The Commentariat -- April 26

The comments page for David Brooks is up on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I have posted our comments -- hours before you'll see them (if ever) on the New York Times site. Post your own. Update: Garcia & I have made the NYT cut, but Akhilleus, who now has posted on Off Times Square, has not.

My favorite definition of a humanist: 'One who strives to behave decently and honorably with no expectation of eternal rewards or punishments.' -- David Clark, commenting on Off Times Square on Ross Douthat's column

The Guantánamo Files page in the Guardian provides a pretty handy way to review the newly-released WikiLeaks documents. ...

... New York Times Editors: "The internal documents from the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, published in The Times on Monday were a chilling reminder of the legal and moral disaster that President George W. Bush created there. They describe the chaos, lawlessness and incompetence in his administration’s system for deciding detainees’ guilt or innocence and assessing whether they would be a threat if released." ...

... Scott Shane & Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "The newly revealed assessments ... have revived the dispute, nearly as old as the prison, over whether mistreatment of some prisoners there and the prison’s operation outside the criminal justice system invalidate the government’s conclusions about the detainees. Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the assessments 'are rife with uncorroborated evidence, information obtained through torture, speculation, errors and allegations that have been proven false.'"

... Richard Serrano of the Los Angeles Times: "Fresh and often chilling portraits of [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed and the other most-prized 'high value' detainees at Guantanamo emerged from the latest release of classified material by WikiLeaks...." ...

... Glenn Greenwald: "How could anyone possibly justify prosecuting WikiLeaks for disseminating classified information while not prosecuting these newspapers who have done exactly the same thing?" Greenwald goes on to contrast U.S. (New York Times & Washington Post) coverage with British stories on the files. Link to the Guardian stories Greenwald highlights here. ...

... Yesterday, I linked this WashPo article on why President Obama failed to close Gitmo. Marcy Wheeler zeroes in on the important take-aways from the Post's reporting.

A friend sent me this video on how to deal with a racist someone who makes a racist remark:

What the Ryan/Republican budget plan really means:

By Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Thanks to A. Friend for sending it my way.

Like the odds of typing monkeys eventually keying in the complete works of Shakespeare, there's a chance Donald Trump will get something right. He just did:

The seniors are afraid. The plan Paul Ryan put forth has made the Democrats so happy. -- Donald Trump 

Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: "The state funds that pay pension and health-care benefits to retired teachers, corrections officers and millions of other public workers faced a cumulative shortfall of at least $1.26 trillion at the end of fiscal 2009, according to a new report. The study, to be released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States, found that the pension and health-care funding gap increased by 26 percent over the previous year. Pew officials said the growing shortfall was driven by inadequate state contributions, an aging population and market losses that accompanied the recession." ...

... Michael Cooper & Mary Williams Walsh of the New York Times: "Conventional wisdom and the laws and constitutions of many states have long held that the pensions being earned by current government workers are untouchable. But as the fiscal crisis has lingered, officials in strapped states from California to Illinois have begun to take a second look, to see whether there might be loopholes allowing them to cut the pension benefits of current employees." ...

... Paul Krugman debunks the "zombie" claim that "there has been a huge expansion in the federal government under Obama.... What we’re seeing isn’t some drastic expansion of Big Government; we’re seeing the government we already had, responding to a terrible economic slump."

Steve Mufson & Jon Cohen of the Washington Post: "The Post-ABC poll shows that 60 percent of independents who say they’ve been hit hard by surging gas prices also say they definitely won’t support Obama in his bid for reelection. In a hypothetical matchup with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the top GOP performer in the Post-ABC poll, Romney wins by 24 points among the independents who have taken a severe financial hit because of gas prices, and the president is up 7 percentage points among other independents.

Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic: "Former Solicitor General Paul Clement took quite the parting shot at his former Washington law firm Monday when he announced that he would leave King & Spalding so that he could continue to represent House Republicans in their effort to defend the Defense of Marriage Act." Read Cohen's whole post.

Nate Silver "on the largely irrelevant news about Haley Barbour not running for President." CW: an interesting post in which Silver explains why Barbour appears to be shrewder than the Serious People. ...

... Karen Garcia is not joining the Obama campaign. Here's the video that Garcia found so unconvincing. It's a snoozer:

Fox "News" Shocker! President Obama Didn't Tell You Sunday Was Easter. Steve Benen: "Fox News today slammed President Obama for not issuing a proclamation acknowledging Easter. (Somehow, Christians managed to hear about the holiday anyway.) Conservative activists quickly followed suit.... It's a garbage story, even by the standards of GOP media.... President Obama hosted an Easter prayer breakfast; the Obamas attended Easter services; and the White House hosted a big Easter Egg Roll for families today. No proclamation was issued, but no other modern presidents -- from either party -- have issued Easter proclamations, either."

After auditing the Obamas' tax return, Stephen Colbert assesses the Republican field of presidential candidates, with emphasis on the Donald:

... Hooray! More Conspiracy Theories from the Donald. Beth Fouhy of the AP: "... Donald Trump suggested in an interview Monday that President Barack Obama had been a poor student who did not deserve to be admitted to the Ivy League universities he attended. Trump ... offered no proof for his claim but said he would continue to press the matter as he has the legitimacy of the president's birth certificate. 'I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?' Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records." ...

... PLUS ... CNN: Trump claims Barack Obama's birth certificate is "missing." Too bad that "CNN's Gary Tuchman also interviewed the former director of the Hawaii Department of Health, who said she has seen the original birth certificate in the vault at the Department of Health." ...

... AND ... Fox "News": "Donald Trump slammed Robert De Niro Monday, following the Oscar-winner’s criticisms of him this weekend, telling Fox News that the actor is 'not the brightest bulb on the planet.'"

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker makes a gross misstatement about Medicaid, which he wants to dismantle. CW: It's always hard to know when Walker is out-and-out lying and when he just doesn't know WTF he's talking about.

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Politico: "The Justice Department has dropped its long-running criminal investigation of a lawyer who publicly admitted leaking information about President George W. Bush’s top-secret warrantless wiretapping program to The New York Times – disclosures that Bush denounced as a breach of national security and that stoked a congressional debate about whether the government had overstepped its authority.... The decision not to prosecute former Justice Department lawyer Thomas Tamm means it is unlikely that anyone will ever be charged for the disclosures that led to the Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning story in December 2005...." Update: the New York Times story is here.

New York Times: "Federal investigators said Monday that they had discovered flaws in the riveting of the roof of the Southwest Airlines plane that tore open in flight on April 1, a finding that experts said probably showed manufacturing defects.

Still Playing Chicken. Politico: "Speaker John Boehner won’t guarantee a vote on raising the debt limit, the latest threat in an increasingly high stakes game of chicken with the White House over whether Congress will inch closer to letting the nation default on its credit."

AP: "A recall effort targeting two Democratic state senators has fallen short at the deadline. Organizers had until Monday afternoon to turn in petitions to recall Sen. Lena Taylor of Milwaukee and Sen. Fred Risser of Madison. But the organizers failed to meet the deadline."

AP: "Gunfire reverberated Tuesday in the southern Syrian city of Daraa where the dead still lay unclaimed in the streets a day after a brutal government crackdown on the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad, residents said." ...

... Al Jazeera Update: "As the Syrian government intensifies its crackdown against pro-democracy protesters, the international community steps up its pressure on president Bashar al-Assad to stop the bloodletting. In a session on Tuesday, members of the UN Security Council discussed the uptick in violence, but failed to issue a collective statement. Still, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, condemned the violence against 'peaceful protesters' and called on the Syrian government to respect the people's rights to freedom of expression."

New York Times: "The Ford Motor Company reported on Tuesday its largest first-quarter profit since 1998, despite a shift in sales to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars."

The Commentariat -- April 25

This Republican President. Ezra Klein: "... The White House’s [budget] plan is, if anything, substantially more conservative than the Simpson-Bowles [Catfood Commission] framework." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the only major budget proposal out there offering a plausible path to balancing the budget is the one that includes significant tax increases: the 'People’s Budget' from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which — unlike the Ryan plan, which was just right-wing orthodoxy with an added dose of magical thinking — is genuinely courageous because it calls for shared sacrifice." Here's a link to the CPC budget, which has a very readable overview. Comments are activiated on the Off Times Square page, and I've posted mine. ...

     ... NEW. For a delicious taste of incomparable parody, I direct you to Krugman Comment #36, the work of one Winnie Regressivita. (You have to be at least a semi-regular Times comments reader to appreciate the art of the comment.) Please recommend it, and no, I didn't write it. But I wish I had.

     ... Update: I've also added a comments page for Ross Douthat's column on Off Times Square. Have at it. Update 2: My comment, which I submitted within minutes of the time Douthat's column went up, has been "disappeared." I guess the moderators didn't like my definition of Douthat's Hell, but you can read my comment in Off Times Square. Update 3: now there are more excellent comments on Douthat. Like mine, Akhilleus' comment likely won't make the Times cut because it's too true.

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker writes a long, riveting piece about the evolution of Barack Obama's international policy.

Peter Finn of the Washington Post: "A cache of classified military documents obtained by ...WikiLeaks presents new details of the whereabouts [of Al Qaeda leaders] on Sept. 11, 2001, and their movements afterward. The documents also offer some tantalizing glimpses into the whereabouts and operations of Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The documents, provided to European and U.S. news outlets, including The Washington Post, are intelligence assessments of nearly every one of the 779 individuals who have been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002." New York Times story by Charlie Savage, et al., here.

Peter Finn & Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post: "... the failed effort to close Guantanamo was reflective of the aspects of [President] Obama’s leadership style that continue to distress his liberal base — a willingness to allow room for compromise and a passivity that at times permits opponents to set the agenda."

The Republicans are looking at this as just another opening to force the president’s hand, to hold everything hostage again. The White House shouldn’t cave, and the Republicans shouldn’t count on that. The White House needs to be tough on this one. -- Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) on the vote to raise the debt ceiling. McGovern also said House Democrats would vote against a GOP-Obama deal with too many GOP cuts attached to it.

Michael Grunwald of Time wants to ask Fed Chair Ben Bernanke why he's failing. "I’ve described Bernanke as the most transparent Fed chairman ever — which, granted, is a bit like being the most intelligent Real Housewife ever — and I think it’s really cool that on Wednesday he’ll hold the first press conference in Fed history." So maybe Grunwald will ask Bernanke that question at the presser, OR ...

... Grunwald could read Paul Krugman, who already knows the real answer: "... what we’ve had is a much downsized version of the policy, more than offset by other government actions — a lot like the fiscal stimulus. And we’re supposed to be surprised that it proved disappointing?" ...

... Benjamin Wallace-Wells profiles Paul Krugman in New York magazine. The print version, which saves your clicking through, is here, but it wanted for some punctuation when I called it up.

"He Broke the Law." Glenn Greenwald has a terrific post on President & Constitutional Scholar Obama's stunning pre-trial declaration that Bradley Manning was guilty as charged. ...

... M. J. Lee & Abby Phillip of Politico cite experts who agree with Greenwald. ...

... Teddy Partridge of Firedoglake compares President Obama's statement & the follow-up/cover-up with President Richard Nxon's declaration that Charles Manson was guilty of murder -- while the jurors were still deliberating. A big difference: the Manson "jurors were not in a directly subordinate relationship to the commander-in-chief, as any jurors in a possible Bradley Manning court-martial would be."

Marcia Dunn of the AP on the launch of the Shuttle Endeavor this Friday, which Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will captain. Giffords & the Obama family will attend.

Rose George in a New York Times op-ed: the shipping industry is rife with abuse of crews, because of the system of “open registries” [which] are used by over 60 percent of shippers, up from 4 percent in the 1950s. Under the flags of convenience system, registries have been divorced from government oversight."

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: it isn't just Medicare, Medicaid & the Affordable Health Act the GOP has voted to end/dismantle. The Ryan/Republican budget, already voted in by House Republicans, will end the food stamp program (now know as SNAP) as we know it.

"They Lied." The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee whacks Republicans who promised during the 2010 campaign to preserve Medicare, then voted to gut it shortly after they took office:

... Meanwhile, Alexander Bolton of The Hill reports that "Senate Democratic aides expect Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to force Senate Republicans to vote on the Paul Ryan budget plan. Reid hasn’t made a formal decision yet, and won’t until he returns from an overseas trip."

It’s like a big hustle. It’s like being a car salesman. Don’t go out there and say things unless you can back them up. How dare you? That’s awful to do. To just go out and speak and say these terrible things? Unless you just wanna get over and get the job. It’s crazy. -- Actor Robert De Niro, on Donald Trump's birther tour

Right Wing World *

Rick Hertzberg: "For the Donald, thinking less and less seems to be working more and more." ...

... Andy Borowitz: "A threat to the fledgling presidential campaign of Donald Trump emerged today, as a group of activists charged that Mr. Trump is not eligible to hold the nation’s highest office because his hair does not originate from the U.S. The group, who call themselves 'Balders,' claim that the hair-like substance that crowns Mr. Trump’s head is from a foreign country, which would mean that the candidate is less than one hundred percent American."

One Way to Cover up a Lie -- Erase It. Nick Carbone of Time: (1) on the Senate floor Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asserted that more than 90 percent of Planned Parenthood's services were abortion-related. (2) Confronted with the fact that the number is closer to 3 percent, Kyl issued a statement that his remark was "not intended to be factual." (3) When that "excuse" proved to be a ridicule bomb (see, e.g., Colbert below -- about 2 min. in), he just had the remark erased from the Congressional Record.

... Or You Can Go into Hiding. Cameron Joseph of the National Journal: "Republicans who used seniors’ rage over health care changes to sweep into office last fall are now facing the same type of heat over the same issue: Modifications in Medicare and Medicaid. Many who voted for the plan House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., laid out to privatize the programs in future years have been in constituents’ crosshairs during Easter recess town-hall meetings. Others have simply avoided meeting with constituents."

Rick Santorum wants to be President so he can screw up EVERYTHING:

     ... Tanya Somanader of Think Progress lays out Santorum's Choice: "Failure to raise the debt ceiling would force Congress to make devestating cuts that would eviscerate basic government services (including national security and social safety net programs), would increase unemployment and retard economic growth, and would erode confidence in the U.S. Treasury bonds creating widespread panic in global financial markets. But if Congress pays Santorum’s 'price,' it would not only jeopardize popular provisions such as insurance pools for people with pre-existing conditions but 'cripple existing Medicare programs' by preventing the government from making payments to cover seniors. What’s more, as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office noted, defunding health care would actually increase government spending by $5.6 billion by 2021 and, ironically, increase the federal deficit anyway."

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

"Preposterous Charges." Jay Carney defends the President against Franklin Graham's conspiracy theories:

AP: "Proponents of California's same-sex marriage ban filed a motion Monday seeking to vacate the historic ruling that overturned Proposition 8 because the federal judge who wrote it is in a long-term relationship with another man. Lawyers for the ban's backers said that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker should have removed himself from the case, or at least disclosed his relationship status, to avoid a real or perceived conflict of interest."

AP: "U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson ordered an immediate end to [NFL] the lockout Monday, siding with the players in their bitter fight with the owners over how to divide the $9 billion business. The fate of the 2011 season remained in limbo: The NFL responded by filing a notice of appeal questioning whether Nelson exceeded her jurisdiction, seeking relief from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. Hours later, the league filed a motion for an expedited stay, meaning it wants Nelson to freeze her ruling to let the appeals process play out."

AP: "Republican Gov. Haley Barbour bowed out of presidential contention Monday with a surprise announcement just as the 2012 campaign was getting under way in earnest, 18 months before Election Day. The Mississippi governor said he lacked the necessary 'absolute fire in the belly' to run." Barbour's full statement is here. ...

... BUT National Journal: "Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, whose outspoken libertarian views and folksy style made him a cult hero during two previous presidential campaigns, will announce on Tuesday that he's going to try a third time. Sources close to Paul ... will unveil an exploratory presidential committee.... He will also unveil the campaign’s leadership team in Iowa."

AP: "House Speaker John Boehner said Monday that Congress should 'take a look at' repealing the multibillion-dollar tax subsidies enjoyed by the major oil companies. The Ohio Republican told "ABC World News" that the government is low on revenues and that oil companies "ought to be paying their fair share." A gallon of gasoline exceeds $4 in some parts of the country." Video here.

Politico: "In a real victory for supporters of same-sex marriage -- and marking what seems like real marginalization for its foes -- a major law firm has reversed course and will refuse to represent the House of Representatives in defending the Defense of Marriage Act." ...

... Politico: "Former Solicitor General Paul Clement resigned Monday from his law firm, King amp; Spalding, over the firm's abrupt and belated decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of the House of Representatives."

Wall Street Journal: "The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to consider an early legal challenge to the new federal health-care law before the case has been fully litigated in the lower courts. The justices, without comment, rejected Virginia Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's bid for early Supreme Court review." TPM story here.

AP: "Taliban militants dug a lengthy tunnel underground and into the main jail in Kandahar city and whisked out more than 450 prisoners, most of whom were Taliban fighters, officials and insurgents said Monday. The massive overnight jailbreak in Afghanistan's second-largest city underscores the Afghan government's continuing weakness in the south despite an influx of international troops, funding and advisers."

 Al Jazeera: "Syrian troops backed by tanks and heavy armour have stormed the southern town of Deraa and also Douma, a suburb of the capital Damascus, resulting in many deaths and dozens of arrests. Security forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, the country's president, have also continued a crackdown in the coastal town of Jableh for a second day.An activist said late on Monday that 18 people had been killed in Deraa alone."

However, the government insists the army was invited in to rid the town of gunmen.

... Haaretz: "The Obama administration is drafting an executive order to freeze the assets of senior Syrian officials and bar them from engaging in any business dealings with the United States...."

AP: "A Jordanian security official says Syria has sealed the border with Jordan and is preventing people from leaving the country. The Jordanian border crossing lies close to the southern Syrian town of Daraa, where government forces were launching a sharp crackdown on protesters Monday. Some of the fiercest protests against the Syrian regime have taken place in Daraa."

The Commentariat -- April 24

Art & caption by Karen Garcia.I have been remiss is lending festivities to the Easter holiday. Karen Garcia, however, has not. She had great advice for everybody, including those of you planning to attend tomorrow's Easter Egg Roll at the White House.

** "Poor Jane's Almanac." Jill LePore in a New York Times op-ed: "Today ... the nation’s bookshelves sag with doorstop biographies of the founders; Tea Partiers dressed as Benjamin Franklin call for an end to social services for the poor; and the 'Path to Prosperity' urges a return to 'America’s founding ideals of liberty, limited government and equality under the rule of law.' But the story of Jane Mecom, [Bejamin Franklin's sister,] is a reminder that, especially for women, escaping poverty has always depended on the opportunity for an education and the ability to control the size of their families."

The White House has finally made video available of President Obama's full Facebook townhall, which he & Mark Zuckerberg conducted last Wednesday:

"Hold the Halo." Maureen Dowd: "Next Sunday ... Pope Benedict XVI will preside over the beatification for the man he revered, the first time in a millennium that a pope has elevated his immediate predecessor and the swiftest ascension toward sainthood on record.... As progressive as [John Paul II] was on [many] issues, he was disturbingly regressive on social issues — contraception, women’s ordination, priests’ celibacy, divorce and remarriage. And certainly, John Paul forfeited his right to beatification when he failed to establish a legal standard to remove pedophiles from the priesthood, and simply turned away for many years."  

     ... Update: I've added a comments page for Dowd's column in Off Times Square, & I've posted my comment to her column.

     ... Update 2: the Times has held back Karen Garcia's excellent comment on Dowd, but you can read it here AND write or copy-and-paste your own comment.

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve’s experimental effort to spur a recovery by purchasing vast quantities of federal debt has pumped up the stock market, reduced the cost of American exports and allowed companies to borrow money at lower interest rates. But ... benefits [to the general economy] have been surprisingly small. The latest estimates from economists, in fact, suggest that the pace of recovery from the global financial crisis has flagged since November, when the Fed started buying $600 billion in Treasury securities to push private dollars into investments that create jobs."

Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times: "Although the United States and the European Union have blocked access to more than $60 billion in Libya's overseas bank accounts and investments, other nations have done little or nothing to freeze tens of billions more that Kadafi and his family spread around the globe over the last decade, according to U.S., European and U.N. officials involved in the search for Libyan assets. Kadafi has moved billions of dollars back to Tripoli since the rebellion began in mid-February, the officials said. The totals are not clear, in part because investigators believe the Libyan ruler made significant investments in companies and financial institutions that shield his identity."

Theola Labbe-DeBose of the Washington Post: "The growth of technology has left 911 behind. Although people can send a text to vote for the next American Idol, they can’t send one to report the East Coast Rapist.... Other simple actions, including sending 911 a smartphone photo of a car speeding from a robbery, are also impossible.... Federal and local officials readily acknowledge the need to modernize 911 calls, and they have taken small steps to digitize, but there are no plans in place for how to pay the billions of dollars the upgrade will cost and no timetable has been set." CW: because "America is broke," & we can't afford luxuries like a modern 911 system. More tax breaks, anyone?

Caitlan Flanagan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, advocates for shutting down fraternities. "A 2007 National Institute of Justice study found that about one in five women are victims of sexual assault in college; almost all of those incidents go unreported. It also noted that fraternity men — who tend to drink more heavily and frequently than nonmembers — are more likely to perpetrate sexual assault than nonfraternity men, according to previous studies. Over a quarter of sexual-assault victims who were incapacitated reported that the assailant was a fraternity member." CW: Before I read Flanagan's op-ed, I thought the premise was ridiculous. I'm less sure of that now. See what you think.

Nicholas Kristof says young American prostitutes are victims of human trafficking, too. "... They deserve sympathy and social services — not handcuffs and juvenile detention."

After reading Joe Nocera's (implied) criticism of Spencer Bachus, the Republican Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who hails from Jefferson County, Alabama, & wants to delay or dismantle derivatives regulation, reader Haley S. told me I should link to an article that told the whole story of what happened in Jefferson County. She 's right. So here it is: ...

... America in the Age of Oligarchy: One County's Story. Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: "In 1996, the average monthly sewer bill for a family of four in Birmingham [Jefferson County, Alabama] was only $14.71 — but that was before the county decided to build an elaborate new sewer system with the help of out-of-state financial wizards with names like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. The result was a monstrous pile of borrowed money that the county used to build, in essence, the world's grandest toilet — "the Taj Mahal of sewer-treatment plants" is how one county worker put it. What happened here in Jefferson County would turn out to be the perfect metaphor for the peculiar alchemy of modern oligarchical capitalism: A mob of corrupt local officials and morally absent financiers got together to build a giant device that converted human shit into billions of dollars of profit for Wall Street — and misery for [the people of Jefferson County]." Read the whole story.

Charles Hanley of the AP: "Former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei suggests in a new memoir that Bush administration officials should face international criminal investigation for the 'shame of a needless war' in Iraq. Freer to speak now than he was as an international civil servant, the Nobel-winning Egyptian accuses U.S. leaders of 'grotesque distortion' in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, when then-President George W. Bush and his lieutenants claimed Iraq possessed doomsday weapons despite contrary evidence collected by ElBaradei's and other arms inspectors inside the country."

Contra assertions by Fracking Joe Nocera, ("In Texas and Oklahoma, it has been used for decades, with nobody complaining much about environmental degradation.") friend of T. Boone Pickens, not everybody in Texas loves fracking. Kate Galbraith of the New York Times: "On Wednesday, several dozen protesters marched through downtown Fort Worth, waving signs and chanting anti-drilling slogans that reflected concern over air and water pollution. The anxiety centers on a recently expanded drilling method called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is now used in more than half of new gas wells drilled in Texas. This practice — which involves blasting water, sand and chemicals far underground to break up rock and extract gas — is common in the Barnett Shale, a major shale-gas field around Fort Worth."

Right Wing World *

"Pity for the Rich." Matt Yglesias: "You can tell something’s happening in the economic policy debate when you start reading more things like AEI’s Arthur Brooks explaining that it would simply be unfair to raise taxes on the rich. Harvard economics professor and former Council of Economics Advisor chairman Greg Mankiw has said the same thing." Here's a link to Brooks' pathetic Washington Post op-ed (it's so stupid you might think Arthur was related to Our Mister Brooks, but I don't think he is.) ...

   ... Paul Krugman: "... my take is that what we’re looking at is the closing of the conservative intellectual universe, the creation of an echo chamber in which rightists talk only to each other, and in which even the pretense of caring about ordinary people is disappearing. I mean, we’ve been living for some time in an environment in which the WSJ can refer, unselfconsciously, to people making too little to pay income taxes as 'lucky duckies'; where Chicago professors making several hundred thousand a year whine that they can’t afford any more taxes, and are surprised when that rubs some people the wrong way." ...

... BUT Screw the Poor, Especially if They're Neglected Children. Todd Heywood of the Michigan Messenger: "Under a new budget proposal from [Republican] State Sen. Bruce Casswell, children in the state’s foster care system would be allowed to purchase clothing only in used clothing stores.... Under his plan, foster children would receive gift cards that could only be used at places like the Salvation Army, Goodwill and other second hand clothing stores.... Casswell says the plan will save the state money, though it isn’t clear how much the state spends on clothing for foster children or how much could be saved this way." CW: I'm sorry, but it's getting harder & harder not to think of Republicans as essentially evil.

NEW. Yesterday, Ben Smith of Politico, who is generally a good reporter, wrote this, which I found pretty incredible:

I've been looking for a good analogue to the willingness of Republicans to believe, or say they believe, that Obama was born abroad, and one relevant number is the share of Democrats willing to believe, as they say, that 'Bush knew.' ...More than half of Democrats, according to a neutral survey, said they believed Bush was complicit in the 9/11 terror attacks. [emphasis Smith's]

      ... But as Driftglass notes, as only Driftglass can, it ain't so. I've asked Smith to respond. ...

      ... Update: I've corresponded with Smith on this & wrote three (comments hog!) comments on Driftglass's post. The bottom line: Smith's assertion that "more than half of Democrats ... believed Bush was complicit" is not accurate.

Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: "Anxiety is rising among some Republicans over the party’s embrace of a plan to overhaul Medicare, with GOP lawmakers already starting to face tough questions on the issue at town hall meetings back in their districts. House leaders have scheduled a Tuesday conference call in which members are expected in part to discuss strategies for defending the vote they took this month on a budget that would transform the popular entitlement program as part of a plan to cut trillions in federal spending." CW translation: they're going to make indefensible cutbacks sound great! Look for identical talking points Tuesday afternoon.

Over in Right Wing World, the Street people are getting very upset about the "collapse of the dollar." But Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture asks, "Where were all you concerned dollar bulls earlier in the decade? ... US currency [dropped] by less than 20% over the past few years. That’s not a dollar collapse; A fall from 121.02 in July 2001 to 70.69 in March 2008 — Now THATS a dollar collapse:

Those are years along the horizontal axis, beginning with 2000.* Talks only to itself.

News Ledes

AP: "Deep divisions within Yemen's opposition appeared to doom an Arab proposal for the president to step down within a month, raising the prospect of more bloodshed and instability in a nation already beset by deep poverty and conflict."

AP: "At least 500 people died in religious rioting that followed Nigeria's presidential election, a civil rights group said Sunday, as volatile state gubernatorial elections loom this week. Meanwhile, police in the northern state of Bauchi said at least 11 recent college graduates who helped run polling stations as part of the country's national youth service corps have been killed in postelection violence, while other female poll workers have been raped."

... Al Jazeera: "Heavy fighting has raged anew in Misurata, leaving at least 25 people killed and at least 71 others critically injured as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi gave up more ground inside Libya's third-largest city. Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said early on Sunday the army had suspended operations against rebels in Misurata, but not left the city...." ...

     ... AP Update: "An air strike on Moammar Gadhafi's sprawling residential compound early Monday badly damaged two buildings, including a structure where Gadhafi often held meetings, guards at the complex said."

AP: "Syrian security forces detained dozens of opposition activists and fired from rooftops in a seaside town Sunday as authorities turned to pinpoint raids after days of bloodshed brought international condemnation and defections from President Bashar Assad's regime."

AP: "Doctors say Rep. Gabrielle Giffords can walk a little and is even trying to improve her gait. But the report Sunday in The Arizona Republic adds the congresswoman herself is planning to 'walk a mountain.'" Update: the Arizona Republic has much more detail.