Tag: TMC Politics

Dec 21 2011

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Ruth Marcus: Extremism in the pursuit of judges

In Newt Gingrich’s America, states that balked at desegregating their schools could have ignored the Supreme Court with impunity.

In Gingrich’s America, if the Supreme Court struck down the individual mandate to obtain health insurance, a reelected President Obama would be free to ignore the ruling and order the mandate enforced.

These are not far-fetched extrapolations of Gingrich’s views. They derive directly from his arguments for curbing the power of what he views as a “grotesquely dictatorial” judiciary.

At the center of his critique is Cooper v. Aaron, the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1958 ruling ordering the desegregation of the Little Rock schools, and rejecting Arkansas officials’ defiance of the mandate to desegregate.

Amy Goodman: Bradley Manning and the Fog of War

Accused whistle-blower Pvt. Bradley Manning turned 24 Saturday. He spent his birthday in a pretrial military hearing that could ultimately lead to a sentence of life … or death. Manning stands accused of causing the largest leak of government secrets in United States history.

More on Manning shortly. First, a reminder of what he is accused of leaking. In April 2010, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks released a video called “Collateral Murder.” It was a classified U.S. military video from July 2007, from an Apache attack helicopter over Baghdad. The video shows a group of men walking, then the systematic killing of them in a barrage of high-powered automatic fire from the helicopter. Soldiers’ radio transmissions narrate the carnage, varying from cold and methodical to cruel and enthusiastic. Two of those killed were employees of the international news agency Reuters: Namir Noor-Eldeen, a photojournalist, and Saeed Chmagh, his driver.

Renowned whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers that helped end the war in Vietnam and who himself is a Marine veteran who trained soldiers on the laws of war, told me: “Helicopter gunners hunting down and shooting an unarmed man in civilian clothes, clearly wounded … that shooting was murder. It was a war crime. Not all killing in war is murder, but a lot of it is. And this was.”

Katrina vanden Heuvel; The change I believe in

When President Obama was elected more than three years ago, many progressives had great expectations for what would follow. Many wanted to believe that one person, in one flying presidential leap, could transform the mess our political system had become. That he, alone, could deliver.

Three years later, progressives have learned the hard way that this isn’t, and never will be, the case. Democratic presidents succeed at advancing progressive causes when independent progressive movements push them to do so. Success at the ballot box is not a victory in and of itself. True victory comes when vibrant, sustainable movements create an energy around ideas that the White House has to chase. Those movements can be built on hope, but they are sustained with engagement of the kind that can outlast any given battle, any given term and any given presidency.

Maureen Dowd: Separation of Newt and State

Just when you thought Newt couldn’t get any more grandiose, he leaps in to save freedom of religion in the most religiously free place on earth.

On his Web site Tuesday, he urgently vowed to establish a White House commission “On Day One” of his presidency (heaven forefend) “to examine and document threats or impediments to religious freedom in the United States.”

Watching his numbers falling in Iowa, he doubled down on his unconstitutional assault on “activist judges,” saying he would investigate “the extent to which courts throughout the U.S. are undermining the First Amendment and misconstruing the historical basis for religious freedom in America.”

Donna Smith: Un-Happy Holidays for Seniors and the Disabled – Here’s Your Donut

It isn’t sugar plums dancing in their dreams for America’s seniors and disabled who are covered by the Medicare program.  It’s donuts.  Donut holes into which many fall at this time of the year as they reach the maximum limits of the first tier of “Part D” prescription drug benefits.

I watched my 67-year-old husband trudge up the driveway on a recent morning as I pulled away.  He had just showed me the printout of his drug costs for the year.  He’s reached the Medicare Part D donut hole by using more than $3,000 in prescription benefits.  He is disheartened because  his costs tripled at just the time of the year when grandfathers like to be thinking about other things instead of how to manage the cost of their prescriptions or which drugs can be cut in half and still do some good to get through to January 1 and a new benefit year.

Michelle Chen: With Anti-Immigrant Law, Alabama is Again Ground Zero for Civil Rights

It’s not often that human rights and business profits line up on the same side of a political debate, but Alabama is a special place. The Cotton State was not only ground zero for some of the worst abuses under Jim Crow; it was also the flashpoint for early struggles that fused economic empowerment with civil rights, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Today, Alabama is once again a focal point for racial and class struggles, ignited by an anti-immigrant law that tests our definitions of economic citizenship in a world of fluid borders.

The law, HB 56, mirrors many of the “copycat” anti-immigrant bills that have gone viral in state legislatures from Arizona to Indiana. It would impose onerous identification requirements that encourage police to arrest and detain anyone who couldn’t present the right papers. Although some of the harsher provisions were blocked by a federal court earlier this year, the legislation (signed into law in June) still threatens to further demonize immigrants and to crystallize the racist ideology driving a two-tier economy, where the privileges of the elite are subsidized by the vicious exploitation of the 99 percent.

Laura Flanders: Singing the Recall Carol in Wisconsin

Solidarity singers faced down a new set of state policies intended to regulate and put a price on assembly and free speech at the Wisconsin state capitol, Monday.

Solidarity sing-alongs began at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison on March 11, 2011, and they’ve continued at noon every weekday since. Last Friday, the Capitol supposedly set up new rules for access to state buildings, the new policy requires permits for gatherings of 100 or more outside the Capitol, while permits are needed for gatherings inside of four or more people. Both need to be applied for seventy-two hours in advance of the event and there’s a $50 charge per hour, per police officer deployed. Solidarity Sing-Along participants say the policy is directed specifically at their singing, but at noon Monday the singers were there-in unusually large numbers and high spirits-encouraged by news that in just one month, more than half a million signatures have been gathered to recall Governor Scott Walker.

Dec 20 2011

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

New York Times Editorial: The Middle-Class Agenda

Earlier this month, President Obama delivered his first unabashed 2012 campaign speech. Unlike his opponents, Mr. Obama acknowledged the ravages of income equality, the hollowing out of the American middle class. There is no hyperbole in the urgency he conveyed about “a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class.”

The challenge for Mr. Obama is to translate the plight of the middle class into an agenda for broad prosperity. Congress’s inability to cleanly extend even emergency measures though 2012 – including the temporary payroll tax cut and federal unemployment benefits – underscores the difficulty. The alternative is continued decline.

Recent government data show that 100 million Americans, or about one in three, are living in poverty or very close to it. Of 13.3 million unemployed Americans now searching for work, 5.7 million have been looking for more than six months, while millions more have given up altogether. Even a job is no guarantee of middle-class security. The real median income of working-age households has declined, from $61,600 in 2000 to $55,300 in 2010 – the result of abysmally slow job growth even before the onset of the recession.

Joe Nocera: An Inconvenient Truth

There is so much about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that we should be angry about.

In their heyday, these strange hybrids – part corporation, part government agency – were the biggest bullies in Washington, quick to bludgeon critics who dared suggest that their dual missions of maximizing profits while making homeownership affordable for low- and moderate-income Americans were incompatible. They steamrolled their regulator and pushed back at any suggestion that their capital was inadequate.

For years, they essentially wrote most of the legislation that affected them, which they larded with loopholes. In the mid-2000s, they had giant accounting scandals. Eventually, their quest for profits led them to make a belated, disastrous foray into subprime mortgages, which ended with their collapse, and which has cost taxpayers about $150 billion. Tragically, Fannie and Freddie could have led a housing recovery – if they hadn’t become crippled wards of the state instead.

Dean Baker: The Cowardly Senator Wyden: Casting His Lot With Paul Ryan on Health Care

Years ago, members of the elite showed their courage by leading troops into battle. They risked their own lives for the greater good. (Never mind that the wars being fought often did not serve anything resembling the “greater good.”)

Things are different today. In the land of the 1 percent, the way you show your courage is by demonstrating your willingness to beat up on the elderly. That gets you bucketloads of campaign contributions, high praise from The Washington Post in both its news and opinion pages, and could even get you named Person of the Year by Time Magazine.

Last week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) stood up to do the big kick. He decided to join ranks with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) on a proposal to replace Medicare with a voucher-type system. The claim  was that with increased competition, we will be able to lower costs.

George Zornick: The Payroll Tax Cut Gets the Fox News Treatment

A now-familiar theme is playing out today in Washington. A grand bargain worked out between leaders from both parties gains significant steam and heads for passage, only to careen off the rails at the last minute when far-right members of the House of Representatives lay down on the tracks. So why does this keep happening?

On Saturday morning, the Senate passed a bill that would extend a payroll tax cut and federal unemployment insurance for two more months, while preventing doctors from losing over a quarter of their annual Medicare payments. It also contained a Republican provision to force President Obama to issue a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline within sixty days.

Democrats wanted more-they originally asked for a year-long payroll tax cut, at a lower rate, and paid for with a surtax on incomes over $1 million. And even if the Keystone provision could kill the project, as the Obama administration is now signaling, Democrats didn’t want that in there, either.

John Nichols: “Occupy Iowa Caucus” Rejects Obama, Urges “Uncommitted” Vote

President Obama faces no serious challenge from an individual on the left in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

But that does not mean that Obama will get all the votes cast by Democrats on January 3.

Peace and economic justice activists, some of them associated with a newly launched “Occupy Iowa Caucus” campaign, are arguing that caucus goers should reject the president and instead vote for “uncommitted” slates.

“Uncommitted” slates have won Iowa caucuses before. In 1972 and 1976, more Democratic caucus votes were cast for the “uncommitted” option than for any of the announced candidates. As recently as 1992, “uncommitted” beat Bill Clinton.

Neal Peirce: President Obama’s Puzzling Silence on Marijuana Policy

WASHINGTON – “Dance with the One that Brought You” is the title of a well-known song. But the Urban Dictionary offers a deeper meaning: “The principle that someone should pay proper fealty to those who have gone out of their way to look after them.”

Barack Obama should pay attention. In 2008, young voters were enthused and turned out for him by the millions.

But now? The campus/youth enthusiasm factor has declined sharply. The deficiency seriously imperils Obama’s re-election effort.

There’s one issue, though, that might reignite youthful enthusiasm. That issue is marijuana – partly its medical use, but especially Americans’ right to recreational use free of potential arrest and possible prison time.

Dec 19 2011

Newt Is Nuts

Who knew? Presidential candidate for the GOP nomination, Newt Gingrich is like the family’s crazy uncle that gets let out for family gatherings and then gets sent back to is room. His recent emergence as the “favorite” for the nomination has met with some harsh criticism and not just from the left. Many of the right wing punditry are not happy with Newt Gingrich’s surge in the polls for the nomination. During Newt’s interview on Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer, he said he would have “activist judges” (translation: judges who disagree with Newt) hauled before Congress to answer for their decisions, if necessary arresting them:

   SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a Congressional hearing… how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?

   GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal.

I have no idea how Schieffer didn’t react with disbelieving “what?” much like Barbara Walters’ response when Herman Cain said he would want to be Secretary of Defense.

Obviously Newt is off the rails and a couple of former Republican Attorney Generals with some questionable constitutional decisions under their belts think so, too. Former attorney generals Alberto Gonzalez and Michael Mukasey, also a former judge, weighed in on Newt’s judicial lunacy to defy the Supreme Court and, if necessary according to Newt, eliminate the courts that disagree with him all together. In appearances on Fox News they called Newt’s ideas “ridiculous,” “irresponsible,” “outrageous,” and “dangerous”:

   KELLY: He wants to see the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals entirely abolished, your thoughts on that?

   MUKASEY: Ridiculous. . . . to say that you’re going to undo and entire court simply because you don’t like some of their decisions, when there are thousands of cases before that court, is totally irresponsible. It’s outrageous because it essentially does away with the notion that when courts decide cases the proper way to have them reviewed is to go to a higher court. It’s dangerous because, even from the standpoint of the people who put it forward, you have no guarantee that you’ll have a permanent majority. . . . It would end with having a Democratic majority that then decides to abolish the Fourth Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit. And you go on and on and on. And I guess they could then reconstitute another court. It would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had a similar reaction:

   GONZALES: The notion or the specter of bringing judges before the Congress, like a schoolchild being brought before the principal is, to me, a little bit troubling . . . . I cannot support and I would not support efforts that appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges.

Keep in mind that these two men, supported some if the most unconstitutionally egregious of George W. Bush’s policies, including torture.

But poor Newt, he’s even slipping in the polls. According to Public Policy Polling, Rep. Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa:

Newt Gingrich’s campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa.  He’s at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson.

Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row.  His share of the vote has gone from 27% to 22% to 14%.  And there’s been a large drop in his personal favorability numbers as well from +31 (62/31) to +12 (52/40) to now -1 (46/47). Negative ads over the last few weeks have really chipped away at Gingrich’s image as being a strong conservative, now only 36% of voters believe that he has ‘strong principles,’ while 43% think he does not.

Paul’s ascendancy is a sign that perhaps campaigns do matter at least a little, in a year where there has been a lot of discussion about whether they still do in Iowa.  22% of voters think he’s run the best campaign in the state compared to only 8% for Gingrich and 5% for Romney. The only other candidate to hit double digits on that question is Bachmann at 19%. Paul also leads Romney 26-5 (with Gingrich at 13%) with the 22% of voters who say it’s ‘very important’ that a candidate spends a lot of time in Iowa.  Finally Paul leads Romney 29-19 among the 26% of likely voters who have seen one of the candidates in person.

Iowa is no predictor of who will get the nomination and the caucuses are an undemocratic form of voting with no absentee ballots and very low voter turn out but Iowa is a predictor for early primary states. However, the recent harsh criticism from right wing politicians and pundits may keep Newt out of the Oval Office. Poor crazy Newt. Back to your room.

Dec 19 2011

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

New York Times Editorial: A Fraction of a Tax Cut

If you looked quickly at what the Senate did on Saturday, it seemed as if it agreed to President Obama’s proposal for short-term middle-class relief by extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance. In fact, that’s not quite what happened.

The two programs were approved in a severely diminished form. Because Republicans rejected a millionaire’s tax surcharge to pay for the extension, negotiators could not reach agreement on a full year’s offset, and instead settled for a measly two more months.

In exchange for those eight short weeks of stimulus, Republicans won a provision that forces the president to make a decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada in the next 60 days, instead of waiting until after the election. In a sense, the provision liberates Mr. Obama to do the right thing and immediately reject the pipeline, an environmentally treacherous proposal that would create few jobs. The State Department will not have enough information to approve the pipeline in such a short period.

Paul Krugman: Will China Break?

Consider the following picture: Recent growth has relied on a huge construction boom fueled by surging real estate prices, and exhibiting all the classic signs of a bubble. There was rapid growth in credit – with much of that growth taking place not through traditional banking but rather through unregulated “shadow banking” neither subject to government supervision nor backed by government guarantees. Now the bubble is bursting – and there are real reasons to fear financial and economic crisis.

Am I describing Japan at the end of the 1980s? Or am I describing America in 2007? I could be. But right now I’m talking about China, which is emerging as another danger spot in a world economy that really, really doesn’t need this right now.

Robert Kuttner: The Delusion of a Radical Center

A well-funded, faux-reformist group known as Americans Elect is promoting a third party presidential candidacy and anticipates qualifying its candidate to be on the ballot in nearly all states. It is doing this by collecting millions of petition signatures, over 2.2 million so far, taking advantage of voter frustration with political blockage in Washington. The actual candidate will be decided later, by Internet Convention.

Despite the superficial populism, just about everything about this exercise is misguided.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Newt Gingrich and the revenge of the base

It is one of the true delights of a bizarrely entertaining Republican presidential contest to watch the apoplectic fear and loathing of so many GOP establishmentarians toward Newt Gingrich. They treat him as an alien body whose approach to politics they have always rejected.

In fact, Gingrich’s rise is the revenge of a Republican base that takes seriously the intense hostility to President Obama, the incendiary accusations against liberals and the Manichaean division of the world between an “us” and a “them” that his party has been peddling in the interest of electoral success.

Ben Adler: Caucuses Will Still Lack Absentee Voting

Amid all the concern over Republican efforts to impose onerous requirements on voting such as photo identification laws, it’s worth remembering that the biggest impediment to voting in primaries has existed for decades, without any signs of correction: caucuses. Caucuses are anti-democratic and one of the worst infringement of voting rights in our current electoral system.

Unlike in a normal election or primary, where you can stop by any time during the day and vote by absentee ballot, caucuses require that you arrive within a very narrow window of time, typically in the early evening, and stay for the duration, which can last several hours. Anyone unable to do so is disenfranchised. If you have to stay to take care of children or an elderly parent, or if you’re the babysitter or home health aide hired to do so, you cannot vote. If you are disabled or a night shift worker, you cannot vote. If you are out of town for any reason, including active-duty military personnel, you cannot vote. That’s why caucuses have much lower turnout than primaries. For example, according to the Century Foundation, 30 percent of eligible New Hampshire citizens voted in the 2004 primary but only 6 percent of eligible Iowans caucused. In 2008 turnout in the Iowa caucus was 16.1 percent, compared to 53.6 percent in New Hampshire. As this chart demonstrates, other caucus states had abysmal turnout in 2008, always under 10 percent and usually closer to 5 percent, while primary states typically got at least 20 percent turnout.

Ian Ayers and Aaron S. Edlin: Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself.

THE progressive reformer and eminent jurist Louis D. Brandeis once said, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” Brandeis lived at a time when enormous disparities between the rich and the poor led to violent labor unrest and ultimately to a reform movement.

Over the last three decades, income inequality has again soared to the sort of levels that alarmed Brandeis. In 1980, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans made 9.1 percent of our nation’s pre-tax income; by 2006 that share had risen to 18.8 percent – slightly higher than when Brandeis joined the Supreme Court in 1916.

Congress might have countered this increased concentration but, instead, tax changes have exacerbated the trend: in after-tax dollars, our wealthiest 1 percent over this same period went from receiving 7.7 percent to 16.3 percent of our nation’s income.

Thoma B. Edsall: The Trouble With That Revolving Door

Last week, an inside-the-Beltway newsletter, First Street, published a unique top-ten list. It reveals which former members of Congress are among the most important Washington lobbyists. [..]

For Obama and Democratic leaders who are trying to set an election agenda focused on income inequality, wage stagnation, and downward mobility for the middle and lower class, the prominence of Democratic lobbyists has become problematic.

Dec 19 2011

Kicking Americans In The Can

No holiday vacation for you, Mr. President.

Boehner Says House G.O.P. Opposes Deal on Payroll Tax

Speaker John A. Boehner, who had urged his members on Saturday to support the legislation, did what appeared to be an about-face on Sunday when he said that he and other House Republicans were opposed to the temporary extension, part of a $33 billion package of bills that the Senate easily passed Saturday. In addition to extending the payroll tax cut for millions of American workers, the legislation extended unemployment benefits and avoided cuts in payments to doctors who accept Medicare. The measure would be effective through February.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press” , Mr. Boehner said the two-month extension would be “just kicking the can down the road.”

“It’s time to just stop, do our work, resolve the differences and extend this for one year,” Mr. Boehner said. “How can you have tax policy for two months?”

He said that Republicans wanted to extend the payroll cut for a year, but that it would have to be financed with cuts in the existing budget. When Congressional aides announced the deal on Friday, they said the items it contained were fully paid for.

If you can stand to watch the Orange Man, from Meet the Press (I’ll spare you the entire 15 minutes):

   Boehner: Well, it’s pretty clear that I, and our members, oppose the senate bill. … How can you do tax policy for two months? So, we really do believe it’s time for the Senate to work with the House, to complete our business for the year. We’ve got two weeks to get this done. let’s do it the right way.

   Gregory: So your suggesting start over, make this a one year extension. Should the Senate start from scratch?

   Boehner: No, what I’m suggesting is this. The House has passed its bill, the Senate has passed its bill. Under the Constitution, when we have these disagreements, there could be a formal conference between both chambers to resolve the differences.

Speaker Boehner is reneging on a bipartisan deal the was negotiated with the Senate and passed with a large majority of 89 votes that included 39 Republicans. The Senate has adjourned until after the holidays, so the likelihood of a conference committee at this point is not happening.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he won’t call the Senate back to negotiate on Mr. Boehner’s demand to negotiate an extended payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance and a doctor’s fix on Medicare reimbursement rates until after the House passes the two month stop gap bill. David Dayen at FDL has this statement from Reid’s office::

Senator Reid has been trying to negotiate a yearlong extension of the payroll tax credit with Republicans for weeks. He is happy to continue negotiating a yearlong extension as soon as the House passes the Senate’s short-term, bipartisan compromise to make sure middle class families will not be hit by a thousand-dollar tax hike on January 1.

It’s not like this bill was negotiated in a vacuum, Mr. Boehner was part of the discussion with both Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and he had asked for a compromise:

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said that Mr. Boehner had asked him and the minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, to work out a compromise on the tax cut and that it had been agreed to by both political parties.

“Neither side got everything they wanted, but we forged a middle ground that passed the Senate by an overwhelming bipartisan majority,” Mr. Reid said in a statement. “If Speaker Boehner refuses to vote on the bipartisan compromise that passed the Senate with 89 votes, Republicans will be forcing a thousand-dollar tax increase on middle-class families on Jan. 1.”

If the House leadership thinks that this tactic is going to help the GOP chances of holding the House and taking back the Senate and White House from the Democrats, I have a couple bridges I’d like to sell him.

 

Dec 18 2011

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

Up with Chris Hayes: If you are an earlier riser on weekends or, like me, up all night working and just getting home, Hayes is a good watch and has some very interesting guests and discussions. Guests are not announced adding to the spontaneity of the format.

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: This Week starts a series of debates. This week’s topic is the role and scope of government on issues such as entitlements, taxes, and regulations. The panelists are House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), columnist George Will, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Sunday’s guest will be Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post Columnist, Rick Stengel, TIME Managing Editor, Chuck Todd, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Guests are Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC). Roundtable guests are Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Republican strategist Mike Murphy.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley:Substitute host Joe Johns guests are Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), GOP Presidential Candidate  Jon Huntsman, former presidential envoy to Iraq, Paul Bremer, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright (Ret.) and Robin Wright author of “Rock the Casbah”.

Dec 17 2011

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Gail Collins: An Early Holiday Hangover

Right now you’re probably asking yourself: What’s up with reproductive rights this holiday season?

And the answer is: a lot! This is America, and we don’t restrict our battles over people’s sex lives to 11 months a year.

Just this week in Washington, House Republicans were thwarted in their attempt to tie the latest bill providing money to keep the government going with the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Those two things aren’t necessarily linked in most citizens’ minds, but everything reminds the House Republicans of their hatred of Planned Parenthood. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. “Jingle Bells.” A partridge in a pear tree.

Their rancor has been a sort of a Christmas present to Planned Parenthood itself. “It’s been such a stunning year,” said Cecile Richards, the organization’s perpetually embattled president. “More than a million new activists joined Planned Parenthood, and our approval rating is at 68 percent. Congress is I think at 9.” (It may be time to stop pointing out that you have a higher approval rating than Congress. Really, everything has a higher approval rating than Congress. Termites. Zombies. Donald Trump.)

Charles M. Blow: Inconvenient Income Inequality Inconvenient Income Inequality

Is income inequality becoming the new global warming? In other words, is this another case where the facts of an existential threat lose traction among a weary American public as deniers attempt to reduce them to partisan opinions?

It’s beginning to seem so.

A Gallup poll released on Thursday found that, after rising rather steadily for the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who said that the country is divided into “haves” and “have-nots” took the largest drop since the question was asked.

This happened even as the percentage of Americans who grouped themselves under either label stayed relatively constant. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans still see themselves as the haves, while only about a third see themselves as the have-nots. The numbers have been in that range for a decade.

This is the new American delusion. The facts point to a very different reality.

Ted Rall: Obama’s “Mission Accomplished”

Troops and Prisons Move, Wars and Torture Never Ends

Most Americans–68 percent–oppose the war against Iraq, according to a November 2011 CNN poll. So it’s smart politics for President Obama to take credit for withdrawing U.S. troops.

As it often is, the Associated Press’ coverage was slyly subversive: “This, in essence, is Obama’s mission accomplished: Getting out of Iraq as promised under solid enough circumstances and making sure to remind voters that he did what he said.”

Obama’s 2008 campaign began by speaking out against the war in Iraq. (Aggression in Afghanistan, on the other hand, was not only desirable but ought to be expanded.) However, actions never matched his words. On vote after vote in the U.S. Senate Obama supported the war. Every time.

As president, Obama has claimed credit for a December 2011 withdrawal deadline negotiated by his predecessor George W. Bush–a timeline he wanted to protract. If the Iraqi government hadn’t refused to extend immunity from prosecution to U.S. forces, this month’s withdrawal would not have happened.

William B. Gould IV: Crippling the Right to Organize

UNLESS something changes in Washington, American workers will, on New Year’s Day, effectively lose their right to be represented by a union. Two of the five seats on the National Labor Relations Board, which protects collective bargaining, are vacant, and on Dec. 31, the term of Craig Becker, a labor lawyer whom President Obama named to the board last year through a recess appointment, will expire. Without a quorum, the Supreme Court ruled last year, the board cannot decide cases.

What would this mean?

Workers illegally fired for union organizing won’t be reinstated with back pay. Employers will be able to get away with interfering with union elections. Perhaps most important, employers won’t have to recognize unions despite a majority vote by workers. Without the board to enforce labor law, most companies will not voluntarily deal with unions.

New York Times Editorial: Beyond Durban

Startling new evidence that global carbon dioxide emissions are rising faster than ever did little to increase the urgency of the climate talks in Durban, South Africa, which concluded earlier this week. Once again, the world’s negotiators kicked the can down the road.

Even as delegates from nearly 200 countries were meeting, the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists, reported that emissions from carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, the main greenhouse gas, had jumped 5.9 percent in 2010, the sharpest one-year rise on record. The report also said that carbon emissions cumulatively had risen by an astonishing 49 percent since 1990, higher than any previous estimate.

Nobody had expected great progress from Durban, the 17th in a series of habitually quarrelsome and mostly unproductive gatherings since the same countries met in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro under the auspices of the United Nations and agreed to address the gradual warming of the earth.

John Nichols: Can Paul Ryan-and His Agenda-Be Beat? It’s Possible

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, is the poster boy for the assault on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. His budget plan, which laid the groundwork for the undermining of those essential programs and their eventual privatization, speaked a national outcry earlier this year. A historically Republican Congressional seat in western New York fell to the Democrats in a special election that turned largely on the question of Ryan’s austerity agenda.

But could Ryan himself be beat in 2012?

It’s possible. His southeastern Wisconsin district has elected Democrats in the past. It voted for Barack Obama in 2008. And even after a Republican-friendly redistricting, it is still home to traditionally Democratic towns such as Racine, Kenosha and Janesville.

Ryan faces a determined challenger in Democrat Rob Zerban, a local elected official in Kenosha who has been running hard all year. And a new poll suggests that Zerban, who has made the defense of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid the core theme of his campaign, poses a genuine threat to the Republican incumbent.

Leslie Savan: Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul Pop GOP Bubbles in Sioux City Debate

Here’s how conservative, self-described “word doctor” Frank Luntz  labeled each of the candidates immediately after the Republican debate on Fox News last night. Luntz told Sean Hannity:

   Newt defined himself as the Reagan conservative,

   Mitt Romney, the private-sector conservative,

   Ron Paul, the civil liberties conservative,

   Rick Santorum, the conviction conservative,

   Jon Huntsman, the consistent conservative,

   Michele Bachmann, the female conservative,

   and my favorite is Rick Perry, the Tim Tebow conservative.

Whatever you think of these flattering tags, note that Bachmann doesn’t even warrant one. Luntz gives each of the guys a value-laden adjective, but Bachmann is merely “the female conservative.” Which is odd, because last night the Minnesota congresswoman clearly proved herself to be the cojones conservative.

We might not see much of her if she does poorly in the Iowa caucuses next month, but let it be known that in Sioux City only she and Ron Paul (and to a lesser extent Huntsman) really punctured some establishment Republican verities: he, on war; she, on buying favors in Washington.

Dec 16 2011

Slow, Steady Calls For Investigating Foreclosure Fraud

Some encouraging news in the on going call for an investigation into foreclosure fraud, Sen Maria Cantwell (D-WA) called for Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the fraud before letting the bank off with a pitiful settlement $20 billion and a “get out of jail” card for criminal charges, She also demanded a full investigation into robo-signing scandal and ‘pump and dump’ mortgage bubble scheme:

I am concerned that recently reported settlement proposals will effectively absolve these financial institutions of substantial civil and criminal liability in one of the largest alleged fraud schemes during the financial crisis. Specifically, I am concerned that the proposed settlement includes a release from liability that may be far too sweeping, does not adequately compensate victims, does not require enough of banks to reform the system that led to the crisis in the first place, and is being made before all the facts are known and without the backing of a full inquiry into the size and scope of the alleged fraud.

…

Without a thorough investigation, it is impossible to truly estimate just how pervasive the defects in the foreclosure and securitization process are. Continued reports of wrongful foreclosures, forged documents, and an inability of servicers and banks to prove chain of title and the legal right to foreclosure, raises the very alarming possibility that these defects were endemic to the mortgage servicing industry across the country. The sheer magnitude of the potential fallout from these defects demands that we undertake a full investigation to uncover the true scope of wrongdoing before providing blanket immunity to the perpetrators.

I am also concerned that reports of a settlement in the range of $20 billion, as recently reported, may not adequately compensate the victims of the foreclosure crisis. As a result of the pump-and-dump scheme perpetrated by the nation’s largest banks that inflated – and burst – the housing bubble, an estimated 14 million Americans are underwater, owing $700 billion more on their homes than those homes are worth. A $20 billion settlement is woefully inadequate to compensate the wrongfully evicted or homeowners struggling to stay in their homes. Much more should be required of banks to provide meaningful help underwater homeowners and compensate foreclosure fraud victims.

And some good news for homeowners facing foreclosure in Florida:

WEST PALM BEACH – Home­owners in foreclosure may have a better chance of getting a true trial, instead of a quickie judgment, following a 4th District Court of Appeal decision that requires banks to prove ownership of the note at the time they file for repossession.

The ruling Wednesday in Palm Beach County was heralded by foreclosure defense attorneys who said it may even force banks to dismiss some cases and start over with new paperwork.[..]

Wednesday’s ruling was on the case of Robert McLean vs. JPMorgan Chase, and involved a 2009 Broward County foreclosure.

According to the decision, which reversed a lower court’s verdict in favor of the bank, Chase originally filed the foreclosure claiming the note – basically the IOU from the borrower – was “lost, stolen or destroyed.”

The claim has been made thousands of times as lenders rushed without the proper documentation to take back homes tangled up in the real estate boom’s securitization frenzy.

Although most notes are found before a final foreclosure judgment is entered, the 4th DCA said the note also must be correctly dated and endorsed to show ownership before the foreclosure was initially filed – something that Chase didn’t have, according to the ruling. The court also questioned a mortgage assignment made to Chase that was dated three days after the foreclosure was initially filed.

If there is substantial doubt about the note, the bank should dismiss and refile the case or the home­owner should be entitled to an evidentiary hearing instead of a more hasty “summary judgment,” the ruling said.

Dec 16 2011

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Paul Krugman: G.O.P. Monetary Madness

When it comes to views on economics, Republicans have been consistent, clear and wrong.When it comes to views on economics, Republicans have been consistent, clear and wrong.

Apparently the desperate search of Republicans for someone they can nominate not named Willard M. Romney continues. New polls suggest that in Iowa, at least, we have already passed peak Gingrich. Next up: Representative Ron Paul.

In a way, that makes sense. Mr. Romney isn’t trusted because he’s seen as someone who cynically takes whatever positions he thinks will advance his career – a charge that sticks because it’s true. Mr. Paul, by contrast, has been highly consistent. I bet you won’t find video clips from a few years back in which he says the opposite of what he’s saying now.

Unfortunately, Mr. Paul has maintained his consistency by ignoring reality, clinging to his ideology even as the facts have demonstrated that ideology’s wrongness. And, even more unfortunately, Paulist ideology now dominates a Republican Party that used to know better.

New York Times Editorial: Politics Over Principle

President Obama has caved in to political pressure and will sign a dangerous bill that will make indefinite detention and military trials part of American law.

The trauma of Sept. 11, 2001, gave rise to a dangerous myth that, to be safe, America had to give up basic rights and restructure its legal system. The United States was now in a perpetual state of war, the argument went, and the criminal approach to fighting terrorism – and the due process that goes along with it – wasn’t tough enough.

President George W. Bush used this insidious formula to claim that his office had the inherent power to detain anyone he chose, for as long as he chose, without a trial; to authorize the torture of prisoners; and to spy on Americans without a warrant. President Obama came into office pledging his dedication to the rule of law and to reversing the Bush-era policies. He has fallen far short.

Fallen short? He has embraced and strengthened the worst of the Bush agenda.

William K. Black: Dante’s Divine Comedy: Banksters Edition

Sixty Minutes‘ December 11, 2011 interview of President Obama included a claim by Obama that, unfortunately, did not lead the interviewer to ask the obvious, essential follow-up questions.

   “I can tell you, just from 40,000 feet, that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn’t illegal.”

Obama did not explain what Wall Street behavior he found least ethical or what unethical Wall Street actions he believed was not illegal. It would have done the world (and Obama) a great service had he been asked these questions. He would not have given a coherent answer because his thinking on these issues has never been coherent. If he had to explain his position he, and the public, would recognize it was indefensible. I offer the following scale of unethical banker behavior related to fraudulent mortgages and mortgage paper (principally collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)) that is illegal and deserved punishment. I write to prompt the rigorous analytical discussion that is essential to expose and end Obama and Bush’s “Presidential Amnesty for Contributors” (PAC) doctrine. The financial industry is the leading campaign contributor to both parties and those contributions come overwhelmingly from the wealthiest officers – the one-tenth of one percent that thrives by being parasites on the 99 percent.

Robert Sheer: Christopher Hitchens: Reason in Revolt

Hitch is dead. Not, obviously, his brilliant body of work, or the stunning examples of a grand and unfettered intellect that will forever survive him, as will the indelible record of his immense wit and passion. But, sadly, a life force that I had assumed as an indissoluble part of our political and literary landscape, as well as my own close circle of friends, has ended, and with it an indispensable element of our collective moral code.

Christopher Hitchens could be wrong; we had harsh public debates about the Iraq war, but I never doubted that, even then, he was coming from a good place of humane concern. In that instance, he allowed his great compassion for the Kurds and his justifiable loathing of Saddam Hussein to overwhelm a lifetime of opposition to the arrogant assumptions of America’s neo-colonialism. Despite the vehemence of our debates, both public and personal, he and his saving grace and wife, Carol Blue, held a gathering at their home to discuss a book I wrote on the subject. This was a man unafraid of intellectual challenge and committed to pursuing the heart of the matter.

That was his driving force, a seeker of truth to the end, and a deservedly legendary witness against the hypocrisy of the ever-sanctimonious establishment. What zeal this man had to eviscerate the conceits of the powerful, whether their authority derived from wealth, the state, or a claim to the ear of the divine.

Eugene Robinson: Been There, Thought That

Can we please bury the notion that Newt Gingrich is some kind of deep thinker? His intellect may be as broad as the sea, but it’s about as deep as a birdbath.

I’m not saying the Republican presidential front-runner is unacquainted with ideas. Quite the contrary: Ideas rain through his brain like confetti, escaping at random as definitive pronouncements about this or that. But they are other people’s ideas, and Gingrich doesn’t bother to curate them into anything resembling a consistent philosophy. Given enough time, I’m convinced, he will take every position on every issue.

Bill Boyarsky: Bernie Sanders Explains Why Congress Fears Citizens United

It took just 12 minutes and 29 seconds on the Senate floor Sunday for Sen. Bernie Sanders to expose the real power of corporate America over our elections. It should be a rallying cry for the embattled minority trying to clean up the system.

Sanders, the Senate’s only Independent, was speaking on behalf of his proposed constitutional amendment that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s devastating Citizens United decision, which permits corporations, unions and issue advocacy organizations to spend unlimited amounts of money from their own funds to support or oppose candidates.

George Zornick: Republicans Intensify Attacks on the Nuclear Safety Chief

If there was any doubt that an imbroglio around the leadership of Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, would be used to try to force his ouster from that agency, a Wednesday hearing before a House panel removed it.

All five members of the NRC appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is chaired by Representative Darrell Issa. Four commissioners publicly aired their grievances about Jaczko’s leadership, which include charges of bullying and intimidation of staff, along with refusing to share information with fellow commissioners.

Jaczko said he did nothing wrong, and cited a report from the NRC inspector general clearing him of legal wrongdoing when it came to sharing information among his colleagues. But Republicans went directly for the jugular.

Joe Conason: The Republican Closet That Won’t Stay Closed

If these are the last weeks of Rick Perry’s ridiculous presidential campaign, his desperation is turning him into a nasty clown indeed. By publicly attacking the gays and lesbians who have chosen to serve their country in uniform, the Texas governor seems to have gained ground in Iowa. But at what cost did he win a few points that still leave him well below the top tier? His pollster and consultant Tony Fabrizio has been “outed,” rightly or wrongly-and worse still, the swinging closet door of the Republican Party has been flung open again. Who else will be found inside?

From the days of the Cold War, when reigning mischief-maker Roy Cohn was bedding boys and denouncing gays as “sissies,” through the hidden homosexual history that leads from Marvin Liebman, co-founder of the National Review to Arthur Finkelstein, the ad man behind the ’80s conservative revival, to the defection of former “hit man” David Brock, to Ken Mehlman, the Bush-era party chairman who didn’t dare (until recently) to speak of his own true nature, and even Karl Rove, who ran gay-baiting campaigns despite his own father’s orientation, Republicans have repeatedly watched their own intellectual and political leaders embarrassed by what emerges from that capacious closet.

Dec 15 2011

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Glenn Greenwald: Bradley Manning deserves a medal

The prosecution of the whistleblower and alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning is an exercise in intimidation, not justice

After 17 months of pre-trial imprisonment, Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old US army private and accused WikiLeaks source, is finally going to see the inside of a courtroom. This Friday, on an army base in Maryland, the preliminary stage of his military trial will start.

He is accused of leaking to the whistleblowing site hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, war reports, and the now infamous 2007 video showing a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad gunning down civilians and a Reuters journalist. Though it is Manning who is nominally on trial, these proceedings reveal the US government’s fixation with extreme secrecy, covering up its own crimes, and intimidating future whistleblowers. [..]

Despite pledging to usher in “the most transparent administration in history”, President Obama has been obsessed with prosecuting whistleblowers; his justice department has prosecuted more of them for “espionage” than all prior administrations combined.

The oppressive treatment of Manning is designed to create a climate of fear, to send a signal to those who in the future discover serious wrongdoing committed in secret by the US: if you’re thinking about exposing what you’ve learned, look at what we did to Manning and think twice. The real crimes exposed by this episode are those committed by the prosecuting parties, not the accused. For what he is alleged to have given the world, Manning deserves gratitude and a medal, not a life in prison.

Robert Sheer: There Goes the Republic

Once again the gods of war have united our Congress like nothing else. Unable to agree on the minimal spending necessary to save our economy, schools, medical system or infrastructure, the cowards who mislead us have retreated to the irrationalities of what George Washington in his farewell address condemned as “pretended patriotism.”

The defense authorization bill that Congress passed and President Obama had threatened to veto will soon become law, a fact that should be met with public outrage. Human Rights Watch President Kenneth Roth, responding to Obama’s craven collapse on the bill’s most controversial provision, said, “By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.” On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney claimed “the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country’s strength.”

What rubbish, coming from a president who taught constitutional law. The point is not to hock our civil liberty to the discretion of the president, but rather to guarantee our freedoms even if a Dick Cheney or Newt Gingrich should attain the highest office.

(emphasis mine)

New York Times Editorial: Holder Speaks Up for Voting Rights

For months, the Justice Department has largely been silent as Republican-dominated legislatures in state after state made it harder for minorities, poor people and other Democratic-leaning groups to vote. On Tuesday, however, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. spoke out forcefully and promised to use the full weight of his department to ensure that new electoral laws are not discriminatory. To live up to that vow, he will have his hands full.

Republican lawmakers in more than a dozen states have recently enacted laws designed to limit Americans’ access to the polls, often concentrating on voters – blacks, Hispanics, students and the poor – who showed up in large numbers in 2008 to elect Barack Obama. They have imposed strict voter-ID requirements, knowing that millions of people cannot easily meet them; eliminated early voting periods; and restricted registration drives. (Voter ID laws have been introduced in at least 34 states.)

What the hell took Holder so long?

John R. McArthur: President Obama Richly Deserves to Be Dumped

As evidence of a failed Obama presidency accumulates, criticism of his administration is mounting from liberal Democrats who have too much moral authority to be ignored.

Most prominent among these critics is veteran journalist Bill Moyers, whose October address to a Public Citizen gathering puts the lie to our barely Democratic president’s populist pantomime, acted out last week in a Kansas speech decrying the plight of “innocent, hardworking Americans.” In his talk, Moyers quoted an authentic Kansas populist, Mary Eizabeth Lease, who in 1890 declared, “Wall Street owns the country.. . .Money rules.. . .The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”

A former aide to Lyndon Johnson who knows politics from the inside, Moyers then delivered the coup de grace: “[Lease] should see us now. John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup, and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it. Barack Obama criticizes bankers as fat cats, then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.”

Paul Krugman: In the US, Decidedly Warped Standards for “Mission Accomplished”

Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum say the right thing about revelations that big banks got very easy terms during the 2008 financial crisis: the real scandal isn’t so much that those banks got rescued as that the rest of the population didn’t. [..]

What’s unforgivable is the way policy makers, both at the Fed and elsewhere, basically declared Mission Accomplished as soon as the panic in financial markets subsided and stocks were up again. When spring rolls around, we’ll reach the third anniversary of a declaration from Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, that “green shoots” were making an appearance – and there will still be 4 million Americans who have been out of work for more than a year. Yet there has been no sense of urgency about dealing with unemployment; indeed, most of the elites’ conversation has been about stuff like cutting Social Security payments a decade or two from now.

As Mr. Drum says, that’s the true radicalizing experience.

Robert Reich: Newt’s Tax Plan, and Why His Polls Rise the More Outrageous He Becomes

Newt Gingrich has done it again. With his new tax plan he has raised the bar from irresponsibility to recklessness.

Every dollar estimate I’m about to share with you comes from the independent, non-partisan Tax Policy Center – a group whose estimates are used by almost everyone in Washington regardless of political persuasion.

First off, Newt’s plan increases the federal budget deficit by about $850 billion – in a single year!

To put this in perspective, most forecasts of the budget deficit cover ten years.  The elusive goal of the White House and many on both sides of the aisle in Congress is to reduce that ten-year deficit by 3 to 4 trillion dollars.

Newt goes in the other direction, with gusto. Increasing the deficit by $850 billion in a single year is beyond the wildest imaginings of the least responsible budget mavens within a radius of three thousand miles from Washington.

Gail Collins: Mitt’s Zest for Zings

Mitt Romney arrived in New York City on Wednesday, newly endorsed by Christine O’Donnell, who we have not seen since her not-a-witch race for the U.S. Senate. She praised Romney for having “been consistent since he changed his mind.” I so miss Christine O’Donnell.

Romney was in town to raise money. Iowa and New Hampshire get the love; we get the traffic jams. ‘Twas ever thus. We’re not bitter, really.

However, he did sit down with The Times’s Jeff Zeleny and Ashley Parker to compare himself to Newt Gingrich. (The above-the-fray Mitt is so November.) “Zany is not what we need in a president,” he said.

I would say this is an extremely safe position for Romney to take because the odds are very good that no one has ever called Mitt zany in his entire life. Unless it was when he drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the station wagon. (“Hey, Mister, you got an Irish setter on top of your car. What are you, zany or something?”)

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