The Commentariat -- Jan. 22, 2014

Internal links removed.

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Target Corp. announced on Tuesday it would no longer offer healthcare coverage to its part-time employees. In a blog post on the company's website, Jodee Kozlak, the executive vice president of human resources, framed it as a positive development for part-time employees of the company. 'The Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for healthcare coverage that we believe our part-time members may prefer,' she wrote. 'In fact, by offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense.'"

Patrick Temple-West of Reuters: "The Republican Party is expected to approve a resolution this week, calling for repeal of an Obama administration law that is designed to crack down on offshore tax dodging. In what would be the party's first appeal to scrap the law -- the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) -- a panel was slated to vote at the Republican National Committee's (RNC) winter meetings in Washington, likely approving the resolution on Friday, according to party members driving the repeal effort." ...

     ... CW: So, the GOP's first order of business: helping rich tax cheats. One thing Republicans have learned: as long as they keep screaming ObamaCare! Benghaaazi! Socialism!, Abortion!, etc., they can brazenly flak for the rich at the expense of the rest of us. ...

... Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, the [Supreme Court] justices were presented with a golden opportunity to further increase inequality. The court heard arguments in Harris v Quinn, a case testing whether home-care providers who work under a union contract with the state of Illinois can avoid paying dues that support the union's collective-bargaining work. (Under the law, they already can decline to pay the share of dues that goes to the union's political work.)" ...

... ** NEW. Garrett Epps in the Atlantic: "William Messenger of the National Right to Work Committee asked the Supreme Court today to hold that public employee unions are unconstitutional.... At least four members of the Court seemed ready to reach that 'radical' result. The fate of public employee unionism in the nation seemed, by the end of the argument, to lie in the hands of Justice Antonin Scalia." CW: And you're worried about the NSA holding the key to your e-mails? Oh, puh-leze. ...

... Here's the New York Times story, by Adam Liptak.

Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: "Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower, strongly denies allegations made by members of Congress that he was acting as a spy, perhaps for a foreign power, when he took hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents. Speaking from Moscow, where he is a fugitive from American justice, Snowden told The New Yorker, 'This "Russian spy" push is absurd.' ... 'a senior F.B.I. official said on Sunday that it was still the bureau's conclusion that Mr. Snowden acted alone,' the New York Times reported this weekend, adding that the agency has not publicly revealed any evidence that he was working in conjunction with any foreign intelligence agency or government." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The Justice Department is withholding documents related to the bulk collection of Americans' data from a transparency lawsuit launched by the American Civil Liberties Union.... The decision to keep some of the records secret, in the thick of Edward Snowden’s revelations, has raised suspicions within the ACLU that the government continues to hide bulk surveillance activities from the public...." ...

... Juan Cole: "Among the ironies of Barack Obama trying to sell us the gargantuan NSA domestic spying program is that such techniques of telephone surveillance were used against the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in an attempt to destroy him and stop the Civil Rights movement. Had the republic's most notorious peeping tom, J. Edgar Hoover, succeeded in that quest, Obama might never have been president, or even been served in Virginia restaurants." Thanks to Whyte O. for the link.

Jamelle Bouie of the Daily Beast: "It's not new for conservatives to cry that Obama is 'playing the race card.' But in this instance, it's silly. Not only is Obama not attributing his entire standing to race, but he's not saying anything that hasn't been confirmed by reams of research, to say nothing of common sense."

Manya Pashman, et al., of the Chicago Tribune: "Thousands of pages of secret church documents released Tuesday as part of a court settlement provide an unprecedented and gut-wrenching look at how the Archdiocese of Chicago for years failed to protect children from abusive priests. The documents provide new details and insights into how the nation's third-largest archdiocese quietly shuttled accused priests from parish to parish and failed to notify police of child abuse allegations. The paper trail, going back decades, also portrays painfully slow progress toward reform, accountability and openness. Most of the 30 clergymen tied to the documents were not prosecuted." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

Presidential Race 2016

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: If scandals bring down Gov. Chris Christie, "and the GOP is stuck with Cruz-Rubio-Paul, or even a right-wing governor like Scott Walker, the establishment will be reaping what it's spent the Obama years sowing: a party that cares more about feeding its base's fever-dreams than being nationally electable. And that's where things stand, as Christie begins a term that there's a sporting chance he may not even be able to finish." CW: But what about Transvaginal Bob? Oh, maybe not ...

Local News

** Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were charged Tuesday with illegally accepting gifts, luxury vacations and large loans from a wealthy Richmond-area businessman who sought special treatment from state government. Authorities alleged that for nearly two years, the McDonnells hit up executive Jonnie R. Williams Sr. again and again, lodging near constant requests for large loans, clothes, trips, golf accessories and private plane rides." The New York Times story, by Trip Gabriel, is here. ...

... The indictment is here. Chris Hayes of MSNBC says it's fun to read. ...

... Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell reacted Tuesday night to charges that he and his wife had improperly accepted gifts from a Virginia businessman, saying they were 'false allegations.'" ...

... Leonnig & Helderman: "The indictments of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, reveal new details about the first couple's requests for financial help and luxury items from a prominent businessman at the same time the pair was offering to help promote his company's new product, Anatabloc, according to prosecutors." The reporters list six of what they deem the most interest details. ...

... Matt Berman of the National Journal: "... Tuesday's indictment and the charges against the McDonnells show just how difficult it is to be an American politician without great wealth, and how easy it can be to slip down a path toward corruption." ...

CW: Above are the McDonnells at Bob's inaugural ball. After a staff member told her to return the Oscar de la Renta dress that Jonnie Williams purchased for her (at her request), MoMcDo had to buy her own. Definitely not de la Renta. In fact, in looks suspiciously like one I purchased for $50 on e-bay for a costume ball I attended a few years ago. See today's Comments for context. ...

     ... Update. Apparently, Mrs. McD did not have to rely on e-bay or GoodWill. This from a July 2013 WashPo report: "Virginia first lady Maureen McDonnell bought nearly $9,800 in clothing with money from her husband's political action committee and tapped into his campaign and inaugural funds to buy $7,600 in mostly unspecified items, according to records and a representative for the PAC."

... Not-Virginia-Governor Ken Cuccinelli Dumps on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Shane Goldmacher of the National Journal: "... former Virginia attorney general and failed candidate for governor Ken Cuccinelli called on the New Jersey governor to step down as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. On the day Christie was sworn into his second term, Cuccinelli argued that the scandal surrounding the Christie's administration alleged closure of a bridge for political retribution could spread beyond New Jersey's borders if he stays put atop the RGA." ...

... Brent Johnson of the Star-Ledger: " Gov. Chris Christie's popularity among New Jersey voters has plummeted in the wake of the George Washington Bridge scandal -- especially among Democrats and those who travel across the bridge regularly, according to a new poll." ...

... Larry McShane of the New York Daily News: "Gov. Chris Christie's inaugural day call for bipartisanship was quickly heeded Tuesday by the state legislators investigating his alleged abuses of power. About 30 minutes before the New Jersey chief executive took the oath of office, the state assembly and senate announced they were merging their probes into a single investigation.... Christie launched his second term atop the Garden State as a snowstorm descended, forcing cancellation of his planned inaugural gala on Ellis Island." ...

... Christopher Baxter of the Star-Ledger: "Leading trial attorneys and legal experts said today that the U.S. Attorney's Office of New Jersey has enough evidence to pursue a serious investigation into allegations that the Democratic mayor of Hoboken made against Gov. Chris Christie's administration this weekend."

Caitlin Gibson of the Washington Post: "Voters in Virginia's 33rd Senate District will cast ballots Tuesday in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Mark R. Herring -- a contentious three-way race that could determine control of the state's evenly divided Senate. The trio of candidates vying for the seat -- Democrat Jennifer Wexton, 10th Congressional District Republican Committee Chairman John Whitbeck and former state delegate Joe T. May, a veteran Republican who is running as an independent -- have had only a few weeks to organize their campaigns and rally supporters across the district, a politically competitive territory spanning parts of Loudoun and Fairfax counties." ...

     ... Update: Rachel Maddow says the Democrat Jennifer Wexton won the election.

Mark Puente of the Tampa Bay Times: "As Americans honored the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, a Republican candidate for Florida House District 68 said President Barack Obama should be hanged for war crimes. 'I'm past impeachment,' Joshua Black wrote on Twitter. 'It's time to arrest and hang him high.'" ...

... Dylan Scott of TPM: "The U.S. Secret Service paid a visit to the Florida state House candidate who advocated for President Barack Obama's execution on Twitter. Joshua Black, a Republican who is running in Florida House District 68, told the Tampa Bay Times that Secret Service agents had come to his home following the uproar over his comments." ...

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker elaborates.

Adam Weinstein: "Despite years of negative publicity over Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' self-defense law, lawmakers are close to expanding it to protect gunmen who fire warning shots or wave weapons in a threatening manner -- and they're doing it with a bill written by a top NRA lobbyist.... That also means gun owners would get blanket immunity from the state's '10-20-life' law, which mandates an automatic 10-year sentence for anyone accused of flashing or using a gun in the commission of a felony. Numerous Florida politicians, including Jeb Bush, have long credited that measure with significantly decreasing the state's gun crimes.... So far, the warning shot bill appears destined for passage." Read the whole post to see how stupid, irresponsible & violent we Floridians are. ...

... Charles Pierce comments. ...

... Jeff Weiner & Arelis Hernandez of the Orlando Sentinel: "The gunman accused of chasing and killing a 21-year-old man at an Orlando apartment complex Thursday told police he was pursuing a suspected burglar and acted in self-defense after he was attacked." CW: This time the defense goes, "He attacked me while I was chasing him so I shot him in the back." It could work. It's Florida.

Paul Egan, et al., of the Detroit Free Press: "Gov. Rick Snyder [R] and legislative leaders reached an agreement [Tuesday] on the framework for a deal to help protect Detroit pensioners and the Detroit Institute of Arts collection from ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, sources told the Free Press, and he is expected to make an announcement Wednesday."

Cheer Up, GOP Govs -- You're Not Rob Ford

Sasha Goldstein of the New York Daily News: "Crack-smoking Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, known for his 'drunken stupors,' has fallen off the wagon. Hours after new cellphone video taken Monday evening emerged showing the notorious face of Canada's most populous city swaying and slurring his words while holding court at a fast food restaurant, Ford admitted he was drunk during the incident."

News Ledes

New York Times: "After two protesters were shot to death during clashes with the police on Wednesday, the first fatalities in Ukraine's two-month civil uprising, President Viktor F. Yanukovich met with opposition leaders as efforts to defuse the crisis took on new urgency."

New York Times: "After months of diplomatic maneuvering and last-minute slips, delegates gathered on Wednesday in [Montreux, Switzerland] to press for a political settlement in Syria's bloody civil war. But sharp divisions between the United States and Russia, and especially among the Syrian participants themselves, immediately came to the fore, casting doubt on the prospects for easing hostilities or even opening up humanitarian corridors for the delivery of food and medicine to besieged towns and cities." ...

... AP: " The United States is criticizing Syria's top diplomat for his 'inflammatory' speech at an international peace conference aimed at ending the country's brutal conflict.The State Department said Wednesday that remarks from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem were not in keeping with the spirit or aims of the gathering...."

Reuters: "The United States has offered to send a special envoy to North Korea to win the release of a jailed missionary, but signaled that any meaningful talks with Pyongyang will require it to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons."

AP: "Two officials of South Africa's ruling party who were linked to a bogus sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial have resigned from the African National Congress, South African media reported Tuesday."

The Commentariat -- Jan. 21, 2014

Internal links removed.

Li Anne Wong of CNBC: "The combined wealth of the world's richest 85 people is now equivalent to that owned by half of the world's population -- or 3.5 billion of the poorest people -- according to a new report from Oxfam. In a report titled 'Working for the Few' released Monday, the global aid and development organization detailed the extent of global economic inequality created by the rapidly increasing wealth of the richest, warning of the major risks it poses to 'human progress.'" ...

... Rebecca Riffkin of Gallup: "Two out of three Americans are dissatisfied with the way income and wealth are currently distributed in the U.S. This includes three-fourths of Democrats and 54% of Republicans."

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "Eric S. Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, is ... pushing his branch of the central bank to get more involved in the New England economy..., spearheading an effort to turn around some of Massachusetts' most depressed cities. Last week, Mr. Rosengren and his team announced the winners of a Fed-sponsored competition that will funnel $1.8 million into innovative economic development projects in six medium-size cities.... It represents a new, untested approach for the Fed, which has been widely criticized for bailing out Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis, but leaving Main Street to fend for itself." CW: Less than $2MM for Main Street, $700 billion for Wall Street. And the money is coming from private "donors."

Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: ObamaCare "is already having a profound effect on the lives of poor Americans. Enrollment in private insurance plans has been sluggish, but sign-ups for Medicaid, the federal insurance program for the poor, have surged in many states.... In West Virginia, where the Democratic governor agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility, the number of uninsured people in the state has been reduced by about a third.... "The men and women getting the coverage here say the mere fact of having it has drastically improved their mental health. Waitresses, fast food workers, security guards and cleaners described feeling intense relief that they are now protected from the punishing medical bills that have punched holes in their family budgets. They spoke in interviews of reclaiming the dignity they had lost over years of being turned away from doctors' offices because they did not have insurance." ...

     ... CW: Now say, "Thank you, Democrats & President Obama." Oh, never mind: "President Obama -- often blamed here in coal country for the industry's decline -- remains deeply unpopular.... Chad Webb, a shy 30-year-old who is enrolling people in Mingo County, said a woman at a recent [ACA sign-up] event used biblical terms to disparage Mr. Obama as an existential threat to the nation. Mr. Webb said he thought to himself: 'This man is not the Antichrist. He just wants you to have health insurance.'"

Alex Pareene of Salon on the newest Republican excuse for not passing immigration reform: ObamaCare! See, Obama screwed up the implementation of a major portion of the ACA, so he would screw up the administration of any immigration bill, too. The only solution for Latinos: elect a Republican president (someone like me, Marco Rubio!). As Pareene points out, Republicans had some other excuse to reject immigration reform when there actually was a Republican president -- Dubya -- who advocated for it. ...

     ... CW: As we have seen for the past five years, the basic Republican position is that they will enact no legislation in the national interest while a Democrat is president. Obstructionism is not a tactic; it's a goal. This is why the Healthcare.gov rollout was such a disaster: it didn't give Republicans just a weeks-long talking point; it bolstered their central theses that (a) government is the problem and (b) Democrats can't be "trusted" to do it well. (In the same way, the killing of Osama bin Ladin was a disaster for Republicans.)

Keystone XL Junior. Ned Resnikoff of NBC News: "A leak in one of the pump stations along Enbridge Energy's Line 67 pipeline caused about 125 barrels to spray across a rural area of Saskatchewan, Canada.... For over a year, environmental groups have been building the campaign against Line 67's expansion.... Environmental activists insist that accidents in general are the norm for Enbridge.... A report [PDF] from Canada's progressive Polaris Institute claim[s] that the company had accidentally spilled approximately 161,475 barrels of oil between 1999 and 2010."

Local News

Scott Fallon of the Bergen Record: "A planning report heavily favored the politically connected builder of a $1.1 billion proposed development that is at the center of a dispute between the governor's office and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer.... Of the 10 industrial and commercial properties that the report recommended for redevelopment, nine were owned by a subsidiary of the Rockefeller Group, records show. The Rockefeller Group is represented by the law firm of David Samson, a close Christie adviser whom Christie appointed as chairman of the Port Authority, which paid for the planning study." ...

... James O'Neill of the Record: "Amid the debate over the amount of Sandy recovery money Hoboken received, the Christie administration on Monday defended its decision to send significant chunks of federal Sandy aid to towns and counties that were minimally affected by the October 2012 storm. Counties largely unscathed by Sandy, including Warren, Morris and Burlington, received millions of dollars in aid for local resiliency projects, and dozens of individual communities barely grazed by Sandy were able to tap into a $25 million fund designed to help make local energy systems more resilient." ...

... Patricia McGeehan of the New York Times: "On Monday, [New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim] Guadagno disputed [Hoboken Mayor Dawn] Zimmer's account of their meeting at a Shop-Rite supermarket in May. 'Mayor Zimmer's version of our conversation in May of 2013 is not only false, but is illogical and does not withstand scrutiny when all of the facts are examined,' Ms. Guadagno said at an event to commemorate Martin Luther King's Birthday. 'Any suggestion that Sandy funds were tied to the approval of any project in New Jersey is completely false.'" ...

... Star Ledger Editors: "Chris Christie's smear campaign [is] in full swing." Smearer-in-Chief: Rudy 9/11 Giuliani. ...

... Gov. Bipartisan, Ctd. Matt Friedman of the Star-Ledger: "Three years ago, a plan to make Carl Lewis a 'youth fitness ambassador' for New Jersey was scrapped by Gov. Chris Christie's administration when the Olympic track and field star decided to run for state Senate as a Democrat, Lewis said today. Now, with the George Washington Bridge scandal raging, the nine-time Olympic gold medalist says he sees a 'strong parallel' between his own interaction with Christie and what happened in Fort Lee, and that Christie is an 'insecure person.'" ...

If you run, we're going to have to cancel the program. -- Gov. Chris Christie to Carl Lewis, according to Lewis

... Pew Research Center: A majority of people who have heard about Bridgegate do not believe Chris Christie's story that he had no idea his aides caused the lane closures. ...

... MSNBC Civil War. Catherine Thompson of TPM: "'Morning Joe' hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, self-described fans of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), attacked [Dawn Zimmer,] the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., Monday for alleging Christie's administration shook her down for Hurricane Sandy relief funds.... 'Way Too Early' host Thomas Roberts, calling Zimmer a 'whistleblower,' accused Scarborough and Brzezinski of 'eviscerating' the mayor. Scarborough shot back, accusing Roberts of 'putting a halo' over her."

Right Wing World

Chutzpah. Catherine Thompson: "Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin seized Martin Luther King Day as an opportunity to lob vague criticism at President Barack Obama. 'Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card,' Palin wrote Monday on her Facebook page...."

The Laws, the Prophets and Netanyahoo. I told [Netanyahu], and some people think this is crazy and meddling -- apparently from the reaction some of y'all actually know who I am -- but I told the prime minister, I said, 'I mentioned this to you in 2009 -- we met a couple of times since then, but anyway -- 'I mentioned this to you in 2009 and I want to reiterate it, I think, I'm not a prophet, I know the Old Testament, I know history, I think you've got a chance to be one of Israel's great leaders.' I said, 'I am talking about all time. The big ones. Going back to David, to Solomon, up through Josiah, Hezekiah until the end, on up through Ben Gurion.' -- Rep. Louie Gohmert (RTP-Texas)

... Linda Kintsler of the New Republic picks "the four craziest moments from South Carolina's Tea party convention." Gohmert's comparing Netanyahu to the Biblical kings doesn't make the cut, but his invoking Bluto does.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The mysterious mass die-offs of honeybees that have wiped out roughly a third of commercial colonies each year since 2006 may be linked to a rapidly mutating virus that jumped from tobacco plants to soy plants to bees, according to a new study."

CNN: "A gunman shot and killed another man Tuesday inside Purdue University's electrical engineering building, spurring worried students to scramble into the bitter cold outside for safety. The Indiana school's police chief said that the suspect appeared to have had just one target in mind. He left the building right after the shooting, and a city police officer arrested him."

AP: " Another batch of heavy snow and frigid temperatures is forecast from Virginia to New England as a winter storm bears down on the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. The National Weather Service says the winter storm could bring 10 inches of snow to Philadelphia and New York on Tuesday and bitterly cold air with wind chills as low as 10 degrees below zero later in the day." ...

     ... Update: "A swirling snowstorm clobbered parts of the mid-Atlantic and the urban Northeast on Tuesday, grounding thousands of flights, closing government offices in the nation's capital and making a mess of the evening commute. The storm stretched 1,000 miles between Kentucky and Massachusetts but hit especially hard along the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor between Philadelphia and Boston, creating perilous rides home for millions of motorists."

USA Today: "President Obama will meet with Pope Francis on March 27, capping a European trip that will take him to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy."

AP: "A Vatican monsignor already on trial for allegedly plotting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland to Italy was arrested Tuesday in a separate case for allegedly using his Vatican bank accounts to launder money. Financial police in the southern Italian city of Salerno said Monsignor Nunzio Scarano had transferred millions of euros in fictitious donations from offshore companies through his accounts at the Vatican's Institute for Religious Works. Police said millions have been seized and that other arrest warrants were also issued."

CNN: "A team of internationally renowned war crimes prosecutors and forensic experts has found 'direct evidence' of 'systematic torture and killing' by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the lawyers on the team say in a new report. Their report, based on thousands of photographs of dead bodies of alleged detainees killed in Syrian government custody, would stand up in an international criminal tribunal, the group says."

The Commentariat -- Jan. 20, 2014

** 'A Time to Break the Silence' Sermon delivered at Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967. Text & audio. ...

... John Blake of CNN: " Why it's important: This was King's most controversial speech. Even some members of his own staff warned him not to give it. With this sermon, King decisively came out against the Vietnam War at a time when many Americans still supported it. People were furious. President Lyndon Johnson stopped talking to him. Civil rights leaders criticized him, and major newspapers told him to stick to civil rights.... One year later to the day he gave this speech, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee." ...

... Joan Walsh of Salon: "Some of King's closest living allies have been trying hard to right the reverend's record. 'There have been and continue to be efforts to "neuter" or "de-radicalize" the Dr. King who delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in August, 1963,' says his longtime lawyer and speechwriter Clarence B. Jones. Though the dream speech, which Jones helped write, was itself radical, he sees King's April 1967 'Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break the Silence' speech at Riverside Church as 'the ideological turning point for King.'" ...

... The New Yorker opens up Renata Adler's "Letter from Selma," published April 10, 1965. ...

... Sean McElwee interviews Ian Lopez for Salon about the GOP's use of racist dogwhistles to attack all liberal policies. Lopez says, "... the central point here is that race is being used to wreck the middle class. This has been the way conservatives have found that they can attack commitments to education, commitments to a social safety net, commitments to infrastructure, commitments to job programs, commitments to progressive taxation that taxes the most wealthy to help the rest of society." ...

There's no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black president. Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I'm a black president. There is a historic connection between some of the arguments that we have politically and the history of race in our country, and sometimes it's hard to disentangle those issues. You can be somebody who, for very legitimate reasons, worries about the power of the federal government -- that it's distant, that it's bureaucratic, that it's not accountable -- and as a consequence you think that more power should reside in the hands of state governments. But what's also true, obviously, is that philosophy is wrapped up in the history of states' rights in the context of the civil-rights movement and the Civil War and Calhoun. There's a pretty long history there. -- Barack Obama, to David Remnick ...

... David Remnick of the New Yorker has a long piece (18 pages!) on President Obama. Remnick interviewed Obama for the magazine. ...

... What most pundits (in this case, Jordan Sargent of Gawker) picked up from Remnick's interview was this: "Obama said just about everything he should be saying about weed."

"Influence in Paradise -- Destination Fundraisers." Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "... members of Congress ... hit hot spots like the Napa Valley wine country, famed golf courses and hunting preserves, as well as five-star hotels in Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, South Florida and even Bermuda. Congress, after a corruption scandal that involved golf trips to Scotland and other getaways paid for by lobbyists, passed legislation in 2007 prohibiting lobbyists from giving lawmakers gifts of just about any value. But as is the norm in Washington, the lawmakers and lobbyists have figured out a workaround: Political campaigns and so-called leadership PACs controlled by the lawmakers now pay the expenses for the catering and the lawmakers' lodging at these events -- so they are not gifts -- with money collected from the corporate executives and lobbyists, who are still indirectly footing the bill."

Paul Krugman clocks David Brooks: "... for the past three decades and more the main obstacle facing the poor has been the lack of jobs paying decent wages. But the myth of the undeserving poor persists, and so does a counterpart myth, that of the deserving rich.... I know that these realities make some people, not all of them hired guns for the plutocracy, uncomfortable, and they'd prefer to paint a different picture. But even if the facts have a well-known populist bias, they're still the facts -- and they must be faced.".

Eyder Peralta of NPR: "Rep. Mike Rogers made some strong allegations against former NSA contractor Edward Snowden on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday. Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, implied that Snowden received helped from Russia's security service both to steal the highly classified documents and then to travel to Russia, where he received temporary asylum.... These are some of the strongest allegations levied against Snowden...."

... The New York Times story, by Eric Schmitt & David Sanger, is here.

New York Times Editors: "If the Air Force cheating scandal disclosed last week were a singular event, it would be easier to accept Pentagon assurances that America's nuclear deterrence and military readiness have not been compromised. But it is the latest in a series of breaches that have raised alarms about discipline and competency in the Air Force.... The scandals should force America to think more broadly about the purpose of its vast and increasingly obsolete nuclear arsenal, and how the nation could be safer with far fewer weapons."

Local News

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: Dawn Zimmer, "the mayor of Hoboken, N.J., met with federal prosecutors Sunday to provide information about her allegations that top aides to Gov. Chris Christie threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy recovery money from her city if she did not approve development projects the governor favored. The meeting is a sign of the broadening scope of the federal investigation.... In a statement, Zimmer said Sunday evening that she had met in the afternoon with prosecutors at the U.S. attorney's office for several hours. She said the meeting came at prosecutors' request and she provided them with documents, including a personal journal entry she said was written in May in which she described the encounters." ...

... Angela Delli Santi of the AP: "On Sunday, [Mayor Zimmer] went a step further and said on CNN's 'State of the Union with Candy Crowley' that [New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim] Guadagno told her that the request 'was a direct message from the governor. The lieutenant governor pulled me aside and said, essentially, "You've got to move forward with the Rockefeller project. This project is really important to the governor." And she said that she had been with him on Friday night and that this was a direct message from the governor,' Zimmer recalled Guadagno saying."

... Dominic Rushe of the Guardian: "On Sunday, the New Jersey assemblyman John Wisniewski [D] said his special legislative panel -- one of a number of investigations looking into the actions of Christie's administration – would look into Zimmer's claims as well as those regarding the George Washington bridge." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "... this is the main reason why I think Christie's presidential aspirations are basically dead. He's genuinely corrupt. There are numerous allegations swirling around him, and at this point it would require an implausible series of coincidences to believe he's not implicated in some nasty and quite likely straight-out illegal behavior."

... Michael Barbaro & Bill Carter of the New York Times: Christie breaks up with MSNBC. ...

... Paul Krugman: Chris Christie's "most devoted fund-raiser and loudest cheerleader," billionaire Home Depot founder Ken Langone, is also a guy who "recently tried to bully -- the Pope.... Yep. Stop criticizing the rich or we'll take it out on the poor. Nothing at all like punishing the residents of Fort Lee -- and, apparently, in what may be a much worse story, Hoboken -- because you're annoyed at their mayor."

Steve Szkotak of the AP: " Almost overnight, Virginia has emerged as a critical state in the nationwide fight to grant gay men and women the right to wed. This purple state was once perceived as unfriendly and even bordering on hostile to gay rights. That's changed after a seismic political shift in the top three elected offices, from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats who support gay marriage. Two federal lawsuits challenging the state's constitutional ban on gay marriage are moving forward, and a hearing on one of the cases is scheduled for Jan. 30."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Otis G. Pike, a longtime congressman from New York who spearheaded an inquiry in the 1970s into accusations that the intelligence establishment had abused its power, died on Monday in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 92...."

One of his memorable achievements was when he thwarted a bill with a single comical speech on the House floor. The bill would have awarded $14 million in flight pay to admirals and generals who spent their time not in cockpits but sitting at desks. Standing up on the House floor to criticize the legislation, Mr. Pike spoke with his arms spread and swaying like the wings of a plane, as if he were flying. He brought up the worrisome perils of an admiral spinning in his chair and soaring out a window of the Pentagon into air-traffic patterns. The speech drew laughter and applause. The bill was defeated.

More from the Washington Post's obituary:

'If the in-basket is continually loaded on the starboard, or right-hand, side of the desk, and the out-basket is continually empty on the port, or left-hand, side of the desk,' said Mr. Pike, who flew 120 missions as a Marine pilot in World War II, 'wood fatigue sets in, the landing gear tends to buckle and the whole fuselage crashes down on your feet.'

New York Times: "Under intense American pressure, the United Nations on Monday withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the much-anticipated Syria peace conference, reversing a decision announced a day earlier."

New York Times: "The first orchestrated rollback in Western antinuclear economic sanctions against Iran took effect on Monday under Tehran's temporary agreement with world powers, as all sides reported that the steps initially promised had been fulfilled. Under the temporary agreement, Iran began suspending most advanced uranium-fuel enrichment and halted other sensitive elements of its nuclear program. In exchange, it received what the United States called 'limited, targeted and reversible sanctions relief for a six-month period.'"

AFP: "A new threat to the upcoming Winter Olympics surfaced Sunday as US lawmakers worried about attacks at the Games to be hosted by Russia. In a video posted on a well-known jihadi forum, two men believed to have been suicide bombers in last month's deadly bombings in Volgograd speak of them -- and warned of more." ...

... AP: "Members of Congress expressed serious concerns Sunday about the safety of Americans at next month's Olympics in Russia and said Moscow needs to cooperate more on security."

AP: "Iran halted its most sensitive uranium enrichment work on Monday as part of a landmark deal struck with world powers, easing concerns over the country's nuclear program and clearing the way for a partial lifting of sanctions, Tehran and the U.N. said."

AFP: "Opposition protesters were Monday locked in a tense standoff with Ukrainian security forces in Kiev after hours of unprecedented clashes deep into the night left dozens wounded and parts of the centre resembling a battlefield."

AP: "An American missionary who has been jailed in North Korea for more than a year appeared before reporters Monday and appealed to the U.S. government to do its best to secure his release. The missionary, Kenneth Bae, made the comments at what he called a press conference held at his own request. He was under guard during the appearance. It is not unusual for prisoners in North Korea to say after their release that they spoke in similar situations under duress."