The Commentariat -- February 10, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer: "This year is the 20^th anniversary of what was called the 'Year of the Woman' in the U.S. So far the anniversary year is not going well." The NYTX front page is here, and highlights quite a few excellent articles today. You can contribute here.

Robert Redford: "Joe Nocera's op-ed in the New York Times ... deserves a response and a reiteration of the facts surrounding the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. President Obama rejected the pipeline's permit last month when the GOP, in a political stunt, forced his hand to approve it without even the final route evident.... The Keystone XL pipeline doesn't deliver on jobs or national security, it jeopardizes public health and safety and the president was right to reject it. And tar sands are not just 'a little dirtier' than traditional crude as Nocera notes."

Paul Krugman openly smacks down Charles Murray & implicitly raps Our Miss Brooks: "So we have become a society in which less-educated men have great difficulty finding jobs with decent wages and good benefits. Yet somehow we’re supposed to be surprised that such men have become less likely to participate in the work force or get married, and conclude that there must have been some mysterious moral collapse caused by snooty liberals." And, I might add, Krugman is completely consistent here with the crux of my column in yesterday's NYTX on Kristof's turn with Murray's excuse for income inequality. ...

Krugman, in a blogpost: "one thing oddly missing in Murray is any discussion of that traditional indicator of social breakdown, teenage pregnancy. You can see why — because it has actually been falling like a stone." And crime is way down, too. "Maybe traditional social values are eroding in the white working class — but maybe those traditional social values aren’t as essential to a good society as conservatives like to imagine." ...

... Same blogger, same subject: "So we’ve created a society in which many young people see no chance of ever achieving middle-class status; then we look at their failure to adhere to middle-class values, and declare that there must be some mysterious force corroding our morality." ...

... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.... The income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race. Now ... researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period."

President Obama, yesterday, on the foreclosure settlement agreement:

... Sarah Kliff, et al., of the Washington Post have a roundup of expert opinions on the foreclosure settlement agreement. Here's one:

Today’s settlement shows a significant commitment to helping struggling homeowners stay in their homes. But it needs to be the beginning, not the end, of efforts to hold the big banks accountable with meaningful penalties that demonstrate the rules and the law apply to everyone, no matter who your friends are or how many lobbyists and lawyers you can hire. -- Elizabeth Warren ...

... Massimo Calabresi of Time: "... overall, it’s a clear win for Obama and Democrats, a qualified win for the banks, and a minor, belated victory for homeowners.... The agreement releases the banks from claims tied to past servicing foreclosure, robo-signing claims and, most significantly, originating claims. The AGs argue that the originating claims — that is, claims against the banks for making massively irresponsible housing loans to begin with — are all out of date anyway."

... Prashant Gopal & John Gittelsohn of Bloomberg: "The $25 billion settlement with banks over foreclosure abuses may result in a wave of home seizures, inflicting short-term pain on delinquent U.S. borrowers while making a long-term housing recovery more likely."

John Harkinson of Mother Jones reproduces "mind-blowing charts from the Senate's income inequality hearing. 

Apple -- Worse Than You Knew. Arun Gupta of AlterNet: "... legions of vocational and university students, some as young as 16, are forced to take months’-long 'internships' in Foxconn’s mainland China factories assembling Apple products. The details of the internship program paint a far more disturbing picture than the Times does [in stories we linked last month] of how Foxconn, 'the Chinese hell factory,' treats its workers, relying on public humiliation, military discipline, forced labor and physical abuse as management tools to hold down costs and extract maximum profits for Apple.... Foxconn and Apple depend on tax breaks, repression of labor, subsidies and Chinese government aid ... to fatten their corporate treasuries." ...

... CW: The FBI report on Steve Jobs is here. It's 191 pages. I won't be reading it.

NEW: Greg Sargent, in response to the Obama administration's "accommodation" of objections to contraceptive coverage: "... it seems all but certain that the Conference of Bishops, which had previously insisted that the rule be scrapped altogether, will not be mollified in the slightest, and Republican officials and the 2012 GOP candidates will still continue attacking the Obama administration over this, pushing not only the 'war on religion' line but also the subtext, i.e., that Obama is forever looking to expand the reach of government. But the Obama team is betting that any further objections to this policy will unmask opponents primarily as hidebound foes of birth control at any costs, a politically difficult position to sustain, rather than as defenders of religious liberty." ...

... NEW. In a press release today, Catholics United called on Catholic bishops & women's health advocates to recognize that the Obama administration's solution values the religious liberty of Roman Catholic institutions while maintaining access to health care for all employees.

Ladies, the man in the miter is mightily irritated because you are having safe sex. His name is Timothy Dolan. Big Tim is the Archbishop of New York & president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. New York Time photo.Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "When after much internal debate the Obama administration finally announced its decision to require religiously affiliated hospitals and universities to cover birth control in their insurance plans, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops were fully prepared for battle." CW: this whole brouhaha has something to do with the child sex abuse scandal. I'm not sure quite how it works in the minds of these guys -- whether it's payback for various government prosecutors meddling with the bishops' "handling" of abusive priests or a PR initiative to show that the bishops' views on sex are totally upstanding -- but priests having sex with children and women having sex with men are intertwined in some way. What do you think? ...

... NEW. Jake Tapper of ABC News on the fierce White House internal debate on the rule. ...

... Jennifer Epstein of Politico: Vice President Biden, who is a Roman Catholic, "said Thursday that he thinks a solution can be found to the deepening controversy over birth-control coverage." ...

... Amy Sullivan, now of The Atlantic: "The question for Sister Keehan and Father Jenkins, for Senator Casey and Sister Campbell, is not whether lay Catholics disagree with the Church's teaching on birth control (a majority do) or whether nearly all Catholic women use birth control at some point in their lives (they do). It is not even whether some Catholic institutions already pay for employee health plans that include coverage for contraception (some do). The question is whether the federal government should be able to require a religious institution to use its own funds to pay for something it finds morally objectionable." CW: But, see Jonathan Cohn below. Whose funds are they? ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "... a key issue is the nature of health insurance -- in particular, whether it belongs to the employer or the employee.... The checks to your insurance plan may have the name of a religious institution on them. But, as a matter of economics and of principle, the money is (or should be) yours. The only reason employers are in the middle of health insurance is that companies started offering coverage in the 1930s and, somewhat inadvertently, became the primary source of coverage for working Americans.... The whole point of health care reform is to establish a minimum level of health insurance for every American. Basically, we’re turning health insurance into a right rather than a privilege."

Why Jonathan Chait of New York magazine is so mean: "There are just a lot of people out there exerting significant influence over the political debate who are totally unqualified. The dilemma is especially acute in the political economic field, where wealthy right-wingers have pumped so much money to subsidize the field of pro-rich people polemics that the demand for competent defenders of letting rich people keep as much of their money as possible vastly outstrips the supply. Hence the intellectual marketplace for arguments that we should tax rich people less is glutted with hackery." CW: think of me as a distaff Chait.

Right Wing World

NEW. Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times: the more the public sees of the GOP presidential candidates, the less they like 'em.

Sahil Kapur of TPM: "In his 2006 Massachusetts health care law, Mitt Romney embraced a virtually identical contraception coverage mandate as President Obama recently has, experts say, and as a result expanded access to birth control for hundreds of thousands of women. And Democrats really want you to know that. 'They are practically mirror images or each other,' John McDonough, a professor of public health at Harvard, said on a conference call organized by the Democratic National Committee.... Romney has embraced the shocked, shocked tone of leading Republicans on this issue in recent days, and Democrats have acted swiftly to flag up inconsistencies in his position." ...

Rick Santorum: ObamaCare is the first step in the left's plan to guillotine Americans. CW: Yup, the guillotine was my first thought.

     ... It's just not working out, Rick. We've decided to go another way. ...

... With Santorum, the hits just keep on coming:

Quote of the Hour -- Proposition PMS. I do have concerns about women in frontline combat. I think that can be a very compromising situation where — where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved. -- Rick Santorum ...

... Really, he said that:

Local News

Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: "... Under the terms of the [foreclosure] settlement [see above], Wisconsin is set to receive $140 million, $31.6 million of which comes directly to the state government. And [union-bustin' man of the people Gov Scott] Walker is planning to use $25.6 million of that money to help balance his state’s budget." The underlying story, by Jason Stein & Paul Gores of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is here. CW: that jerk never quits. The big question is, will he be indicted before he's recalled? I'll run this again in tomorrow's Commentariat. Thanks to reader AJT for the heads-up.

News Ledes

President Obama and Vice President Biden talk with former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords & her husband Mark Kelly after the President signed H.R. 3801, the Ultralight Aircraft Smuggling Prevention Act of 2012, in the Oval Office today. This bill is the last piece of legislation that Giffords sponsored & voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives. White House photo.AP: Former Rep. "Gabrielle Giffords ... returned to Washington Friday for double honors. The Navy named a ship after her and she saw President Barack Obama sign the last piece of legislation she authored into law. In a ceremony at the Pentagon, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus unveiled an artist's rendering of the USS Gabrielle Giffords, a littoral combat ship. The craft is among the Navy's most versatile and can operate in shallower coastal waters than larger ships." ...

... New York Times: "Ron Barber, a top aide to retired Representative Gabrielle Giffords ... announced on Thursday that he would seek Ms. Giffords’s vacated Arizona House seat in a special election June 12." Giffords & her husband Mark Kelly have endorsed Barber, who also was injured in the shooting that nearly killed Giffords.

AP: "Seeking to allay the concerns of Catholic leaders, the White House is planning to announce an adjustment to its health care rule requiring religious employers to provide women access to contraception, a senior administration official said." ...

     ... ABC News: "The move, based on state models, will almost certainly not satisfy bishops and other religious leaders since it will preserve the goal of women employees having their birth control fully covered by health insurance." ...

     ... AP Update: "Senior administration officials tell The Associated Press that President Barack Obama on Friday will announce that religious employers will not have to cover birth control for their employees after all. He will demand instead that insurance companies will be the ones ultimately responsible for providing free contraception." ...

     ... Update: President Obama will speak to the press @ 12:15 pm ET. Live on Reality Chex. No link. ...

     ... Update @ 12:24 pm ET: President Obama just made what I thought was a masterful statement about what had better be the resolution of this brouhaha. Here's the Yahoo! News story. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "The administration’s move won an important endorsement from Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States.... Mr. Obama called her Friday morning — along with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood — to inform her of the compromise." ...

     ... Update: Absolution Deferred. "The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sees initial opportunities in preserving the principle of religious freedom after President Obama’s announcement today. But the Conference continues to express concerns. 'While there may be an openness to respond to some of our concerns, we reserve judgment on the details until we have them,' said Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of USCCB."

Washington Post: "The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee over possible violations of insider-trading laws, according to individuals familiar with the case. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who holds one of the most influential positions in the House, has been a frequent trader on Capitol Hill, buying stock options while overseeing the nation’s banking and financial services industries."

Los Angeles Times: "A consortium of utilities in the South won government approval Thursday to construct two new atomic energy reactors [in Georgia] at an estimated cost of $14 billion, the strongest signal yet that the three-decade hiatus of nuclear plant construction is finally ending."

New York Times: "Explosions in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo struck two targets associated with the military and police early on Friday, Syrian state television reported, as the central city of Homs was reported under siege with sporadic tank fire ripping into contested neighborhoods, pinning down residents in their homes.... State television quoted the Health Ministry as saying 25 people were killed and 175 injured in Aleppo in what seemed to be two car bombings."

AP: "Greek riot police have fired tear gas to disperse rioters throwing petrol bombs and stones, as thousands protest in Athens against new austerity measures. No injuries or arrests have been reported. Police said the clashes came as some 7,000 people marched peacefully Friday on the first day of a 48-hour general strike by the country's two main labor unions."

ABC News: "Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky will be back in court Friday morning, hoping to convince a judge to change the conditions of his house arrest so that he can see his grandchildren."

The Commentariat -- February 9, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Nicholas Kristof's riff on Charles Murray's book Coming Apart, etc. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to NYTX here.

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: The White House thinks the contraception battle is a political winner. Here's why:

... NEW. BUT Jessica Yellin & Brian Keilar of CNN: "... the White House is working on a way to thread the needle on a new health care policy which will require all employers-including religious institutions to cover contraception in their health insurance plans.... The administration is especially interested in the Hawaii model, in which female employees of religious institutions can purchase contraceptive coverage directly from the insurer at the same price offered to employees of all other employers." ...

... Gail Collins: "Okay.... The church is not a democracy and majority opinion really doesn’t matter. Catholic dogma holds that artificial contraception is against the law of God. The bishops have the right — a right guaranteed under the First Amendment — to preach that doctrine to the faithful. They have a right to preach it to everybody.... The problem here is that they’re trying to get the government to do their work for them. They’ve lost the war at home, and they’re now demanding help from the outside.... What happens if an employer belongs to a religion that forbids certain types of blood transfusions? Or disapproves of any medical intervention to interfere with the working of God on the human body?" ...

... "Whose Conscience?" Linda Greenhouse: The aggressive objections to requiring church-affiliated, quasi-public institutions to provide equal healthcare insurance for its female workers, "it’s important to be clear that the conscientious objection to the regulation comes from an institution rather than from those whose consciences it purports to represent."

Democracy in America at the Economist: "... nothing has made me as optimistic recently about the prospects for a broadly international, pro-human-rights, anti-authoritarian foreign policy that brings together America, the democratic world, and many of the emerging-market/non-aligned countries as what's happening right now around the Syria question. The complete isolation of Russia and China in the Security Council vote on sanctions last week is a watershed moment."

I know this goes in Infotainment, but the bigger the better:

Hayley Tsukayama of the Washington Post: "Steve Jobs, being considered in 1991 for an appointment under President George H.W. Bush, underwent a thorough background investigation by the FBI, according to newly released files from the agency. The FBI amassed a lengthy and often unflattering file on Apple’s co-founder, with more than 30 interviews of friends, neighbors, family, former business associates and Jobs, that revealed his early drug use and concerns that the then-head of NeXT was neglecting his daughter born out of wedlock with his high school girlfriend." Ned Potter of ABC News has a story here.

Right Wing World

Jonathan Martin & Manu Raju of Politico: "A day after Romney was convincingly defeated by Rick Santorum in non-binding contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri, high-profile Republicans voiced long-simmering worries that the would-be standard-bearer lacks a compelling message for conservatives — and must be bolder to capture the party’s nomination.... The admonition came from outspoken conservatives and members of Congress who typically stay out of party spats" like Jon Kyl & Jim DeMint.

Rick Santorum goes ballistic on Prop 8 decision. Santorum's take: The government should be more tolerant of bigots. I like the setting, too -- right in front of an altar. The stained glass windows add a nice touch. Thanks to Dave S. for the link:

Jake Sherman of Politico: "Three initiatives with wide, bipartisan support — banning insider trading on Capitol Hill, a massive tax cut for the middle class and rebuilding the nation’s roads — are staggering like a beaten boxer in the final round, with their ultimate fate uncertain. It raises an inevitable question on Capitol Hill: Can this Congress get anything done?"

If they can't run their own elections, no wonder they can't run the country (sorry, forgot to run this yesterday):

Drill, Baby, Drill. Travis Waldron of Think Progress: Economist Rick Santorum tells a Colorado audience that the real cause of the 2008 financial crisis and resulting recession was high oil prices. CW: luckily he has abandoned his alternate theory that the financial crisis was the result of Americans -- especially blah Americans -- having sex for the fun of it.

Greed Is Still Good. Think Progress: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has made several changes to the [Senate version of the STOCK Act] legislation which appear intended to at least weaken the final product, if not to kill it outright." The STOCK Act is supposed to prevent some insider trading by Members of Congress. CW: hey, what's the point of public "service" if not to enrich yourself with impunity?

Local News

What's happening in the NH legislature is a pretty good preview of what would happen if the Tea Party ran Washington. -- Michael Cohen (tweet) ...

... Republicans Do the Damndest Things. Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: a New Hampshire state representative, J. R. Hoell (RTP), has introduced a bill to repeal the law requiring employers to provide lunch breaks for employees. The rationale: aah, employers will do so anyway. Garofalo cites a bit of evidence to refute the notion that employers have goodwill toward all hungry employees.

News Ledes

New York Times: "After days of dramatic talks, Greek political leaders reached a deal on Thursday to support a package of harsh austerity measures demanded by Greece’s financial backers in return for the country’s latest bailout."

New York Times: "President Obama will waive central provisions of the No Child Left Behind federal education law for 10 states that have embraced his educational agenda and promised to raise standards, and improve accountability and teacher effectiveness, the White House announced on Thursday morning."

New York Times: "The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday to ban insider trading by members of Congress and to impose new ethics requirements on lawmakers and federal agency officials. The 417-to-2 vote came less than three weeks after President Obama demanded such action in his State of the Union address. The Senate approved a similar bill by a vote of 96 to 3 on Feb. 2, but the lopsided votes concealed deep disagreements over the details of the legislation." Washington Post story here.

New York Times: "After months of painstaking talks, government authorities and five of the nation’s biggest banks have agreed to a $26 billion settlement that could provide relief to nearly two million current and former American homeowners harmed by the bursting of the housing bubble, state and federal officials said in Washington on Thursday." Here's a new government Website that is supposed to tell you how you might benefit from the deal.

AP: "The Pentagon is unveiling plans Thursday to allow women to serve in thousands of military jobs closer to the front lines, reflecting the realities of the last decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan."

New York Times: "Amid mounting tensions over whether Israel will carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel remain at odds over a fundamental question: whether Iran’s crucial nuclear facilities are about to become impregnable."

Los Angeles Times: "A program that lets preapproved air travelers zip through faster security lines will be expanded this year to 35 of the nation's largest airports, Transportation Security Administration officials announced Wednesday. The pilot program, dubbed PreCheck, lets travelers who get TSA clearance avoid what have become the most annoying steps of post-9/11 screening: removing shoes, belt and coats."

The Commentariat -- February 8, 2012

Chris Spannos of the New York Times eXaminer: "In its treatment of WikiLeaks The [New York] Times has thoroughly undermined press freedoms that the Supreme Court argued for on its behalf. In its publication of Cablegate documents, The Times did not participate in the international consortium of media partners—organized by WikiLeaks—and instead acquired the cables through the Guardian (in violation of its contract with WikiLeaks). The Times then gave 'the White House an early warning' of the cables it was going to publish and listened to Washington’s concerns relating to the cables. The Times shared these concerns with other news media outlets." ...

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on a "fundamentally dishonest" New York Times report which advances the GOP party line. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

New York Times Editors: "On Monday, the president's ... aides announced that the Obama campaign would begin to assist the 'super PAC' that can raise and spend unlimited sums to support the president’s re-election effort.... The president gave in to the culture of the Citizens United decision that he once denounced as a 'threat to our democracy.' Obama has given up that higher ground. He had already undermined the public financing system for presidential campaigns by refusing to use it in 2008, but this is much worse." ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones echoes a comment today from contributor Dennis Garber: "Is this hypocritical of Obama? For the thousandth time, no, no, no. The playing field is the playing field, and once a public policy has been legally put in place you'd be a sap not to play by the same rules as everyone else." ...

... Dana Milbank: "While Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are making each other unelectable, the president is singing Al Green, congratulating Super Bowl winners, playing with science projects, raising obscene amounts of campaign cash and watching his poll numbers soar."

In a New York Times op-ed, David Miller, a tax lawyer, suggests a "Zuckerberg tax," or what he calls a "mark-to-market" tax. Under the current tax code, Mark Zuckerberg will pay no tax on the stock he doesn’t immediately sell. "Instead, he can simply use his stock as collateral to borrow against his tremendous wealth and avoid all tax.... After rejoining Apple in 1997, [Steve] Jobs never sold a single Apple share for the rest of his life, and therefore never paid a penny of tax on the over $2 billion of Apple stock he held at his death. Now his widow can sell those shares without paying any income tax on the appreciation before his death." Miller's suggested Zuckerberg tax would change that. "A mark-to-market system of taxation on the top one-tenth of 1 percent would raise hundreds of billions of dollars of new revenue over the next 10 years."

Scott Higham, et al., of the Washington Post: "Some members of Congress send tax dollars to companies, colleges and community groups where their spouses, children and parents work.... A U.S. senator from South Dakota helped add millions to a Pentagon program his wife evaluated as a contract employee. A Washington congressman boosted the budget of an environmental group that his son ran as executive director. A Texas congresswoman guided millions to a university where her husband served as a vice president."

Bill Moyers interviews social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. While I disagree with some of Haidt's premises, a number of his general principles are well-supported. The Moyers site is here. Thanks to Lisa for the link:

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: " Twenty-eight states already require organizations that offer prescription insurance to cover contraception and since 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control, many Catholic institutions offer the benefit to their employees.... Many Catholic colleges have purchased insurance plans that provide contraception benefits." CW: I wish somebody would conduct a poll on this of women of child-bearing years. ...

... Think Progress: "... a majority of Catholics, support [the Obama administration’s rule requiring employers to provide contraception], according to a new poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute. The requirement garners support from 55 percent of Americans and 58 percent of Catholics, though the number is slightly lower (52 percent) for Catholic voters."

Right Wing World

Obvious, but Not Often Said. Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post: "A core argument of Romney’s presidential campaign is that he knows how to create jobs based on his career in finance. As governor, Romney faced his first test in applying his business background to a slow-growing economy — and data show that the results were unremarkable.... As Romney’s opponents have pointed out, the state ranked 47th in job creation during his term. The parallels between Massachusetts then and the country as a whole now point to the same central problem that has dogged the U.S. economy the last three times it’s climbed out of a recession: The recovery hasn’t created enough jobs."

"A Long Battle." Nate Silver: "Whatever your perspective on how likely Mitt Romney was to lose the Republican nomination race prior to Tuesday evening, it should be acknowledged that he had about the worst results conceivable." ...

... Igor Volsky: "Mitt Romney has launched a petition accusing the Obama administration of 'using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.' The move is the latest in a concerted campaign effort to rally the conservative base around a supposed 'war against religion' and misrepresent or outright lie about a new regulation requiring employers and insurers to offer contraception coverage." P.S. RomneyCare "offers primary and preventive care that includes 'family planning services' and prescription contraceptives."

Local News

Steve Schultze of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Darlene Wink pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanor charges of fundraising in the courthouse for then-Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's campaign for governor. Her convictions were the first stemming from a secret John Doe investigation into a variety of issues from Walker's tenure as county executive. Three other former Walker courthouse aides and appointees also have been charged through the Doe probe." ...

... MacKenzie Weinger of Politico: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will voluntarily meet with the Milwaukee County prosecutors about the John Doe investigation into some of his former aides.... Walker said he had hired two criminal lawyers for the meeting." CW: John Nichols of The Nation appeared on Ed Schultz's show Tuesday evening & said the interview was not "voluntary," but I can't find a story backing that up. ...

... Charles Pierce on the back-room blood-pacts and related goings-on in "Wisconsin, a former state of the union now d/b/a a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries under goggle-eyed homunculus Scott Walker and his pet state legislature."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Washington was poised Wednesday to become the seventh state to allow same-sex couples to marry after the State House gave final passage to such a bill. Gov. Christine Gregoire promised to sign it."

New York Times: "His candidacy all but dismissed just days ago, Rick Santorum won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and a nonbinding primary in Missouri on Tuesday, an unexpected trifecta that raised fresh questions about Mitt Romney’s ability to corral conservative support. With his triumphs, Mr. Santorum was also suddenly presenting new competition to Newt Gingrich as the chief alternative to Mr. Romney, the front-runner. Where Mr. Gingrich has won one state, South Carolina, Mr. Santorum has now won four, including Iowa." Washington Post story here.

Now Republicans have our backs against the wall. We can’t win the argument. We’re going to have to go on to something else. -- Mean Sen. Jim DeMint (RTP-S.C.) ...

... New York Times: "Any hope for a fast and quiet resolution to the Congressional battle over a payroll tax cut seemed to dim Tuesday as members of a bipartisan negotiating committee clashed over how to pay for the extension, and Senate Democrats suggested that they would come up with their own bill to get the matter resolved."

New York Times: "Facing vocal opposition from religious leaders and an escalating political fight, the White House sought on Tuesday to ease mounting objections to a new administration rule that would require health insurance plans — including those offered by Catholic universities and charities — to offer birth control to women free of charge."

Washington Post: "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman abruptly called off a news conference at which he could have provided a crucial endorsement of a proposed settlement with some of the nation’s biggest banks over shoddy foreclosure practices. Schneiderman’s unexplained last-minute postponement cast another cloud of uncertainty over the ongoing negotiations, which have dragged on for more than 16 months. State and federal officials have been intent on finalizing the deal by the end of the week."

AP: "The European Union will impose harsher sanctions on Syria, a senior EU official said Wednesday, as Russia tried to broker talks between the vice president and the opposition to calm violence. Activists reported at least 50 killed in military assaults targeting government opponents." The Guardian has a liveblog on the story.

New York Times: "Greek political leaders continued to struggle Wednesday to secure agreement on new austerity measures to be presented to the country’s financial backers in the coming days. Driving the talks has been a clear recognition that the ever-worsening collapse of the Greek economy will require another increase in bailout funds — money that will not be forthcoming until the rest of Europe is persuaded that Greece is serious about taking such steps as firing more public-sector workers and cutting private-sector wages." ...

     Reuters Update: "Greek political leaders failed early on Thursday to sign off on a tough reform and austerity program, the price of a new international bailout for the nation, but Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said they would try to strike a deal within hours."

Reuters: "Iran is capable of hitting U.S. military forces around the world if attacked by the United States, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted the Iranian ambassador to Moscow as saying on Wednesday."

AP: "All but one of the first wave of phone hacking cases against Rupert Murdoch's News International have been settled, victims' lawyer told Britain's High Court on Wednesday. The latest settlement brings to more than 60 the number of claims that Murdoch's UK newspaper company has dealt with."

ABC News: "A retired general today assailed the commander of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden for drawing too much media attention to operations that he argued should be kept under wraps. Special Operations Commander Adm. Bill McRaven was confronted by retired Lt. Gen. James Vaught, who said he didn't understand why the recent raids by the Navy SEALs, such as the one to kill Osama bin Laden or to rescue U.S. hostage Jessica Buchanan, were all over the media."

Some People Are So Cheesy. AP: "A memorabilia collector and self-styled expert on presidential history pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to steal thousands of documents signed by leaders throughout U.S. history. Barry Landau, whose knowledge of the White House earned him appearances on network morning shows, admitted in the plea to taking documents from the Maryland Historical Society and conspiring with his assistant to steal documents from several institutions with the intention of selling them. Thousands of documents were seized by authorities over the summer from the 63-year-old Landau’s artifact-lined Manhattan apartment. Prosecutors say he schemed for years, if not decades, to steal valuable documents."