The Commentariat -- August 27, 2012

CW: still in business. Spent the day hanging hurricane shutters -- turned out to be pretty easy -- and picking up lawn decorations -- urns, etc., I could lift 5 or 6 years ago, not so much now! Mostly working in a driving rain didn't make these chores much more fun. Update: looks like I did my "preparations" during the worst of the storm for this area.

"The Comeback Skid." Paul Krugman: "Both [Paul Ryan & Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey] have carefully cultivated public images as tough, fiscally responsible guys willing to make hard choices. And both public images are completely false."

Susan Saulny of the New York Times: "After five hours of anticipation, Representative Ron Paul of Texas took the stage [in Tampa] at his 'We Are the Future' rally and proclaimed his 'liberty movement' alive and well, despite efforts to declare it dead or shut it out of the Republican National Convention." (See also Presidential Race.)

Presidential Race

As contributor From-the-Heartland writes, Matthews is terrific in this segment:

     ... What's pathetic is that none of the rest of those geniuses on "Morning Joe" get it. Tom Brokaw is the biggest phony of them all.

Dan Balz & Jon Cohen of the Washington Post: "The Republican National Convention opens this week with President Obama and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney running evenly, with voters more focused on Obama's handling of the nation's flagging economy than on some issues dominating the political debate in recent weeks. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Romney at 47 percent among registered voters and Obama at 46 percent -- barely changed from the deadlocked contest in early July." CW: this is consistent with a Fox "News" poll published Friday.

Former Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Florida) endorses President Obama in a Tampa Bay Times op-ed: "As Republicans gather in Tampa to nominate Mitt Romney, Americans can expect to hear tales of how President Obama has failed to work with their party or turn the economy around. But an element of their party has pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they've proven incapable of governing for the people. Look no further than the inclusion of the Akin amendment in the Republican Party platform, which bans abortion, even for rape victims. The truth is that the party has failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership or seriousness voters deserve." Read Crist's whole essay. It's pretty powerful.

"The Do-Over." A funny-but-true Web video by the Obama campaign. It runs 1:43; too bad they can't make a few swing state TV buys:

Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times: "Mitt Romney said Sunday that he gained no tax benefits by investing part of his fortune in funds based in the Cayman Islands and other overseas jurisdictions, or using a Swiss bank account, saying President Obama's campaign was unfairly accusing him of 'some kind of unsavory action. There was no reduction -- not one dollar reduction in taxes -- by virtue of having an account in Switzerland or a Cayman Islands investment,' [Romney]... told Chris Wallace in a recorded interview broadcast on 'Fox News Sunday.' 'The dollars of taxes remained exactly the same. There was no tax savings at all'":

... Really? Joe Conason of the National Memo: "On the same day that Mitt Romney cracked his birther 'joke,' new evidence indicated that he and his partners at Bain Capital have used questionable methods to avoid federal taxes -- including a scheme that transforms corporate stock into untaxed offshore 'derivatives,' and a practice that converts management fees into capital gains, which are taxed at a far lower rate. While nobody has asked to see the Republican candidate's birth certificate, as he said at a Michigan rally on Friday, everybody has a renewed interest in examining the tax returns he continues to withhold." ...

... ** PLUS, Zack Carter, et al., of the Huffington Post: despite claiming he left Bain Capital in 1999, "according to his 2010 tax return..., Romney ... reaps lucrative tax breaks for 'active' participation in the private equity firm he founded, as well as a host of other investments.... Even if Romney could persuade the IRS his involvement was legitimately active, that still leaves him in a rhetorical jam: For tax purposes, he claims an active status; for political purposes, he claims to have zero to do with the investments.... By describing many of his investments as active, Romney saves himself millions of dollars in taxes. With those active investments, he is also securing a tax break few Americans enjoy: When he wins, he's paying a 15 percent rate on the gain. When he loses, he's writing it off at 35 percent, meaning that tax policy is subsidizing Romney's risk.... In other words, Romney didn't build that, at least not without taxpayer backing."

... Look, Ma. I Can Speak out of Both Sides of My Mouth. Zack Ford of Think Progress: "Just two weeks after a Romney spokesperson faced a barrage of conservative criticism for highlighting the success of the governor's Massachusetts health care law, Romney himself bragged that the measure has expanded access to women's health care services, including contraception.... He has pledged to repeal Obamacare, characterized the law's provision to expand coverage for contraception as an attack against religion, and has suggested that women should 'vote for the other guy' if they expect improved access to birth control.... In the Fox interview, Romney also reiterated his desire to defund Planned Parenthood, arguing that taxpayer dollars should not fund abortion. Abortion constitutes only 3 percent of the organization's services and it's covered by private funds." With video. ...

... AND I can keep on whining, "Obama's picking on me."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "At the height of the Republican National Convention this week, a potential Category 2 hurricane bearing winds greater than 100 miles per hour appears likely to slam into the Gulf Coast, perhaps close to the already battered city of New Orleans.... Russ Schriefer, a top adviser to Mr. Romney who is helping to produce the convention, told reporters that organizers were keeping a close eye on the storm and may yet adjust the schedule if necessary." ...

     ... Update: Shear & Jim Rutenberg have a more detailed story: "The prospect of a major storm blowing through the Gulf of Mexico toward New Orleans upset the tight choreography of the Republican convention on Sunday, straining the party's highly scripted plans for showcasing Mitt Romney and raising the possibility that news media attention could shift elsewhere." ...

... Karen Tumulty & Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post on the same subject. ...

... Alex Roarty of the National Journal has a great piece on which party luminaries won't be speaking at the GOP convention.

New York Times Editors: "A long history of social extremism makes Paul Ryan an emblem of the Republican tack to the far right."

Ron Paul Delegates Get the "Nosebleed Seats." Steve Freiss of Politico: "The Republican National Convention seating chart, obtained by Politico Sunday, shows the delegations from Nevada, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota and Oklahoma all located on the outer fringe of the convention floor. Each are states with significant Paul followings." ...

... AND speaking of endorsements (see Charlie Crist above), John Harwood of the New York Times: Rep. Ron "Paul, in an interview, said convention planners had offered him an opportunity to speak under two conditions: that he deliver remarks vetted by the Romney campaign, and that he give a full-fledged endorsement of Mr. Romney. He declined. It wouldn't be my speech,' Mr. Paul said. 'That would undo everything I've done in the last 30 years. I don't fully endorse him for president.'"

Emily Schultheis of Politico: "Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Sarasota, Fla., Donald Trump said Mitt Romney's birth certificate quip in Michigan last week may have been a lighthearted joke, but that the issue of President Obama's birth certificate is far from settled. 'What I think doesn’t matter -- he has his views and many other people disagree with him as you know,' Trump said. '...But he did make a joke, and some people thought it might not be a joke. It happens to be an issue that a lot of people believe in … many, many people believe in it so maybe I would have handled it differently, but he's running for president and I'm with him 100 percent.'" ...

     ... Update: Isaac Holds the Trump Card. Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post: "As recently as Saturday afternoon, [Donald] Trump was scheduled to collect the Sarasota Republican Party’s Statesman of the Year award and then swoop down to Tampa for a day of wall-to-wall media interviews, meetings with top donors to Mitt Romney's campaign and then, apparently per the presidential candidate's request, a 'surprise' publicity stunt on the convention floor. But these plans went by the wayside after convention officials canceled Monday's events because of Tropical Storm Isaac, which is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane."

New Definitions of Rape: "Detail"; "Method of Conception." Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress: "Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) today claimed the issue of a rape exception to abortion was a 'detail' to be left up to states and Congress. On ABC's This Week, George Stephanopoulos confronted the Governor and Party Platform Chair with the absolutist anti-abortion language in the platform he led the development of.... The practical effect of the [Constitutional] amendment [advocated in the GOP platform] would be to render any law that allowed for any abortion in any case unconstitutional.... McDonnell's view of the plight of pregnant rape victims appears to be par for the course in the contemporary GOP. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently referred to rape as simply one 'method of conception.'" With video.

Josh Margolin & Beth DeFalco of the New York Post: "Gov. Chris Christie wasn't willing to give up the New Jersey statehouse to be Mitt Romney's running mate because he doubted they'd win, The Post has learned. Romney's top aides had demanded Christie step down as the state's chief executive because if he didn't, strict pay-to-play laws would have restricted the nation's largest banks from donating to the campaign — since those banks do business with New Jersey." CW: you want to take everything coming out of the Post with a grain of salt, but the theory sounds plausible.

Jonathan Chait of New York on what Romney/Ryan are up to: "Blowing up the welfare state and affecting the largest upward redistribution of wealth in American history is a politically tricky project." to do that, the GOP is making its last stand as the whites-only party, assembling its base of crackpots to give themselves one last chance to destroy the social safety net & secure income inequality. CW: how stupid is this? Even if they succeed, & their plan is not totally implausible, won't the next Congresses undo the fruits of their diabolical plot? If Chait is right -- and he may be -- Republicans are counting 100 percent on the stupidity of the electorate. Not a bad bet. ...

... Thomas Edsall in the New York Times on how Romney has subtly introduced racism into the campaign. And, hey, why shouldn't he? Eighty-nine percent of people who identify as Republicans are white-white-whitey-white. Edsall asks at the end of his column whether or not R&R will keep it subtle. He doesn't even mention Friday's birther "joke," which should answer his question. ...

... Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker: "If [Romney] lets the Party's culture war define him, and goes down as its casualty, he will have nobody to blame but himself. He always says that he would rather be talking about how he would fix the beleaguered economy, but so far he has scarcely been more forthcoming on that subject than he has on his income taxes. If he knows what to do, he should tell us. Or is he waiting, betting that things will get worse? Bad news for America remains Romney's best hope."

Paul Harris of the Guardian: "Romneyville" protesters set up tent encampment in Tampa just inside the "restricted" zone for the GOP convention.

News Ledes

Washington Post: six troops who tried to burn 500 copies of the Koran in Afghanistan received unspecified administrative punishments. P.S. The Army made them stupid: "The investigation ... cited evidence of a jarring lack of religious awareness and cultural training among the U.S. troops."

AP: "Four Army soldiers based at Fort Stewart, [Georgia] killed a former comrade and his girlfriend to protect a militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks, prosecutors told a judge Monday.... In Washington state..., the group plotted to bomb a dam and poison the state's apple crop. Ultimately, prosecutors said, the militia's goal was to overthrow the government and assassinate the president."

The Hill: "President Obama on Monday declared a state of emergency for Louisiana, which is expected to be in the path of Tropical Storm Isaac. The action by Obama makes federal funding to the state available immediately, as the tropical storm gained strength Monday, barreling towards the Gulf Coast. The storm is expected to hit the region late Tuesday or early Wednesday, according to forecasters." ...

... The Weather Channel's hurricane tracker for Tropical Storm Isaac is here. "Hurricane warnings have been issued for portions of the northern Gulf Coast as Tropical Storm Isaac continues its west-northwestward march into the Gulf of Mexico.Isaac poses a potential serious threat to portions of the northern Gulf Coast Tuesday into Wednesday."

Mother Nature Thumbs Her Nose at the U. S. National Climate Deniers' Convention in Tampa. Washington Post: "The extent of Arctic sea ice reached a record low Monday, according to the University of Colorado National Snow and Ice Data Center, and is on track to decline further in the next two weeks."

Case Closed. Sort of. BuzzFeed: "The trial court judge in California who has taken over hearing the federal court case challenging Proposition 8, the state's amendment limiting marriages to one man and one woman, ordered the case closed today -- which would allow same-sex couples to marry in California. The couples, however, will have to wait on the Supreme Court to be able to marry. A stay of the case by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pending the Supreme Court's determination of whether it takes the case means that a 'mandate' will not issue allowing Ware's order today to go into effect."

Guardian: "Fifteen men and two women have been found beheaded in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province. Officials said the victims were killed by Taliban insurgents as punishment for attending a mixed-sex party with music and dancing."

AP: "More than a dozen Greenpeace activists have intercepted a ship carrying Russian oil workers to a floating oil platform< in Russia<'s Arctic. Greenpeace said in a statement on Monday that 14 activists chained themselves to the anchor chain of the vessel which was carrying Gazprom's workers to the Prirazlomnaya platform in the Pechora Sea. Gazprom is pioneering Russia's oil drilling in the Arctic. The state-owned company installed the platform there last year and is preparing to drill the first well."

The Commentariat -- August 26, 2012

CW: I'll be spending Sunday -- as I did most of Saturday -- preparing for an unwelcome visit from Isaac. By Monday, I probably won't have power. The last two times a hurricane hit here, the power was out for 5 days. So I'll be back when I'm back. Update: Isaac is forecast to move in a more westerly direction, leaving SW Florida just out of the "forecast cone." Doesn't change my plans for today, but it might mean I mostly retain power.

The Times has a good feature on the 1969 moon landing, which begins here. Produced in 2009, the Times is reprising it because of the death of Neil Armstrong (see yesterday's Ledes).

Prof. Robert Self in the New York Times on conservatives & the "antisocial contract." "The social contract says that though our individual fates differ, we have a collective destiny, too. Many of us respond viscerally to comments from politicians like Mr. Akin because he leaves us wondering what place for women Republicans see in that collective future.... What liberal women saw [in the 1970s] as routes to equality, conservatives saw as invasions of the private sphere of morality, an invasion only a huge, interventionist government could accomplish."

The New York Times Editors are appalled at the failure of the Justice Department to prosecute the fraud & other unlawful acts that brought us the Great Recession. "As far back as 2009, when the Justice Department lost a financial fraud case against a pair of hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns, it seems to have made an institutional determination that it could not win against big banks and top bankers. That stance has dovetailed with the Obama administration's emphasis on protecting the banks from any perceived threat to their post-bailout recovery."

The Economist: "... the past seven years have seen a fivefold increase in people [in the U.S.] who call themselves atheists, to 5% of the population, according to WIN-Gallup International, a network of pollsters. Meanwhile, the proportion of Americans who say they are religious has fallen from 73% in 2005 to 60% in 2011."

The Spy Who Was Sent out in the Cold. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: the travails of Gwenyth Todd, an American expert on the Middle East.

Presidential Race

Scary Picture Horror Show. Art by Victor Kerlow for the New York Times.

Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney is heading into his nominating convention with his advisers convinced he needs a more combative footing against President Obama in order to appeal to white, working-class voters." CW: because so far he's been playing nice.

Seriously, Girls, We Love Ya. Holly Bailey of Yahoo! News: "Mitt Romney and ... Rep. Paul Ryan made a direct appeal to female voters Saturday, telling supporters at an Ohio rally that, if elected, they would do more to help women in business."

Ben Feller of the AP: "President Barack Obama said Mitt Romney has locked himself into 'extreme positions' on economic and social issues and would surely impose them if elected, trying to discredit his Republican rival at the biggest political moment of his life. In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama said Romney lacks serious ideas, refuses to 'own up' to the responsibilities of what it takes to be president, and deals in factually dishonest arguments that could soon haunt him in face-to-face debates":

     ... The full transcript of the interview is here.

... David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "Only four years after Democrats seemed on the verge of historic policy gains, Republicans could reverse many of those gains and then some. They could cut the top tax rate to its lowest level in 80 years (as Mr. Romney proposes) and make major changes to federal programs.... A Romney administration would ... take a more laissez-faire path than any wealthy country has previously tried." ...

... A hard-hitting Obama campaign ad -- "Mitt Romney -- An End to the Medicare Promise":

... ** Carol Giacomo of the New York Times on Romney's plan to force-feed the Pentagon. "Linking a budget to the G.D.P. is a bizarre way of addressing defense needs -- which rationally should be based on a disciplined analysis of threats and the nation's tolerance of risk. This certainly won't provide any incentive for reform in a Pentagon that spends with more waste and less economic bang for the buck than other federal departments." CW: Giacomo doesn't say so, but Romney's plans for outlandish defense spending are not about defense. They're about military contractors.

"Too Late to Shake that Etch-a-Sketch." Maureen Dowd: "Even if he wanted to, Mitt couldn't reveal himself. He has recast his positions so many times, he doesn't seem to know who he is.... Even teaming up with the most policy-specific Republican House member in a bid for reflected ideological clarity has not worked. Rather than Mitt's gaining focus, Paul Ryan is losing it.... Even though he once seemed to have sensible, moderate managerial instincts, he won't stop ingratiating himself with the neo-Neanderthals. That's the biggest reveal of all."

Congressional Races

Nick Carey of Reuters: "Missouri conservatives say they are rallying around U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin despite his controversial comments about rape because they are outraged that 'establishment' Republican Party leaders tried to railroad him out of the race." CW: altho it's certainly a longshot, pissed-off anti-abortion fanatics might just forget to pull the lever for Willard. Combined with moderates horrified by the Ryan-Akin no-exceptions stance, Obama might squeak out a win in Missouri. (Okay, when pigs fly. But remember, I'm facing a weather situation in which some wild boar -- of which we have a'plenty -- will fly.)

News Ledes

The Weather Channel's hurricane tracker for Tropical Storm Isaac is here.

AP: "The son of the founder of the powerful Haqqani network was been killed in an airstrike in Pakistan, Afghanistan's intelligence agency said Sunday, providing the first public confirmation of rumors that have been swirling for days about the key member of a militant group the U.S. considers one of the most dangerous in the region. The Taliban rejected reports of Badruddin Haqqani's death, however, saying that he was alive and well in Afghanistan."

AP: "At least three employees at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have made serious complaints alleging inappropriate sexual behavior by [Suzanne Barr,] a senior Obama administration political appointee and longtime aide to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.... Barr is accused of telling a male subordinate he was 'sexy' during an office party and asking a personal question about his anatomy. She is separately accused of offering to perform a sex act with a male subordinate while on business travel in Bogota, Colombia. She is also accused of calling a male subordinate from her hotel room and offering to perform a sex act."

New York Times: "Syrian troops have killed hundreds of people suspected of being rebels and sympathizers in the last two days in a town outside Damascus, dumping executed victims in basements and a mosque, activists said, raising the specter of a massacre by Syrian troops as bad as any atrocity committed since the Syrian uprising began nearly 18 months ago."

Washington Post: "China's arms exports have surged over the past decade, flooding sub-Saharan Africa with a new source of cheap assault rifles and ammunition and exposing Beijing to international scrutiny as its lethal wares wind up in conflict zones in violation of U.N. sanctions."

The Commentariat -- August 25, 2012

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' columns & "conversation" about Paul Ryan. The NYTX front page is here.

Gail Collins: "In 2008, Al Baker reported in The Times that the accuracy rate for New York City officers firing in the line of duty was 34 percent. And these are people trained for this kind of crisis. The moral is that if a lunatic starts shooting, you will not be made safer if your fellow average citizens are carrying concealed weapons.... We are never going to have a sane national policy on guns until the gun advocates give up on the fantasy that the best protection against armed psychopaths bent on random violence is regular people with loaded pistols on their belts." Read the whole column.

The difference between an intelligent conservative and, say, Paul Ryan: (1) a conservative has some dumb theories: (2) the dumb theories are tried and they don't work; (3) he changes his mind. Ryan is right there on (1) and (2); he can't do (3). The smart conservative in this case is Judge Richard Posner. Eliot Spitzer has the overview. ...

... Speaking of dumb ideas & Paul Ryan. Even if you're not vaguely interested in the gold standard, watch the segment, because Ezra Klein -- and Jared Bernstein -- makes the topic understandable:

Presidential Race

Birther-in-Chief

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: "At a campaign stop in his home state of Michigan Friday, Mitt Romney made a joke referencing the continued doubts about President Obama's birth certificate raised by Romney supporters like Donald Trump." ...

... Philip Rucker & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Whether he meant to or not, Mitt Romney on Friday injected the toxic issue of birtherism into an already bitter presidential race at an unhelpful time for the presumptive Republican nominee." ...

... Greg Sargent: "... it looks to me like a major mistake. Coming just after days spent debating Todd Akin's 'legitimate rape' remark, this is again a reminder of the extreme voices in the GOP, which Romney has at times been slow to denounce. And it seems less than presidential, to put it mildly.... It will be easy for the Obama campaign to seize on this to raise questions about Romney's judgment, temperament, and character. Wow."

... Michael Tomasky of Newsweek: "Once again, Romney panders to the party's most loathsome elements. Looked at that way, it's kind of disgraceful. Imagine Obama joking, 'No one's ever asked to see my special underwear.' Right wingers would instantly seize on that as an example of offensive religious bigotry. Romney would demand an apology, and the story would float around for days." ...

... Digby: "I don't know what they're seeing in the polls, but saying this on top of the 'welfare' lie makes it clear they're going full blown white privilege solidarity now.... This isn't even dogwhistling. It's a primal scream." ...

... Imani Gandi of Angry Black Lady Chronicles: "The people in the media who are excusing his comments as being merely a joke response to Obama's Seamus shade are also assholes. (I'm looking at you, Jim Acosta.) The Birther conspiracy is a lie. Romney strapping Seamus to the roof of his car isn't. The people who were claiming that because Barack Obama is selling mugs with his birth certificate on it, Mitt Romney's 'joke' is no big deal are assholes. (I'm looking at you, Chris Moody.) That is nothing more than 'black people can say 'nigger' so why can't I?' argument." CW: and thank you for explaining to the unaware why Romney is projected to get zero percent of the black vote (see yesterday's Commentariat).

... ** Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "... He was engaging in ironic post-birtherism -- showing solidarity with birthers by making a humorous remark that can be plausibly denied as a joke later. This is a necessary device for a Republican politician who wants to rile up the base without seeming like a lunatic, because the belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States is still held by nearly half of self-identified Republicans even after the very public release of the president's birth certificate. Birtherism remains the most frank and widespread evidence of racial animus among some of the president's critics.... Birtherism is more than just a conspiracy theory about the president's birth. Its underlying principle is a rejection of American racial pluralism.... It comes across as gloating about the fact that, as a rich white man born into a wealthy and powerful family, Romney has rarely been subject to the kind of racist or sexist assumptions that clog the daily lives of millions of Americans. Romney might as well joke that he's never been mistaken for a waiter in a restaurant or a clerk in a retail store, or that he's never been selected for extra screening at an airport or randomly told to empty his pockets by the NYPD.... That should not be a point of pride for Romney; it should be a matter of anger and disappointment. " ...

... Mitt uses the opportunity as a vehicle to show what a great sense of humor he has:

... Annie-Rose Strasser, et al., of Think Progress: "... as Republicans head down to Tampa for their convention next week, they are preparing to see a veritable festival of politicians who have dabbled in -- or fully embraced -- birtherism." The reporters list "the members of the birther bunch who will be speaking in Tampa next week." CW: See, people, you're taking this all wrong. Mitt was just preparing to be a good host to his guests at next week's party party. ...

... The Obama campaign's 30-second response:

... Here's the Ta-Nehisi Coates piece whom a number of writers at the linked posts mention. ...

... Ezra Klein has the disturbing numbers ... and Coates:

... Desperately Seeking White People. Ashley Parker & Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "In his introduction Thursday to the exurban, nearly all-white audience at an orchard farm here, Mr. Ryan, too, seemed to emphasize cultural differences with Mr. Obama. 'Remember about four years ago when he was talking to a bunch of donors in San Francisco and he said people in states like ours, we cling to our guns and our religion?' Mr. Ryan said, emphasizing the word 'our.' It was a reference to Mr. Romney's native Michigan and Mr. Ryan's Wisconsin, but also, it seemed, to differences based on religion and class. 'I just have one thing to say," Mr. Ryan added. "This Catholic deer hunter is guilty as charged, and proud of it.'"

Steve Benen publishes Vol. 31 of "Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity." ...

... Benen didn't include this one, but let's add it. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "On Thursday, Mitt Romney ripped President Barack Obama's health law for establishing an 'unelected board' that can 'tell people what kind of health care they can have.' The clear implication was that Romney's plan doesn't have an equivalent to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel established in Obama's law that's charged with clamping down on Medicare spending. But Romney's law had a powerful, unelected board of a different kind, one that has vexed Republicans and business groups for years. That entity, called the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority -- which oversees the Massachusetts health insurance exchange -- has made many of the most critical decisions about the type of health care Massachusetts residents must obtain."

Karoli of Crooks & Liars shares this audio of Romney talking to people about appalling working conditions at a factory in China. Mitt appears to be mentioning the factory as an example of how much better off we are in the U.S. The problem with that? As far as Karoli can tell, Mitt it talking about a factory Bain Capital purchased as part of its outsourcing program -- that is, he was moving U.S. jobs to this horrible sweatshop. So Mitt is A-okay with "exploiting women and making them work for nothing so billionaires become mega-billionaires." Hey, it's just business, for Pete's sake. Thanks to contributor Lisa for the link. Here's the audio:

More from the Department of Dumb Ideas. New York Times Editors: "On Thursday, Mitt Romney unveiled the latest in a series of bad ideas for taking government duties out of Washington and hiding them in the back rooms of state capitols. Mostly, Mr. Romney wants to allow states to quietly smother social programs the federal government has run for decades. In the case of his new energy policy, he wants to give states power to bypass Washington's caution in burrowing for oil, gas and coal on federal lands.... Mr. Romney wants to put these programs on the backs of state governments he knows cannot handle the load, then reduce the resources they have now."

Anna Mulrine of the Christian Science Monitor: "The US military is pushing back against the campaign of a group of former Special Operations Forces officers who have spoken out against President Obama in what some have described as a latter-day 'Swift Boat' campaign.... Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to the film, warning that using the uniform for partisan politics erodes the trust that people have in their military."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has postponed an in-your-face visit to Tampa scheduled for Monday, his office said Friday night. Mr. Biden planned a campaign stop in the city even as Mitt Romney’s nominating convention got underway. But his office said the visit might drain law enforcement resources needed to deal with Tropical Storm Isaac."

Right Wing World

** Dana Milbank describes some of the proceedings & policies proposed & passed in the Republican party platform. It's a whole party full of crazy uncles aunts. ...

... In his column, Milbank writes that reporters know only snippets of what's in the platform as it won't be released till Monday. Actually, the geniuses at the RNC accidentally posted it briefly on their Website, & Politico captured it. You can read the whole putrid thing here (pdf).

News Ledes

New York Times: "Republicans on Saturday canceled the opening day of their national convention, saying their first concern was for the safety of delegates and guests in the face of Tropical Storm Isaac, which is strengthening and is headed toward Florida's west coast."

New York Times: "Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died Saturday."

New York Times: "All nine people wounded in the shooting outside the Empire State Building on Friday morning were hit by police gunfire, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Saturday."

New York Times: "The two men at the center of a fatal shooting outside the Empire State Building on Friday had brushed shoulders for years -- often literally, two large egos stuffed into a small office -- and yet could hardly have been less alike."