The Commentariat -- August 22

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It's always something. -- Gilda Radner

Steve Kornacki of Salon: "... if this is, in fact, it for [Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi], it should do damage to a particularly obnoxious anti-Obama talking point from hawks on the right -- the idea that he’s excessively deferential, naïve and just plain weak on the world stage and that his foreign policy can only lead to failure and humiliation."

E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "President Obama has only one option as he ponders a world economy teetering on the edge: He needs to go big, go long and go global. Obama should not be constrained by what the Tea Party might allow subservient Republican leaders in Congress to do. He should state plainly, eloquently and in detail what he thinks needs to happen. Neither history nor the voters will be kind to him if he lets caution and political calculation get in the way."

Monica Davey of the New York Times: "In the months after a flurry of Republican wins of governors’ offices and state legislatures in 2010, perhaps nowhere was the partisan rancor more pronounced than in the nation’s middle — places like Wisconsin and Ohio, where fights over labor unions exploded. But now, at least in those states, there are signs that the same Republicans see a need to show, at least publicly, a desire to play well with others. In both states, critics dismiss the moves as desperate attempts to shore up sinking popularity ratings or disingenuous, tardy strategies to appear agreeable after already ramming through their agendas."

"Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Secret Fed Loans." Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz of Bloomberg News: "Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS)>, got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress." [Emphasis added.]

If you can stand to read it, Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker: "In several of the most important areas of constitutional law, [Clarence] Thomas has emerged as an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court.

Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "The Ninth Congressional District seat to be filled in the Sept. 13 special election, became vacant this summer when [Rep. Anthony] Weiner quit over an online sex scandal. The race was widely viewed as a sleepy sideshow — a mere formality that would put David I. Weprin, a Democratic state assemblyman and heir to a Queens political dynasty, into a seat known for its deep blue hue. Instead, the race has become something far more unsettling to Democrats: a referendum on the president and his party that is highlighting the surprisingly raw emotions of the electorate."

Karen Garcia: "Just when we were finally convinced that Congress is but a giant shill for the millionaires, Roll Call comes out with its annual list of the 50 richest legislators.... The biggest surprise this year was that a relative unknown (outside of Texas, that is) beat out last year's winner, alleged arsonist and car thief Darryl Issa, to top The List. Mike McCaul, representing the 10th Congressional district (a long and winding road from Austin to Houston, courtesy of Tom Delay-machinated redistricting), saw his net worth increase by a stunning 300 percent, to $294.21 million, thanks to a very generous Sugar Daddy-in-Law. McCaul's wife is the daughter of Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel Communications, the media conglomerate most famous for being the home of Right Wing Hate Radio." Here's the Roll Call list.

Noah Bernstein in a New York Times op-ed: "... colleges and universities are making it harder for average American families to afford higher education, while making it easier for the wealthy.... Monthly payment plans, and prepayment plans ... pack a double punch. On one hand, they make it more expensive for struggling families to send their children to college. On the other hand, they make it cheaper for wealthy families to do so."

Right Wing World

NEW. Paul Krugman responds: "I guess Ross Douthat’s column requires some sort of reply.... All the critics need to show is that Texas is not in fact the miracle Perry claims. And it isn’t.... You’d expect job growth in Texas to be higher than in the rest of the country even in a recession, and the key question is whether that growth has been sufficiently high to keep up with population — and it hasn’t.... Did they hear anything we said?" You can read Douthat's fact-challenged column here. Here's a chart Krugman provides:

This is the president of the United States that has killed more jobs in America than I think any president in history, certainly in my lifetime. I think the only job he cares about is the one he’s got. -- Rick Perry

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Judging from Perry’s statements in his first week as a candidate, he doesn’t seem to care all that much about even technical accuracy; he just shoots from the hip. Unless the economy turns around in the next 18 months, Obama is on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era. That would be an accurate statement. But he also became president in the midst of the worst recession of our lifetimes — and it seems a real stretch to make him personally responsible for every one of those lost jobs, without bothering to offer a shred of evidence for the claim."

Amateur Hour. Ben Smith: Rick Perry sez Social Security is, is sort of, is not unconstitutional after all.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Goldman Sachs’ chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, has hired high-profile Washington defense lawyer Reid Weingarten. News that Mr. Blankfein had hired separate legal counsel immediately raised questions across Wall Street as to whether Mr. Blankfein himself had received a subpoena in connection to the outstanding inquiries. But a person close to the matter ... said the firm is cooperating and no executive at the firm has received an individual subpoena. Shares of Goldman, which had been trading around $111 a share all day, fell nearly 5 percent...."

Washington Post: the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial opened in Washington, D.C., today. New York Times story here.

New York Times: "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power dissolved with astonishing speed on Monday as rebels marched into the capital and arrested two of his sons, while residents raucously celebrated the prospective end of his four-decade-old rule. Colonel Qaddafi’s precise whereabouts remained unknown and news reports said loyalist forces still held pockets of the city, stubbornly resisting the rebel advance." ...

... Al Jazeera: "Heavy fighting and gun battles have broken out in areas of Tripoli after opposition fighters gained control overnight of much of the Libyan capital in their battle to end Muammar Gaddafi's decades-long rule. Clashes erupted on Monday after tanks left Bab Azaziya, Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli, to confront the rebel assault." ...

... Al Jazeera's liveblog is here.

New York Times: "Three months after authorizing Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s swift indictment after his arrest on sexual assault charges, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has decided to ask a judge to dismiss the case, a person briefed on the matter said on Sunday." ...

     ... Update: "Prosecutors in the office of Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, have filed papers requesting that all charges be dropped against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund."

Guardian: "A defiant president Bashar al-Assad warned against outside interference in Syria and shrugged off international criticism in a live interview with state television on Sunday night. His fourth address during a growing revolt against his rule was aimed as much at the international community who have sided decisively with protesters as it was at the nation.." ...

The Commentariat -- August 21

Maureen Dowd: "President Obama ... shouldn’t be driven by the Washington schedule. He should be setting it. At long last, he promised a clear economic plan. Unfortunately, he had the fierce urgency of next month, when Congress gets back to town. Americans are rattled and want action. They don’t know or care what Congress’s schedule is. They just see the president not doing anything." ...

... I've posted a Dowd page on Off Times Square.

Kraft Foods Will Be Watching You. Shan Li & David Sarno of the Los Angeles Times: "The commercial applications of facial recognition are in contrast to those being used by law enforcement to identify specific individuals. Companies, at least at this point, mostly just want to pinpoint a demographic based on age and gender to tailor their ads. But even this facial recognition-lite alarms privacy advocates, given that it could greatly popularize and expand use of the technology."

Right Wing World

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman makes his case & attacks his opponents. The full interview, which is a Web extra:

Who Do That Voodoo? The GOP Do. Greg Ip of the Economist in a Washington Post op-ed: "The economic ideology of the Republican Party has changed in recent years.... Liberals and conservatives in the United States ... have largely agreed that the government should have at least some role in smoothing out the ups and downs of the business cycle — what economists call 'macroeconomic stabilization,' that is, containing inflation in good times and boosting employment in bad. But this is the consensus that many Republicans in effect now reject.... They almost surely have it wrong."

The fact is, government doesn’t create jobs, otherwise the last two-and-a-half years of stimulus would have worked. -- Rick Perry, lying through his teeth ...

... Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: With a young and fast-growing population, a large and expanding military presence and an influx of federal stimulus money, the number of government jobs in Texas has grown at more than double the rate of private-sector employment during Perry’s tenure.... Last June, private-sector employment in Texas declined by 0.6 percent while public-sector jobs increased by 6.4 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, government employees account for about one-sixth of the workforce in Texas. The significant role of government in Texas’s relative prosperity stands in stark contrast to the 'go-it-alone' image cultivated by Perry, who credits a lack of government interference for fostering a business-friendly environment in Texas."

... The stimulus did not work, obviously all it did was create more debt in this country. It didn’t create any jobs, as far as I can tell, except for maybe those federal regulators that were increased. -- Rick Perry, lying though his teeth ...

... Marie Diamond & Travis Waldron of Think Progress: Rick Perry has "accepted more stimulus money than any other state besides California, and used the funds to close 97 percent of Texas’ massive budget deficit. The Houston Chronicle reported that as of July 2010, federal stimulus funds created or saved 47,700 jobs in the Lone Star State.... So far, Texas has used $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money to keep schools open, ensure Medicaid coverage for children, and put more people to work on infrastructure projects.... Ironically, Perry once aggressively pursued the federal aid he now denounces...." Thanks to Bob M. for the link.

... Pay to Play. Nicholas Confessore & Michael Luo of the New York Times: "Over three terms in office, [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry’s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry’s ascent."

Paul West of the Los Angeles Times: Rick Perry's "campaign released a video in which the Texas governor strides toward the camera in chaps, ready to saddle up. Asked to distinguish himself from his predecessor, George W. Bush, he replied, 'I went to Texas A&M. He went to Yale.' That class-conscious contrast — brash populist versus starchy elite — plays most acutely against fellow Republican Mitt Romney, the literal son of the Republican establishment who embodies the party's upper-crust past." You can see Perry's campaign ad here.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner: "Former Bush advisor Karl Rove says he believes former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will enter the Republican presidential race sometime around Labor Day.  Appearing on Fox News Saturday morning, Rove said Palin 'has a schedule next week that looks like that of a candidate, not a celebrity.' Rove also cited a new campaign-style video Palin has released on her recent visit to the Iowa State Fair as evidence Palin is gearing up for a run."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The lawyer for the woman who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault said on Sunday that he would formally ask the judge overseeing the criminal case to disqualify the Manhattan district attorney’s office from the prosecution and appoint a special prosecutor."

New York Times: "For the first time in months, witnesses in Tripoli reported heavy fighting across the capital late Saturday night, even as rebel forces claimed to have encircled the city by taking major towns to its east, west and south." Al Jazeera story here. Al Jazeera's liveblog on Libya is here. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Rebels surged into the Libyan capital Sunday night, meeting only sporadic resistance from troops loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and setting off raucous street celebrations by residents hailing the end of his 42 years in power. The rebel leadership announced that insurgents had captured two of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons, including Seif al-Islam, his heir apparent. The leadership also announced that the elite presidential guard protecting the Libyan leader had surrendered." ...

     ... Al Jazeera Update: "International leaders have urged Muammar Gaddafi to concede defeat in his struggling to hold onto power in Libya as scenes of celebration broke out in central Tripoli as rebels advanced into the heart of the capital. 'Tonight, the momentum against the Gaddafi regime has reached a tipping point. Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant,' said US President Barack Obama. Obama also called on the opposition Transitional National Council, which Washington recognises as Libya's legitimate governing authority, to demonstrate leadership, respect human rights, preserve the institutions of the Libyan state and move towards democracy." ...

     ... CBS News Update: "A rebel leader told Al Jazeera that Qaddafi has refused to surrender, and that his guards shot at rebels as they were closing in, killing one of them. There are many rumors, but the truth of Qaddafi's whereabouts are currently unknown."

Huh. More than 6,000 Years Old? New York Times: "A team of Australian and British geologists have discovered fossilized, single-cell organisms that are 3.4 billion years old and that the scientists say are the oldest known fossils on earth."

AP: "Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs."

AP: "Militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired a barrage of rockets and mortars on southern Israel early Sunday, striking an empty school and a dozen other targets, as U.S. and Egyptian diplomats were scrambling to keep the new convulsion of Israeli-Palestinian violence from escalating." ...

... Haaretz: "Members of Knesset from Israel's leading opposition party, Kadima, urged the cabinet on Sunday to launch a military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the barrage of rockets that struck Israel over the weekend and the deadly terrorist attack that predeced on Thursday."

Cape Cod Times: President Obama ... attended a party at the Oak Bluffs home of Charles Ogletree yesterday evening. "Ogletree, a frequent summer visitor on the island [of Martha's Vineyard], is a well-known law professor who taught both the president and first lady Michelle Obama when they were students at Harvard Law School, according to pool reports, which indicated that about 100 people attended the party."

     ... CBS News Update: "President Obama embarked Sunday on what looked like vacation by normal standards: a morning at the beach with his wife and daughters and a (partial) round of golf on a local course. But first, the administration announced it believed the Muammar Qaddafi's regime, amidst rebel advances on the Libyan capital, was not long for this world."

The Commentariat -- August 20

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here. AP story here.

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square.

** Prof. Alexander Keyssar, in a Washington Post op-ed, puts the Republican agenda in historical perspective: "... viewed collectively, it’s difficult not to see a determined campaign to dismantle a broad societal bargain that served much of the nation well for decades. To a historian, the agenda of today’s conservatives looks like a bizarre effort to return to the Gilded Age, an era with little regulation of business, no social insurance and no legal protections for workers. This agenda, moreover, calls for the destruction or weakening of institutions without acknowledging (or perhaps understanding) why they came into being." CW: next question: why isn't President Obama telling this story? Perhaps he's one who doesn't understand it.

** Henry Blodgett, the Business Insider: "A former senior analyst at Moody's has gone public with his story of how one of the country's most important rating agencies is corrupted to the core. The analyst, William J. Harrington, ... has made his story public in the form of a 78-page 'comment' to the SEC's proposed rules about rating agency reform, which he submitted to the agency on August 8th. The comment is a scathing indictment of Moody's processes, conflicts of interests, and management."

Colleen Curtis of the White House: "Creating a judicial pool for the 21st Century, one with intellect, fair-mindedness and integrity that resembles the nation that it serves, is a top priority for President Obama and his administration. In fact, the President’s nominations for federal judges embody an unprecedented commitment to expanding the racial, gender and experiential diversity of the men and women who enforce our laws and deliver justice. Unfortunately, the delays these nominees are encountering on Capitol Hill are equally unprecedented:"

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "By the standard definition of job creation during a presidency, [Obama] is on track to be the first president to have negative growth in the modern era.... The president and his supporters have to cook the books a bit to make the job numbers sound good." For the book-cooking, Kessler dings the President with a Pinocchio.

Charles Blow: "America needs the electrifyingly charismatic candidate Barack Obama once was, not the eerily inhuman robot of a president that he has become." ...

... No Electricity or Charisma in Sight. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling (CW: a reliable, left-leaning polling firm): "There's been plenty of bad news for Barack Obama this month in the form of his approval numbers, but our polling finds that his problems go deeper than that. Democratic enthusiasm about voting in next year's election has hit a record low this month."

Greg Sargent: Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) has been pushing for a super-committee on jobs and has developed several possible ways to move forward on it. He & other Democrats will ask Congress to choose from among the proposals. Key to two of the proposals: they would contain a "trigger" that would kick in if the committee couldn't agree on jobs legislation. If Republicans just say no, Larson's proposals will at least have called their bluff. ...

... Ezra Klein Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office ...immediately shot down [the Larson proposals]. The response: Deficit reduction will spur job creation and, therefore, the supercommittee does not need to take on an additional mission."

Kurt Andersen, writing in the New York Times, likens our current political malaise to an autoimmune disease: "debilitating..., treatable, but ... incurable.... The most troubling thing about [Rick] Perry (and Michele Bachmann and so many more), what’s new and strange and epidemic in mainstream politics, is the degree to which people inhabit their own Manichaean make-believe worlds. They totally believe their vivid fictions."

Another Weekend at Bernie's:

     ... John Amato of Crooks and Liars: "This Saturday [Sen.] Bernie [Sanders (D-Vt.)] will be joining in discussion with the Blue America community for a question and answer session at Crooks and Liars at 2pm (ET). We hope you will be able to join in the discussion."

On Wisconsin. New York Times Editors: "Harsh state judicial campaigns financed by ever larger amounts of special interest money are eating away at public faith in judicial impartiality. There are few places where the spectacle is more shameful than Wisconsin, where over-the-top campaigning, self-interested rulings, and a complete breakdown of courthouse collegiality and ethics is destroying trust in its Supreme Court."

Right Wing World *

"Man-made Climate Change Myth." Joel Achenbach & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "That the planet has warmed is a fact hardly anyone disputes — it has been measured with instruments on land and sea and in space. That humans have contributed to the warming through industrial activities is a theory supported by multiple scientific organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA." Tell that to Republican presidential candidates who know that denying climate-change science has becme a litmus test.

They're snuffing out the America that I grew up in. -- John Boehner, on President Obama & the 111th Congress, July 2010 ...

... Matt Yglesias: "John Boehner was born in 1949. Does he feel nostalgic for the higher marginal tax rates of the America he grew up in? For the much larger labor union share of the workforce? The threat of global nuclear war? It’s difficult for me to evade the conclusion that on an emotional level, conservative nostalgics like Boehner are primarily driven by regret at the loss of social privilege by white men."

Clay Risen, who wrote the Opinionator blog for the Times this week, runs down some reactions to Rick Perry, most of the negative, whether from left or right. Funny thing is, Perry is leading in Republican polls by a wide margin. ...

... Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune: Five Myths about Rick Perry. CW: on Myth 3, Smith doesn't say that the obvious reason Perry pushed for the mandatory inoculation of young girls with the human papillomavirus vaccine was that the vaccine producer Merck has numerous ties to Perry & is a Perry campaign contributor (see this undated AP story). ...

... Texas Ranks Dead Last in Job Creation/Labor Force. Think Progress: "While over 126,000 net jobs were created in Texas over the last two and a half years, the labor force expanded by over 437,000, meaning that overall Texas has added unemployed workers at a rate much faster than it has created jobs." Includes a swell dead-last chart. Thanks to Bob M. for the link. ...

... AND there's this, from a July Wall Street Journal report by Ana Campoy & Sara Murray: "About 300,000 of the new Texas jobs were in government. Well over half of them, fueled by the surging population, were at public schools. Employment in the state's public sector has jumped 19% since 2000 [when Perry took office]. Now layoffs loom. State budget cuts, championed by Mr. Perry to address a big budget shortfall, are prompting school districts around the state to lay off hundreds of teachers and other workers...." The rise in the private sector, only 9 percent.

... Marie Diamond of Think Progress: "A top Bank of America executive was caught on camera yesterday whispering to Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), 'Bank of America. We’ll help you out.' ... It’s no mystery why banking executives are rushing to give Perry their support. Of all the GOP candidates, Perry is the most fervently opposed to banking regulation. As Matt Yglesias pointed out, in his book Fed Up, Perry expresses the extreme view that all banking regulation and consumer financial protection is unconstitutional." With video. ...

... Here's Matt Yglesias' post, "The Ten Weirdest Ideas in Rick Perry's Fed Up."

Secret Agent Bachmann. I went to work in that system because the first rule of war is ‘know your enemy.’ -- Michele Bachmann, explaining why she worked for the IRS ...

... Washington Post Editors: "We find it disturbing that someone seeking to lead this country and become its government’s CEO would view any of its agencies as the enemy and government service as honorable only if it takes the form of undercover opposition.... The Internal Revenue Service and the 107,621 (as of fiscal 2010) people who work there aren’t responsible for the law or the level of taxation. For those, you can thank Ms. Bachmann and her fellow members of Congress."

* Where scientists are conniving, lying, fearmongering conspirators against god or something.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Leaders of the unions that have been on strike against Verizon Communications announced on Saturday that they were ending the walkout even though the two sides had not reached an overall settlement for a new contract."

Los Angeles Times: "Iranian authorities sentenced two Americans arrested and detained along the Iran-Iraq border to eight years in prison, state television cited an unnamed judicial source as saying on Saturday. The men, who have already been held in prison for more than two years in Iran, have 20 days to appeal their convictions on charges of illegal entry onto Iranian territory and espionage."

New York Times: "Six months after the outbreak of the revolt against his 42 years in power, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s hold on his Tripoli stronghold shows signs of slipping. Residents of Tripoli, the capital, who for months had hesitated to talk openly over the phone, said in calls Friday night that they believed Colonel Qaddafi’s flight or ouster could be imminent." ...

... Guardian: "Muammar Gaddafi's 41-year grip on power in Libya looked more precarious than ever on Friday night, as rebel forces advanced on the capital from three directions after breaking out of the once-besieged town of Misrata.... Gaddafi's army outside Tripoli is trapped in a series of besieged and shrinking enclaves, with rebels controlling more than two thirds of the country." ...

... Al Jazeera has a liveblog on Libya here.

New York Times: "Egypt said on Saturday that it would recall its ambassador to Israel, the latest development that threatened to undermine a decades-old cold peace between the two countries that had begun to fray since the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt." ...

     ... New Lede: "Diplomats scrambled to avert a crisis in relations between Egypt and Israel on Saturday, and the Israeli government issued a rare statement of regret for the killing of three Egyptian security officers by an Israeli warplane."

New York Times: "Federal officials and lawmakers, along with the drug industry and doctors’ groups, are rushing to find remedies for critical shortages of drugs to treat a number of life-threatening illnesses, including bacterial infection and several forms of cancer.... So far this year, at least 180 drugs that are crucial for treating childhood leukemia, breast and colon cancer, infections and other diseases have been declared in short supply — a record number."

New York Times: "After nearly two decades in prison for the murder of three young boys, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., commonly known as the West Memphis Three, stood up in a courtroom here on Friday, proclaimed their innocence even as they pleaded guilty, and, minutes later, walked out as free men.... An award-winning documentary, 'Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,' was released after their convictions, bringing them national attention."

Guardian: "Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, has been ordered by a court to reveal who instructed him to access the voicemails of model Elle Macpherson and five other public figures, including Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader. Mulcaire is due to reveal these details by the end of next week in a move that will throw further light on the scale of phone hacking at the now defunct News International tabloid."

Cape Cod Times: President Obama & his daughters went book-shopping in Vineyard Haven before the President headed to the links.

Still Crazy in Arizona. KTAR: "Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has denied that he 'promised' Tea Party leaders in Arizona to investigate the validity of Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate to determine the president's eligibility for the 2012 election ballot. Arpaio said he met in his office Thursday with a Tea Party group which presented him with 242 signatures asking for the investigation."