Par For The Party


Friday, according to Politifact in the Tampa Bay Times, President Obama was asked at his press conference "what about the Republicans saying that you're blaming the Europeans for the failure of your own policies?"    He responded (as transcribed from the TBT)

"The truth of the matter is that, as I said we've created 4.3 million jobs over the last two -- 27 months; over 800,000 just this year alone.  The private sector is doing fine.

"Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government, oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don't have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.

"And so, you know, if -- if Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments and how do we help the construction industry.

"Because the recipes that they're promoting are basically the kinds of policies that would add weakness to -- to the economy, would result in further layoffs, would not provide relief in the housing market, and would result, I think most economists estimate, in lower growth and fewer jobs, not more."

Generally, Republicans are jumping on the President's assessment "the private sector is doing fine," a tactically foolish remark given that it can be taken out of context (as the GOP already has) and strategically highlighted in a campaign ad.      (The private sector is doing "better" would have sounded better and been more accurate.)   Of course, there has been serious growth in employment in the private sector while the public sector has been shedding jobs.   That has been conveniently overlooked by a jealous GOP, which wishes it had been responsible for throwing government workers out of jobs.

Chris Christie figures he is due applause for driving down public sector employment.   Condemning the President at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Chicago, the New Jersey governor declared

He said one of the reasons is because state and local government hiring is going in the wrong direction. I swear to you, that’s what he said just a couple of hours ago. Now in New Jersey we have more government workers per square mile than any state in America, but since I’ve been governor we now have fewer people on the state payroll than at any time since Christie Whitman left office in January of 2001. That’s the right direction, Mr. President, not the wrong direction.

Rather than suggesting that government is being made leaner or even that taxes must be kept low, Christie kept it simple:    man or woman working for government, bad; man or woman unemployed, good.     (Sarcasm Alert) There is no need for subtlety in the age of compassionate conservatism.

The Present could have noted that corporations are sitting on over $1 trillion in cash and outsourcing jobs to Asia while families suffer.   Or he might have explained that most state governors used stimulus money to prop up their state budget, allowing them to hold down any tax increases.    Instead, he acknowledged the bind state executives are in, with far less flexibility to spend and raise revenues than has the federal government, and less help from Washington than in the past.

But a President sympathetic to their problems is suitable only for insult, so Christie pounced, claiming

It is an outrage to have the president of the United States stand up and say to hardworking governors, to Republicans and Democrats around the country that state and local government hiring is moving in the wrong direction and we’re to blame because the economy is not growing.  He’s the one who put forward an ineffective wasteful stimulus plan that did nothing to help this economy. He’s the one who saddled us with all these federal rules and regulations that don’t allow governors to have the freedom to do what we really want and then he has the audacity to stand up this morning and say it’s the nation’s governors and the nation’s mayors who are driving our economy down by not hiring enough people for government work.

It probably didn't escape Christie's attention that only two days ago

on Wednesday, under questioning from skeptical Republicans, the director of the nonpartisan (and widely respected) Congressional Budget Office was emphatic about the value of the 2009 stimulus. And, he said, the vast majority of economists agree.

In a survey conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 80 percent of economic experts agreed that, because of the stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise.

“Only 4 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed,” CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee. “That,” he added, “is a distinct minority.”

As the table (from the CBO via perrspectives.com) above indicates, employment and gross domestic product have increased every year, and are expected to continue to grow, as a result of the stimulus.    It had been reported previously and Christie, hardly ignorant, is aware that an increase in spending in an economic slump will boost employment and output.

But lying is so much more convenient, at least in today's Gas and Oil Party.   And complaining about "all these federal rules and regulations" restricting the power of a governor is odd coming from a guy who had the power a) to turn down $3 billion of federal financing, "more money than had been committed to any other transit project in America," which would have helped New Jerseyans get to work in New York City;  b) reject a 90-10 federal match for women's health services; c) bail out a new casino with a $261 million tax credit to.   Then he whines that Obama has deprived him and his peers the "freedom to do what we really want." Admittedly, Christie- who presides over a state whose growth last year outpaced that in three other states- knows more than the President about "driving (an) economy down."

It would be inaccurate to argue that in today's GOP of Limbaugh, Gingrich, Romney,and Chris Christie, lying is optional.   It is not optional- it is required.



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Playing Dress Up


Warren Strain, public affairs director for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. isn't sure why two motorists, whose vehicles are believed to have been on the roadside when found, have been shot and killed on the state's highways.      But he has a theory:

Mississippi authorities on Monday urged motorists to be alert in the wake of two shooting deaths along the state’s highways that they believe may have been committed by someone impersonating a police officer.

"There are some similarities between the two incidents, mainly the fact they happened alongside a Mississippi highway," Mississippi Bureau of Investigation Director Lt. Col. Larry Waggoner said in a press release. "The concern is that someone is posing as a law enforcement officer and that is how these vehicles end up on the side of the road."

Nebraska resident Thomas K. Schlender, 74, was found dead in his car along I-55 near Pope, Miss., on May 8. He had been shot and his was found in his car which had crashed into the highway median.

At a press briefing on Monday, Schlender was described as a grandfather traveling to Florida to pick up his grandson at the time of his death.

The other shooting victim, Lori Anne Carswell, 48, of Hernando, Miss., was found near her car on the shoulder of state Highway 713 near I-69 early May 11. Carswell, who worked at a nearby casino, was believed to be on her way home from work when she was shot.

Evidence from the two scenes led investigators to believe that both vehicles were on the roadside when the victims were shot. It also suggests that the two are linked, said John Champion, district attorney from Mississippi's northern region. He spoke to reporters at a press briefing in Hernando, Miss., on Monday, flanked by police, sheriffs and other officials from the region.

Shell casings recovered from the two shooting sites had been sent to the state crime lab for processing, said Warren Strain, public affairs director for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.

The department is urging people to verify that they are being stopped by a legitimate law enforcer, he said.

"If someone is being pulled over and it’s not obvious that it is a law enforcement officer, (they should) dial 911 or star 47 and that will roll into the nearest 911 dispatcher," Strain said, adding that dispatchers have been alerted and will be prepared to provide confirmation.
Officials at the press briefing said that if a driver is being signaled to pull over, they have the right to put their flashers on and drive slowly to to the nearest lighted and populated area before coming to a halt.

Fortunately, impersonating a police officer is an irresponsible and  dangerous act which no law-abiding individual ever would consider.     That didn't apply, though, to a privileged Michigan resident, according to The National Memo:

So recalls Robin Madden, who had also just arrived as a freshman, the startling incident began when Romney called him and two or three other residents into his room, saying, “Come up, I want to show you something.” When they entered Romney’s room, “and laid out on his bed was a Michigan State Trooper’s uniform.”

Madden, a native Texan who graduated from Stanford in 1970 and went on to become a successful television producer and writer, has never forgotten that strange moment, which he has recounted to friends over the years as he observed his former classmate’s political ascent. The National Memo learned of the incident from a longtime Madden friend to whom he had mentioned it years ago.

Said Madden in a recent interview, “He told us that he had gotten the uniform from his father,” George Romney, then the Governor of Michigan, whose security detail was staffed by uniformed troopers. “He told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler.”

In Madden’s recollection, confirmed by his wife Susan, who also attended Stanford during those years, “we thought it was all pretty weird. We all thought, ‘Wow, that’s pretty creepy.’ And after that, we didn’t have much interaction with him,” although both Madden and Romney were prep school boys living in the same dorm, called Rinconada.

Mitt Romney assaults an effeminate student (just for fun) in high school, impersonates a police officer (regularly, it appears) in college, and specializes (for profit) in cutting pensions and laying people off as an adult.  

A Daily Kos blogger asks rhetorically "How this story is not headline news is beyond me. Can you imagine the headlines throughout the MSM if it were discovered that during college Barack Obama had a hobby of impersonating a police officer and that he pulled over drivers on the road?"   If there were the least bit of evidence that Barack Obama had impersonated a police officer even once while at college, the issue would dominate the media, written and broadcast, for days if not for weeks.     And it should.

It would be easy to write this off as just another example of the media showing its pro-Republican bias.    The urge to bend over backwards so as not to offend, and incur the hostility of, the GOP is part of the story.   However, it also is the responsibility of Democratic surrogates not to ignore Romney's "creepy"- and illegal- behavior.     Unlike liberal cable show hosts, Democratic strategists, pundits, and politicians seem to be ignoring Mitt Romney's dangerous tendencies, let alone fashioning them into a narrative of someone who can't be trusted with the presidency.      The media is following suit and Democrats will let November's elections slip through their fingers unless they realize that Americans consider not only issues, but also character, important in selecting public officials.



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Ed's Take



And this guy once was chairman of the Democratic National Committee.   Honestly.   The Hill reported today

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) ripped the unions and activists who charged forward in trying to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Wednesday, calling the push a political blunder.

"It was a dumb political fight — I would have waited until Walker's reelection," Rendell told The Hill when asked if the recall push had been a mistake. The former governor and head of the Democratic National Committee pointed to exit polls that showed a number of independents and Democrats who opposed Walker's policies nonetheless voted for him because they opposed a recall.

While acknowledging that if Democrat Tom Barrett had enjoyed Walker's overwhelming advantage in funding the incumbent would have been defeated, Rendell continued

There are a lot of people who voted on principle against a recall because they don't believe recalling someone for other than a crime or downright corruption is appropriate.     I would have had a tough time voting for the recall. If we're pissed off at what a person does in office the answer is to beat them when they're up for reelection.

Fast Eddie ought to be reminded that California Governor Gray Davis was replaced with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003 via a recall election.    The process, according to Wikipedia, began with a petition charging Davis with a "gross mismanagement of California Finances by overspending taxpayers' money, threatening public safety by cutting funds to local governments, failing to account for the exorbitant cost of the energy, and failing in general to deal with the state's major problems until they get to the crisis stage."      

Admittedly, the effort to recall Walker also was prompted by ideology, opposition to the governor's destruction of collective bargaining for state employees.   But there was another facet of Walker's record which escaped Rendell's attention.    The Daily Beast writes (the day after the election, of course)

An investigation by the Milwaukee district attorney’s office into misconduct by people tied to the controversial Wisconsin Republican during his two terms as county executive is circling closer to Walker, with one reporter alleging this week that the governor has become the target of both the probe and a separate federal investigation.

The D.A.’s John Doe investigation into associates of Walker during his time as the Milwaukee county executive, launched in 2010, has to date led to charges against six people, including Walker’s former deputy chief of staff. While Walker himself has not been charged with wrongdoing, the investigation is ongoing and over the past seven weeks Walker has transferred $160,000 from his campaign to a legal-defense fund that he maintains is to cover the expense of cooperating with the probe.

A John Doe investigation, similar to grand juries in many states, is a sub rosa investigation in which prosecutors can subpoena witnesses and bar them from publicly discussing the matter under investigation. Walker first met with prosecutors in Milwaukee County in February to discuss the investigation. He denied wrongdoing in a statement at the time, saying that he brought two defense lawyers to the meeting to ensure that he was “in the best position possible to continue aiding the inquiry.”

But the governor’s defense fund has raised eyebrows. Walker has said that the money in the fund will only go to legal fees incurred by himself or his campaign, and not his aides. Though he has not been personally charged with any crimes as a result of the investigation, he has said that he needs the war chest tocover the expense of providing documents to lead investigator and Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat.

But when Walker set up the fund in March, legal experts pointed to Wisconsin statutes that seem to mean Walker would only be allowed to establish such a reserve if he had already been charged or was being investigated in connection with the John Doe probe.

“The only way you can set that up is if you are under investigation or are being prosecuted,” Michael Maistelman, who was representing Russell at the time, told reporters. “One can only draw the conclusion that either one of those two things is happening.”

Walker, though, has continued to say that he does not know himself to be a target of the investigation, and that the fund was set up under the guidance of the state’s Government Accountability Board.

How far down the rabbit hole the investigation may take prosecutors remains to be seen. The trail began in 2010, when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that a probe had begun into $11,000 that had gone missing from Operation Freedom, an annual fundraiser for military veterans and their families.

Rendell may have be suffering from memory loss about California and he may be unaware that the Republican he might have voted for probably is the target of a federal criminal investigation.   But then, this is the same Ed Rendell who recently commented of the Obama campaign's ad criticizing Bain Capital “I think they’re very disappointing.   I think Bain is fair game, because Romney has made it fair game. But I think how you examine it, the tone, what you say, is important as well.”    The same Ed Rendell, Alexander Burns of Politico recently pointed out

currently works for a law firm, Ballard Spahr, that has a big mergers-and-acquisitions practice, and sells its private-equity expertise in these terms: "Our more than 70 M&A/private equity attorneys represent buyers (both strategic and financial) and sellers ranging from small, privately held companies to multinational public companies in transactions that span small and middle markets to multibillion-dollar mergers. Because of the scale of our practice and depth of our deal experience, we are responsive to the unique requirements of every client and transaction, no matter the deal type or size or relevant industry."

Stuart Rattner, Harold Ford, Cory Booker, Ed Rendell- so Democratic when not financially inconvenient.



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Curious Response


There is so much wrong here.    On June 1, The Washington Post's Jason Horowitz wrote

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has developed a simple method to determine whether coverage of the candidate’s Mormonism has crossed a line.

“Our test to see if a similar story would be written about others’ religion is to substitute ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish,’ ” Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul wrote in objection to a Washington ost article last fall about the candidate’s role as a church leader in Boston.

She pointed out a passage that explained a central tenet of Mormonism. It described the belief that Christ’s true church was restored after centuries of apostasy when the 19th-century prophet Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates that he discovered in Upstate New York.

“Would you write this sentence in describing the Jewish faith?” Saul asked in a November e-mail, adding: “ ‘Jews believe their prophet Moses was delivered tablets on a mountain top directly from G-d after he appeared to him in a burning bush.’ Of course not, yet you reference a similar story in Mormonism.”

The outrage on behalf of the first Mormon candidate to represent a major party in a presidential election is not unique. Recently, Jodi Kantor reported in the New York Times that Romney’s aides often ask reporters, “Would you have written this about a Jewish candidate?” The guilt trip may be motivated by political calculation, sincere concern about religious bigotry for a faith that has suffered its fair share or some combination of the two. Regardless of its impetus, the campaign’s response gets at a crucial challenge for the news media: to educate the public about an unfamiliar faith unusually central to a candidate’s formation without treating Mormonism as biographical exotica that could fuel prejudices.

The comments obviously were "motivated by political calculation," not an indictable offense in presence of the First Amendment.    But they were motivated by calculations disturbing, misleading, and insufficiently considerate of cultural pluralism.

I don't know to what religion Ms. Saul describes.    For all I know, she may be Jewish, which would be irrelevant, considering that she is speaking not for herself but for the candidate.     "Our test," Saul writes, is "to see if a similar story would be written about others' religion is to substitute 'Jew' or 'Jewish.'

Rest assured:   that is a shout out to those (minority of) conservatives who have a problem with Jews, who believe they get a free pass.   There are individuals who, confronted with criticism of Christians or Christianity, will say:   what about the Jews?   There are other individuals who, confronted with criticism of whites (or blacks) will say:   what about the blacks (or whites)?    A nerve is struck when our side gets blamed, or even questioned, when the other side doesn't.  When a liberal Democrat falls victim to scandal, many progressives contend that Democrats are ostracized for foibles for which the media looks the other way when committed by a Republican.     Accurate or not, such complaints betray suspicion that one group is disproportionately blamed while another gets off easy.

"Would you write this sentence," Saul writes "in describing the Jewish faith?    Jews believe their prophet Moses was delivered tablets on a mountain top directly from G-d after he appeared to him in a burning bush?"    

Whatever does Ms. Saul mean by "Jews believe their prophet Moses....?"    In the third chapter of Acts, Peter approvingly told the assembled individuals in the temple

Moses said "The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.   You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.   And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people."

Moses was considered a prophet not only in the Old Testament- accepted by Christians as divinely inspired- but also in the New Testament, also inspired by God.   One evangelical commentary on the verse from Acts states "Peter's argument here, though not stated, is implicitly twofold:   (1) true belief in Moses will lead to a belief in Jesus, and (2) belief in Jesus places one in true continuity with Moses."     To Christians who believe in Scripture, Moses was not merely a bystander or cartoon character.  The Old Testament story about Moses on Mt. Sinai is not only part of "the Jewish faith," as Saul apparently believes, but also a part of the Christian faith.    

Mitt Romney's spokesperson may simply be ignorant about the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament, of the Old Testament concealing what the New Testament reveals.    Or she may be attempting to divide Jews and Christians, the latter of whom are encouraged to think that Jews- and Jews alone- believe something as jarring to the senses as is the Joseph Smith story.     At the least, the media should not be so intimidated as to avoid asking the Republican candidate whether he agrees with his spokesperson.


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Criminal Culpability



He nailed it.   Again.

On Friday, Hardball's Chris Matthews boldly went (as he has previously) where no man or woman does (transcript, here).     He interviewed Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida, and Democrat Donna Matthews, Democrat of Maryland.    They discussed HR 3541, the  noxious PreNatal Non-Discrimination Act  (PRENDA) of 2012 (text of bill here), which provided for a fine and/or imprisonment for anyone who

performs an abortion knowing that such abortion is sought based on the sex, gender, color or race of the child, or the race of a parent of that child; uses force or the threat of force to intentionally injure or intimidate any person for the purpose of coercing a sex-selection or race-selection abortion; solicits or accepts funds for the performance of a sex-selection abortion or a race-selection abortion;or transports a woman into the United States or across a State line for the purpose of obtaining a a sex-selectionabortionor race-selection abortion: or attempts to do so.

PRENDA received the votes of a majority of Representatives but went down to defeat because passage required a two-thirds majority according to the procedural rules under which it was brought up.   Matthews established that, contrary to Stearns' assertion, the measure created a solution in search of a problem.   He then asked

My problem is this. You don`t want to punish the woman. You want to punish the doctor.
But in this case, a woman could -- if she did have this intention because of her background or values or whatever they are -- and I`m certainly not for them -- if there was such a case, she would simply go from doctor to doctor who wouldn`t ask her the question and she`d proceed with the abortion.

So what do you accomplish with this law? It couldn`t be enforced. 

After the conversation veered off into a brief discussion of sex-selection and Asian culture, Stearns conceded that he would support a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, throwing into question his motive as an advocate for a bill which would have banned the rare practice of abortions chosen as sex-selection.    Matthews then zeroed in:

MATTHEWS: Well, if it`s morally wrong -- why don`t you punish the woman?

STEARNS: We can punish the doctors.

MATTHEWS: Why not the women?

STEARNS: The way the bill is set up is the doctor has no right to question the motivation of the girl.
(CROSSTALK)

EDWARDS: Because that`s not what this is about, that`s why. So you punish the doctors, you ask the doctors to be mind readers, to sit and figure out when a woman comes to the office --
(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: What should be the punishment, sir? I had this with people who say they are pro-life. I think we`re all pro-life.

STEARNS: Yes.

MATTHEWS: What should be the punishment for a woman who chooses to have an abortion?
STEARNS: Well, I`m not talking about abortion.

MATTHEWS: Answer that question before we go on.

STEARNS: No, no, no, Chris.

MATTHEWS: You want to outlaw it, call it murder, use terms like that. What should be a punishment for a woman who chooses -- goes to a doctor, they don`t go door to door, she goes to the doctor and asks for this procedure, what should be the punishment for that?

STEARNS: If we`re talking about abortion, we have the Hyde rule which says you can have an abortion for incest, the life of the mother.

MATTHEWS: Go on.

STEARNS: And things like that and rape. So we already have that in place. But the question is --

MATTHEWS: So, what should be the punishment for a woman who wants an abortion because she doesn`t want to deliver the child, period? What should be the punishment?

STEARNS: Let me ask you --

MATTHEWS: So, you don`t want to answer this, do you?

STEARNS: I want to ask you a question is --

MATTHEWS: No, I just ask the questions.
(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You want to outlaw abortion and you don`t want to do it because you know deep down you know the average voter, even in your district, which maybe conservative doesn`t believe the woman is guilty of a murder, they really don`t think it should be a murder charge, they don`t think it should be fineable, because deep down people are troubled by this issue. It`s a difficult moral dilemma and that`s why we let the person make the decision, it`s so difficult.
That`s why we don`t make all these laws that you want to pass. Why don`t you let the women answer it?

STEARNS: It`s your show. Let me answer the question.

MATTHEWS: You won`t answer it.

STEARNS: I`ll answer the question the way I want. It might be your show and you can do all the talking but I can answer the question the way I want.
The question is: should there be a law preventing a woman making an abortion based upon sex selection to eliminate female embryos. And that I agree is wrong and I think you agree and Donna also agrees.

MATTHEWS: What should be the punishment for the woman doing that?

STEARNS: It should be against the law. Just like it`s against the law in all of Europe --

MATTHEWS: What should be the punishment?

STEARNS: I think the punishment should certainly be very serious.

MATTHEWS: What should it be for the woman? What should it be for the woman?

STEARNS: It should be more than a civil case. It should be something very serious --

MATTHEWS: So, should it be a criminal matter for the woman as well as the doctor?

STEARNS: I think so. You are killing an embryo and sometimes four or five months into gestation --

Game, set, match- though Stearns should be applauded for courageously (albeit foolishly) admitting what no man or woman dares- belief that a woman who seeks an illegal abortion should be prosecuted.  Chris Matthews appears to be the only individual in the media- mainstream or alternative- who will even raise this issue and getting a pro-life congressman to state publicly that he agrees should be considered a coup.     If Matthews had pursued the issue further, probing what Stearns meant by a "very serious" punishment, it would have been even more enlightening.

I have argued that the prospective mother invariably is precluded from prosecution in "pro-life" legislation either because the proponents want to pander to women or are actually unsure that abortion is killing.     However, Matthews, who says he doesn't "believe in punishing people for having abortions," plausibly contended "I think sometimes you guys on the far right think women are incapable of a major decision like this, so you punish the doctor who you presume is a male."

Perhaps he noticed that the bill referred, in stunningly passive language (emphasis mine):   "a woman upon whom a sex-selection or race-selection abortion is performed...."   The woman- along with the prospective father- could have sued practically anyone if passage had been obtained.  If aware the illegal abortion has been performed, "a physician, physician's assistant, nurse, counselor, or other medical or mental health professional" (custodian was overlooked) could not only have been sued by the woman, but also by the prospective father. The health professionals also would have been prosecuted as criminal offenders and subject to a fine and/or imprisonment for failing to report to law enforcement even a rumor of such an abortion taking place, a heck of a way to conduct a criminal justice system.     But held blameless, the women are viewed as "targeted victims of sex-selection abortion," euphemism for "object."

There are a National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame, as well as Halls of Fame for journalists hailing from specific states such as Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, and Michigan.     There seems to be, however, no Hall of Fame for journalists from Pennsylvania, Matthews' home state.     If there were, his inclusion would be arguable.     But on this issue, it would be a slam-dunk.


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What Barack Obama?


Who is this Barack Obama of whom Rush Limbaugh speaks?     Limbaugh on Friday shrieked

a shrunken US private sector will continue to shrink as Obama will hijack it. Obama's already-passed legislation will begin to take even more out of the private sector. When you raise taxes, when you increase regulations, you take money out of the private sector.

This is the Barack Obama the right seems to fear- big spending, business-destroying socialist.     However, this Obama, who has proposed in his 2013 cutting $360 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next ten years, does not exist.

Corporate moguls have complained that the "uncertainty" of federal regulations and tax policy have stifled job growth.     Yet, on April 9 The Wall Street Journal reported

Big U.S. companies have emerged from the deepest recession since World War II more productive, more profitable, flush with cash and less burdened by debt. An analysis by The Wall Street Journal of corporate financial reports finds that cumulative sales, profits and employment last year among members of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index exceeded the totals of 2007, before the recession and financial crisis.

Deep cost cutting during the downturn and caution during the recovery put the companies on firmer financial footing, helping them to outperform the rest of the economy and gather a greater share of the nation's income. 

As the chart below from MJ Perry demonstrates, U.S. corporations set a record by pulling down $1.5 trillion in profits in 2011.    Corporate cash holdings had risen to $1.24 trillion, 57% of it held overseas, by the end of the year.    And President Obama had added regulations at a slower rate than his predecessor, though many were more expensive, due primarily to inflation.   Profit margins were at a higher rate than at any time in the past 65 years.

As of April, 2012, following 27 consecutive months of growth in private sector employment, there were more jobs held there than when Barack Obama took office in January, 2009.     ThinkProgress notes that at this point in the Bush (43) administration, private sector employment was down 1.7%.   By contrast, while at this point in his reign public sector employment was up 3.7% under the previous president, it is down 2.1% under Obama.

As the Economic Policy Institute notes,

from February 2010 (the month the labor market "bottomed out") to January 2012, the United States experienced a net increase in total nonfarm employment of more than 3.2 million jobs while state and local government employment fell by 438,000.   Over this period, every major sector of the economy experienced net growth in jobs except the public sector.

Partly as a result of these factors, the fraction of total growth captured by the top 1% of American society has continued to grow, even- and especially- under the current president.    As the chart below (from Emmanuel Saez via Ian Welsh via the Roosevelt Institute's Matt Stoller) indicates, that percentage was 45% during the Clinton expansion of 1993-2000; 57% in the 2001 recession of 2000-2002; 65% during the bush expansion of 2002-2007; 49% during the great recession of 2007-2009; and 93% in the 2009-2010 recovery.    In 2010, the top 1% captured 93% of all income gains.

Not only has the overall federal, state, and local tax burden dropped to its lowest level in several decades, the federal tax burden alone is unusually low.  U.S. News notes the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (echoing findings of the Congressional Budget Office), found "in 2010 a typical family of four paid 4.6 percent of its income in federal income taxes- the second lowest percentage during the past 50 years."     Selena Maranjian reports that in 2011, the average tax rate (according to the CBO), at 14.82%, was the lowest since 1950 while the corporate tax rate (according to the OMB) had fallen to 1.3% from 7.2% in 1945.

Tax rates are down.   The private sector is routing the public sector.    As worker productivity increases, corporate profits grow and then are shipped overseas.   The percentage of wealth held by the 1% and the 10% continues to grow.     And the economy stagnates.   Coincidence?  I think not.

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Of Edwards And A Critic


Following the decision of the jury in North Carolina to find him not guilty of one count while being unable to decide on the other five counts of the indictment, John Edwards issued a statement, though he did not answer questions.    Others may assess his sincerity in proclaiming love for members of his family or speculate about whether he will get involved in public service. Here, however, we evaluate the sincerity of an apology, which may be the most ubiquitous factor in modern politics.     In that portion of his remarks, the former North Carolina senator and presidential contender stated

I want to make sure that everyone hears from me and from my voice that while I do not believe I did anything illegal or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong. And there is no one else responsible for my sins. None of the people who came to court and testified are responsible, nobody working for the government is responsible. I am responsible. And if I want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins, honestly, I don't have to go any further than the mirror. It's me. It is me, and me alone.

Given that the jury was "hung," there is still a small chance that the Justice Department will try the defendant again, and Edwards therefore would have been (figuratively) insane not to have proclaimed his innocence of the charges.      Nor did he have to cross his fingers when he maintained "I do not believe I did anything illegal" because he probably did not.

Nearly everyone who issues an "apology" proclaims himself "responsible" and a public assumption of responsibility usually is unimpressive and virtually meaningless.

Not so, however, in this case.    Edwards preceded his admission of responsibility by asserting "I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong,"    Rarely does a public figure, politician or otherwise, actually admit he or she did something that was "wrong."    It is, at base, the litmus test of an apology.    Typically, an individual blames someone or something else or says he/she is "sorry" for how someone reacted to what was said or done.    The offender laments the impact- usually not the incident itself, and certainly not because it was WRONG.

Typical was the "apology" of former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik (as related here) who had to withdraw from consideration for the position of Director of Homeland Security under President Bush.     Mr. Kerik, who had neglected to tell White House representatives that he had failed to pay the required taxes for the housekeeper he had employed, said "I owe an enormous apology to the president for whatever distraction this may have caused.  This is my responsibility.   This is my mistake."

Kerik did not specify what "mistake" he was referring to- cheating the federal government, or simply keeping the information from the Administration.     He apparently believed he owed an apology to the Mr. Bush not because he did anything wrong but because it caused a "distraction."   And he did not acknowledge even having caused the distraction; instead, his remark was for whatever distraction it may have caused.

Edwards, however, was clear.    He did not give a pass to "everybody" who may have been caught up in it.    He specified "the people who came to court and testified" and individuals "working for the government."     Caught with his pants down (pun intended), Edwards could more easily have been vague.   But he was not, and thrice pointed the finger at himself:     "And if I want to find the person who should be held accountable for my sins, honestly, I don't have to go any further than the mirror.   It's me.   It is me, and me alone."    People who believe the decisiveness of the apology was for public consumption fail to realize that Edwards could have delivered a vaguer, more standard, apology to the same effect.

Some people were not as impressed.    Arguing the former presidential candidate  has "so veered off into the land of creepy self-delusion," Howard Fineman contended on Hardball (transcript here)

I`m watching a car crash of craziness here. And I know there`s second lives in American politics. But the notion that he took this occasion to weave the story of his children, of all his children, including the one that he had with the mistress, that he was having relations with while his wife was dying of cancer, that he`s going to weave the story of those children into the story of the poor people of America and the world.

And thus I am going to be the pied piper leading the Americas and the children together in a new public role for myself, that was so beyond any level of self-awareness as to be almost pathological. Did I make myself clear? 

Failing to be clear never has been his problem.    It was back in November, 1999 that Fineman was psychoanalyzing another Democratic candidate.    Bob Somerby in November 2011 described Fineman then telling Brian Williams

The fact is, Al Gore has been changing his clothes and his persona in public ever since I’ve known him, which goes back 15 years, Brian. I covered his last presidential campaign in 1988. One day he was in the conservative blue suit, the next he was playing lumberjack at the VFW hall in New Hampshire. This is a guy who, because of his upbringing and his attitude toward politics and maybe something about his life story, just doesn’t seem always to be of one piece, doesn't really always know who he wants to be in public.

Fineman noted that Gore "had worn conservative suits to some events, and casual clothing to to others" but nevertheless "was played off as a nut.    Everyone who followed Election 2000 knows the spin which Fineman was offering.   Al Gore doesn't know who he is.   It was recited over and over by amateur shrinks..."

Two years almost to the day after Fineman joined in the media's effort to delegitimize the Vice-President, he would be far more generous to another public official, the successor to President Clinton.   Somerby quoted Feinman on msnbc.com gushing  

So who are the Bushes, really? Well, they’re the people who produced the fellow who sat with me and my Newsweek colleague, Martha Brant, for his first interview since 9/11. We saw, among other things, a leader who is utterly comfortable in his role. Bush envelops himself in the trappings of office. Maybe that’s because he’s seen it from the inside since his dad served as Reagan’s vice president in the ‘80s. The presidency is a family business.

Dubyah loves to wear the uniform—whatever the correct one happens to be for a particular moment. I counted no fewer than four changes of attire during the day trip we took to Fort Campbell in Kentucky and back. He arrived for our interview in a dark blue Air Force One flight jacket. When he greeted the members of Congress on board, he wore an open-necked shirt. When he had lunch with the troops, he wore a blue blazer. And when he addressed the troops, it was in the flight jacket of the 101st Airborne. He’s a boomer product of the ‘60s—but doesn’t mind ermine robes.

A heck of a judge of character, that Howard Fineman.    Also in November (2010), as the journalist began at The Huffington Post, Salon's Alex Pareene explained

You can always count on Howard Fineman for a clear distillation of whatever the new conventional wisdom is. Unlike those who seek to drive coverage, Fineman was always content to sway with the prevailing winds. Each election season, he announces that Democrats need to signal that they’re moderate centrists and fight back against the unions. He was equally enthusiastic about candidate McCain in 2000 and candidate Obama in 2008. He defines “the mainstream” as whatever the pundit class currently thinks.

This is not to suggest that Fineman is a mere hack or that Edwards was sincere throughout his remarks yesterday.     But the latter, who never should have been prosecuted, offered that most unusual of public statements:    a genuine apology.    And this isn't the first time Howard Fineman has suggested that a prominent Democrat is unstable.    Fortunately, in this instance it will not assist the election to the presidency of someone who so arouses him.





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