The Commentariat -- October 10

Oops, I forgot, till a friend reminded me that today is Columbus Day.

Christopher Columbus Meets Some Native Americans. Or, as another friend writes, "Happy Anniversary of the Day Columbus First Spread Syphilis to the Arawaks."... So here's to Saint Brendan, an Irish monk who -- with his crew -- may have been the first Europeans to travel west to North America in the 6th century C.E.:

Also known as Brandan and Borodon, Brendan was born about 484 A.D. near Tralee in County Kerry. He ... sailed around northwest Europe spreading the Christian faith and founding monasteries — the largest at Clonfert, County Galway.... He died at the age of 93 and he was buried at the monastery in 577 A.D.

Brendan and his brothers figure prominently in Brendan's Voyage, a tale of monks travelling the high seas of the Atlantic, evangelizing to the islands, and possibly reaching the Americas in the 6th century. At one point they stop on a small island, celebrate Easter Mass, light a fire -- and then discover the island is an enormous whale!

Maps of Columbus’ time often included an island called St. Brendan’s Isle that was placed in the western Atlantic ocean. Map makers of the time had no idea of its exact position.... It was mentioned in a Latin text dating from the ninth century called Navigatio Santi Brendani Abatis (Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot). It described the voyage as having taken place in the sixth century.... It was an important part of folklore in medieval Europe and may have influenced Columbus.

     ... As the linked account details, Brendan's claims may not be as far-fetched as they at first seem.

The government is going broke, and who can trust the stock market? There’s not much left to rely on.... [President Obama is] the greatest disappointment of my life — and I’ve been divorced twice.... I'm 67. -- Brenda Barnes, an Occupy Wall Street protester from Santa Monica, California

... This Just in. Alexander Burns of Politico: "Long-shot presidential candidate Buddy Roemer will take his support for Occupy Wall Street to the next level Tuesday when he joins a demonstration in New York. Roemer has been the lone Republican to praise Occupy Wall Street as an expression of public anger against what he calls a 'government ... controlled by special interest money.'" ...

... Jesse LaGreca of Occupy Wall Street & Daily Kos appears on ABC News' "This Week." Luckily, we have Peggy Noonan to tell the kids what to do & George Will to sneer:

... Paul Krugman on the One Percenters' reactions to the 99 Percenters: "... wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.... So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth." ...

... Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) in Nation of Change: "... the country's six largest financial institutions (Bank of America, CitiGroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) now have amassed assets equal to more than 60% of our gross domestic product.... We should break up the giant financial institutions.... Wall Street reform also must address the powerful and secretive Federal Reserve.... Under emergency provisions already in law, the Fed has the authority to provide low-interest loans to small businesses that are starving for capital so that they can create the millions of jobs our economy needs. It should do so. The Fed also has authority to make credit card issuers stop bilking consumers with sky-high fees and interest rates of 30% or more." ...

... Bernie Becker of The Hill: "Both [Herman] Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ... blamed the [Occupy Wall Street] protests on 'class warfare' fomented by Obama." With video, if you can stand to watch two old farts telling lies. ...

... Blue Texan of Firedoglake: "One of the best byproducts of the Occupy Wall Street protests is that they’ve made Republicans show their true colors. America is watching as they cast off the faux right-wing populism of the Teabaggers — which was always a pose — and unabashedly embrace the monied oligarchy." ...

... Charlie Grapski of Firedoglake: immediately after wire services published stories of a scuffle and pepper-spray incident that ultimately led to a shutdown of Washington, D.C.'s National Air & Space Museum, Patrick Howley, an assistant editor of the right-wing American Spectator admitted boasted "that he had consciously infiltrated the group on Friday with the intent to discredit the movement." Howley describes the actual protesters as "lack[ing] the nerve to confront authority. From estimates within the protest, only ten people were pepper-sprayed, and as far as I could tell I was the only one who got inside.” As Grapski writes,

As a result of Howley’s activities a large number of people were subjected to pepper-spray attacks including journalists and tourists who had nothing to do with the protest. Given the negative light that the press is attempting to spin this incident with regard to the ongoing occupations, from Wall Street and D.C. and now spreading to Main Streets across the country, the presence and admitted activities of this self-proclaimed agent provacateur should be brought to the attention of federal law enforcement officials. ...

      ... Ali Gharib of Think Progress: "The American Spectator scrubbed the original piece [by Howley] and reposted it with the words 'in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator' removed from a sentence where Howley described why he 'had infiltrated [the protests] the day before.'” ...

     ... Here's Suzy Khimm's lede in the Washington Post: "A conservative journalist has admitted to infiltrating the group of protesters who clashed with security at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on Saturday — and he openly claims to have instigated the events that prompted the museum to close." ...

     ... Hey, It's What They Do. Phoenix Woman of Firedoglake: "According to a 2010 report from the National Lawyers Guild that examined [the Battle for Seattle in 1999, the RNC protests of 2008, and the G-20 protests of 2009], most if not all of the violence therein was committed by either the cops or people working against or otherwise hostile to the goals of the protesters."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found."

Bill Keller has a fine essay on the Tea Party and their most likely standard-bearer, Rick Perry. Here's a sample, but read the whole column:

Perry brings to the campaign, besides great posture and polished good looks, an economic record that looks like a vindication of Tea Party dogma, never mind that it was made possible by a quarter of America’s known oil reserves, a lot of low-wage immigrants, a reluctance to waste government money on frills like education and health care, and a tax and regulatory environment out of the Wild West....

To this Perry adds a damn-the-pointy-heads denialism — global warming is a hoax, evolution is just “a theory that’s out there” — as well as a wink to the evangelicals, a nod to the executioner, and an ardent defense of personal liberties for those who are heterosexual and don’t need an abortion. He may not believe in evolution, but his survival-of-the-fittest view of society is pretty Darwinian.

New York Times Editors: "It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote — 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republicans, according to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice. As a result, more than five million eligible voters will have a harder time participating in the 2012 election. Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic, particularly the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities.

William Broad & Scott Shane of the New York Times: "A decade after wisps of anthrax sent through the mail killed 5 people, sickened 17 others and terrorized the nation, biologists and chemists still disagree on whether federal investigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.’s long inquiry brushed aside important clues.... The new paper raises the prospect — for the first time in a serious scientific forum — that the Army biodefense expert identified by the F.B.I. as the perpetrator, Bruce E. Ivins, had help in obtaining his germ weapons or conceivably was innocent of the crime.... Dr. Ivins, an Army anthrax specialist who worked at Fort Detrick, Md...., killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors prepared to charge him."

Kevin Soh & Aileen Wang of Reuters: "China's local governments have piled up a mountain of bad debt, some of it to finance bridges to nowhere and other white elephant projects, which now threatens to constrict growth at a time when the global economy is sputtering. It is adding to other systemic risks in China, including a sharp downturn in the property market and a rapid rise in problematic loans." ...

... David Barboza of the New York Times: "Under an economic system that favors state-run banks and companies over wage earners, the government keeps the interest rate on savings accounts so artificially low that it cannot keep pace with China’s rising inflation.... Economists say this nation’s decade of remarkable economic growth ... has to a great extent been underwritten by the household savings — not the spending — of the country’s 1.3 billion people. This system, which some experts refer to as state capitalism, depends on the transfer of wealth from Chinese households to state-run banks, government-backed corporations and the affluent few who are well enough connected to benefit from the arrangement. Meanwhile, striving middle-class families ... are unable to enjoy the full fruits of China’s economic miracle." Hmm. Why does this sound so familiar?

CW: I have no way to verify this figure, & one should bear in mind that during these Republican Administrations, Democrats often controlled Congress, which holds the purse strings even if the president signs the checks. Thanks to Doug R. for the link:

Right Wing World

Politics of the Absurd. David Catanese of Politico: "Fifteen minutes was not long enough to satisfy Joe 'The Plumber's' appetite for political glory. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher has now filed for Congress to run in Ohio's 9th District.... 'The Plumber' could benefit from a Democratic primary face-off between [Rep. Marcy] Kaptur, [the Democrat who currently holds the seat,] and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who may end up running against each other because of the loss of two congressional seats in Ohio following redistricting."

The Plutocrats Divide? Ken Vogel of Politico: "Karl Rove’s team and the Koch brothers’ operatives quietly coordinated millions of dollars in political spending in 2010, but that alliance, which has flown largely under the radar, is showing signs of fraying. And with each network planning to dwarf its 2010 effort, Republicans worry that the emerging rivalry between the two deepest-pocketed camps in the conservative movement could undercut their party’s chances of taking the Senate and White House in 2012."

As if to hammer down Krugman's point (see link above), E. J. Dionne writes that when Democratic senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren made "a proper case for liberalism," Dionne's WashPo colleague & leading conservative pundit George Will went into full attack mode. Devoting a whole column to Warren's thesis that "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own," Will "demonstrates his debating skills by first accusing Warren of being 'a pyromaniac in a field of straw men,' and then by conceding the one and only point that Warren actually made.... On the core point about the social contract, George Will and Elizabeth Warren are in full, if awkward, agreement."

Captain of the Clueless Club. CW: one of the many reasons I never cite Robert Samuelson, the Washington Post economics op-ed columnist, even when he might be correct about something: here he defends the rich against unfair attacks by people who "resent and envy" them.

Lindsey Boerma of CBS News: "Rep. Ron Paul scored a decisive victory Saturday in a mock presidential election at the Values Voter Summit, trouncing fellow Texan, Gov. Rick Perry, but an organizer of the straw poll suggested ballot-stuffing may have skewed the results.... The victory for the longtime congressman and three-time presidential contender over his Republican rivals in the presidential contest was ... surprising because Paul's principled libertarianism sometimes puts him at odds with the views of social conservatives on issues such as gay marriage and drug laws." CW: somehow I don't think this means Values Voters are suddenly in favor of free & fair elections. See New York Times editorial linked above.

Rick Perry attacks RomneyCare:

News Ledes

Wall Street Journal: "Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday that he’ll allow the Wall Street protesters to stay indefinitely, provided they abide by the law, marking his strongest statement to date on the city’s willingness to let demonstrators occupy a park in Lower Manhattan."

New York Times: "Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims, two Americans, won the Nobel economics prize on Monday “for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said."

AP: "Clashes over the weekend between Syrian soldiers and army defectors and a shooting at a funeral have killed at least 17 members of the military and 14 civilians, the latest sign of the militarization of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime, a human rights group said Monday."

Washington Post: "The trial of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the al-Qaeda suspect who allegedly tried to bring down a Northwest Airlines plane with a bomb hidden in his underwear in December 2009, will open Tuesday in Detroit amid some uncertainty about whether the Nigerian, who is representing himself, will offer a vigorous defense or attempt to use the courtroom as a political stage."

The Killing of Anwar al-Awlaki

I've posted a comments page on Off Times Square on the Killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.

A reader wrote today to ask my opinion on the Administration's legal justification for the targeting & killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen. Charlie Savage of the New York Times reported yesterday on "a secret legal memorandum" that concluded the killing of Awlaki would "be lawful if it were not feasible to take him alive." I linked the story yesterday; it's here. Here is a slightly edited version of my answer to the reader. Also, do read Glenn Greenwald, linked below.

There are several ways to look at this issue, but I think it’s essential to try to separate the moral/ethical implications from the legal “justification.”

Lawyers can justify almost any action. It’s what they’re paid to do. On this, see Glenn Greenwald, who lays out at some length why the “justification” to kill Awlaki was bogus. But in reading Greenwald, it’s also a good idea to bear in mind that Greenwald’s position is a pretty easy one to make. Greenwald -- who is a lawyer -- says you can’t kill a U.S. citizen without due process because the Constitution (and some other legal principles) says you can’t. For Greenwald, that’s the end of the story. As I said, an easy call.

Also, as Greenwald notes, months before the date of the “justification” memo, the media were reporting that there was a kill order on Awlaki. I don’t know if the media got that right, but if they did, then the “justification” followed the decision to kill him. The lawyers, just as usually happens in a trial, were making their case after the fact.

Another thing to bear in mind, & something Greenwald also points out, is that we don’t really know what the 50-page memo said. Greenwald implies Savage had only one source; I think Savage makes clear he had more than one source. But Greenwald’s point is well-taken – all we get from Savage’s report is the Administration’s gloss on the memo. Savage’s sources are telling him what they want him to hear. A 50-page memo obviously contains some nuance, and the Administration has not released the nuance. It’s secret. So we only know what officials in the Obama Administration want us to know.

Another point: Savage reports that the memo does not address the quality or quantity of evidence against Awlaki. The implication then is that the memo reads, “If you have evidence that Awlaki has done all this bad stuff & that he cannot reasonably be captured & is unwilling to turn himself over to U.S. authorities, then you can kill him for these reasons: blah blah blah.” That means to actually justify the killing of Awlaki, the Administration would have to have acquired some pretty good “slam dunk” evidence against him. Presumably, the bulk of whatever evidence the Administration had came from the CIA. And you know how slam-dunky the CIA has been.

I respect the civil libertarian POV that the U.S. just can’t go around killing American citizens if they have not received due process in accordance with the Constitution & U.S. laws.

BUT. I think there are exceptions.

First, on the legal issue, something Greenwald doesn’t mention -- and he wouldn’t because it undermines his argument -- this is a case of the Constitution being in conflict with itself. As Justice David Souter outlined in his Harvard commencement address last year, "The explicit terms of the Constitution ... can create a conflict of approved values, and the explicit terms of the Constitution do not resolve that conflict when it arises.” (The text is here & is worth reading. I've appended the video of Souter's speech below.) The President takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, & one of his duties as “Commander in Chief of the Army & the Navy” (Article II) is spelled out in the preamble: to “provide for the common defence” of the nation. I don’t think there’s any question but that providing for the common defense may occasionally put a Commander in Chief in conflict with the Bill of Rights or with other provisions of the Constitution. (Ask Abe Lincoln about suspending habeas corpus & about closing down newspapers that opposed the war!) You might argue that Obama should have marched his case over to the Supremes for their input on the constitutionality of targeting Awlaki, but I’m not sure I’d want to leave the defense of the nation to Nino Scalia.

As a moral issue -- as opposed to a legal one -- I don’t think it matters a whit what nationality Awlaki was. If I murdered my neighbor who is Brazilian, I’m just as guilty of murder as if I had murdered his wife who is American. I don’t get some moral free pass because the guy “isn’t even an American!” Murder is murder.

At the same time, there are “legal” killings that are immoral. I would argue, for instance, that the execution of Troy Davis – though entirely legal – was immoral. After his trial, enough reasonable doubt surfaced to suggest that, if we had a system that allowed a do-over (as does, say, Italy), there was clearly enough evidence to raise reasonable doubt of Davis’s guilt. I have no idea if Davis was or was not guilty of murder. I do have an idea that he could not be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

As I argued in a comment in Off Times Square, not all Americans get due process. Nearly once a week, you hear of some American (on American soil) who is suspected of a heinous crime – usually but not always murder – being killed by police. Unless there is some special circumstance – like racism – usually not much of a fuss is raised about the shooting of the suspect. So quite a few Americans suspected of crimes do not get anything approaching due process. They just get shot dead.

Based on what I’ve read in the media, I think it’s pretty certain that Awlaki fomented violence against Americans. Whether he was also involved in planning & carrying out violence against Americans, I don’t know. I have only the government’s claim on that.

I also know that Awlaki did not turn himself over to U.S. authorities. Given the way the U.S. has treated enemy combatants, & given his views, this is hardly surprising. But it was an option he had, if not such a great one. He chose not to surrender.

He also put himself in a situation in which he made his capture more than a little difficult.

As I mentioned earlier, the media widely reported that there was a kill order out on Awlaki. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Awlaki knew he was a target and had time to think about how to deal with that.

So I equate Awlaki with the local murder suspect who knows the police are after him but who resists arrest & gets shot dead. The authorities may or may not have good evidence – evidence that would stand up in court – against Awlaki & the local suspect. But Awlaki & the suspect made essentially the same choice. They decided not to surrender; that is, not to have their days in court.

Therefore, I think that if the evidence against Awlaki was accurate – or even if the Administration merely believed the evidence that he was planning terrorist attacks against Americans – then his killing was morally justified. Tying a legal justification to his killing is a nicety, but it doesn’t carry a great deal of weight with me.

What I think civil libertarians like Greenwald fail to take into account is that Awlaki, too, was an actor in this drama, not just a bystander. He made decisions that put him in danger of being targeted and killed. These decisions were not just the ones he made after he was targeted – they include his decision to advocate for, and probably participate in, violence against Americans. There is no way to know whether the killing of Awlaki saved American lives or if his killing will instead only embolden anti-American sentiments. But I do think the Administration made a reasonable call, given what it knew. Time will tell. Or rather, may tell.

As I said, my position – and for that matter, the President’s -- is harder to make than Greenwald’s. Lines in the sand are easy to draw. Nuance is not so neat. And because it’s so messy, it’s easy to err or one side or the other. But sometimes it’s a mistake to be so sure of yourself. I think Greenwald makes that mistake quite often. There’s a good chance this is one of those times.

Here's Souter on the Constitution. He begins speaking at about 4:00 minutes in:

The Commentariat -- October 9

We have an Open Thread going on Off times Square.

Occupy Wall Street

Chris Bowers of Daily Kos has an interactive map & list, which appear to be updated regularly, of Occupy Wall Street events & Facebook pages for cities throughout the country. You can also get to it via the URL OccupyWallStreetEvents.com ...

... Jennifer Preston of the New York Times: "What began as a small group of protesters expressing their grievances about economic inequities last month from a park in New York City has evolved into an online conversation that is spreading across the country on social media platforms. [CW Note: the following links take you to the site pages, not to the NYT story.] Inspired by the populist message of the group known as Occupy Wall Street, more than 200 Facebook pages and Twitter accounts have sprung up in dozens of cities during the past week, seeking volunteers for local protests and fostering discussion about the group’s concerns. Some 900 events have been set up on Meetup.com, and blog posts and photographs from all over the country are popping up on the WeArethe99Percent blog on Tumblr from people who see themselves as victims of not just a sagging economy but also economic injustice."

... ** In a major repudiation of their own news departments, not to mention the "chattering classes," the Editors of the New York Times back the Occupy Wall Street protesters: "There are plenty of policy goals to address the grievances of the protesters — including lasting foreclosure relief, a financial transactions tax, greater legal protection for workers’ rights, and more progressive taxation. The country needs a shift in the emphasis of public policy from protecting the banks to fostering full employment, including public spending for job creation and development of a strong, long-term strategy to increase domestic manufacturing." ...

This is the Obama generation declaring their independence from his administration. -- Prof. Jeremy Varon, on Occupy Wall Street ...

... Prof. Todd Gitlin in a New York Times op-ed: "By allying itself with the protest, the left at large is telling the president that a campaign slogan that essentially says 'We’re better than Eric Cantor' won’t cut it in 2012. 'We are the 99 percent' would be more like it. If President Obama takes this direction, the movement’s energy may be able to power a motor of significant reform." ...

... And Now for a Few Words from the Clueless on Occupy Wall Street:

No, I feel a lot of sympathy for what you might describe as the general sense among Americans that we’ve lost a sense of possibility, that after a lost decade of income growth and fiscal irresponsibility, a devastating financial crisis and a huge loss of confidence in public institutions, people do wonder whether we have the ability to do things that can help the average person’s sense of opportunity. -- Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, more or less, in what Steven Pearlstein calls a "generously edited and cleaned-up version" of Geithner's actual remark

I don’t know if it’s helpful. -- White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who made a bundle on Wall Street ...

... Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post: "I’m sure Daley and Geithner are keenly aware that there’s a nasty political war going on out there and that they’re losing. What I suspect they don’t fully understand is that one reason they’re losing it is that people aren’t sure which side they’re on. And the way to let people know which side you’re on is to send clear signals through what you say and what you do." CW: oh, I think we know. ...

... More from the Clueless and the Derisive:

... Christiane Amanpour of ABC News interviews Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: at about 3:45 in, Amanpour asks Pelosi about Majority Leader Eric Cantor's remark about "the mob." Pelosi's answers are terrific. She goes on to discuss Scott Brown's "Thank God!" response to Elizabeth Warren:

 

... Prof. David Meyer, in a Washington Post op-ed, credits Occupy Wall Street with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to pay for the jobs bill with a millionaires' surtax. ...

... Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle profiles one of the Occupy San Francisco protesters & delves into the impetus behind the protests.

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Obama administration’s secret legal memorandum that opened the door to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, found that it would be lawful only if it were not feasible to take him alive, according to people who have read the document.... The secret document provided the justification for acting despite an executive order banning assassinations, a federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights and various strictures of the international laws of war.... The memo, however, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Mr. Awlaki’s case and did not establish a broad new legal doctrine to permit the targeted killing of any Americans believed to pose a terrorist threat."

Drone Wars. Off Times Square commenter Haley S. brought up this issue last weekend. Scott Shane of the New York Times is catching up: "Eventually, the United States will face a military adversary or terrorist group armed with drones, military analysts say. But what the short-run hazard experts foresee is not an attack on the United States, which faces no enemies with significant combat drone capabilities, but the political and legal challenges posed when another country follows the American example.... The qualities that have made lethal drones so attractive to the Obama administration for counterterrorism appeal to many countries and, conceivably, to terrorist groups: a capacity for leisurely surveillance and precise strikes, modest cost, and most important, no danger to the operator, who may sit in safety thousands of miles from the target."

Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "More than six months after the start of the Syrian uprising, Iraq is offering key moral and financial support to the country’s embattled president, undermining a central U.S. policy objective and raising fresh concerns that Iraq is drifting further into the orbit of an American arch rival — Iran. Iraq’s stance has dealt an embarrassing setback to the Obama administration...."

** David Leonhardt of the New York Times outlines some of the reasons this recession is worse than others, including the Great Depression, and likely to linger longer: the economy & jobs markets were weak going into the recession; no major new technologies or industries have developed; the workforce is not becoming better-educated; the country isn't welcoming foreign scientists & entrepreneurs; and "three giant industries — finance, health care and housing — now include large amounts of unproductive capacity.... It is hard to see how the jobs of the future will spring from unnecessary back surgery and garden-variety arbitrage." ...

... ** Ezra Klein on government economic policies designed to reverse the recession. Could this time have been different? Yes, if the policymakers had understood the depth, breadth and length of the recession, they could have done some things better. But overall, given the political and cultural will, they probably could not have done much more than they did. We would still be in a recession but with a slightly better jobs outlook. CW: This is a comprehensive, informative piece. Klein doesn't say so directly, but surely one of Obama's most boneheaded moves was to shrink the federal workforce in the name of deficit reduction. No one forced him to do this (& Republicans surely didn't give him any kudos for this "belt-tightening"); he devised this anti-stimulus, anti-jobs program all by himself.

Graham Bowley of the New York Times: "Regulators in the United States and overseas are cracking down on computerized high-speed trading that crowds today’s stock exchanges, worried that as it spreads around the globe it is making market swings worse. The cost of these high-frequency traders, critics say, is the confidence of ordinary investors in the markets, and ultimately their belief in the fairness of the financial system."

Patricia Zengerle & Eric Johnson of Reuters: "With their favored candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination lagging or out of the race, many U.S. Tea Party activists are shifting focus to the struggle for control of the U.S. Senate. The fizz has gone out of the presidential contest for some supporters of the fiscally conservative movement now that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is not running and Texas Governor Rick Perry and congresswoman Michele Bachmann are slipping in polls."

Right Wing World

Only on Fox "News"! We need more hungry Americans and "more ruthless capitalism!" Thanks to News Hounds -- "We watch Fox so you don't have to":

Steve Benen: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week that the White House’s 'explicit strategy' is to 'make people believe that Congress can’t get anything done.' Seriously, that’s what he said. As McConnell sees it, President Obama doesn’t want Congress to function. Yes, after years of tragic dysfunction and Republican-imposed obstructionism unseen in American history, the conservative GOP leader from Kentucky believes this is all the president’s fault."

How Scoundrels Have Taken over America. Jayne Mayer has a long piece in the New Yorker on Art Pope, a sleazy right-wing millionaire who, for relatively little cash outlay, has purchased the State of North Carolina -- a state which was once, by Southern standards, fairly progressive. CW: Mayer doesn't emphasize it or really even connect the dots, but what makes my blood boil is that Pope got rich selling cheap Chinese merchandise in a string of shabby discount stores, where he pays his workers the minimum wage. He then turns around & uses the money he made on the poor (while not creating any good jobs & essentially sending many offshore) to back candidates (in outrageous ways) who are commited to making those same poor poeple poorer. And the punidts can't figure out what Occupy Wall Street is all about? P.S. Sorry not to have linked to this sooner; I just couldn't get around to reading it.

Karen Garcia has a hilarious post on a proposed House Tea Party bill that would eliminate the life insurance benefit heirs of Members of Congress currently receive. Too bad, Honey. If "something happens to me," you & the kids should be able to get great jobs even if we do manage to meet our goal of eliminating the minimum wage. Remember, it's all about me, and I won't need the money once I'm in heaven with Jesus.

News Ledes

AP: "Flames lit up downtown Cairo, where massive clashes raged Sunday, drawing Christians angry over a recent church attack, Muslims and Egyptian security forces. At least 24 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the worst sectarian violence since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February." Al Jazeera story here, with video.

Reuters: "Donald Tusk will be the first Polish prime minister since the fall of communism in 1989 to rule for two successive terms after his center-right Civic Platform trounced its rivals in a parliamentary election. An exit poll showed Tusk's pro-business party had won nearly 40 percent of votes in Sunday's election, short of an absolute majority but far ahead of Jaroslaw Kaczynski's nationalist-conservative Law and Justice party on just over 30 percent."

Al Jazeera: "Germany and France stand ready to recapitalise banks according to common criteria, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said. 'We are not going into details today, we will present a complete package' for stabilising the eurozone at the end of the month, Merkel said at a news conference in Berlin on Sunday following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The meeting came ... hours after France, Belgium and Luxembourg agreed to a rescue plan for Dexia, that is expected to lead to the dismantling of the troubled bank." New York Times story here.

AP: "The Rev. Joseph Lowery was one of the first believers that a black senator from Illinois could become president, and Barack Obama was among those adding his thanks to the civil rights icon Sunday night during a tribute to the 90-year-old's legacy."

Los Angeles Times: California "Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday granted illegal immigrants access to state financial aid at public universities and community colleges, putting California once again in the center of the nation's immigration debate. But he vetoed a measure that would have allowed state universities to consider applicants' race, gender and income to ensure diversity in their student populations. Deciding the fate of 50 education-related bills, the governor also rejected an effort to make it more difficult to establish charter schools. But he accepted a move to improve college life for gays, lesbians and bisexual and transgender people and a measure to restrict the privatization of libraries."

New York Times: "Facing an unprecedented order from the Supreme Court to decrease its inmate population by 11,000 over the next three months and by 34,000 over the next two years, California prisons last week began to shift inmates to county jails and probation officers, starting what many believe will be a fundamental and far-reaching change in the nation’s largest corrections system."

Reuters: "Anti-Wall Street demonstrators said on Saturday they are growing out of their lower Manhattan encampment and are exploring options to expand to other public spaces in New York City." ...

... Seattle Times: "Hundreds of peaceful protesters rallied and marched through downtown Seattle as part of an ongoing Occupy Seattle demonstration against what they called corporate domination of America, with crowds approaching 1,000 supporters at midday.... Just before 7 p.m., the crowd cleared except for two people, who were arrested. One, a young woman, held a sign saying "No War but Class War," and she was cheered as she was led handcuffed into a police van. The other, a young man, refused to stand up and was carried off by police."

AP: "A man who left his Presbyterian ministry in California more than 20 years ago after telling his congregation that he is gay was welcomed back into the church leadership as its first openly gay ordained minister. In a quavering voice ripe with emotion, 56-year-old Scott Anderson on Saturday told the hundreds of friends and backers who packed Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison, Wisconsin for his ordination ceremony that he never thought the day would come."

Reuters: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel will thrash out differences with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday over how to use the euro zone's financial firepower to counter a sovereign debt crisis threatening the global economy."

Reuters: "Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh suggested Saturday that within days he would step down, a promise he has made three times already this year, and analysts said it was yet another stalling tactic. A government official said Saleh was merely indicating readiness to reach a deal to end months of unrest."