E.J. Dionne:

Everyone on the left side of American politics, from the near end to the far end, has advice for Occupy Wall Street. I’m no exception. But it’s useful to acknowledge first that this movement has accomplished things that the more established left didn’t.

WaPo:

The congressional committee tasked with reducing the federal deficit is poised to admit defeat as soon as Monday, and its unfinished business will set up a year-end battle over emergency jobless benefits and an expiring payroll tax holiday.

While wasting most of the year on a non-existent "deficit crisis," the Beltway has ignored the jobs crisis. This neglect is brought into stark relief by what they think they need to do in December:

The Davis Faculty Association calls for ouster of UC-Davis Chancellor:

The DFA Board calls for the immediate resignation of Chancellor Katehi. The Chancellor’s authorization of the use of police force to suppress the protests by students and community members speaking out on behalf of our university and public higher education generally represents a gross failure of leadership. Given the recent use of excessive force by police against “occupy” protestors at UC Berkeley and elsewhere, the Chancellor must have anticipated that, by authorizing police action, she was effectively authorizing their use of excessive force against peaceful UCD student protestors. The Chancellor’s role is to enable open and free inquiry, not to suppress it. We also call for a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protestors by police on the UC Davis campus. The University of California should be taking a leadership role in encouraging the exercise of free speech, not in suppressing it.

Sacramento Bee:

The UC Davis chancellor called Saturday for a review of the events that led to 10 arrests and pepper spraying of apparently non-violent protestors on the campus Friday. [. . .]A task force review and report "will help inform our policies and process within the university administration and the UC Davis Police Department to help us avoid similar outcomes in the future," Katehi's statement said.

Better work quick because:

The students, meanwhile, expect to return to the quad in greater numbers Monday[.]

Chancellor's "letter" to the university community:

As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.

(Emphasis supplied.) The Chancellor's spokesperson was not "chilled" by the use of pepper spray and the head of the campus police was PRESENT when the pepper spray was used and remarked that her people did a great job. Obviously the "chill" the Chancellor identifies appears to have evolved after the reaction she felt from the criticism she has received.

UC-Davis Spokeperson:

Claudia Morain, a UC Davis spokesperson, told The Huffington Post that [. . .] that the officers were essentially trapped (the videos suggest otherwise) and had to transport several of the arrested students. "The pepper spray was used because they needed to get out of there," she said [. . .] "The police tried to use the least force that they could," Morain explained.

UC-Davis Campus police chief:

UCD Police Chief Annette Spicuzza [. . .], who observed the events on the Quad, said that she was “very proud” of her officers.

Oh by the way, the rationale for the action?

Chancellor Linda Katehi [said that . . .] while she appreciated the peaceful nature of recent protests, liability concerns and limited staffing to supervise protesters meant the encampment must come down.

(Emphasis supplied.) Liability concerns? This helped, I'm sure.

"Safety" concerns:

UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said officers used force out of concern for their own safety after they were surrounded by students. “If you look at the video you are going to see that there were 200 people in that quad,” said Chief Spicuzza. “Hindsight is 20-20 and based on the situation we were sitting in, ultimately that was the decision that was made.”

Yes. Look at the video.

Regular readers know that my speculative view was that President Obama never really cared about whether a public insurance program would be included in the vaunted exchanges. If they were in, he was ok with that. If they weren't, he was ok with that too. He mouthed a preference for the "public option," but never did anything to try and get it in (by contrast, he fought hard for a tax on so-called "Cadillac" health insurance plans.) I never paid much attention to the "Obama dealt the public option away" stories. Whether he did or didn't, by making clear he was not going to fight for it, he made its demise pretty likely.

That said, Jonathan Bernstein's questioning of the "Obama killed the public option" story bothers me -- not because he questions the story, but because his claims regarding what he accomplished are clearly overblown. The title of Bernstein's piece is "Obama never secretly killed the public option. It’s a myth." Bernstein has no way of knowing this. What he attempts to do, with some success, is undermine the story that it has been demonstrated that Obama in fact "killed the public option." I think he did a good job of debunking that claim. What he has not done is provide any evidence that "Obama did not kill the public option." I do not think "the President killed the public option." But I am positive Jonathan Bernstein has not disproven the claim.

Speaking for me only

Kevin Drum:

We liberals keep thinking that anti-tax fever has to crest any time now, and I remember a slew of magazine pieces predicting exactly that around 2006-07. But it hasn't happened yet. Or, more accurately, I guess I should say that Democrats are still scared witless by the idea of proposing a broad tax increase, and the evidence suggests they're right to be.

What evidence is Kevin Drum referring to? The last time taxes were raised in the United States was in 1993, by Bill Clinton. He won reelection in a landslide. The issue is simple - what is the best policy? Because good politics follows good policy. What's even more interesting is that here is an issue where the President of the United States does have immense power - he can veto any measure on the question of the Bush tax cuts. Indeed, he can do it AFTER his last election campaign, November 2012.

This is one issue where the President has the dominant hand. He should play it.

E.J. Dionne notes:

Here is a surefire way to cut $7.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Do nothing. That’s right. If Congress simply fails to act between now and Jan. 1, 2013, the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire, $1.2 trillion in additional budget cuts go through under the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, and a variety of other tax cuts also go away.

Matt Yglesias writes:

Here’s the thing you should keep in mind about the long-term deficit. Under current law, the Bush tax cuts will expire. [. . .] There is absolutely no need to get even a single Republican to assent to this plan.

Absolutely everything you’ve heard over the past year or month or week about various “bargains” or deals flows from the fact that Democrats have taken this idea off the table.[. . .] This creates a crippling bargaining weakness for the Democrats. The Republican negotiating objective is low taxes, but the Democratic negotiating objective is bipartisan agreement.

(Emphasis supplied.) You don't say?

A lot of scenarios have been conjured up for how Mitt Romney loses the GOP nomination. Too many of them have been based on swings in national polls of GOP voters. If we have learned nothing, I hope we have learned that national polls are virtually meaningless in presidential primaries and results in Iowa and New Hampshire, because they are first in the nation, have outsized importance (corn ethanol in your gasoline did not happen by accident.)

With these central political horserace handicapping tenets in mind, whenever I see a writeup about swings in the GOP presidential race, my first question is always "what does it mean in Iowa?" My second question is "What does it mean in New Hampshire?" So now the news is Newt Gingrich is "surging" and my questions remain the same. Bloomberg has an Ann Selzer poll answering the question for Iowa:

NYTimes:

While previously a small number of felons were able to reclaim their gun rights, the process became commonplace in many states in the late 1980s, after Congress started allowing state laws to dictate these reinstatements — part of an overhaul of federal gun laws orchestrated by the National Rifle Association. The restoration movement has gathered force in recent years, as gun rights advocates have sought to capitalize on the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms.

Herman Cain yesterday said he doesn't recognize Sharon Bialek or know her. But Bialak and witnesses say differently, since a month ago at a function, Bialak was seen approaching him, hugging him and talking to him. One of the witnesses is WIND radio co-host Amy Jacobson.