Occupy Wall Street -- A First-Hand Account

Regular Off Times Square commenter Meredith joined the Occupy Wall Street protest yesterday. Here is her story:

Re: Krugman blog on the Wall Street protest yesterday:

Thanks, Paul. Seems that if journalists take this movement too seriously, and don’t mention the required dismissive phrases, they might get scorned by their fellow journalist/pundits? In all of it’s articles the Times has included at least a few of the required words of condescension. When will it end, and proper respect be paid?

I marched yesterday for 1st time in decades, now as a retiree, from non union corporation job. I was neither exquisitely tailored or oddly dressed. I looked quite nice thank you, in casual clothes, not business attire. But I wore my beautiful red beads with a red shirt, navy pants and t shirt. My hair was nicely styled and I wore makeup. I think I looked very acceptable to any society. No one would take me for a slovenly hippie radical, or for one of the top 1 percent!

I was in the MIDDLE. And that’s the key—there were thousands of people their from the MIDDLE. Sociologically, financially, philosophically and sartorially.

There were many like me, middle aged or older, middle class/working class people with no tattoos or outlandish costumes. I saw no one take off any clothes. We were almost sedate, as we slowly walked, sometimes listening to the terrific bands from the musicians union.—so enjoyable. Also enjoyable were very nice conversations with many intelligent people—teachers, union people, retirees, an Israeli journalist living in Brooklyn, an ex bank employee, a worried father of an adult child who may lose job, on and on. All amiable and intelligent.

Mainly, the sight of that huge crowd of many thousands spread out and filling all of Foley Square, was tremendously impressive. I was thrilled when I saw it. They also filled the streets running in spokes out of the square and filled the huge staircase of the govt building.

The dismissive attitude here is actually ridiculed in the rest of the world. In Europe the middle class join demonstrations about govt policies, with people of all ages and occupations. They are respected and taken seriously by the press. They wonder what has taken Americans so long to even start putting pressure on our govt to be responsive to them. They think we are stupid for NOT marching. Our govt doesn’t even know what real pressure is, so they keep doing whatever they want. I urge anyone to come out and enjoy participating in future demonstrations. I got at least some satisfaction in doing something besides writing comments to newspapers. I added to the big crowd that will be shown on TV. The financial security of all of us is directly involved.

The Commentariat -- October 6

Gail Collins can't stand "to spend the next 13 months watching Mitt Romney run against Barack Obama," so she's looking for alternative Republican candidates. She lingers on Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho because she likes his name, on former New York Gov. George Pataki for the same reason (another president named George!), but she finally settles on Gov. Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota, whose state suffers from a labor shortage because of a hydrofracked oil boomlet. An environmentalist Collins interviewed, though horrified by the oil companies' waste of millions of cubic feet of natural gas daily, says North Dakota is "not as bad as Kazakhstan," which Collins thinks is a catchy phrase. ...

... On today's Off Times Square, you can name your own Republican candidate for president. Oh, there are so many choices.

Occupy Wall Street

Cara Buckley of the New York Times: "The Occupy Wall Street gathering, now midway through its third week in a Lower Manhattan park, was hatched by a Canadian magazine, Adbusters, and is heavily populated by youthful out-of-towners. But it has also become a magnet for scores of New Yorkers who said they had rarely if ever attended a protest before." ...

... CW: This video of NYPD white shirts swinging billy clubs at Occupy Wall Street protesters is so violent I had to sign in to YouTube to view it. The Daily News story, linked just above Wedneday's Ledes, has been updated to report the violence:

... Now comes this gem from a New York Times story by Steven Greenhouse & Buckley:

[There was] ... a disturbance about 8 p.m. Wednesday as the march was breaking up. The police said they arrested eight protesters around the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street, after people rushed barriers and began spilling into the street. While a couple of witnesses said that officers used pepper spray to clear the streets, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said that one officer 'possibly' used it.

      ... CW: Browne is he same genius who said the NYPD used pepper spray "appropriately" two weeks ago when Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna pepper-sprayed women who were respecting police barricades. The gist of the Times' underlying story is that unions, though wary of "the protesters' hostility to the authorities," have decided to join Occupy Wall Street anyway. Watch the video above & decide for yourself where the "hostility" lies. ...

... AND this from Fox 5 New York: "While covering the Occupy Wall Street protests on Wednesday night, Fox 5 photographer Roy Isen was hit in the eyes by mace from a police officer and Fox 5 reporter Dick Brennan was hit by an officer's baton." This is shocking video:

... The Guardian's liveblog of yesterday's events is pretty good. It includes this note: "Despite the march having a permit, and the roads being closed, police funnelled protesters onto the sidewarks and into tightly-penned areas." CW: Explain that, Mayor von Bloomberg. ...

... Alicia Cohn of The Hill: "Several liberal House lawmakers endorsed the protests Wednesday, and the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said they had been inspired by demonstrators who have been arrested and pepper sprayed during altercations with police." ...

... Oh, AND here's Herman Cain with the Republican response: (a) Occupy Wall Street is an Obama plot; (b) unemployment is the fault of the unemployed. Think Progress has video:

I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! -- Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain ...

... More from Fox "News" & other corporate media, again via Think Progress:

... AND the Chicago Board of Trade responds to Occupy Chicago:

Photo by an Occupy Chicago protester, via the Chicagoist.     ... The Chicagoist reports the message was taped to the 8th floor of the Board of Trade Building & adds, "If only someone could hurl rocks that high." ...

... Charles Pierce of Esquire writes an excellent, ascerbic post contrasting Occupy Wall Street & the Tea Party AND the media coverage of both:

The national media largely have blown off the protests because none of the people on their speed-dials have had anything to do with it.... We get snotty New Republic reporters on play dates among the hippies, and insufferable Chaunceys from the conservative press exercising the half of the wit they have, and Erin Burnett, who's never met a hedge fund she didn't adore, launching her new CNN show with video of a longhaired guy with funny glasses. And everybody else gets on the bus to drive around New Hampshire, mourning the loss of the transformational figure that is Chris Christie.

** Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials. There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council.... Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate."

Let the Class Warfare Begin. Steven Dennis of Roll Call: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved quickly to shore up support in his Democratic caucus for President Barack Obama's jobs bill Wednesday, announcing it would come to the Senate floor shortly and be paid for by a surtax on millionaires. Reid's decision ... gives Democrats a poll-tested package that most can run on for the next year — even though the surtax itself is dead on arrival with Republicans. Indeed, Reid appears to be setting the stage for a major floor battle that will raise the specter of 'class warfare' and Obama recently called himself a 'warrior for the middle class.' ... Recent polls ... have shown that two-thirds or more of Americans believe millionaires should pay more into federal coffers." ...

... Vicki Needham, et al., of The Hill: "The Senate Banking Committee will vote [today] on whether [Richard Cordray,] President Obama's selection to head the new agency should win the gig, but the vote will likely be the latest round in what has been a knock-down, drag-out partisan fight over the agency and how it should operate. While it's expected the former Ohio attorney general will advance on a party-line vote, Cordray's nomination could get stuck...."

Carol Leonnig & Joe Stephens of the Washington Post: "Newly released e-mails show the Obama administration’s Energy Department was poised to give Solyndra a second taxpayer loan of $469 million last year, even as the company’s financial situation grew increasingly dire. The department was still considering providing the second loan guarantee to the solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, at a time when Solyndra’s auditors were already warning that the company was in danger of collapsing.... The agency didn’t drop plans for a second loan until October 2010.... That was the month Solyndra executives and investors first warned the government that the company faced the threat of liquidation.... Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Wednesday that OMB staffers were wrong in describing the agency as actively pushing to provide the second loan."

Shaila Dewan of the New York Times: although there are multiple efforts to forgive portions of the debts owned by homeowners whose morgages are underwater, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac refuse to participate. "The Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration do not allow principal reduction on their loans either.... Fannie and Freddie’s rejection of principal reduction may simply be postponing losses that will occur anyway." CW: in short, the government isn't helping the problem (Fannie & Freddie are now essentially taxpayer-owned; and it is probably hurting it -- and the homeowners).

Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "Voters in the early presidential nominating states will soon be bombarded with millions of dollars in advertising from independent political organizations whose donors can remain secret until after the first five primaries and caucuses are held. That is the unintended result of decisions in recent days by state Republican officials to move up several key early contests, putting them ahead of the Jan. 31 financial disclosure deadline for super-sized fundraising committees."

El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar in a New York Times op-ed: "Many Republican politicians — and not a few Democrats, too — use the bogeyman of border violence to justify exorbitant security measures, like the ever-lengthening border fence that costs $2.8 million per mile (for a total of $6.5 billion, including maintenance, over the 20-year lifetime of the fence). [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry’s brainchild, security cameras, have so far cost $4 million to put in place and maintain.... During their first two years in operation, Mr. Perry’s cameras led to the arrest of a whopping 26 people — that’s $154,000 per arrest. And once undocumented immigrants are apprehended, costs continue to mount: in this fiscal year alone, the federal government is budgeting $2 billion just for detention."

New York Times Editors: "By a 6-to-6 vote last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cleared the way for a legal challenge against a dubious legacy of the George W. Bush administration: the wiretapping of Americans’ international communications without a warrant or adequate judicial supervision in antiterrorism investigations. The tie decision, which allowed an earlier ruling to stand, was a well-deserved setback to the Justice Department’s accountability avoidance strategy.... We hope the Obama administration does not appeal to the Supreme Court, and allows the legal challenge to go forward. Given its dismal record on this matter, we are not holding our breath."

Supreme Court Justices Breyer & Scalia testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Former Justice John Paul Stevens on cameras in the Supreme Court:

     ... CW: the excuses for not airing Supreme Court hearings are so lame as to defy credulity. They would not hold up in -- court.

Chris Hayes of The Nation & Ta-Nehisi Coats of The Atlantic: No, racism is not just an American "historical" anomaly:

Sen. Scott Brown [R-Mass.] Gives a Lesson on How to Belittle Half of the Electorate:

The State Column: "In response to a question about how the candidates paid for tuition bills, [Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth] Warren said 'I kept my clothes on.' Warren’s response was a reference to Brown’s nude photo shoot for Cosmopolitan magazine while in law school." ...

Thank God! -- Scott Brown, in response to Warren's quip

Right Wing World *

I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings. -- Roger Ailes of Fox "News," an EEOC-compliant employer

But don't worry, Megyn Kelly! He hired you because he respects your journalistic talents. -- Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine

The idea of a mentally ill vice president who suffers in complete isolation was obviously sparked by the behaviors I witnessed by Sarah Palin. -- Nicolle Wallace, former McCain-Palin aide, on her new novel which "explores what would happen if a woman were plucked from relative obscurity and elected Vice President of the United States — only to find herself completely unprepared for the job" ...

AND. There certainly were discussions — not for long because of the arc the campaign took — but certainly there were discussions about whether, if they were to win, it would be appropriate for [Palin] to be sworn in. -- Nicolle Wallace ...

... This certainly is a shocking admission, in no small part because the Constitution does not provide any process short of impeachment to remove a vice president. -- Tanya Somanader of Think Progress

* Where news & commentary is only delivered by hot babes & crusty male curmudgeons.

News Ledes

The Hill: "In a shocking development Thursday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) triggered a rarely used procedural option informally called the 'nuclear option' to change the Senate rules. Reid and 50 members of his caucus voted to change Senate rules unilaterally to prevent Republicans from forcing votes on uncomfortable amendments after the chamber has voted to move to final passage of a bill.... The surprise move stunned Republicans." For more on Reid's strategic move, see Brian Beutler of TPM.

Washington Post: Jonathan Silver, "the head of the Energy Department’s controversial loan guarantee program has decided to step down.... While DOE made the initial loan to Solyndra before Silver took the program’s helm — a point he made repeatedly during his congressional testimony last month — he remained the administration’s point person for the embattled initiative."

President Obama held a press conference this morning. New York Times report here. Washington Post report here.

AP: "Unions lent their muscle to the long-running protest against Wall Street and economic inequality Wednesday.... Thousands of protesters, including many in union T-shirts, filled lower Manhattan's Foley Square on Wednesday and then marched to Zuccotti Park, where the protesters have been camping since Sept. 17. Labor leaders say they will continue to support the protests, both with manpower and donations of goods and services." Los Angeles Times story here. See today's Commentariat & yesterday's Ledes for other news, commentary & video on yesterday's events. ...

... Washington Post: "The Occupy Wall Street protest movement is trying to build momentum in Washington, with Occupy D.C. demonstrators planning to gather Thursday at Freedom Plaza." With Video. The Post's Annie Gowen will be tweeting developments from this page. The Occupy DC Website is here. ...

     ... Update: the Washington Post report on the peaceful "occupation" is here.

NBC News: "Nevada will hold its presidential nominating contest Jan. 14.... The primary calendar continues to take shape, moving into early January. Florida started the chain reaction, when it defied Republican National Committee rules and set its primary for Jan. 31. Following that, South Carolina moved its primary to Jan. 21."

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. -- Barack Obama ...

... The New York Times obituary for Steve Jobs, which we also linked in yesterday's Ledes, has links to related stories & multimedia-format information about Jobs.

New York Times: "Derrick Bell, a legal scholar who worked to expose the persistence of racism in America through his books and articles and his provocative career moves — he gave up a Harvard Law School professorship to protest the school’s hiring practices — died on Wednesday in New York. He was 80."

AP: "The 2011 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded Thursday to Tomas Transtromer, a Swedish poet whose surrealistic works about the mysteries of the human mind won him acclaim as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since World War II."

AP: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords [D-Ariz.] is scheduled to attend her husband's retirement ceremony in Washington. The Arizona congresswoman ... is set to join her husband, Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, at an event Thursday that will be presided over by Vice President Joe Biden."

AP: First Lady "Michelle Obama ... paid a visit to Secret Service headquarters on Wednesday to thank workers at the agency that, among its many duties, protects the first family."

AP: Entergy, "the operator of an aging nuclear power plant near New York City, has hired former Mayor Rudy Giuliani to vouch for its safety in a new ad campaign.... The operator is seeking to renew its licenses for its two reactors. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called for the plant to be shut down due to safety concerns."

The Commentariat -- October 5

On today's Off Times Square, I ask readers how they deal with letters from friends & relatives spouting crazy Conspiracy Theories.

I will say that my big priority is making sure that as many people are participating in our democracy as possible. Some of these moves in some of the other states that we’ve seen try to make it tougher to vote, restricting ballot access, making it hard on seniors, making it hard on young people. I think that’s a big mistake, and I have made sure that our Justice Department is taking a look at what’s being done across the country to ensure that people aren’t being denied access to the franchise. -- Barack Obama, in an interview last week ...

... Ari Berman of The Nation: "The fact that Obama invoked the Justice Department is very important, since the department has the authority under the Voting Rights Act to approve, deny or modify these laws.... Career lawyers in the civil rights division of the Justice Department, who were frequently sidelined and overruled during the Bush Administration, are reasserting their authority and independence under Obama. They may be the only ones who can halt the GOP’s war on voting."

President Obama talks to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News:

David Nakamura & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "There is a noticeably more aggressive, confrontational President Obama roaming the country these days, selling his jobs plan and attacking Republicans for standing in the way of progress by standing up only for the rich.... The emergence of this more pugnacious Obama has heartened Democrats.... 'We don’t see it as confrontation; we see it as leadership,' said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union."

You don’t have some inherent right just to, you know, get a certain amount of profit, if your customers are being mistreated. This is exactly the sort of stuff that folks are frustrated by. -- Barack Obama on Bank of America's decision to charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards ...

... Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: President "Obama is the latest of a chorus of critics to take aim at the new fee, which will be assessed monthly on customers who use their debit card to make purchases starting next year. Bank of America has said that new government regulations — most notably a cap on the amount banks can charge retailers each time a debit card is swiped — have eaten into their profit margins." ...

... Felix Salmon of Reuters: "the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not exist to prevent banks from charging stupid fees as part of a self-defeating protest against the Durbin amendment... Debit-card payments ... are pretty much the cheapest way that any customer can transact, from the bank’s perspective. It costs vastly more for a bank to process a paper check.... As for the proper role of the CFPB, one thing I’m desperately looking forward to is a simple public database of all the banks..., with a very easy way of comparing the features and fees of each. It would be particularly great if the CFPB could bestow some kind of gold star on the best and cheapest products."

I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what's happening. They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess. And they're dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can't blame them. -- Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, on Occupy Wall Street ...

... Neil Irwin & Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "Ben S. Bernanke went to Congress on Tuesday with a message: Cut out the brinkmanship over tax and spending policy and slash budget deficits more than planned — but don’t do it so fast that it undermines economic growth. In making this unusually explicit push, the Federal Reserve chairman told lawmakers that the increasingly likely scenario — that they do nothing to put the nation’s finances on a sound footing and let the nation lurch from crisis to crisis — is not an acceptable option."

Liz Alderman & Jack Ewing of the New York Times: "The European debt problems that have roiled global financial markets for the last 18 months are showing signs of turning into a far deeper challenge: Europe’s second recession in three years. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are already in downturns or fighting to avoid them, as high unemployment and austerity belt-tightening take their toll. But in the last few weeks, even prosperous Germany and France, the Continent’s powerhouses, have started to be dragged down, hurt by the ebbing of business orders from indebted countries in the rest of Europe."

New York Times Editors: "a Senate bill, with strong bipartisan support, to punish countries that manipulate their currencies is a bad idea. It could do even more damage to the American economy if — as is all too likely — China decides to retaliate."

Scholar Jenna Jordan in a New York Times op-ed: "Evidence shows that killing terrorist leaders — or 'decapitating' terrorist organizations, in military parlance — rarely ends violence on its own and can actually have adverse consequences."

Occupy Wall Street

Jillian Rayfield of TPM: "Occupy Wall Street’s momentum is reaching new heights this week as the movement spreads throughout the country and the core group of protesters in New York City prepare for the unions to join up on Wednesday." ...

... Drew Grant of the New York Observer: a Fox "News" producer interviews Occupy Wall Street activist Jesse LaGreca for a segment of the Greta van Susteran show. Funny, LaGreca ended up on the metaphorical "fair & balanced" cutting room floor [despite the fact that the producer made a big point of telling LaGreca how fortune he was that Fox "News" was giving him air time]. But, courtesy of Occupy Wall Street & the Observer, La Greca does get his message out -- just not to Foxbots, most of whom really need to hear it. Thanks to reader Haley S. for the link:

... Clear enough. That's why Jared Bernstein is scratching his head over why news "analysts" are scratching their heads over the Occupy Wall Street protests. After all, what's not to understand? --

Given the facts of the income distribution, the trends in real middle-class incomes and poverty, the failure of policy to do much to change these trends, the government bailouts of the only class that’s benefitted from the recovery so far, the absence of clear punishment/accountability for the financial and political institutions that helped inflate the debt bubble that continues to squeeze economies across the globe, and the dysfunctionality of the current political system (they’re arguing more about whether they can keep the lights on than whether they can help solve the economic problems), the more interesting question is what took so long for such protests to show up?

... OR maybe this heartbreaking site -- "We Are the 99 Percent" -- would help clueless news "analysts." Nothing will help Mitt Romney (see his "analysis" of Occupy Wall Street in today's Right Wing World. And he's the best the GOP's got.) ...

... Ezra Klein: "The organizers of Occupy Wall Street are fighting to upend the system. But what gives their movement the potential for power and potency is the masses who just want the system to work the way they were promised it would work....  Ninety-nine percent of Americans sense that the fundamental bargain of our economy -- work hard, play by the rules, get ahead -- has been broken, and they want to see it restored." ...

... Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Better late than never, the movement to take America back from Wall Street has arrived. On Wednesday, the ranks of the Occupy Wall Street encampment will swell as Move­On.org members, union activists and ordinary disgruntled citizens join the demonstration against our financial sector’s misrule of the American economy.... Once the servant of industry, banking became our dominant industry. It has ceased to serve us. We serve it."

"The Apocalypse Caucus." David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Twenty [House] lawmakers ... calculate that the best way to fix government is to act as if you wouldn’t mind if it burned down.... The group now includes 12 Republicans and eight Democrats. Their votes say something about wh at it means to be a legislator in a Congress that governs by cliffhanger — both sides reaching agreement only when a catastrophe looms. This unofficial caucus believes that power goes to those who seem least afraid of catastrophe."

Chris Frates of the National Journal: "A top staffer to Eric Cantor is leaving the House majority leader's office to launch a Super PAC aimed at raising Cantor's national profile....  The PAC will be run by Cantor's deputy chief of staff John Murray and would give Cantor a vehicle he could use to run for vice president, should the opportunity arise...." CW: because what the U.S. needs is a vice president who "is trying to stop the U.S. government in its tracks." (See Jason Zengerle's profile of Cantor, linked in yesterday's Commentariat.)

CW: Debunked. A few days ago the New York Times published an op-ed by Martin Lindstrom, who identifies himself as a "branding consultant," & who postulated that people love the iPhones because the devices stimulated "the insular cortex of the brain," an area he associated with "love and compassion." I didn't link to the piece, but it was popular on the Times Website. In today's paper, 45 neuroscientists signed onto a rebuttal letter to the editor, which says, in part, 

The kind of reasoning that Mr. Lindstrom uses is well known to be flawed, because there is rarely a one-to-one mapping between any brain region and a single mental state; insular cortex activity could reflect one or more of several psychological processes. We find it surprising that The Times would publish claims like this that lack scientific validity. ...

      ... Just thought you might want to know.

Right Wing World

I think it’s dangerous — this class warfare. -- Mitt Romney, on Occupy Wall Street

The 'Romney Rule' seems to be that millionaires like Mitt should pay a lower tax rate than maids. -- Paul Begala, Democratic pundit

CBS News: "Herman Cain has moved into a tie with Mitt Romney atop the field of Republican presidential candidates, according to a new CBS News poll, while Rick Perry has fallen 11 percentage points in just two weeks." CW: As bizarre as the poll results are, they really reflect the GOP base's longing for ABR, i.e., Anyone but Romney.

Are You Ready for Some Crow Pie?
Hank Williams, Jr., Wants His Royalties Back

Hank Williams, Jr., Monday: "In an interview ... on Fox News' 'Fox & Friends,' Williams, unprompted, said of [President] Obama's outing on the links with House Speaker John Boehner: 'It'd be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu.' Asked to clarify, Williams said, They're the enemy,' adding that by 'they' he meant Obama and Vice President Joe Biden." AND "Anchor Gretchen Carlson later said to him, 'You used the name of one of the most hated people in all of the world to describe, I think, the president.' Williams replied, 'Well, that is true. But I'm telling you like it is.'" 

ESPN Monday: "While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast."

Hank Williams Tuesday: "I have always been very passionate about politics and sports and this time it got the best or worst of me. The thought of the leaders of both parties jukin' [sic] and high fiven' [sic] on a golf course, while so many families are struggling to get by, simply made me boil over and make a dumb statement, and I am very sorry if it offended anyone. I would like to thank all my supporters. This was not written by some publicist."

ESPN Tuesday: "ESPN said it had made no decision on Williams' future beyond the Monday night telecast."

Local News

To the Members of the California State Senate:

I am signing SB 769 which allows for a dead mountain lion to be stuffed and displayed. This presumably important bill earned overwhelming support by both Republicans and Democrats.

If only that same energetic bipartisan spirit could be applied to creating clean energy jobs and ending tax laws that send jobs out of state.

Sincerely,
Edmund G. Brown Jr. [Governor, State of California]

CW: not as on point as this classic letter from Brown's predecessor, but a good letter all the same:

M. J. Lee of Politico: "Trying to calm fearful parents after many Hispanic students stopped showing up in school in response to Alabama’s new immigration law, the state’s top education official said kids will be enrolled even if they don’t have birth certificates. The state’s interim superintendent, Larry Craven, ... said that while a contentious provision of the law upheld by U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn last week requires all students enrolling on or after Sept. 29 to present their birth certificate, they will be accepted at school even without documents."

News Ledes

     ... CNN has more here.

Even ABC News has a liveblog: "We've heard reports on crowd size ranging from 2,000 (an officer guessed) and 15,000 (organizers guessed). I'd say it's much closer to the latter. And for every protester, there must be two metal barriers. This is a very tightly-held rage." New York Daily News story here.

New York Times: "... the Supreme Court on Wednesday [heard arguments] over whether Congress acted constitutionally in 1994 by restoring copyright protection to foreign works that had once been in the public domain. The affected works included films by Alfred Hitchcock and Federico Fellini, books by C. S. Lewis and Virginia Woolf, symphonies by Prokofiev and Stravinsky and paintings by Picasso."

New York Times: "Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court crossed Constitution Avenue on Wednesday to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the role of judges under the Constitution, offering unscripted responses on issues like conflicts of interest and cameras in the courtroom." See video under Thursday's Commentariat.

ABC News: "Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died, Apple said. Jobs was 56." ...

     ... Update: The New York Times obituary is here. Wall Street Journal obituary here; with video.

New York Times: "The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a storied civil rights leader who survived beatings and bombings in Alabama a half-century ago as he fought against racial injustice alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died on Wednesday in Birmingham, Ala. He was 89."

New York Times: "Senate Democratic leaders on Wednesday proposed a 5 percent surtax on people with incomes of more than $1 million a year to pay for the package of job-creation measures sought by President Obama and to quell a brewing revolt among Democrats against the White House plan."

New York Times: "Sarah Palin is not running for president. Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, ended her inscrutable cat-and-mouse game with the political establishment on Wednesday afternoon by saying that she would not join the field of Republican candidates seeking her party’s nomination, but would still work to oust President Obama." ...

... Gawker has Palin's full statement.

AP: "President Barack Obama has signed legislation to keep the federal government running for another six weeks. Congress must now finish work on agency budgets for the new fiscal year.... Obama had been expected to sign the bill into law later Wednesday, but signed it when he returned to Washington after appearances Tuesday in Texas."

New York Times: "Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, a Democrat, narrowly won a special election for governor [of West Virginia] on Tuesday, successfully defending himself against Republican attacks that tried to link him with
President Obama and his health care overhaul." Charleston Gazette story here.

Bloomberg News: "The Obama administration outlined a plan to upgrade the U.S. electric grid, providing as much as $250 million in loans for rural towns and urging steps that would bar utilities from using market power to raise prices. The strategy encourages state and federal regulators to favor “smart-grid” technologies such as advanced meters that can increase energy efficiency. It advises protections for consumers against anti-competitive actions as companies develop services to take advantage of new technologies."

Forbes magazine named Scott Brown Wall Street’s favorite senator. I was thinking that’s probably not an award I’m going to get.... The people on Wall Street broke this country, and they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. -- Elizabeth Warren, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Massachusetts

Boston Globe: "Elizabeth Warren ... clearly was the most adept in the first debate among the six candidates vying for the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s 2012 US Senate nomination.... But that’s not to say it’s time for a general election matchup against Republican Scott Brown, either. Four of the five other candidates on stage passionately articulated views across the liberal end of the political spectrum, highlighting their different backgrounds and showing reason to hear them another day." ...

... If you want to watch the debate, the Boston Herald has a report & full video here.

Washington Post: "... officials at the Army Corps of Engineers and technology company representatives ... were indicted on corruption-related charges that were made public Tuesday." They "got together and agreed to file inflated invoices for federal contracting services, prosecutors said. Then they bought millions of dollars worth of BMWs, Rolex and Cartier watches, flat-screen televisions, first-class airline tickets and investment properties across the globe." All have pleaded not guilty.

New York Times: "The New York attorney general and the United States attorney in Manhattan filed separate lawsuits on Tuesday against the Bank of New York Mellon, accusing it of cheating state and other pension funds nationwide out of foreign exchange fees over the last decade."

New York Times: "An Israeli scientist ... Daniel Shechtman, 70, a professor of materials science at Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology -- ... won this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a material in which atoms were packed together in a well-defined pattern that never repeats."