The Commentariat -- October 26

I've put up a comments page on Off Times Square on Occupy protesters' recent battles with authorities.

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt. In addition, the report said, government policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, doing less to reduce the concentration of income." CW: What could possibly be wrong with that? The report is here. ...

... ** Cheaters Always Win. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone ticks off a few reasons you're losing & banks are "winning." Well, the banks can't lose: they have a "cheat code." OWS protesters aren't jealous of bankers, as the right claims; they just bank bankers to quit cheating & play by the same rules we 99 Percent do. ...

... ** Kevin Carey in The New Republic: "THE STUDENTS IN ZUCCOTTI PARK are right to focus on the injustices of student debt: Many of them are indentured to the very banks that destroyed the economy and along with it the jobs students need to pay their loans back.... But much of the guilt lies with higher education institutions themselves. They have spent billions on vanity building projects, administrative overhead, and money-losing sports programs in order to compete for status and fame. Students and parents have been left with the bill."

I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. I support what they do. -- Elizabeth Warren, candidate for U.S. Senate, Massachusetts, on the Occupy protests ...

... Greg Sargent: "National Republicans are now attacking Elizabeth Warren for embracing the protests.... The conservative effort to turn blue collar whites and independents against the protesters and their broader populist message — exploiting a traditional cultural fault line in our politics — will now unfold in the context of a high profile political campaign." ...

... Meghan Barr of the AP: in cities across the U.S., neighbors, nearby workers visitors and city officials are sick of the noise, mess & unsanitary conditions at Occupy campsites. ...

... Prof. James Miller, in a New York Times op-ed, says Occupy's "fetishization of participatory democracy" may allow extremists to hijack the Occupy movement, as happened in the protest movements of the 1960s. CW: Miller is pretty dismissive of the protesters, but we did see this "democratic process" occur in Atlanta, where protesters decided not to allow civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) to speak. I watched video of the Lewis battle, & frankly, I thought the protesters were beyond naive & foolish. Their "reason" for not allowing Lewis to speak: some didn't want to privilege one person over others. Well, there was no reason others couldn't speak, was there? ...

Thanassis Cambanis of The Atlantic: Tahrir Square = Liberty Park, Manhattan? Not exactly.

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: Here's the headline & subhead: "Obama jobs plan vs. GOP proposal: No comparison, really. Obama's American Jobs Act would raise economic demand and boost employment, while Republicans' Jobs Through Growth Act would do little except protect corporate profits." Hiltzig writes, "The GOP plan is shot through with measures aimed at protecting corporate profits, including a cut in the corporate tax rate, attacks on the power of unionized workers, the repeal of financial regulations and incentives for U.S. corporations to repatriate overseas earnings. In job-creating terms, these are entirely beside the point.... One big element of the GOP plan ... is enactment of a balanced budget amendment. If that got passed during this period of economic strain, [an expert economist] said, 'it would be catastrophic.'" ...

... Mark Drajem & Catherine Dodge of Bloomberg News: "Republican presidential candidates have accused [President] Obama of stifling job creation by imposing rules on businesses, and House Republicans have vowed to rein in proposed regulations on everything from the environment to health care to banking." BUT "Obama’s White House has approved fewer regulations than his predecessor George W. Bush at this same point in their tenures, and the estimated costs of those rules haven’t reached the annual peak set in fiscal 1992 under Bush’s father, according to government data reviewed by Bloomberg News." ...

... Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: Mitt Romney's chief economic advisor Glenn Hubbard tells the Wall Street Journal & NPR that Obama's revamped mortgage assistance plan "could be a very big deal" and is "a good plan." Hubbard would like the plan, of course; it is based largely on his ideas. CW: let's see how Romney manages to twist this one.

CW: I've watched only Part 1 of Leno's interview of President Obama, & it's actually substantive. I'll check out the rest later:

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: No, Barack Obama 2012 is not analgous to Harry Truman 1948: for one thing, the economy was improving when Truman narrowly won re-election.

David Rogers of Politico: "With time running out, House and Senate leaders are inserting themselves more into behind-the-scenes deficit talks, exchanging proposals and trying to help the so-called supercommittee avert the threat of a $1.2 trillion across-the board spending cut if no agreement is reached.... The level of activity goes well beyond what has been reported to date with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid taking the lead in reaching out to Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a series of recent meetings. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the two co-chairs of the panel, participated in the closely guarded discussions last week, and Boehner Tuesday hosted a meeting in his office with both House and Senate Republicans on the 12-member panel."

Right Wing World

The Real Story Hiding behind the Border Fence. Both Republican David Frum & libertarian Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic say the GOP presidential candidates are outdoing each other with badder & badder border fence plans (Bachmann: build a double wall! Cain: electrocute some Mexicans!) as a base-pandering subterfuge: in fact, these pro-business Republicans are vehemently opposed to workplace enforcement -- a practice that would actually cut down on illegal immigration. Frum notes that: "Herman Cain [is] a past chief lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, one of the most powerful of the anti-enforcement lobbies in Washington." Thanks to Haley S. for the link. Haley would "love to see someone challenge Cain's present 'electric fence' position and his work with the National Restaurant Association." CW: me too.

I don't care about that. -- Rick Perry, when asked about the millions in tax benefits his flat-tax plan would provide for wealthy taxpayers

Great for the Rich/Bad for the Poor. Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ... today released some details on his flat tax proposal. The plan would give Americans the option of determining their taxes based on an alternate system that has one tax rate and fewer deductions." According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, "the highest-income households (at the 99th percentile) in every structure of family analyzed always benefit from opting into the Perry plan.The poorest households, on the other hand, do not. That’s primarily because the Perry plan, at least as currently described, does not seem to have refundable tax credits. The lowest tax liability a family can have under the family plan is $0, whereas under current law families that are poor enough can actually have a negative tax liability." With chart. ...

... "Thanks for Nothing." Clive Crook of The Atlantic states the obvious: besides the fact that Perry's flat tax isn't flat, "The comical thing is that this new tax would be voluntary: taxpayers could choose to be taxed under the existing code if they preferred. This is simpler? To know which code saves you money, you would obviously have to calculate your taxes under both systems. You or your adviser would still have to comprehend the "carve-outs that make the current code so incomprehensible". Maybe if you opted for the Perry tax you would be able to file on a postcard -- but before making that choice you'd need to do your taxes the old way first." ...

... James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute. Oh, and Perry's plan would raise much less revenue than is raised under the current tax code. ...

... Note to Perry:

Mitt Takes the Fifth. Greg Sargent: "Today, Mitt Romney refused to take a position on the big battle in Ohio over the ballot initiative to repeal Governor John Kasich’s law rolling back the collective bargaining rights of public employees. The fight is a hugely important one to conservatives, with right wing money flowing into the state, and conservative bloggers erupted in fury at Romney, asking how it is that he can be running for president when he isn’t willing to take a firm stand against the scourge of public employees." It now appears likely voters will repeal the anti-union law. ...

... BUT. He Was For It Before He Was Whatever. Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "The really strange thing about Romney's decision to hedge this morning is that in the past he has explicitly endorsed at least one of the [two initiatives]." BUt again. Even though he wouldn't take a position, he was in Ohio specifically to thank Kasich volunteers. Read the details. Romney's pretzeling is beyong comprehension. ...

... AND That's Because.... Steve Benen: Mitt Romney does not have the courage to take a stand on anything that might rattle the crazies, like Rick Perry's new foray into birtherism: "Romney criticizes Perry comments all the time. But when Perry dabbles in unhinged conspiracy theories, the Romney campaign prefers to remain silent." ...

(... BUT. Pete Hamby of CNN: after Romney's refusal take a stand in Ohio, Rick Perry comes out forcefully against unions.)

... Mitt Romney, Avatar of America's Decline. Joe Conason in the National Memo: since Mitt Romney has had to disavow his experience as governor of Massachusetts, where his signature achievement was the GOP horror of universal health coverage, a/k/a RomneyCare, he has made his business acumen his qualification for the presidency. But at Bain Capital, Romney specialized in mergers & takeovers that "led to worsening economic inequality, executive recklessness, stock manipulation, and a laser-like focus on the short term -- in short, all of the ills that underlie American economic decline. Those same incentives have been trained on the political system to ensure decisions that benefit those same overpaid, seemingly sociopathic bankers and investors -- now known as the 'one percent.'" ...

... The Economist says Romney as capitalist superman was not as super as his admirer/detractor Benjamin Wallace-Wells claimed in the lo-o-o-ong New York Magazine piece I linked a few days ago.

Daniel Stone of the Daily Beast: "Herman Cain, the multimillionaire businessman who has made tax fairness a central part of his surging presidential campaign, missed paying his state income taxes for 2006 while undergoing treatment for cancer, prompting Georgia to file a tax lien against him that wasn’t settled until late 2008.... The Republican’s campaign ... portray[ed] the unpaid taxes as an oversight while Cain was undergoing cancer treatment and the state’s lien as an excessive response that shows the need for tax reform."

Michael Sheridan of the New York Daily News: a "strange Herman Cain ad" is found "hidden" on YouTube; Cain's campaign manager is featured smoking a cigarette:

... "This Is Herman Cain Boning up on Foreign Policy!" Prof. Daniel Drezner in Foreign Policy: "Every time I think I'm done picking on Herman Cain's absence of foreign policy thought, his campaign pulls me back in! ... This story clearly represents the Cain campaign's efforts to push back on the notion that he doesn't know enough about foreign affairs.  And so we get ... the following:

Almost every day, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is handed a one-page briefing from his chief foreign policy adviser on news from around the world....

      ... This kind of spin on Cain's foreign policy interest ... is just f***ing absurd."

... AND Herman Cain remains solidly pro-choice even in the same paragraph he says he's "pro-life from conception." Read his position(s) here. This has to be some sort of Acme of Double-Speak. Is there an award for that?

Unbelievable! Pat Robertson says the Republican base is pushing its presidential candidates to take positions that are "too extreme." For those of you unfamiliar with Robertson, he's a televangelist whom Marie Diamond of Think Progress describes as "one of the most radical, hate-spewing figures in America":

Alex Leary of the St. Pete Times has a recap of Sen. Marco Rubio's shifting story on the immigration of his Cuban parents to the U.S. Bottom line: Rubio's parents were a non-political couple who came to the U.S. seeking permanent residence in 1956. They were not political exiles who fled Castro's Cuba as Rubio claimed on his official Senate biography. Castro's revolution forces did not take over Cuba until January 1, 1959.

News Ledes

Boston Globe: "Alan Khazei, at one point favored to win the Democratic primary to challenge US Senator Scott Brown next year, is withdrawing from the race."

President Obama spoke on college affordability at in Denver today. Christian Science Monitor: "President Obama on Wednesday is launching a new plan to lower the cost of paying back student loans for millions of borrowers – the latest installment in his bid to move a jobs agenda that bypasses a gridlocked Congress. At nearly $1 trillion, federal and private student loans now exceed US credit-card debt, posing a formidable repayment burden for many borrowers at a time of near-double digit unemployment." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "President Obama on Wednesday ended a three-day Western trip that was heavier on politics than policy, rallying thousands of college students whose enthusiasm belied the struggle he will have to win this state again in 2012."

New York Times: "Federal prosecutors are expected to file criminal charges on Wednesday against Rajat K. Gupta, the most prominent business executive ensnared in an aggressive insider trading investigation, according to people briefed on the case.... The case against Mr. Gupta, 62, who is expected to surrender to F.B.I. agents on Wednesday, would extend the reach of the government’s inquiry into America’s most prestigious corporate boardrooms." ...

     ... AP Update: "A former Goldman Sachs board member on Wednesday surrendered to federal authorities to face criminal charges stemming from a massive hedge fund insider trading case. Rajat Gupta was taken into federal custody, but the charges were not immediately disclosed."

Oakland Tribune: "Occupy Oakland demonstrators clashed all over downtown Oakland on Tuesday night with police who lobbed tear gas at least three times in futile attempts to fully disperse the more than 1,000 people who took to the streets after the early-morning raid of the movement's encampment. The rolling protest came about 12 hours after hundreds of police from across the Bay Area rousted about 300 people from the two-week old camp at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Tensions escalated after protesters vowed to return to the plaza, which was left with tents overturned and food, carpet, personal belongings and mounds of trash strewn on the lawn."

New York Times: "New fissures and disagreements emerged on Tuesday on the eve of a European Union summit meeting promoted as the moment for agreement on a comprehensive solution to the two-year-old euro crisis. Crucial financial measures were left unresolved, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy faced strong opposition inside his governing coalition to major changes demanded by the Europeans." ...

     ... AP Update: "The European Central Bank has loaned euro56.9 billion ($65.3 billion) to 181 banks for a year as part of its efforts to steady the banking system against the turmoil of the eurozone debt crisis. The 371-day loans announced Wednesday give eurozone banks a chance to lock up all the funding they want for longer than the usual 3-month maximum and reduce uncertainty about their finances."

AP: "NATO postponed a definite decision to end its bombing campaign in Libya as consultations continued Wednesday with the U.N. and the country's interim government over how and when to wind down the operation. Last week, the alliance announced preliminary plans to phase out its mission on Oct. 31. NATO's governing body — the North Atlantic Council, or NAC — was expected to formalize that decision Wednesday."

AP: in Seoul, South Korea, "U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday called North Korea a 'serious threat' and told U.S. troops that the Pentagon will strengthen its presence in this region to guard against North Korean provocations."

AP: "The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs — a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War. The final components of the B53 bomb will be broken down Tuesday at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo.... The completion of the dismantling program is a year ahead of schedule ... and aligns with President Barack Obama's goal of reducing the number of nuclear weapons."

The Commentariat -- October 25

I've posted an Open Thread for comments on today's Off Times Square.

Chris Matthews, Sam Stein & John Heilemann compare President Obama & Mitt Romney's approaches to governance:

... Andrew Leonard of Salon asks, "Can Obama fix Geithner's housing bust?" As Zach Goldfarb oulined in the Washington Post (see yesterday's Commentariat for link), "The responsibility for the failure to move aggressively to help struggling homeowners ... gets blamed fairly definitively on the treasury secretary. Geithner was consistently more worried about the health of the financial sector than he was about the housing sector and actively discouraged Obama from diverting resources toward helping homeowners.... [Maybe] the Obama administration is finally getting its act together and tackling the real problems. But it’s much easier to look at the plan and say 'too little, too late,' than to nod along with the mantra 'we can’t wait.'” ...

... "Can Obama fix Geithner's housing bust?" Apparently not. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times:  "The federal government’s expansion of a mortgage refinancing program could reduce the monthly payments of up to one million homeowners, but analysts said the modest scope of the plan meant it would probably do little to heal the housing market or help the broader economy." ...

... Derek Kravitz of the AP: "The Obama administration is hoping at least 1 million [underwater] borrowers will take advantage of its refinancing program under more lenient rules unveiled Monday. Homeowners who are current on their payments will be eligible to refinance no matter how much their home's value has dropped. Still, it's unclear how many borrowers will benefit. Lenders will remain under no obligation to refinance a mortgage they hold." ...

... The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don't live here anymore. -- Dean Edward Hill of Cleveland State University, on poverty in the suburbs ...

... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The poor population in America’s suburbs ... rose by more than half after 2000, forcing suburban communities across the country to re-evaluate their identities and how they serve their populations. The increase in the suburbs was 53 percent, compared with 26 percent in cities. The recession accelerated the pace: two-thirds of the new suburban poor were added from 2007 to 2010."

CW: maybe it's inevitable, given the realities of politics & policy, but Michael Scherer of Time makes the case that Obama has gone from being a transformational candidate to a transactional one. The hopey-changey thing? It's now he hopes he can win re-election.

Manhattan-based brand consultant David Intrator discusses the nature of the Occupy Wall Street movement. TruthDig reporter Alexander Reed Kelly tells how he met Intrator. Share this one with your conservative friends! Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link:

New York Times Editors: "... Community Board 1, which represents residents and businesses in Lower Manhattan, is expected to vote Tuesday evening on a resolution that endorses the right to protest and opposes 'the use of excessive and unnecessary force by the City of New York' or the owners of the park, Brookfield Properties. (The resolution also endorses the extension of the 'millionaire’s tax' in New York State to soften cuts to education and other services.) The community calls on everyone involved, including protesters and elected officials, to address the problems this event has created around the park." CW: hope they also suggested port-a-potties & other sanitation aids. ...

... Arun Gupta of Salon: In three deindustrialized cities [-- Allentown, Pennsylvania, Youngstown Ohio, & Toledo, Ohio --] Occupy protesters find friendly cops, determination and despair." ...

Richard Cohen, who is the Washington Post's idea of a liberal -- i.e., he's a David Brooks-type blowhard -- goes looking for anti-Semitism in Zuccotti Park & can't find any of it, despite the best effort of wingers, especial Bill Kristol, to decry OWS as an anti-Semitic movement. "The smear is in deadly earnest, a reminder that the devious tactics of the Old Left have been adopted by the New Right. (No accident, maybe, that the practitioners are the descendants of lefties.)" Cohen still thinks Occupy Wall Street is a stupid diversion, "a conspiracy to have left-leaning writers make jackasses of themselves by imparting grave and grand meaning to what is little more than a vast sleepover."

Brian Beutler of TPM: a report issued by the Government Accountability Office "implies ... that ... repealing ObamaCare would consign us to swift, ugly fiscal and health care crises. The health care reform law will extend subsidized private health insurance to millions of Americans, paid for with new taxes and Medicare savings. But it also included numerous demonstration projects and reforms intended to rein in the growth of health care costs, and thus Medicare spending. Some of them have great promise — if they can survive." CW: this is something the CBO & independent economists have also emphasized: if you want the deficit to skyrocket while killing off & sickening millions of Americans, let Republicans repeal the ACA. Every Republican candidate for president has promised to do that -- Mitt Romney claims he would do so on his first day in office, evidently figuring he can just executive-order a Congressional law out of existence.

One More Time. In case you were still thinking maybe Joe Nocera was half-right (his half-witted column is here) about Democrats being responsible for the bad blood in the Senate on accounta Teddy Kennedy's picking on that nice Robert Bork, Driftglass should shut down your last lingering pro-Nocera brain waves.

Right Wing World

The "I'm Crazier than You" Primary, Con'd. Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has released an economic plan full of long-held conservative goals, including personal accounts for Social Security, an optional flat tax, major spending cuts and a series of tax cuts. The 'Cut, Balance and Grow' plan, which Perry first unveiled in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and will formally announce in a speech in Gray Court, South Carolina on Tuesday, puts Perry to the political right of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the GOP presidential race." Perry's Wall Street Journal op-ed is here. ...

     ... Update. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Rick Perry’s decision to embrace a flat tax as a central part of his economic plan, as several other Republican candidates have, is providing an opportunity for President Obama’s campaign. The president’s advisers are eager to characterize the advocates of a flat tax as shills for the wealthy in the United States.... That’s just what his campaign argued in a new memorandum issued Tuesday morning by Mr. Obama’s policy director, James Kvaal. Kvaal's memo is here (pdf). ...

... Perry Bacon & Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Welcome to Rick Perry 2.0. The Republican Texas governor is retooling his presidential campaign, shuffling staff and touting a bold but controversial new tax plan, hoping to rebound from a recent plunge in the polls." ...

... Yep. And as part of his "retooled" campaign, Perry thinks it's "fun" to remind his troglodyte base that Obama might not be a legitimate president because he was born in the black African nation of Kenya. Who wouldn't want a president with such a great sense of humor?

... Dana Milbank: "If at first you don’t secede, try the birther movement. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who more than once has dipped his cowboy boot into the secessionist swamp, has found a new outlet for his fringe instincts. The Republican presidential candidate has revived questions about President Obama’s birth certificate." ...

... What a Chump! Steve Kornacki of Slate: "Flirting with birtherism has always been an awful play for a politician with national ambitions, an easy way to get yourself tagged as a fringe figure.... That Perry has faded so badly in the polls this fall is a direct result of the skepticism and even hostility from GOP elites that his performance has provoked." ...

... So Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post wonders, "how long can Romney refrain from embracing the crazy?"

AP: "Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann’s former New Hampshire staffers say they were deceived and treated as second-class citizens before they quit in frustration last week. In a news release, the five former staffers said ... they could not continue working for her because her national campaign team had been 'rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel' to them and 'abrasive, discourteous, and dismissive' of the state’s voters."

Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: "Republicans are objecting to new infrastructure spending because they don't want the top 1/500th of American taxpayers to pay an average of 1/217th more of their income in taxes." ...

    ... Greg Sargent has more detail here.

Their storyline is that there must be some villain out there who’s keeping this administration from succeeding. -- Mitch McConnell, on Democrats

... After running through more than a year's worth of McConnell's promises to sandbag the President, Steve Benen thinks he knows who the villain is. ...

... Here Lewison rolls the videotape. "So Mitch McConnell went on CNN's State of the Union yesterday and claimed Republicans haven't been obstructing efforts by Democrats and the Obama administration to take action on the jobs crisis. Either he was lying through his teeth, or there's a really good Mitch McConnell impersonator on YouTube who's been saying the exact opposite for the past three years:

Senate Republicans Call for More Gridlock. Jamison Foser of Media Matters: "... after years of gridlock caused by Republicans filibustering nearly everything — even jobs bills in the middle of an unemployment crisis ... two Republican senators, Jeff Sessions (AL) and Olympia Snowe (ME), want to make it harder for the Senate to pass important legislation. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Sessions and Snowe propose requiring a supermajority for passage of appropriations bills." CW: remember, Olympia Snowe is a "moderate" Republican.

More Expanding Fish Stories from Senator Marco: Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "National Public Radio has raised more questions about the biography of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who told a reporter two years ago a story of his family’s departure from Cuba that does not mesh with his current accounts." Rubio told NPR's Robert Siegel in 2009 that the Castro government held Rubio's mother in Cuba for nine months in 1960. No, it didn't.

Local News

Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University, in Slate: "Last week, Florida Gov. Rick Scott [CW: a/k/a America's Worst Governor] called for reductions in state appropriations for particular academic disciplines so that public universities can focus resources on producing graduates in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math.... For some reason, he seemed especially concerned that Florida universities might be producing too many anthropologists.... His approach to both higher education and economic development is misguided and counterproductive. The notion that we must strip away academic programs not seemingly relevant to workforce development reflects a simplistic and retrograde view of the role of higher education in the American economy." Crow elaborates.

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a far-reaching Florida law that requires public assistance applicants to take a drug test, saying the law probably violates a constitutional ban on unreasonable search and seizure." CW: Gov. Scott's wife owns a chain of walk-in clinics that do drug-testing. The clinic business used to belong to Scott, but rather than sell it because it created a conflict-of-interest, he "transferred" it to the Missus when he became governor.) Gov. Scott campaigned on & initiated the drug-testing law. ...

     ... Correction, via the St. Pete Times: "Scott [and I guess his wife] sold his interest in the clinic chain in April 2011. ...

... Voter Supression, Florida Style. Daytona Beach News-Journal: "Prepping 17-year-olds for the privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy is nothing new for civics teachers, but when [teacher] Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students pre-registered, she ran afoul of Florida's new and controversial election law. Among other things, the new rules require that third parties who sign up new voters register with the state and that they submit applications within 48 hours.... Cicciarelli hadn't registered with the state before beginning the registration drive. And she didn't submit the forms to the elections office on time." Thanks to Charlie Pierce of Esquire, who has a great post on this. And thanks to a reader for directing me to the Pierce blogpost.

Quinnipiac University: "Ohio voters support 57 - 32 percent the repeal of SB 5 [which slashed collective bargaining rights for public employees and is] the centerpiece of Gov. John Kasich's legislative program.... Gov. Kasich's standing is in the same negative neighborhood as SB 5, with Ohio voters disapproving of his job performance 52 - 36 percent, down from 49 - 40 percent disapproval in September's survey...."

The Ledes

The Hill: "The White House announced Tuesday that it supports passage of a House Republican bill intended to boost job creation and due up for a vote on Thursday. The bill repeals a requirement that the federal government withhold 3 percent of payments to contractors as a down payment toward future taxes owed. It was intended to increase compliance with tax laws, but the provision has been delayed repeatedly."

AP: "A federal judge blocked part of North Carolina's new abortion law Tuesday, ruling providers do not have to place an ultrasound image next to a pregnant woman so she can view it, nor do they have to describe its features and offer her the chance to listen to the heartbeat. The law was set to take effect Wednesday, but U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles' decision puts a key section of it on hold until she can hear more arguments."

Reuters: "President Barack Obama is taking steps to ease the burden of student loans, the White House said Tuesday, potentially helping millions of cash-strapped college graduates in a tough economy. Obama plans to accelerate a plan to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of income, bringing it forward to start in 2012 from 2014."

Los Angeles Times: "Tuesday's pre-dawn sweep of the Occupy Oakland encampment, which resulted in about 80 arrests, came after the diverse community of protesters refused to allow police and fire officials -- as well as at least two ambulance crews -- access to the area to provide services, city officials said. Oakland had issued repeated warnings to the campers over the last week, citing an increase in public urination and defecation, rats and fire hazards from cooking. The greatest concern, however, stemmed from violence." ...

     ... San Francisco Chronicle Update: "Police fired tear gas Tuesday night into a crowd of several hundred protesters backing the Occupy movement who were seeking to retake an encampment outside Oakland City Hall that officers had cleared away more than 12 hours earlier."

New York Times: "Tunisia’s moderate Islamist political party emerged Monday as the acknowledged leader in elections for a constitutional assembly and began talks to form a unity government with a coalition of liberals in a rare alliance that party leaders hailed as an inclusive model for countries emerging from the tumult of the Arab Spring."

Washington Post: "Former Libyan strongman Moammar Gaddafi was buried in a secret location on Tuesday, officials of the interim government said, ending a four-day spectacle in which his bloody body was displayed to a public celebrating his gory death as a fitting end to decades of repression."

Reuters: "Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faced growing pressure on Tuesday over European Union demands for swift economic reforms with a member of his cabinet warning that the government could fall over the issue. EU leaders ... have demanded that Berlusconi present firm plans for growth and reducing Italy's massive debt in time for a summit meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. However an emergency cabinet meeting late on Monday ended without agreement after Berlusconi's coalition allies in the Northern League party refused to budge on their opposition to raising the pension age to 67 years."

The Commentariat -- October 24

I've posted a comment page on Off Times Square on the world's human population hitting the 7-billion mark. Write on this or something else.

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "President Obama pledged at the beginning of his term to boost the nation’s crippled housing market and help as many as 9 million homeowners avoid losing their homes to foreclosure. Nearly three years later, it hasn’t worked out. Obama has spent just $2.4 billion of the $50 billion he promised. The initiatives he announced have helped 1.7 million people. Housing prices remain near a crisis low. Millions of people are deeply indebted, owing more than their properties are worth, and many have lost their homes to foreclosure or are likely to do so. Economists increasingly say that, as a result, Americans are too scared to spend money, depriving the economy of its traditional engine of growth." See also today's Ledes.

"Occupy Newsrooms." David Carr of the New York Times: As their CEOs and other top executives led Gannett & the Tribune company into the ground, laid off thousands of journalists & instituted other cost-cutting measures that shortchanged their readers, their boards of directors awarded these same undeserving executives huge bonuses & golden parachutes. "As newspapers all over the country struggle to divine the meaning of the Occupy protests, some of the companies that own them might want to listen closely to see if there is a message there meant for them." ...

     ... Update: Karen Garcia has a great comment on Carr's article. I couldn't decide which part to highlight here, so read the whole comment (#105) here. ...

... Noreen Malone of New York Magazine: Occupy Wall Street, along with 72 percent of New York State voters, oppose Gov. Andrew Cuomo's push to let the state's "millionaire's tax" expire. So after OWS protesters occupied an event Cuomo was attending, he went vindictive, albeit against different protesters (because who cares? those anarchists are all the same): "This weekend, he tried to get Albany's mayor, his friend and fellow Democrat Jerry Jennings, to kick Albany's protestors out of a city park at the official 11 p.m. closing time." Jennings eventually declined Cuomo's "request," citing precedent.

Michael Holden of Reuters: "Those who took part in Britain's worst rioting for decades this summer were young, poor, and less educated but contrary to claims by politicians, only a minority were gang members, official data released on Monday showed.... Prime Minister David Cameron blamed 'criminality,' saying that street gangs were at the heart of the problem, and rejected accusations that government austerity measures had alienated youths in poorer communities."

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "Bank of America is shifting a huge collection of Merrill Lynch derivatives contracts onto its own federally-insured balance sheet," and the Fed is encouraging BoA to do so. That is, when these instruments go belly-up, taxpayers will bail out BoA -- again. At the same time, "Barack Obama is apparently expressing willingness to junk big chunks of Sarbanes-Oxley in exchange for support for his jobs program." That is, "companies are saying they can't attract investment unless they can hide their financials from investors," & Obama is willing to go along with the subterfuge. "If anyone thought OWS has already done its job, and Washington has gotten the message already, think again."

I believe from the bottom of my being that we’ll eventually have to restore Glass-Steagall. The only question is, How much agony do we have to go through before we do it? We know the solution, but do we have the will? -- former Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) ...

... James Stewart of the New York Times: nobody likes the Volcker Rule, as written, including Paul Volcker. CW: this is a slightly complicated, but readable, article that will reinforce your impression that Dodd-Frank is a huge pile of unenforceable verbiage.

M. J. Lee of Politico: "The Treasury Department is making a full-fledged effort to knock back Republican claims that overregulation is slowing down economic growth." You can read the Treasury blogpost, by Jan Eberly, here.

Jared Bernstein in a New York Times op-ed: small business are not big job creators, no matter what politicians repeatedly tell you. ...

... James Surowiecki of the New Yorker makes the same point, albeit using different data.

Dave Weigel, a libertarian, defends Teddy Kennedy against Joe Nocera's charge that Teddy unfairly maligned Judge Robert Bork, & this was the cause of the everlasting breakdown of commity in the Senate. Actually, Weigel points out, Teddy's critique of Bork's theory of law was right on. CW: half the time, Nocera has no idea what he's talking about. The other half of the time, he's telling you how great his super-rich business acquaintances are. Weirdly, he recently described himself as a liberal. No. Joe Nocera is not a liberal. In my comment on this particular wrong column, I blamed Reagan for nominating Bork, not Democrats for excoriating Bork's legal theses. Other commenters also call out Nocera's ridiculous claim.

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "If the Supreme Court decides to review President Barack Obama’s health reform law, it will also have to choose which issues it wants to hear — and that decision could have a significant impact on the law’s final fate." Haberkorn provides a handy overview of each of the six cases the Court could hear. ...

... AND Part-Timers Don't Count. Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "The news came as a shock: Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, would not offer health benefits to new part-time employees.... Only 16 percent of employers offer health insurance to part-timers.... The health-care law that Congress passed last year is unlikely to change that. While part-time workers will have access to new, subsidized coverage on the individual market, the Obama administration’s signature legislative achievement provides little incentive for employers to cover workers who are not full-time staff." CW: in other words, the ACA is another incentive for employers to classify more workers as part-timers -- as if they didn't do this enough already to avoid providing benefits & decent wages.

New York Times Editors: Last week California "unveiled the country’s first comprehensive, statewide cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.... Beginning in 2013, the program places a steadily declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions from 600 power plants, refineries and other sources that produce most of the state’s emissions.... California provides proof that bold action on a large scale is still possible even though Washington remains sadly gridlocked."

... Prof. Joel Cohen, in a New York Times op-ed, on the exploding world population. The article is chockful of scary statistics. "... we need to measure our growth in prosperity: not by the sheer number of people who inhabit the earth, and not by flawed measurements like G.D.P., but by how well we satisfy basic human needs; by how well we foster dignity, creativity, community and cooperation; by how well we care for our biological and physical environment, our only home." ...

... Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "As the global population reaches the 7-billion mark..., ecological distortions are becoming more pronounced and widespread. Sometimes local needs are depleting water, fish and forests; other times food and fuel needs in one region of the world are transforming ecosystems in another. Under either scenario, however, expanding human demands are placing pressure on resources, particularly on world water supply and fisheries."

Right Wing World *

Mitch McConnell: it's wrong to make millionaires pay for programs that benefit firefighter, teachers & construction workers, even though the overwhelming majority of Americans think they should:

     ... Steve Benen decodes McConnell's thesis: First, he shifts the discussion to small businesses, but "the number of businesses affected is ridiculously small, making McConnell’s claim patently dishonest.... The GOP line doesn’t address the underlying problem because, as McConnell explained yesterday, Republicans don’t care about the underlying problem. What matters is the integrity of conservative ideology, not keeping teachers and cops on the job."

E. J. Dionne: "Republicans have boxed themselves into ... the idea that government can do any good. Thus they have confined themselves to endless fiddling with the tax code. Almost everything conservatives suggest these days is built around the single idea that if only government took less money away from the wealthy, all our problems would magically disappear.... 'Tax the poor' is a lousy political slogan. That’s why Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and Perry’s flat tax are doomed to fail." ...

... AND Richard Oppel & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "As several leading Republican presidential candidates embrace a flat tax as a core campaign position, one contender stands out in not doing so: Mitt Romney, who has a long record of criticizing such plans and famously derided Steve Forbes’s 1996 proposal as a 'tax cut for fat cats.' Lately, though, his tone has been more positive. 'I love a flat tax,' he said in August." CW: I love it when Mitt finds something else to reverse himself on. For every policy, Mitt has at least two positions, usually three: the old one, the new one and the newest one. ...

... CW: If you want to know all the gory details of Mitt's great success at Bain Capital (and if making money is your definition of success, it was a great success), Bejamin Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine has 'em. My eyes glazed over by page 4.

* Where 75 percent of the 99 percent are unfair to millionaires.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke at campaign events in Los Angeles, California, this evening. AP: "President Barack Obama waded into the domain of the stars Monday as he hit the California fundraising circuit in one of his busiest donor outreach trips of the season."

President Obama met with homeowners at a private residence, then made remarks about the housing situation. See video above. The AP story is here. The transcript is here:

President Obama spoke at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, this afternoon. Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama raised campaign cash in one of the states hardest hit by the recession, telling about 300 supporters in Las Vegas that he has kept his promises even as his agenda remains unfinished."

Salon: "Around 4 a.m. Sunday morning, a bottle of Gatorade containing an explosive chemical concoction was hurled into Occupy Maine’s home base in Portland’s Lincoln Park — causing a small but dangerous explosion. No one was injured, and the Portland police are actively investigating the incident." Portland Press Herald story here.

Guardian: "Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, has announced that the whistleblowing website is suspending publishing operations in order to focus on fighting a financial blockade and raise new funds. Assange, speaking at a press conference in London on Monday, said a banking blockade had destroyed 95% of WikiLeaks' revenues. He added that the blockade posed an existential threat to WikiLeaks and if it was not lifted by the new year the organisation would be 'simply not able to continue'."

New York Times: "With his jobs plan stymied in Congress by Republican opposition, President Obama on Monday will begin a series of executive-branch actions to confront housing, education and other economic problems over the coming months, heralded by a new mantra: 'We can’t wait' for lawmakers to act.... Mr. Obama will kick off his new offensive in Las Vegas, ground zero of the housing bust, by promoting new rules for federally guaranteed mortgages...." ...

... AP: "Fewer U.S. companies expect to hire new workers in coming months, as business economists grow increasingly pessimistic about the overall economy's growth in the coming year. Nearly 85 percent of economic experts surveyed expect the economy to grow at a meager 2 percent or less over the next 12 months, according to the National Association for Business Economists. In July only 23 percent of the survey's respondents predicted such slow growth."

New York Times: "Millions of Tunisians cast votes on Sunday for an assembly to draft a constitution and shape a new government, in a burst of pride and hope that after inspiring uprisings across the Arab world, their small country could now lead the way to democracy.... Results are expected to be tallied within days."

AP: "The U.S. has pulled its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns, blaming President Bashar Assad's government for the threats. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday that Ambassador Robert Ford returned to Washington this weekend after 'credible threats against his personal safety.'"

Reuters: "U.S. and North Korean negotiators began a two-day meeting in Geneva on Monday, the second such encounter since six-party talks on nuclear disarmament collapsed more than two years ago. The session, which follows talks in New York in late July, is aimed more at managing tensions on the divided Korean peninsula than resuming stalled regional talks on ending the North's nuclear programs."

Al Jazeera: "Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has swept to a landslide re-election in Argentina's presidential election, winning more than 50 per cent of the vote with most ballots counted. Kirchner, a centre-leftist who succeeded her late husband as president in 2007, had claimed 53 per cent of votes with 75 per cent of results returned, with her main rival, socialist candidate Hermes Binner, trailing far behind on 17 per cent."

AP: "Afghan and NATO coalition forces killed or captured about 200 insurgents in eastern Afghanistan during two operations targeting the lethal Haqqani network, which has links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, the U.S.-led coalition said Monday." ...

... Guardian: "The US reacted with dismay on Sunday after the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said that he would side with Pakistan in the event of any war with America.... The remark, which went further than other Karzai outbursts critical of the US, was viewed negatively not only in the US but in Afghanistan where opponents accused him of hypocrisy given Kabul's difficult relationship with Pakistan."

Reuters: "Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Mo'tassim was shown in video footage broadcast on Sunday smoking, nursing wounds and making dismissive remarks to his captors, apparently shortly before his death last week."