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Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "President Obama;s forthcoming budget request will seek tens of billions of dollars in fresh spending for domestic priorities while abandoning a compromise proposal to tame the national debt in part by trimming Social Security benefits. With the 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to the era of austerity that has dogged much of his presidency and to his efforts to find common ground with Republicans. Instead, the president will focus on pumping new cash into job training, early-childhood education and other programs aimed at bolstering the middle class, providing Democrats with a policy blueprint heading into the midterm elections." ...
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama's forthcoming budget plan will not include a proposal to trim cost-of-living increases in Social Security checks, the gesture of bipartisanship he made to Republicans last year in a failed strategy to reach a 'grand compromise' on reducing projected federal debt. White House officials said on Thursday that since Republicans in Congress have shown no willingness to meet the president's offer on social programs by closing loopholes for corporations and wealthy Americans, the proposed budget for the 2015 fiscal year will not assume a path to an agreement that no longer appears to exist." CW: The Republican response, BTW, seems to be in disarray. Democrats, including this one, are relieved. ...
... CW: An end of the era of austerity? Too bad it has taken President Obama five years to get Krugman's message. It isn't as if Krugman, et al., have been shy about what was needed to boost the economy. ...
... Josh Terbush of the Week: "Obama is done even pretending to work with Republicans. If you can't beat 'em, ignore 'em."
... Brian Beutler of Salon: "Liberals are celebrating, with good reason, but I think the strongest emotional response should come from reasonable conservatives who have let an inflexible anti-tax orthodoxy destroy the right's longer-standing goal of slashing and devolving entitlements. The only way they'll get there with Democrats in power is to pony up some tax revenue. Failing that, they'll need to recapture the entire government and do the slashing and devolving all on their own. But there's every reason in the world to doubt they have the chutzpah to do that. So the dream is dead. Driving that point home to the right is just as valuable as granting a reprieve to the left."
One of the White House's most poorly kept secrets is that many of Obama's economic advisers support Chained CPI on the merits, or believe it to be the least-bad benefit cut Obama could offer Republicans. -- Brian Beutler
Who are these idiots, anyway? ... Fire them immediately. -- Charles Pierce
... Digby: "Now, how about proposing [to] raise benefits? If we want to kill this zombie once and for all, that should be the Democratic Party baseline going forward." ...
... Paul Krugman: "... the overall narrative of the stimulus is tragic. A policy initiative that was good but not good enough ended up being seen as a failure, and set the stage for an immensely destructive wrong turn." ...
... Margaret Chadbourn of Reuters: "Fannie Mae said on Friday it would soon send the U.S. Treasury $7.2 billion, a profit-related dividend that makes taxpayers whole for the 2008 bailout of the mortgage-financing giant and its sibling company Freddie Mac. Unlike other companies rescued by taxpayers during the financial crisis, however, the firms will remain under government control until Congress winds them down or replaces them. The bailout terms for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac force them to turn over their profits to the Treasury in the form of dividends on the controlling stake the government took when it bailed them out. They cannot repurchase the government's share." CW: Let's see how Republicans spin this one.
Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Between 1947 and 1973 -- roughly the one period of union strength in U.S. history -- productivity increased by 97 percent and workers' compensation (that's wages plus benefits) by 95 percent. Since 1973, however, as unions have weakened, productivity has increased by 80 percent and compensation by just 11 percent.... According to economists Robert Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker, [the gains from productivity] have gone entirely to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans -- increasingly in the form of capital gains and dividends." ...
... William Galston in the Wall Street Journal: "The Great Decoupling of wages and benefits from productivity, the biggest economic story of the past 40 years, shows no signs of ending.... As the gap widened, U.S. households responded by sending more women into the paid workforce, expanding the numbers of hours worked and taking on a greater burden of debt.... Unless total compensation rises more rapidly, stagnant domestic demand will depress economic growth as far as the eye can see.... We should link the tax rates individual firms pay to the compensation strategies they adopt. The point is simple: Firms can either share productivity gains with their workers -- or contribute to the public programs made necessary by their failure to do so.... Our problem isn't a shortage of capital; it's the weakness of demand. We'd all be better off in the long run if workers' compensation grew along with productivity. And so would our country." CW: Firewalled. Cut & paste a clause or so into a Google search box.
Adam Serwer of NBC News: "A revolt against President Barack Obama's nominees to the federal bench in Georgia has spread from the civil rights icons who paved the way for Obama's presidency to the abortion rights movement.... With NARAL joining the fray, other liberal groups may follow suit, and Democrats in the Senate may no longer be able to stay silent on the matter." ...
... Digby: "It's just inexplicable that [President Obama] would agree to 'deals' in which Republicans get to put more far right ideologues on the court after the previous president already packed it with them to the fullest extent he possibly could. If there is one area in which ideology, temperament and political philosophy simply must be taken seriously, it's this one. If he can't do any better than this, he should leave the seats unfilled and hope his successor is a Democrat who has better negotiating skills."
Gene Robinson: "Sometimes, when I'm in my car, I crank up the music pretty loud. All you Michael Dunns out there, please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot my sons, either, or my brothers-in-law, nephews, nephews-in-law or other male relatives. I have quite a few friends and acquaintances who also happen to be black men, and I'd appreciate your not shooting them as well, even if the value you place on their lives is approximately zero."
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: A new, "hard-hitting," anti-ObamaCare ad produced by Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, "doesn't add up."...
... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "AFP is being purposefully misleading using Boostra's story, and doesn't think that their ad should be subject to this kind of scrutiny, attempting to shame Kessler and any other fact checkers with this: 'The reality of what she's dealing with is much more involved and can't be swept aside by saying, "you have an OOP maximum so quit complaining about your cancer.'" No one is sweeping aside her illness, or telling her to stop complaining about her cancer. They're pointing out that she's saving enough in premiums to cover her out of pocket costs. She can complain all she wants, but it's not callous and it's not out of bounds to say that she's not telling the entire truth." ...
... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "I'm beginning to think there's not actually a single person in America who's been harmed by Obamacare.... Julie Boonstra[, the leukemia patient who stars in the AFP ad,] kept her doctor. Her new plan is, on net, less expensive than her old plan. And presumably she's no longer required to compromise on the type of chemotherapy she receives. In other words, it appears to be superior on virtually every metric.... This ad implies that Boonstra flatly can't afford coverage anymore. It implies that she could no longer see her old doctor. It implies that Obamacare is killing her. None of this is true.... Why is it that every single hard luck story like this falls apart under the barest scrutiny?"
Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The enduring ban on transgender individuals serving in the US military has earned America a low ranking in the first global league table of LGBT inclusion in the armed forces. The US is placed at number 40 in the table of 103 countries' armed forces as measured by their inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender service members. That puts it behind the militaries of countries such as Chile, Georgia and even America's bête noire, Cuba."
Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: Rep. Darrell Issa (RTP-Calif.) said at a GOP fundraiser in New Hampshire earlier this week that he suspected then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and/or President Obama had ordered the military to stand down immediately after the Benghazi attack. "It is correct that Issa poses a series of questions, but his repeated use of the phrase 'stand down' and his personalizing of the alleged actions ('Secretary Clinton;' 'Leon' [Panetta]) leave a distinct impression that either Clinton or Obama delivered some sort of instruction to Panetta to not act as forcefully as possible. He even incorrectly asserts that not a single order was given to use any DOD asset. One could argue the response was slow, bungled or poorly handled. But Issa is crossing a line when he suggests there was no response -- or a deliberate effort to hinder it."
CW: Can Hardly Wait to Meet My New Neighbor. Jake Miller of CBS News: "In a move sure to provoke speculation about his future in Congress - and a fresh round of jokes about his superhuman suntan - House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, purchased a condo in Florida.... The condo, located in the posh coastal enclave of Marco Island in southwest Florida, was purchased this month at a cost of $835,000, according to Collier County public records. Boehner and his wife put $185,000 down and mortgaged the remainder." ...
... David Drucker of Winger News the Washington Examiner: "House Republicans have begun jockeying for leadership positions in the next Congress, anticipating the possibility that Speaker John Boehner could step down after the November elections."
New Jersey News
Larry McShane of the New York Daily News: "Meet the world's first inaction figure. A Florida artist, using a 3-D printer, created a tiny figurine of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie bringing traffic to a grinding halt at the George Washington Bridge.... The 4 1/2-inch tall figure hardly does justice to the gargantuan governor -- but [the artist, Fernando] Sosa, has an explanation for that. 'This was modeled to scale just like the shutdown of the bridge was a "traffic study,'" he said.... The individually produced figures ... are available for $37.87 each through Shapeways.com."
Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: For Chris Christie, "Thursday was supposed to represent a defiant, maybe even triumphant, return to the town-hall-style meeting, an intimate and comfortable setting in which he could bathe in the adulation of his fans and unleash harsh denunciations of anyone foolhardy enough to challenge him.... But the two-hour forum [in Port Monmouth] near the Jersey Shore on Thursday, his first since controversy enveloped his administration, demonstrated just how difficult it will be for Mr. Christie to quickly recreate the political magic that once seemed certain to put him in contention for the White House."
Matt Friedman of the Star-Ledger: "A controversial housing complex for the elderly planned for Belleville, an Essex County town that was largely spared from Hurricane Sandy, was approved for a second round of federal recovery funds as its projected costs ballooned. The project, which was pushed by Gov. Chris Christie, had been approved for $6 million in May from a federally financed, state-administered program intended to replenish affordable housing damaged or destroyed in the storm. But according to figures provided by the Department of Community Affairs last week, that figure has increased, to $10.2 million.... Construction has not yet begun on the complex...."
New York Times: "A judge in New Jersey has ordered two former aides to Gov. Chris Christie [-- Bill Stepien & Bridget Kelly --] to appear in court to explain their refusal to turn over potential evidence to a legislative committee investigating the politically charged closing of lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge in September.
Star-Ledger Editors: Port Authority Chair David "Samson needs to go. Certainly, he's not the source of all that ails the Port Authority, but he is the guy in charge. Beyond Bridgegate, his tenure as the Port Authority's chair has been a failure. Despite promises of transparency and reform, the agency remains a dysfunctional patronage pit. Samson's conflicts of interest are well-documented, and his resignation would be a fitting first step toward fixing a troubled agency."
Elsewhere in the Hinterlands
Steve Schultze & Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "As crises at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex unfolded, Scott Walker managed the response from the background while his staff focused on political damage caused by the botched care of what one key staffer called 'crazy people.' Walker was in his final year as county executive and running for governor as issues at the complex demanded much of his attention.... Walker's county and campaign staffs collaborated in determining how to respond to one issue after another -- sexual assaults of patients at the complex, security lapses, controversial remarks by Milwaukee County's mental health administrator. At one point, Walker's campaign manager complained that a county lawyer needed to 'think political for a change.' Walker played an active role in how to respond, even when he insisted on staying at a distance publicly.... Walker has repeatedly said he kept campaign and county business separate." ...
... So let's see: Repeated racist remarks, efforts to fire a staffer who was a former thong model, worse-than-Dickensian treatment of patients in the county's care (to which one staffer response was, "Nobody cares about crazy people"), using county employees as campaign workers on county time, and Scott Walker's personal involvement in much of it. ...
... CW: Naturally, Politico characterizes all this as "a snooze."
** Katie McDonough of Salon: After gutting women's healthcare programs, "the Texas Health and Human Services committee ... [will] hold a hearing on the 'progress' the state has made in women's healthcare seems like a particularly cruel joke. The committee intends to 'build on previous legislative achievements in women's healthcare,' according to a statement on the hearing."
Oops! I Left My Loaded Gun in a Capitol Committee Room Where Irresponsible Democrats Could Find It. Kurtis Lee of the Denver Post: "In the moments after lawmakers and visitors cleared a committee room Feb. 6 following a debate on concealed handgun permits, Rep. Jonathan Singer [D] found a black canvas bag under the table.... Inside, Singer discovered a loaded handgun that belonged to Rep. Jared Wright, R-Fruita, who sits next to him on the House Local Government committee.... Wright said he was contacted by Gov. John Hickenlooper's office about the incident and after speaking with Colorado State Patrol and Roxane White, Hickenlooper's chief of staff, he agreed to no longer carry it inside the building."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Garrick Utley, a former anchor for NBC News who for many years was one of a rare breed in television news reporting, a full-time foreign correspondent, died Thursday night at his home in Manhattan. He was 74."
CNN: "Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro told a CNN reporting team Friday that it could continue reporting in the South American country, a day after the government revoked or denied press credentials for CNN journalists. Earlier, Maduro had said he would expel CNN if it did not 'rectify' its coverage of anti-government protests. During a news conference aired live on state-run TV, Maduro reversed his early position, saying CNN could stay."
New York Times: "The government of President Viktor F. Yanukovych announced a tentative resolution on Friday to a crisis that has brought days of bloodshed to Ukraine. The agreement, which has yet to be signed, was announced after all-night talks with opposition leaders, Russian representatives and the foreign ministers of Germany, Poland and France. In a statement later on his website, Mr. Yanukovych said he would call early presidential elections, form a coalition and reduce presidential powers through constitutional reforms." ...
... The Guardian is liveblogging events in Ukraine.
Guardian: "Rebekah Brooks has told the Old Bailey she did not have a six-year relationship with Andy Coulson, David Cameron's former spin doctor, as she described how her personal life had been a 'bit of a car crash for many years'. Brooks, in the witness box at the phone-hacking trial for a second day on Friday, told the jury she was "incredibly close" to Coulson and described him as her 'best friend' but said it was wrong of the prosecution to characterise their relationship as a six-year affair. Brooks told the court that she had several periods of 'physical intimacy' with Coulson, but the police and prosecution had misinterpreted a letter she had written to him declaring her love for him back in February 2004." ...
... Here's an UPDATE with more detail of Brooks' testimony.
Gregory Clarkson in the New York Times: "To a striking extent, your overall life chances can be predicted not just from your parents' status but also from your great-great-great-grandparents'." CW: I found Clarkson's thesis -- and the methodology he used to arrive at it -- pretty fascinating.
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