The Commentariat -- May 21

What with the end of the world as we know it coming today, I've posted a Judgment Day Open Thread on Off Times Square. Write about anything. I've posted a couple of my Times comments there, even though I know all the good Christians probably won't have time to read them. Also, see posts from Karen Garcia & Kate Madison. ...

... Dana Milbank cites signs of the Apocalypse that Judgment Day calculator Harold Camping never thought of. "Camping points to traditional signs: the creation of the State of Israel and the spread of 'gay pride.'" Many of Milbank's signs involve Republicans, like "The Temptation of Huck" and "The False Prophet Trump." ...

... Update. Rapture-Fail. David Batty of the Guardian: "Christian doomsday prophet Harold Camping looks likely to be less than rapturous after his prediction that the world would end on Saturday failed to materialise. The 89-year-old Californian preacher had prophesied that the Rapture would begin at 6pm in each of the world's time zones, with those 'saved' by Jesus ascending to heaven and the non-believers being wiped out by an earthquake rolling from city to city across the planet. But as the deadline for the Apocalpyse passed in the Pacific islands, New Zealand and Australia, it became apparent that Camping's prediction of the end of the world was to end not with a bang but with a whimper."

President Obama's weekly address:

** Today's Math Lesson. Jon Chait of The New Republic. So Paul Ryan writes an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor defending his indefensible budget against President Obama's charge that the Ryan/Republican Tea Party budget would leave children with disabilities to "fend for themselves" and decimates the social safety net:

Paul Ryan: Mounting debt also threatens our poorest and most vulnerable citizens, because those who depend most on government would be hit hardest by a fiscal crisis. Harsh austerity would be the only course left. A broke government unable to finance its spending commitments would be forced to make indiscriminate cuts affecting current beneficiaries of government programs – without giving them time to prepare or adjust.

Chait Translation: ... if there was a fiscal crisis, it would entail huge and immediate cuts to programs that aid the poor. Therefore we must enact huge, immediate cuts in programs that aid the poor. Oh, and also preserve the Bush tax cuts for top-income earners and cut the rate another ten percentage points. For the sake of the poor.

     ... Chait adds, "... strangely for a man so prone to boasting of his wonkery and love of numbers -- [Ryan's op-ed] contains zero numbers attempting to substantiate his claim that his budget 'strengthens,' or even fails to shred, the safety net. If you want actual numbers, you need to go to places like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which lay them out.... $2.17 trillion in reductions from Medicaid and related health care.... $350 billion in cuts in mandatory programs serving low-income Americans (other than Medicaid).... $400 billion in cuts in low-income discretionary programs." Here's a pie chart from the CBPP:

... What workers want is an independent labor movement that builds the power of working people — in the workplace and in political life.... We’ll be less inclined to support people in the future that aren’t standing up and actually supporting job creation and the type of things that we’re talking about. It doesn’t matter what party they come from. It will be a measuring stick. -- AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka at the National Press Club

... John Nichols of The Nation: Trumka's remarks "could turn out to be one of the most important speeches of the 2012 election cycle.... He is putting compromise-prone and all-talk-no-action Democrats on notice."

Howard Schneider & Mary Pat Flaherty of the Washington Post: "... the International Monetary Fund is still working to recover from Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s 2008 affair with a staff member — an incident that triggered reform of the agency’s ethics laws and new training programs for employees. On May 6, the agency put in place new rules ordering staff members to disclose relationships that develop among them so that any conflict of interest can be resolved."

Peter Stone of Yahoo News: "When George W. Bush declined President Barack Obama’s invitation to a ceremony at New York City’s Ground Zero after Osama bin Laden was killed, the former president cited his desire to keep a low public profile. But ... in the week after Obama’s Ground Zero event, the nation’s 43rd president made time for three separate speeches to hedge fund executives, a Swiss bank sanctioned for keeping secret bank accounts,and a pro golf event underwritten by the accounting firm involved in the Tyco International financial scandal.... Bush’s standard speaking fee is reportedly between $100,000 and $150,000. David Sherzer, a spokesman for the former president, told iWatch News that since Bush left office he has delivered almost 140 paid talks, at home and abroad. Those speeches have earned Bush about $15 million, a conservative estimate, following in the golden path blazed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton."

Matthew Mosk of ABC News: "Last month, late night comedian Stephen Colbert launched a 'super PAC,' the newest form of political fundraising committee, allowing him to reprise his previous efforts to lampoon the outsized role of corporate money in American elections. But over the past month, what started as a humorous dressing down of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark campaign finance ruling in the case of Citizens United has turned into a[n] unexpectedly serious look at the complexities of the way the government regulates political spending." Here's Colbert last month after meeting with the FEC:

Although Newt Gingrich has not held political office since the 20th century, he thinks of himself as a 21st-century man. He has more than a million followers on Twitter & 130,000 people on his Facebook page. He announced his presidential run on YouTube! Kathie Obradovich the the Des Moines Register's political columnist. She doesn't make stuff up:

Peter Catapano of the New York Times has a roundup of some of the right-wing horror show at the Audacity of 1967. I've avoided linking to any of this stuff, but Catapano tells you all you need to know, plus he links to some commentary that debunks the right-wing noisemakers' mock horror. (See also Orrin Hatch in Right Wing World.) ...

... Matt Duss of Middle East Progress: President Obama's remarks about the 1967 lines "really shouldn’t be as controversial as it probably will be. Treating the 1967 lines as a basis for negotiations in this way represents the overwhelming consensus of the international community, enshrined in multiple UN resolutions. That anyone should be confused or surprised about this probably goes to the success that Israeli leaders have had over the years in obscuring it, and the indulgence that American leaders have often shown toward those efforts." Read the whole post. ...

... Massimo Calabresi of Time: on "the icy relationship" between "Bibi and Barack:: "Unfortunately the florid and overheated reaction to Obama’s statement on Thursday is making progress ... even harder." Here are Bibi & Barack:

... Jake Tapper of ABC News: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to think he needed to educate President Obama on some issues today [Friday], so in the Oval Office he described in some detail to the president a history of the refugee problem in the region dating back 63 years, as well as his view on the need for Israel to be able to defend itself in the context of thousands of years of Jewish suffering."

... Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic: "Here is what Hillary Clinton said in 2009: 'We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.'" CW: Funny, the right didn't go nuts then. But then, Clinton is white. AND she was born in the U.S.A. AND she is not a Muslim. So, you, see there is a difference. Read another Goldberg post, in which he defends President Obama against PM Netanyahu's assault. ...

     ... CW: to put Goldberg's remarks in context, Steve Benen writes, "I think the right’s reaction to President Obama’s speech on the Middle East officially went off the rails this morning when a prominent right-wing blogger blasted Jeffrey Goldberg as a 'far-left Israel hater.' ... I’d note for context that he’s politically conservative, Jewish, and staunchly pro-Israel."

Right Wing World *

Israel is the United States' strongest friend and ally. By calling for a return to the pre-1967 borders, President Obama has directly undermined her. -- Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), in a statement titled "Hatch Condemns President's Demand that Israel Revert to Pre-1967 Borders" ...

... The Problem? It Isn't True. As Eric Kleefeld of TPM writes, "Obama did not call for a direct return to the 1967 borders for Israel, as Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have represented. Instead, he reiterated the longstanding conventional wisdom of the international diplomatic community, and indeed the position of previous U.S. administrations, that those lines should be the initial basis for talks, and with additional land swaps to be agreed upon in further adjusting those lines." Hatch plans to introduce a Senate resolution opposing the President's proposals. CW: Is Hatch (a) stupid or (b) is this just more political flim-flam, lying to please his Tea Party Likud base? ...

     ... Update: Steve Benen says (b): "Hatch isn’t some rookie backbencher who got elected on a fluke. He knows full well what he’s saying is ridiculous."

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

CNN: "A new poll released Saturday shows the Democratic candidate now has a slight lead – a four point advantage among likely voters – over the Republican in a special congressional election in Western New York that has attracted the national spotlight.... The Siena College poll indicates Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul is now ahead with 42 percent in the poll, and the Republican, State Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, with 38 percent. The third party candidate, Jack Davis, the Tea Party candidate, has 12 percent. The lead for Hochul is within the poll’s 4-point margin of error."

Department of Defense: "The nation’s military is built and sustained on the strength of families, First Lady Michelle Obama told the U.S. Military Academy’s Class of 2011 and their families at a banquet last night in West Point, N.Y., on the eve of today’s graduation ceremonies."

New York Times: "Former Gov. David A. Paterson of New York will not be charged with perjury in connection with accusations that he lied to the State Commission on Public Integrity about taking free World Series tickets from the New York Yankees while he was in office."

Washington Post: "Defying a stern warning from President Obama, Syrian forces opened fire on protesters after Friday prayers, killing at least 32 people as the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad showed no sign of easing its military crackdown."

AP: "Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts took a close, detailed look at a small gash in the belly of their ship Saturday, to ensure their safety when they return to Earth in 1 1/2 weeks. NASA ordered the inspection during the next-to-last shuttle flight, even though managers said there was no reason to be alarmed by the damage generated by Monday's liftoff."

Al Jazeera: "At least six people have been killed and 23 injured in a suicide bombing at a surgery training session in a military hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The Afghan defence ministry said a lone bomber was responsible for the attack on Saturday, after reports that a second bomber was still at large on hospital grounds." With video.

... AP: "Three Republican senators moved closer to recall elections Friday when state elections board staff suggested dismissing most of the challenges to recall efforts targeting the Wisconsin lawmakers. Government Accountability Board legal counsel and election specialists released memos that said the full board should reject most of the claims against petitions gathered to oust Sens. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse, Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac and Luther Olsen of Ripon. The memos said elections should be held July 12." ...

... Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "With the weeks-long recount complete, unofficial numbers confirm that state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5 election. But the battle may not be over yet, as Kloppenburg mulls whether to challenge the results in court. And if a legal contest goes on long enough, attorneys say it could delay efforts to swear Prosser in for a new term on Aug. 1, leading to a temporary vacancy on the closely divided high court."

The Commentariat -- May 20

Paul Krugman writes that in the U.S., "Manufacturing is one of the bright spots of a generally disappointing recovery. Just look at the auto industry." CW Translation: low wages bring back lousy jobs. ...

... MEANWHILE, David Brooks touts British Conservatives' "Big Society" (which apparently no Brits have ever heard of) -- a program that Brooks claims is a great social engineering experiment to get the lazy poms off their asses and into some sort of happy, integrated society. CW Translation: Conservatives find an anodyne name for government cutbacks. ...

... I've set up a comments page on Off Times Square for Krugman & Brooks and have posted my comments.

Drip, Drip. Jake Tapper of ABC News: "ABC News' Luis Martinez reports:  CIA Director Leon Panetta sent a message Wednesday to CIA employees cautioning that there should be no more leaks about the bin Laden raid and how it was conducted. In the message, obtained by ABC News, Panetta acknowledges that it’s likely some of the classified information about the raid that has emerged in the press has come from beyond the CIA...." CW: Tapper doesn't specify the obvious: someone at the CIA leaked to ABC News Panetta's memo warning against leaking. 

This is about choice and we believe in the democratic process. This is about the personal and individual right to choose. -- Jim Skinner, McDonald's CEO, speaking of stockholders' decision not to assess the impact of its food on childhood obesity, as greedy stockholders cheered

It Isn't Just CEOs Who Exhibit Corporate Greed & Lack of Social Responsibility. Debra Sherman of Reuters: "McDonald's Corp spurned calls to assess the impact of its food on childhood obesity, and said its trademark clown Ronald McDonald would be hawking Happy Meals to kids for years to come.... Shareholders of the world's largest fast-food chain resoundingly rejected a proposal that would have required it to issue a report outlining its role in the childhood obesity epidemic, saying customers were free to make their own dietary choices.... Skinner defended McDonald's strategy, which has resulted in hefty sales and earnings for shareholders. McDonald's shares have gained nearly 12 percent in the last four months and rallied to a record high of $82.63 on Thursday." CW: too bad. I wish their goddamned stock would tank.

It is a flag we’ve planted that we will protect and defend. We have a plan. It’s called Medicare. -- Nancy Pelosi ...

... Digby: "Finally -- the Democrats have awakened to the fact that Paul Ryan's plan is the best thing that ever happened to them, a major overreach of the kind that perfectly characterizes the Republicans' greatest weakness: hubris." ...

... BUT Mark Schmitt, writing in The New Republic, thinks Pelosi's plan to center the 2012 campaign around defense of Medicare is a loser. As I said way last summer, the GOP's as-yet unspecified plan to impose Medicare cutbacks on Americans 55 and younger was a way to innoculate themselves against senior backlash. Schmitt writes, "If there was ever going to be a generational war in this country, that high school class of ’74 would be its Mason-Dixon line. It’s the moment when Bill Clinton’s promise — 'if you work hard and play by the rules you’ll get ahead' — began to lose its value. Today’s seniors and near-seniors spent much of their working lives ... with their incomes rising, investments gaining, their health increasingly secure, and their retirements predictable. Everyone 55 and younger spent his or her entire working life in an economy where all those trends had stalled or reversed." Schmitt says that concentrating on senior issues has much less impact in a Presidential election year because younger voters, who don't turn out at the polls in off-years, will be there in 2012, and they are indifferent to senior issues.

Ezra Klein: more stimulus spending could actually reduce the deficit by creating more jobs, which would lead to increased revenues. But it isn't going to happen because Democrats have let Republicans drive the conversation to deficit, deficit, deficit, and guess what? Republicans really don't care about reducing the deficit.

E. J. Dionne: "'At some point it’s clear to me that we have to increase the debt ceiling,' House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday on CBS’s 'Face the Nation.' Yet Boehner needs to push things to the brink because the Tea Party members of his caucus believe that last year’s election gave the GOP a 'mandate' to make their wildest small-government dreams a reality. Boehner is trying to appease the right with extended rounds of shadow-boxing and big slabs of anti-spending rhetoric." CW: read the whole column; there's more. ...

... AND Brian Beutler of TPM gets ratings agency Standard & Poors to go on the record: on what S&P would do if the U.S. defaulted on its debt:

A sovereign's failure to service its debt as payments come due is a default according to S&P's sovereign rating criteria. In that case, the rating would be lowered to 'SD' (Selective Default). -- John Piecuch, spokesman for Standard & Poors ...

The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. -- President Ronald Reagan, 1983

Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinksmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. -- Ronald Reagan, 1987

This country cannot be allowed to default on its financial obligations for the first time in history. This would be unthinkable. -- Ronald Reagan, 1987

[Holders of U.S. government debt would be willing to miss payments] for a day or two or three or four. That's what I'm hearing from most people. What is more important is that you're putting the government in a materially better position to be able to pay their bonds later on. -- Paul Ryan, repudiating the GOP Gipper God

Reid & Boehner to Hold Stealth Votes on the Patriot Act. AP: "Top congressional leaders agreed Thursday to a four-year extension of the anti-terrorist Patriot Act, the controversial law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks that governs the search for terrorists on American soil. The deal between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner calls for a vote before May 27, when parts of the current act expire. The idea is to pass the extension with as little debate as possible to avoid a protracted and familiar argument over the expanded power the law gives to the government."

Friend of Barack (Enemy of Unions). Karen Garcia: "Only in a banana republic can a CEO of an anti-union corporation just found criminally responsible for polluting the earth with radioactive waste suddenly become a government-appointed expert on waste in health care spending. David Cote has jumped on board yet another Obama Administration PR initiative...."

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "President Obama ... announced several incremental shifts in U.S. policy on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.... Former Congressman Robert Wexler, now the president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, told The Cable that Obama's announcement was a bold step toward Middle East peace that alters U.S. policy in a fundamental way.... There's also evidence that the decision [to base negotiations on the 1967 borderlines, with swaps] went down to the wire."

Dorothy Parvaz, an Al Jazeera reporter, tells of her harrowing 19 days in captivity, first in Syria, then in Iran. The Iranians, whe she said treated her well, in contrast to the Syrians, released her after a judge ruled that she was not a spy. ...

Jon Stewart on the strained relationship between the U.S. & Pakistan:

... BUT John Hodgman has the solution for repairing the rift:

Risque Business. Binyamin Appelbaum & Sheryl Gay Stoldberg of the New York Times: "Interviews and documents paint a picture of the [I.M.F.] as an institution whose sexual norms and customs are markedly different from those of Washington [where its headquarters are located], leaving its female employees vulnerable to harassment. The laws of the United States do not apply inside its walls, and until earlier this month the I.M.F.’s own rules contained an unusual provision that some experts and former officials say has encouraged managers to pursue the women who work for them: 'Intimate personal relationships between supervisors and subordinates do not, in themselves, constitute harassment.'”

Right Wing World *

Gingrich Press Release, Illustrated by Jon White:

CLICK ON CARTOON TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.

Flashback to 2005:

The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a supermajority for confirmation. -- Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote. -- Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)

It would be a real constitutional crisis if we up the confirmation of judges from 51 to 60, and that’s essentially what we’d be doing if the Democrats were going to filibuster. -- Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

Every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an up-or-down vote. It’s the responsibility of the Senate. The Constitution requires it. -- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) & Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)

... Back to the Present ...

... All of these Republican senators -- and more -- who declared the Constitution would crumble, the nation would fall & Armageddon would come if Democrats filibustered a Republican president's judicial nominee -- filibustered President Obama's nominee Goodwin Liu yesterday. The Senate voted 52-43 not to allow Liu's nomination to receive a full Senate vote. Thanks to Matt Yglesias for collecting this rogues gallery of hypocrites. His post contains more similar End-of-Civilization Republican predictions. ...

... ** Dahlia Lithwick: "... the judicial confirmation détente of 2005, when the so-called 'Gang of 14' pledged that honorably fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities meant that 'nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances,' is over. The era in which the self-styled grownups on both sides agree that the judicial vacancy rate represents a national crisis, and that the Senate's responsibility to advise and consent does not extend to delaying and distorting, is over, too." Henceforth, Lithwick suggests, the only "qualified" nominee will be "someone who has spent their whole public life sitting in a cave watching cartoons." (CW: e.g, Elena Kagan.)

Ultra-conservative Dr. (& Sen.) Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) had a prescription for Newt Gingrich: "Keep your mouth shut." ...

... BUT, after several days of getting hammered like this, after blaming the elite Washington liberal media, after retracting his "inaccurate," "unfortunate" remark "that was a mistake," after saying he had apologized to Paul Ryan for dissing the Ryan plan, etc., Newt has come up with Plan F or so. Chris Good of The Atlantic: "Newt Gingrich said today that he wasn't referring to Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Medicare plan when he uttered the words 'right-wing social engineering' last Sunday...." CW: This is way past comical.

Doublethink. def.: The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. -- George Orwell, 1984 ...

... Driftglass calls doublethink "Ronald Reagan's most potent and vile political legacy." CW: It most certainly is an essential tool in the Right Wing World toolbox.

* Where facts never intrude & it's okay if Republicans do it.

News Ledes

President Obama thanks the intelligence community for its role in locating Osama bin Laden:



New York Times: "As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel heads to the White House on Friday for the seventh meeting since President Obama took office, the two men are facing a turning point in a relationship that has never been warm." AP story here. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "After a meeting at the White House that was far longer than scheduled, [Obama and Netanyahu] sought to paper over what is by all accounts a frosty relationship, pleading mutual support for the enduring bonds between their countries. Mr. Netanyahu, however, bluntly rejected compromises along the lines outlined by Mr. Obama in a speech the day before in hopes of reviving a moribund peace process, looking directly at the president in the Oval Office to warn against 'a peace based on illusions.'” Video of the Obama-Netanyahu public statements is in the May 21 Commentariat.

New York Times: "NATO officials expressed increased confidence Friday that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s military position was weakening, and that allied airstrikes had prevented his forces from making sustained attacks on rebel forces and had driven him into hiding."

New York Times: "Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota who has been exploring a presidential candidacy for months, will formally announce his intention to join the Republican field on Monday during a visit to Iowa, an adviser said."

New York Times: "Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, must find another place to stay when he leaves his Rikers Island jail cell because the Upper East Side building where his wife had rented an apartment will not accept him, a court official said on Friday. Instead, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will be staying at a corporate-housing building used by the security company, Stroz Friedberg, which has been hired to guard him while he remains under 24-hour home confinement...."

Negligent Homicide. New York Times: "In the first comprehensive state report on the 2010 coal mine disaster in West Virginia, an independent team of investigators has put the blame squarely on the owner of the mine, Massey Energy, concluding that it had 'made life difficult' for miners who tried to address safety and built 'a culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable.'”

Washington Post: "The president of Japan’s embattled Tokyo Electric Power Co. resigned Friday, taking responsibility for a nuclear crisis that forced 80,000 to evacuate, caused record fiscal losses and left the country with a long-term energy shortage. Masataka Shimizu’s decision to step down came as the giant utility company announced losses of $15 billion for the fiscal year that ended in March."

Boston Globe: "President Obama lost his first vote on a judicial nominee yesterday, as Senate Republicans derailed the nomination of a liberal professor who leveled acerbic attacks against two conservative Supreme Court nominees — both now justices. Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they need to end a filibuster and give Goodwin Liu an up-or-down vote on his nomination to the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit."

Doping. New York Times: "The cyclist Tyler Hamilton, one of Lance Armstrong’s former teammates on the United States Postal Service team, said he saw Armstrong inject himself with the banned performance-enhancing drug EPO to win the Tour de France, according to a report on CBS’s '60 Minutes' that will run Sunday.... Hamilton, the 2004 Olympic champion in the time trial, who has been sanctioned for doping twice, is the latest Armstrong teammate to say he saw Armstrong use performance-enhancing drugs.... A year ago, Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, shook the world of cycling by saying he and Armstrong were part of a systematic doping scheme while racing for the Postal Service team." ...

     ... Update: "The American cyclist Tyler Hamilton, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the time trial, has voluntarily surrendered his gold medal to the United States Anti-Doping Agency after admitting to doping during his cycling career, the International Olympic Committee said Friday."

The Commentariat -- May 19

Gail Collins: "What is it with Republicans lately? Is there something about being a leader of the family-values party that makes you want to go out and commit adultery?" ...

... I have a comments page up for Collins' column on Off Times Square. Akhilleus, Karen Garcia & Kate Madison have posted comments, and they are absolute winners!

Jared Bernstein, in his first blogpost since leaving his White House job as economic advisor to Vice President Biden, debunks the conventional wisdom du jour: "The federal budget is just like a family budget, and we in government must tight our belts and live within our means just like families do.” Bernstein writes, "First of all, it’s bass-akwards: when families are tightening their belts, the federal government is the one institution that can actually help the economy — and these belt-tightening families — by loosening its belt and running a deficit.... But there’s another fundamental way in which this family budget analogy gets misused.  Families borrow to make investments and to get over rough patches.  They run deficits too.  I went into pretty deep debt to finance college and grad school and I’m glad I did."

Atrios: "I'm quite happy bashing the media, as usual, but I think they're getting a bit of a bum rap. They're covering the deficit in large part because both major political parties are mostly talking about the deficit. If some charismatic politician with the ability to get people to point some cameras at him spent more time talking about jobs and coming up with policies for jobs and talking about those the media would be talking about that too." CW: wonder what charismatic politician Atrios has in mind? Hint: his initials are BO & he was born in the USA.

New York Times Editors: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered an overhaul of mental health care for veterans, who are killing themselves by the thousands each year because of what the court called the 'unchecked incompetence' of the Department of Veterans Affairs. In a scathing 2-to-1 ruling on May 10, the judges said delays in treating post-traumatic stress disorder and other combat-related mental injuries violated veterans’ constitutional rights." You can read the opinion here (pdf).

Richard Painter, formerly a White House lawyer in the Bush II administration, writes in Politico in support of the confirmation of Goodwin Liu, whom Republican senators oppose. Liu's confirmation will come up for a vote today.

Dahlia Lithwick on the politicization of the courts. "We are in a strange holding pattern right now, collectively waiting for the first judge to cross party lines in a health care case. Maybe once that happens, we can all go back to believing in the integrity and infallibility of the judicial branch. Until then, perhaps it's an apt moment to re-examine first principles and think about why we believe in the judicial branch in the first place." Lithwick favorably cites an article by Jeremy Waldron who argues that the courts have no business meddling with legislation. CW: Huh. You decide. And while you're deciding, think where we'd be without Brown v. Board of Education, ferinstance.

Liz Alderman & Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times: Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, is a likely candidate to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the IMF.

Tracy Weber of ProPublica in Slate: "The women who spoke out against Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003 were castigated and humiliated. Would it have been any different with DSK?" ...

... Christopher Beam of Slate on the pros & cons -- mostly cons -- of perp walks.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post: "The Afghan government has moved so slowly to recruit Taliban defectors that U.S. and Afghan officials say they are losing an opportunity to capitalize on hard-won military gains and the death of Osama bin Laden. Interest among war-weary Taliban foot soldiers and low-ranking commanders in switching sides is at an all-time high, the officials said, but the Afghan government’s inability to provide safe houses, job-training classes and other services aimed at reintegrating former combatants has prevented local authorities from offering amnesty to many fighters." CW: what a surprise -- the U.S.-backed corrupt, illegitimate Afghan government is also incompetent. Who knew?

New York Times Editors: The Vatican's "long overdue guidelines ... for fighting sexual abuse of children are flimsy and defective."

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "The retail industry launched a new campaign Wednesday to protect a federal law that reduces the fees retailers must pay to banks every time a debit card is swiped, a move the industry hopes will blunt the massive lobbying attack from banks. The campaign calls for hundreds of merchants to flood Capitol Hill in June for meetings with key lawmakers, the third “fly-in” to be held this year on the issue." CW: can retailers beat the banks? Consumers can't.

Here is the short list of states with Democratic governors where labor unions are undergoing severe attacks: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maryland and New Hampshire.

Here is the short list of states with Democratic governors where labor unions are undergoing severe attacks: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, California, New York, Illinois, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maryland and New Hampshire.

CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC TO LINK TO THE NEW EDITION OF THE FINAL EDITIONRight Wing World *

When your political party is so desperate for a viable candidate that they’re begging George W. Bush’s budget director to come in and be the savior, you have a problem. -- David Dayen, Firedoglake

CW: Michael Calderone has forced me to temporarily interrupt my boycott of the Huff Post with this incredible e-mail he got from Newt Gingrich's press secretary Rick Tyler:

The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.

... Ben Smith: "Tyler's comments puzzled many because Gingrich's criticism of Paul Ryan drew the sharpest criticism not from the 'liberal media' but from the core of his own conservative movement." ...

... David Dayen of Firedoglake: "... this isn’t the first time Newt has complained about political ads taking his words about Medicare out of context": Here's Gingrich, via Dayen, in a July 1996 letter to the editor of the New York Times complaining that when Democrats accurately quote him, it's a lie. I don't need a medical degree (I don't have one) to recognize that the Newt is a sociopath. ...

... BUT, you know, some most all Democrats are just not going to follow Newt's orders not to use his own words against him & the GOP:

Newt and I are considered political opposites, but I couldn’t agree more with what he said Sunday about the plan to end Medicare. He acknowledged that it is right wing social engineering. It was refreshing to hear such candor from a top Republican. Gingrich was saying what everyone knows to be true: The plan is extreme.... He is the Republican canary in the coal mine. When that canary speaks truth, he is snuffed out. What Newt seems to realize is that it would be impossible to win the White House if they embrace the Ryan plan. If Republicans make endorsing the Ryan plan the standard in the Republican primary, it will make the nominee unelectable. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

... Here's your proof, from the Democratic National Committee:

... ** NEW. AND Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post demonstrates that Newt still opposes the Ryan plan: "In a conversation with bloggers Tuesday, for instance, Gingrich persisted in calling the plan radical: 'Part of what I'm worried about is compelling people to go through a radical change that has not been tested.' In another conversation Tuesday, this time with radio host William Bennett, Gingrich listed a long series of caveats before saying he could support the Ryan plan." ...

... Steve Kornacki of Salon: "Republican leaders and activists are using Newt's flub as an opportunity to say something that's been on their minds for a lot longer: Get lost!"

Ron Paul may be the wackiest candidate in the GOP field. But for pure, blind stupidity nobody beats Santorum. In my 20 years in the Senate, I never met a dumber member, which he reminded me of today. -- Mark Salter, aide to Sen. John McCain ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: Rick Santorum tries to fix his incredible assertion that torture victim John McCain doesn't understand torture (but he, the Great Santorum, does), but -- surprise! -- he doesn't fix it at all:

For anyone to infer my disagreement with Senator McCain's policy position lessens my respect for his service to our country and all he had to endure is outrageous and unfortunate. -- Rick Santorum

CW translation: If you think I said what I said, it's your fault.

Pat Toomey Pulls His Tinfoil Hat down over His Eyes. Dana Milbank: the Republican Tea Party senator from Pennsylvania thinks the federal debt default is all a hoax. Thank you, Pennsylvania, for your excellent choice.

Keith Ablow, writing a Fox "News" opinion piece, asserts that Maria Shriver "must have known" about Arnold's multiple infidelities and that her husband's public admission of fathering a child by a woman who worked in Shriver's home for 20 years is a great opportunity for Maria to develop a better relationship with Arnold. She should take him back. According to the Fox "News" blurb, Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team. CW: I leave it to you to decide what the "A" in "A-Team" stands for. For an apt comment on Dr. A-Team's unsolicited advice, see today's Off Times Square page (6th comment).

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Queen Elizabeth II of England speaks at a state dinner at Dublin Castle:

The President's speech on  the Middle East:

New York Times: "A judge granted Dominique Strauss-Kahn bail on Thursday, allowing the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund to be freed from Rikers Island to stay in a Manhattan apartment while his sexual assault case is pending."

Irish Times: Speaking at a state dinner in Dublin Castle, Queen Elizabeth II of England spoke of the "painful legacy of history" between England & Ireland. The text of her speech is here. Video above.

President Obama spoke about U.S. Middle East policy early this afternoon. New York Times story here. Washington Post story here. ...

     ... Update: Here's the Washington Post's post-speech report. New York Times: "Seeking to harness the seismic political change still unfolding in the Arab world, President Obama for the first time on Thursday publicly called for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would create a non-militarized Palestinian state on the basis of Israel’s borders before 1967." See video of the full speech above. Here's the transcript of the speech. ...

     ... Haaretz Update: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects 1967 border proposal.

New York Times: "Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned Wednesday as head of the International Monetary Fund after explosive accusations that he had sexually attacked a housekeeper in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room."

Wall Street Journal: "A Berkeley law professor's chance of joining a federal appeals court lay in the hands of seven Republican senators, as Democrats scheduled a Thursday vote to break the filibuster that has held up Goodwin Liu's appointment."

Los Angeles Times: "The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General plans an investigation of an immigration enforcement program that purports to target 'serious convicted felons' for deportation but has ensnared many illegal immigrants who were arrested but not subsequently convicted of crimes or who committed minor offenses, a letter obtained Wednesday shows.."

New York Times: "With Democrats citing last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a cautionary tale, the Senate on Wednesday decisively rejected a Republican plan to allow more coastal oil and gas exploration and to speed the issuance of drilling permits to oil companies.... Democrats, however, say they will push to make sure that any deal to raise the federal debt limit this summer incorporates their proposal to limit tax breaks for the five major oil companies, a plan they say will save $21 billion over 10 years."