Sandra Fluke, whom Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) refused to let speak before his committee last week, spoke yesterday at an informal hearing hosted by the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, addressing the subject of contraception access. It's no wonder Issa wouldn't give Fluke a hearing; her testimony shows who's "moral" and who isn't:

Right Wing World

I think the immorality creates the problem of wanting to use the pills. So you don't blame the pills. I think it's sort of like the argument — conservatives use the argument all the time about guns. Guns don't kill, criminals kill. So, in a way, it's the morality of society that we have to deal with. The pill is there and, you know, it contributes, maybe, but the pills can't be blamed for the immorality of our society.-- Ron Paul, during the debate Wednesday

Women and their contraception are morally analogous to criminals and their firearms. -- Charles Pierce

Mark Murray of NBC News: at the GOP debate, "He Who Must Not Be Named -- [George W.] Bush -- was named by the candidates or moderator nine times.... Almost every heated exchange invoked, one way or another, policies, endorsements, or legislation from the Bush era.... All of last night's criticism of policies and endorsements from 2001 through 2008 -- some of which weren't all that controversial at the time -- reflects how much more conservative the Republican Party has become since the man who billed himself as the 'compassionate conservative' sat in the Oval Office.... Last night's debate was the first time when George W. Bush's record -- directly or indirectly -- was criticized as much as Barack Obama's." ...

Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "How much would a pair of victories [in Michigan & Arizona] be worth [to Mitt Romney]? Republican strategists say that although they would restore Romney to front-runner status in the race, they could still leave the party looking at a long nomination battle. They also say that winning both states Tuesday wouldn’t be enough to resolve many of the doubts that still surround Romney." ...

... Paul Krugman on Mitt Romney's Keynesian gaffe & his pathological lies: "Mr. Romney is so deeply committed to insincerity that neither side can trust him to do what it considers to be the right thing."

... With Friends Like This.... Steve Benen has a hilarious post which runs down quite a few Romney surrogates who are happy to speak out on the record disagreeing with or dissing Romney. ...

... With Endorsements Like This.... The Detroit Free Press endorses Romney in the Michigan primary, mostly because he's not as bad as the competition:

... for the past 12 months, Romney has been refashioning himself as something other than what his record suggests. He has made gestures toward economic and social radicalism, and eschewed the common sense of cooperative governing that made him a success in Massachusetts. Romney was also dead wrong when he opposed government bailouts for the auto industry (Michigan’s most vital economic engine) in late 2008. And he has since adopted a recalcitrant and, at times, revisionist defense of his position in the face of overwhelming evidence that the bailouts he opposed were necessary.... But Romney, unlike the zealous Rick Santorum, the impulsive Newt Gingrich and the backward-thinking Ron Paul, is preferable to the rest of the field.

... Domenico Montanaro of NBC News: "The pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future is going up with an ad in Michigan and Arizona, starting tonight, that focuses on the story of Mitt Romney helping to lead the search for his business partner's daughter who went missing in New York City in the 1990s.... The ad run by a SUPER PAC, called 'Saved,' is word-for-word the same ad that the Romney CAMPAIGN ran in 2007, called 'The Search.' ... Super PACs and campaigns are, by federal law, not allowed coordinate." You can see both ads on this NYT Caucus blogpost. ...

     ... Paul Blumenthal in the Huffington Post: Paul Ryan, a lawyer for the Campaign Legal Center, said the ad "violates campaign finance law that prohibits the republication of campaign materials by a super PAC." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... just days before Republicans vote in Michigan and Arizona, [Rick Santorum's] lengthy Washington record has also become powerful fodder for Mitt Romney as he attempts to undermine Mr. Santorum’s conservative credentials and portray him as a creature of insider politics.

Tim Egan contrasts Rick Santorum's theocratic aspirations with Roger Williams' founding of Rhode Island in 1636: "the first government in the world which broke church and state apart."

Is there any important political leader in this country who is more rude and obnoxious that Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.)? Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post tried to refute Christie's claim that he's "just like President Obama" on gay marriage. Christie would not let Capehart get a word in edgewise. The post & an embedded video of the exchange are here.

Local News

Gene Johnson of the AP: "In a ruling that appears headed toward appeal, a federal judge has ruled that Washington state cannot force pharmacies to sell Plan B or other emergency contraceptives. The state's true goal in adopting the rules at issue was not to promote the timely access to medicine, but to suppress religious objections by druggists who believe that such drugs can have an effect tantamount to abortion, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton said in his ruling Wednesday.... The judge, an appointee of President George W. Bush, first blocked the state's dispensing rule in 2007. But a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel overruled him, saying the rules did not target religious conduct. It sent the case back to Leighton, who held an 11-day trial before reaffirming his original decision."

Kenric Ward of Sunshine State News: "Waving aside objections from the Florida Bar and the ACLU, the [Florida state] House Judiciary Committee approved an 'anti-Sharia law' bill on Wednesday." CW: as a Floridian, I sure hope this bill passes because I stay up nights worrying I will have to bow five times a day to Mecca.

President Obama spoke yesterday at the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Museum of African American History and Culture:

Lonnie Bunch, Director of the National Museum of African American history, talks about the process of gathering material for the musueum:

NEW. Bob Drummond of Bloomberg News: "While Republicans promote themselves as the friendliest party for Wall Street, stock investors do better when Democrats occupy the White House. From a dollars- and-cents standpoint, it’s not even close." Like, about nine times better under Democratic presidents than under Republican POTUSes.

** NEW. Noam Scheiber of The New Republic on the memo Larry Summers didn't let President-Elect Obama see -- the one where Christina Romer called for a $1.8 trillion stimulus (later reduced, at Summers' insistence to $1.2 trillion & still "disappeared").

** Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "Like every other industry in health care, hospitals are consolidating to strengthen their financial positions or merely to survive," and many of those mergers are putting formerly secular hospitals under Roman Catholic control:

'There are a lot of rural places that now have only a Catholic hospital,' says Lois Uttley, director of MergerWatch, a research and advocacy group based in New York City. 'We hear regularly from doctors there who are just distraught at not being able to provide the care they want.' [Dr. Bruce] Silva, from Sierra Vista, [Arizona,] notes that such arrangements can be particularly tough on poor patients: 'If you’re wealthy, you go up to Tucson and you get a hotel. But a lot of people can’t even pay for the gas to get up there.'

... Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post on how abortion rights activists are changing the landscape -- and the language -- of their fight for women's reproductive rights. It seems to be working in Virginia. CW: Thank you, Dahlia Lithwick! (I linked Lithwick's post last week.) ...

... Or maybe this is what changed Gov. Bob McDonnell's (R) mind about supporting the anti-woman bill:

... Or this:

... Or tasteful commemorative momentos like this (thanks to Haley S. for the link):

... Joan Walsh of Salon: no, Democrats did not raise the contraception issue, as Rush Limbaugh & some slightly less partisan critics like Mielissa Henneberger of the Washington Post claim. At the end of the embedded video, Walsh lets Henneberger have it. CW: BTW, I have long thought Henneberger, who agrees with Limbaugh and, um, got into bed with the bishops, was a dope. She sure hasn't said or written anything lately to change my mind.

Here's a pdf of the President's "Framework for Business Tax Reform," produced by the Treasury Department. ...

... The Rich Get Richer. Citizens for Tax Justice opposes the President's proposal because it "fails to raise revenue that could be used to make public investments in America’s economy and America’s future." The proposal does not specify enough offsets to make up for his proposed reduction in the tax rate. CW: I think they're right. The proposal boasts the reform is "revenue-neutral"; i.e., breaks even with the current lop-sided taxing system. Citizens for Tax Justice says the proposal doesn't do even that. This looks like more redistribution of wealth upward. ...

... The New York Times editors have similar objections; they specifically complain that the Obama proposal does not specify a minimum tax on companies that outsource domestic production nor does it address taxes on foreign profits held overseas. The proposal leaves way too much in the Congressional Suggestion Box, as if Congress will, on its own, ignore lobbyists & close loopholes.

Erik Wasson of The Hill: "The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package continues to have a significant effect. The bill raised fourth-quarter 2011 gross domestic product by as much as 1.5 percent, it states, and lowered the unemployment rate by as much as 1.1 percentage points." Sorry, GOP.

Ari Berman of The Nation: "The Super-PAC era gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'the buying of the president.'” ...

... Fabulous Get-Rich Quick Scheme: Start a SuperPAC, Pay Yourself Half a Mil & Counting. Melanie Mason & Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times: "Much of the focus on super PACs has been on their ability to raise unlimited sums from a cadre of super-rich donors. Less attention has been paid to how they use their money — and the fact that they do not have to contend with the same kind of internal scrutiny as the candidates and political parties they support."

Right Wing World

Liar, Liar, Liar. Willard, Rick, Newt. New York Times staff fact-checks the GOP presidential debate. ...

... Amy Walter of ABC News picks Rick Santorum as the loser & President Obama as the winner of last night's debate.

And so this idea that we didn’t ask that question while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, [John McCain] doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative. And that’s when we got this information. And one thing led to another, and led to another, and that’s how we ended up with bin Laden. -- Rick Santorum, 2011

Here's a video of Santorum raising his hand for waterboarding under "any circumstances he could imagine."

Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast: Rick Santorum's "defense of torture is far, far more scandalous to the Catholic church than any liberal Catholic politician's views on, say, same-sex marriage or contraception. It is he who has made his faith integral to his public life. Yet he defends the equivalent of crucifixion for prisoners under his potential command. When, one wonders, will Catholics hear a letter from the pulpit on the vital question of torture - and the support for it from a leading Catholic candidate for the presidency?" Read Sullivan's whole post. ...

... NEW. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "When Rick Santorum accused President Obama of having 'some phony theology' last weekend, it was neither an isolated event nor an offhand remark. Instead, Santorum’s comments were a new twist on a steady theme of his Republican presidential candidacy: that Obama and other Democrats have a secular worldview not based on the Bible, one they are intent on imposing on believers." ...

It’s funny that I’ve been criticized by Gov. Romney and by Ron Paul for having voted for something called Title X which is actually federal funding of contraception. My public policy beliefs are that contraception should be available. Again, I’ve supported Title X funding. -- Rick Santorum, way last week

As Congressman Paul knows, I opposed Title X funding. I’ve always opposed Title X funding, but it’s included in a large appropriation bill that includes a whole host of other things. -- evidently a different Rick Santorum, in last night's debate

... Joan Walsh thanks Rick Santorum for doing so much to expose the backward views of the GOP.

In Willard's World, when President Obama talks about the one percent, it's "inconsistent with the concept of 'one nation under god'"; evidently when Willard talks about whacking the one percent, it's fiscally responsible:

 ... BUT, hey, this is nothing. William Saletan of Slate writes a long, fascinating & extensively-researched article about Willard's incredible (and I mean "incredible" in both senses of the word) "evolution" on matters of abortion & fetal life. Here's the short version:

Sam Baker of The Hill: "Democrats successfully shifted a debate over religious liberty to birth control last week, but opponents of the contraception mandate are trying to shift it right back." Read the whole article. Here's the Democratic House members petition, mentioned in the article, that demands women be allowed "at the table when discussing women's health issues."

Sahil Kapur of TPM: "The Supreme Court is poised to rule this summer on the constitutionality of the health care reform law’s requirement that Americans buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. But it has the legal option to delay a decision until at least 2014, and although the possibility has received little attention, new evidence suggests that justices are considering it more strongly." ...

... Glenn Greenwald does an I-told-ya-so. Justice Elena Kagan sides with the conservative justices on a Miranda ruling. The split was 6-3. Not good. ...

... CW: I seldom, if ever, recommend readers wade through legal documents, but this court order (pdf) by Judge Fred Biery is a gem (and it's short -- read the whole order, including the "personal statement" at the end). Thanks to a reader for the link. Tracy Hamilton of the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News has the background, which you may want to read first: "When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls out activist judges on the campaign trail, the name he mentions most often is Fred Biery. Biery, the chief federal judge for the Western District of Texas, emerged as a target for conservative criticism after he ruled last summer that Medina Valley High School couldn't officially sanction prayer at its graduation ceremony.... His ruling stood for just two days before it was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ... [and] remanded the case back to Biery's court, without addressing the merits of his decision.... Biery has also urged the two sides into mediation." Under the approved agreement, "... the Medina Valley ISD won’t officially make prayer part of graduation ceremonies. The MSA does not, however, prohibit valedictorians or other student speakers from praying. Those moments must be introduced as 'student remarks.'” Andrew Cowen of The Atlantic has an analysis here, refuting Gingrich.

Conservative writer Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic: "Memo to Republicans: Obama Is Tougher on Iran than George W. Bush": One "reason we have arrived at this moment of high tension: The Obama Administration, through its stalwart opposition to the Iranian nuclear program, has narrowed Iran's maneuverability, and forced the regime to make some obvious errors.... It is precisely because the Obama Administration has constructed a sanctions program without precedent, and because the Obama Administration has funded and supported multinational cyber-sabotage efforts against the Iranian nuclear program, that Iran is panicking and lashing-out."

     ... Related item from CBS News. CW: The concert, which I ran live on Reality Chex, was pretty enjoyable. It will air on PBS Monday February 27 at 9 p.m. ET.

"Serious Businss Tycoons." Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times: "About two dozen individuals, couples or corporations have given $1 million or more to Republican super PACs this year, an exclusive club empowered by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and other rulings.... Collectively, their contributions have totaled more than $50 million this cycle.... They have relatively few Democratic counterparts so far.... And unlike in past years, when wealthy donors of both parties donated chiefly to groups that were active in the general election campaign, the top Republican donors are contributing money far earlier, in contests that will determine the party’s presidential nominee." ...

... Dan Eggen & T. W. Farnam of the Washington Post: "... a rarefied group of millionaires and billionaires [are] acting as kingmakers in the GOP contest, often helping to decide, with a simple transfer of money, which candidate might survive another day. Although many of these mega-donors have long participated in politics, none were able to wield the kind of influence now possible under loosened campaign finance regulations, which allow super PACs and other outside groups to spend unlimited amounts on political races."

Right Wing World

It’s not a new candidate the right needs. It’s a new electorate. -- Michael Tomasky in the Daily Beast (Read Tomasky's whole post.)

Charles Pierce of Esquire explains the evolution of the Church of Rick -- "a 20-year effort to develop Roman Catholics who could talk like Southern Baptists, bonded as both groups were now by their twisted views of human sexuality, and by their desire to re-establish control over what American women can do with their bodies. It is an alliance of powerful convenience." ...

... Maureen Dowd has a rundown of some of Rick's Greatest Hits in her column today, beginning with this one:

Satan has his sights on the United States of America. Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition. -- Rick Santorum, 2008 ...

... AND here's Santorum, just yesterday, on President Obama's secret plot to raise gas prices so you can't afford to get to work or the grocery store. Because, you know, high gas prices are such a plus for an incumbent in an election year. Okay, actually, this is Santorum's salvo in the Drill, Baby, Drill sweepstakes.

... Santorum's outrages are coming with such speed that the punditocracy can't keep up. Finally, two days after the fact, Dana Milbank calls out that horrid little man for equating President Obama with Adolf Hitler. "This is where Santorum exists, in a place of binary extremes of good and evil, where his political foe isn’t just wrong but adheres to a 'phony theology' not found in the Bible. His frequent tendency to go from zero to Nazi over ordinary political disagreements ... shows why he’s outside the bounds major political parties have applied to their past presidential nominees. Some of Santorum’s opponents have suggested that his Hitler tic reflects his own autocratic tendencies."

Romney's Got Nothin' on Santorum. Steve Benen: Yesterday, standing next to his No. 1 Ohio supporter, Sen. Rob Portman (R), Mitt Romney again criticized Rick Santorum for voting to raise the debt ceiling while he was in Congress, which is kinda funny because "Portman, who not only repeatedly voted to raise the debt ceiling himself as a member of Congress, but also served as George W. Bush's budget director when the Bush/Cheney administration repeatedly raised the debt ceiling."

How to say "quiet rooms" (see Romney, Willard) in New Jersey:

... Greg Sargent: "Buffett’s point is that the scale of the problem requires his class as a whole to chip in a bit more to solve it.... It’s very inconvenient for Republicans to have people like Buffett out there forcing issues of inequality and tax unfairness into the national conversation. It makes it a lot harder to equate proposed solutions to them with 'envy' and 'class warfare....”

Local News

Harry Minium & Julian Walker of the Virginian-Pilot: "In the face of widespread criticism, Republican state lawmakers delayed a vote again [Tuesday] on a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion. SB48 ... was one of the targets of two protest rallies on the State Capital grounds that drew nearly 1,000 women on Monday. Republican efforts to restrict insurance coverage of contraception and abortion rights have been lampooned by commentators, including a skit on Saturday Night Live. Some legislators suggested on Tuesday that they may attempt to soften ultrasound legislation."

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "Even as government officials prepare to unveil new standards this week for how banks treat millions of Americans facing foreclosure, housing advocates and homeowners are skeptical the rules will be able to do something past efforts have not: provide a beleaguered borrower with one individual to help them navigate the mortgage maze." CW: one more nail in the coffin of Joe Nocera's cheerleading the settlement agreement.

Rod Norland & David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "The Egyptian prosecution’s summary of the case against at least 16 Americans and others from five democracy and human rights groups focuses largely on the testimony of their accusers, with evidence primarily limited to proof that their organizations used American and other foreign funds for payrolls and rent."

Matt Yglesias of Slate finds another use for a liberal arts education: it teaches students to read and write, skills that are necessary in most high-level jobs. AND "It's a fallacy to think that in an increasingly technology-performed society that technical skills will be the only sources of value.... Mastering a specific body of facts is not nearly as useful in 2012 as it was in 1962."

Here's an example of how Rachel Maddow is a one-woman public service (okay, she has help):

CW: yesterday I promised to link to some responses to Bill Keller's column dismissing WikiLeaks and Julian Assange:

     ... Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake does a terrific job of unpacking & refuting Keller's claims. "The Times is a gate-keeping media organization. They see their role in society as one that involves deciding what the public needs to know and not know. WikiLeaks questions this process, which most media engage in. WikiLeaks makes it difficult for the news organization by exposing how the organization covers certain stories and ignores other stories." ...

     ... Chris Spannos of the New York Times eXaminer has another excellent critique, including "presponses" from Assange. ...

     ... Samir Chopra: Over at the New York Times, Bill Keller, who has been doing his best to make sure it will be hard to take him for a serious  journalist, writes a piece–- bursting to the seams with snark –- on Wikileaks. Keller..., whose trafficking in superficiality has been embarrassingly on display for all too long on the NYT’s Op-Ed’s pages, simply cannot be bothered with seriously engaging with the issues that Wikileaks raised." ...

     ... Greg Mitchell of The Nation contributes his own take & adds a few others. ...

     ... Jack Goldsmith, former Bush II Office of Legal Counsel director: "Keller is right that the Wikileaks phenomenon was overblown.... But it does not follow that the government is more secretive than ever.... The government ... is losing the war against leaks. The size of the secrecy bureaucracy makes secrets harder than ever to keep. So too do modern information technologies.... The government ... has a harder time than ever keeping important secrets related to national security." ...

     ... Hamilton Nolan of Gawker: "Bill Keller eagerly reminds you that he still hates Julian Assange.... If you’re going to launch a crusade against something, at least make it something worthwhile."

ABC News has a breakdown of what the presidential campaigns & SuperPACs, including President Obama's, raised & spent in January.

"Barack Obama, the Greatest Gun Salesman in America." Joshua Green of Business Week: "Despite the fact that Obama hasn’t made the slightest feint toward regulating guns, firearms enthusiasts have whipped themselves into a paranoid frenzy, convinced that this is all just part of some elaborate conspiracy."

Right Wing World

Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches translates Santorum code. Meanwhile, Santorum's spokesperson Alice Stewart accuses President Obama of "radical Islamic policies," but she says she really meant "radical environmentalist poilices." (Post includes video.) Posner notes that, like "radical secular," both "radical Islamic" & "radical environmentalist" are anti-Christian, so it's no wonder Stewart mixed them up:

Santorum ... admitted to [Bob] Schieffer [of CBS News] that he believes humans are biblically commanded to take dominion over the earth, and that environmentalism is in conflict with that mandate.... In Michigan today, Santorum is rehashing this speech claiming that 'climate science' is actually 'political science.' Translation: there is no science, there is only God. Any attempt at science is necessarily political, and therefore illegitimate if in conflict with a 'Christian worldview.' ...

... In this post, Harold Posner points to a November 2011 article by Ben Adler of The Nation on Rick Santorum's opposition to an array of government programs that help the disabled. CW: here's why am I highlighting Adler's post now: Santorum opposes amneocentesis coverage for pregnant women because positive results for fetal anomalies often lead women to choose abortion. So Santorum wants these women to carry disabled fetuses to term, give birth, and then have no help in caring for them. The guy is a monster. ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Visiting coal country, Rick Santorum repeated criticisms of President Obama‘s pro-environmental 'theology' and women’s health mandates...." ...

... ** Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: Santorum dogwhistles to a crowd President Obama is just like Hitler whom "the Greatest Generation" ignored because Americans are an optimistic people who were saying Hitler was a "nice guy." And now Americans are saying the same thing about Obama. Read the whole citation. It's chilling. ...

... Rick Santorum, International Diplomat. BuzzFeed: Santorum enrages the Dutch with his fact-free claim that the Low Country is so low it euthanizes its seniors against their will.

NEW. Excellent catch by Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: Mitt Romney's tortured position on the auto bailouts centers around his claim that private interests should have funded a "managed bankruptcy." BUT "both [Chrysler & GM] needed billions of dollars in financing, money that auto executives and government officials who were involved with Mr. Obama’s auto task force say ... no private companies would come to the industry’s aid, and the only path through bankruptcy would have been Chapter 7 liquidation, not the more orderly Chapter 11 reorganization, these people said. In fact, the [Obama] task force asked Bain Capital, the private equity company that Mr. Romney helped found, if it was interested in investing in General Motors’ European operations.... Bain declined.... Mr. Romney’s Republican allies in Michigan are seeking to shift attention to other topics."

... Steve Benen: "Romney would have voters believe he used his expertise as a businessman to get the Olympics back on track. What actually happened, however, was that Romney hired a team of lobbyists -- from five separate D.C. lobbying firms -- to get Congress to give him a lot of money.... This wasn't about corporate know-how or the skills of turnaround artist; this was a straightforward process involving Romney, lobbyists, and a truckload of taxpayer money." ...

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "A “super PAC” supporting Mitt Romney blew through $14 million on a three-state advertising binge against his Republican rivals in January, according to campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday. But the super PAC, Restore Our Future, also raised close to $7 million during the same month, and began February with more than $16 million in the bank, money that has helped pound Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum...."

Ross Ramsey of the Texas Tribune: "Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania has a commanding lead among Republican presidential candidates in Texas, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. Santorum would get the votes of 45 percent of the respondents if the election were held today, according to the survey.... Gingrich got 18 percent, Romney received 16 percent and Paul garnered 14 percent."

Steve Kornacki of Salon on why a white knight (and in the GOP the knight would be whitey-white) will not save the GOP from its Not-Romney, should Not-Romney a/k/a Santorum, win the overall state delegates vote.

CW: Hmm. I guess I'll limit my use of PayPal now that I know its billionaire founder is Peter Thiel, an anti-government loon & big Ron Paul backer.

T. W. Farnam of the Washington Post: "Four years ago, just 6 percent of campaign advertising in the GOP primaries amounted to attacks on other Republicans; in this election, that figure has shot up to more than 50 percent, according to an analysis of advertising trends. And the negative ads are not just more frequent — they also appear to be more vitriolic."

Local News

CW: I can't resist linking to this lovely profile by Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald of my very own Congressman, Connie Mack (R), who is running for the U.S. Senate. Yes, Connie Mack, public fiscal hawk/private deadbeat, absentee rep & bar brawler.

BUT my Wingnut of the Week is Indiana State Rep. Bob Morris (R-Fort Wayne), who wrote a long letter to his fellow statehouse Republicans, warning them of the "abundant evidence proves that the agenda of Planned Parenthood includes sexualizing young girls through the Girl Scouts, which is quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood." Also, the Scouts "promote homosexual lifestyles." And, "Of the fifty role models listed, only three have a briefly-mentioned religious background – all the rest are feminists, lesbians, or Communists." Morris has pulled his daughters out of this feminist, lesbian, Communist cabal. ...

... AP: "Morris is the only House member to refuse to sign a resolution honoring the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts that lawmakers approved last week."

News Ledes

Minneapolis Star Tribune: A Minnesota judicial panel on Tuesday released new political district lines that place U.S. Reps. Michele Bachmann, a Republican, and Betty McCollum, a Democrat, into the same congressional district, according to Bachmann's office. Bachmann said that she will run for her old 6th District seat even though newly drawn congressional maps put her home in the 4th District, currently represented by McCollum.... Members of Congress don't have to live in the district they represent, so Bachmann is free to run wherever she likes in Minnesota. She said she has not yet decided if she will move her home into the new district.... In a fundraising email, she accused the court of 'liberal bias.'" Yes, Mrs. Bachmann, it's a liberal conspiracy.

AP: "It came and went in a flash each time, a number on a board for mere seconds, but its symbolic power couldn't be dismissed. The Dow Jones industrial average, powered higher all year by optimism that the economic recovery is finally for real, crossed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 2008."

New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a major case on affirmative action in higher education, adding another potential blockbuster to a docket already studded with them. The court’s decision in the new case holds the potential to undo an accommodation reached in the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger: that public colleges and universities could not use a point system to boost minority enrollment but could take race into account in vaguer way to ensure academic diversity."

Politico: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday allotted an extra 30 minutes to oral arguments on the health care reform law, giving another half an hour to the debate over whether a federal tax law should prevent a ruling this year. The decision bumps up the total argument time to six hours over three days in late March."

New York Times: "Greece finally secured its second giant bailout early Tuesday after euro zone finance ministers agreed to save it from bankruptcy in exchange for severe austerity measures and strict conditions."

New York Times: "In a rare move for an Arab state where popular dissent worked to unseat a dictator, Yemenis went to polling stations on Tuesday to vote out President Ali Abdullah Saleh."

New York Times: "As tension grew in its nuclear dispute with the West, Iran was reported on Tuesday to have struck an increasingly bellicose tone, warning that it would take pre-emptive action against perceived foes if it felt its national interests were threatened."

Reuters: "Syrian government forces killed at least 16 people and wounded some 340 on Tuesday when they unleashed a heavy artillery barrage on a rebel-held district of the city of Homs, activists said. The bombardment rained down as International Committee of the Red Cross officials tried to negotiate a halt to the fighting to allow them to bring aid to civilians suffering in horrendous conditions after 18 days of attacks on Homs."

Washington Post: "Deeply angered over the improper disposal of copies of the Koran by U.S. troops, thousands of Afghans on Tuesday tried to storm the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan. The protests erupted early in the morning, after Afghans working inside the Bagram air base reported to local residents that a number of copies of the Koran had been burned."

Reuters: "Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken in for questioning on Tuesday by police investigating an alleged prostitution ring run out of the northern French city of Lille."

CW: Sorry for the late start today. My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on "This Week's New York Times Sunday Sex Sermon." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Alex Gourevitch & Aziz Rana in Salon: Forget Jefferson. Go with Lincoln. Jefferson's view was "deeply inegalitarian," whereas Lincoln had a more egalitarian view of social mobility premised on the idea of economic independence. ...

... Prof. Dorian Warren in Slate on rethinking the labor movement for the 21st century: "What grounds this vision of a 21st century labor movement is the core idea of extending what Americans claim to cherish in politics and civil society to the workplace: democracy, liberty and freedom. The consolidation of income, wealth and political power by the 1 percent over the last several decades is directly related to the decline of workers’ voice and power."

"Pain without Gain." Paul Krugman: "... we could actually do a lot to help our economies simply by reversing the destructive austerity of the last two years. That’s true even in America, which has avoided full-fledged austerity at the federal level but has seen big spending and employment cuts at the state and local level." ...

Thomas Edsall, in a New York Times op-ed, finds experts who question the legitimacy of free-market capitalism. I have a major quibble with Edsall's selections -- they don't emphasize the policies that have made globalization a threat to ordinary American workers -- but his post is worth reading to get an idea of what the problems are.

Frank Rich on an Obama-Santorum contest, and why it could be tougher for Obama than an Obama-Romney match-up.

Richard Halen in Slate: "Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg seems poised to use the Montana case to expose the false premise at the heart of the Citizens United case": that fat cats giving millions to Super PACs in support of candidates or causes do not "give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." "If we are lucky, she’ll convince one of the justices in the Citizens United majority of the error of his ways." CW: this is a good article for you lawyers; Hasen delves into & explains what seem to a layperson to be fairly esoteric but defining legal principles: when a fact is not a fact, and how Citzens United is internally inconsistent.

BTW, if you read Bill Keller's New York Times column on WikiLeaks & Julian Assange, at least read the comments. The material he covers is so vast I'm not knowledgeable enough to counter him except on a superficial level, but I'll link to articles by writers who have something substantive -- either negative or positive -- to say about Keller's screed.

Right Wing World

** Wow! All of the Founding Fathers Agreed with the GOP. About, Like, Everything. Even If They Didn't Say So. Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "... many historians believe that the GOP presidential candidates are summoning the Founding Fathers this year to divide as much as to unify. And the candidates frequently dig up the Founders to inject religion into the campaign rather than remove it from the debate."

"Ideological Hypocrites." E. J. Dionne: "This Republican presidential campaign is demonstrating conclusively that there is an unbridgeable divide between the philosophical commitments conservative candidates make before they are elected and what they will have to do when faced with the day-to-day demands of practical governance.... Can conservatives finally face the fact that they actually want quite a lot from government, and that they are simply unwilling to raise taxes to pay for it?"

Dave Weigel of Slate on Republican Neo-Pessimism. If only the economy would tank again!

Meghashyam Mali of The Hill: "GOP hopeful Mitt Romney held on to his lead in Maine's caucuses Saturday after votes postponed by bad weather were finally tallied. Ron Paul gained 83 votes on Romney following the caucus in Washington county, but Romney held a 156-vote lead statewide reported the Associated Press."

David Firestone of the New York Times: "More than any major candidate in recent times, [Rick] Santorum has derogated the federal government on religious grounds." ...

     ... Here's Santorum on his opposition to prenatal testing: "Santorum said he feels sonograms and 'all sorts of prenatal testing' are acceptable, and if he were an employer, he would provide it in his health insurance, but he feels differently about amniocentesis." More here. ...

... AND here is Santorum objecting to the "weird socialization" that goes on in public "factory" schools. He prefers home-schooling & the one-room schoolhouse. Welcome, my friends, to the 19th century:

... BUT allow me to cut Santorum a break. He has a shaggy dog story that should give you a laugh.

Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: an archive at the University of West Georgia of papers about Newt Gingrich reveals an image of Gingrich the candidate would not want you to see. "An examination of the papers collected over nearly three decades reveals a politician of moderate-to-liberal beginnings, a product of the civil rights era who moved to the right with an eye on political expediency — and privately savaged Republicans he was praising in public. Even as he gained a reputation as a conservative firebrand, the documents show Gingrich was viewed by his staff primarily as a tactician — the 'tent evangelist' of the conservative movement, one staffer said — with little ideological core."

Local News

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: "Florida lawmakers contend that education is essential to high-wage jobs in the state, but the [GOP-led] Legislature is again expected to slash millions of dollars from the budget for higher education and may usher in another round of tuition increases."

News Ledes

Reuters: "U.S. Senators said in Cairo on Monday they hoped for a swift end to a row over U.S. pro-democracy activists accused of working illegally in Egypt and said they were committed to help Egypt nurture its democratic institutions and rebuild its economy. Senator John McCain, leading the delegation, said Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi assured them Egypt was working to solve the dispute that triggered a crisis between Washington and Cairo, threatening $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid."

AP: "Oil prices jumped to a nine-month high above $105 a barrel on Monday after Iran said it halted crude exports to Britain and France in an escalation of a dispute over the Middle Eastern country's nuclear program."

New York Times: "The United States and Mexico reached agreement on Monday on regulating oil and gas development along their maritime border in the Gulf of Mexico, ending years of negotiations and potentially opening more than a million acres to deepwater drilling."

Reuters: "Japan and the United States have made substantial progress in their talks on sanctions against Iran, but no agreement has yet been reached, Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said on Tuesday."

Reuters: "A top executive of Japan's scandal-ridden Olympus Corp has been found dead in a park outside New Delhi, an apparent suicide, The Times of India said on Tuesday, quoting police. Tsutomu Omori, 49, who was head of Olympus's medical equipment business in India, was found hanging from a boundary wall...."

New York Times: "After months of fraught negotiation, euro zone finance ministers were poised to bring Greece back from the brink of default Monday by agreeing to a second giant bailout in exchange for severe austerity measures — and subject to strict conditions."

Reuters: "Senior U.N. inspectors arrived in Tehran on Monday for talks on Iran's disputed nuclear program, a day after the Islamic state responded defiantly to tightened EU sanctions by halting oil sales to British and French companies."

Reuters: "Vladimir Putin will be elected president in the first round of March's election with more than half the vote, avoiding a runoff that would dent his authority on the eve of his planned return to the Kremlin's top job, a state pollster predicted Monday."

In 2009, a Russian satellite hit an Iridium communications satellite. Here, Iridium satellite orbits and collision debris clouds. Photo by D. S. Kelso, via the New York Times.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer takes a look at Tom Friedman's latest "great idea." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

** Please read today's comments. Mae Finch has a doozy.

Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "The nation has lost 668,000 state and local government jobs since the recession hit — more than in any modern downturn.... On the national level, the steady loss of public sector jobs has reduced the effects of recent job gains in the private sector and has slowed economic growth. But in cities and states around the country, the loss of those jobs has made it harder to provide services and has upended the lives of thousands of workers who had thought their government jobs were safe." ...

... Paul Krugman wrote a related woulda, coulda shoulda post last week. ...

... Jonathan Tasini of Playboy interviews Krugman. ...

... Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post has an interesting piece on Modern Monetary Theory, centered on the views of Jamie Galbraith.

CW: yesterday I linked to a rebuttal to a major New York Times story which claimed "Politicians have expanded the safety net without a commensurate increase in revenues, a primary reason for the government’s annual deficits and mushrooming debt." It doesn't hurt to reinforce that rebuttal (and Democrats seriously need to get the word out to the teeming masses longing to be free of "entitlements"): James Kwak of Baseline Scenario writes,

The idea that politicians have expanded the safety net is just not true, with the exception of the Medicare prescription drug benefit and an expansion in Medicaid that hasn’t taken effect yet. Spending on social programs has increased for a few obvious reasons: the baby boomers have started taking Social Security benefits, increasing that program’s expenditures; the recession boosted unemployment benefits, disability claims, and eligibility for poverty programs; and most importantly, health care has gotten much more expensive.

Joanne Kenan of Politico on contraception as a 2012 political issue. How did this happen? "Rick Santorum said states ought to have the right to outlaw the sale of contraception. And Susan G. Komen for the Cure yanked its funding for Planned Parenthood. And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops teed off on President Barack Obama’s contraception policy. And House Republicans invited a panel of five men — and no women — to debate the issue. And a prominent Santorum supporter pined for the days when 'the gals' put aspirin 'between their knees' to ward off pregnancy."

"Voting Rights Act under Siege." Josh Gerstein of Politico: "In a political system where even the most trivial issues trigger partisan rancor, the Voting Rights Act has stood for several decades as a rare point of bipartisan consensus. Until now. An intensifying conservative legal assault on the Voting Rights Act could precipitate what many civil rights advocates regard as the nuclear option: a court ruling striking down one of the core elements of the landmark 1965 law guaranteeing African Americans and other minorities access to the ballot box. At the same time, the view that states should have free rein to change their election laws even in places with a history of Jim Crow seems to be gaining traction within the Republican Party."

Geov Parrish of the Booman Tribune: back in 2004, Judy Miller of the New York Times carried water for the Bush administration & wrote up its phony claims about Iraqi aggression; today's media, including the Times, seems even more interested in pursuing war with Iran than is the Obama administration.

Right Wing World

Richard Oppel of the New York Times on Wingnut Patrol: "... Rick Santorum< on Saturday criticized the public education system and questioned whether President Obama’s agenda sprang from a 'phony theology.' At one appearance here [in Ohio], he said the idea of schools run by the federal government or by state governments was 'anachronistic.' ... It was the latest in a series of comments ... suggesting that he takes a dim view of public schooling.... At another stop in Ohio on Saturday, Mr. Santorum waded into what he called the 'phony theology' of Mr. Obama’s agenda. 'It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology,' he said. 'But no less a theology.' ... Mr. Santorum has passed up ... opportunities to correct misstatements about the president’s background. Last month, a woman at one of Mr. Santorum’s campaign stops in Florida declared ... that Mr. Obama was Muslim.... Mr. Santorum did not correct the woman’s statement, and he later said it is not his job to correct such statements.” ...

    ... Update: Jake Tapper of ABC News: "Obama campaign strategist and former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum this morning, saying he was 'well over the line' for questioning President Obama’s Christian faith. 'It’s wrong, it’s destructive and it makes it virtually impossible to solve the problems we face together as Americans,' Gibbs told me in an exclusive interview Sunday on 'This Week.' 'It’s just time to get rid of this mindset in our politics that if we disagree we have to question character and faith.'”

Dan Nowicki of the Arizona Republic: "Embattled Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who is facing explosive allegations that he and his attorney tried to intimidate a former lover by threatening to have him deported, on Saturday quit his position as an Arizona co-chairman of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign." ...

... Monica Alonzo of the Phoenix News Times has the backstory: "Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu — who became the face of Arizona border security nationally after he started stridently opposing illegal immigration — threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship, the former boyfriend and his lawyer tell New Times."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Riot police shielded Greece's national parliament Sunday as demonstrators gathered to protest against austerity measures on the eve of talks in Brussels on a 130-billion-euro ($171 billion) bailout needed to avert bankruptcy."

Guardian: "Iran announced on Sunday that it had stopped selling crude oil to British and French companies, in a move that may put further pressure on the price of oil amid heightening political tensions."

Reuters: "Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in cities across Russia in support of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday in a show of force two weeks before a March 4 presidential election that is expected to return him to the Kremlin."

     ... Update: here's my NYTX column. It's titled "Fire Joe Nocera." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to NYTX here. ...

... Laurence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute explains to New York Times reporter/analysts why we are not "becoming an entitlement society."

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

Jason DeParle & Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage."

"Did the Stimulus Work?" Michael Linden of the Center for American Progress:

** Thomas Frank in a TruthOut interview: "... what is really spectacular is how [the 2008 financial meltdown] ... got processed through the right's upside-down machine and came out as the story of how power-hungry leftists tried to 'transform America' by force during a crisis: Rather than Hank Paulson and Co. bailing out their friends, it was Big Government trying to get its fingers around the throat of free enterprise.... Barack Obama had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take the financial oligarchy apart ... because that was what democracy requires -- and despite the right's perception of him as Robespierre reincarnated, he didn't do it."

"A Better Way to Buy Politicians." Lindsay Mark Lewis, a former DNC finance director, urges repeal of what's left of McCain-Feingold, which would put mega-donors' money under the control of the politicians they back & make politicians responsible for the ads they run. CW: maybe, but hardly a substantial improvement. ...

... CW: Besides, Andy Rosenthal inadvertently points out an advantage to keeping SuperPACS independent of candidates: "... under the law, broadcast stations cannot censor, edit or refuse ads by candidates for federal office.... But ... independent groups are not guaranteed the same access to airwaves as candidates for federal office. TV stations have every right to reject third-party ads." Rosenthal doesn't see TV stations turning down ad revenues, but he says they should "insist on edits for the sake of accuracy." ...

... Here's Annenberg's FlackCheck.org  One thing you can do is click on "Stations" (upper left) to e-mail your local stations & urge them to stop running deceptive ads.

Michelle Dammon Loyalka, a journalist living in Beijing, in a New York Times op-ed: "... while China’s industrial subsidies, trade policies, undervalued currency and lack of enforcement for intellectual property rights all remain sticking points for the United States, there is at least one area in which the playing field seems to be slowly leveling: the cheap labor that has made China’s factories nearly unbeatable is not so cheap anymore." ...

... Reuters: "Foxconn Technology Group, the top maker of Apple Inc's iPhones and iPads whose factories are under scrutiny over labour practices, has raised wages of its Chinese workers by 16-25 percent from this month, the third rise since 2010."

Via the Wall Street Journal.Prof. Jeffrey Sachs in the Huffington Post: "One of the unshakable myths of the punditariat is that the federal government is going bankrupt because of entitlements spending, especially spending on Medicare and Medicaid.... The most frequently quoted forecast is that of the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO's long-term forecast assumes that health care costs will continue to rise steeply during the next 70 years, though at a diminishing rate.... [But] healthcare costs are already vastly over-priced now compared with what other countries pay for the same services.... New information technologies ... lower the costs of health-care delivery and administration.... Let's therefore fight the right-wing hysteria demanding immediate and harsh cuts in Medicaid and other health outlays." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. Since the post is in the HuffPo, I never would have found it. ...

... OMG! Even J. D. Kleinke of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute agrees: "... the growth rate of national health expenditures ... has been moderating since 2002." Of course he thinks the way forward is in the "free market" where everybody gets to shop for their own policies. He would. Because, you know, individual insurance consumers have so much power.

VatiLeaks! Boys in Beanies Behaving Badly. Elisabetta Povoledo of the New York Times: "... the Vatican has become embroiled in an embarrassing scandal in which a number of leaked documents have drawn back the curtains on the church’s inner workings. The internal church squabbling, predictably dubbed 'VatiLeaks' by the Italian news media, became public about three weeks ago with the disclosure on television and in newspapers of confidential letters written by a top Vatican official who had denounced alleged corruption and financial mismanagement in Vatican City."

Kathleen Hennessey & Christi Parsons of the Los Angeles Times: President Obama raised $6,000 a minute on his Western trip -- and criticism from Republicans & those inconvenienced by traffic congestion he caused.

Right Wing World

Viva America! Quote of the Day: This sounds like some third-world county governed by colonels in mirrored sunglasses in which he dictates, 'I, the supreme leader, dictate that something will be provided free when we know the cost of that will have to be borne by everybody else in society that's not getting the free good.' -- Karl Rove, on contraceptive coverage (pssst! somebody tell Bush's Brain that contraception saves both public & private money; in fact, insurance policies that don't cover contraception cost more than those that do)

Once again, Steve Benen lists Mitt Romney's five top lies of the week. It is astounding that it is possible, week after week, to find five or ten lies that a major candidate has made during any given week.

Protestants Are Not Christians. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic; sure, the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. -- Rick Santorum, in a 2008 speech at conservative Catholic Ave Maria University. More here -- this is really remarkable stuff ...

... Charles Blow: in Detroit, the city with the highest poverty rate in the U.S., "Rick Santorum praises income inequality." Blow writes a pretty good takedown of Santorum.

Gail Collins writes about Republicans -- including Santorum -- running afoul of residency requirements. "Rick Santorum’s political career was built on an upset victory against a Democratic House member who, Santorum claimed, had ... moved his family to the Washington suburbs. When Santorum moved his own family to the Washington suburbs, he claimed that promises he made when he was in the House didn’t count for the Senate."

Laura Strickler of CBS News: "Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson plans to give another $10 million to the outside group backing [Newt Gingrich]...."

Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: so they're not through voting in the Maine caucuses. Washington County is caucusing today, & since Romney beat Ron Paul by less than 200 votes last week, his victory could be overturned. "The party’s decision about how to count the vote has touched off a political storm and raised questions about the whole caucus system. Caucuses in other states have been plagued with problems this year, and doubts have been raised about their fairness and the ability of state parties to manage them." CW: Kinda turns the tables on Will Rogers' famous remark, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." ...

... Tim Mak of Politico: "Maine Republican Party chairman Charlie Webster has admitted that the state party made numerous clerical errors in counting the state’s caucus results — even omitting some votes because emails reporting tallies 'went to spam' in an email account. However, Webster insisted that the errors did not change the outcome."

Local News

AP: "A judge on Friday denied Gov. Scott Walker's request for a two-week extension to review recall petition signatures, saying the election is likely to proceed. Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess' ruling was a victory for recall organizers who had said there was no good reason for another extension and that Walker's request was an attempt to delay the inevitable." Thanks to Kate M. for the link.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Egypt will begin criminal proceedings on Friday against 19 Americans and two dozen others in a politically charged investigation into the foreign financing of nonprofit groups that has plunged relations between the United States and Egypt to their lowest point in three decades, state news media reported Saturday."

New York Times: "... speaker after speaker at the funeral of Whitney Houston on Saturday afternoon kept coming back to her strong attachment to New Hope Baptist Church [of Newark, New Jersey], where her prodigious talents were first recognized and where the funeral was held."

Washington Post: "Two Supreme Court justices suggested Friday that the court reconsider its controversial 2010 decision that allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in elections. The suggestion came as the court blocked a Montana Supreme Court decision upholding a century-old ban on corporate campaign spending in the state.... In Friday’s order, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer said the upheaval in the world of campaign finance since the Citizens United decision does not bear out the majority opinion."

New York Times: "The full details of recent experiments that made a deadly flu virus more contagious will be published, probably within a few months, despite recommendations by the United States that some information be kept secret for fear that terrorists could use it to start epidemics."

Reuters: "An Egyptian court will start the trial on February 26 of activists from mostly American civil society groups accused of working illegally in Egypt, in a case which has strained U.S.-Egyptian ties. A judicial source told Reuters that the 43 accused, including around 20 Americans, would go on trial next Sunday, charged with working in the country without proper legal registration."

Reuters: "Syrian security forces fired live ammunition to break up a protest against President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus Saturday, killing at least one person, opposition activists said." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Hundreds and hundreds of antigovernment protesters braved scattered gunfire from Syrian soldiers to march through a middle-class neighborhood in Damascus on Saturday, the biggest demonstration witnessed close to the heart of the capital since the country’s uprising started 11 months ago."

New York Times: "Pope Benedict XVI created 22 new cardinals on Saturday, including Timothy M. Dolan of New York, in a ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica rich in pageantry and resonant with ancient tradition."

New York Times: A new federal law, signed by the president on Tuesday, compels the Federal Aviation Administration to allow drones to be used for all sorts of commercial endeavors — from selling real estate and dusting crops, to monitoring oil spills and wildlife, even shooting Hollywood films. Local police and emergency services will also be freer to send up their own drones."

Washington Post: "A half-dozen members of the House Ethics Committee have recused themselves from the troubled investigation of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and been replaced by a new team, a sign that the stalled probe is set to restart.... Kenneth Gross, an ethics attorney..., said the mass recusal appeared to be 'unprecedented' in a congressional investigation."

Reuters: "China's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping on Friday swiped away fears that his country's economic growth could stumble, and turned to courting American companies, film-makers and governors hungry for a slice of that growth on the final day of his U.S. visit." ...

... Los Angeles Times: "Before catching a late-night flight to Europe, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping made one last stop in Los Angeles: Staples Center [to watch the fourth quarter of the Lakers game].... The Chinese delegation has been greeted with protests by Tibetans and other groups at virtually every stop of their five-day tour of the United States. The Lakers game was no different."

Houston Chronicle: "About 40 investors who lost savings in accounts with accused swindler R. Allen Stanford packed the courtroom where he's on trial Friday, noting the third anniversary of the government lawsuit that shut down his operations. To date, investors have recovered nothing."

Reuters: "Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to be questioned next week by police investigating an alleged prostitution ring in Lille, northern France, a police source said."

Los Angeles Times: "Whitney Houston's funeral is invitation-only and attendance will be limited to family and friends, but Saturday's services are set to be seen around the world: They will stream online and be shown on a number of TV networks. Houston's funeral is slated to begin at 9 a.m. Pacific [12 noon ET] at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J. -- the late pop titan's childhood church."]]>http://www.realitychex.com/constant-comments/the-commentariat-february-17-2012.htmlThe Constant Weader2012-02-17T01:23:14Z2012-02-17T01:23:14ZMy column in today's New York Times eXaminer will not be a favorite with sports fans. But maybe you sports fans who don't care for David Brooks will enjoy it anyway. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. ...

The NYT eXaminer represents an essential dimension of any hope for the renewal of democracy in this country. -- Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur

"Government Moochers Against Welfare." Paul Krugman: "... pundits who describe America as a fundamentally conservative country are wrong. Yes, voters sent some severe conservatives to Washington. But those voters would be both shocked and angry if such politicians actually imposed their small-government agenda." CW: Krugman highlights an issue contributor Trish Ramey reminded us of in the February 15 Commentariat -- that people who get Social Security & Medicare have no idea they are recipients of "government handouts." Democrats would get a lot more votes if they educated these yahoos.

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "On Friday, President Obama is slated to tour a Boeing factory in Everett, Wash. ... and press his plan for building a stronger economy. Key elements include tax breaks to spur domestic manufacturing and a drive to increase exports — in part by helping foreign companies buy American products. But, experts say, Obama’s activist approach to the economy could put him in the position of picking winners and losers." Goldfarb cites as a prime example the U.S.'s making "cheap loans backed by American taxpayers" to Air India to purchase Boeing 777s. The planes allowed Air India to launch nonstop service between New York City & Mumbai, a move that forced out the only other nonstop carrier on the route: U.S.-owned Delta Airlines.

The only problem was that the competition on that route was Delta, which says it was forced to abandon the nonstop daily service it had pioneered two years earlier.

They're Still Doing It. And You're Still Paying for It. Bob Ivry, et al., of Bloomberg News: "Four years after rotten mortgages helped trigger a global financial crisis, Sherry Hunt said her Citigroup Inc. quality-control team was still finding flaws in new loans that included altered tax forms, straw buyers and borrowers who listed fictitious employers. Instead of reporting the defects to the Federal Housing Administration, the bank saddled the agency with losses by falsely declaring the loans fit for its federal insurance program, according to a complaint filed yesterday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. Citigroup agreed to pay $158.3 million to settle the claims, and admitted that it certified loans for FHA backing that didn’t qualify. Hunt, who filed a sealed lawsuit against ... Citigroup in August that the government joined, will collect $31 million of that sum -- before taxes and attorney’s fees -- as a whistle-blower...."

Quit Looking for the "Real Romney." Brendan Nyhan in the Columbia Journalism Review: "... the idea that reporters or commentators can discover a candidate’s 'true' self is deeply flawed. This approach falsely privileges hidden or private information as especially revealing of a person’s true nature or motivations. More fundamentally..., people do not have one true self but instead behave differently in different social contexts — a human tendency that is likely to be especially strong in any successful politician.... When a candidate acquires a reputation for inauthenticity, journalists often engage in a pathological search for further evidence of his of her phoniness." ...

... Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: "... what they often value more than anything else is not authenticity itself, but the most convincing portrayal of the authentic (see Bush, George W.). All this isn't to say Mitt isn't a phony. But we should be careful about what we take as proof that he is, and how much importance we place on that judgment."

Tim Geithner's silly little smirk.CW: I finally found something about Tim Geithner to like. Damien Paletta of the Wall Street Journal: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner seemed to enjoy the back-and-forth with Republicans more than he has in recent hearings.... 'You can smile and laugh about it all you want,' Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) bristled at Mr. Geithner during a House Budget Committee hearing. Mr. Chaffetz then intoned he was getting sick of the Treasury secretary’s 'silly little smirk.' ... At one point, he suggested that Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R., Kan.) had an 'adolescent perspective' on how the economy worked."

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "While Republicans failed to overturn Obama's executive order banning torture, [the] arrest [of "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] led to a bipartisan effort in Congress to force federal agents to ask permission from the military to investigate terrorism cases where the suspect is believed to be a member of Al Qaeda. While the administration managed to force changes to last year's National Defense Authorization Act that make its provisions 'mandating' the military detention of noncitizen terror suspects apprehended on US soil almost meaningless, there is now a presumption in the law that the military has a domestic role in counterterrorism."

Adele Stan of AlterNet: "In offering the bishops an 'accommodation' they refused to accept on a contraception provision of the new healthcare law, the Obama administration effectively exposed the powerlessness of the bishops when the rest of the church rose to accept the offer.... The bishops, who now stand marginalized in their own church, as major Catholic organizations, most of them led by clergy -- the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, the Catholic Health Association (which represents Catholic hospitals), the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Sisters of Mercy -- signed onto the administration's plan over the bishops' objections."

Peter Nicholas of the Wall Street Journal: "President Barack Obama's re-election campaign has begun discussing whether to attack Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum and try to define him for a general-election audience, potentially breaking from its focus on Mitt Romney."

Right Wing World

New York Times Editors: Rick "Santorum’s solution for all of the country’s problems, from manufacturing to its moral climate, boils down to one very small idea: get government out of the way.... He says the nation’s civil laws must comport with God’s laws. But not the laws of all religions.... Unlike his main rivals for the nomination, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, Mr. Santorum has held these kinds of views for many years, and is a far more authentic representative of the Republican Party’s angry base. But he does not represent the American mainstream, or its tradition of confronting big problems with big ideas."

Rick Santorum's sugar daddy Foster Freiss on the efficacy of Bayer aspirin as a contraceptive device:

     ... Update. Liz Goodwin of Yahoo! News: "Rick Santorum's billionaire backer Foster Friess wrote on his blog Friday morning that he 'deeply' apologizes to anyone who thought he was telling women to use aspirin instead of birth control in a Thursday segment on MSNBC. Meanwhile, Santorum was on the defensive Friday, calling his supporter's joke 'stupid.'" ...

... Republican presidential candidates sure have nasty backers. Glenn Greenwald profiles billionaire Romney finance co-chair Frank VanderSloot, a Idaho businessman who got rich on an Amway-style pyramid operation whose "chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuits against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious."

Sarah Posner, in Religious Dispatches, on Darrell Issa's congressional hearing featuring old men opposed to contraception: "Issa's committee elevated certain religious groups — meaning those who oppose the requirement that insurance cover birth control — to a status above everyone else's religious beliefs, including people of different religions who praised the requirement." ...

... "Where are the women?":

The testimony Sandra Fluke would have given had committee chairman Darrell Issa allowed her to speak. Via Steve Benen:

"I'm Running for President, for Pete's Sake." Anne Barnard of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign distanced itself on Thursday from Representative Michael G. Grimm of Staten Island, a charismatic freshman Republican who has stumped for Mr. Romney but is now facing scrutiny over his business dealings and campaign fund-raising." See also yesterday's Right Wing World.

For your listening pleasure, the Ballad of Seamus:

... Katy Waldman in Slate: "According to a piece on Politicker yesterday, Romney’s sons told reporters in an off-record conversation that the dog ran away when the family got to Ontario."

CNN: "Mitt Romney and Ron Paul told the Georgia Republican Party, Ohio Republican Party and CNN Thursday that they will not participate in the March 1 Republican presidential primary debate." So CNN is cancelling the debate, which means there will be only one debate, on February 22, before Super Tuesday, March 6. ...

... Romney, Dumber than Dubya. Steve Kornacki of Salon: "By any reasonable standard, the federal government’s auto industry bailout has been a smashing success, but to admit this Romney would be admitting that he was wrong in a big way. And not just on any issue. After all, Romney grew up in Michigan as the son of the president of American Motors, and he presents himself to voters as a turnaround specialist whose unique insight into the world of business and industry will translate into a booming economy if he’s elected president. But now it looks like Barack Obama (and George W. Bush, for that matter) knew better than him."

... DNC to Romney: "Don't Bet Against America"; intimations of an Obama-Romney contest:

** AND Jonathan Chait of New York magazine out-Borotwitzes Andy Borowitz in this post titled "Romney Straining to Get to the Right of Genghis Kahn."

Um, maybe the reason Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is backing Roy Blunt's draconian bill which would allow any employer to deny insurance coverage of any type of medical care is that he has no idea what's in the bill. You can watch Brown screwing up here; I can't embed the video because it plays automatically. Steve Benen has more. ...

... AND, as Charles Pierce puts it, "The one nagging problem Brown always has had is that he's basically a state legislator who won a fluke of an election and is now fighting well above his weight class. He'd largely put that behind him. Not any more."

Local News

AP: A Republican supermajority has muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the Virginia House, including one that would all but outlaw the procedure in the state by declaring that the rights of persons apply from the moment sperm and egg unite. The bills passed over bitter yet futile objections from Democrats. And one GOP delegate caused the House to ripple when he said most abortions come as 'matters of lifestyle convenience.' The bills now go to the Senate." ...

... Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "This week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill that would require women to have an ultrasound before they may have an abortion. Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced. Since a proposed amendment to the bill — a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound — failed on 64-34 vote, the law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason.... That would constitute rape under state law."

News Ledes

CNN: "The Supreme Court has blocked enforcement of a ruling by Montana's highest court that upholds the state's century-long restrictions on independent political spending by outside groups in election campaigns. An order was issued late Friday."

New York Times: prosecutors dropped charges against 14 defendants charged in the Brooklyn Bridge Occupy protest of October 1. "So far, 174 of the 686 cases in which charges were brought have resulted in dismissals."

TPM: "To illustrate his frustration at the GOP's pattern of obstructing President Obama's executive branch nominees, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the Senate floor Friday that he'll ask President Obama to provide all of the nearly 100 stalled bureaucrats-in-waiting with recess appointments."

TPM: "The Obama Justice Department has concluded that legislation banning same-sex couples from receiving military and veterans benefits violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment and will no longer defend the statute in court, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders on Friday."

New York Times: "The Maryland House narrowly passed a law legalizing same-sex marriage on Friday, delivering a major victory to Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, who had proposed it. But its implementation remained uncertain as its opponents promised to take it to voters in November.... The measure still faces a vote in the Senate, where it is expected to pass...." CW: actually, no; they passed a bill.

New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a newly passed bill on Friday that would legalize same-sex marriage in New Jersey, setting a difficult path for advocates who vowed to fight 'with every last breath' to override him. The governor’s veto was conditional, asking the State Legislature to amend the bill, so that rather than legalizing same-sex marriages, it would establish an overseer to handle complaints that the state’s five-year-old civil union law did not provide gay and lesbian couples the same protections that marriage would. Mr. Christie also affirmed his call for the Legislature to put a referendum on same-sex marriage on the ballot in November."

Washington Post: "The FBI and the U.S. Capitol Police arrested a Moroccan man Friday in downtown Washington after a lengthy investigation into an alleged plot to carry out a suicide attack on the Capitol. Amine el-Khalifi, 29, was picked up while carrying an inoperable gun and a fake suicide vest provided to him by undercover FBI agents posing as al-Qaeda associates, U.S. officials said. They said he entered the United States when he was 16 and was living as an illegal immigrant in Arlington, Va., having reportedly overstayed his visitor’s visa for years."

New York Times: "The need for revenue to partly cover the extension of the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits has pushed Congress to embrace a generational shift in the country’s media landscape: the auction of public airwaves now used for television broadcasts to create more wireless Internet systems. If a compromise bill completed Thursday by Congress is approved as expected by this weekend, the result will eventually be faster connections for smartphones, iPads and other data-hungry mobile devices. Their explosive popularity has overwhelmed the ability, particularly in big cities, for systems to quickly download maps, video games and movies." ...

     ... Update: "With members of both parties expressing distaste at some of the particulars, Congress on Friday voted to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits and sent the legislation to President Obama, ending a contentious political and policy fight. The vote in the House was 293 to 132 with Democrats, who are in the minority, carrying the proposal over the top with the acquiescence of almost as many Republicans. The Senate followed within minutes and approved the measure on a vote of 60 to 36."

New York Times: "Anthony Shadid, a gifted foreign correspondent whose graceful dispatches for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press covered nearly two decades of Middle East conflict and turmoil, died, apparently of an asthma attack, on Thursday while on a reporting assignment in Syria. Tyler Hicks, a Times photographer who was with Mr. Shadid, carried his body across the border to Turkey." The Times' obituary is here. Read this interview of Shadid by Adam Ross of Mother Jones, published just last month. Tributes from colleagues.

New York Times: "Next week, advisers to the Food and Drug Administration will recommend whether the agency should approve the first new prescription diet pill in 13 years. The F.D.A. rejected the drug under review, Qnexa, in 2010, amid safety concerns, and the drug’s manufacturer is now presenting additional data to argue its case. But thousands of people ... in central California, where Qnexa’s inventor ran a weight-loss clinic, and others across the country have not had to wait for the drug’s approval. Through a regulatory loophole of sorts, many obesity doctors prescribe two separate drugs that, when taken together, are essentially the same medicine."

New York Times: "President Obamaraised a total of $29.1 million for his re-election campaign and for the Democratic National Committee in January, he told supporters over Twitter early Friday morning, with most contributions coming in checks of $250 or less." ...

ABC News: "Before a backdrop of the newest American-made Boeing passenger jets, President Obama Friday will announce a series of steps aimed at boosting U.S. manufacturers, while harnessing their momentum for political gain. Obama, on the final stop of his three-day swing through California and Washington, will tour a Boeing production facility and speak to a crowd of several hundred workers inside the final assembly building for the company's new 787 Dreamliner."

New York Times: "Germany’s beleaguered president, Christian Wulff, announced his resignation on Friday after prosecutors asked Parliament to strip him of his immunity from prosecution over accusations of improper ties to businessmen."

Los Angeles Times: "A confrontation between federal law enforcement agents erupted in gunfire Thursday evening in Long Beach, leaving one dead and another seriously injured.... The incident was sparked by an unspecified dispute between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Glenn M. Anderson Federal Building near the city's oceanfront, according to law enforcement authorities."

New York Times: "... Rupert Murdoch ... is scheduled to visit the London headquarters of his British newspaper arm, News International, where reporters and editors are said to be in a state of civil war against Mr. Murdoch and his executives." The Guardian is liveblogging the meeting and reactions. ...

     ... AP Update: "News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch on Friday told staff at his scandal-hit British tabloid The Sun that executives will continue to give police any evidence of wrongdoing and won't protect reporters found to have broken the law."

Flying High. CBS News/AP: "Two Air Force F-16 fighters intercepted a privately owned Cessna airplane that entered the same Los Angeles airspace as Marine One on Thursday as the helicopter was ferrying President Barack Obama. Police discovered about 40 pounds of marijuana inside the plane after it landed at Long Beach Airport, a law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to comment publicly on the drug investigation and spoke under condition of anonymity. The Secret Service said the president was never in any danger."

... CW: I coulda told 'em this: Katie Thomas of the New York Times: "The Obama administration thought it had found a way to ease mounting objections to a requirement in the new health care act that all employers — including religiously affiliated hospitals and universities — offer coverage for birth control to women free of charge. It would make the insurers cover the costs, rather than the organizations themselves. But ... many religiously affiliated organizations choose to insure themselves rather than hire an outside company to assume the risk." Nationwide, 60 percent of workers with health insurance are covered by companies that self-insure; it's 82 percent for companies with more than 200 employees. (I didn't know the percentage was that high.) So it looks Obama solved about 20 percent of the problem, tops. ...

Where Are the Women?

... Susan Reimer of the Baltimore Sun: "In the extreme and ill-tempered debate over the availability of contraceptives for women, we have heard from the president, the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, the Republican presidential candidates, members if Congress and various talking heads on TV. All of them, so far as I can tell, are men. Men discussing the reproductive rights of women.... Where are all the women in leadership in this country — from small-business owners to presidents of corporations to Cabinet officers? Why are they not stepping forward to say that because they could control their family size they were able to go to college, or law school, or campaign for office?" Reimer notes that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (who is a Roman Catholic) has only two children. "Didn't she have any testimony to offer about what control of her reproductive life might have meant to her?" Thanks to reader Doug C. for the link. ...

... ** Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "This morning, Democrats tore into House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for preventing women from testifying before a hearing examining the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees.... Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) ... demand[ed] that Issa consider the testimony of a female college student. But the California congressman ... denied the request. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) walked out of the hearing in protest of his decision, citing frustration over the fact that the first panel of witnesses consisted only of male religious leaders against the rule. Holmes Norton said she will not return, calling Issa’s chairmanship an 'autocratic regime.'” ...

... Dana Milbank writes a LOL column on Republican legislators (and one Democrat) who "marched before the cameras" to express their outrage at the contraception coverage ruling. Milbank is funny, by the MOCs are funnier. Oh, if you don't laugh, you'll cry. ...

... Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: both sides see the contraceptive coverage issue as a winning one. Oh, P.S. The bishops, besides running a media campaign, "are asking parish priests to raise the matter with congregations and to circulate petitions." CW: Never mind separation of church & state. If they go with this -- and the will -- the Church should lose its tax-exempt status.

Michael Lind of Salon argues that conservatives have lost the culture war. See if you agree with him. I mostly don't. Of course I suppose it's important to keep in mind that Congress itself is configured in such a way that low-population, conservative states are overrepresented.

Matt Miller in the Washington Post: time for Congress to impose the "Dimon Rule" -- for Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, who favors a higher tax rate for the super-rich, like him.

Steve Benen: "The latest New York Times/CBS News poll included a straightforward question on this: 'Do you support or oppose a recent federal requirement that private health insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control for their female patients?'

Support: 66%       Oppose: 26%       Don't Know: 8%"

      ... Self-identified Roman Catholics agree with Obama's line, 67% to 25%, and even a majority of self-identified Republicans feel the same way. By the reasoning of many congressional Republicans, nearly two-thirds of the country likes contraception access so much, they're willing to endorse an outrageous assault on religious liberty."

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "An audit by San Francisco county officials of about 400 recent foreclosures there determined that almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation, according to a report released Wednesday.... The detailed and comprehensive nature of the San Francisco findings suggest how pervasive foreclosure irregularities may be across the nation."

Justin Gillis & Leslie Kaufman of the New York Times: "Leaked documents suggest that an organization known for attacking climate science is planning a new push to undermine the teaching of global warming in public schools, the latest indication that climate change is becoming a part of the nation’s culture wars. The documents, from a nonprofit organization in Chicago called the Heartland Institute, outline plans to promote a curriculum that would cast doubt on the scientific finding that fossil fuel emissions endanger the long-term welfare of the planet." CW: Among the donors: Microsoft & Charles Koch. ...

... Brad Johnson of Think Progress elaborates on Microsoft's claim that it does not support Heartland's views on climate change, but donated software licenses, "just like [sic.] we do for thousands of other eligible non-profits every year."

No Surprise Here. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: "Joseph Kennedy III, a scion of the famous political family, announced Thursday that [he] will run for the Massachusetts House seat being vacated by Rep. Barney Frank (D).... The grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and son of former Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, the 31-year-old Kennedy was working as a prosecutor and before that as an assistant district attorney in Massachusetts." Here's Joe's announcement:

Right Wing World

** Juan Cole lists "the top ten Catholic teachings Santorum rejects while obsessing about birth control." Here's one: "The bishops want welfare for all needy families, saying 'We reiterate our call for a minimum national welfare benefit.... A decent society will not balance its budget on the backs of poor children.'” CW: Even for "blah" people, Rick. ...

... James Downie of the Washington Post: a national audience should hear Santorum & Gingrich explain their "cafeteria Catholicism." In the upcoming debates, questioners should ask them "whether they agree with [humanel] church doctrines, and if not, why not." Downie helpfully lists some papal decrees that Santorum & Gingrich ignore, like support for unions & universal health care & opposition to the death penalty.

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Mitt Romney and his allies at the super PAC Restore Our Future are spending $1,240,230 in Michigan this week, according to a Republican media buyer. [Rick Santorum] ... is spending $42,443 — not a typo — and none of his super PAC supporters have spent anything. That means there will be 29 times more Romney ads than Santorum ads on the air in the Wolverine state." ...

... BUT. Steve Kornacki of Salon argues that Romney's attacks on Santorum don't pack the punch his attacks on Gingrich did; after all, Gingrich is such a flawed candidate, some of the anti-Gingrich ads "wrote themselves." Includes sample ads. ...

... Massimo Calabresi of Time: "Mitt Romney’s making ... much of the dangers of government 'picking winners and losers' when they give subsidies to companies. But the private equity firm he founded and ran took full advantage of such government goodies." Calabresi lists a few deals Romney's Bain Capital put together that depended on government subsidies. ...

... Garrett Haake Of NBC News: "In back-to-back appearances before two separate audiences under the same roof here tonight, Mitt Romney made part of his Michigan strategy clear: Pick a fight with 'big labor' by labeling their support of President Barack Obama as 'crony capitalism.'" CW: this seems like a stupid move to me, since many union members vote Republican; however, it is at least consistent with the GOP policy of undermining unions whenever possible.

CW: Rasmussen, which is not the most reliable pollster, nonetheless reports that "The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters [emphasis added] finds Santorum with 39% support to ... [Romney]’s 27%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich follows from a distance with 15% of the vote, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul runs last with 10%." ...

... Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: Mitt Romney can kiss his "electability" argument buh-bye. According to Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, "Mitt Romney's electability advantage in PPP polling has disappeared in the wake of Rick Santorum's surge. Before the surge, Romney consistently outperformed his leading Not Romney rival in a hypothetical contest against President Obama by 7 points in July, 6 points in August, 7 points in September, 6 points in October, 3 points in November and 7 points in December. But in PPP's first post-surge poll, it's Santorum who fares better against President Obama."

AP: "Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum released four years of federal income tax returns on Wednesday night, showing a sharp rise in his personal wealth spurred by his growing work as Washington-based corporate consultant and media commentator." ...

... Maggie Haberman of Politico: "The [returns] can be found here, here, here and here. The returns are the most in number that have been released by any of the major GOP contenders." (Link to Haberman's post here.)

Los Angeles Times Editorial Board: "... we still can't help but be awe-struck by the mess the House of Representatives is preparing to make of the federal transportation bill.... On Tuesday, the House Republican leadership unveiled its version of the five-year bill. It isn't just that this bill is so thoroughly partisan that it has no chance of being approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate; it's that it is less a serious policy document than a wish list for oil lobbyists.... If it weren't already abundantly clear that this bill is intended simply to pander to the GOP base during an election year, Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) seasoned the red meat by promising to attach a rider mandating approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline...."

Hypocrite of the Week: Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) who is celebrating an additional $3 million in annual funding he secured for the Richmond University Medical Center. The funding comes from the Affordable Care Act, a law Grimm vehemently opposes. Steve Benen writes, "Grimm is the same House member who rejected calls a year ago that he turn down government-funded health care, because of his ideological opposition to government-funded health care.... Two weeks later, he voted to take away health care coverage from millions of Americans. A year later, he celebrated hospital funding included in the law he's eager to kill." ...

... Oh, wait. It gets worse. Much worse. Read this report in today's New York Times which leads the reader to believe Grimm is a serial, small-time crook. Of course he's presumed innocent....

News Ledes

Wall Street Journal: Both Houses of the New Jersey state legislature have passed a bill allowing for same-sex marriage, but Gov. Chris Christie (R) says he will veto it. The bill passed the state Senate 24-15 & the Assembly 42-33. "An override vote ... would require 27 votes in the Senate and 54 votes in the Assembly."

Washington Post: "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday sought to bring debt collectors and credit bureaus under its purview, marking the first time the often controversial industries would be subject to federal supervision.... It is the first attempt by the watchdog agency to define which businesses in the vast swath of nontraditional financial institutions will be subject to the same examination process as banks." CW: It isn't clear to me from the article whether or not the CFPB needs authorization from Congress and/or the administration to do this. CW: according to the New York Times story: "The proposal now enters a 60-day comment period. The bureau expects to finalize the rule by July, the two-year anniversary of the agency’s creation." So I guess the CFPB can do it.

AP: "The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell to the lowest point in almost four years last week, the latest signal that the job market is steadily improving. The Labor Department says weekly applications for unemployment benefits dropped 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000. It was the fourth drop in five weeks and the fewest number of claims since March 2008." CW: Sorry, GOP!

New York Times: "Members of a House-Senate committee charged with writing a measure to extend a payroll tax reduction said Wednesday that their work was done, just shy of an hour before their deadline to get a bill ready for a Friday vote. After fighting until the very final hour over how to pay for parts of a $150 billion plan that would also extend unemployment benefits and prevent a pay cut for doctors who accept Medicare, leaders of both parties put together a bill that the majority of the committee could support." Washington Post story here.

AP: "General Motors earned its largest profit ever in 2011, two years after it nearly collapsed into financial ruin." CW: Sorry, Mitt!

New York Times: "President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan arrived in Pakistan on Thursday after saying he wanted to explore how Islamabad could help foster peace negotiations with his adversary, the Afghan Taliban. Mr. Karzai’s arrival came after he said Wednesday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that his representatives had begun talks with the Taliban and the United States government, a potentially significant development suggesting that the Taliban were dropping longstanding objections to face-to-face discussions with his government."

Reuters: "A federal judge is set to decide on Thursday if the Nigerian man who pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit in 2009 will spend the rest of his life in prison. A bomb hidden in the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, now 25, caused a fire but failed to explode on a Delta Airlines flight carrying 289 people on December 25, 2009." ...

     ... Bloomberg News Update: "Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was sentenced to life in prison for attempting to bomb a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day 2009 with explosives hidden in his underwear. The Nigerian-born defendant pleaded guilty in October to eight felony counts, including attempted murder and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds in Detroit today sentenced him to life in prison on five counts and 20 years on three counts."

New York Times: "The Japanese authorities arrested seven central figures in the huge accounting scandal at Olympus — including the camera maker’s former chairman and executive vice president — on Thursday as part of investigations into a decade-long cover-up that has prompted concern over what critics say is lax corporate governance at Japanese companies."