The Commentariat -- Feb. 7, 2014

Internal links removed.

Lawrence Downes of the New York Times: "[Thursday] Speaker John Boehner cast doubt on the possibility of the House passing immigration legislation this year, probably dashing whatever slim hopes there were for a deal. The problem this time wasn't ... any of the ... familiar excuses Republicans have given over the years for doing nothing. It was that the Republicans can't fix immigration because: President Obama.... Lost in all the squalid electoral scheming is the moral dimension of this debate: Thousands of families are being torn apart and citizen children are suffering needlessly.... Mr. Obama should use his authority to slow that enforcement machinery down, as he did to wide acclaim in deferring the deportations of thousands of young immigrants known as Dreamers." ...

... Conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson on Boehner & the Coca Cola ad. Immigrants get it: Republicans don't care about them. ...

... Steve M. "Nobody could have predicted...."

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The Senate failed to move forward on a three-month extension of assistance for the long-term unemployed on Thursday, leaving it unlikely that Congress would approve the measure soon while undercutting a key aspect of President Obama's economic recovery plan. Fifty-nine senators, including four Republicans, voted to advance the legislation, falling one vote short of the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster effort." ...

... Sarah Mimms of the National Journal: "For the fifth time this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brought an unemployment insurance extension to the floor on Thursday, even though several members of his party admitted that they didn't have the votes to pass it.... But ... they once again got Republicans on the record opposing assistance for the long-term unemployed.... With Republicans voting against the issue or avoiding it altogether, while simultaneously 'spending a full day debating new restrictions to women's health,' one national Democratic operative said, that fits in well with the party's broader electoral message."

Paul Krugman: "... the campaign against health reform has, at every stage, grabbed hold of any and every argument it could find against insuring the uninsured, with truth and logic never entering into the matter.... We had the nonexistent death panels. We had false claims that the Affordable Care Act will cause the deficit to balloon. We had supposed horror stories about ordinary Americans facing huge rate increases, stories that collapsed under scrutiny. And now we have a fairly innocuous technical estimate misrepresented as a tale of massive economic damage.... No, millions of Americans won't lose their jobs, but tens of millions will gain the security of knowing that they can get and afford the health care they need." ...

... E. J. Dionne: "The reaction to the CBO study is an example of how willfully stupid -- there's no other word -- the debate over Obamacare has become. Opponents don't look to a painstaking analysis for enlightenment. They twist its findings and turn them into dishonest slogans. Too often, the media go along by highlighting the study's political impact rather than focusing on what it actually says." ...

... ** This post by conservative Ron Fournier of the National Journal is shockingly on-point: "The biggest 'disincentive for people to work' is not Obamacare. It's the lack of jobs in a fast-changing, post-industrial economy that's leaving millions of Americans behind.... Republicans initially twisted the [CBO] analysis to suggest that Obamacare would throw 2 million people out of work. Quickly proven wrong, they shifted their attack. They warned that millions of lazy, unmotivated Americans would take advantage of the law to live on the government dole.... The GOP argument has more than a whiff of Reagan-era racial 'welfare queen' politics." ...

     ... Ross Douthat -- a purveyor of the "disincentive" argument -- heartily objects. He has some points, but he misses the main one: if aspects of the ACA do work as a disincentive to working more, then suggest a fix. Don't just whine about it.

... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Here's a remarkably constant factor to bear in mind in the debate over the federal health-care law: Most Americans say it hasn't really impacted them one way or the other. A new Gallup poll out this week shows that 64 percent of Americans say the law has not affected them or their family, even as many of Obamacare's features have been implemented. Among those who say they have felt an impact, 19 percent say it has hurt them and their family, while 13 percent say it has helped." ...

... Greg Sargent: "But who are those 19 percent? It turns out those telling Gallup the law has hurt them or their family are very disproportionately Republican and conservative." ...

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong blamed the babies of two employees for increasing the company's benefit costs on Thursday, explaining in a conference call that AOL had to pay millions out in medical bills and alter its entire benefits package. The remarks came just hours after the company announced changes to its 401(k) plans and complained that Obamacare has increased costs by $7.1 million.... But health care experts ThinkProgress contacted questioned why a large self-insured company with more than 5,000 employees could not absorb the additional health care costs associated with the pregnancies. Large employers typically purchase reinsurance, which could cover a substantial share of big claims and ensure stability in cases of larger-than expected medical payouts. 'The Affordable Care Act is simply a convenient whipping boy for any decision an employer makes to cut benefits,' Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee, said." ...

... Joe Coscarelli of New York: "Tim Armstrong should probably stop doing conference calls. The AOL CEO, who fired a guy during one for taking his picture, was perhaps too brash once again today, baldly telling his entire company that their benefits were being rolled back because two women went and got themselves pregnant.... The Huffington Post, which is owned by AOL, covered the comments in its business section, while some employees expressed their collective 'WTF' in public." CW: The HuffPo tweets are pretty good, & all this is another reminder of why I don't follow the HuffPo but respect its top reporters.

Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Here they go again. As of Friday, the Treasury will no longer have the authority to issue bonds as necessary to pay the government's bills. In a matter of weeks, the government could run out of cash and begin defaulting on some payments unless Congress acts to raise the official ceiling on the national debt.... In the past, the Treasury has managed to keep paying the bills for months after hitting the debt ceiling, using 'extraordinary measures' to move cash from pocket to pocket. But it is currently sending out billions of dollars of tax refunds, warning that Congress probably has only until the end of the month to act."

Infrastructure. Adam Edelman of New York Daily News: "Vice President Joe Biden, never one to hide what he's thinking, said Thursday that New York's LaGuardia Airport feels like it's 'in some third world country.' ... Officials from the Port Authority, which operates LaGuardia, did not comment."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama will sign the $956 billion farm bill on Friday as he travels to Michigan State University to extol the benefits of a thriving agricultural sector on the nation's overall economy.... Last month, Gov. Cuomo announced plans for the state to take over a major rehabilitation project of the aging airport, from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, to speed up the renovation process."

Every Single Senator Wants to Send Max Baucus to the Other Side of the World. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will serve as the next U.S. ambassador to China after his colleagues confirmed him Thursday for the critical diplomatic position. Senators voted 96 to 0 to confirm Baucus; he voted 'present.' He replaces Gary Locke, who is stepping down...."

I'm going to predict that that interview that I did is going to go down in journalistic history as what should be done. It takes a certain skill to pose questions in a factual way and be persistent without being disrespectful. -- Bill O'Reilly on his interview of/attack on President Obama

Well, Bill, this will go down in 'journalistic' history. -- Constant Weader ...

I was not pleased with the disrespect he showed to the President, so that wasn't a warmer-upper. -- Nancy Pelosi, in response to an O'Reilly "reporter"'s insistence that she do an interview with O'Reilly

Ginger Gibson of Politico: "A reporter from Bill O'Reilly's television program attended House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's weekly press conference to confront her about why she won't sit for an interview with the Fox News anchor":

The Billionaires' Club

Andy Kroll & Daniel Schulman of Mother Jones: "There's one main rule at the conservative donor conclaves held twice a year by Charles and David Koch at luxury resorts: What happens there stays there.... But last week, following the Kochs' first donor gathering of 2014, one attendee left behind a sensitive document at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort outside of Palm Springs, California.... The one-page document, provided to Mother Jones by a hotel guest who discovered it, offers a fascinating glimpse into the Kochs' political machine and shows how closely intertwined it is with Koch Industries, their $115 billion conglomerate." CW: Likely the careless attendee is accustomed to having others pick up after her/him. Thanks to Barbarossa for the link.

The very rich are different from way more obnoxious than you and me. Billionaire Sam Zell is out to prove it. The worst part begins at about 2:45 min. in (Zell's attack on President Obama (and his ignorance of press reports), which precedes his One Percent hubris, is disgusting, too):

... Steve Benen: "... to say, out loud, on purpose, that the wealthy 'work harder' than everyone else is about the most elitist sentiment possible. It gives Romney's '47 percent' video a run for its money in the Obnoxious Snobbery Hall of Fame. And ... let's not forget that Zell didn't even bother making 'a perfunctory disavowal of the Nazi comparison.'" CW: Both of Zell's parents -- who were Jewish -- fled Poland just before Germany invaded it in 1939.

New Jersey

Michael Linhorst of the Bergen Record: "There were no public events. There were no public statements. There wasn't even a list of people he met with or how much money he raised. This was the life of Governor Christie, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, on Thursday as he made his second fundraising trip since the George Washington Bridge scandal became national news."

Kate Zernicke of the New York Times looks into David Wildstein's career as political blogger "Wally Edge": "He loved stories about politicians caught in a lie, and nursed grudges with sources who had lied to him. And he had a rule: Do not attack political operatives for doing stupid things, because they do what they do for their bosses, the politicians.... He used his column to needle people with whom he had feuds -- mostly, politicians he thought had lied to him."

Star-Ledger Editors: "Nearly 2,000 Sandy victims were wrongly denied grants by the state. A full three-quarters of those who appealed the rejections won, and are now back in the program.... And those are just the people who appealed. What if there were others who were also wrongly rejected, but simply trusted the system? ... Federal officials are already auditing the Christie administration's use of $25 million in federal Sandy funds for television commercials starring the governor and his family during his re-election campaign. They should audit these rejections, too, as housing advocates and lawmakers have called for."

Old Russia

Paul Sonne, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "Rooms without doorknobs, locks or heat, dysfunctional toilets, surprise early-morning fire alarms and packs of stray dogs: These are the initial images of the 2014 Winter Olympics that foreign journalists have blasted around the world from their officially assigned hotels -- and the wave of criticism has rankled Russian officials. Dmitry Kozak, the deputy prime minister responsible for the Olympic preparations, seemed to reflect the view held among many Russian officials that some Western visitors are deliberately trying to sabotage Sochi's big debut out of bias against Russia. 'We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day,' he said."

Alec Luhn, et al., of the Guardian, July 2013: Edward "Snowden praised Venezuela, as well as Russia, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador for 'being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless' and for 'refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation'."

Constant Weader: I'm looking forward to human rights activist Vladimir P.'s posting those YouTube videos of Ed in the shower, Ed taking a shit, Ed tweezing his nosehairs, etc. (See also yesterday's News Ledes.)

Presidential Election 2016

Kate Bolduan & Lindsay Perna of CNN: Vice President Biden will make a decision next summer about whether or not to run for president.

In the Washington Post, Liza Mundy reviews HRC, by Jonathan Allen & Amy Parnes, "a step-by-step recounting of Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, but it's also a revealing window into the le Carré-like layers of intrigue that develop when a celebrity politician who is married to another celebrity politician loses to yet another celebrity politician, and goes on to serve the politician who defeated her."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Moody's Investors Service downgraded Puerto Rico's general-obligation debt to junk status on Friday, compounding the commonwealth's difficulties as it seeks fresh sources of cash. It was Puerto Rico's second downgrade to junk this week after Standard & Poor's took the same step on Tuesday."

New York Times: The tense Russian-American jockeying over the fate of Ukraine escalated on Thursday as a Kremlin official accused Washington of 'crudely interfering' in the former Soviet republic, while the Obama administration blamed Moscow for spreading an intercepted private conversation between two American diplomats." Here's the tape:

The Miserable Ones

Jean Vanjean* is alive and living in America. His real name is Tom Barrett.

Charles Pierce highlights a Human Rights Watch "report, 'Profiting from Probation: America’s ‘Offender-Funded’ Probation Industry,' [which] describes how

more than 1,000 courts in several US states delegate tremendous coercive power to companies that are often subject to little meaningful oversight or regulation. In many cases, the only reason people are put on probation is because they need time to pay off fines and court costs linked to minor crimes. In some of these cases, probation companies act more like abusive debt collectors than probation officers, charging the debtors for their services....

Human Rights Watch estimates that, in Georgia alone, the industry collects a minimum of US$40 million in fees every year from probationers. In other states, disclosure requirements are so minimal that is not possible even to hazard a guess how much probation companies are harvesting from probationers....

* In Augusta, Georgia, a man who pled guilty to shoplifting a US$2 can of beer and fined US$200 was ultimately jailed for failing to pay more than US$1,000 in fees to his probation company. At the time he was destitute, selling his own blood plasma twice a week to raise money.

* In another Georgia town, a company probation officer said she routinely has offenders arrested for non-payment and then bargains with their families for money in exchange for the person’s release.

* In Alabama, the town of Harpersville shut down its entire municipal court after a judge slammed the municipality and its probation company for running what he called a 'judicially sanctioned extortion racket.'

This is not breaking news. Ethan Bronner of the New York Times wrote a story on these probation mills in July 2012. (If you're interested in the follow-up to the case brought by attorney John B. Long, mentioned in the story, here's what I found. The law is a long and winding road.)

Pierce writes,

This is yet another product of the immensely stupid notion of privatizing the proper functions of government, which is based on the colossally stupid notion that private industry is more honest and more efficient than the public sector, which is itself based on the transcendentally stupid decision by too many states that it is better to light their balls on fire than raise taxes in order to pay for anything anywhere at any time.

But the problem is larger than even Pierce lets on. It goes to the heart of libertarian-conservative philosophy: the notion that, as Ronald Reagan infamously said, "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." What these winger-philosophers want is to return us to the days of laissez-faire. Laissez-faire, in fact, will always suit those is power, because it is they who decide who has the privilege of being left alone, who has freeeedom! to act as s/he wishes. Those who do not belong to this privileged class -- which grows smaller and smaller with each success of the philosopher kings -- will necessarily lose some of their freedoms. Thus, poor people who run afoul of the law in the most minimal ways -- traffic violations, petty thefts, public drunkenness, jaywalking, public protests -- can and do lose their most basic freedoms. The idea that the punishment must fit the crime is abandoned. When the courts become cash cows, all manner of justice disappears. There is no redress.

The privatization of the probation function is horrific, but it is the tip of the iceberg. What has made government relatively honest, if not always optimally functional, was civil service reform. Removing the patronage systems of Tammany Halls large and small meant that governments returned to functioning as servants of the people, and elections more closely reflected the will of the people. Privatization circumvents civil service & returns the levers of corruption to the powerful. We've seen this in New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie has not only undermined public unions but also used his power to reward friends and family. As Paul Krugman wrote in June 2012,

In 2010, Chris Christie, the state’s governor — who has close personal ties to Community Education Centers, the largest operator of [New Jersey's system of halfway houses], and who once worked as a lobbyist for the firm — described the company’s operations as 'representing the very best of the human spirit.' But The Times’s reports instead portray something closer to hell on earth — an understaffed, poorly run system, with a demoralized work force, from which the most dangerous individuals often escape to wreak havoc, while relatively mild offenders face terror and abuse at the hands of other inmates.

Krugman sees the larger picture:

As more and more government functions get privatized, states become pay-to-play paradises, in which both political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become a quid pro quo for getting government business. Are the corporations capturing the politicians, or the politicians capturing the corporations? Does it matter?

The full New York Times report on Christie's halfway house horrors is here. More recently, we've seen how Chris Christie's brother Todd has profited from a project approved by David Samson, Christie's top appointee to the Port Authority. (Samson also profited from the deal.) And the day after Hurricane Sandy left New Jersey, Chris Christie gave a no-bid contract for cleanup to a firm for which Christie mentor & former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is a lobbyist, even though local (private) firms offered to do the job for less.

So privatization is really just one more way in which the haves take from the have-nots. That the philosopher kings do so under the pretense of better serving the public adds insult to injury.

Meanwhile, none of this stops the libertarians from screaming about any perceived intrusion on their own freeedoms! Thus Rand Paul cited Ayn Rand in a screed against the "collective'"s plans to phase out energy-sapping incandescent light bulbs. Paul apparently does not know how to screw in those new-fangled coily things. Then he went on what ABC News called a "toilet tirade" because "Frankly, my toilets don’t work in my house. And I blame you [an Energy Department official] and people like you who want to tell me what I can install in my house, what I can do. You restrict my choices." Low-flow does not work for a big shit. Paul's concerns are for his choices. And what happened when Paul objected to a TSA patdown? As Politico reported in January 2013,

For Paul, TSA reform is personal. He drew viral media attention for resisting a TSA pat-down in 2012, which caused him to miss a speech at the March for Life rally. Following that incident, Paul introduced TSA privatization and flier bill of rights legislation last summer.

More recently, Paul has tapped into libertarian paranoia over NSA spying, & is suing the federal government to "protect the Fourth Amendment." Coincidentally, he is using his suit as a fundraising vehicle.

None of this freeedom! philosophy stops its adherents from restricting the freedoms of women, particularly poor women. As Erin Ryan of Jezebel lays out, "Rand Paul also famously opposes giving low-income women any sort of aid in acquiring birth control, and is staunchly anti-abortion. Rand Paul should just come out and say it: he doesn't think unmarried low income women should be having sex." Charlotte Alter of Time writes: "Rand Paul ... co-sponsored the Life at Conception act to completely outlaw abortion and opposes the Obamacare birth control insurance coverage mandate." This is fine with Paul because the women he knows can afford to pay for their own contraception and abortions. In fact, he boasts about how successful his women friends are. “I’ve seen the women in my family and how well they’re doing. My niece is in Cornell vet school and about 85% of the people in vet school are women.” If there was a "war on women," women won, he says.

Freeedom is not about you. It is all about Rand Paul and his privileged ilk.

* In the novel Les Misérables, Victor Hugo's protagonist Jean Valjean is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread and sentenced to a five-year prison term (extended to 19 years for his attempts to escape).

The Commentariat -- Feb. 6, 2014

Internal links removed.

NEW. Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. Although these cameras can't read license plates or see faces, they provide such a wealth of data that police, businesses and even private individuals can use them to help identify people and track their movements.... Defense contractors are developing similar technology for the military, but its potential for civilian use is raising novel civil liberties concerns."

NEW. Everything Is Obama's Fault, Ctd. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Facing growing resistance from conservatives, Speaker John A. Boehner on Thursday cast strong doubt that he could pass an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws this year, leaving it to President Obama to win the trust of his balking Republicans.... 'There's widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws, and it's going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes,'" Boehner said....

     ... CW: Hope you got the logic of that. As long as the Congress & the President are from opposite parties, Congress is completely impotent! Ergo, best thing to do -- throw the bums out this year. Funny how Newt Gingrich promised a Contract on America when Clinton was president. Of course, there is one difference between Clinton & Obama: the former has pasty white skin; the latter does not.

Greg Sargent: "Under questioning today before the House Budget Committee from Dem Rep. Chris Van Hollen, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf confirmed that in reality, his report suggests Obamacare will reduce unemployment":

... Dylan Scott of TPM: Paul Ryan contradicted the party line during the Q&A with Elmendorf. "'Just to understand, it is not that employers are laying people off,' Ryan said. 'That is right,' Elmendorf said. That's a pretty direct contradiction for the attack adopted by many GOPers following the report's release.... [But] Ryan ... said he was 'troubled' by the report because it suggested that Obamacare was encouraging Americans 'not to get on the ladder of life, to begin working, getting the dignity of work, getting more opportunities, rising the income, joining the middle class.'"

... Brian Beutler demonstrates how the GOP's lying about the CBO report "flow[s] naturally from the composition of the [conservative] movement itself." In other words, the suspension of reality over there is Right Wing World will continue, a few passing nods to the real world via Ryan & others notowithstanding. ...

... Like Ryan, Ross Douthat is still very upset that some people who should be in the work force may drop out because of ObamaCare. CW: There are obvious fixes for any built-in discouragement of work (more give to sliding subsidies, etc.), but don't expect Republicans to knuckle down & write corrective legislation. ...

... Ah, I see Charles Pierce also calls out Ryan & Douthat, & as usual, he displays his full contempt for both of them. ...

... Brad Friedman of the BradBlog, in Salon: "... the release of two different official reports, one from the U.S. State Department on the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project and another from the Congressional Budget Office on the economic outlook in light of the Affordable Care Act [caused leaders of the Republican party] ... to blatantly lie about what's in each of those reports, specifically with regard to 'job creation'...." The State Department's KXL report estimated that after a two-year construction period, the pipeline would create 35 -- count 'em, 35 -- permanent employees. After the report's release, Speaker John Boehner reiterated his claim that the KXL pipeline would bring "more than 100,000 jobs."

... ** Major Media Fail. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "The big loser in Tuesday's Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report release ... is the traditional media. This was a textbook case of reading incomprehension, preconceived assumptions, susceptibility to spin and inability to admit an error, spread out over the airwaves, the Internet, and blowing up in real time. In the aftermath, it's fascinating to see how it all played out: who corrected themselves, who backpedaled without ever acknowledging their fuck up, who insisted that even if they were wrong they were right, and who ran with the lie and are sticking with it." McCarter gives a special shoutout to gutless ignoramus Tuck Chodd. ...

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post has a quick rundown of many of the media outlets that initially blew the story & changed their headlines, not to mention the content of their stories. ...

... Steve Benen: "... if this were simply an instance in which conservatives pushed a bogus attack and the media fell for it, this would become an interesting anecdote in a journalism textbook about media malpractice. But as [the] day progressed, we actually saw a more alarming twist: media professionals suggesting reality doesn't matter all that much." As Politico put it,

The Republicans just got a big gift from the Congressional Budget Office: It's going to be a lot easier for them to call Obamacare a 'job killer.' ... There's a lot more fine print about what those numbers really mean, and whether the jobs were 'lost.' ... But what matters politically is how they'll look in attack ads. And in this election year, '2 million lost jobs' is a Republican ad maker's dream."

     ... CW: The Politico piece, by David Nather & Jason Millman, who are among those Politico "reporters" who come & go so often they might be interns, is the worst case of journalistic malpractice I've seen in a long time. ...

... The Other CBO Report. John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "... something the C.B.O. said that you probably missed, which is based on actual facts rather than on informed speculation: in the past five years or so -- and this has nothing to do with Obamacare -- some six million jobs (and workers) have already gone missing from the U.S. economy. That figure was in a separate report that the C.B.O. released on Tuesday, titled, 'The Slow Recovery of the Labor Market.' ... Since 2008, the Republicans have been fighting policy efforts to stimulate spending and hiring. In part, they are responsible for the millions of missing workers." CW: The Senate should be holding big splashy hearings on this report. (Although if they tried, maybe nobody would show up.)

Latest GOP Ransom Demand. Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "A new break in the GOP's debt-ceiling strategy emerged at a private lunch on Wednesday, where House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) encouraged his allies to consider linking a restoration of recently cut military benefits with a one-year extension of the federal government's borrowing authority.... Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signaled he would like to see a restoration of the previous level of cost-of-living benefits for military personnel, and aides said he is planning to push legislation as early as next week that would return billions of related funding cut under last year's budget agreement." ...

     ... CW: So Boehner may demand that Democrats do what Harry Reid wants. Maybe Boehner should also demand a path to citizenship for immigrants, a $12 minimum wage & Medicare for all.

Dominic Rushe & Jill Treanor of the Guardian: "New York state's top financial regulator has demanded documents from more than a dozen banks including Barclays, Deutsche, Goldman Sachs and RBS as a probe widened into trading practices in the $5.3tn-a-day global foreign exchange markets. Benjamin Lawsky, New York's financial services superintendent, made the move following the banks' decision to fire or suspend at least 20 traders following reports that employees at some firms had shared information about their currency positions with counterparts at other companies."

The New York Times Editors note that the Justice Department has mostly ignored its best argument on the contraceptive cases coming before the Supreme Court -- allowing companies to favor one religion over another -- i.e., deciding that the owners' religious beliefs should take precedence over the beliefs & practices of the employees -- would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. "The justices should have the parties submit new briefs focused on the establishment clause...." ...

... Linda Greenhouse on the stories behind the sex cases the Supremes are hearing this term.

Frank Rich comments on Philip Seymour Hoffman, the CBO report & Fox "News."

Brenda Woods of Atlanta's WXIA defends inclusiveness against the xenophobes who found the Coca Cola ad outrageous. "'America the Beautiful' by any other language is still America, the beautiful." Via Media Matters:

New Jersey News

Erin O'Neill of the Star-Ledger: "Housing advocates claim New Jersey and the contractor it hired for Hurricane Sandy housing recovery efforts mismanaged the application process for the state's two largest initiatives for homeowners. The Fair Share Housing Center today released an analysis of state data showing that nearly 80 percent of residents who appealed rejections from the two housing programs proved they were wrongly denied in the first place. The center obtained the data through an open public records request. 'The Christie Administration's widespread rejection of large numbers of families actually eligible for Sandy aid shows that the Sandy recovery process has been flawed from start to finish,' said Adam Gordon, a staff attorney for Fair Share Housing Center, which sued the state last year for not releasing public documents related to the recovery effort."

AP: "New Jersey lawmakers investigating a political payback scandal ensnaring Gov. Chris Christie's administration may need to get a judge to force two key figures to turn over subpoenaed documents. Christie's two-time campaign manager [Bill Stepien] and a deputy chief of staff [Bridget Kelly] have refused to turn over text messages, emails, personal calendars and other documents related to a traffic-blocking operation near the George Washington Bridge...."

Michael Barbaro, et al., of the New York Times: "... Democrats are determined to transform [Chris Christie] into a toxic figure, whose name is synonymous with the ugliest elements of politics: partisan bullying and backslapping cronyism." CW: Hmmm. I thought Christie made himself "a toxic figure," without a lot of outside help.

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker explains why Bridgegate will go on for a loooong time.

Senate Races 2014

Scott Brown, on the front page of the New Hampshire Union Leader. The report describes him as "a longtime summer resident of Rye," [Nw Hampshire].... Gail Collins: "Brown has not officially announced his candidacy, but he did show up shirtless for the New Hampshire news media when he took part in the state's recent Penguin Plunge.... Besides Scott Brown's chest, one of the early election themes in 2014 is tons of Republican incumbents being driven crazy by Tea Party primaries."...

... Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "Fox News contributor Scott Brown is renting out his email list to an outlet that touts shady products like Alzheimer's disease cures and Social Security tricks. Brown joins several of his Republican colleagues in attempting to cash in on their followers through dubious or shady practices. Mike Huckabee, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich have all been renting out their email lists to suspect sources. As Salon's Alex Pareene noted, 'the conservative movement is an elaborate moneymaking venture. For professional movement conservatives, their audiences and followers are easy marks.'" In an update, Hananoki notes that Brown now claims to have severed ties with "this vendor." CW: Yeah, well, property taxes in New Hampshire are really high. Brown needs all the spare change he can get.

Presidential Election 2016

The Next POTUS Will Not Be a Really Rich Guy from Massachusetts. Margaret Hartmann of New York: "CNN ... in separate interviews on Wednesday..., asked both Mitt Romney and John Kerry if they'll run again. "The answer is no, I'm not running for president in 2016. It's time for someone else to take that responsibility and I'll be supporting our nominee," said Romney. The secretary of State was similarly Shermanesque. 'I’m out of politics. I have no plans whatsoever; this is my last stop,' he said."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Ralph Kiner, baseball's vastly undersung slugger, who belted more home runs than anyone else over his 10-year career but whose achievements in the batter's box were obscured by his decades in the broadcast booth, where he was one of the game's most recognizable personalities, died on Thursday at home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 91."

Guardian: "The frustration of the Obama administration at Europe's hesitant policy over the pro-democracy protests in Ukraine has been laid bare in a leaked phone conversation between two senior US officials, one of whom declares: 'Fuck the EU'. The US state department did not directly confirm that the leaked audio clip posted on YouTube captures the voices of the top US diplomat for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, and US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. However, the department's spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Nuland, who made the disparaging remark about the EU, 'has been in contact with her EU counterparts and of course has apologised for these reported comments'." ...

     ... New York Times: The White House surmised Russia recorded & leaked the conversation. "'The video was first noted and tweeted out by the Russian government,' Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters. 'I think it says something about Russia's role.'"

Guardian: Ban Ki-Moon, "the United Nations secretary-general, has used a speech ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi to condemn attacks on the LGBT community, amid growing criticism of Russia's so-called 'gay propaganda' laws."

New York Times: "A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Mathew Martoma on Thursday on insider trading charges in what may be the last criminal case to emerge from a decade-long investigation of Steven A. Cohen and his SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund. The jury of seven women and five men found Mr. Martoma, a former SAC portfolio manager, guilty of seeking out confidential information related to a clinical trial for an experimental Alzheimer's drug."