Via blackwaterdog at daily kos, President Obama said:

"We have spent the last 20 months governing. They spent the last 20 months politicking. Now we've got three months to go, and so we've decided, well, we can politick for three months. They’ve forgotten I know how to politick pretty good."

I have a couple of reactions to this. First, there is no doubt that President Obama is a terrific politician when it comes to gathering votes for himself. And when he is on the ballot, that also becomes "politicking" for Dems, because President Obama on the ballot brings out irregular voters who lean Democratic (this is a perennial problem for Dems.) But President Obama is not on the ballot, and whatever you think of his 20 months of governing (my review is mixed) it is not unvarnished win politically.

The second thought I had was the President should never have said what he said. One of the President's strengths has been that he is viewed as being less of a politician than most.The whole PPUS. I never cared for it, in governing or politics, but President Obama took that road. Why toss it out now overtly? In other words, the President could have done the 3 months of politicking without announcing he was doing that. I suppose some will argue this will energize the base. Perhaps. But I think the actual politicking would do that. This seems part of the bad Dem habit of discussing the politics of issues, instead of just doing the politics.

One final thought - at least the President seems to understand that he will not escape responsibility for the election results this November. For a while, there seemed to be the attitude in the White House that the 2010 elections had nothing to do with them. Good to see that silliness has gone away.

Speaking for me only

Via OpenLeft, a conservative complaint about Ted Olson:

I cannot trust the legal judgment of a fellow who claims to be conservative and yet who clearly believes the Constitution should be used by the Judiciary to invalidate the will of the people [. . .]

Meanwhile, back at extreme conservative headquarters, the Wingnut AGs filed their opposition (PDF) to the federal government's motion to dismiss their complaint asking the judiciary to overturn a law enacted by the duly elected Congress and signed by the duly elected President, the health bill and its individual mandate.

Respect for "the will of the people" apparently only matters some of the time. In other words, judicial activism for me but not for thee.

Speaking for me only

Nate Silver writes:

Squeezing the super-rich is not a panacea. Although the inequity in the income distribution is pretty stark in America today, there just aren't that many people earning over $1 million, or over $5 million, and you probably can't squeeze them that much further before you start to run into some serious issues with productivity losses [. . .]

(Emphasis supplied.) For those of you who do not know, Silver is a wizard sabremetrician, who made his name as statistical analyst regarding baseball. The Godfather of sabremetricians was Bill James, who developed a concept called win shares - which attempts to describe each players contributions to the total wins of the team.

I was thinking about this when Silver expressed his view of expected productivity losses due to higher tax rates for millionaires. As a general proposition, it is unremarkable to say that higher taxes lead to lower productivity on an individualized basis (how the tax revenues are spent could of course offset that individualized loss - i..e - education, infrastructure, research etc.) But is it specifically true in an meaningful way with regard to increasing the marginal tax rate paid by millionaires? To wit, what is the "win share" produced by millionaires to the gross domestic product and how would that be reduced if their tax rates went up? Let's consider on the flip.

Yesterday, the Taliban publicly flogged and executed a pregnant woman for adultery. She received 200 lashes and was then shot in the head 3 times.

Bibi Sanubar, 35, was kept in captivity for three days before she was shot dead in a public trial on Sunday by a local Taliban commander in the Qadis district of the rural western province Badghis....The Taliban accused her of having an "illicit affair" that left her pregnant. She was first punished with 200 lashes in public before being shot, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi said.

The man with whom Sanubar had the affair was not punished. The Taliban is denying its militia carried out the execution. But a local Taliban-controlled district confirms:

Head of Badghis provincial council Mohammad Nasir Nazaari confirmed the execution and said the Qadis district was entirely under Taliban control.

Hotline on call says the Colorado primary battle between Sen. Michael Bennet and challenger Andrew Romanoff is going down to the wire. Turnout of mail-in ballots is really high -- the only election with higher turnout was 2008 when Obama ran for President.

But the question remains whether Romanoff caught fire soon enough to take advantage of CO's new mail-in only primary system. Ballots reached voters on July 20th, and a record number have already been returned to the CO Sec. of State. Bennet and Romanoff are neck-and-neck in the latest polls, and it's a real toss-up as to who will emerge the victory come Wednesday.

TalkLeft has endorsed Sen. Michael Bennet due to Romanoff's poor record on crime issues. I also think Bennet has a greater chance of beating the Republicans state-wide in November. But either would be far superior to the Republican choices. If you didn't mail in your ballot, please drop it off at a service center today. For Denver locations, go here.

Two military commission proceedings are underway at Guantanamo Bay. The first is of Ibrahim al Qosi, who entered a plea deal last month, the terms of which are sealed. He is being sentenced today. Human Rights First has background on his case here.

The Judge in the Quosi case has just announced that Quosi's sentence will remain sealed until he's freed.

The second is the trial of child soldier Omar Khadr (background here.) Pre-trial motions will be heard first, likely to take all day, and trial will commence when they are done, probably tomorrow.

Two courtrooms are being used. McClatchy reporter Carol Rosenberg is already tweeting: Reports are that Omar Khadr has been brought to court and there are some serious tech problems with the video feed into the room where the print reporters are. You can follow her on Twitter here. [More...]

I got this releae by e-mail from the Joe Sestak campaign:

Clinton Prosperity and Jobs vs. Bush Deficits and Recession?

[. . .] On the eve of President Clinton's visit to Pennsylvania, a close look at Congressman Toomey's choices and the Wall Street values that have led him to support the failed policies that have devastated Pennsylvania's economy show that his mindset would hurt Pennsylvania families all over again given the opportunity.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, President Clinton's fiscally responsible budgets and focus on tax breaks for working families created 87,000 new jobs per year in Pennsylvania over eight years. President Bush's fiscally irresponsible budgets and focus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans turned the largest budget surplus in history into massive, big government deficits. And during the entire Toomey-Bush period, Pennsylvania created a grand total of 67,000 jobs - fewer jobs for working families in eight years than President Clinton's priorities produced in just one year.

This is an interesting approach. Obviously Dems can't really brag about the Obama economy right now. Can they turn the 2010 elections into a Bush v. Bill Clinton affair? We'll see. Good place to start - repealing the Bush tax cuts.

Speaking for me only

Via digby:

Digby says that AZ SB 1070 is basically in effect. Not really. From the federal court decision (PDF):

Gloria Allred, who represents the woman who made a sexual harassment complaint against HP's Mark Hurd, has released a statement on behalf of her client, 50 year old occasional actress Jodie Fisher, in which Fisher says she never intended for Hurd to leave the company and they never had an intimate relationship or an affair.

It's not clear whether Allred filed a complaint with HP or just wrote a letter to Mark Hurd with her client's complaints, which he then turned over to HP. Either way, since a settlement was involved, there was more than one communication. And however it was delivered, HP conducted an investigation, finding no violation of its sexual harrassment policy, just expense account discrepancies, which were associated with Fisher. So what was in the initial complaint/letter?

In her complaint to HP, however, the woman said she felt pressured to have sex, according to a source, who said Hurd also has denied that.

Was she just seeking money? Sounds like it, since Fisher says she has "privately settled" her issues with Hurd, "without litigation."

Were the allegations embellished? Would you be surprised if they were?

DougJ provides the list of winners of the ADL Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Award. The entire list is pretty remarkable. But this particular recipient caught my eye:

For more than two decades, Charles Krauthammer's brilliant and influential writings have helped frame the shape of American foreign policy," said Mr. Foxman, noting that Mr. Krauthammer coined and developed "The Reagan Doctrine," defined the structure of the post-Cold War in "The Unipolar Moment" (Foreign Affairs 1990/1991) and outlined principles of post 9/11 American foreign policy in his February 2004 Irving Kristol Lecture, "Democratic Realism."

You have to think Tom Shales is the frontrunner for the next award.

Speaking for me only

Only eight days to go until Season 6 of Weeds starts.

Weeds returns for a smoking sixth season. Picking up after the untimely death of Mexican crime boss, Pilar Zuazo, Nancy Botwin’s youngest son Shane becomes a murderer and sends the Botwin family on the run – again. Starring Mary-Louise Parker as Nancy Botwin, Weeds season six welcomes a stellar cast of guest stars including new additions Richard Dreyfuss, Linda Hamilton and Mark Paul Gosselaar. Also returning to Weeds this season is Alanis Morissette and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Bumped from Saturday: There are a several excellent journalists and writers now on the ground at Guantanamo, ready to report on the military commissions trial of child soldier Omar Khadr, now 23, which is set to begin Tuesday (Hearings on motions will be held Monday. Here is the list of motions scheduled to be heard. Motions could go past Monday.)

Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy has a summary today, with an article titled "Khadr trial will be a window into America's war on terror." [More...]