Saturday, and not a moment too soon.
Bob Herbert:
The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse — far more treacherous — than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.
More discussion in bobswern's rec diary.
Charles Blow:
After the N.A.A.C.P. asked the Tea Party "to condemn extremist elements" within its ranks, the right went on a witch hunt for black racists in the N.A.A.C.P. Not finding any, it created one. Andrew Breitbart presents: "The Sherrod Charade."
Journalism is being tarred with the sins of some on JournoList, a now defunct listserv through which a handful of people wrote heretical things like the possibility of calling conservatives racist to divert attention from Obama’s connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.
This was hardly a vast left-wing conspiracy, but it fed the right’s defensive narrative that the word "racism" has become a weapon — not the shot of a rifle carefully aimed at a clear target, but a shotgun blast sprayed wide and loose at all things anti-Obama.
There’s also the charge that the president is protecting the New Black Panthers from voter intimidation charges. This nonstory has been knocked down more times than a blind boxer, but the right keeps pushing it.
Gail Collins speaking up for the vertically challenged:
"These couches were made for these little people," he complained mildly.
I cannot tell you how happy this moment made me. During the presidential campaign, whenever Obama was sharing a stage with Hillary Clinton, the seating arrangement always seemed to involve high stools. He draped his tall, lanky frame over his stool gracefully. Clinton, who would have looked like a middle-aged schoolgirl doing detention if she perched up there, opted to stand and be uncomfortable.
On behalf of all the short women of America I say — go for it, women of "The View." I’m sure you did not want to cause the president of the United States any distress, but he was so totally due.
Ruben Navarrette Jr.:
But like the saying goes, common sense isn't always common -- even in Texas. State Rep. Leo Berman, a Republican, is drafting an Arizona-style bill for Texas and plans to introduce it next session.
Adding fuel to the bonfire, Texas Republicans recently adopted an over-the-top platform at their state convention that, among other things, encouraged the Legislature to create a Class A misdemeanor criminal offense "for an illegal alien to intentionally or knowingly be within the state of Texas," and to "oppose amnesty in any form leading to citizenship." Texas Republicans also want to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, ban day-labor work centers, limit bilingual education to three years, and deny non-U.S. citizens access to state or federal financial assistance for college.
In Texas, Latinos are forecast to make up nearly 80 percent of the population growth over the next 30 years (compared with only 4 percent for whites), and Latinos could outnumber whites by 2015, the San Antonio Express-News reported last month. What the Texas GOP drafted was a pact with the devil.
All of which leads me to ask my friends in the Lone Star State the same question my mom used to ask me growing up: "If all the other kids jumped off a cliff, would you do the same?"
Apparently they would.
Dana Milbank:
It's not fair to blame Beck for violence committed by people who watch his show. Yet Williams isn't the only such character with a seeming affinity for the Fox News host. In April 2009, a man allegedly armed with an AK-47, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun was charged with killing three cops in Pittsburgh. The Anti-Defamation League reported that the accused killer had, as part of a pattern of activities involving far-right conspiracy theories, posted a link on a neo-Nazi Web site to a video of Beck talking about the possibility that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was operating concentration camps in Wyoming. The killings came after Beck told Fox viewers that he "can't debunk" the notion that FEMA was operating such camps -- but before he finally acknowledged that the conspiracy wasn't real.
The Villagers finally speak up.
Mark Zandi (McCain's econ advisor):
The Bush tax cuts should be extended permanently for families with annual incomes of less than $250,000 and should be phased out slowly for those making more than that.
Others commenting include Alan S. Blinder, Diane Lim Rogers, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Leonard S. Burman and Robert Greenstein
