The Commentariat -- Feb. 20, 2013

John Schwartz of the New York Times: "The White House on Wednesday will flesh out the plans President Obama announced in the State of the Union address to repair the nation's ailing infrastructure, a White House official said.... The draft [summary of the plan] sounds three major themes that Mr. Obama has discussed since he was first a candidate for the presidency, but with initiatives intended to engage in work that minimizes the need for Congressional approval and which can capitalize on private investment to help start projects."

President Obama spoke about the sequester Tuesday:

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Days away from another fiscal crisis and with Congress on vacation, President Obama began marshaling the powers of the presidency on Tuesday to try to shame Republicans into a compromise that could avoid further self-inflicted job losses and damage to the fragile recovery. But so far, Republicans were declining to engage." ...

... Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Obama will sit for interviews with eight local reporters on Wednesday, as he continues to ratchet up his pressure on lawmakers to take action to prevent automatic spending cuts from taking effect on March 1." CW: ah, the "puppet master" at work. ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times: "... it's ridiculous for Republicans to claim the sequester is really Mr. Obama's idea, as if a kidnapper's relatives deserve blame for paying the ransom.... Republicans love the idea of reducing spending but prefer to remain in the shadows when the cuts actually materialize. Even now, they won't consider the Democratic alternative of balancing cuts with an equal amount of higher tax revenue from the rich and corporations...." ...

... Michael Tomasky of Newsweek: "My Twitter feed these last couple of weeks has been overflowing with people going beyond the usual 'communist' and 'idiot' name-calling that I get every day and throwing the occasional 'liar' in there because I 'withhold' the information that the sequester was the Obama administration's idea.... Let's grant that this is true. But it's true only because the Republicans were holding a gun to the administration's head -- and besides, the Republicans immediately voted for it.... The Republicans are partial owners of this idea, and as the party that now wants the cuts to kick in, they deserve to -- and will -- bear more responsibility for the negative impacts." Tomasky recounts the history of the sequester. Worth noting: "... according to Bob Woodward in his new book, Jack Lew ... originally came up with the notion of sequestered cuts. Or maybe it was Gene Sperling."

... BUT WAIT, there's more. John Avlon of Newsweek: "I happened to come across an old email that throws cold water on House Republicans' attempts to call this 'Obama's Sequester.' It's a PowerPoint presentation that Boehner's office developed with the Republican Policy Committee and sent out to the Capitol Hill GOP on July 31, 2011.... It's essentially an internal sales document from the old dealmaker Boehner to his unruly and often unreasonable Tea Party cohort. But it's clear as day in the presentation that 'sequestration' was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending.... The presentation lays out the deal in clear terms, describing the spending backstop as 'automatic across-the-board cuts ("sequestration"). Same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.'" CW: do ignore Avlon's deep bow to the Simpsons & Bowels.

... The Washington Monument Strategy. Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "... whatever the level of damage across-the-board would impose, we can expect the affected agencies will try to make the damage look as high as possible." ...

... Steve Benen parses the both-side-are-to-blame argument on the sequester (& on other issues that come before Congress). Now, try to follow: "Democrats are open to a balanced compromise, Republicans aren't, so Democrats bear some responsibility for the mess by asking far-right extremists who abhor compromise to accept a deal that requires equal sacrifices from both sides. If only Democrats would accept Republican extremism at face value, and realize GOP officials aren't interested in constructive bipartisan policymaking, they could simply give Republicans what they want and spare us all the aggravation." ...

Amazing Feat: Two Old Coots Move Goal Posts!

Greg Sargent: "Like a pair of aging crooners hoping to recapture past glory with a long-awaited reunion tour, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson released a new version of their deficit reduction plan [Tuesday]. Ezra Klein ferrets out the real news in the plan: It asks for far less in new revenues, and more in spending cuts, than the previous Simpson-Bowles plan did.... The plan roughly represents the ideological midpoint between the Obama and Boehner fiscal cliff blueprints -- which is why the plan is so heavily tilted towards cuts." ...

... Here's Ezra Klein's breakdown. Simpson-Bowles 2.0 is "meant to be an outline for a new grand bargain. To that end, Simpson and Bowles began with Obama and Boehner's final offers from the fiscal cliff deal.... While this plan doesn't include more tax increases than Obama asked for, it does include significantly more than the $1 trillion in spending cuts than Boehner asked for.... In increasing the total deficit reduction, Simpson and Bowles have put the weight on the spending side of the budget." ...

... Kevin Drum: "In SB 1.0, deficit reduction was moderately evenly divided between spending cuts and tax increases. In SB 2.0, they've suddenly decided it should be 75 percent spending cuts. That's despite the fact that spending cuts have already been 75 percent of the deficit reduction we've done so far. Why? ... I guess they figure that conservative sacred cows are a little more sacred than liberal ones. Or something. But even if you take deficit reduction seriously in the first place, this sure makes it hard to take Simpson-Bowles 2.0 seriously as a plan." ...

... Derek Thompson of the Atlantic notes that the new Simpson-Bowles back-of-the-napkin plan looks mighty Republican. ...

... Tim Noah of The New Republic: "You may have heard that Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, matinee idols of the Austerity Über Alles movement, have devised a new budget-slimming plan. That's not quite right. They've produced a very rough outline that's deliberately short on details [because they don't have time to add & subtract & all when they have to spend so much time on the teevee.]... Simpson and Bowles's ... agenda is not limited to deficit reduction. They also want to lower tax rates. Why? They just want to, is all." ...

... Charles Pierce: "The main non-drone gripe I'm going to have with the president when he leaves office is the muscle he put behind the preposterous Simpson-Bowles Commission. The basic problem was that he handed the administration's credibility over to a former bagma...er...lobbyist and to the single most unpleasant member of the Republican Undead. Having done that, he allowed them to establish the basic austerity-leaning parameters of the overall economic discussion. He gave the Republicans a baseline from which to attack any proposal to the left of something that Ike might have liked. And, worst of all, he gave the courtier press a graven image to worship.... The Village must have its cults, and Simpson-Bowles is pre-eminent among them."

Michael Hirsh of the National Journal: "... what has gone largely unnoted by the punditocracy is that, over the past decade or so..., [Chuck Hagel] has distinguished himself with subtle, well-thought-out, and accurate analyses of some of America's greatest strategic challenges of the 21st century -- especially the response to 9/11 -- while many of his harshest critics got these issues quite wrong." Happily, Hirsh uses Tom Friedman as his Exhibit A for pundits who got it wrong. CW: oh yeah? Kate Madison noticed.

Peter Waldman of the American Prospect: "When he leaves office in January of 2017 -- provided there isn't a terrible scandal or some kind of economic or foreign policy disaster between now and then -- Barack Obama will likely be hailed as the greatest Democratic hero since John F. Kennedy.... Obama -- particularly the second-term Obama -- does not apologize for liberalism. That isn't to say he's the most liberal guy around, because he isn't. But ... he does not exude the fear of his party's ideology that characterized an earlier generation, scarred as they were by the Gingrich revolution of 1994.... Some Democrats look like they're moving left, and it's for one reason: because it's good politics."

Cristina Silva of the AP: "Arizona took center stage in the national immigration debate Tuesday as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano [who is the former governor of Arizona] toured the state's border with Mexico and Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix." CW: proving you never know when McCain is going to surprise you & do the right thing. ...

... THEN AGAIN, "All the Latest Rage." Charles Pierce: "To be perfectly fair to the howling mob -- and we like to be fair to howling mobs around here, especially when they inconvenience Republicans -- this may have something to do with McCain's once again seeming to have reversed himself on the issue. This is, after all, a man who ran against his own immigration bill when he was trying to get nominated in 2008 and, when feeling threatened by a primary challenge the last time he came up for re-election." Read the whole post.

... Matthew Cooper of the National Journal on the White House Press Corps' Latest Crybaby Moment: "The greater threat from the Obama administration isn't the usual playing of head games with the White House press corps; it's the aggressive prosecution of both the people who leak government information and the reporters who receive it. I have some skin in the game on this too, having been involved in the CIA leak case that began 10 years ago when I wrote about how the White House was waging a war on Joe Wilson. The aggressive prosecution of leaks and the invocation of once-dormant statutes to go after leakers and reporters threatens to shut down real and vital sources of information.... Ask reporters, such as James Risen of the New York Times, who have been in the legal crosshairs for their role in reporting on intelligence issues. Those are the things we really need to know. The president's golf score? Oh, please." ...

... A note on our intrepid journalist class. Greg Mitchell: Mike Allen of Politico "wrote [yesterday] that Obama avoids Politico reporters in part because they 'ask tough, unpredictable questions.' ... So John Cook, editor of Gawker, just performed a public service by posting on Twitter every question Allen chose to ask President Bush when he did get full access back in 2008. You may remember 2008 -- the economy was about to collapse and we were still in a full shooting war in Iraq." Mitchell picks a number of his favorite Allen-to-Bush "tough, unpredictable questions." Here are two, but do read Mitchell's list. Thanks to MAG for the link:

All right. Mr. President, who does the better impression, Will Ferrell of you, or Dana Carvey of your father?

Now, Mr. President, you and the First Lady appeared on American Idol's charity show, "Idol Gives Back." And I wonder who do you think is going to win? Syesha, David Cook, or David Archuleta?

... ** Our Intrepid Press Corps, Hard-Right-Wing Edition. Dan Friedman, a New York "Daily News reporter, "explains how he inadvertently created the myth that Chuck Hagel spoke to a non-existent group." "If you see a story on Hagel addressing the Junior League of Hezbollah, that's fake too." When you think they can't do anything worse than smearing Shirley Sherrod with totally deceptive tape-editing that inverted the substance of her speech, think again.

Thom Shanker & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Gen. John R. Allen, the four-star Marine Corps officer who served until earlier this month as the top commander in Afghanistan, will retire from the military to focus on 'health issues within his family,' President Obama said on Tuesday. General Allen was caught up in the scandal that led to the resignation of David H. Petraeus as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. But last month, the Pentagon officially cleared him of misconduct after an investigation into his exchange of e-mails with Jill Kelley, a Tampa, Fla., woman who was also a friend of Mr. Petraeus's.... There is little doubt that an unexpected obstacle to General Allen's new assignment at NATO was the inquiry by the Pentagon inspector general."

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: The Supreme Court's "hearing from the administration is especially important because the Prop 8 defenders, in their brief to the court, cite the president's comments about the 'healthy debate' occurring in the states in defense of letting the law stand. And especially given the president's words last month: 'If we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.' A president who speaks so eloquently at his inaugural cannot allow his administration to remain silent before the court, where words are translated into reality."

Excellent. Supremes to Take a Shot at Making Politics Even More Corrupt. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a challenge to federal campaign contribution limits, setting the stage for what may turn out to be the most important federal campaign finance case since the court's 2010 decision in Citizens United, which struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions.... 'In Citizens United, the court resisted tinkering with the rules for contribution limits,' said Richard L. Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California, Irvine. 'This could be the start of chipping away at contribution limits.'"

Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: "Unless the Justice Department and BP reach a last-minute settlement, the British oil company will return to court on Monday to face tens of billions of dollars in civil claims from the 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that could cripple the company for years to come.... The Federal District Court trial in New Orleans will bundle suits brought by the Justice Department, state governments, private business and individual claimants against BP and several of its contractors. Decisions on culpability and damages could be a year or more away, but they are likely to have profound impacts on environmental law and determine the viability of BP as a major oil company with global ambitions."

Katherine Skiba of the Chicago Tribune: "Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., and his wife, former Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson, are expected to plead guilty to federal charges Wednesday, when more details may emerge about an alleged crime spree in which he is accused of spending more than $750,000 in campaign cash to buy luxury items, memorabilia and other goods."

Holy Crystal Meth! Is the Roman Catholic Church just one big criminal op? N. R. Kleinfield of the New York Times: "At a time when priests from California to Delaware have been accused of loathsome deeds, the allegations against Monsignor [Kevin] Wallin, the former pastor of the Cathedral of St. Augustine in Bridgeport, [Connecticut,] are of a notably different dimension: that he was a drug dealer and addict who was buying an adult novelty shop to launder ill-gotten proceeds, a priest who was cross-dressing and having sex with men.... Colleagues said that ... he had long been sexually active with men.... The Diocese of Bridgeport had forced Monsignor Wallin from his position at St. Augustine in June 2011, after it was alerted to his dissonant behavior. His parishioners were told only of ambiguous personal and health issues.... The lurid case is only the latest scandal for the Bridgeport Diocese, already tainted by a string of clerical sexual abuse cases. Last year, the Rev. Michael R. Moynihan, the former pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Greenwich, was sent to prison for obstructing justice after being accused of spending church money on himself. In 2007, the Rev. Michael Jude Fay, from St. John Roman Catholic Church in Darien, was convicted of stealing $1.3 million; he died in prison."

Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has jumped 45 cents in the past 31 days, according to AAA, the fastest run-up since 2005." Mufson talks to some experts about why -- um, "market tension" or something.

Local News

Matt Helm & Joe Guillen of the Detroit Free Press: "An emergency review team’s report on Detroit paints a city on the verge of collapse, too inflexible to restructure itself, unable to explain why its budget forecasts are routinely wrong and no longer capable of papering over its crisis by taking out loans.... Detroit is out of time, a six-member review team lead by state Treasurer Andy Dillon said in a report delivered Tuesday to Gov. Rick Snyder. Snyder is widely expected to use the evidence to appoint an emergency financial manager to tame a yearslong runaway budget crisis."

News Ledes

New York Times: "In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that criminal defense lawyers must warn their clients if deportation could be a consequence of a guilty plea. On Wednesday, the courtlimited the reach of that ruling, saying it did not apply retroactively to people whose convictions had become final by the time the justices announced their 2010 decision, Padilla v. Kentucky."

AP: "Evidence of an unrelenting campaign of cyberstealing linked to the Chinese government is prompting the Obama administration to develop more aggressive responses to the theft of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets. The Obama administration is expected to announce new measures Wednesday, including possible fines and other trade actions against China or any other country guilty of cyber-espionage."

Reuters: "Groundbreaking to build new U.S. homes fell in January but new permits for construction rose to a 4 1/2-year high, reinforcing expectations the housing market will support economic growth this year."

Reuters: "Office Depot Inc said on Wednesday that it would buy smaller rival OfficeMax Inc for $1.17 billion in stock to get more clout with suppliers and better compete against Staples Inc and Amazon.com Inc."

AP: In Orange County, California, a "shooter, 20-year-old Ali Syed, killed a woman in the home he shared with his parents, killed two drivers during carjackings, injured two others and shot up cars on a busy freeway interchange before committing suicide as police closed in, authorities said."

Reuters: "Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests< against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt crisis. Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, a former bodyguard who swept to power in 2009 on pledges to root out corruption and raise living standards in the European Union's poorest member, now faces a tough task to prop up eroding support ahead of a probable early election."

Reuters: "A Syrian missile killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Tuesday, opposition activists said, as the army turns to longer-range weapons after losing bases in the country's second-largest city. The use of what opposition activists said was a large missile of the same type as Russian-made Scuds against an Aleppo residential district came after rebels overran army bases over the past two months from which troops had fired artillery."

AP: "Tens of thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday as unions staged a general strike to protest government spending cuts and tax hikes, which some predict will push unemployment to an alarming 30 percent. Police said up to 40,000 people were participating in two separate marches in central Athens that were so far peaceful."

Chicago Tribune Wire Services: "Witnesses heard 'non-stop shouting' in the home of Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius shortly before his girlfriend was shot dead, the lead detective in the murder investigation said on Wednesday." CW: Read the whole story; sounds like Pistorius is a murderer AND a liar.

The Commentariat -- Feb. 19, 2013

Here's Gail Collins' New York Times Magazine piece on Betty Friedan & The Feminine Mystique, which MAG mentions in today's Comments. Sorry I missed the article when the Times published it in January.

Steve Holland of Reuters: "President Barack Obama will make a fresh push on Tuesday to force congressional Republicans to make concessions that will head off budget cuts that appear increasingly likely to kick in starting on March 1. Obama, just back from a three-day golf getaway in Florida, will appear at the White House at 10:45 a.m. EST (1545 GMT) with emergency responders who would lose their jobs if the cuts go into effect." ...

     ... Update: Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Speaking at the White House, surrounded by firefighters and other emergency personnel, Obama urged Congress to pass a short-term measure that would delay the cuts, known as the sequester, for a period of time until Congress can pass a permanent fix."

... Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "More than he ever did in his first term, Obama is describing the country as he believes it should be, not the one it has been for much of the past decade.... Obama and his senior staff ... hope to harness his post-election political freedom on behalf of a domestic agenda still broadly unpopular among Republicans in a divided Congress. He is threatening executive action to confront such issues as climate change.... His vast former campaign organization also is mobilizing to fight outside the Beltway for a political agenda whose fate will be determined inside it." ...

... MEANWHILE, Molly Hooper of The Hill: "House GOP lawmakers say they do not fear political blowback if Congress fails to prevent $85 billion in automatic spending cuts from triggering in two weeks."

Mark Landler & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "With conditions [in Syria] continuing to deteriorate, [U.S.] officials could reopen the debate over providing weapons to select members of the resistance in an effort to break the impasse in Syria."

** Michael Lofgren, a disaffected former GOP staffer in the Huffington Post: because of gerrymandering,* "it is unlikely Republicans will lose control of the House at least until the census of 2020. Dixie and the Tornado Belt are prone to send candidates of the intellectual caliber and world view of James Inhofe to the Senate for the foreseeable future, thus assuring a veto over legislation via the filibuster. The voting base itself, endlessly stoked by talk radio and Fox News, thrives on its martyr-like self-image as a persecuted remnant of Real Americans; and all the would-be messiahs they adore are Republicans, not third party candidates. There is also just too much money to be made by hucksters, so it is doubtful that the GOP will go the way of the Whigs." Thanks to Calyban for the link. ...

... I think this piece, written in September 2011 & published in TruthOut (& perhaps elsewhere), was what put Lofgren on the map. It's a doozy.

* BUT see John Sides & Eric McGhee on gerrymandering, linked below.

Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Criticized for letting Wall Street off the hook after the financial crisis, the Justice Department is building a new model for prosecuting big banks. In a recent round of actions that shook the financial industry, the government pushed for guilty pleas, rather than just the usual fines and reforms. Prosecutors now aim to apply the approach broadly to financial fraud cases, according to officials involved in the investigations." CW: read the whole article & see what you think. This sounds to me a little more like PR than like actually sending fat cats to the clink.

** Forget "Real America." Tim Noah of The New Republic: "We think of rural-heartland dwellers as real Americans, but they currently represent less than 20 percent of the population; nearly all of us live in and around cities. We think of churchgoers as real Americans, but only 40 percent of Americans attend any kind of religious service at least once a week.... We think of people who own guns as real Americans, but they represent only 21 percent of the population.... By fetishizing a fading tradition, liberals have only made their arguments for increased gun control less likely to have much of an impact. A recognition of their -- our -- dominant position would be a better way to start the debate."

Stupid Immigration Policy. Kevin Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Much of the immigration debate in Washington has centered on the 11 million undocumented migrants in the country. But, from the halls of MIT to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, business and academic leaders are more focused on what they call an even greater threat to the U.S. economy: immigration laws that chase away highly skilled foreigners educated in U.S. universities, often with degrees funded by U.S. taxpayers. While other countries are actively recruiting foreign-born U.S. graduates, the United States has strict limits on visas for highly skilled workers that often put them on waiting lists of many years. And unlike Canada and other countries, the United States offers no specific visa for young entrepreneurs ... who want to start a business in America."

David Dayen, writing in Salon, on how to save the U.S. Postal Service: institute a postal banking service, which would be a great help to "unbanked" or "underbanked" Americans who rely on payday lenders, pawn shops, etc., for "banking." "The National Association of Letter Carriers is ready to do this; they endorsed a resolution at their annual convention in 2012 to adopt a postal banking system in the US." CW: read the whole post. It's a pretty compelling idea & not nearly as novel as I thought. Of course, as Alex Pareene notes in the piece linked below, getting Congress off its collective ass to do something that's good for Americans -- & in this case, good for the USPS -- is a mighty heavy lift.

A Party without a Policy. Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "The problem with Republicans today on public policy isn't that they're stuck in the 1980s; it's that they've given up entirely." ...

... So, in Lieu of Policy, Here's What They Have -- Benghazi!!!. Ed Kilgore: "Sen. John McCain's insistence on Meet the Press yesterday that the Obama administration was engaged in a 'massive coverup' of Benghazi! is an indication that conspiracy-shouting on the subject among Republicans won't go away any time soon, or perhaps ever."

Alex Pareene of Salon: "After [Sen. Ted] Cruz's [RTP-Texas] hostile questioning of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, [Sen. John] McCain [R-Az.] publicly rebuked the Texas senator, something McCain only does to practically everyone who annoys him in any fashion.... But ... Ted Cruz's loudmouthed Senator Asshole routine is not what's wrong with the Senate.... Ted Cruz didn't blow up immigration reform on multiple occasions. Ted Cruz isn't why senators like McCain and [Lindsey] Graham [R-S.C.] decide to stop supporting things they used to support, like cap-and-trade.... What's wrong with the Senate is just about every other senator, most of whom ... never evinc[e] any concern whatsoever for the real-life consequences of their inaction on nearly every single one of America's most urgent problems...." ...

... Steve Benen: "A strange website with a troubled reputation published an unsubstantiated rumor about something Chuck Hagel is accused of having said in 2007. There is no proof that Hagel made the comment or anything like it, but two Republican senators nevertheless demanded an explanation. In other words, for [Lindsey] Graham and Kelly Ayotte [N.H.], there's nothing odd about effectively saying, 'We heard some unsubstantiated rumor on a website we know little about, and we expect you to take it seriously and provide us with an immediate explanation.'"

Jon Chait of New York: Joe Scarborough is pretty dimwitted & it shows when he tries to write down his "thoughts." "The fiscal scolds have so successfully inculcated their moralistic urgency about debt, so thoroughly dominated the news agenda, that millions of people like Joe Scarborough think it is self-evidently insane and evil to in any way minimize the awesome scale of the crisis. Scarborough can't really explain why Krugman is wrong, because the nub of the issue is that Krugman's way of looking at the issue simply offends him."

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: Justice Clarence Thomas, who hasn't asked a question from the bench in seven years, says he sometimes gets Justice Stephen Breyer to ask questions for him.

John Sides & Eric McGhee in the Washington Post on gerrymandering, which these political scientists argue, based on a series of tests they applied to election results, had very little effect on the 2012 Congressional races: "... the ability of Republicans to retain the House majority may have been due to incumbency advantage, not new and more favorable districts. Why do Democrats have a somewhat chronic disadvantage in these graphs, especially in the last 20 years? Part of the reason is that Democratic votes are increasingly concentrated in urban areas where they are more likely to waste votes with large majorities.

Congressional Races

Ed Kilgore: "Life often imitates parody in South Carolina: former Gov. Mark Sanford has just put up his first ad in his campaign to get back his old congressional seat, recently vacated by now-Sen. Tim Scott. Seems he's going full-tilt into the paradox of simultaneously begging for forgiveness for his sins (which include not just adultery and public idiocy but a variety of financial irregularities that might have in some jurisdictions landed him in the hoosegow), while posing as the guy that can smite Washington with demands for strict fiscal accountability and moral rectitude." CW: meanwhile, Sally Quinn & other Washington hostesses with the mostesses are likely rooting for Sanford in hopes he & his lovely Argentinian fiancee will star at their little get-togethers.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Mike Johanns, a Nebraska Republican who is in his first term, announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election next year, the fifth lawmaker to bow out of a Senate that has become increasingly polarized and dysfunctional."

CW: Sorry, but this extended wail from Jim VandeHei & Mike Allen of Politico is one long unintentional knee-slapper. Apparently, President Obama is not being transparent enough currying favor with these turdwingers & their buddies in the hard-working White Press corps. "The frustrated Obama press corps neared rebellion this past holiday weekend when reporters and photographers were not even allowed onto the Floridian National Golf Club, where Obama was golfing. That breached the tradition of the pool 'holding' in the clubhouse and often covering -- and even questioning -- the president on the first and last holes." Etc., etc.

... Digby is also "relieved that the fourth estate has its priorities straight." ...

... Anne Laurie, in Balloon Juice: "You'd think Tha Meeja would at least admire the Obama administration's deftness in beating them at their own game, but ... 'The president's staff often finds Washington reporters whiny, needy and too enamored with trivial matters or their own self-importance.'...Oooo, burn" ...

... AND Reid Epstein of Politico: "... after months of buildup and a week since his State of the Union address, key aides on the Hill and at the White House acknowledge that even GOP senators who fit Obama's vision of bipartisanship -- Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma -- are all waiting to hear anything from the president.... They'd like to have a conversation. Or at least get a phone call. And with the president's whole agenda on the line, they're surprised that hasn't happened yet." ...

... CW: I'm surprised the Senate has not yet installed phones where they can call out. I guess the two-way walkie-talkies thingies are too new-fangled. Well, shucks, maybe Obama doesn't have a real phone, either:

Right Wing World

America's Worst Nightmare. It turns out people -- at least very bad people -- can return from the dead.Local News

Carly Carioli of The Phoenix: Massachusetts "State Rep. Marty Walsh and Joyce Linehan -- the legendary rock publicist turned political rainmaker -- had teamed up to file HD3506, a bill to make 'Roadrunner,' by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, the official rock song of Massachusetts." CW: I agree with Richman who said, through a spokesperson, "I don't think the song is good enough to be a Massachusetts song of any kind."

Apropos of yesterday's inconsequential discussion, contributor Julie sends along this by Marshall Ramsey:

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Afghanistan authorities have captured a senior member of the blank">Pakistan Taliban in a stretch of mountains near the frontier between the two countries, Afghan and Pakistani officials said on Tuesday. One Afghan official said the militant, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, had been arrested after American airstrikes, some carried out via drones, had flushed him out of a more remote haven."

New York Times: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a criminal inquiry into suspicious trades placed ahead of the $23 billion acquisition of H.J. Heinz, a person briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.The F.B.I.'s involvement adds to the scrutiny surrounding the deal and further highlights the temptation that major takeovers present to traders. Last week, a day after the deal was announced, the Securities and Exchange Commission promptly froze a Swiss account linked to possible insider trading in the Heinz takeover."

New York Times: "A growing body of digital forensic evidence -- confirmed by American intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of [a Chinese] army unit for years -- leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around" a building in Shanghai, which is the People's Liberation Army base for China's growing corps of cyberwarriors." ...

... Washington Post: "A U.S. security firm has tied more than a hundred cyber attacks on U.S. corporations to China's military, according to a report released Tuesday. The 60-page study by investigators at the Alexandria-based Mandiant security firm presents one of the most comprehensive and detailed analysis to date tracing corporate cyber espionage to the doorstep of Chinese military facilities. And it calls into question China's repeated denials that its military is engaged in such activities."

Reuters: "A seven-member delegation of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Cuba on Monday in the latest effort to move forward political relations that have been at a standstill since U.S. government contractor Alan Gross was imprisoned there in 2009. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who saw Gross and met with Cuban President Raul Castro and other high-ranking officials a year ago, is leading the group of five senators and two members of the House of Representatives on a three-day visit to communist Cuba.... Gross, 63, was arrested in Havana in December 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for installing Internet networks under a secretive U.S. program the Cuban government considers subversive."

New York Times: "Prosecutors accused Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee track star and one of the world's best-known athletes, of premeditated murder on Tuesday, saying he opened fire four times on his girlfriend through a locked bathroom door after putting on his prosthetic legs and walking more than 20 feet from a bedroom."

CBS News: "Law enforcement sources say Adam Lanza, [the Newtown, Connecticut, mass murderer,] was motivated by violent video games and a strong desire to kill more people than ... Anders Breivik, a Norwegian man who killed 77 people in July 2011." With video report.

AP: "Now that investigators have determined the origins of the engine-room fire that paralyzed a Carnival cruise ship at sea for five days, they will try to learn more about the cause, the crew's response, and why the ship was disabled for so long. A Coast Guard official said Monday that a leak in a fuel oil return line caused the engine-room fire that disabled the Carnival Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving 4,200 people without power or working toilets for five days."

AP: "Eight masked gunmen made a hole in a security fence at Brussels' international airport, drove onto the tarmac and snatched some $50 million worth of diamonds from the hold of a Swiss-bound plane without firing a shot, authorities said Tuesday. The gang used two black cars in their daring raid late Monday, grabbed the cache of stones and sped off into the darkness...."

Reuters: "Nestle, the world's biggest food company, has removed beef pasta meals from sale in Italy and Spain after finding traces of horse DNA. The discovery of horsemeat in products labeled as beef has spread across Europe since last month, prompting product withdrawals, consumer anger and government investigations into the continent's complex food-processing chains."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 18, 2013

Happy Presidents' Day George Washington's Birthday

Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: "... there is no federal Presidents' Day holiday. We don't care what your mattress ad says -- is that a legal document? The official name of today's day off is 'George Washington's Birthday.' It's supposed to honor the Father of Our Country, and only him.... [According to] the Office of Personnel Management list of 2013 holidays..., 'This holiday is designated as 'Washington's Birthday' in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees.... Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in law.' Washington's Birthday has been a national holiday since 1885." Aw, shucks:

My column in the New York Times eXaminer takes down Tom Friedman's latest effort to "reform entitlements"; i.e., cut Social Security & Medicare. ...

... Dean Baker does an excellent job of debunking all of Friedman's economic arguments.

** Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker on naked Dubya & naked power, with reflections -- literal & figurative -- on the state of the GOP.

Philip Elliott of the AP: "The White House is downplaying its draft immigration proposal as merely a backup plan if lawmakers don't come up with an overhaul of their own. It won't be necessary, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are telling the Obama administration." ...

... Jamelle Bouie, in the Washington Post: despite the high degree of similarity between Obama's plan (which actually contains some detail) & Rubio's plan, "Rubio has come out against the administration's proposal.... Is Rubio interested in passing immigration reform, or does he want credit for being the kind of GOP senator who is interested in immigration reform."

Margaret Hartmann of New York: as the deadline for a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline looms, President Obama will have to choose between the environment & our Canadian friends. ...

... Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: according to organizers, a crowd of 35,000 "protesters descended on Washington DC on Sunday demanding Barack Obama shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project to show he is serious about taking action on climate change.... The event, billed as the largest climate protest in US history, was intended as a show of force before Obama renders his decision on the pipeline project in the next few months. Protesters were bussed in from 30 states and Canadian provinces."

Paul Krugman: "... just about everyone except Republican men believes that the lowest-paid workers deserve a raise. And they're right. We should raise the minimum wage, now." ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker agrees. CW: an excellent explanation of why.

New York Times Editors: The sequester cuts, "which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost, under threat of a default on the nation's debt.... Last week, Senate Democrats produced a much better plan to replace these cuts with a mix of new tax revenues and targeted reductions. About $55 billion would be raised by imposing a minimum tax on incomes of $1 million or more and ending some business deductions, while an equal amount of spending would be reduced from targeted cuts to defense and farm subsidies. Republicans immediately rejected the idea; the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, called it 'a political stunt.'" ...

... MEANWHILE, the ever-brilliant Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says a good solution would be for "the government [to] protect the Defense Department from automatic spending cuts by slashing $1.2 trillion from the Affordable Care Act," as Josh Israel of Think Progress reports. As Israel notes, not only would that cost 30 million Americans the opportunity to obtain health coverage, "Obamacare actually reduced the deficit. [Graham's] proposal to put its elimination on the table would mean increasing the budget deficit by an estimated $109 billion over the same 10-year period, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office." CW: do you think Lindsey Graham gives a rat's ass about the deficit? He just doesn't want you to have affordable healthcare. Of course, he has great government-sponsored health insurance.

Max Rivlin-Nadler of Gawker: "During the year it went public, Facebook made $1.1 billion in profits. But thanks to some nifty accounting, the company won't be paying any federal or state taxes on it -- instead, it will actually be receiving a federal tax refund of about $429 million.... Not only that, but Facebook is actually carrying 'forward another $2.17 billion in additional tax-option tax breaks for use in future years.' Basically, they would like to do this every year. One of our most successful new companies is not paying a dime in taxes. Yes, let's please cut Medicare. That's the thing that's broken." CW: a good answer to Tom Friedman.

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Marco Rubio ... has now capitalized on [his Big Gulp] moment to raise more than $100,000 for his Reclaim America political action committee by selling branded water bottles. A source close to Rubio tells BuzzFeed that the water bottles, which were sold on the senator's PAC website to anyone who makes a donation of $25 or more, sold like hotcakes. In the period since they went on sale Wednesday, more than 3,100 of the PAC's 'Marco Rubio Water Bottles' have been sold."

Obama Planning to Put Chips in Every American Brain. Here's the genuine New York Times headline: "Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain." Oh, the story sounds benign enough: "The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics. The project, which the administration has been looking to unveil as early as March, will include federal agencies, private foundations and teams of neuroscientists and nanoscientists in a concerted effort to advance the knowledge of the brain's billions of neurons and gain greater insights into perception, actions and, ultimately, consciousness." CW: If this doesn't bring the conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork, I'll eat my ... brain.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post: United Arab Emirates helps poor communities in third-world nations -- like the United States. CW: the low-tax, no-union GOP mentality, most prevalent in the South, is responsible for where we are today, a country that can't afford to or chooses not to pay for basic needs.

Satire Alert. Andy Borowitz: "The chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology said today that the committee would hold hearings next week 'to settle the question, once and for all, of whether meteors exist. The media has been in something of a frenzy recently on this whole topic of meteors,' said chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). 'I think it's irresponsible of them to frighten the public about something that, at the end of the day, may be about as real as unicorns.'"

The Big News from the Barack Obama-Tiger Woods Golf Game -- White House Press Corps Is "Livid":

Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency. -- Ed Henry, WHCA president & Fox "News" correspondent

I really can't tell you how important it is to me -- and to history -- to know the particulars of that golf game. -- Constant Weader

Hillary Cashes In. Dan Amira of New York: Clinton will begin her career as a well-paid speaker in April or May. And she write another book/cash-cow.

Local News

Emory University Needs a New President, or at Least Three-Fifths of One. Max Rivlin-Nadler: "Writing in the winter issue of Emory Magazine, President James Wagner rhapsodizes about the need for compromise in a politically turbulent society. He points out that the constitution was in itself a compromise. Another example he cites, is the Three-Fifths Compromise, which legally represented slaves as less than a person.... He then goes on to explain that compromises, like the Three-Fifths Compromise, keep our country great." ...

... With all due respect to those 19th-century do-gooders who had the idea of repatriating American blacks to Africa, it would have been a far, far better thing if, after the Civil War, the U.S. had deported all the white people in the Confederate states.

Here's the Maggie Smith interview, by Steve Kroft, which I mentioned in the Comments section. There are some Web extra segments here:

My tilting teapot.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Rejecting a push by Britain, European governments on Monday decided against providing weapons to Syrian rebel forces, expressing fears that more arms would only lead to more bloodshed in a conflict that already has taken nearly 70,000 lives. The decision, by European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, illustrates the difficulty that Europe and the United States have had in dealing with the two-year-old Syrian civil war despite their unanimous condemnation of President Bashar al-Assad and his ruthless battle to remain in power."

Reuters: "Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa reveled in a sweeping re-election victory that allows him to deepen his socialist revolution even as he seeks to woo foreign investment in the resource-wealthy Andean nation."

Reuters: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise return [to Venezuela] from Cuba on Monday more than two months after surgery for cancer that has jeopardized his 14-year rule of the South American OPEC member."