The Commentariat -- January 3, 2012

** NEW. If you're an Iowa Democrat, you should caucus tonight, too, beginning at 6:30 pm (CT, I presume). John Nichols of The Nation tells why. You can find your caucus site here.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Frank Bruni's apologia for Mitt Romney's flip-flops. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to NYTX here, and I hope you do.

** Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented American journalist, in a Guardian op-ed on "the changing face of Iowa."

Peter Maer of CBS News: "The Obama campaign is mapping out plans for the president to speak to his supporters via live web chat at locations across Iowa Tuesday night. A campaign official told CBS News the effort will use technology that was not available four years ago. Screens will show the president, in Washington, communicating with people simultaneously at various gathering places in the Hawkeye State."

Right Wing World

Greg Sargent: rabid Tea Party leader Rep. Steve King (RTP-Iowa) publicly admits to Congressional Tea Party hostage-taking strategy.

Dan Balz of the Washington Post: in Right Wing World, the tail -- being the Tea Party -- is wagging the dog -- the GOP presidential candidates.

Here's Nate Silver's final forecast on the Iowa Caucuses.

In case you think campaign advertising doesn't matter because Americans (a) are smart enough to see through them and/or (b) can make up their own minds -- Kevin Liptak of CNN: "Anyone seeking an explanation of GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's recent drop in Iowa polls may find answers in a new analysis of Iowa political advertising. The survey, conducted by Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, finds 45% of all political ads in Iowa have been attack spots against Gingrich. Only 6% were supportive of the former House speaker." ...

... M. J. Lee of Politico: on CBS News' "Early Show" today, Newt called Mitt a liar. Update: here's the videotape:

The Rupert Bump? Brian Stelter of the New York Times: "The media mogul Rupert Murdoch signaled his support for Rick Santorum on Monday evening, calling him the 'only candidate with genuine big vision' for the United States. His comments were significant not only because Mr. Murdoch controls Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal, but also because they were made on Twitter, a Web site that allowed for his support to be forwarded far and wide on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. Mr. Santorum was a paid analyst for Fox News before he announced his bid for the presidency last year." ...

Ron Paul does not want [Iran] to have a nuclear weapon, but the question is do you want someone who’s trigger happy to be your commander in chief? He's also someone who never served in the military. Ron Paul served in the military, will use force against our enemies if it’s required and if Congress approves of it, but I’m a little concerned about someone who didn’t serve in the military like Santorum, who’s a little over-eager to bomb countries because I don’t think he’s maturely thinking through the process and the consequences of war. -- Sen. Rand Paul, Son of Ron on Iowa talk radio (Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link) ...

... BuzzFeed: "Ron Paul -- poised to finish strong in the Iowa caucuses -- has begun to implement a quiet, complex plan to force a long battle with Mitt Romney for delegates to the Republican National Convention in August. His advantages: Experience, organization, and the legacy of the 2010 Tea Party revival, which convinced Republicans that anti-government figures like Paul just aren’t as weird as they’d thought. Paul is following the roadmap set by Barack Obama's 2008 strategy: Start early, learn the rules, and use superior organization and devoted young supporters to dominate the arcane but crucial party procedures in states your rivals are ignoring...."

Burgess Everett of Politico: despite their constant criticisms of President Obama's jobs creation plans, none of the GOP presidential candidates has anything to say about programs to help repair the nation's infamous "crumbling infrastructure."

News Ledes

     ... Update: here's a full transcript.

The Des Moines Register is probably the go-to place for news on the Iowa caucuses. Especially if you are an Iowa Republican, the Register is helpful for such musts as where to find your caucus location.

New York Times: "Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is set this week to reveal his strategy that will guide the Pentagon in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from its budget, and with it the Obama administration’s vision of the military that the United States needs to meet 21st-century threats, according to senior officials. In a shift of doctrine driven by fiscal reality and a deal last summer that kept the United States from defaulting on its debts, Mr. Panetta is expected to outline plans for carefully shrinking the military — and in so doing make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once."

New York Times: "Giving its first major public sign that it may be ready for peace talks, the Taliban announced on Tuesday that it had struck a deal to open a peace mission in Qatar. The step was a sharp reversal of the Taliban’s longstanding public denials that it was involved or interested in any negotiations to end its insurgency in Afghanistan."

AP: "Iran’s army chief on Tuesday warned an American aircraft carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf in Tehran’s latest tough rhetoric over the strategic waterway, part of a feud with the United States over new sanctions that has sparked a jump in oil prices."

New York Times: "The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream Islamist party, edged closer to winning a controlling majority of seats in the lower house of Parliament as voters went to the polls Tuesday in the final round of the first elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak."

New York Times: "An Iranian court on Tuesday sentenced the daughter of the country’s former president to six months in prison for spreading what it termed 'propaganda against the Islamic system,' the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported.... The sentencing of [Faezeh] Hashemi was the latest in a series of moves by Iran’s leaders to stamp out potential dissent ahead of planned parliamentary elections in March, the first ballot since a disputed presidential vote in 2009 that sparked national protests and a vicious government crackdown."

Los Angeles Times: police have arrested Harry Burkhart, a 24-year-old German suspected in the spree of arsons in Los Angeles. There have been no additional suspicious fires since Burkhart's arrest. More L.A. Times related stories here.

Los Angeles Times: Benjamin Colton Barnes, "a troubled veteran of the war in Iraq suspected in the fatal shooting of a park ranger, was found dead Monday near a steep, snowy slope not far from Mt. Rainier, ending an intense, 24-hour manhunt that left tourists locked down in fear at a visitors center while 200 law enforcement officers combed the wilderness with dogs and planes." The Seattle Times story is here.

Look past the bias of the reporter when you read this CBS News report on "Occupy the Rose Parade." And if you're really, really afraid of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, no need to worry: "Behind the protesters came three truckloads of Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in riot gear but no arrests were immediately made and the protest was noisy but peaceful."

The Commentariat -- January 2, 2012

My column in today's in the New York Times eXaminer is Part 2 of a grim retrospective of 2011: "The Year You Lost Your Civil Rights." Part 1 is here. The NYTX front page is here. Also, please consider donating to NYTX. You can do so here.

"Nobody Understands Debt." Elaborating on his blogposts and discussing what we have been writing about at the New York Times eXaminer and on Off Times Square, Paul Krugman explains the meaning of debt to us -- and to David Brooks. (For the fullest discussion of Krugman's previous posts & for links to all of them, see my NYTX column on the subject.)

Prof. Thomas Edsell in a New York Times op-ed: there's a reason Washington politicians think poverty is "a black thing." Edsell explains. And he demonstrates that the politicians' view is just plain wrong.

Right Wing World

Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: "GOP officials in Washington are quietly and methodically finishing what operatives are calling 'the book' — 500 pages of Obama quotes and video links that will form the backbone of the party’s attack strategy against the president leading up to Election Day 2012. The document ... lays out how GOP officials plan to use Obama’s words and voice as they build an argument for his defeat: that he made specific promises and entered office with lofty expectations and has failed to deliver on both." ...

... Greg Sargent: "Of course, Obama had barely been sworn into office before the national Republican leadership mounted a concerted and determined effort to prevent any of Obama’s solutions to our severe national problems from passing, even as they openly declared they were doing so only to destroy him politically. Republicans have admitted on the record that deliberately denying Obama any bipartisan support for, well, anything at all was absolutely crucial to prevent voters from concluding that Obama had successfully forged ideological common ground over the way out of the myriad disasters Obama inherited from them."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: Mitt Romney, the "moderate" GOP presidential candidate, says he would veto the Dream Act if Congress passed it while he was president. The act "would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought into the country at a young age and then went on to attend college." ...

... Steve Benen: "... the DREAM Act is arguably the least controversial, bipartisan immigration reform measure. The proposal is just humane. But Romney doesn’t care. He’s running for the Republican presidential nomination, for Pete’s sake."

Oh, Santorum. Alex Altman of Time: "It took about 375 events, but Rick Santorum is finally Iowa’s man of the moment. A candidate who once seemed permanently relegated to campaign footnotes is commanding crowds befitting a front-runner...."

Ron Paul tells Jake Tapper of ABC News that his line of questioning is "off the wall":

... But Is It? Chris Johnson of Little Green Footballs: "Ron Paul’s angry denials should be weighed against his regular appearances on the Alex Jones radio show, since Jones is one of the loudest, most deranged 9/11 Truthers in America. If a journalist ever wanted to follow up on this, they could also ask Ron Paul about his association with antisemitic 9/11 Truther James Jaeger."

Kelefa Sannah of the New Yorker has another profile of Frontrunner for a Week (That Has Passed) Newt Gingrich.

"America's 'Iron Lady'"?:

AND Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker lists the top five electoral outcomes journalists are secretly rooting for. He isn't kidding, but it's a funny post.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Iran announced on Monday that it had successfully test fired a cruise missile during naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz that have heightened tensions in a diplomatic standoff over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions."

Los Angeles Times: "Los Angeles police this morning have detained and are questioning a 'person of interest' in the spate of arson fires around the city since Friday. The suspect, believed to be the man in a video police released Sunday, was detained near Sunset Boulevard this morning, said an LAPD source familiar with the investigation into the case. However, in a statement, a Los Angeles fire official said 'it is too early to speculate if this person responsible for the spree arson fires.'”

New York Times: "The Coast Guard in December formally put into effect rules requiring certain passenger vessels to comply with its new Assumed Average Weight per Person. That new weight, 185 pounds, is a full 25 pounds more than the previous average, 160, a figure put in place about half a century ago...."

Washington Post: "Saying the Korean Peninsula was 'at a turning point,' South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday offered North Korea a 'window of opportunity' to improve relations but warned of a powerful retaliation if Pyongyang launches another military strike."

The Corn Won't Produce So Much Green in Iowa. New York Times: "A federal tax credit for ethanol expired on Saturday, ending an era in which the federal government provided more than $20 billion in subsidies for use of the product. The tax break, created more than 30 years ago, had long seemed untouchable. But in the last year, during which Congress was preoccupied with deficits and debt..., fiscal conservatives joined liberal environmentalists to kill it, with help from a diverse coalition of outside groups. In the United States, most ethanol is produced from corn. The demise of the subsidy is all the more remarkable because it comes at the peak of the political season in Iowa, where corn is king."

The Commentariat -- January 1, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is Part 1 of a grim retrospective of 2011: "The Year You Lost Your Civil Rights." The NYTX front page is here. Also, please consider donating to NYTX, which I think is a really worthwhile publication. You can do so here.

CLICK ON THE CARTOON TO GO TO BARRY'S REVIEW. Art by Drew Friedman for the Washington Post.... It was the kind of year that made a person look back fondly on the gulf oil spill. -- Dave Barry

Here's a pdf of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert's full "Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary." The New York Times story by Adam Liptak is here.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, in a New York Times op-ed, on the "unknown knowns": bad stuff that's going on which people in authority choose not to acknowledge. 

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions. The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students, who use the medications to get high or to stay up all night."

"Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!" For friends with small children -- Alexandra Horowitz & Ammon Shea, in a New York Times op-ed, debunk a few anthropomorphic children's stories. (It might be best if you don't tell the kids.)

Right Wing World

** Frank Rich of New York magazine: "What Republican aristocrats in denial like Karl Rove can’t bring themselves to recognize is that 'the most unpredictable, rapidly shifting, and often downright inexplicable primary race' they’ve ever seen is not just a conservative revolution but one that has them in its sights."

Maureen Dowd: Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Newt & Mrs. The Donald tell their husbands only they can save the country. Obviously, at least two three of the wives are wrong.

Frank Bruni: "The run-up to the Iowa caucuses, like the rest of the primary season thus far, has underscored just how much general nuttiness and moral extremism the party has come to accommodate, with Iowa serving as a theater of the conservative absurd."

When You Think They Can't Get Worse, Think Again. Pema Levy & Benjy Sarlin of TPM: Ron "Paul’s Iowa chair, Drew Ivers, recently touted the endorsement of Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, a pastor at the Dominion Covenant Church in Nebraska who also draws members from Iowa.... Kayser’s views on homosexuality go way beyond the bounds of typical anti-gay evangelical politics and into the violent fringe: he recently authored a paper arguing for criminalizing homosexuality and even advocated imposing the death penalty against offenders based on his reading of Biblical law." ...

... John Heilemann of New York magazine: even if the crazy coot bigoted conspiracy theorist bombs in Republican primaries, don't count him out of Election 2012: there's always the Third Party Option, and Ron Paul defintiely hasn't ruled it out.

News Ledes

Here's what you had the wisdom to miss last night while doing something better with your time:

New York Daily News: "Protesters occupied New Year’s Eve inside Zuccotti Park late Saturday, creating a steel mountain of NYPD barricades in its plaza as thousands of cops were busy protecting Times Square. Scuffles erupted between demonstrators and police, with one protester busted after an officer was slightly injured with a pair of scissors, police said." ...

... New York Times: "Occupy Iowa protesters had a successful day -- of arrests -- yesterday."

Des Moines Register: "The Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa Poll shows a surprise three-way match-up in contention to win the Iowa Republican caucuses: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Santorum, who has been largely invisible in the polls throughout the campaign season, is now beating the other evangelical choices and has a clear shot at victory Tuesday night." ...

... "Ghost from Romney's Past." CNN: "Democrats aren't missing a chance to take aim at their favorite target: Republican presidential frontrunner and former Bain Capital executive Mitt Romney. Randy Johnson, a worker laid off when Bain bought American Pad and Paper Company, will arrive in Des Moines on Sunday to hold a press conference, according to the Democratic National Committee.... The DNC said that along with a press conference, Johnson will talk to reporters and travel throughout Iowa 'to discuss Romney's decades long record of putting profits before people.'"

AP: "Iranian scientists have produced the nation’s first nuclear fuel rod, a feat of engineering the West has doubted Tehran capable of, the country’s nuclear agency said Sunday."

Washington Post: "The Vatican is set to launch a structure Monday that will allow Anglican parishes in the United States — and their married priests — to join the Catholic Church in a small but symbolically potent effort to reunite Protestants and Catholics, who split almost 500 years ago. More than 1,300 Anglicans, including 100 Anglican priests, have applied to be part of the new body, essentially a diocese."