The Commentariat -- October 18
I've put up a comments page on Off Times Square. Write on anything you want.
"I Am Not Moving." Video by Corey Ogilvie, uploaded October 11. Thanks to reader Bonnie:
Greg Sargent: "Working America, the affiliate of the AFL-CIO that organizes workers from non-union workplaces, has signed up approximately 25,000 new recruits in the last week alone, thanks largely to the high visibility of the protests." Karen Nussbaum, the director of Working America, "acknowledges that conservatives might have some success discrediting the movement 'if they can change the subject to what the occupiers are wearing. But if we keep the subject on jobs and democracy, we’ll keep those working class moderates in this fight." CW: seriously, kids, if you want maximum effectiveness, show up for marches dressed as if you're going for a job interview in a red state.
... For more info on Playing for Change, go here.
Nate Silver on where the protesters are -- as it turns out, there are more on the West Coast than in New York and the East Coast.
Annie Lowrey of Slate: Why does Wall Street hate President Obama? While the reasons likely include his policies, his perceived ideology and their own psychological aberrations, Lowrey suggests the recent sudden turn from "cautious ingratitude" to "angry opposition" may be plain ole economics: Wall Street is not as profitable as it was even six months ago, and as many Americans do, the cats blame the President when they're not getting fatter. ...
... BUT Wall Street Loves Mitt (in case you can't read the legend, the big tall violet cylinders represent financial sector contributions to Romney, the blue are Obama & the little teeny red ones are Perry)"
... AND why not? After all, President Obama is not doing enough for Jeff Immelt, Obama's jobs-cutting jobs czar who is the CEO of the non-taxpaying GE. Scott Malone of Reuters: Immelt "held out Germany -- home to one of GE's biggest rivals, Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE) -- as an example of a wealthy country that has been successful in pushing exports. 'Chancellor (Angela) Merkel flies from Berlin to Beijing, there's 25 German CEOs that go on the plane right behind her. And they connect the dots. They play hard, they play to win,' Immelt said. President Barack Obama, he added, 'has been out driving and pushing to try to double exports in the next five years. I think we can compete very well. But we're not all-in the same way that the Germans are all-in.'" CW: This is the same whine Immelt made in his "60 Minutes" interview, which I posted last week. It's all about Jeff.
Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Democrats in the Senate will this week start to advance elements of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan piece-by-piece, challenging Republicans who have already nixed the package as a whole to likewise take vote after vote against its various planks."
David Crary of the AP: "As of Oct. 31, according to the U.N. Population Fund, there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources.... Experts say most of Africa — and other high-growth developing nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan — will be hard-pressed to furnish enough food, water and jobs for their people, especially without major new family-planning initiatives. 'Extreme poverty and large families tend to reinforce each other,' says Lester Brown, the environmental analyst who heads the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. 'The challenge is to intervene in that cycle and accelerate the shift to smaller families.'"
You probably should not miss this -- Herman Cain, then CEO of Godfather's Pizza, at a 1991 Omaha Press Club meeting. Dave Weigel has the lyrics:
Right Wing World *
Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: Chris Wallace of Fox "News" forgot where he worked Sunday & repeatedly pressed House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the economic analyses for the Republicans' so-called jobs plan. "Cantor kept dodging the question. He has no answer. Republican leaders in the House and Senate have each put out job plans. But the plans have slogans, not specifics: Less regulation, repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, and so on. Professional forecasters can't make serious estimates without more information." With video. ...
... Really, this is from Politico, not from The Onion. Jake Sherman: "Friday: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor ... is heading to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to talk about income disparity and how Republicans believe the government could help fix it." CW: probable suggested "fixes": cut taxes on the rich & eliminate regulation of Wall Street. Oh, Eric Cantor feels your pain.
Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine: Herman "Cain himself does, in fact, invoke race constantly. The context is almost always to absolve conservatives of racism, to assure them that they are less racist than the left. He ... [refers] to the "Democratic plantation." He ... [says] that, 'A lot of these liberal, leftist folk in this country, that are black, they're more racist than the white people that they're claiming to be racist.' He ... [announces] that 'most people have gotten past color, especially the Republican party.' Even if Cain decided midstream to switch from business plan pseudo-candidate to actual candidate, it is difficult to believe that many of his putative supporters would actually pull the lever for him."
Sick "Jokes" Have Consequences
We'll have a real fence, 20 ft. high with barbed wire, electrified, with a sign on the other side that says, 'It can kill you.' What do you mean insensitive? What is insensitive is when they come to the United States across our border and kill our citizens and kill our border-patrol people. -- Herman Cain, Saturday, to raucous applause
That is not a serious plan. I've also said America needs to get a sense of humor. That is a joke, O.K.? -- Herman Cain, Sunday, on "Meet the Press"
How can you joke about killing poor people who are searching for a better life? Jaime Carrillo, an accountant
Ioan Grillo of Time: "... when Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain joked about a killer electric fence to keep migrants out, political electric shocks surged rapidly south of the Rio Grande. From pulpits by the border to editorial offices in the capital [Mexico City], priests and editors vented their anger at comments they called 'stupid,' 'barbaric' and 'shameful.'"
CW: Playing "Can You Top This?" when it comes to identifying instances of Republican hypocrisy is a never-ending game in which the answer is always "Yes." Here's Alec MacGillis of The New Republic on Newt Gingrich & "death panels." Newt's duplicity is stunning, even for Newt.
* Where an interview is defined as saying something unrel ated to every question asked.
News Ledes
President Obama spoke at Greensville County High School in Emporia, Virginia this afternoon:
President Obama spoke at Guilford Technical College in Jamestown, North Carolina this morning. The video is here.
President Obama held a roundtable with educators in in Jamestown, North Carolina this morning. AP: "For President Barack Obama, the bus is back. That's the sleek, million-dollar, Secret Service-approved bus that's been carrying Obama along North Carolina's winding mountain roads, giving the president a chance to take in the fall foliage and bask in some small-town Southern hospitality."
New York Times: Secretary of State landed [in Tripoli] on Tuesday to demonstrate support for Libya’s new transitional government even as a senior administration official expressed concern that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remained a 'lethal nuisance.' Mrs. Clinton, the administration’s most ardent champion of the NATO-led intervention year, arrived here from Malta at noon to meet with the country’s new leaders, including the chairman of the Transitional National Council, Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil."
New York Times: "An Israeli soldier held for more than five years by the militant group was traded on Tuesday for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in an elaborate exchange that could shake up regional politics.... The soldier, Sergeant First Class , was taken from Gaza, where he had been held since being abducted in a cross-border raid in 2006, into Egypt and from there to , where he was given a quick medical check and declared in good health."
New York Times: "Just before the American-led strikes against in March, the Obama administration intensely debated whether to open the mission with a new kind of warfare: a cyberoffensive to disrupt and even disable the Qaddafi government’s air-defense system, which threatened allied warplanes.... But administration officials and even some military officers balked, fearing that it might set a precedent for other nations, in particular Russia or China...."
AP: "Bank of America says it earned $6.2 billion in the third quarter, largely from accounting gains and the sale of a stake in a Chinese bank."
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