The plan ins't just standard boilerplate help-the-rich-stiff-the-poor, it's also a work of fiction. ...

     ... As Adam Serwer notes in Mother Jones, "With employment still hovering around nine percent, it's not like Romney needs to lie in order to go after Obama's record on the economy.... Why be so conspicuously dishonest about it? ...

... "The Soft Courage of Low Expectations." Dana Milbank thinks Rick Perry has done Mitt Romney a favor by releasing Romney from his last iteration as a teabagger panderer. The latest "New Mitt" is a little like one of the earlier "New Mitts":

The usually awkward Romney seemed in his element as he delivered his speech [on his economic plan], even if he was wearing a yacht-club blue blazer and tan gabardines on the floor of a truck repair shop.... As he again defended his curious formulation that 'corporations are people,' he sounded almost plutocratic. But it at least shows that the man who had been a frightened front-runner is now willing to state more boldly what his candidacy is about: the corporate establishment’s answer to Perry’s angry populism.

The Only Tax Cut I Don't Like Is an Obama Tax Cut. Rick Klein of ABC News: "Here’s a sentence you won’t read too often: Sen. Jim DeMint is coming out against a tax cut. It’s not just any tax cut. DeMint, R-S.C. – one of the most prominent tea party and anti-tax voices in the country – told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that he’s inclined to oppose President Obama’s proposal for an extension of the payroll tax cut." With video.

It Doesn't Take Some Teabaggers Long to Catch on. John Bennett of The Hill: "Wary that some are joining the grassroots conservative movement merely to sell books and enhance their celebrity status, a Tea Party group is putting the heat on former Alaska [Half-]Gov. Sarah Palin to make her presidential plans clear. In a Tuesday statement, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots paints former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the prime example of that kind of behavior." CW: aw, c'mon how could they have guessed before this?

News Ledes

New York Times: Stewart Nozette, "a former senior government scientist who held the highest security clearances, pleaded guilty to espionage on Wednesday and agreed to a 13-year prison term for selling top-secret information on military satellites and other technology to an F.B.I. agent posing as an Israeli spy."

Washington Post: "Congress signaled Tuesday that it still cannot agree on how to get more money into the nearly depleted coffers of the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency. Lawmakers are stuck in a dispute over how much additional funding FEMA should receive and whether that additional funding should be offset with cuts elsewhere."

AP: "One of the most destructive wildfires in Texas history is slowing down thanks in part to calming winds, but stretched-thin firefighting crews have yet to gain any control of the blaze that is plowing across rain-starved grasslands now littered with hundreds of charred homes." The Houston Chronicle story is here.

Washington Post: "The Federal Reserve is moving toward new steps aimed at lowering interest rates on mortgages and other kinds of long-term loans, without making another massive infusion of money into the economy. When Fed officials hold a pivotal meeting in two weeks, they will strongly consider buying more long-term Treasury bonds...."

New York Times: "Germany’s Constitutional Court upheld the legality of Berlin’s rescue packages for debt-stricken euro zone countries, but said any future bailouts must be approved by a parliamentary panel."

AP: "Libyan fighters have surrounded the ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and it is only a matter of time until he is captured or killed, a spokesman for Tripoli's new military council said Wednesday. Anis Sharif would not say where Gadhafi had been found, but said he was still in Libya and had been tracked using high technology and human intelligence." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "The judge hearing the criminal trial of former President Hosni Mubarak has ordered testimony from the top two military officers now running the country."

Al Jazeera: "A bomb apparently hidden in a suitcase has exploded outside the high court in New Delhi, India's capital, killing at least 11 people and wounding 45 others, officials said."

AL Jazeera: "At least 25 people have been killed and several wounded in suicide bombings near a government compound in the Pakistani city of Quetta bordering Afghanistan."

Al Jazeera: "The trial of Hosni Mubarak has resumed to hear more testimonies after police witnesses suggested earlier this week that neither he nor his interior minister gave orders to shoot protesters during the successful uprising against his rule earlier this year." With video.

listen tonight, if you can bear it, for anything other than standard Republican boilerplate since the 1920s — a wistful desire to return to the era of William McKinley, when the federal government was small, the Fed and the IRS had yet to be invented, state laws determined worker safety and hours, evolution was still considered contentious, immigrants were almost all European, big corporations and robber barons ran the government, the poor were desperate, and the rich were lived like old-world aristocrats.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the Republican Party had a brief flirtation with the twentieth century.