The Commentariat -- April 3

** The Super-Rich Just Don't Get It -- and They Won't till It's Too Late. Joseph Stiglitz in Vanity Fair: "The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined the right of corporations to buy government.... The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent.... America’s inequality distorts our society in every conceivable way.... Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1 percent, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity, in which fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community...." CW: read all of Stiglitz' essay; the few bits I've copied here don't give the whole picture.

** Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: "With revolutionary fervor sweeping the Middle East, Israel is under mounting pressure to make a far-reaching offer to the Palestinians or face a United Nations vote welcoming the State of Palestine as a member whose territory includes all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority has been steadily building support for such a resolution in September, a move that could place Israel into a diplomatic vise. Israel would be occupying land belonging to a fellow United Nations member, land it has controlled and settled for more than four decades and some of which it expects to keep in any two-state solution."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) Press Release: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya. The total includes at least $3.2 billion in loans that the Fed was forced to make public today in addition to earlier revelations under a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law. Sanders also asked why the Libyan-owned bank and two of its branches in New York, N.Y., were exempted from sanctions that the United States this month slapped on other Libyan businesses to pressure Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s government." ...

... John Nichols of The Nation: "... what’s the point of sanctions if they don’t crack down on the dictator’s bank? ... The senator is also asking Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – a long-time Fed retainer -- to explain the Arab Banking Corp. was borrowing money at almost zero interest from one arm of the government, the Fed, at the same time the Treasury Department was borrowing money at a higher interest rate." And why aren't more Members of Congress asking these same questions?

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: can litigants get due process in huge class action suits? Some judges, and apparently at least one Supreme Court Justice, don't think so.

Nicholas Kristof: "Mr. Obama and other world leaders did something truly extraordinary, wonderful and rare: they ordered a humanitarian intervention that saved thousands of lives and that even Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s closest aides seem to think will lead to his ouster." The comments are here.

Bara Vaida of the Washington Post: "From Washington to California, the year-old health law, with its layers of complexity, is setting off a gold rush for high-priced lawyers and consultants. It’s 'a full employment act for health-care consultants,' said Ian Morrison, a founding partner of Strategic Health Perspectives in Menlo Park, Calif. Much of the activity — and the prospect of glitteringly high fees — is swirling around a widely discussed provision that encourages doctors, hospitals and insurers to team up in treating patients."

Maureen Dowd: "Republicans hate social engineering, unless they're doing it." And they're doing it. CW: The comments are here.

Dan Eggen & Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "Facing an energized Republican Party and deep-pocketed conservative groups, President Obama is kicking off his 2012 reelection campaign with a concerted push for help from wealthy donors and liberal groups unbound by spending limits. The strategy — which could begin in earnest as early as Monday with the formation of an official presidential committee — suggests a notable shift in emphasis for a president who has long decried the outsize role of money in politics." ...

Jeff Zeleny's New York Times profile/puff piece on Jim Messina, who will head up President Obama's re-election campaign, strikes me as a bore, but it is receiving a lot of attention. Ben Smith explains why in a post titled "The Messina Wars." ...

... AND Seth Meyers checks out the field of Republican candidates:

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times examines Mike Huckabee's efforts to re-energize the Christian right -- last week at a political non-partisan forum for Iowa evangelical ministers & their wives.

Right Wing World *

Tim Pawlenty Is a Liar Now & Was a Terrible Governor Then. Tom Hamburger & Melanie Mason of the Los Angeles Times: "A close look at [probable Republican presidential candidate Tim] Pawlenty's record [as governor] in Minnesota, and conversations with former Republican allies in the state, suggest that the former governor's tough rhetoric does not match Minnesota's reality.... To [try to balance the budget], he relied on money from the federal stimulus — a program he has decried as wasteful — and other one-time fixes. He postponed school and other obligations, leading to hikes in local property taxes and strains on school districts as burdens shifted downward. Most strikingly, he left the state with a $5-billion projected deficit, one of the highest in the nation as a percentage of the state's general fund." It gets worse. As you read, bear in mind this is a straight news story, not an opinion piece.

What's a Liar to Do? Dan Balz of the Washington Post writes a column -- not a news story -- that begins, "This is not an easy time for Republicans who are thinking of running for president in 2012. Whatever assumptions about the road ahead that may have existed a few months ago suddenly look more complicated, because of unfolding events here and abroad." Balz outlines the changing circumstances, and the changing public reactions to those circumstances, that make it hard for a Republican presidential candidate to know what to do. CW: but, without Balz's saying it or meaning it, what comes across to me is the underlying assumption that Republican candidates don't know what storylines they should invent. A candidate with principles wouldn't have any trouble.

CC of Daily Kos: Sen. Rand Paul has conveniently "forgotten" he voted in favor of a resolution urging the U.N. to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. He has apparently instructed his staff to say he didn't vote for it the resolution, or the Democrats who wrote it were "sneaky." Or whatever. Lawrence O'Donnell has a recording of another young Paul staffer being coached by a senior staffer who tells an NBC producer another convoluted version of why Paul's vote wasn't a vote. O'Donnell is pretty longwinded, but the tape is interesting. Here's Paul on the Senate floor proposing a 180-degree counter-resolution, saying, "There has been no Constitutional authority given to the President to be committing troops to this war":

... AND here, having executed his own flipflop, Sen. Paul bashes Newt Gingrich for his multiple positions on the Libyan intervention:

... It must be fun to be a Republican, because you can say whatever you want. Why, you can even criticize your potential presidential opponents for doing exactly what you just got through doing!

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald/St. Pete Times: "In the next 30 days, Florida lawmakers are poised to make it easier for insurance companies to raise rates, make it more difficult for women to receive an abortion and hand over control of prisons to private companies. These are just a few of the proposals the Republican-led Legislature is pushing in the final weeks of their 60-day session. Others include dramatically changing the way the state handles Medicaid, state pensions, courts, growth and the environment."

News Ledes

New York Times: "House Republicans plan this week to propose more than $4 trillion in federal spending reductions over the next decade by reshaping popular programs like Medicare, the Budget Committee chairman said Sunday in opening a new front in the intensifying budget wars."

New York Times: "BP has asked United States regulators for permission to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, two company officials said on Sunday, creating a delicate situation for the Obama administration as it seeks to balance safety concerns with a desire to increase domestic oil production."

New York Times: "The United States, which long supported Yemen’s president, even in the face of recent widespread protests, has now quietly shifted positions and has concluded that he is unlikely to bring about the required reforms and must be eased out of office, according to American and Yemeni officials."

... ABC News: "In his first interview since leaving the White House last fall, former Obama National Security Advisor Jim Jones warned that the way events were unfolding in Yemen were 'not good.' Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been an ally of the United States in the fight against terrorism, is facing increasing pressure to step down; Jones echoed language coming from the White House...."

Al Jazeera: "Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, Libya's acting foreign minister, told the Greek prime minister in Athens that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi wants the fighting to end. 'It seems that the Libyan authorities are seeking a solution,' Dimitris Droutsas, the Greek foreign minister, said." ...

... Washington Post: "Libya’s rebel military struggled Saturday to explain an apparent rift within its highest ranks while acknowledging its soldiers’ role in a mistaken NATO bombing of rebel columns the night before. The strike, which killed 13 rebels and injured seven, illustrated the hazards of conducting an aerial bombing campaign against a fluid and fast moving front line. Several cars and an ambulance were also incinerated, and opposition leaders said rebels may have been responsible for the bombing because they had fired their guns into the air in celebration." ...

... AP: "Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, the vice chairman of the [Libyan rebel] National Provisional Council..., says the opposition to longtime leader Moammar Gadahfi seeks to install a parliamentary democracy in the country."

AP: "Afghan protests against the burning of a Quran in Florida entered a third day with a demonstrations in the south and east Sunday, while the Taliban called on people to rise up, blaming government forces for any violence." ...

     ... Politico Update: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CBS's Bob Schieffer on Sunday that some members of Congress were considering some kind of action in response to the Florida Quran burning that sparked a murderous riot at a United Nations complex in Afghanistan and other mayhem." ...

     ... CNN Update: "Top U.S. officials in Afghanistan on Sunday condemned the burning of a Quran in the United States that sparked three days of protests in which more than 20 people died. Burning the Muslim holy book 'was hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible,' said Gen. David Petraeus, who heads the U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan."

AP: "The United Nations and the government it supports in embattled Ivory Coast are trading accusations over the killings of hundreds of civilians in a western town. The U.N. accused hunters fighting in a force to install democratically elected President Alassane Ouattara of 'extra-judicial executions' of more than 330 people in Duekoue. Ouattara's government Saturday night accused U.N. peacekeepers of abandoning civilians there to vengeful militiamen fighting for incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to accept his election defeat."

AP: "It could take several more months to bring Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant under control, a safety agency spokesman said Sunday as engineers tried to find a way to stop highly radioactive water from pouring into the Pacific." A second attempt to seal a leak of radioactive contaminants is not working yet, and new problems arise daily.

AP: "A week ago, Wisconsin Republicans thought they'd won the fight over the state's polarizing union rights bill. They'd weathered massive protests, outfoxed Senate Democrats who fled the state and gotten around a restraining order blocking the law by having an obscure state agency publish it. They even started preparations to pull money from public workers' paychecks. But the victory was short-lived. A judge ruled Friday that the restraining order will stay in place for at least two months she while considers whether Republicans passed the law illegally."

AP: "Federal records show cracks were found and repaired a year ago in the frame of the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 that made an emergency landing at an Arizona military base after a hole was torn from the passenger cabin.... Southwest grounded 80 similar planes to carry out inspections."

Reuters: "Al Qaeda operatives are in Brazil planning attacks, raising money and recruiting followers, a leading news magazine reported Saturday, renewing concerns about the nation serving as a hide-out for Islamic militants. Veja magazine, in its online edition, reported that at least 20 people affiliated with al Qaeda as well as the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas and two other organizations have been hiding out in the South American country."

The Commentariat -- April 2

President Obama's Weekly Address:

Today's Weader Award for Irony Goes to ...

... The SEC. David Hilzenrath of the Washington Post: "The Securities and Exchange Commission, which demands good accounting in the corporate world, has considerable trouble keeping its own books, according to a report this week by federal auditors.... The problems are not new: Auditors have been issuing warnings about the SEC’s internal accounting for years, and the SEC has acknowledged weaknesses. But the situation worsened in 2010 as temporary patches failed, according to GAO officials."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: especially since states have made massive budget cutbacks, Medicaid now "pays doctors so little that many refuse to take its patients."

"Cruel but Not Unusual. Clarence Thomas Writes One of the Meanest Supreme Court Decisions Ever." Dahlia Lithwick of Slate shows that Justice Scalia's concurring opinion in the case of Thompson v. Connick is just as bad. In the course of this article involving the case of multiple ADAs suppressing multiple exculpatory documents that would have exonerated or helped to exonerate an innocent man who was on death row for 18 years & many times faced a scheduled execution, Lithwick calls the Justices "apathetic," demonstrating "a moral flat line," "hyper-technical," "deliberaely callous," "pitiless" and "scornful." When you read the particulars, you'll think Lithwick is being overly polite. These are two evil "Justices" who don't give a flying fuck about justice. That goes for Kennedy, Roberts & Alito, too.

New York Times Editors: "... continuing hate crimes [against Muslims] were laid bare at a valuable but barely noticed Senate hearing last week that provided welcome contrast to Representative Peter King’s airing of his xenophobic allegation that the Muslim-American community has been radicalized. In running the hearing, Senator Richard Durbin tried to set the record straight about the patriotism of a vast majority of American-Muslim citizens and the continuing assaults on their civil rights. He warned against the 'guilt by association' whipped up by Mr. King’s broadsides...." C-SPAN has video of the hearings.

Joe Nocera has his first op-ed column in today's Times, which he devotes to Warren Buffett's completely unconvincing gloss of "what looks like insider trading" by Buffett's No. 2 man, David Sokol. CW: Martha Stewart went to jail for doing a lot less than Sokol did. According to Nocera, Sokol negotiated a takeover of a company called Lubrizol & actively encouraged Buffett to go for it at the same time Sokol was trading in Lubrizol stocks. Sokol made about $3 million on the stocks when Buffett acquired Lubrizol, at Sokol's urging. Does anybody think the SEC will go after the deputy of President Obama's friend Warren Buffett the way they went after Stewart? Time will tell. Comments are here. ...

... Nocera's account is consistent with this one by Serene Ng & Eric Holm of the Wall Street Journal. ...

... Buffett's support for Sokol is all the more perplexing when you figure he must have known of Sokol's past. Peter Cohan of AOL details some of Sokol's earlier misdeeds, which include (1) a huge stockholder ripoff effected by cooking the books (a Nebraska court ordered Sokol to pay $32 milllion to the plaintiffs for that stunt), (2) tricking the directors of his own company into selling it to Buffett (Sokol settled with shareholders out of court for $7.5 million).

Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times: Islamic radicals "are now leaping aboard the democracy bandwagon, alarming those who believe that religious radicals are seeking to put in place strict Islamic law through ballots."

Right Wing World

Gail Collins: "In a potential Republican field that includes Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, it’s hard to come up with a line of attack loopy enough to stand out from the pack. But darned if [Donald] Trump didn’t manage to find one." Comments are here.

Local News

Wisconsin ...

The video below is a "closing argument" against conservative State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, who is up for re-election Tuesday. (The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel provides the backstory on the incident outlined in the video.) Before the Wisconsin union protests, Prosser was probably a shoo-in. Former Democratic Gov. Patrick Lucey, for instance, was Prosser's campaign co-chair. This past week, Lucey withdrew his support & endorsed Prosser's challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, saying Prosser demonstrated "a disturbing distermper and lack of civility." Yeah, I guess:

     ... BUT, beware. That brilliant Constitutional scholar (the First Amendment guarantees that nobody can criticize me) and expert on Wisconsin jurisprudence Sarah Palin has endorsed Prosser, and outside interests backing Prosser have outspent those supporting Kloppenburg. ...

     ... AND a a group called Citizens for a Strong America is running a TV ad which claims, among other things, that "Kloppenburg is so extreme, she even put an 80-year-old farmer in jail for refusing to plant native vegetation on his farm." The ad earned a "Pants-on-Fire" rating from Wisconsin PolitiFact.

David Dayan of Firedoglake: "The chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is confident that at least six of the eight recall elections of state Senators that the party is seeking will be successful, leading to an unprecedented set of recall elections in the summer or fall."

Maine ...

Some of the panels in the mural depicting the history of labor in Maine, by artist Judy Taylor of Tremont, Maine. FDR Labor Secretary Frances Perkins is represented (left) in the second panel pictured. Perkins, who is buried in Maine, was the first woman member of a U.S. presidential cabinet. Via the New York Times. Peter Catapano of the New York Times rounds up a few opinions by writers opposed to Maine Gov. Paul LePage's decision to remove a mural from the labor department that depicts, well, laborers. One of those opinionators is former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. In the meantime, as I pointed out in my comment on Catapano's post ...

Asked last week what he would do if protesters engaged in civil disobedience to protest removal of the mural, Gov. LePage said he would "laugh at the idiots." It turns out the "idiots" may get the last laugh.

... A lawsuit has been filed over removal of the mural, claiming that removal violates the First & Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs are a union leader, an OSHA employee, three artists & an attorney. ...

... Meanwhile, a Democratic member of the state legislature has introduced a bill providing for recall of the governor & other state officials. ...

... At the same time, some state senators from LePage's own party are blasting him in an op-ed to be published in some state newspapers on Monday.

Florida ...

More from America's Worst Governor Sociopath. Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones: "Continuing his assault on Florida's most vulnerable, Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order on Thursday that immediately slashes money for the developmentally disabled. The cuts will reduce payments to group homes and social workers by 15 percent. Here's the Orlando Sentinel story; it will sicken you. ...

... The State Column: "According to the latest poll, Florida governor Rick Scott is the least popular governor in the nation. After just three months in office, Mr. Scott, a Republican, is facing a major backlash from voters. If he stood for re-election today, he would likely lose by a landslide, according to research released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling.

... He Said "Uterus!" Pierre Tristam in Common Dreams on "Florida legislators' creepy uterus obsession."

News Ledes

Al Jazeera: "US and Egyptian special forces have reportedly been offering covert armed training to rebel fighters in the battle for Libya, Al Jazeera has been told. An unnamed rebel source related how he had undergone training in military techniques at a 'secret facility' in eastern Libya."

New York Times: "A NATO airstrike near the battlefront in eastern Libya killed 13 rebel fighters outside the pivotal port city of Brega, a rebel spokesman and wounded fighters said Saturday."

New York Times: "As rebels swept across Ivory Coast in a rapid advance last week to oust the nation’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, hundreds of people were killed in a single town, the United Nations and aid groups said Saturday, in the worst episode of violence during the four-month political crisis that has plunged the country back into civil war."

New York Times: "The head of a United Nations panel that investigated Israel’s invasion of Gaza two years ago has retracted the central and most explosive assertion of the report — that Israel purposely killed Palestinian civilians there. Richard Goldstone, an esteemed South African jurist who led a panel of experts that spent months examining the Gaza war, wrote in an opinion article in The Washington Post, which was posted on its Web site on Friday night, that Israeli investigations into the conflict 'indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.'” Goldstone's Washington Post op-ed is here.

CNN: "Mike Huckabee won a 2012 presidential straw poll conducted in a key South Carolina county Saturday."

The Hill: "The House narrowly passed legislation on Friday that calls for a House-passed FY 2011 spending bill to become law should the Senate fail to approve a spending bill by April 6. It would also prevent members of Congress from being paid during a government shutdown. The bill, H.R. 1255, was approved over bitter Democratic opposition in a 221-202 vote in which no Democrats supported it, and 15 Republicans opposed it." CW: this is the bill that is clearly unconstitutional in that it declares a bill passed if the House says so; forget the Senate & the President. It's a joke your 5th-grade can probably explain.

The Hill: "President Obama pressed Senate and House leaders Saturday on crafting a spending deal, the White House said, making phone calls in which Obama said 'progress' was being made in the talks while still stating opposition to GOP policy riders. Obama’s used calls to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to emphasize his view that a shutdown would harm the economy...."

New York Times: "Violent protests over the burning of a Koran in Florida flared for a second straight day, with young men rampaging through the streets of this southern capital [of Kandahar], flying Taliban flags and wielding sticks. Nine people were killed and 81 injured in the disturbances, all from bullet wounds, according to Abdul Qayoum Pakhla, head of the provincial health department. One of the dead was a police officer.... The protests here came a day after a mob overran the headquarters of the United Nations in Mazar-i-Sharif Friday, killing 12 persons, seven of them international staff. The mob gathered after three mullahs at Friday Prayer urged action in response to the Koran burning by a pastor, Terry Jones, in Florida on March 20." ...

... Washington Post: "Taliban fighters attacked the gate of a large NATO military base on the outskirts of Kabul on Saturday morning but failed to do serious damage or breach the compound walls."

New York Times: "Highly radioactive water is leaking directly into the sea from a damaged pit near a crippled reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, safety officials said Saturday, the latest setback in the increasingly messy bid to regain control of the reactors." ...

     ... CNN Update: "A first attempt to plug a cracked concrete shaft that is leaking highly radioactive water into the ocean off Japan failed Saturday, so officials are now exploring alternatives, spokesmen for Tokyo Electric Power Co. said." With video.

The Commentariat -- April 1

Our American Monarch ...

... ** Susan Crabtree of TPM: "The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon.... The War Powers Act of 1973 ... puts limits on the ability of the President to send American troops into combat areas without congressional approval. Under the act, the President can only send combat troops into battle or into areas where 'imminent' hostilities are likely, for 60 days without either a declaration of war by Congress or a specific congressional mandate. The President can extend the time the troops are in the combat area for 30 extra days, without Congressional approval, for a total of 90 days.... The act does not specifically say what Congress could do if the President turns a blind eye to Congress and refuses to have his role as commander-in-chief constrained, as Presidents have routinely done...." ...

... Adam Serwer of American Prospect: "This is really alarming.... There's no other way to describe this other than lawless." Serwer titles his post "Shades of John Yoo." ...

... ** Glenn Greenwald explains, in detail, how the Obama administration has totally embraced Yoo's infamous 2001 memo establishing Bush's war powers doctrine. Yoo is so happy about it he penned an approving op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (CW: which I purposely chose not to link yesterday, but you can get it via Greenwald). Greenwald takes the Obama position back further -- to the Iran-Contra affair when then-Rep. Dick Cheney argued -- preposterously -- that it was "'unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws intruding' on the 'commander in chief.'" But Greenwald goes all the way back to Alexander Hamilton, "the founder most enthusiastic of executive power," who wrote that

[The Commander-in-Chief power] would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy: while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which, by the constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.

What's Wrong with This Picture? ...

Lloyd Blankfein. Bloomberg News photo.... Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, received $19 million in compensation for 2010, including his first cash bonus since the 2008 financial crisis, according to a regulatory filing from the firm late Friday. His 2010 payday includes a $5.4 million cash bonus and other previously reported awards including $12.6 million in restricted stock, $600,000 salary and $464,067 in other benefits. Mr. Blankfein received $9.8 million a year earlier; all but $800,000 of that amount came in restricted stock." ...

... NOW compare that story with this one from Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "... many of the jobs being added [to the U.S. economy] in retail, hospitality and home health care, to name a few categories, are unlikely to pay enough for workers to cover the cost of fundamentals like housing, utilities, food, health care, transportation and, in the case of working parents, child care.... The study, commissioned by Wider Opportunities for Women, a nonprofit group, builds on an analysis ... [of] how much income it takes to meet basic needs without relying on public subsidies."

Karen Garcia: "... when the president was awarded a prize for White House 'transparency' on Monday by a coalition of open government advocates, it was done in secrecy, without notifying the press.  The president was honored for his so-called honesty behind closed doors, without so much as an MSNBC stenographer-journalist to record the event."

"Dope & Glory." Tim Egan writes a post I hate contrasting obvious doper all-around creep Barry Bonds with spunky sports underdogs. But you sports fans might like to read Egan, so here's a link. My comment may appear somewhere down the page. Or not.

New York Times writer Mike McIntire doesn't explicitly say so, but this article might be titled "How Big Business is Snookering Tea Party Naifs into Backing its Agenda."

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "As Congress struggles to negotiate a budget deal..., the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told lawmakers Wednesday that the GOP version of the budget bill would result in the deaths of at least 70,000 children who depend on American food and health assistance around the world." ...

... Next, Kill All the Poor People -- in This Country. Jonathan Allen of Politico: "House Republicans are planning to cut roughly $1 trillion over 10 years from Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled, as part of their fiscal 2012 budget, which they will unveil early next month, according to several GOP sources." CW: this is an easy one for the GOP because poor people -- who depend on Medicaid -- have no political clout. The plan is more smoke-and mirrors, of course. It will ultimately cost middle-class Americans because cutting Medicaid will drive up health insurance costs as hospitals pass on the costs of treating critically-ill indigents, patients whose illnesses -- if treated earlier -- would have been less costly to control. As our old friend former Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) famously characterized the Republican healthcare policy: (1) Don't get sick; (2) If you do, die quickly. Nothing has changed.

Jeanne Cummings of Politico: "Many cops and firefighters have thrown their allegiance to the GOP for years – union members who frequently stray from labor’s longtime support for Democrats. A host of new Republican governors is changing all that. It’s a political shift that could have significant repercussions.... Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police ... is traveling the country to rally FOP members to rise up against anti-labor laws in their states or in support of their colleagues in other states.”

New York Times Editors: "Even by Washington’s low standards, the House’s Republican freshmen are turning pandering into a high art. At a recent transportation hearing in his home district, Representative James Lankford of Oklahoma heaped praise on a panel of private sector witnesses. Three of the four executives so publicly favored were later discovered to be donors to Mr. Lankford’s campaign.... Ordinary voters may be making a show of demanding real political change, but they are being increasingly outbid at the big money table where American politics happens."

... many of the proposed spending reductions would disproportionately affect the neediest among us, including housing and heating assistance. Likewise, some of the proposed cuts would be economically counterproductive, negatively impacting our ability to innovate and invest in research and development. -- Sen. Scott Brown

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) has so lost his Right Wing World creds. Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "While some Senate Republicans are tacking right on the budget, Sen. Scott Brown is attacking proposed cuts coming from members of his own party as 'irresponsible' and urging both sides of the aisle to come together on a bipartisan deal."

Right Wing World *

You Can't Top This. David Barton is an American evangelical Christian minister, political activist, Christian revisionist historian (the U.S. is a Christian nation) & founder of the group WallBuilders. He is roundly criticized by real historians who deal in facts. But potential presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who apparently thinks there is only one amendment to the Constitution (the Second), says he wishes that "all Americans would be forced, at gunpoint no less, to listen to every David Barton message." Thanks to Right Wing Watch for posting the video & to reader Bonnie for calling it to my attention:

Paul Krugman: Republicans have embraced a new report which "argues that slashing government spending and employment in the face of a deeply depressed economy would actually create jobs." The comments section is here. ...

...  AND Krugman: a la Greenspan, use "with notably rare exceptions" in a sentence.

The Art of the Deal, How to Merge Conspiracy Theories. He may have one, but there's something on that birth certificate -- maybe religion. Maybe it says he's a Muslim. I don't know.
-- Donald Trump, on President Obama's birth certificate

Teabaggers at the Trough. This is something Think Progress & others have been covering for months, but let's give the MSM credit for finally catching up -- way after the election, of course:

     ... The print story is here.

Well, you know, it's never that easy to remove people from power -- even, you know, in Serbia and in Iraq we found that bombing alone didn't do it. Actually, ground troops had to go in and do it. There are many here in Washington now advocating ground troops. I think it's a slippery slope and it could it engage us in a third war. -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: history may teach, but only if you have some idea of what the history is. Paul, apparently, does not.

David Neiwert of Crooks & Liars reports on the "big important Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill ... of about 200 people." With fabulous Fox "News" video coverage. Neiwert remarks on the "strangely mixed message. The Tea Partiers wanted to blame the Democrats for shutting down the government -- while simultaneously demanding a shutdown!" It's a fine post.

Why do so-called reporters parrot Right Wing World talking points without doing any actual reporting? Greg Sargent: "CNN reporter Joe Johns last night credulously repeated an accusation by GOP Rep. Sean Duffy’s camp that Talking Points Memo posted a selectively edited video in which Duffy claimed to be having a tough time getting by on a Congressman’s $174,000 annual salary.... In fact, TPM originally posted the full video, but it was only pulled down after the Wisconsin GOP demanded it be yanked, and TPM’s original reporting specifically mentioned Duffy’s openness to the pay cut.... What’s perverse is that Johns was willing to amplify serious accusations of selective editing by TPM ... apparently without making any cursory effort to check out what happened, despite TPM’s well-respected journalistic track record. Meanwhile, mainstream news outlets too frequently give the benefit of the doubt to video 'revelations' from right-wing pseudo journalist/activists with known records of deception."

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

** Wisconsin State Journal: "UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin on Friday released some of the emails requested of a history professor [William Cronon] by the state Republican Party but said she is withholding others that 'fall within the orbit of academic freedom.'" Here's a response from Prof. Cronon, which includes copies of the texts of Chancellor Martin's letter & of the University attorney's letter to the GOP. ...

... La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune: "La Crosse area Democrats say they will file petitions today with enough signatures to trigger a recall election of Sen. Dan Kapanke, one of eight Senate Republicans targeted over votes to curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers. If approved, it would be just the fifth recall election of a Wisconsin legislator. Recall organizer Pat Scheller said volunteers have gathered more than the 15,588 signatures needed and that they plan to take them to Madison after a noon rally today at La Crosse City Hall."

Reuters: "Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday accused the AARP of gaining financially from President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, which the influential elderly advocacy group supported."

New York Times: "Stirred up by a trio of angry mullahs who urged them to avenge the burning of a Koran at Florida church, thousands of protesters overran the compound of the United Nations in [Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan]..., killing at least 12 people, Afghan and United Nations officials said. The dead included at least seven United Nations workers — five Nepalese guards and two Europeans, one of them a woman." ...

... New York Times: "The incident that so enraged Afghans, the burning of a Koran after a mock trial in a small Florida church on March 20, was barely noticed in the United States but widely reported in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The presidents of both countries have called on the United States to arrest Terry Jones, the pastor of the church."

New York Times: "The United States economy added 216,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported Friday, adding to hopes that hiring was finally on a steadier track despite concerns about overseas turmoil. The gain in jobs slightly exceeded economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate continued to decline, to 8.8 percent. Quite a few signs have pointed to this economic recovery finally gaining some momentum."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration proposed rules Thursday for using the influential Medicare program to spur a controversial form of managed care emerging around the country that nudges doctors and hospitals to save money by coordinating treatment for their patients. The rules are designed to carry out the first broad changes in the delivery of care under the year-old federal law intended to overhaul the nation’s health-care system. The proposal lays out a path for hospitals, doctors and other care providers to form teams called accountable care organizations (ACOs) that can become responsible for all the medical needs of a group of older Americans on Medicare."

Ben Bernanke now must finally understand that this money doesn’t belong to the Federal Reserve, it belongs to the American people and the American people have a right to know how their taxpayer dollars are being put at risk. -- Senator Bernard Sanders

Bloomberg News: "A Supreme Court order that forces unprecedented disclosures from the Federal Reserve ended a two-year legal battle that helped shape the public’s perceptions of the U.S. central bank. The high court yesterday let stand a lower-court ruling compelling the Fed to reveal the names of banks that borrowed money at the so-called discount window during the credit crisis. The records were requested by Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. In July, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank law, which mandated the release of other Fed bailout details."

New York Times: "A senior aide to one of Col Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sons has held secret talks in London with British authorities, a friend of the aide said on Friday, adding to the confusion and anxiety swirling around the Tripoli regime after the defection of a high-ranking minister and the departure of another senior figure to Cairo." Here's the Guardian story, which I linked late last night under yesterday's ledes. ...

... AP: "A Libyan opposition leader says the rebels will accept a U.N.-demanded cease-fire if Moammar Gadhafi pulls his forces from all cities and allows peaceful protests. Mustafa Abdul-Jalil spoke Friday during a joint press conference with U.N. envoy Abdelilah Al-Khatib. Al-Khatib is visiting the rebels' de-facto stronghold of Benghazi in hopes of reaching a cease-fire and political solution to the crisis embroiling the North African nation."

AP: "Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have packed a main square in the capital and are on the march elsewhere across the nation, demanding the country's ruler of 32 years step down. Many mosques in Sanaa have shut down as clerics and worshippers stream to the square to join the protests. The opposition is striving to have a million people on the streets on Friday to press for President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ouster."

New York Times: "Syria braced for renewed antigovernment demonstrations on Friday despite the government announcement a day before of new measures seemingly aimed at addressing the protesters’ demands."

New York Times: "The end of the Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo‘s rule appeared to be nearing on Friday as his rival’s troops pressed into the country’s main city of Abidjan, his own army chief of staff abandoned his post and his opponents claimed substantial defections of his troops and police officers."

New York Times: "Nasdaq OMX and IntercontinentalExchange on Friday made a hostile play for NYSE Euronext, offering $42.50 in cash and stock — in a deal that is valued at $11.3 billion. The joint proposal by the two exchanges bests the Deutsche Boerse offer by 19 percent and represents a 27 percent premium to the NYSE’s stock price before that initial deal was originally announced back in early February." Here's the Bloomberg story.