The Commentariat -- January 13, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on New York Times public editor Art Brisbane's post asking readers if they would like Times reporters to fact-check statements made by the subjects of (and others cited in) their reports. Enjoy! The NYTX front page is here and links to related articles. You can contribute to NYTX here.

The Commentariat is open for comments.

Your Cheery Friday the 13th Forecast. Economics Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz, perhaps the most influential economist in the world, says of the 2012 econimc outlook, "This year is set to be even worse" than 2011. Blame the deficit hawks & austerity aficionados. Thanks -- I think -- to Carlyle & Dave S. for the link. ...

... NEW. Calvin Lawrence of ABC News: ". Paraskevidekatriaphobia, as coined by psychotherapist Donald Dossey of the Stress Management Center-Phobia Institute in Ashville, N.C., bedevils 'people with blind, unreasoning fear of this day and date, as opposed to those who have a clear, reasonable fear of not being able to say that word,' according to the institute's website."

NEW. Paul Krugman: Sorry, Willard, "America is not, in fact, a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not, in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery.... Did I mention that the last businessman to live in the White House was a guy named Herbert Hoover? (Unless you count former President George W. Bush.)" CW: this is pretty fundamental, but the percentage of our government leaders -- much less the general public -- who understand it must in close to single digits.

CW: Republicans who were clamoring to know just what legal justification the President used to make his recess appointment have got what they wanted. Here it is, in pdf. I guess the complainers can read it when they get back from recess. Via Greg Sargent. Overview:

The convening of periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is to be conducted does not have the legal effect of interrupting an intrasession recess otherwise long enough to qualify as a 'Recess of the Senate' under the Recess Appointments Clause. In this context, the President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones explains the background & rationale for the opinion, which was written by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. He says it was a "close call."

Right Wing World

Satire Becomes Reality. Mike Allen of Politico: "Stephen Colbert announced on 'The Colbert Report' that he is exploring a presidential run in South Carolina, and made it legal by handing control of his super PAC to Jon Stewart in the opening segment of Thursday night’s show." Update:

Aw, Shucks! Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "The 29-minute video 'King of Bain' is such an over-the-top assault on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney that it is hard to know where to begin.... Romney may have opened the door to this kind of attack with his suspect job-creation claims, but that is no excuse for this highly misleading portrayal of Romney’s years at Bain Capital. Only one of the four case studies directly involves Romney and his decision-making, while at least two are completely off point. The manipulative way the interviews appeared to have been gathered for the UniMac segment alone discredits the entire film." ...

... PolitiFact is still working on their fact-check but they have a guide to the film -- absent analysis -- here.

Doctor Misogyny. Lori Stahl & Mary Curtis of the Washington Post: "When GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul, [an ob-gyn,] was asked today about Tuesday’s federal court ruling upholding an aggressive new sonogram law in his home state of Texas, the congressman said the requirement that women seeking an abortion first get a sonogram 'should always have been a Texas state position.' ... Paul, who opposes abortion rights, has consistently railed against intrusive Big Brother government when it comes to other issues.... But it’s hard to imagine anything more literally invasive than a required sonogram....’’

Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "Mitt Romney faces continued criticism over his refusal so far to release the names of his campaign 'bundlers' -- the big money fundraisers who have helped him rake in tens of million dollars.... But many of them come from big private equity firms. It's the same corporate buyout industry where Romney, as chief of Bain Capital, made his personal fortune...."

Paul Krugman Spies a Yellow-Bellied Mittster: "Mitt Romney’s new defense of his work at Bain: it was just like the auto bailout!... What the story of Romney and the auto bailout actually shows is something we already knew from health care: he’s a smart guy who is also a moral coward. His original proposal for the auto industry, like his health reform, bore considerable resemblance to what Obama actually did. But when the deed took place, Romney — rather than having the courage to say that the president was actually doing something reasonable — joined the rest of his party in whining and denouncing the plan."

Local News

Jay Newton-Small of Time: "After issuing just eight pardons in his first seven years, [outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley] Barbour (R) pardoned 208 convicts, 41 of them murderers, sex offenders or child molesters, during his last 48 hours in office. Barbour notes that 90% of the people he pardoned weren’t in prison, but four murderers have been released. And by expunging their records, they can now legally buy guns, just as the sex offenders he pardoned no longer need to give their names to the sex offender registry."

News Ledes

AP: "The French finance minister said Friday that Standard & Poor's had stripped the nation of its top-notch credit rating, again throwing Europe's ability to fight off its debt crisis into doubt. Speaking on France-2 television, Finance Minister Francois Baroin confirmed that France had been lowered by one notch. That would mean a rating of AA+, the same rating the United States has had since S&P downgraded it last August."

Politico: "John Edwards has a life-threatening heart condition that requires surgery and his trial has been delayed, according to reports Friday."

ABC News: "Joran van der Sloot, the only suspect in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, was sentenced today to 28 years in a Peruvian prison in the strangling death of Stephany Flores. And now that Peru has settled its case, Holloway's family hopes that van der Sloot will be brought to the U.S. for trial."

President Obama spoke this morning on government reform. Reuters: "President Barack Obama will ask Congress for authority to merge the agency that negotiates U.S. trade deals into the Commerce Department, a White House official said on Friday, in an effort to trim the government amid voter concerns about deficits." Washington Post story here. Update: A post-speech story by ABC News is here. A transcript of the President's remarks is here.

New York Times: "The Obama administration is relying on a secret channel of communication to warn Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a 'red line' that would provoke an American response, according to United States government officials."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration has decided to remove two of the four U.S. Army brigades remaining in Europe as part of a broader effort to cut $487 billion from the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade, said senior U.S. officials. The reductions in Army forces, which have not been formally announced, are likely to concern European officials, who worry that the smaller American presence reflects a waning of interest in the decades-long U.S.-NATO partnership in Europe."

Washington Post: "Beleaguered President Asif Ali Zardari landed in Pakistan early Friday after a short trip abroad, returning to face a simmering conflict between Pakistan’s civilian government and its armed forces."

Reuters: "Myanmar freed at least 200 political prisoners on Friday in an amnesty that could embolden the opposition and put pressure on the West to lift sanctions as one of the world's most reclusive states opens up after half a century of authoritarian rule."

The Commentariat -- January 12, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled, "Everybody Knows David Brooks Is Wrong." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Comments are open on the Commentariat. There were only two four comments yesterday. Both All were stellar.

Elections Have Consequences. Linda Greenhouse in the New York Times: "Progressive ... have something to cheer in the resurrection of the Justice Department’s previously moribund Civil Rights Division. The decision late last month by Thomas E. Perez, the division’s head, to block South Carolina’s new voter identification law is important both symbolically and practically." See also the Scott Keyes story about James O'Keefe in today's Right Wing World.

Rich Moran of the Pew Research Center: "The Occupy Wall Street movement no longer occupies Wall Street, but the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness. A new Pew Research Center survey of 2,048 adults finds that about two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are 'very strong' or 'strong' conflicts between the rich and the poor — an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009.... The survey results ... do not necessarily signal an increase in grievances toward the wealthy.... Nor do these data suggest growing support for government measures to reduce income inequality."

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "As arguments flare in Israel and the United States about a possible military strike to set back Iran’s nuclear program, an accelerating covert campaign of assassinations, bombings, cyberattacks and defections appears intended to make that debate irrelevant, according to current and former American officials and specialists on Iran. The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour."

Rana Foroohar of Time: "Warren Buffett is ready to call Republicans' tax bluff. Last fall, Senator Mitch McConnell said that if Buffett were feeling 'guilty' about paying too little in taxes, he should 'send in a check.' ... So Buffett has pledged to match 1 for 1 all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. 'And I'll even go 3 for 1 for McConnell,' he says. That could be quite a bill if McConnell takes the challenge; after all, the Senator is worth at least $10 million. As Buffett put it to me, 'I'm not worried.'" The article has been updated to include McConnell's chickenshit response, which shows Buffett was right not to worry.

Alex Pareene of Salon has a good piece dissecting & dissing Bill Keller's column proposing Secretary Clinton as President Obama's running mate. I thought Keller made a good case; Pareene & P. D. Pepe in a Commentariat comment prove me wrong.

Tom Laskawy: "... we have an industrial meat production system — encouraged by our larger economic policies — that immiserates virtually anyone it touches. From those who work in CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] or slaughterhouses, to those who live near them or have seen their families torn apart by the industry in one way or another...." ...

... I Will Never Buy Another Smithfield Ham. David Bacon of The Nation on how NAFTA has impoverished Mexico, enriched Smithfield Foods, and created a host of other devastating problems.

Jordan Teicher of Business Insider: "Elizabeth Warren's campaign announced today that she has raised $5.7 million in the last quarter of 2011, far outweighing the $3.2 million raised by her opponent, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, the Boston Globe reports. Warren's website says that 23,000 Massachusetts donors gave an average of $64 to her campaign in the last three months."

Steven Biel of MoveOn.org: "A couple months ago, a MoveOn member named Robert Applebaum started up a petition for student loan forgiveness using our new website, SignOn.org. Robert's petition spread quickly, especially after we emailed it to our list. Then, something really amazing happened. President Obama actually responded — not with a form letter, but with an actual change in policy that will lower student loan payments for over 1.6 million people." (No link.) You can start your own petition on anything you want here.

Right Wing World

... CW: Maybe some of the yahoos who watch this film and vote Republican so they can "get their freedoms back" will realize that in Right Wing World, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." On the upside, how nice to have a Republican president who doesn't care about black people or white people. ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... this is one of the most devilishly effective attack communications I've personally ever seen -- a heat-seeking missile aimed directly at the white working class id. Mitt saying 'A bientot' at the end.... And aside from the xenophobic flourishes, the film is really just a well-wrought glimpse at the underside of contemporary finance capitalism, with Mitt Romney serving as the chief villain.... No wonder DeMint and Limbaugh have denounced this video: they should, because it's an assault on everything they believe in." ...

... They’re vultures sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick. And then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton. -- Gov. Rick Perry, on private equity firms like Bain Capital ...

... E. J. Dionne: "Thanks to Mitt Romney and such well-known socialist intellectuals as Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, the United States is about to have the big debate on the nature of modern capitalism that should have started back in 2008. The focus will be on whether some kinds of capitalism are bad for the system as a whole." Exit polls showed that in the New Hampshire primary, "Romney did best among voters earning more than $200,000 a year, next best with the $100,000-to-$200,000 category. He was weakest among those taking home less than $50,000 annually.... A privileged candidate sits atop a relatively privileged base."

Dan Amira of New York magazine: In an interview with Matt Lauer, Mitt Romney  "gripes about income inequality reflect nothing but envy, and that such topics should only be discussed in 'quiet rooms.' What Romney is saying is, maybe we can debate income inequality and the abuses of Wall Street, if you insist on it, but it's nothing to get upset about. This is not a gaffe, really, just a particularly stark reflection of Romney's true beliefs as he's repeatedly expressed them." Includes video. ...

... "Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet." Paul Krugman: "Trickle-down economics has now become shut-your-trap economics.... Because there’s no way anyone who isn’t motivated by envy could be interested in and possibly concerned about this":

Steve Benen on the evolution of Mitt Romney's jobs-creation story: "Bain Capital and its executives weren’t in the job-creating business — its purpose was to make money for its investors, not grow businesses and create jobs. What’s wrong with wealth creation? In theory, nothing. The problem, though, is when Romney decides to describe his firm in ways that are at odds with reality."

Reid Wilson of National Journal: "Friends and allies of Newt Gingrich, alarmed at his recent attacks that seem straight out of the Democratic playbook, worry that the former House speaker may be doing his party's eventual presidential nominee serious damage -- and that he won't listen to veteran Republican strategists urging he back off.... 'We have a real problem when we have Republicans talking like Democrats against the free market,' South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Wednesday.... The conservative Club for Growth has labeled Gingrich's attack on Bain Capital 'disgusting.' The National Review, the Weekly Standard, radio host Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative media outlets offered similarly disparaging takes." ...

... BUT. Jonathan Allen & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Newt Gingrich signaled Wednesday that he believes his criticism of Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is a mistake — and that he’s created an impression that he was echoing Democratic rhetoric." CW: Aw, shucks. BUT. "Rick Tyler, a top advisor to Winning Our Future, said Gingrich’s comments on Wednesday will not prompt the group to take down the documentary, 'When Mitt Romney Came to Town,' or otherwise alter its strategy." CW: Excellent.

Dan Levin of the Daily Beast has an interesting piece on how the Chinese view the GOP presidential race. "With alarm," bu it's more complex than that.

Recess Is Not Recess, and I'll Prove It When I Get Back from Recess. Jonathan Bernstein: Rep. Diane Baker (R-Tenn.) argues that "it's outrageous for the president to call what's happening now a recess, and the House intends to take it up as soon as they get back into town after recessing for the holiday."

Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "James O’Keefe’s latest video features surrogates appearing to commit voter fraud in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary election, all in an attempt to highlight voter fraud, a problem which is by-and-large nonexistent in the Granite State." CW: I sure hope O'Keefe & Friends are arrested, tried & convicted. Maybe President Obama could try out his new terrorist-nabbing, habeas-corpus-free powers on them. And, as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has pointed out, Guantanamo is like a resort, so why not send O'Keefe & the boys to Club Gitmo?

Lizz Winstead, a co-creator of the "Daily Show," assesses the Republican presidential field in a piece titled, "Shit Republican Candidates Say," first published in the Guardian. Despite its high-toned provenance, you may not want to share this column with your maiden auntie.

Local News

Ariane de Vogue (apparently her real name) of ABC News: "A federal appeals court today blocked a measure that would’ve made Oklahoma the first state in the nation to ban the Sharia law in its court system. The court ruled in favor of Muneer Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Oklahoma, who filed a lawsuit against the Oklahoma election board on the grounds that the voter-approved constitutional amendment violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution forbidding the government from favoring one religion over another." ...

... Charles Pierce comments on the "paranoid crackpots" of Oklahoma who voted in this law, said paranoid crackpots apparently constituting about 70 percent of the voting population.

News Ledes

New York Times: "... despite doubts in the [Obama] administration, misgivings on Capitol Hill and the erratic objections of the most important partner in any potential peace deal — President Hamid Karzai — the administration’s best hope for ending the war in Afghanistan has reached a critical juncture. Next week, [U.S. diplomat Marc] Grossman and his team are rushing back to the region to consult with several allies, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and if Mr. Karzai gives his blessing, will resume preliminary talks with the Taliban representative before another opportunity slips away."

New York Times: "With little left to lose, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and their allies sought to portray [Mitt] Romney as insufficiently steadfast in his conservatism in this very conservative state, threatening a scorched-earth approach to the primary to be held here on Jan. 21. But there were some signs that a pressure campaign from the party establishment — encouraged and to some degree organized by pro-Romney forces — was forcing his rivals to recalibrate if not rethink the attacks."

New York Times: "The government of Myanmar signed a cease-fire agreement on Thursday with ethnic Karen rebels who have been fighting for greater autonomy since the former Burma gained independence from Britain more than six decades ago, according to reports from Myanmar."

ABC News: "As victims' loved ones ask why killers and rapists got pardoned by former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour during his final hours in office, a Mississippi state judge has temporarily halted the release of 21 of the 200-plus pardoned inmates."

New York Times: "A video apparently showing four Marines urinating on three dead Taliban fighters was condemned by NATO authorities in Afghanistan and by the Afghan government on Thursday.." CW: Actually, NATO officials condemned the Marines' actions, not the video, as the Times writer would have you believe. Maybe if the reporter hadn't used the passive voice he could have written an accurate lede. Yeah, I know, bitch, bitch, bitch.

Reuters: "U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, together with the Democratic National Committee, raised more than $68 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina said on Thursday. Messina told supporters in a video message that 98 percent of the donations were made up of $250 or less, illustrating growing grassroots support for Obama...."

Ghoulish News. AP: "North Korea said Thursday it will enshrine 'eternal leader' Kim Jong Il's preserved body in the palace housing the body of his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, and labeled his Feb. 16 birthday the 'Day of the Shining Star,' deepening its veneration of the late leader as it links his son and successor to the family legacy."

The Commentariat -- January 11, 2012

Sorry, slow morning! Comments are open in this section. I haven't said much, but here's hoping you do.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer: "Today, New York Times writer Mark Bittman titles in his op-ed blogpost, 'We’re eating less meat. Why?' You might think he would answer that question. He does not." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Right Wing World

Rob Boston in AlterNet: "To hear the Religious Right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth.... There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth." Boston lists five founding fathers -- and outlines their religious views -- who could not get elected today.

New York Times Editors: "Where the Iowa caucuses illuminated the dark essence of social conservatism, the New Hampshire primary was a journey into the dingy, cramped quarters of the right wing’s economic policies.... In a flailing effort to address the pain of the middle class, the Republicans repeated familiar charges that Mr. Obama advocates a redistribution of wealth.... It was all exactly backward. Americans are angry about income redistribution — from the middle class to the tiny sliver at the top, not from the top down.... The Republican hopefuls are deluding themselves and trying to delude the voters."

Joshua Green of Bloomberg News takes in a screening of “When Mitt Romney Came to Town,” "the film produced by Jason Killian Meath, a former Republican National Committee aide, [which] is being funded by Winning Our Future, an organization run by longtime aides to Gingrich. Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), and a Gingrich supporter, has given Winning Our Future $5 million to help air the film in South Carolina."

John Dickerson of Slate: "The GOP critique of Romney ratifies the Democratic idea that the free market can breed excesses. None of Romney's rivals would admit they're saying that, but when you pile on this completely and in such blunt terms you are embracing the anti-corporate energy that has always been behind the Democratic attack. When Barack Obama talks about the excesses of Wall Street, conservatives say he is punishing success. If so, then Romney's rivals are doing the same thing." ...

... Steve Benen: "Romney has tried to argue that critics of his private-sector layoffs are borderline communists, trying to 'put free enterprise on trial.' And yet, when there is no difference whatsoever between the message Dems are pushing and the attacks from Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Jon Huntsman, it suggests the Romney line is a bust. But more importantly, it also suggests the progressive line is what resonates with voters — even Republican voters." ...

... Maureen Dowd eviscerates the Willard doll.

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Representative Ron Paul of Texas finished a strong second in the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday, which in many ways was the more telling outcome in a race where Mitt Romney’s dominance was never in doubt.... Even if political analysts continue to regard the libertarian-leaning Mr. Paul as a protest candidate, with no shot at the nomination, his success here — on top of a third-place finish last week in the Iowa caucuses — means he will probably continue his campaign for months and perhaps to the summer convention." ...

Rick the Red. Barbie Nadeau in the Daily Beast: "On the campaign trail, [Rick] Santorum often touts his grandfather’s flight from Italy 'to escape fascism,' but he has neglected to publicly mention their close ties with the Italian Communist Party. 'Rick’s grandfather Pietro was a liberal man and he understood right away what was happening in Italy,' [Malacarne] Santorum [a cousin of the candidate's] told Oggi. 'He was anti-fascist to the extreme, and the political climate in 1925 was stifling so he left for America. After a few years he returned to Italy with his wife and children, including Aldo, Rick’s father, who passed away late last year.....' She goes on to explain how the family then became pillars of the Communist Party in Italy."

The first part of this segment is a little boring, but beginnng at about 3:45 min. in, Maddow gets down to enumerating the positions of the GOP presidential candidates on contraception. If you believe American women & men should have the right to have sexual relations in a responsible way, you really cannot vote for any one of these medieval would-be kings. At the end of the segment, Maddow interviews Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. Listen to it.

News Ledes

New York Times: "At a time of growing tension over its nuclear program and mounting belligerence toward the West, Iran reported on Wednesday that an Iranian nuclear scientist died in what was termed a 'terrorist bomb blast' in northern Tehran when an unidentified motorcyclist attached a magnetic explosive device to his car.... Iranian officials indicated that they believed the United States and Israel were responsible."

AP: "Some Occupy Wall Street protesters spent the night at New York City's Zuccotti Park after metal barricades surrounding it came down. By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, only about 10 of them remained. The barricades were removed late Tuesday. About 300 cheering protesters began filling the park."