The Commentariat -- October 3

It’s virtually impossible for participants in the current political system to enact any significant change without first seeking and gaining permission from the largest commercial interests who are most affected by the proposed change. -- Al Gore

Frank Rich: Christine O'Donnell provides cover for Republicans -- she's one of a very few true non-elites in the Republican stable:

By latching on to O’Donnell’s growing presence, the Rove-Boehner-McConnell establishment can claim it represents struggling middle-class Tea Partiers rather than Wall Street potentates and corporate titans.

Idle Rich: Millionaires Claim Jobless Benefits. Ryan Donmoyer of Bloomberg: "According to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 2,840 households reporting at least $1 million in income on their tax returns that year also collected a total of $18.6 million in jobless aid. They included 806 taxpayers with incomes over $2 million and 17 with incomes in excess of $10 million. In all, multimillionaires reported receiving $5.2 million in jobless benefits." ...

... Idle Poor. Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The nation's welfare system of cash assistance, for decades the core of help for mothers and children in financial distress, has become a shrunken piece of the U.S. social safety net. The welfare rolls have absorbed relatively few of the Americans who have tumbled lately into poverty or unemployment.... Three out of 10 children were poor last year.... State by state, welfare programs are a patchwork, with little connection between the condition of a state's economy and the number of people who have gone onto welfare. Welfare's role will be further diminished after Thursday, when emergency funds Congress began providing early last year to help states cope with hard economic times run out."

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, "started this summer [but] isn't living up to expectations. Enrollment lags in many parts of the country. People who could benefit may not be able to afford the premiums. Some state officials who run their own 'high-risk pools' have pointed out potential problems."

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "With ... [TARP]’s expiration on Sunday, we can expect to hear lots of claims from the folks at the Treasury that it was a great success.... But ... proclamations emanating from the Washington spin machine must be taken with an extra-hefty grain of salt.... The Dodd-Frank financial reform act ... has created a new set of institutions that will almost certainly be deemed too important to fail if they ever get into trouble. And that means there won’t really be an effective way to keep those firms from taking big, profitable, short-term risks that are dumped on the taxpayers when the bets fail...."

Jeff Zeleny & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "... the fight for control of Congress is more fluid than it seemed at Labor Day, with Democrats mounting strong resistance in some parts of the country as they try to hold off a potential Republican wave in November."

Here's a fun little game: the Supreme Court justices are seated according to seniority. See if you can seat the Supremes. Click on the image to go to the interactive page:

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The new Supreme Court term, which begins Monday, includes cases on some of the most contested issues of the day, including protests at military funerals, illegal immigration, support for religious schools, violent video games, DNA evidence and prosecutorial misconduct." Take a look at the cases to watch; Justice Kagan has recused herself on three of them.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court begins its new term Monday with unprecedented diversity among its members but also the potential for a split that would for the first time in decades reflect the partisan ideologies of the presidents who appointed them."

Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker has a deep-in-the-weeds analysis of why the climate bill failed. Funniest bit: John McCain yelling at Lindsey Graham for stealing McCain's "maverick" label; McCain later denied he had ever considered himself a maverick, even though he had repeatedly called himself a maverick.

According to the rough plans, the upper floors would include space for art exhibitions and interfaith programs. There would also be a 9/11 memorial and a space open to people of “all faiths and of no faith” for prayer, contemplation and meditation. Art by SOMA Architects, via the New York Times.Anne Barnard of the New York Times reviews "the tentative architectural renderings that the planners of the [proposed Islamic] center, called Park51."

Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars: "Without the benefit of months and months of advertising and promotion on Fox News Channel (in fact, I'm only aware of Ed Schultz on MSNBC doing any kind of TV promotion), the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington DC has gathered more supporters than Glenn Beck's much ballyhooed rally, which I will lovingly refer to as 'Whitestock'." With video.

Richard Escow of Curbing Wall Street: "... the banking industry covertly uses payday lenders as a 'front,' a way to prey on minority neighborhoods without getting their hands dirty."

Here in Florida.... Robert Trigaux of the St. Petersburg Times: "Even the tepid rebound of Florida's economy may face crippling delays in resolving hundreds of thousands of foreclosures in the Sunshine State.... Title insurance companies may be scared away from offering 'clear title' guarantees on foreclosed homes.... A study that found errors in about 75 percent of court filings tied to home repossessions.... Four [foreclosure law] firms are already under investigation by the Florida Attorney General's office." ...

... USA Today: "Old Republic National Title Insurance, among the nation's largest title insurance companies, will no longer write new policies for homes foreclosed upon by J.P. Morgan Chase and Ally Financial's GMAC Mortgage unit –– a sign that concerns about faulty foreclosure paperwork could now endanger new sales of foreclosed homes."

     ... The Backstory from Friday's New York Times: "Bank of America, the country’s largest mortgage lender by assets, said on Friday that it was reviewing documents in all of its pending foreclosure cases to evaluate if there were errors made. It is the third major lender in the last two weeks that has said it was freezing foreclosures in the 23 states where the process is controlled by courts." The other two are JP Morgan Chase & GMAC Mortgage.