The Commentariat -- August 14

Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll, edging out Ron Paul. Tim Pawlenty came in a distant third. So I put up a Bachmann page on Off Times Square.

Maureen Dowd visits Iowa, and is more interested in Mitt Romney, comparing him to -- Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest." ...

... Frank Bruni, too, goes to Iowa where he finds "an intensely dispiriting spectacle, because it was an entirely familiar one: the same old same old at a moment of extraordinary global uncertainty and profound national anxiety. Americans are more frightened and pessimistic — and Washington is more dysfunctional — than they’ve been in a very long time. But the script in Iowa was unchanged." ...

... David Dayen of Firedoglake: "Basically, it’s a three-way fight between [Michele] Bachmann, Mitt Romney and [Rick] Perry."

CW: If this story doesn't make you tear your hair out and/or gnash your teeth, you're probably bald & toothless. Binyamin Appelbaum & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "As the economy worsens, President Obama and his senior aides are considering whether to adopt a more combative approach on economic issues, seeking to highlight substantive differences with Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail rather than continuing to pursue elusive compromises.... David Plouffe and ... William M. Daley want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress.... But others, including Gene Sperling, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, say public anger over the debt ceiling debate has weakened Republicans and created an opening for bigger ideas...." CW: see it's all about Obama; to hell with us. ...

     ... Karen Garcia responds: "Team Obama is officially nuts.... Their campaign strategy is for the Boss to do as little as possible between now and November 2012, despite 20 percent real unemployment and an official poverty rate of one in five adults and one in four children, in order to appeal to all those 'independent' voters. Obama apparently thinks suffering people would rather vote for a nonconfrontational nice guy than somone who will fight for them." ...

     ... Or, as Calculated Risk titles his post, "White House Debates Doing Little or Nothing." ...

     ... Paul Krugman adds, "It all makes me think of an 80s-era joke about centrist Democrats, which was that their big difference from Republicans was compassion: the Democrats cared about the victims of their policies." He is dismissive of Daley & Plouffe as "macroeconomic theorists" -- much less, their so-called strategy.

But Then There Are Heroes. Mike Lillis of The Hill: "Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.) said the recent debate over slashing spending and reducing deficits has all but ignored the toll those cuts could exact on lower income folks, particularly in minority communities. Clyburn – the third-ranking House Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) – is vowing to use his perch on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to tackle the nation's enormous wealth gap."

CW: I don't know how I missed this Frank Rich article on the Rupert Murdoch scandal, but I did. The article is more history & analysis than current reportage, so it isn't stale. Rich's thesis: what happened in Britain more than likely happened/is happening here. Rich cites the known & speculates on the unknown.

Josh Gerstein, in his Politico "Under the Radar" blog, writes, "President Barack Obama has forcefully rejected calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over a controversial federal law enforcement operation that allegedly allowed hundreds of guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) [CW: make that RTP] and the National Rifle Association have called for Holder's resignation over "Operation Fast and Furious," the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives investigation that monitored suspicious gun sales. Several of the weapons have been recovered from drug gangs in Mexico and two guns were found at the scene of the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent last December."

Communications Workers of America: "45,000 Verizon workers are now on strike to stop the attack on the middle class. The reason? Despite record profits, Verizon is refusing to bargain and is demanding that its workers add to those profits from their own pockets." You can sign a union solidarity letter to Verizon's CEO here. I did. ...

... CW Update: So then I got this letter back:

... Verizon remains committed to working with the unions to negotiate a fair and reasonable contract. Our intent is to secure a new contract that ensures Verizon employees will continue to receive competitive pay and benefit programs, while also providing a fair return to our shareholders. Our wireline business has declined significantly in the last few years and we need a new contract that reflects today’s economic and business realities, as well as the needs of all of our stakeholders.

Our goal is to keep Verizon strong now and in the future for our employees, shareholders and customers.

Peter Thonis, Chief Communications Officer, Verizon

... CW: My Response: Really? Per Daily Kos here and here:

-- $258 million: the compensation for Verizon’s top five executives over the past four years.

-- $6 billion: Verizon’s annualized profits for 2011.

-- $6,800: the increase in health care costs each worker could face if Verizon gets its way.

-- Verizon not only paid nothing in corporate income taxes, it actually received nearly $1 billion (the same amount as the concessions they are seeking) in tax benefits from the federal government during that time.... In fact, if Verizon paid its corporate income tax at the official rate of 35 percent, it would have owed more than $11 billion (rather than negative $1 billion).

Right Wing World *

Scott Keyes of Think Progress on the "top ten things Texas Gov. Rick Perry doesn't want you to know about him." CW: I disagree with Keyes' premise. I think Perry does want you to know some of this stuff. He's proud of them even if decent people find his proposals & actions abhorrent. ...

... Kevin Drum posits ten reasons Rick Perry can't win the presidency: "It's easy for us urban liberals to just cynically assume that the tea party-ized GOP will nominate whoever's the dumbest, toughest, meanest, godliest sonofabitch in the field, but I'm not so sure." CW: I think Drum may be overestimating the intelligence of Republican primary voters (who are not ideologically identical to Republicans who vote in the general election), but he makes some valid arguments. ...

... Rick Perry, Reverse Robin Hood. Charles Dameron in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (yes, really!): "The [Texas] Emerging Technology Fund was created at Mr. Perry's behest in 2005 to act as a kind of public-sector venture capital firm, largely to provide funding for tech start-ups in Texas.... The Dallas Morning News has found that some $16 million from the tech fund has gone to firms in which major Perry contributors were either investors or officers, and $27 million from the fund has gone to companies founded or advised by six advisory board members. The tangle of interests surrounding the fund has raised eyebrows throughout the state, especially among conservatives who think the fund is a misplaced use of taxpayer dollars to start with."

Standing up for Corporate "People": Heather at Crooks & Liars: "During the Republican debate in Iowa, when asked if he would extend unemployment benefits for those who are about to lose their benefits in a few months, not only did [Mitt] Romney say that he would not extend them, but he also touted the idea of privatizing unemployment benefits and changing our current system to one offering unemployment insurance savings accounts." With video because this is too insane to believe without seeing the evidence.

* Where Orwell's 1984 would be an improvement.

Local News

** Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "A group of church leaders has formally denounced Alabama's new immigration law, calling it mean-spirited and un-Christian, and has vowed not to obey it."

Terry Collins of the AP: "... Saturday ... details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to near the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police. Two days later, the move had civil rights and legal experts questioning the agency's move, and drew backlash from one transit board member who was taken aback by the decision." ...

... Justin Berton of the San Francisco Chronicle: "An international group of hackers threatened Saturday to wage a cyberwar against BART in retaliation for the agency's decision to cut cell phone service to prevent a separate protest last week. The activist group, known as Anonymous, also called for a nonviolent protest Monday evening at BART's Civic Center Station."

News Ledes

Obviously the pathway forward for me doesn’t really exist, and so we’re going to end the campaign. -- Tim Pawlenty

New York Times: "Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, dropped his bid for the Republican nomination for president on Sunday morning, saying his disappointing performance in Iowa’s straw poll convinced him that his campaign had run its course."

AP: "A stage collapsed during a powerful storm at the Indiana State Fair on Saturday, sending steel scaffolding into the terrified crowd below and killing at least four people among fans awaiting a performance by the country band Sugarland." Indianapolis Star story here, with photos & videos. Indy Star: "The Indiana State Fair has been canceled today...."

AP: "A team of six suicide bombers launched a coordinated assault on a provincial governor's compound in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 19 people in the latest high-profile attack to target prominent Afghan government officials, authorities said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the Parwan provincial capital of Charikar, some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Kabul."

The Commentariat -- August 13

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... Here's the transcript. ...

... Karen Garcia has an excellent post, followed by excellent comments, on Obama's speech at Johnson Controls, a speech which Obama effectively repeats here in his weekly address.

In a fit of optimism, I've posted a comments page on the Republican candidates debate on Off Times Square. Ever a realist, I've posted the same page on Reality Chex Annex. Try Off Times Square first, please (a plea that's subject to change).

Matt Bai of the New York Times on Thursday's Republican debate when all the candidates vowed they would never raise revenues even in a 10-to-1 cuts-to-spending ratio: "what any independent-minded voter saw in that moment were eight people who were not, in fact, serious about governing. They were serious about pandering to the marginal elements of their party. That’s about it." Then Bai goes on to write that Democrats would do the same thing if asked about Social Security. CW: Bai's evidence? Nothing. This mindless insistence on pushing the "both sides do it" meme, even when it isn't true, is an egregious assault on actual journalism. This is one of the worst examples I've ever seen: since Bai couldn't cite an actual case of Democrats "doing it," he just made one up. No wonder some of our commenters feel free to be fact-free; they see it on the pages of "the paper of record whatever." Update: I checked back later and a lot of the Times commenters called out Bai for his false equivalency. I find that pretty encouraging. ...

... CW: Now here's something we like to see moving into the MSM. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity.... Among those calling for a mix of cuts and revenues are onetime standard-bearers of Republican economic philosophy like Martin Feldstein, an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., Treasury secretary to President George W. Bush, underscoring the deepening divide between party establishment figures and the Tea Party-inspired Republicans in Congress and running for the White House.... Democrats are too cowed to counter much, given polls that show many Americans believe Mr. Obama’s 2009-10 stimulus package did not work, despite studies to the contrary."

** CW: I'm moving this forward from yesterday's Commentariat because it's such a worthwhile read: Weekend Reading. Don Peck writes a long essay in The Atlantic that won't cheer you any: In 2005, Citigroup analysts wrote that "America was composed of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the purposes of investment decisions, the second group didn’t matter; tracking its spending habits or worrying over its savings rate was a waste of time. All the action in the American economy was at the top: the richest 1 percent of households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent put together; they possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent [emphasis added]; and with each passing year, a greater share of the nation’s treasure was flowing through their hands and into their pockets. It was this segment of the population, almost exclusively, that held the key to future growth and future returns. The analysts ... had coined a term for this state of affairs: plutonomy.... Income inequality usually shrinks during a recession, but in the Great Recession, it didn’t. From 2007 to 2009, the most-recent years for which data are available, it widened a little."

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress examines the 11th Circuit Court's decision to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional. The bottom line is, "... the only real question in this case is whether the government is required to first take your money and then buy health coverage for you, or whether the Constitution allows Congress to cut out the middle man." You have to read Millhiser's post to grasp his logic. He also explains that the Clinton-appointed judge who ruled against the individual mandate is a conservative to the right of Supeme Court Chief Justice Roberts & Justice Scalia. ...

... E. J. Dionne on what dissenting Judge Stanley Marcus of the 11th Circuit got right. Marcus wrote, "The approach taken by the majority has also disregarded the powerful admonitions that acts of Congress are to be examined with a heavy presumption of constitutionality, that the task at hand must be approached with caution, restraint, and great humility, and that we may not lightly conclude that an act of Congress exceeds its enumerated powers."

Liz Goodwin in Yahoo! News: "Three recent [New York] Law School graduates are suing their alma mater in a $200 million class action, alleging they were deliberately misled about their future career prospects.... The plaintiffs say they were told the employment rate for NYLS alumni 9 months after graduation was between 90 and 95 percent. They say they had no idea that figure included people who were employed in jobs that don't require a law degree, or even a college degree. The percentage of recent graduates who are in jobs that require or prefer a J.D. may even be below 50 percent, they allege."

Contra the conventional wisdom, Nate Silver says the Ames straw poll "has a pretty good predictive track record." With graphs & tables, naturally.

Most Protests Are Astroturfed. Prof. David Meyer in a Washington Post op-ed: "Ostensibly spontaneous eruptions of political protest reflect the hard work and investment of organizers who cultivate grass-roots activism."

David Dayen of Firedoglake has an impressive rundown of local stories about ordinary Americans challenging Republican Tea Party members of Congress at townhall meetings. Includes video of a protest against Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) -- "Stop voting against jobs!" As Dayen notes, "If this organic movement were happening on the right, it would be front-page news in every national newspaper in the country. We know because the distinctly non-organic movement in 2009 was front-page news."

Rachel Maddow pays tribute to former Republican Sen. Mark Hatfield (Oregon), who died this week and current Republicans who occasionally aren't afraid of arithmetic, science & common sense:

A Crack in the Tea Potty? I did sign that pledge when I was first running [for the House in 2004]. I no longer sign any pledges. [A pledge] restrains your ability to think creatively.... I informed the organization I don't consider [the earlier pledge] binding. I don't care to be associated with it. It's too constraining.... We have a broken tax code that is skewed to the wealthy and corporations [who] know how to move capital around. -- Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), speaking at a townhall meeting, on the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge. ...

     ... CW: Fortenberry still has plenty of dumb economic ideas, like support for a balanced budget amendment, but he's moving in the right direction.

Right Wing World *

Corporations are people, my friend. -- Mitt Romney ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the corporate profits tax isn’t a tax on these organizations. It’s a tax on these organizations’ profits — the share of their income that does NOT go to workers and suppliers. Now, stockholders are people too — but they are, on average, quite rich people, who are doing very well as most Americans suffer." ...

... The Democratic National Committee pounces (figuratively):

... CW: you probably already knew this, but Romney is richy-rich. AP: "The immense fortune controlled by [Mitt] Romney and his wife, Ann, is worth $190 million to $250 million — within the same range as his 2007 presidential financial disclosure records, his campaign said. Romney's financial records, submitted Friday to meet a deadline set by the Federal Election Commission and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, valued his fortune at $86 million to $264 million." Despite a 2008 pledge to divest himself of investments that "would comport with my positions," "IRS records show that between 2007 and 2009, Romney's family charity, the Tyler Charitable Trust, continued to buy and sell other investments in companies that dealt with Iranian businesses, complied with Chinese censorship or aided in stem cell research."

Charles Blow: "... all the [Republican presidential] candidates ... confirm[ed] that they felt so strongly about not raising taxes that they would all walk away from a hypothetical deficit-reduction deal that was as extreme as 10 parts spending cuts to one part tax increases.... No person who would take such a stance is fit to be president of the United States or any developed country. Good governance in a democratic society is about the art of the deal, not fiats and dictum. You want leaders who stand up for principles but not in the way of progress." ...

... Kurt Andersen in the New York Times: "Keeping track of which politician has signed which pledge is head-spinning. These pledges make the politicians more like robots, built to respond in simple, unchanging ways."

Michele Bachmann's campaign team -- and her husband -- roughed up another MSM reporter, CNN's Don Lemon. Print story here. Last month, Bachmann's team "pounced on (literally), grabbed and pushed" ABC reporter Brian Ross when he tried to ask Bachmann a question.

* Where the government represents only the wealthiest one percent. And the Constitution-loving leaders abolish the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.

News Ledes

MSNBC is reporting that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has announced his candidacy for POTUS. No link. ...

     ... AP Update: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined the 2012 GOP race for president Saturday with an announcement sure to reverberate halfway across the country as his rivals competed in Iowa for the support of party activists. 'I full well believe I'm going to win,' Perry told South Carolina voters on a conference call about an hour before he planned to kick off the campaign with a speech in Charleston."

Washington Post: the Ames, Iowa Republican presidential straw poll is today. CW: it is, as Stephen Colbert explains, "a crucial test to see if a candidate can get Midwesterners to put down a food plate long enough to mark a ballot." ...

     ... Update: looks like the Des Moines Register is running a livestream on its front page. It's beginning now at 1:20 pm ET. It's on a teensy image, but you can supersize it. It begins with an invocation of Jesus' name. ...

     ... ** New York Times Update 2: Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll. Here's the Des Moines Register story. The CNN story is here. It ends on this note: "Only one Republican has won the straw poll and gone on to occupy the Oval Office: George W. Bush." 

Guardian: American artist Shepard Fairey, most famous for his Obama "Hope" poster, was beaten up outside a Copenhagen, Denmark bar early this morning, allegedly because of a controversy over his mural installation at a Copenhagen site formerly occupied by a left-wing community organization.

New York Times: "As leaders in the Arab world and other countries condemn President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on demonstrators in Syria, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has struck a far friendlier tone, urging the protesters not to 'sabotage' the state and hosting an official Syrian delegation. Mr. Maliki’s support for Mr. Assad has illustrated how much Iraq’s position in the Middle East has shifted toward an axis led by Iran. And it has also aggravated the fault line between Iraq’s Shiite majority, whose leaders have accepted Mr. Assad’s account that Al Qaeda is behind the uprising, and the Sunni minority, whose leaders have condemned the Syrian crackdown."

The Commentariat -- August 12

Okay, it now appears that my entire site is down. By accident, I was able to get this page up, but I probably won't be able to do so again, perhaps for 24 hours or more. So it may be that everything happens on Reality Chex Annex. This is getting to be more than I can handle....

     ... Update: the site is back in business but I'm still working on Off Times Square. I have learned the identity of an individual who was responsible for taking down the site last night. He apparently was looking for information about where I live. Because he was aware information available publicly was not up-to-date, I believe he may have stalked my neighborhood and may pose a threat to my safety. I have contacted the local police in the city where he resides.

I have put up a comments page on Reality Chex Annex on Paul Krugman's column: "what happens when influential people exploit a crisis instead of doing something about solving it."

The thing is that of course a commission concerned with the deficit should be concerned about jobs, as more jobs = 'free' way to cut deficit.... It's only in our crazy discourse that jobs aren't seen as central to the anti-deficit agenda. -- Atrios

President Obama spoke in Michigan yesterday. He puts some oomph behind this speech, in contrast to his most recent efforts, but he still won't say the words "Republican" or "Tea Party." The transcript is here:

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "We interrupt our regularly scheduled conversation about what President Obama hasn't done for the economy to bring you a reminder of what he has. And it comes in the form of a visit to Holland, Michigan.... Like the rest of Michigan, Holland has benefited substantially from Obama Administration policies."

Brian Beutler of TPM takes a quick look at the relevant backgounds of Nancy Pelosi's choices for the deficit super committee, Jim Clyburn (D-SC), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). ...

... Steve Benen: "... the key takeaway from the House Democratic selections is that all three are key, close allies of Pelosi, and they will very likely be representing her interests during the negotiations."

... Jack Gillum of the AP: "The 12 lawmakers appointed to a new congressional supercommittee charged with tackling the nation's fiscal problems have received millions in contributions from special interests with a direct stake in potential cuts to federal programs, an Associated Press analysis of federal campaign data has found."

Josh Boak of Politico: "A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans. Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that 'people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,' Mukherji said."

Rosalind Helderman & Peyton Craighill of the Washington Post: with a 14 percent approval rating, Congress is less popular than "Cloning sheep. Cloning humans, even. Caning teen vandals. Believing that aliens have descended from space and abducted humans." ...

     ... In this photo gallery, the Wash Po compares Congress to a few other entities. Here's one: "Congress is about as popular as BP was during the summer of 2010, after an explosion of one of its rigs caused millions of barrels of oil to spew into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil company’s approval rating in June 2010 was 13 percent, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, just one percentage point behind our current Congress."

Right Wing World *

Look, she has done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things, but it is an undisputable fact that in Congress her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent.... She’s got a record of misstating and making false statements. -- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, speaking of Rep. Michele Bachmann

When you were governor in Minnesota you implemented cap and trade in our state and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandates and called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance that the government would mandate. You said the era of small government was over. That sounds more like Barack Obama, if you ask me. -- Michele Bachmann, to Pawlenty

Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "As they tried to blame President Obama for the nation’s lowered credit rating, the Republican presidential candidates who squared off Thursday night in Iowa made several misleading, incomplete or simply false claims." CW: Cooper takes mild swipes at Romney & others, but he mostly whacks Bachmann.

Corporations are people, my friend. -- Mitt Romney, to an audience member who said Congress should raise taxes on corporations

Disproportionally wealthy people. -- Ezra Klein

It is a shocking admission from a candidate — and a party — that shamelessly puts forward policies to help large corporations and the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the middle class, seniors and students. -- Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee

Tim Egan: Gov. Rick "Perry’s tendency to use prayer as public policy demonstrates, in the midst of a truly painful, wide-ranging and potentially catastrophic crisis in the nation’s second most-populous state, how he would govern if he became president."

* Where you have to be even nicer to rich people. And pray a lot.

News Ledes

AP (via NYT): "A federal appeals court panel on Friday struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties. The divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the so-called individual mandate, siding with 26 states that had sued to block the law. But the panel didn't go as far as a lower court that had invalidated the entire overhaul as unconstitutional."

AP: "Bank stocks jumped Friday after several eurozone countries banned short selling, helping European markets push higher Friday ahead of expected further gains on Wall Street. The advance in Europe follows big gains in the U.S. Thursday, which helped support most stocks in Asia."

Al Jazeera: "Syrian security forces have opened fire at protesters in Deir ez-Zor, Idlib and Deraa after Friday prayers, according to media reports. Al Arabiya television said on Friday there were also demonstrations in the central city of Homs and the western city of Latakia. Earlier, Syrian security forces killed at least 11 people in raids near the Lebanon border and in the country's Sunni tribal heartland."

New York Times: "A withering critique of President Obama’s handling of the economy was overshadowed by a burst of incivility among the Republican presidential candidates who gathered here for a debate on Thursday night and fought to stay alive in the party’s increasingly fractious nominating race." ...

     ... Washington Post: "The last vestiges of 'Minnesota nice' fell by the wayside during a Republican debate here Thursday night, as the two candidates who have the most at stake in Iowa went after each other in the roughest exchange thus far in the race for the 2012 presidential nomination."