The Commentariat -- June 3

"The Mistake of 2010." Paul Krugman: "A look at some recent dismal economic data shows the results of a pivot away from jobs to other concerns," repeating the “'mistake of 1937,' the premature fiscal and monetary pullback that aborted an ongoing economic recovery and prolonged the Great Depression." ...

... I've added a comments page for Krugman on Off Times Square, but you can comment on other stuff, if you like.

The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them wherever need of such control is shown but it is in duty bound to control them. -- Teddy Roosevelt ...

... Ted Rall in Yahoo News: "No president since Nixon has followed TR's advice. The result of unbridled corporate corruption is disparity of wealth worse than much of the Third World, and 20 percent unemployment."

"When States Punish Women." New York Times Editors: "The Obama administration has rightly decided to reject a mean-spirited and dangerous Indiana law banning the use of Medicaid funds at Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide vital health services to low-income women.... Many ... fresh attacks on reproductive rights, not surprisingly, have come in states where the midterm elections left Republicans in charge of both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion."

Tim Egan writes a stellar post on the impending closing of a quarter of California's state parks, the result of cuts to the state budget.

New York Times Editors: "... a week ago, Judge James Cacheris of Eastern Virginia’s Federal District Court struck down a century-old ban on direct corporate contributions to political candidates." But after legal blogger Richard Hasen wrote that the DOJ failed to include an important precedent (FEC v. Beaumont) in its brief -- and the judge therefore did not consider it -- Cacheris has asked for new briefs & has scheduled a do-over. 

Right Wing World *

Whirly-Gig: Why would anybody want this guy to be President? Just listen to him:

... Beth DeFalco of the AP: "After a firestorm of criticism, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie changed his mind Thursday and decided that he and the Republican Party would reimburse the state for his personal use of a state police helicopter, which includes two trips to watch his oldest son's baseball games.... A spokeswoman for Christie said the governor paid the state a total of $2,151 to cover the cost of two trips in which he flew from Trenton to see his son's baseball games...." ...

... New York Times Editors: It took Christie two days to decide to pay what appears to be a partial reimbursement to the state. "What makes the governor’s helicopter excursions especially galling is that he has spent the last year and a half demanding sacrifices from everybody else in his state."

Calvin Woodward & Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP fact-check Romney's announcement of his presidential candidacy: "In rhetorical excesses marking his entry in the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney said the economy worsened under President Barack Obama, when it actually improved, and criticized the president for issuing apologies to the world that were never made." CW: the AP doesn't actually have a Pants-on-Fire designation ...

... BUT PolitiFact does. It fact-checks this from Romney's announcement:

We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free-market economy. -- Mitt Romney

      ... and gave him the old Pants-on-Fire award for that whopper. They're planning to fact-check other remarks from his speech. CW: Republicans have bupkus. They can't win unless they lie. So they do.

Krugman adds, "Romney is not a stupid man; nor is he, as best one can tell, temperamentally an extremist. So he has to know that he’s talking total nonsense.... But Romney is willing to pretend to be an ignorant extremist to have any chance of getting the Republican nomination. So this ends up being a character issue: do you want a man that cynical in the White House?"

CNN's Brooke Baldwin reports on Sarah Palin's "history lesson," OR How to Make Michele Bachmann sound like a History Professor:

Paul Revere Warns the British: He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed. -- Sarah Palin

... As Mediaite's Frances Martel writes, "... Revere didn’t warn the British were out to take anyone’s arms, as he didn’t yell out 'the British are coming!', as the myth goes. He had to be quiet to not let the British know that he knew (sorry, but no bells either) they were coming – to seize weapons stores, actually – and history notes that his warning was likely something ... like “the Regulars are coming.” CW: ironically, Palin inadvertently was partially right about the Brits' taking Americans' arms. One of my forebears, Benjamin Wellington, is considered to be the first armed American captured in the Revolution. British Regulars stopped him as he was walking to Lexington Common to confront the British troops. Wellington told the Brits he was going hunting. Uh-huh. The encounter took place in the country, & the soldiers had no way to hold Wellington, so they took away his gun and let him go. He continued on to Lexington, got another gun & participated at Lexington Common. ...

... Tim Murphy of Mother Jones is insired to rewrite Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride":

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
If the story doesn't sound like what you read on Wikipedia,
You know who to blame: the elite liberal media.

      ... Read Murphy's whole post for a recap of Republican presidential candidate's interesting reimagining of early American history.

* Where Republicans are big-spending emperors and Democrats are "jokes" and "hacks."

Local News

Jason Seher of MSNBC: "In a news release, the [Wisconsin] state Democratic Party accused the petition circulators [for recall of Democratic state senators] of perpetrating fraud. More specifically, Wisconsin state Democratic officials have told NBC News that Republican petitioners falsely identified themselves as state officials and lied to residents on the Menominee Indian reservation...."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The House of Representatives voted Friday to rebuke President Obama for continuing to maintain an American role in NATO operations in Libya without the express consent of Congress, and directed the administration to provide detailed information about the cost and objectives of the American role in the conflict." Forty-five Democrats supported the resolution.

President Obama spoke to workers at a Chrysler parts factory in Toledo, Ohio, this afternoon. New York Times Update: "If the 2012 election is about the economy, as most people think, then President Obama’s visit on Friday to this struggling manufacturing city on the Ohio-Michigan border captured as well as any day could the complicated campaign he is likely to face — playing both offense and defense, taking credit and deflecting blame."

New York Times: "The computer phishing attack that Google says originated in China was directed, somewhat indiscriminately, at an unknown number of White House staff officials, setting off the Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry that began this week...."

Washington Post: "Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards was indicted Friday on federal campaign finance charges for allegedly using campaign donations to conceal an extramarital affair while he was running for president in 2008." The Raleigh News & Observer story is here. New York Times story here.

Washington Post: "Jack Kevorkian, the zealous, straight-talking American doctor known as 'Dr. Death' for his lifelong crusade to legalize physician-assisted suicide died on Friday at a Detroit area hospital, the Associated Press reported. He was 83 years old." New York Times obituary here.

New York Times: "After several months of strong job growth, hiring slowed sharply in May.... The Labor Department reported on Friday that the United States added 54,000 nonfarm payroll jobs last month, following an increase of 232,000 jobs in April. May’s job gain was about a third of what economists had been forecasting. The unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent from 9.0 percent in April." Bloomberg story here.

Wall Street Journal: "People who work at the White House were among those targeted by the China-based hackers who broke into Google Inc.'s Gmail accounts, according to one U.S. official. The hackers likely were hoping the officials were conducting administration business on their private emails, according to lawmakers and security experts."

New York Times: "Moody’s Investors Service warned Thursday that it might downgrade the United States government’s sterling credit rating if Congress did not increase the nation’s debt limit “in coming weeks,” putting a spur to the sputtering talks between party leaders and the White House on a plan to restore fiscal stability. The warning, from one of the agencies whose assessments of creditworthiness help determine interest rates, amounted to a stern reminder from Wall Street to Washington that global financial markets are watching the budget battle closely and that a standoff or brinkmanship could have economic consequences."

New York Times: "The House will vote Friday on two measures that are strongly critical of President Obama’s decision to maintain an American role in NATO operations in Libya, reflecting increasing disenchantment among elements of both parties about the United States’ involvement in the conflict." Speaker Boehner decided to write a Republican resolution out of fear that the resolution written by Dennis Kucinich would pass with bipartisan support.

New York Times: "Syria’s military forces continued pressing to crush a three-month-old popular uprising on Thursday, shelling a string of southern and central towns even as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned President Bashar al-Assad that his legitimacy had 'nearly run out.'”

Reuters: "Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic faced the U.N. war crimes tribunal on Friday as a defiant general who never lost a battle, denying the charges against him as 'obnoxious' and 'monstrous.'"

Washington Post: "The bacterium that has killed more than a dozen Europeans, sickened nearly 2,000 more and raised international alarms would be legal if it were found on meat or poultry in the United States."

The Commentariat -- June 2

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square, and added my comment to Linda Greenhouse's post, linked below. Update: Marvin Schwalb has added a not-to-be-missed comment on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. ...

... Linda Greenhouse has quite an interesting column about the background of Brown v. Plata, the California prison overcrowding case that the Supremes just decided in favor of the defendants in a 5-4 split, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing the majority opinion. You can read the opinion & dissents here (pdf). ...

NEW. New York Times Editors: "No matter how they tried to spin it, 318 House members actually voted against paying the country’s bills and keeping the promise made to federal bondholders.... The games that now pass for governing in an increasingly embarrassing 112th Congress are menacing the nation’s future.... What Republicans seem unwilling to acknowledge is that the debt-limit debate is not about future spending. It is about paying for a deficit already incurred because of two wars and tax cuts approved by both Republicans and Democrats at the behest of a Republican president." ...

     ... Karen Garcia commented on the editorial & received 100 or more reader recommendations. Then, in their wisdom, the Times moderators removed her comment. You can read the "disappeared" comment on Garcia's website Sardonicky. ...

     ... Update: I've added a comment on today's Off Times Square on the Times' removal of Garcia's comment. I think my OTS comment is sort of funny, but then I've never stopped being somewhat sophomoric. Okay, 8th-graderish.

With all the noise about the Ryan/Republican Tea Party's budget's "ending Medicare as we know it," you wouldn't think this next story would be news. But it is. People concerned about Medicare are a huge voting bloc; those who receive Medicaid, not so much. So -- the story -- Sam Baker of The Hill: "Cuts to Medicaid are no more palatable than cuts to Medicare, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) told reporters Wednesday. Medicaid advocates and some congressional Democrats are worried that Medicaid could become a more ripe target for funding cuts amid the political firestorm over proposed changes to Medicare. But House Republicans’ proposal to convert federal Medicaid funding into block grants for the states 'is not, in my mind, a plan that will find currency in our caucus,' Menendez said." CW: That's good news. ...

Dr. Aaron Carroll, writing in the Washington Post graphically dispels the Republican meme that tort reform will substantially reduce medical costs. He provides some pretty impressive proofs. ...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: "Among conservatives, 54% are opposed [to the Ryan/Republican Tea Party Medicare plan]. Among current seniors -- who would not be affected by the changes in the Ryan Medicare plan -- a full 74% are opposed, even after they're told that Ryan's plan affects Americans 55 years of age and younger. Even Republicans break against Ryan's plan, though only slightly. Fifty percent oppose the plan, while 48% support it." ...

... I'm the death-panel-supporting, socialist, may-not-have-been-born-here President. -- Barack Obama, to House Republicans when they complained about Democrats' "Mediscare demagoguery" ...

Here's Poor Pitiful Paul Ryan, whining after the House Republicans' meeting with President Obama. AFP photo.Kate Pickert of Time: "In a closed door meeting between Obama and Republican House members on Wednesday, GOP Whip Eric Cantor 'pressed' the president to "stop the demagoguery," according to Politico. A GOP aide familiar with the discussion said Ryan himself accused Obama of adopting a Medicare strategy solely focused on being re-elected in 2012." Pickert is not impressed with Republicans' Mediscare charges. ...

      ... Here's the Politico report by Glenn Thrush & Abby Phillip.

Another Sorry-Assed Victim of Bush Fatigue? Matt Bai of the New York Times: "What the country would probably see [in Rick Perry] is another Texas governor with the same Texan talk and Texan swagger, someone who once schemed with Karl Rove and who, as a social conservative, is so reliably dogmatic that he signed a bill that made it explicitly illegal for the state to confiscate your gun in the event of martial law or some kind of federal takeover, or maybe if the British decided to invade again."

Christie Gives New Jersey the Bird. Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, "took a State Police helicopter to see his son play high school baseball on Tuesday. And whether that is important or trivial, it surely did not help the image of a conservative Republican who has won national notice for preaching belt-tightening and berating those who resist.... Throughout Wednesday, Blogrunner, the Web site that tracks online commentary, rated the helicopter story ... as one of the five most influential in the blogosphere." CW: sorry; as long as this story has legs, I'll keep running it. I find it much more interesting than Weiner's wiener, tho Weiner is doing his best to give his story legs by refusing to detail the facts (see Infotainment for the now-foot-long Weiner story). ...

... Here's the original Star-Ledger story, which I have not linked before. Not only did Christie use a helicopter purchased for Homeland Security & patient transfer purposes, he had a car waiting to drive him 100 yards from the bird to the field. Then he left half-way through his son's big game to go meet with Iowans who want him to run for President. ...

... The Blue Texan of Firedoglake: "So Christie, who nixed a rail project that would’ve created 6,000 jobs and declared war on New Jersey’s teachers because he claimed the state was broke — blew through nearly $3 grand of the taxpayers’ money to watch half a high school baseball game." ...

... AND, Lord Christie has a history of spending lavishly at public expense. The U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General was not amused. Via Steve Benen.

I got a note from blogger Carolyn Jackson today, which reminded me to take a look at her blog. Her most recent post is a Memorial Day reflection, but it is good for any day. Jackson doesn't post often, but everything she writes is worth the wait.

Peter Hamby of CNN has a Palin story that actually has a little substance: Sarah Palin met with Fox "News" officials for more than an hour yesterday. If Palin is seriously contemplating a run for president, Fox would likely suspend or cancel her contract as it did with Newt Gingrich's & Rick Santorum's contracts.

News Ledes

President Obama met with the House Democratic caucus this afternoon. Politico Update: "House Democrats pressed President Barack Obama on Thursday to keep his word and stand firm on Medicare as negotiations with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling heat up."

Los Angeles Times: "As Mitt Romney formally announced his presidential bid Thursday, two larger-than-life political personalities [Sarah Palin & Rudy Giuliani] crashed into New Hampshire, stealing the nominal frontrunner's thunder and underscoring that the GOP field is far from settled." ...

... L.A. Times: "The White House and President Obama's reelection campaign have long been treating Mitt Romney as the Republican frontrunner in 2012. And as the former Massachusetts governor was kicking off his campaign in New Hampshire, press secretary Jay Carney was ready with a response to his charge that the president had 'failed America' and prolonged the recession. His answer ... alternately pointed the finger at the Bush administration for driving the nation into recession and defended steps Obama took to reverse it." Story includes text of Carney's full response.

ABC News: "House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is throwing what one Republican calls 'a legal and political hot potato at the President.' In a resolution to be voted on in the House tomorrow, Boehner is giving the president two weeks – until the Pentagon Appropriations bill comes up – to either: a) Ask for authorization for the military intervention in Libya, or b) Figure out how to disengage the US from the NATO operation in Libya.

Politico: "Criminal charges are expected to be filed Friday against two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, the result of an investigation into campaign cash allegedly funneled to the woman he had an out-of-wedlock child with."

Boston Globe: "Tornadoes tore through Western and Central Massachusetts yesterday, killing at least four people, injuring an untold number, and reducing schools, churches, and homes to splinters along its destructive path. Governor Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency throughout Massachusetts and ordered up to 1,000 troops from the National Guard to help with rescue efforts. He said at least 19 communities had reported damage and he asked officials in those towns and cities to close schools and keep nonemergency personnel home today to allow work crews to clear streets."

Al Jazeera: "Fighting has continued in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, between forces loyal to the president and those allied to an opposition tribal group." AND, an earlier report from Al Jazeera: "At least 41 people have been killed overnight in ongoing street fighting between government forces and opposition tribal fighters in Yemen's capital." Both reports include video. Also, Al Jazeera is running a liveblog here.

** AP: "The Health and Human Services Department rejected changes in Indiana's Medicaid plan Wednesday, saying it illegally bans funding for Planned Parenthood, and sought to make clear that a similar fate awaits other states that pass legislation barring any qualified health care provider. State officials signaled they would not accept HHS' decision. In a letter sent to Indiana's Medicaid director, Medicaid Administrator Donald M. Berwick said Indiana's plan will improperly bar beneficiaries from receiving services. Federal law requires Medicaid beneficiaries to be able to obtain services from any qualified provider." CW: another reason to love Dr. Berwick. His is serving under a recess appointment because Republican Senators have blocked his confirmation.

New York Times: "Google said Wednesday that hundreds of users of Gmail, its e-mail service, had been the targets of clandestine attacks apparently originating in China that were aimed at stealing their passwords and monitoring their e-mail. In a blog post, the company said the victims included senior government officials in the United States, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries, military personnel and journalists."

The Commentariat -- June 1

Wow, what a boom in my neighborhood at 2:28 am ET. I'd say the Space Shuttle Endeavour just returned.

"Non Means Non." Maureen Dowd writes about the effects on French attitudes about gender issues in the wake of the DSK scandal. ...

... I've posted a comments page for Dowd's column on Off Times Square. Comment on Dowd's column or what you will. I just added my comment.

Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: "The U.S. economic recovery is faltering. Manufacturing — a consistent driver of growth over the past year -- slowed dramatically last month, according to data released Wednesday. Private job creation was exceptionally weak in May, other data showed Wednesday. Adding to that, home prices are falling, consumers are spending less, and companies are laying off more workers, according to other recent reports." CW: who could possibly have known? ...

... Dina ElBoghdady of the Washington Post: "The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index shows that single-family home prices fell 4.2 percent nationally in the first quarter from the previous quarter, leading analysts to conclude that prices have fallen by more than they did during the Great Depression."

** Early Primaries. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: two "... economists estimated that an Iowa or New Hampshire voter had the same impact as five Super Tuesday voters." The early primary system "distorts economic policy in several damaging ways. Most obviously, the federal government has lavished subsidies on ethanol ... partly because candidates pander to the Iowa corn industry.... A recent peer-reviewed study found that early-voting states received more federal dollars after a competitive election — so long as they supported the winning candidate." Iowa & New Hampshire also are "so unrepresentative.... Their populations are growing more slowly than the rest of the country’s. Residents of Iowa and New Hampshire are more likely to have health insurance. They are older than average. They are more likely to work in manufacturing. Above all, Iowa and New Hampshire lack a single big city.... So the presidential calendar becomes another cause of what Edward Glaeser, a conservative-leaning Harvard economist, calls our 'anti-urban policy bias.'”

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "President Obama on Tuesday nominated former electric utility executive John E. Bryson as his next Commerce secretary. ... Bryson spent nearly two decades as the head of the largest utility in North America, Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, and today serves as a senior adviser to the private-equity giant Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts. He also is a director of Boeing and Walt Disney, a former energy regulator in California and a noted environmentalist who co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council.... Senate Republicans immediately vowed Tuesday to block the nomination in a dispute with Obama and Senate Democrats over outstanding free-trade agreements."

S.E.C. = Swindlers & Excrement Collaborators. Louise Story & Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "How [Fabrice] Tourre [of Goldman Sachs] alone came to be the face of mortgage-securities fraud has raised questions among former prosecutors and Congressional officials about how aggressive and thorough the government’s investigations have been into Wall Street’s role in the mortgage crisis. In the fall of 2009..., his lawyers drafted private responses to the S.E.C., maintaining that Mr. Tourre was part of a 'collaborative effort' at Goldman.... Now, however, as criticism has grown about the lack of cases brought by regulators, the scope of the inquiries appears to be widening. The United States attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., has said publicly that his lawyers were reviewing possible charges against other Goldman officials...."

In a Washington Post op-ed, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner touts the success of the auto industry bailouts.

Sorry to be so late on this, but I've been preoccupied. Paul Krugman has a terrific response to Jared Bernstein's post (see yesterday's Commentariat) on Krugman's last column. Krugman offers a brief laundry list of the Obama Administration's misjudgments about the stimulus and the jobs crisis.

I'm literally behind the Times here, too. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The administration plans to establish “Medicare spending per beneficiary” as a new measure of hospital performance." ...

     ... Krugman writes, "I do believe that many people in the commentary business can manage to read stories like this, tut-tut about the difficulties, and then — in the very next breath — complain that Obama is doing nothing to limit the growth of health care costs. The point is that this is what cost control looks like. Things like the Ryan plan, which just shift the cost of care onto seniors, are fake; this is the real thing." ...

... Anecdotal Evidence. A friend writes, "A transfer service charges $1,500 a day, three times a week, to take my sister-in-law from a nursing home to a dialysis center ten miles away. No wonder Medicare is in trouble." ...

... Mediscare Claims Redux. Roger Simon, in the Chicago Sun-Times: "The Republicans have wrapped their arms around the Ryan plan, and public opinion be damned, they are hugging it. The Democrats are delighted. They are planning to turn that hug into a death grip." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

We Voted against It before We Voted for It. Adam Sorensen of Time: "The House of Representatives voted 97-318 against increasing the federal borrowing limit by $2.4 trillion without preconditional spending cuts on Tuesday night. The Republican leadership designed the vote to fail: They used a procedural trick to require a 2/3 majority for passage and convinced every last member of their caucus to oppose it. The idea, they said, was to prove ... that raising the debt ceiling won’t happen without a package of accompanying spending cuts.... Tuesday’s failed vote only served to provide political cover for members of Congress who will eventually have to back the incredibly unpopular increase in borrowing capacity."

Right Wing World *

... if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison. -- Rand Paul

Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress: Rand Paul, staunch defender of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, obviously isn't too keen on the First Amendment.

Alex Altman of Time. Former Republican governors Jon Huntsman & Tim Pawlenty face questions about their prior expressions of support for the dreaded individual mandate. CW: If they weren't running away so fast from their original sensible support for the mandate and other Republican base bugaboos, their presidential candidacies would be more credible. ...

... As Verum Serum highlights in this terrific RINO video, Huntsman's reasonable stances on a number of hot-button issues make him radioactive among the nut jobs of his party's base:

"The $7 Trillion Lie." Judd Legum of Think Progress: "Sarah Palin, in the only interview she’s granted during her 'One Nation' bus tour, claimed that the U.S. federal debt had grown more under Obama than 'all those other presidents combined.' [whoever they were; she's not sure] ... When Obama took office the debt stood at $10.6 trillion. After inheriting two wars and the worst economy since the Great Depression, the debt has grown by $3.7 trillion since Obama has been in office. Palin is off by about $7 trillion.... The deficit ... has increased less under Obama than our last president, George W. Bush. Under President Bush..., the deficit increased by $4.9 trillion." With video.

* Where facts are sometimes hard to hide, but it's always worth a try.

Local News

Tax-Free Texas. Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: "In Texas, state lawmakers — overwhelmingly conservative Republicans — ... passed a bill that would tighten sales tax rules and force many online retailers to begin collecting sales taxes just like any other business. This morning, [Gov. Rick] Perry quietly vetoed the bill, protecting Amazon and other large retailers’ tax-dodging...."

Austerity, Christie-Style. Anahad O'Connor of the New York Times: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hopped in a state helicopter on Tuesday afternoon and headed for an event that is not exactly considered important business: His son’s baseball game.... A rising star in the Republican party who some consider presidential material, Mr. Christie has ... tak[en] a hard line on state and local spending, forcing deep budget cuts and proposing budget reforms to eliminate waste.... The Star Ledger reported that Mr. Christie had no public events on his schedule Tuesday. But he did have an event scheduled at 6:30 p.m. at the governor’s mansion..., a meeting with a group of Iowa donors looking to persuade him to run for president in 2012." CW: Sometimes a governor just has to do a little something for himself.

Patrick Marley & Emma Roller of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "State election officials on Tuesday approved recall elections against three Republican senators but put off decisions on certifying recall petitions against three Democrats." That puts the number of recall elections at six for Republicans and, as yet, zero for Democrats. Naturally, Republicans are crying foul. The election board, which all state Republicans voted to create four years ago, is nonpartisan.

Pugilistic Politicians. Kevin McDermont of the Political Fix: "Illinois' rough-and-tumble politics took a turn for the literal late Tuesday, as a northern Illinois Democrat allegedly punch[ed] a Metro East Republican on the Senate floor after a debate over utility legislation. The altercation took place during a lull in the long final day of the legislative session Tuesday, with no reporters around to witness it." Oh, shoot, it would have been so much better if we'd had a video.

News Ledes

President Obama will meet with House Republicans this morning. Should be fun. AP story here. Washington Post Update: "Republican lawmakers demanded Wednesday that President Obama produce a detailed plan to cut government spending in return for agreement to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. But there was no indication that the White House meeting resulted in any progress on the issue, despite an Aug. 2 deadline to increase the federal debt limit or risk defaulting on obligations."

AP: "Space shuttle Endeavour and its six astronauts returned to Earth early Wednesday, closing out the next-to-last mission in NASA's 30-year program with a safe middle-of-the-night landing. Endeavour glided down onto the runway one final time under the cover of darkness, just as Atlantis, the last shuttle bound for space, arrived at the launch pad for the grand finale in five weeks."

AP: "Government media said the daughter of a prominent Iranian dissident died of a heart attack while attending her father's funeral Wednesday, but opposition websites said she died in a scuffle with security forces. Haleh Sahabi, 54 and a prominent activist and rights campaigner herself, collapsed and died Wednesday at the funeral of her father. He died on Tuesday."

Terrorists in the Heartland? (Bowling Green, Kentucky) Daily News: "Two Iraqi refugees living in Bowling Green were arraigned today on federal terrorism charges -- including accusations of attempting to kill U.S. troops with explosive devices in Iraq. Waad Ramadan Alwan, 30, and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 23, are charged in a 23-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Bowling Green on May 26. The men made their initial federal court appearance today in Louisville."