The Commentariat -- August 5

** There's no Off Times Square today; because of a software glitch that has yet to be fixed, a significant number of commenters (including significant me) can't post comments. If I post a page later, it will be on Krugman's column. If you want to e-mail me your comments, I'll post them in the order received when I get up & running again. My e-mail address is ConstantWeader@gmail.com (Clicking on the link will bring up an e-mail form.) ...

... Paul Krugman: "It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery." ...

... "The Second Coming of Herbert Hoover":

... Floyd Norris of the New York Times on the Great Recession II: "It has been three decades since the United States suffered a recession that followed on the heels of the previous one. But it could be happening again. The unrelenting negative economic news of the past two weeks has painted a picture of a United States economy that fell further and recovered less than we had thought." ...

... Low-Information, No-Plan Legislators. Ezra Klein: "A dramatic gap has opened between the economy as Washington sees it -- and wants to intervene in it -- and the economy that actually exists.... Where will the recovery come from? The problem is that no one has an answer. And as one hopeful hypothesis after another is dashed, the markets are beginning to panic.... Today there's more stability, but we seem to have stabilized into an era of high unemployment, low growth and endless risk. Rather than recovering from the crisis, it is almost as if we have settled into it."

Nate Silver: "... the economy is struggling, and that’s a gigantic problem for Mr. Obama.... The stock market is among the least of a president’s worries.... The past few weeks have probably been bad for the re-election efforts of almost everyone in Washington, and today won’t have made them better." ...

... Here's something President Obama can worry about: Torey Van Oot of the Sacramento Bee: "The California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus marked the commander-in-chief's 50th birthday by releasing a resolution that supports exploring a potential primary challenge in 2012 to the first-term Democratic president. The resolution, approved at a caucus meeting last weekend, criticizes Obama for 'negotiating away Democratic Party principles to extremist Republicans,' and cites entitlement cuts on the table in the recent budget negotiations, the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and 'disregard of his promises to the Labor movement' as some of many grievances the caucus has with Obama's performance so far." The post includes a copy of the full resolution.

** Mark Bittman of the New York Times: from tainted turkey to taxes. Essential reading for our conservative friends.

CW: an academic study confirms & quantifies what I've been saying for years. Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The decline in organized labor’s power and membership has played a larger role in fostering increased wage inequality in the United States than is generally thought, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review this month. The study ... found that the decline in union power and density since 1973 explained a third of the increase in wage inequality among men since then, and a fifth of the increased inequality among women."

Just ten days after President Obama was sworn into office, Tom Brandt -- or his headline writer -- of the Eastern Echo (Ypsilani, Michigan) explained why Republicans would have such a confrontational relationship with Obama:

CW: the other day, Al Sharpton mentioned on-air that the rural airports for which the House bill cut funding were mostly in states with key Democratic Senators. I thought he might be exaggerating. But if you read Dana Milbank you'll see just what John Mica (R-Fla.), chair of the House transportation committee, was up to when he wrote the bill cutting funding. This idiot and his Congressional collaborators cost us taxpayers a billion dollars or so & put 80,000 Americans out of work for two weeks. Mica's real goal, BTW: weakening unions.

Jeremy Scahill of The Nation on "water treatment" at Guantanamo -- a sickening horror story:

Harold Cook, a Texas Democrat writing in the Texas Tribune, sure came up with a lot of reasons Gov. Rick "Perry Shouldn't Run for President."

Right Wing World

CW: some while back an Obama-hating leftie called me out, in print, for asserting that, among other things, Obama would be better than Mitt Romney on gay rights; ergo, it was okay for progressives to vote for the Republican presidential candidate. So there's this from Ben Smith: "Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has joined Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Sen. Pennsylvania Rick Santorum in signing a pledge to oppose same-sex marriage on a number of specific fronts." Read the terms of the pledge & see if you think Obama would sign it. ...

... Mystery Money. Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "Two campaign reform groups are asking the Justice Department to investigate a mysterious $1 million contribution to a political committee backing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney from an obscure company that shut down shortly after making the donation. The contribution to Restore Our Future, a so-called 'super PAC' formed by three former Romney political aides, drew scrutiny following an NBC News report on Thursday . The firm that gave the money, called W Spann LLC, was formed in March – with no listed officers or directors — made the contribution in April, then dissolved itself in July...."

Like Rep. Steve King (RTP-Iowa), Stephen Colbert is outraged by Obamacare's wanton new policy of providing reproductive health coverage for women:

This is hard to fathom. It came up on TimesWire (see the middle entry):

     ... CW: When I clicked on the link, I got a slightly raunchy "op-ed" with a NYT Web address that belittles Tom Friedman (oh no!). The writer is ID'd as a co-producer of "The Daily Show." Extremely strange.

News Ledes

AP: "With tens of thousands of jobs, more than $1 billion and their reputations on the line, Senate Democrats gave way Friday to a power play by House Republicans in order to end a partial two-week shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration. With lawmakers scattered for Congress' August recess, the consent of only two senators was required to pass a bill restoring the FAA's operating authority through Sept. 16. President Barack Obama signed it into law hours later."

New York Times: "In a verdict that brought a decisive close to a case that has haunted this city since most of it lay underwater nearly six years ago, five current and former New Orleans police officers were found guilty on all counts by a federal jury on Friday for shooting six citizens, two of whom died, and orchestrating a wide-ranging cover-up in the hours, weeks and years that followed." Read the whole article. Times-Picayune story here. Related videos here.

President Obama spoke about efforts to prepare veterans for the workforce this morning. Reuters: "President Barack Obama on Friday will propose a $120 million package of new tax credits for businesses that hire U.S. veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan...."...

     ... Update: here's a post-event AP report. See video above.

Bloomberg News: "Employers added more jobs than forecast in July, the jobless rate fell and wages climbed, easing concern the U.S. economy is grinding to a halt.Payrolls rose by 117,000 workers after a 46,000 increase in June that was more than originally estimated...."

Al Jazeera: "Syrian troops have killed at least 45 civilians in a tank assault to occupy the centre of Hama, according to an opposition activist, as President Bashar al-Assad seeks to crush a five-month-old uprising against his rule. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said that Washington believes President Bashar al-Assad's government was responsible for more than 2,000 deaths in the crackdown, repeating that Washington believes Assad has 'lost his legitimacy to govern the Syrian people'."

Al Jazeera: "A Libyan rebel spokesman has claimed that a NATO airstrike on the western city of Zlitan has killed Khamis Gaddafi, one of the sons of Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi."

Al Jazeera: "European markets have plunged on deepening fears regarding a debt crisis in the European Union and concerns about US economic growth. London's FTSE-100, Paris' CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX indices all opened down over 3 per cent on Friday.... Earlier, Asian markets also tumbled, after heavy losses in European and US trading through the day on Thursday."

AP: "A jury convicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs of child sexual assault, in a case stemming from two young followers he took as brides in hat his church calls 'spiritual marriages.' ... Jeffs, who acted as his own attorney, stood mostly mute for his closing argument, staring at the floor, for all but a few seconds of the half hour he was allotted."

The Commentariat -- August 4

Karen Garcia recommends this Al Jazeera video -- "Fault Lines" --  and so do I:

"Hope Is Not a Plan." Paul Krugman: the Obama Administration keeps saying the economy is better (or is getting better) than it is, which does nothing but "squander its credibility.... Do they think the markets will be reassured? Do they think consumers will be reassured? ... Spin is part of politics. But sometimes you have to know when to stop." ...

... Pick Your Universe. Conservative David Frum: Krugman is consistently right about the economy; the Wall Street Journal editors are consistently wrong.

Barack Wall Street Obama. Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "About a third of the money [President Obama's] top fundraisers have brought in this year has come from the financial sector, suggesting that strained relations with Wall Street have not hurt the president’s ability to attract donations there for his reelection campaign, according to data released Friday by the Center for Responsive Politics."

A Little More Monday-Morning Quarterbacking on the Deficit Law:

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "Health-care and defense lobbyists are quickly gearing up for a major lobbying and public relations campaign in response to this week’s debt-limit deal, which could force hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts for two of Washington’s most powerful industries.... The [super committee/trigger] approach appears tailor-made to produce a frenzy on K Street, where major lobbying firms and trade groups are already laying out strategies for protecting their interests." ...

... Law Prof. Daniel Markovits in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "... the debt deal represents a substantial success for President Obama and the Democrats. It does indeed impose cuts that will slow the economic recovery and unjustly burden working Americans. But the deal is much nearer an affirmation of the president's core commitments than a surrender. Moreover, the deal that the president got is much, much less bad, from the progressive point of view, than a coldly rational observer would have predicted. The reason the president beat the odds is simple: The Republicans blinked." ...

... James Fearon of the Monkey Cage agrees with Markovits: "Seems to me that [President Obama] has very little bargaining power to begin with in a legislative situation like this one. And this is not so much because the economy is terrible and his favorability ratings are low, but because the U.S. Constitution has it that Congress organizes its own procedures and makes the laws, basically." He asks his readers to respond, & a very good discussion ensues. ...

... Kevin Drum noted the precipitous drop in Monday's stock market & wonders if  "America has the stupidest goddamn investors on the planet.... Has Wall Street really been sitting idly by during the whole debt ceiling debacle and has only now realized what it really means? Can they really be so steeped in the Fox News fantasyland that it never occurred to them until now that cutting federal spending during an economic downturn wasn't really a great idea? Seriously?" ...

... AND Actor Matt Damon on the debt/deficit deal:

** David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal: "Two big sectors of the U.S. economy have been on steroids: finance and health care. If anything is crowding out more productive activities, it's them, as [Prof. Paul] Romer argued in a recent National Academy of Sciences lecture. The bloated financial sector — all those brains lured by big bucks who might otherwise have been employed in science, software, engineering or other fields — has harmed the U.S. economy more than any of our post-World War II communist adversaries did. The American health system costs more per person than any other, but isn't delivering the world's healthiest people.... Profit-seeking players in finance and health care have captured Congress, resisted regulation that would curb their excesses and exploited antiquated rules and policy for private gain."

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "... The Pentagon budget on the table for next year — not including the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — amounts to $553 billion, shy by just over 3 percent. (Including the costs of those wars shoots the figure up to $671 billion, or 17 percent higher than the Cold War peak, i.e., 17 percent more money than the largest sum [adjusted for inflation] the United States ever spent in one year on the military since the Korean War.) ... The Defense Department is as much a bureaucracy as any other federal agency.... It's time to start setting priorities...."

Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post: "Everything you need to know about the FAA shutdown in one post." CW: Matthews is right; his post contains more info than I found from reading several long news stories.

Eliot Spitzer in Slate: "Last week, a conservative panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit's Court of Appeals — the second-most important court in the land — struck down an effort to inject a tiny bit of democracy into corporate governance." The issue: the SEC had imposed a regulation requiring corporations to allow certain shareholders to nominate their own slate of directors; the D.C. court decided that was too much of an imposition on the poor, put-upon corporations. Read the whole article.

AND Matt Damon explains to dumb reporter & dumber camera man why teachers teach. (That's Damon's mother standing beside him; she's a teacher):

Frank Bruni celebrates two films by and about women: "The Help," based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett, & "Bridesmaids." Here's the trailer for "The Help":

Aah, what the hell, let's do "Bridesmaids," too:

Local News

Voter Fraud, Koch Bros. Style. David Catanese of Politico: the Koch-backed astroturf group "Americans for Prosperity is sending absentee ballots to Democrats in at least two Wisconsin state Senate recall districts with instructions to return the paperwork after the election date. The fliers, obtained by Politico, ask solidly Democratic voters to return ballots for the Aug. 9 election to the city clerk 'before Aug. 11.'" ...

     ... Update: AFP claims it was a "printing mistake." Uh-huh. "The Wisconsin Democratic Party has already filed a formal complaint with the state’s Government Accountability Board over the misdated absentee ballots. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is also calling for an investigation."

News Ledes

Politico: "House and Senate leaders on Thursday brokered a 'bipartisan compromise' over Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, ending — if only temporarily — a two-week standoff that had sidelined 4,000 FAA employees as well as 70,000 construction workers involved in airport improvement projects and cost the government tens of millions of dollars in uncollected revenue from the airline industry.... Under the arrangement, the Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday will pass by unanimous consent a bill the Republican-led House passed in July that temporarily allows the FAA to conduct its business and slashes $16 million from the budget for subsidies paid to rural airports. That would allow the FAA to recall its furloughed employees and get up and running again at full strength -- at least until Sept. 16, when the temporary extension would expire. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood could then use his authority to grant waivers to any rural airports faced with losing the subsidy."

AP: "Stocks are plunging in another broad sell-off as investors grow concerned about an economic slowdown in the U.S. and Europe. The Dow Jones industrial average dove more than 350 points, erasing its gains for the year." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Stocks around the world fell sharply Thursday on intensifying investor fears about a slowdown in global economic growth and worries about Europe’s ongoing debt crisis, which is centered now on Italy and Spain. Stock market indexes in the United States and Europe dropped more than 4 percent as Japan intervened to weaken its currency and the European Central Bank began buying bonds to try to calm markets."

Reuters: "Authorities issued a lockdown on Thursday at the campus of Virginia Tech, site of a 2007 mass shooting that killed 32 people, after a man suspected of carrying a gun was seen on campus, the school said."

Bloomberg News: "U.S. Senate leaders ended an impasse over stalled free-trade agreements, agreeing to vote after the August recess on benefits for workers who lose their jobs because of overseas competition, then take up the trade deals. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky pledged action yesterday to pass the agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office and Republican House Speaker John Boehner praised the compromise, signaling all sides concur on the process."

Washington Post: "Greeting 2,400 cheering supporters who paid as much as $35,800 to get inside the campaign fundraising party, [President] Obama took the stage at the Aragon Entertainment Center after an introduction from his former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), and a birthday song from performers Jennifer Hudson, Herbie Hancock and OK Go." Chicago Tribune story here.

New York Times: "Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary and dean of President Obama’s economic team, is expected to stay through the president’s term after intense White House pressure, according to officials familiar with the discussions. But Mr. Geithner has not yet notified the White House of his intentions, and family considerations could still win out, advisers say."

Politico: "Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) made his resignation official Wednesday, clearing the way for a special election to succeed him."

Al Jazeera: "The trial of Egypt's former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, and six senior security officials, has resumed. The accused all face charges related to their involvement in the killing of protesters during the revolution earlier this year, which toppled the government of the former president, Hosni Mubarak."

The Commentariat -- August 3

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

"Washington Chain Saw Massacre." Maureen Dowd sees "the gory, Gothic melodrama on the Potomac [as] a summer horror blockbuster — without the catharsis."

And for the next storyline in the continuing soaper "As the Capitol Turns," Greg Sargent begins the speculation derby on what legislators will be appointed to the deficit-reduction super committee. The good news: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi "came close to endorsing the idea" that she would only appoint members who would hold the line on liberal prioities. The bad news: ConservaDem Sen. Mark Warner is angling for a seat on the committee. ...

... Steve Benen: "I hope folks are ready to live with those triggers included in the deal, because the likelihood of the Super Committee reaching some kind of consensus that can (a) be approved by a majority of its members; (b) pass the House and Senate; and (c) earn President Obama’s signature, is already extremely low." ...

... Karen Garcia has two excellent posts on the aftermath of the Swampy Horror Picture Show here and here. Or just go to her site here. ...

... AND Michael Scherer of Time games "the sequestration." Sounds dull, but it's pretty interesting. It doesn't bode well for comity. But then, what does in D.C.? ...

... Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner writes an op-ed for the Washington Post:

Blah blah blah ... compromise ... blah blah blah ... fiscal sustainability ... blah blah blah. It is not enough for Congress to have prevented a disaster it brought on itself. Lawmakers should return in September prepared to act to strengthen the economy and get more Americans back to work. Doing so will help repair the damage this fractious debate inflicted on an economy that was already slowing, not just here but around the world. ...

... Jared Bernstein: Sen. Mitch McConnell has promised that every time the President asks for the debt ceiling to be raised, we can expect another one of these crises. "To understand how nonsensical Sen McConnell’s ... position is, you have to appreciate that Congress knows when they pass their budget whether it will breach the debt ceiling or not, just like you know when you order your lunch whether you’ll be able to pay for it." ...

... Ezra Klein: "Hearing McConnell’s comments last night, economist Jared Bernstein was shocked. 'This is not the way of great nations,' he wrote. I disagree.... This is certainly the way of great nations. It’s the way they fall." ...

... Dave Weigel of Slate elaborates.

CW: like me, Matt Taibbi here and Glenn Greenwald here, do not buy the memes that Obama is a "weak negotiator" or was "forced" by Tea Party incalcitrance to make a bad deal for ordinary Americans. As Greenwald writes, "Obama's so-called 'bad negotiating' or 'weakness' is actually 'shrewd negotiation' because he's getting what he actually wants (which, shockingly, is not always the same as what he publicly says he wants)."

... Robert Reich: "With the hostage crisis behind him, the President is now ready to talk about the nation’s real problem": unemployment. But the deal he cut with Congress, and the radical right Congress in general, will not allow any spending on jobs programs. Reich echos Drum (& Bernstein): "The radical right has not only captured the federal budget. In convincing so many Americans the problem is the size of government rather than their shrinking paychecks and growing economic insecurity, the radical right has also captured the American mind." ...

... AND Ben Smith shows why Obama's announcement that his Administration will now "pivot to jobs" is another repeat of an old refrain without substance.

** Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "The public ... mostly aren't on our side. They think deficits are bad, they don't trust Keynesian economics, they don't want a higher IRS bill (who does, after all?), and they believe the federal government is spending too much on stuff they don't really understand. Conservatives have just flat out won this debate in recent decades.... I blame the broad liberal community for our failures, not just President Obama. My biggest beef with Obama is ... that he's never really even tried to move public opinion in a specifically progressive direction." ...

The Case for the Obama Approach. We didn't lose this fight. Barack Obama was in law school when this fight was lost. The role of Democrats should not be to convince people that government is great; it should be to help people reach their potential -- and government is a tool to do that. There has been a strain of skepticism about the government in the American character since the founding. Only the New Deal changed that significantly, but we have been returning to the norm ever since then. -- a "Senior Democrat," to Ben Smith

... Joan Walsh of Salon: President Obama is mistaken in his wager that "independents" will support him in 2012 because he's such a good compromiser. "Obama's best hope for re-election is the fact that Generic Republican won't win nomination; he'll be running against either a Tea Party extremist or Mitt Romney, and in most polls he beats both of them." ...

Giant Hanging Icicle. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic borrows four graphs from Calculated Risk: "... they compare key recession indicators as a share of their pre-recession peaks. The outcome reveals each recession in the last 50 years as a kind of hanging icicle. Ours is by far the longest, and we don't yet know when we'll trace our way back to the 2007 [level]."

Right Wing World *

President Krugman, I Presume. CW: I know Newt Gingrich is a big fat liar, so one might assume he was just lying here. But I don't think so. I am thinking he is genuinely clueless.

Art via Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller."The Mittness Protection Program." Maybe you didn't notice he was gone, but Ben Smith notes that Mitt has been MIA. "Romney’s absence has been particularly pronounced in the heat of the budget debate. His last event in either an early state or Washington, D.C. was on July 15.... Romney has been acting more as a full-time fundraiser and occasional candidate, and many of his stops — like the most recent two in Los Angeles and Ohio — are tacked on to his fundraising schedule."

Frances Martel of Mediaite: "... given [Pat] Buchanan’s record of questionable comments, it’s hard not to find something off-color about his debate with [MSNBC host Al] Sharpton today [Tuesday], where, discussing the debt, he argues that 'your boy,' President Obama, was 'whipped' by Sen. Mitch McConnell, and adds a 'briar patch' reference for good measure." Here's the video:

     ... CW: I think Buchanan has found his match in Sharpton. Note: I don't see where anyone has commented on it, but Buchanan also calls Rep. Emanuel Cleaver [D-Missouri], who is black, "your boy." He just can't stop. ...

... Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "Pat Buchanan has a long history of bigotry." ...

... Fox Nation (my absolutely favorite source for news): "Buchanan "forced to apologize for 'your boy' quip."

* Where the leaders are (1) nitwits, (2) liars, or (3) nitwits & liars. Oh, and they're all white.

More on D. B. Cooper from Pierre Thomas of ABC News: "A woman claiming to be the niece of infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper has spoken to ABC News in an exclusive interview about her role in the recently re-ignited 40-year-old cold case that has haunted the FBI for years. Marla Cooper told ABC News that she has provided the FBI with a guitar strap and a Christmas photo of a man pictured with the same strap who she says is her uncle, Lynn Doyle Cooper."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "After months of inaction, the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday issued its first formal condemnation of Syria for its use of force against civilians during a bloody crackdown that has killed as many as 2,000 anti-government protesters. The action came as Syrian authorities severed telephone lines, electricity and water supplies to the besieged city of Hama."

AP: "A federal judge has ruled that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld can be sued personally for damages by a former U.S. military contractor who says he was tortured during a nine-month imprisonment in Iraq. The lawsuit lays out a dramatic tale of the disappearance of the then-civilian contractor, an Army veteran in his 50s whose identity is being withheld."

AP: "The bruising debt fight behind him for now, President Barack Obama is planning a Midwest bus tour later this month that will focus on jobs."

President Obama speaks to the press before his Cabinet meeting:

... Politico: "President Barack Obama says his 'expectation' is that a partial shutdown at the Federal Aviation Administration will be resolved this week. The crisis at the FAA, which started July 23, has put 75,000 people out of work, stalled construction projects across the country and has forced safety inspectors to cover their own travel expenses while working without pay." Washington Post story here.

New York Times: "Hosni Mubarak, who served longer than any ruler in modern Egypt’s history..., faced charges of corruption and killing protestors Wednesday before a court in Cairo."...

... The Guardian is liveblogging the trial & related news. Includes livefeed of trial. Guardian raw video: "Hosni Mubarak arrived in court in Cairo on a stretcher, charged with the unlawful killing of pro-democracy protesters in the uprising against him earlier this year. He is also accused of profiteering by abusing his position of power and exporting gas to Israel for prices lower than international market rates. Sentences for these charges range from five years in prison to the death penalty." ...

... Al Jazeera's liveblog is here. Includes video. Lead story: "Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak has denied charges of corruption and complicity in the killing of protesters at the start of his historic trial in Cairo."

Reuters: "Syrian tanks occupied the main square in central Hama Wednesday after heavy shelling of the city, residents said, taking control of the site of some of the largest protests against President Bashar al-Assad." Al Jazeera story here.

Guardian: "Stock markets took fright on Wednesday as fears grew over the health of the global economy and the ongoing European debt crisis. There was heavy selling in London when trading began, sending the blue-chip FTSE 100 index falling by 91 points, or 1.6%, to 5626. There were also heavy losses across Europe, The French CAC and German DAX indices were down 1.6% and 1.1% respectively." New York Times story here.

New York Times: the U.S. Air Force is replacing the aged U-2 spy planes with the Global Hawk, a surveillance drone. "Since 2001, the cost of the Air Force program has more than doubled, and the service recently cut its planned fleet of Global Hawks to 55 from 77. That lifted the total estimate for each plane, including the sensors and all the research and development, to $218 million, compared with $28 million for the Reaper, the largest armed drone."