The Commentariat -- September 28

I've posted a comments page on Off Times Square on Frank Rich's column, linked yesterday. Write on this or something else.

Timothy Homan of Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News." CW: Too bad "journalistic discretion" prevents Homan from directly stating what economists think of the Republican "plan," but he sure hints at it here:

A reduction in government spending, the end of the payroll- tax holiday and an expiration of extended unemployment benefits would cut GDP by 1.7 percent in 2012, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli in New York. ...

... Of course, as Steve Benen points out, "I don’t imagine this will make much of a difference to Congress. Republicans, after all, 'do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities,' even though they occasionally claim 'every economist' agrees with the GOP agenda.... The choice for Congress seems to down to recovery and jobs vs. negligence and ignorance." CW: I'd say ignorance is the clear frontrunner here.

"Governing by Crisis." New York Times Editors: "... the country will probably be wrung through several more near-shutdowns as the 2012 budget process stumbles along, all prompted by conservatives in the House who will use any choke point to achieve their obsessive goal of shrinking government. Republicans should think of the broad American public, rather than catering to the extreme elements of their base, the next time they push the government to the brink." Right.

Jonathan Chait, now of New York Magazine, writes a great little post on "class warfare," the "hypersensitivity of the rich," & their outsized influence on powerful politicians & media elites like Our Mister Brooks. ...

... E. J. Dionne: "There is no such thing as a self-made person":

... Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post tries to figure out Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe & what his strategy is for 2012. The big question is whether the course correction we've seen in September -- the newly-aggressive Obama -- is a hiccup or a guide to the next 14 months. ...

... A Fine Example of the "New" Obama: If asking a millionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a class warrior, a warrior for the middle class, I will accept that; I’ll wear that as a badge of honor. Because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against the middle class in this country for a decade now. -- Barack Obama in Colorado yesterday

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post on why the Obama White House is taking the Affordable Care Act directly to the Supreme Court: "(1) the Obama administration will definitely handle the case; ... (2) the review might not have been granted — or gone against the administration; & ... (3) the move shows confidence." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick of Slate cites numerous expert opinions on how the Supremes will handle the ACA case. She argues that since the Chief Justice likely does not want to make the Court part of a presidential election contest, there's a good chance the Court will kick the can down the road, possibly until 2015, when the major provisions go into effect.

... Duke Helfand of the Los Angeles Times: "The price of health insurance provided by employers for families jumped 9% this year over 2010 as rising healthcare expenses contributed to the largest premium increases in six years, a national survey shows.... Employers picked up most of the cost, but workers continued to struggle to keep up with the growth in their share, which has far outpaced any growth in their earnings."

Tom Friedman Is a Sap. Rick Hertzberg does a masterful job of demonstrating how Tom Centrist Friedman is ludicrously obtuse. If you've ever taken Friedman seriously, you owe it to yourself & your country to read Hertzberg's takedown. If, BTW, you're confused by the end, don't blame Hertzberg; it's Friedman who is just plain nonsensical. See also Matt Taibbi's take on Our Mister Brooks -- who "really is a sap" -- under today's Right Wing World. These guys work for the New York Times! Friedman has three Pulitzers!

Ezra Klein on why a third party presidential candidate, if s/he won, wouldn't solve any of the problems third-party advocates cite. CW: what Klein doesn't mention, and what I think is most obvious, is that a third-party president would have absolutely no clout with Congress. Nobody on the Hill would have her back. Various presidents (Jimmy Carter, Billary Clinton) have been accused of not cementing good relations with Congress to get things done. What kind of relationship would a third-party candidate -- one who defeated the preferred candidate of every Member of Congress -- have with Congress?

Karen Garcia: "Thousands of U.S. Postal Service employees are in danger of losing their jobs, thanks to a wholly manufactured budget crisis created by Congressional Republicans. On paper, the Post Office is nearly bankrupt because of a law forcing it to prepay medical retirement benefits so far into the future (75 years) that the presumed beneficiaries haven't even been born yet. The pension fund is actually flush with cash overpayments, $47 billion in the past four years alone."

Contra economist Michele Bachmann, whose policy for full employment is to eliminate the minimum wage, Chris Isidore of CNN Money reports, "Getting the economy going will require more than just creating a large number of low-wage positions, said Paul Osterman, economics professor at MIT. Raising the minimum wage to get more cash to the working poor is just as crucial, he said. About 20% of American adults who have jobs are earning only $10.65 an hour or less, according to Osterman's analysis. Even at 40 hours a week, that amounts to less than $22,314, the poverty level for a family of four." Thanks to Doug R. for the link.

Vale, Mens Rea. Gary Fields & John Emschwiller of the Wall Street Journal: "For centuries, a bedrock principle of criminal law has held that people must know they are doing something wrong before they can be found guilty.... This legal protection is now being eroded as the U.S. federal criminal code dramatically swells. In recent decades, Congress has repeatedly crafted laws that weaken or disregard the notion of criminal intent.... Overall, more than 40% of nonviolent offenses created or amended during two recent Congresses—the 109th and the 111th, the latter of which ran through last year — had 'weak' mens rea requirements at best..." CW: AND how stupid is this? --

In 1998, Dane A. Yirkovsky, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, man with an extensive criminal record, was back in school pursuing a high-school diploma and working as a drywall installer. While doing some remodeling work, Mr. Yirkovsky found a .22 caliber bullet underneath a carpet.... He put it in a box in his room, the records show. A few months later, local police found the bullet during a search of his apartment.... Federal officials contended that possessing even one bullet violated a federal law prohibiting felons from having firearms. Mr. Yirkovsky pleaded guilty to having the bullet. He received a congressionally mandated 15-year prison sentence, which a federal appeals court upheld but called 'an extreme penalty under the facts as presented to this court.' Mr. Yirkovsky is due to be released in May 2013.

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: a town clerk in Upstate New York says that because of her religious beliefs, she won't sign marriage licenses for gay couples seeking them, but she has delegated the authority to a deputy -- who shows up by appointment only. Can she do that? The courts are likely to decide.

CW: Yesterday I embedded a BBC interview of independent trader Alessio Rastani, whose view of the market was so radical that the thought arose among the conoscenti that he might be a "Yes Man," a group who perpetrate elaborate hoaxes "to get at the truth." I kinda ignored the buzz, because the general consensus was that Rastani was a real trader. Felix Salmon of Reuters makes the case for yes & no. Salmon's explanation of who typical "independent traders" are, however, is interesting; in fact, his whole post is entertaining. Read it; then remind yourself that Republicans think regulating the financial industry is bad for business.

CW Correction: some while back I link to this Washington Post story about the DOJ's spending $16 a pop for muffins served at a conference. Turns out, according to Ruth Marcus of the Post: "About that $16 muffin — it didn’t actually cost that much.... As it turns out, the receipt on which the Justice Department’s inspector general based that assessment was written in a kind of catering short-hand. The muffin billing actually included: free meeting space, complimentary coffee, fresh fruit, assorted baked goods, taxes and tip. In short, a decent price for a continental breakfast."

Right Wing World *

There is no better motto for the federal government than that of a pizza place. It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and you’re high as a kite and the stuff in your fridge is weirding you out — if you order it, pizza will come. Pizza will come! Oh, pizza will most definitely come. And if you vote for me, America, I promise you that I will deliver. -- Kenan Thompson, impersonating Herman Cain

I think it’s great! I’m going to use that in my next debate: If you vote for me, America, I will deliver. -- Herman Cain, reacting to the skit ...

... The SNL bit & Cain's reaction appears in this Fox "News" interview of Cain, beginning at about 4:40 minutes in:

The Meaning of Repulican Straw Polls & the Iowa Primary. Dana Milbank: "The straw polls are tilted by a small and unrepresentative sample of voters choosing the most ideological candidates. But it seems to me that makes the straw polls a close approximation of the Republican primary electorate. There are 3 million people in Iowa, for example, of whom just more than 600,000 are registered Republicans. But the 2008 Iowa Republican caucus had 120,000 participants. Of those, 60 percent were self-described evangelicals or born-again Christians."

"Why David Brooks Really Is a Sap." After mocking David Brooks' "Newspaper Op-Ed Writing 101" style, Matt Taibbi gets into the substance of Brooks' big lie on taxing the overtaxed super-rich: "I defy David Brooks to come out publicly and explain how it's fair that he should pay more than twice the tax rate that [billionaire John] Paulson or George Soros pays.... If we can't even get rich pundits to object to being personally screwed by the system, if we can't even get those people to talk about it, it'll be a long time before we get around to seriously considering making changes."

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones asks why Republicans are still courting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in an effort to get him to run for president even though he's said he would commit suicide before h'd run. "Answer: because Republicans are in a panic. They don't trust Romney, they're increasingly worried that Perry is unelectable, they think Bachmann is a nutcase, and the rest of their field are just fill-ins. So Christie is their once and future saviour. He yells at constituents! He killed a tunnel that liberals loved! He yells at teachers! He cut budgets! He yells at Democratic legislators! What's not to like?" ...

     ... Dan Amira of New York Magazine totes up five things wingers won't like: Christie's positions on illegal immigration, gun control, climate change, Race to the Top, & -- as Stewart highlighted -- religious prejudice. ...

     ... Travis Waldron of Think Progress adds another: "... Christie (R) recently signed an anti-bullying law that advocates have heralded as the nation’s toughest and a major step forward in the fight to prevent students from being bullied for any number of reasons, including their sexual orientation."

So, Monday I linked this New York Times op-ed by Prof. Matthew Sutton, on how fundamentalist Christian apocalyptic fears/hopes are driving political discourse as right-wing candidates cash in on & stoke them. ...

... Here's Sutton, appearing on Lawrence O'Donnell's show:

... THEN, right on cue, along comes some nut to yell at President Obama that he is the Antichrist. In this clip, the Antichrist seems more intent on making sure the accuser doesn't lose his jacket. Sly devil:

... This is the trouble with these Hollywood events. You never know when Mel Gibson is going to show up. -- Jon Stewart

* Where the crazies rule.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A federal judge on Wednesday upheld most of the sections of Alabama’s far-reaching immigration law that had been challenged by the Obama administration, including portions that had been blocked in other states."

New York Times: "The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced on Wednesday that it had arrested 2,901 immigrants who have criminal records, highlighting the Obama administration’s policy of focusing on such people while putting less emphasis on deporting illegal immigrants who pose no demonstrated threat to public safety."

New York Times: "A 26-year-old man from a town west of Boston was charged Wednesday with plotting to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol using remote-controlled aircraft filled with plastic explosives. The suspect, Rezwan Ferdaus..., is an American citizen and has a physics degree from Northeastern University..., according to an F.B.I. affidavit. Mr. Ferdaus also tried to provide detonation devices, weapons and other resources to Al Qaeda to carry out attacks on American soldiers stationed overseas, law enforcement officials said."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to settle the constitutional question over the 2010 health-care law this term, meaning that the decision will probably come next summer in the thick of the presidential campaign. The Justice Department asked the justices to review the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which is the only appeals court to say Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. The law requires almost every American to have health insurance." The New York Times has a more expansive story here.

President Obama gave his annual back-to-school speech this afternoon.

President Obama participated in an Open for Questions forum this morning.

New York Times: "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the fugitive former leader toppled from power a month ago, has likely taken refuge near the Algerian border under the protection of sympathetic nomadic tribesman who have fought for him, officials of the new Libyan government said Wednesday."

New York Times: "Seeking to stake a claim in the tablet computer market alongside Apple and Samsung, Amazon.com on Wednesday revealed plans to begin selling a color touchscreen tablet. Named the Kindle Fire, the device has a 7-inch touchscreen, weighs 14.6 ounces and is outfitted with a dual-core processor. But the most important feature may be the price. At $199 the Fire is less than half the price of the Apple iPad, which starts at $499." CW: wonder if Amazon will give free Kindle Fires to all those temps in Allentown; nah, but the temps had better work fast to move those Kindles outta there, or they're toast.

Guardian: German negotiators are at loggerheads withtheir French counterparts over pledges to quadruple the eurozone's €440bn (£382bn) bailout fund ahead of a crucial vote in the Bundestag on Thursday that could decide the fate of the currency zone. Attempts by Berlin to write off up to 50% of Greek debts as part of a wider rescue package faced stiff opposition from France, which is concerned many of its banks would need to find extra funds to cope with the resulting losses." The Guardian is running a liveblog on the negotiations here. ...

... New York Times: "Europe took another step in its slog toward approval of a broader bailout fund for overly indebted countries Wednesday, as Finland’s parliament agreed to contribute its share despite an unresolved dispute over its demand for collateral from Greece."

New York Times: "The Greek Parliament voted late Tuesday in Athens to back a hugely unpopular property tax, one of a series of new austerity measures. The vote could clear the way for a crucial injection of international financing meant to at least temporarily stave off a default on government debt."

Los Angeles Times: the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, accused of manslaughter in the death of entertainer Michael Jackson, began yesterday. The New York Times story is here.

The Commentariat -- September 27

I've posted a comments page on the question "Whatever Happened to the American Left?" on Off Times Square. You can write on this or something else.

** CW: Why I Love -- Frank Rich: "From the moment Obama arrived at the White House, the Beltway elites have been coaxing him further down the politically suicidal path of appeasement and inertia even as his opponents geared up for war.... Only when the tea-party cabal in the House took Washington hostage did it fully dawn on the Beltway gentry that the country was in danger." Rich goes on to blast the phony third-party advocacy groups (those of you who think these groups are a good idea, please read Rich) & his former colleagues at the Times -- except Krugman! "Extremism in defense of liberty may be a vice, but so is retreat in the face of extremism." ...

... Less eloquently put, but on the same track, here's Greg Sargent on the "centrist" Third-Party Solution: "Calling for a third party is a quick and easy way to get yourself booked for a round of cable TV appearances. But many of those calling for a third party are refusing to reckon with an inconvenient fact: One of the two parties already occupies the approximate ideological space that these commentators themselves are describing.... That party is known as the 'Democratic Party,' and it already holds many of the positions these commentators want a third party to espouse." ...

... AND like Rich, Paul Krugman manages to squish Tom Friedman on his third-party quackery. ...

... CW: After reading Rich's takedown of Brooks & Friedman, I wondered if one of the reasons he left the Times was to -- take down Brooks & Friedman. If Krugman --who lambasted Brooks several times during the past couple of months, & now dings Tommy Boy -- I may have to go, too.

Finally, Obama Is Listening to Us. CW: All of the sudden, President Obama is spouting what the left has been screaming to deaf ears: here's this from Mark Landler's New York Times report on yesterday's Linkedin townhall meeting (see also video of the event under yesterday's Ledes):

The income of folks at the top has gone up exponentially over the last couple of decades, whereas the incomes and wages of the middle class have flat-lined over the last 15 years. -- Barack Obama

Jeanne Mansfield in the Boston Review on "Why I was maced at the Wall Street protests." CW: well, actually, no there is no "why." There was no reason. Read Mansfield's account, which sounds truthful to me, then watch the video, which is a demonstration of police brutality reminiscent of the civil rights era, and see if you think the police acted "appropriately," as they claimed to the New York Times (linked in yesterday's Commentariat). ...

... Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "A senior New York police officer accused of pepper-spraying young women on the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrations is the subject of a pending legal action over his conduct at another protest in the city.... The officer, named by activists as deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, stands accused of false arrest and civil rights violations in a claim brought by a protester involved in the 2004 demonstrations at the Republican national convention." ...

... Who's Minding the Store? Ben Smith: "It's Mike Bloomberg's third term, and it seems to be going pretty much like the third terms of many politicians who can't quite let go after eight years: Very badly."

CW: as I've said, the Solyndra debacle began with the Bush administration. Something I didn't know -- Dana Milbank: "Bush’s Energy Department apparently adjusted its regulations to make sure that Solyndra would be eligible for the guarantees. It hadn’t originally contemplated including the photovoltaic-panel manufacturing that Solyndra did but changed the regulation before it was finalized. The only project that benefited was Solyndra’s." And the most vociferous Congressional critics of the Obama administration's loan to Solyndra voted for the bill. The sponsor of the House bill was none other than Oily Joe Barton (R-Texas) who still can't figure out how oil got to Alaska. This forces me to once again embed this video, the funniest part of which is that Barton is so fucking stupid, he thinks he's stumped Energy Secretary & physicist Steven Chu, who obviously can't believe Oily Joe is, well, so fucking stupid:

    ... Barton later proudly tweeted that he had "baffled" physics Nobel laureate Chu. Yeah, he did. ...

... Steve Mufson & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post write an interesting overview of government-backed clean-energy loan guarantees. One takeaway from the report, which is largely critical of the Bush-Obama program: "Economists note that the government might never have gotten involved in loan guarantees if Congress had been willing to tax fossil fuels, introduce feed-in tariffs (a subsidized price) for renewable energy or approve a cap-and-trade policy that would penalize fossil fuels. Feed-in tariffs have made Spain, Italy and Germany the world’s largest markets for solar power. And they don’t anoint winners and losers."

"Governments Don't Rule the World -- Goldman Sachs Does": Alessio Rastani, an independent trader, talks to the BBC about how he views what he's certain is a coming crash of the market & the Euro. "Tyler Durden" of the Business Insider comments on the anchor's "gobsmacked" response:

Right Wing World * 

Mark Benjamin of Time: what Rick Perry knew -- and when -- about forensic evidence in the Cameron Todd Willingham case. Bottom line: both Willingham supporters and Perry's own staff confirm that Perry knew in the hours before Willingham's execution that there was powerful forensic evidence refuting the claims of so-called expert witnesses who testified at Willingham's trial. The recognized expert said arson was not the cause of the fire that killed Willingham's three daughters & for which he was no doubt wrongfully executed. With the evidence in hand, Perry refused to stay Willingham's execution.

CW: Yesterday I ran a link to a story by Howie Kurtz, who claimed that Fox "News" was moving toward the center after becoming disenchanted with teabaggers. So here are Keith Olbermann & Markos Moulitsas discussing Howie's Excellent Analysis. Um, apparently they're not buying it:

* ... Is apparently still right-wing.

Local News

Terry Van Oot of the Sacramento Bee: "Three wealthy Californians have launched a new effort aimed at helping elect state legislators who demonstrate the 'courage' to tackle major issues facing the Golden State. "Govern for California" is backed by Democrat David Crane, who worked as an advisor to former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican investor Ron Conway, and Greg Penner, a WalMart Board of Directors member who is registered decline-to-state." Thanks to reader James S. for the link.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey failed to address intense speculation about his presidential ambitions Tuesday night as he delivered a foreign policy speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California."

President Obama spoke at a Denver, Colorado, high school this afternoon. New York Times: "After two days of energetically raising money in the rarefied precincts of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, President Obama stopped at a big-city high school [in Denver, Colorado] on Tuesday to push for new ways to spend money."

AP: "President Barack Obama's chief political adviser on Tuesday conceded that a dark cloud looms over the American economy and Obama's political future, describing the president's road to a second term in the White House as 'a titanic struggle.' ... [David] Axelrod said the president would ultimately win re-election, in part because of the flawed field of Republican candidates. He characterized their plans to repair the nation's ailing economy as the same kind of deregulation and tax cuts that caused the downturn in the first place."

AP: "As many as 14 people have died from possible listeria illnesses traced to Colorado cantaloupes, health officials say — a death toll that would make the food outbreak the deadliest in more than a decade. The Centers for Disease Control said last week that 55 illnesses and eight deaths were linked to the outbreak. Since then, state and local health departments in Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming have reported six additional deaths that may be linked to the tainted fruit." ...

... New York Times: "Faced with a lawsuit by a major produce grower, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday lifted import restrictions on cantaloupes from a Guatemala farm that had been linked to a multistate salmonella outbreak. That outbreak, which led to a recall in March by the importer, Del Monte Fresh Produce, is not related to the current deadly outbreak of illness from another pathogen, listeria, which has been linked to tainted cantaloupes grown in Colorado."

The National Park Service released this video, shot by a fixed security camera inside the Washington Monument as an earthquake with its epicenter in Virginia hit in August. The camera was in the observation deck near the top of the monument:

Washington Post: "The National Park Service said Monday that the Washington Monument will be closed indefinitely and that the 5.8-magnitude earthquake in August had done more damage to it than had been previously disclosed. Officials said a “debris field,” made up mostly of mortar that had fallen during the quake, had been found at the base and that more substantial pieces of stone had fallen loose inside the monument." See video above. ...

     ... AP Update: "Bad weather delayed the daredevil work of engineers who will rappel down the Washington Monument for a visual inspection, but ... for several hours, engineer Dave Megerle was perched atop the 555-foot monument, setting up a rope system and other equipment that will allow the rappelling team to traverse the exterior of the monument looking for cracks, chips and other damage. To get there, he climbed through a hatch that hadn't been opened in 11 years."

The Commentariat -- September 26

Off Times Square today highlights the Amazon.com sweatshop in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Links to related stories are on OTS.

Contra Ross Orderliness-before-Justice Douthat, his bosses at the New York Times write in an editorial: "It is time Americans acknowledged that the death penalty cannot be made to comply with the Constitution and is in every way indefensible." So why do they keep Douthat on? To defend the indefensible? ...

... E. J. Dionne: "... winning this battle [against capital punishment] will require converting Americans who are not liberals. The good news is that many are open to persuasion.... If a majority is open to persuasion, the best persuaders will be conservatives, particularly religious conservatives and abortion opponents, who have moral objections to the state-sanctioned taking of life or see the grave moral hazard involved in the risk of executing an innocent person." ...

... Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "After decades of new laws to toughen sentencing for criminals, prosecutors have gained greater leverage to extract guilty pleas from defendants and reduce the number of cases that go to trial, often by using the threat of more serious charges with mandatory sentences or other harsher penalties. Some experts say the process has become coercive in many state and federal jurisdictions, forcing defendants to weigh their options based on the relative risks of facing a judge and jury rather than simple matters of guilt or innocence. In effect, prosecutors are giving defendants more reasons to avoid having their day in court."

** "Whatever Happened to the American Left?" Prof. Michael Kazin in a New York Times op-ed: "... the left must realize that when progressives achieved success in the past, whether at organizing unions or fighting for equal rights, they seldom bet their future on politicians. They fashioned their own institutions — unions, women’s groups, community and immigrant centers and a witty, anti-authoritarian press — in which they spoke up for themselves and for the interests of wage-earning Americans."

The least charitable view ties it directly to campaign donations. The most charitable view, it’s a bunch of Wall Street hacks in the position of economic advisers who truly believe that giving billions to banks will trickle down to the middle class.... There are a lot of progressives, and frankly everyday voters, who wish this White House would cut their ties with Wall Street, stop the sucking up to Wall Street. -- Adam Green, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, on the subprime mortgage settlement agreement being negotiated between banks and states attorneys general & the DOJ ...

... Sellout! Again! Edward-Issac Dovere of Politico: The subprime mortgage settlement, "a collaboration between the Justice Department and the 50 state attorneys general..., would mean a lump-sum payment from the banks in exchange for a release from liability. But with negotiators in Washington this week trying to finalize a deal, it’s become the latest flashpoint of left-wing disenchantment with Obama." CW: I'll say. Read the whole article

Paul Krugman: "European policy makers ... don’t seem at all ready to acknowledge a crucial fact — namely, that without more expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in Europe’s stronger economies, all of their rescue attempts will fail."

Karen Garcia has an excellent post on the New York Times' so-called "coverage" of the Wall Street protests, "coverage" of which I briefly complained yesterday. To find out what's going on in downtown Manhattan, a few short blocks (and in NYC, they are short blocks) from Times Square, you have to go to Qatar (Al Jazeera) & London (the Guardian). The Times sent a fucking arts critic! Hey, it's like street theater. ...

... Jim Fallows of The Atlantic decries an NYPD officer's pepper-spraying women who were obeying police & doing to provoke them during the Wall Street demonstrations. (Includes video different from the one I posted yesterday, tho of the same incident.) ...

... Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times reports that a police spokesman said the officer acted "appropriately." A retired NYPD deputy chief who used to run the Disorder Control Unit pretty much said, "Yeah, well, better than clubbing 'em with a night stick."

They're Taking Away Our Freedoms (and this time, it's true.) Dorothy Samuels of the New York Times: States have passed "a huge number of new abortion restrictions, traceable in part to the 2010 mid-term elections, which increased the number of anti-abortion governors and state legislatures controlled by abortion opponents, who keep concocting new schemes to make terminating a pregnancy a right on paper only. The spate of new laws comes on top of many state and federal abortion curbs already in place."

As a Solicitor General, your job is to try to figure out how to persuade nine Supreme Court justices to take a particular position. And now my job is to figure out how to persuade eight. -- Elena Kagan, Solicitor General before becoming a Supreme Court Justice ...

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The first justice in more than 40 years who had never been a judge, [Elena] Kagan established herself quickly as a forceful and insightful questioner on a court filled with strong personalities. While Kagan’s writings as an academic did not suggest a strong legal philosophy, her opinions and dissents from the bench have shown a conversational, confident writer, at times as sarcastic and cutting as a veteran."

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "A handful of advocates, armed with nothing more than their keyboards, have put many of the country’s largest retailers, including Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Wal-Mart, on the spot over their indirect and, until recently, unnoticed roles in funneling money to Christian groups that are vocal in opposing homosexuality."

Matt Miller of the Washington Post argues for a third party. "... with America on the road to slow decline, the stakes are too high for 'inadequate' and 'retrograde' to be our only choices." If you think Miller's idea is a good one, maybe your eyes won't glaze over when you try to read (I couldn't begin to finish it) his idea for a rousing stump speech by some independent candidate. Loser.

If You Believe This, I've Got a Bridge...." Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: President Obama asserted last week that Republicans in Congress are holding up reconstruction of the Brent Spence Bridge between Ohio & Kentucky by not passing the American Jobs Act. Er, not exactly.

And You Think the Government Is Bad? Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post reviews the shady history of Hewlitt-Packard's management, and the massive losses caused by its board & their hand-picked incompetent CEOs. It's a soap opera with no happy ending. If there's a cliffhanger, it's -- Will Meg Whitman, HP's newest CEO, do as ineffective a job for HP as she did running her campaign for U.S. Senate?

Right Wing World

Has anybody been watching the debates lately? You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. -- Barack Obama, at a California fundraiser yesterday

CW: Yet another profile of Fox "News"' Roger Ailes, this one by that phoney Howie Kurtz. But Kurtz does discover something I wouldn't, since I don't watch Fox:

Privately, Fox executives say the entire network took a hard right turn after Obama’s election, but, as the Tea Party’s popularity fades, is edging back toward the mainstream. While Fox reporters ply their trade under Ailes’s much-mocked 'fair and balanced' banner, the opinion arm of the operation has been told to lower the temperature. After the Gabrielle Giffords shooting triggered a debate about feverish rhetoric, Ailes ordered his troops to tone things down. It was, in his view, a chance to boost profits by grabbing a more moderate audience.

Yesterday on Off Times Square we were discussing colorful language, so reader Bob M. sent me a link to a video of Gov. Rick Perry, well, using colorful language when he thought he was off-camera. The backstory is here, but I couldn't get the video to load. So I looked for a YouTube version, and here it is:

... While I was looking, I found this video by Steve Brooks, uploaded in 2010. I kinda love it:

Prof. Matthew Sutton, in a New York Times op-ed, on how fundamentalist Christian apocalyptic fears/hopes are driving political discourse as right-wing candidates cash in on & stoke them. CW: while the views of these fundamentalists are, well, nuts, the Republicans' embrace & exploitation of them is alarming. Reading Sutton's piece should make you think twice about home-schooling, too.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Senate leaders reached an agreement Monday evening that is almost certain to avert a federal government shutdown.... The new pact, which the Senate approved 79 to 12 and the House is expected to ratify next week, will keep federal agencies open until Nov. 18 at a level of spending that represents a 1.5 percent cut from this year’s levels.... Senate leaders agreed to a compromise that provides less money for disaster relief than Democrats sought, but also strips away spending cuts that Republicans had advanced." New York Times story here.

Washington Post: "The constitutionality of the 2010 health-care law will likely be determined by the Supreme Court this term, meaning the decision could come next summer in the thick of the 2012 presidential campaign.... Although the department declined further comment, the logical next step for the Obama administration is to ask the justices to make what would be the final determination on the law’s fate."

The Hill: "Facebook confirmed it filed paperwork on Monday to start its own political action committee. 'FB PAC will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,' said a spokesman...."

President Obama spoke at a campaign event in San Diego, California this afternoon & at campaign events in Los Angeles this evening.

     ... Los Angeles Times story here: "Raise my taxes, please."

President Obama participated in a townhall meeting this morning. AP: "President Barack Obama is on the road selling his jobs plan — and his re-election hopes — to plugged-in networkers in Silicon Valley and around the country. He was to appear Monday at a town hall-style event hosted by the career-focused social networking site LinkedIn to pitch his nearly $450 billion jobs proposal as he travels through California scooping up campaign cash."

Washington Post: "With time running out, Congress returns Monday to try to pass a short-term funding measure to avert a government shutdown and avoid yet another market-rattling showdown over the federal budget. The Democratic-led Senate, which on Friday blocked a GOP House measure to fund the government through Nov. 18, will vote late Monday on its own version of the bill."

AP: "President Barack Obama charged Sunday that the GOP vision of government would 'fundamentally cripple America,' as he tried out his newly combative message on the liberal West Coast."

AP: Americans "Joshua Fattal ... and Shane Bauer ... spoke for the first time in public about their ordeal of more than two years at the hands of Iranians — accused of spying for their country by illegally walking across the Iran-Iraq border."

Reuters: "Protesters in Sanaa are preparing for a long, messy revolt after President Ali Abdullah Saleh offered no clear path to a handover on his return to Yemen from three months of convalescence after an attempt on his life."

Washington Post: "A group of defectors calling themselves the Free Syrian Army is attempting the first effort to organize an armed challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, signaling what some hope and others fear may be a new phase in what has been an overwhelmingly peaceful Syrian protest movement."

Reuters: "Scottish prosecutors have asked Libya's interim rulers for help in tracking down information which could lead to others, even deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi, being charged over the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland."