The Commentariat -- March 6

The Full Michael Moore -- Madison, Wisconsin, March 5:

... CW: this is a speech we would have expected Barack Obama to make. He has never & will never come even close. Update: Moore has the transcript here. ...

... Backfire. Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "Organized labor has been on a long decline, but the recent attacks against it in Wisconsin and elsewhere have had a surprising result — they have energized the nation’s unions." ...

... ** Kevin Hall of McClatchy News: "... there's simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim." They amount to just 2.9 percent, on average, according to an independent research institution, or 3.8 percent according to another. "Though there's no direct comparison, state and local pension contributions approximate the burden shouldered by private companies.... Nor are state and local government pension funds broke. They're underfunded..., like ... plans by American private-sector employees — they sunk along with the entire stock market during ... 2007-2009. And like [private] 401(k) plans, the investments made by public-sector pension plans are increasingly on firmer footing...." ...

... Profs. Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson, authors of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, explain in a Washington Post op-ed, that the Wisconsin fight isn't about benefits; it's about union influence. "Decades of research have shown that the economic pyramid is flatter in countries where unions are stronger.... A recent study ... suggests that ... labor's decline may account for as much as a third of the rise in American wage inequality since the 1970s."

Russell Berman of The Hill: "The White House is showing no signs of letting up on its campaign for Ambassador Jon Huntsman’s presidential prospects - if anything, it’s in pile-on mode. Chief of Staff Bill Daley on Sunday heaped praise on Huntsman (R), Obama’s ambassador to China who is resigning his post and is said to be mulling a challenge to his boss for the presidency."

Karen Garcia reflects on President Obama's flirtation with that progressive Bush Dynasty.

You probably never thought you'd hear this question coming from Tom Friedman: "What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?"

Citibank repeated screwed up Dana Milbank's home mortgage: "... a simple refi became a months-long odyssey: rates misquoted, interest charged on a phantom account, legal documents issued in wrong names, a mortgage officer who disappeared for days at a time (first it was his birthday, then his laptop was in the shop), a bounced check from Citibank's own title company, and the freezing of our bank accounts.... It's a bad situation - and the new majority in the House is poised to make it even worse. Republicans are aiming to repeal the Home Affordable Modification Program...." ...

     ... David Dayan of Firedoglake on Milbank's column: "The past week has seen a pronounced evolution in the writing of Dana Milbank. Earlier in the week he severely criticized the incestuous relationship between the political and media culture in Washington – including engaging in a healthy dose of self-criticism -- revealed by the Kurt Bardella email scandal. Where did this newfound self-awareness come from? ... Milbank discovered that, regardless of his prominence in the DC journalism community or access to power, to the banks he was still nothing but a mark."

Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle: "... a set of WikiLeaks disclosures of confidential documents has caused an uproar in Europe by showing that U.S. officials pressured Germany and Spain to derail criminal investigations of Americans."

Jane Hamsher hears from Bradley Manning's attorney Dennis Coombs on the circumstances under which Manning, accused of leaking to WikiLeaks & imprisoned in a Quantico basement, is being "stripped each night and forced to report naked each morning in the same way prisoners were tortured at Abu Graib." Coombs details the events & writes,

Given these circumstances, the decision to strip PFC Manning of his clothing every night for an indefinite period of time is clearly punitive in nature. There is no mental health justification for the decision. ...

... Glenn Greenwald: "The treatment of Manning is now so repulsive that it even lies beyond what at least some of the most devoted Obama admirers are willing to defend." ...

... Digby -- by citing official documents -- implies Manning is being subjected to torture in an effort by the government to obtain a false confession. It could work. ...

... If you want an MSM report on Manning's treatment, Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post does a good job. ...

... Greg Mitchell, now of The Nation, has a brief report on the history of Manning's incarceration.

First, Fire All the Lawyers. John Markoff of the New York Times: "Now, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, 'e-discovery' software can analyze documents in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost [of lawyers]."

Spoon Wars. David A. Fahrenthold and Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: House Republicans ditch the supposedly environment-friendly cutlery in the House cafeteria for plastic.

Right Wing World

The President is going to be king of the world before this is all said and done and he is most likely the Beast spoken of in the Revelation. -- Margie Phelps, speaking on Fox "News" ...

... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Fox "News" invites Margie Phelps, an attorney for & daughter of the founder of the Westboro Church, to discuss the Supreme Court's decision supporting Westboro's right to express hate speech. Millhiser writes, "It's telling that in a week which featured deeply manipulative anti-worker tactics by the Ohio GOP, growing unrest in the Middle East, a court decision allowing implementation of the Affordable Care Act to move forward, and the Main Street Movement’s first steps to recall eight anti-worker lawmakers in Wisconsin, Fox decided to ignore these stories in order to focus on the important question of whether President Obama is the Antichrist." With video.

George Will: "... the [Republican] nominee [for president] may emerge much diminished by involvement in a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons." The candidates to whom the ultra-conservative Will refers are Mike Huckabee & Newt Gingrich.

The New Mitt. Paul West of the Los Angeles Times: "... in each of his runs for public office, [Mitt] Romney has remade himself." Now he's a man of the people. He wears jeans! He shops at fucking Wal-Mart!

A Wal-Mart shopper sorta wearing jeans who may or may not be Mitt.

Fox "News" is now reporting on alien life. It is now virtually impossible to parody Fox. But it's okay; they have tacitly agreed to do it for us so we don't have to. ...

... We Are All Space Aliens. Ken Layne of Wonkette sees the upside to the story: "

According to a distinguished scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a whole bunch of bacterial life arrived here on Earth inside a rare kind of meteorite that just happens to break apart on contact with water.... We might just be the worst space aliens in the universe. This, at least, explains Mitch McConnell. Anyway, it seems we have something close to proof that life is not unique to Earth.... Now, we can all acknowledge that we are descended from common alien space bugs — barnacles on the Ship of Existence — and we don’t ever have to talk about any of this ever again, right?" ...

... Unfortunately for Layne & Fox "News," Adrian Chen of Gawker pretty much -- though not entirely -- debunks the story, which in any event is at least seven years old. Not exactly "news." Nonetheless, "The article is now the most-read on Foxnews.com." CW: Fox knows its audience.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Moammar Gaddafi's loyalists escalated a lethal counterattack on Sunday, heightening assaults on rebel-held cities near his western stronghold of Tripoli and pushing back opposition forces attempting to advance toward the capital." ...

... Al Jazeera: "Sustained gunfire has erupted in the centre of Libya's capital, Tripoli, an area that has so far been relatively free of violence. It was unclear who was carrying out the shooting, which started at about 5:45am (0345 GMT) on Sunday...." ...

... AP: "Libyan helicopter gunships fired on a rebel force advancing west toward the capital Tripoli along the country's Mediterranean coastline Sunday and forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi fought intense ground battles with the rival fighters."

McClatchy News: "Trudging through dungeon-like cells and mounds of shredded documents, hundreds of Egyptians on Saturday surged into the Cairo headquarters of the dreaded State Security apparatus for an unprecedented look inside buildings where political prisoners endured horrific torture.... Some activists also were looking for evidence related to Egypt's role in the U.S. government's longtime practice of extraordinary rendition.... Protesters carted off armloads of files and turned them over to a prosecutor who arrived on the scene.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Buoyed by filmmaker Michael Moore's fiery speech and energized by the stand of 14 Democratic state senators who remained in Illinois, thousands of pro-labor demonstrators converged on the [Wisconsin] state Capitol on Saturday to protest against Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill." See video under today's Commentariat, plus brief AP video above.