The Commentariat -- Jan. 15, 2013

Erik Wasson of The Hill: "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned Congress on Monday that the U.S. could default on its payment obligations as early as mid-February. Geithner, who has been employing 'extraordinary measures' since the debt ceiling was reached on Dec. 31, said he was running out of maneuvers to delay a default. He urged lawmakers to raise the $16.4 trillion borrowing limit quickly. 'Treasury currently expects to exhaust these extraordinary measures between mid-February and early March of this year,' Geithner said in a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other top leaders. The date range matches an informal estimate made by the Bipartisan Policy Center last week." CW: sure hope the first bills Treasury decides not to pay are Congressional paychecks. ...

... Jonathan Spicer of Reuters: "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday urged U.S. lawmakers to lift the country's borrowing limit to avoid a potentially disastrous debt default, warning that the economy was still at risk from political gridlock over the deficit." ...

... "The McConnell Provision." Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: "... while President Obama was laying down the gauntlet against congressional Republicans on raising the debt ceiling..., he gave a shout-out to an idea that was the brainchild of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) during the last debt-ceiling drama. 'If Congress wants to put the responsibility on me to do it, as Mitch McConnell wanted last year,' Obama said.... 'I'm happy to do that.'" How the McConnell Provision works:

CLICK GRAPHIC TO GO TO LARGER IMAGE.

... The Editors of the righty-right wing National Review tell Republicans to back off: "Republicans should recognize that the prospect of default is the ... primary source of the Democrats' leverage." They suggest Republicans instead pass a bill somehow limiting future spending. CW: I don't quite understand their proposal, but then I don't care. Besides, note that the NR geniuses are such experts that they begin their editorial, "The federal government will hit the statutory limit on its debt within the next two months, and further borrowing would require congressional action." Actually, no. We hit the statutory limit at the end of last year. ...

     ... Update: it appears the experts at the National Review got their proposed law from famed macroeconomist & Constitutional lawyer Karl Rove.

... Charles Pierce comments on the President's press conference. Short version: "Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money." ...

... CW: the best thing about the President's presser today is that he has finally learned to say "Republican." He spent 98 percent of his first term calling them "some in Washington," or "Congress" or at best, "the other side." Casual listeners had no idea he was talking about Republicans. (I once got a White House speech writer to slip the word "Republican" into an Obama speech; but it was, as they say in the teevee biz -- an OTO -- a one-time-only event. Obama went right back to calling out "some people.") He made abundantly clear today -- again & again -- who he was talking about. ...

... AND this was inevitable. The Bipartisan Beltway Boys will be complaining the President was way too mean to Repubicans. Dana Milbank gets the ball rolling. "Arguably, Obama's no-more-Mr.-Nice-Guy approach is good politics. His first-term experience made clear that he gained nothing from Republicans when he took a passive approach. When it comes to getting things done in Washington, there's no substitute for forceful presidential leadership.... Yet the performance was also a reminder of why Obama isn't noted for his interpersonal warmth...." CW: so a President has to be in-your-face to get anything done, but, um, s/he can't be "adversarial." The Beltway Boy's advice is "damned if you do & damned if you don't. Either way, I'll get a column out of it. Thanks for a living, Mr. O." ...

"My offer is this: nothing." If you don't have time to watch all of President Obama's news conference (embedded in yesterday's Commentariat), watch the shorter version. Everything about the clip is remarkably apt, including the Senator's extended ethnic slur (wherein oily = nappy):

Democrats Against Gun Control. Steve Kornacki of Salon: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) provided "a valuable reminder on Monday night that the issue isn't simply driven by a partisan divide. In a new interview with a Nevada public television station..., Reid refused to endorse any of the reforms that Joe Biden is expected to present to President Obama on Tuesday.... Reid also all but pronounced the assault weapons ban ... dead on arrival.... The Senate also includes a number of Democrats like Reid from pro-gun states who would rather not go on record voting for a new ban.... In stating that he won't consider legislation that doesn't stand a chance in the House, Reid appears to be giving pro-gun Senate Democrats an opportunity to duck the question." ...

... Thomas Kaplan & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: New York "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers agreed on Monday to a broad package of changes to gun laws that would expand the state's ban on assault weapons and would include new measures to keep guns away from the mentally ill. The state Senate, controlled by a coalition of Republicans and a handful of Democrats, approved the legislative package just after 11 p.m. by a lopsided vote of 43 to 18. The Assembly, where Democrats who have been strongly supportive of gun control have an overwhelming majority, planned to vote on the measure Tuesday."

** A gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense. -- Dr. Art Kellerman, whose research was stymied when Congress, at the behest of the NRA, ordered the Center for Disease Control to stop funding gun use studies ...

... Stephanie Pappas of Live Science has more on Congress's stifling of gun research: "Congress members who supported the NRA first attempted to remove all funding from the NCIPC. That failed, but Congress did manage to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's overall budget, the exact amount spent on firearm injury research in the past year.... More chillingly, Congress added language to the budget appropriations bill forbidding any CDC funding that might 'advocate or promote gun control.'" CW: in other words, anything that might hint guns were, like, dangerous.

... David Nakamura & Jon Cohen of the Washington Post: "Most Americans support tough new measures to counter gun violence, including banning assault weapons and posting armed guards at every school, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.... The findings, which also show broad bipartisan support for mandatory background checks to purchase firearms at gun shows, came as President Obama said Monday that he will lay out specific White House proposals on gun-control legislation and executive actions this week." ...

Pew Research Center also found strong majorities supporting background checks, a national gun-tracking database, & bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammo clips.

CW: compare these results with the Gallup poll I linked yesterday, which showed that fewer than half of Americans favored tighter gun control. Gallup (a) loaded the question; (b) asked a wholly different demographic sample from the WashPo respondents; or (c) both. You can bet Republicans will rely on Gallup, just as they did during the presidential race, when Gallup consistently showed Not-President-Elect Whatzizname in the lead. ...

... Yet Another Poll. Shane Goldmacher of the National Journal: "A slim majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe that controlling gun ownership is more important than protecting the right of Americans to own firearms, according to the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll. But beneath that divided topline were far more telling cleavages. The survey showed that the gun-control debate in America has split along the same fault lines -- by age group, ethnicity, gender, even region -- that marked the 2012 presidential contest between Obama and Mitt Romney." CW: ah yes, Romney; that's the name I forgot. And, please, somebody tell Harry Reid, et al., about this. ...

... Alec MacGillis of The New Republic notes that "the national conversation" on gun legislation is actually shifting toward stricter controls. Moves by Democratic Governors Andrew Cuomo (N.Y.), Martin O'Malley (Md.) & John Hickenlooper (Colo.) are paving the way. ...

... Ray Rivera of the New York Times: "The grieving mothers and other parents and family members of victims killed in the Dec. 14 [Sandy Hook] elementary school massacre gathered [in Newtown, Connecticut] at a news conference on Monday to help begin a campaign aimed at preventing the kind of bloodshed that has turned this quiet New England community into a national symbol of grief.... "Perhaps foreshadowing the difficult and contentious debates to come in Washington, group members declined to offer support for any specific measures, saying they needed time to educate themselves on the issues, and emphasizing that the debate must be broader than gun control." ...

... Tom Engelhardt: "Beyond U.S. borders, the reality is: the Pentagon, with the White House in tow, is the functional equivalent of the NRA, and like that organization, it has been working tirelessly in recent years in close alliance with major weapons-makers to ensure that there are ever less controls on the ever more powerful weaponry it wants to see sold abroad. Between them, the White House and the Pentagon - with a helping hand from the State Department ... do their best to pave the way ... for the almost unfettered sales of ever more lethal weapons."

Natasha Lennard of Salon: "Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote a letter to John Brennan -- nominee for CIA director, Obama's counterterrorism adviser, and central architect of U.S. drone warfare -- asking to see the legal opinions and rules behind the targeted killing of U.S. citizens in counterterrorism efforts and demanding a list of countries where America is conducting shadow wars.

Manu Raju of Politico: "New York Sen. Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday he'd support Chuck Hagel's nomination as defense secretary, removing a major obstacle to his nomination and greatly increasing the chances he'll be confirmed, even as Hagel continues to face opposition from the right."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "The White House says it will give states more time to comply with the new health care law after finding that many states lag in setting up markets where millions of Americans are expected to buy subsidized private health insurance.... A political benefit of this strategy is that it allows the administration to keep working with even the most recalcitrant states." ...

... Elize Viebeck of The Hill: "Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) proposed expanding Medicaid under President Obama's signature healthcare law, a surprising move from a vocal critic of the White House.... Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government covers all initial costs for states to expand their Medicaid programs up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line. Arizona's program currently covers most people below the U.S. poverty level, meaning about 300,000 would gain coverage if the state expands Medicaid."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Around 11:45 on Monday morning, Justice Clarence Thomas broke almost seven years of silence during Supreme Court arguments. But it was not entirely clear what he said."

Denise Lavoie of the AP: "Andrew Good, a Boston attorney who represented Aaron Swartz in the [alleged hacking] case last year, said he told federal prosecutors in Massachusetts that Swartz was a suicide risk. 'Their response was, put him in jail, he'll be safe there,' Good said."

Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "The suicide of Aaron Swartz has drawn new scrutiny to a federal law that has been widely used to prosecute a variety of people accused of being trolls, bullies and cyberthieves. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, enacted in 1986, is the basis for much of the government's case against Mr. Swartz. It makes it illegal to gain access to a computer system without 'authorization.' ... The blogosphere buzzed with arguments on Monday over the scope and application of the law. A petition went up Monday afternoon, pressing the Obama administration to reform the Fraud Act."

Photo by Dreamstime.Live Science: "The hands of the infamous 'Doomsday Clock' will remain firmly in their place at five minutes to midnight -- symbolizing humans' destruction -- for the year 2013, scientists announced today (Jan. 14). Keeping their outlook for the future of humanity quite dim, the group of scientists also wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama, urging him to partner with other global leaders to act on climate change."

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "Since beginning his campaign for president, [Egyptian President Mohamed] Morsi has promised to uphold Egypt's treaty with Israel and to seek peace in the region. In recent months, he has begun to forge a personal bond with President Obama around their successful efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Palestinian militants of the Gaza Strip. But the exposure this month of his virulent comments from early 2010, both documented on video, have revealed sharp anti-Semitic and anti-Western sentiments, raising questions about Mr. Morsi's efforts to present himself as a force for moderation and stability."

Congressional Race

I think my job as mom right now is much more important, much more rewarding and much more productive [than being a Member of Congress]. The idea of killing myself to run for a seat for the privilege of serving in a dysfunctional body under John Boehner when I have an eighth-grader at home just really doesn't make sense to me. -- Jenny Sanford, Appalachian Trail victim ...

... Catalina Camia of the USA Today: "Jenny Sanford's decision avoids a potentially messy campaign against her ex-husband [former pseudo-hiker/governor Mark Sanford, who has since married become engaged to the lady he wasn't hiking with] in the GOP primary. The Weekly Standard reported last week that sources close to the former Republican governor say he will run for Scott's seat, which Sanford held from 1995 to 2001 before being elected governor." ...

... You may not see the tragedy in this, but Charles Pierce is having trouble adjusting.

Local News

Some of the panels by Judy Taylor, commissioned for the Maine State Labor Department.Matthew Stone of the Bangor Daily News: "Nearly two years after Gov. Paul LePage had a mural depicting Maine labor history removed from the lobby of the Department of Labor building, the artwork resurfaced Monday at its new home: the Maine State Museum.... LePage ordered the mural removed from the Labor Department lobby in March 2011, saying it presented a one-sided view of history and was not in keeping with the pro-business message of his administration."

Right Wing World *

Nut ... Tree. AP: "U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's son has been charged with assaulting a flight attendant during a trip from Kentucky to North Carolina. The Charlotte Observer reported over the weekend (http://bit.ly/W1D5kg ) that 19-year-old William Paul was charged with misdemeanor assault on a female by aggressive physical force. The paper had previously reported that he also was charged with underage drinking, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive." CW: Not to worry, Littlest Paul. There is a place for you now. ...

... Glenn's Gulch. Igor Bobic of TPM: "Conservative radio host Glenn Beck is planning to construct a self-sustaining libertarian community in Texas to the tune of $2 billion, the Dallas Observer reported on Friday. The community, which Beck dubs 'Independence Park,' does not have a specified location yet, but it will be styled after 'Galt's Gulch,' a fictional utopian commune in Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged.'" Thanks to Lisa for the link.

CW: I owe readers an apology, as there's a whole world of crazy I totally missed -- the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists. Alex Seitz-Wald, in this January 9 Salon post, provides a good overview: "Most of the theories are really pieces of a larger meta-theory: that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, perhaps by the Obama administration, designed to stir demand for gun control." And nice to know my Florida tax dollars are supporting one of these loons, a tenured professor at a state university. May Prof. Tracy too find a home in Glenn's Gulch. ...

... BUT just blowing smoke isn't enough. Now some of these nuts are harassing victims, like this Newtown psychologist who lives near the school & harbored some children who came to his door moments after the massacre.

*   Will no longer be an imaginary place. **
** The Glennbeckistan City Hall is to be erected at the junction of Delusion Drive & Paranoia Parkway.

News Ledes

AP: "Northeastern lawmakers hoping to push a $50.7 billion Superstorm Sandy aid package through the House face roadblocks by fiscal conservatives seeking offsetting spending cuts to pay for recovery efforts as well as funding cuts for projects they say are unrelated to the Oct. 29 storm. The amendments by budget hawks set up a faceoff Tuesday...."

New York Times: "Pakistan's supreme court ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in a corruption case on Tuesday afternoon, dramatically raising the stakes in a tense standoff between the government and its opponents."

Reuters: "Royal Bank of Scotland is braced for fines of between 400 million pounds and 500 million pounds ($803 million) for its role in an interest rate rigging scandal, sources familiar with the matter said. The partly state-owned bank is expected to agree a settlement with authorities in Britain and the United States next week and will be hit with a worse punishment than rival Barclays, which was fined $450 million last June."

Reuters: "Italy suspended activity at its consulate in Benghazi and withdrew staff for security reasons on Tuesday after a gun attack on its consul at the weekend which underlined the precarious security situation in the North African state. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Guido De Sanctis's heavily armored car in Benghazi, Libya's second city, on Saturday. The diplomat was unhurt...."

The Commentariat -- Jan. 14, 2013

Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama on Monday repeated his call for deficit reduction but warned against the potentially catastrophic effect on the economy by tying cuts to raising the debt ceiling. 'While I'm willing to compromise and find common ground over how to reduce our deficit, America cannot afford another debate with this Congress over how to pay the bills they've already racked up,' Obama said in the East Room of the White House at what aides have billed as the final news conference of his first term. 'To even entertain the idea of this happening, of America not paying its bills, is irresponsible. It's absurd. They will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy,' Obama said. 'The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip.'" The New York Times story, by Jackie Calmes & Michael Shear, is here. ...

... Here's a clip wherein Obama explains the debt limit. Pretty good:

... Update: here's the full presser, with a special babbling intro by Brian Williams, Greggers & Chuck Todd (so sorry, hadda lose the NBC video):

... Update. Boehner's Go-Fuck-Yourself Response. Andrew Taylor of the AP: "Speaker John Boehner says the GOP-controlled House will 'do its job' and pass legislation to lift the nation's borrowing cap and keep the government running, but will insist that Democrats accept new spending controls. [Emphasis added.] Boehner acknowledged Monday that failing to lift the so-called debt ceiling would have bad consequences. But he also said that 'allowing our spending problem to go unresolved' would be just as troublesome."

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: re: the demise of the Great Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin:"... the White House doesn't think it's backing down. Administration officials believe they are standing firm -- that the coin option, if anything, was becoming a distraction.... Republican congressional leaders seem to recognize this, even if some of their members do not.... You can safely assume West Wing officials worried that a protracted debate about the coin's propriety was going to make their job more difficult, not less, by interfering with their ability to portray the debate in simple, straightforward terms."

As Josh Marshall wrote last Friday, before the Treasury Department announced it would not be minting any platinum coins, the platinum coin made it appear that the President was "the one doing something reckless and totally crazy rather than Congressional Republicans who are the ones really doing it." ...

Thanks to a friend for the cartoon.... CW: I continue to believe that the coin was a brilliant idea. If the White House had played it right, rather than making the President look crazy, it would have demonstrated how entirely trivial/unhinged the House was -- a gang of nutbags whose hostage-taking attempt could be foiled by a gimmick out of the comic books. I think it was Matt Yglesias who suggested that the coin should be rather large, but I would have made it teeny-tiny, to symbolize the teeny-tininess of the gnats it swatted back. (Krugman suggested, facetiously, I think, that Boehner should have been the face on the coin.)

CW: the best way for Obama to win this one is to demand Republicans allow Congress to raise the debt ceiling before Congressional Democrats & the Administration will sit down with Republicans to talk sequester. (Pundits keep scratching their head over how the President can possibly win with no tricks or gimmicks on the table; refusing to discuss the sequester has seemed to me like the obvious move all along.) Boehner himself could come out a big winner -- he won't because he's not that smart -- by abandoning House Teabaggers & forming an alliance with Pelosi. In that way, his footnote in history could have showed him to be a patriot first & a clever operator second, doing whatever possible to right the ship of fools; instead, the footnote will read Cap'n Boner went down with the ship. ...

      ... Update: during his presser today, President Obama suggested doing it Marie's way. I did not notice where he mentioned my name. ...

... Meanwhile, Andy Borowitz reports, "President Barack Obama was 'totally furious' he spent a week of his time posing for a trillion-dollar platinum coin that would never be minted, a White House source confirmed today."

George Packer of the New Yorker writes a cultural mini-history of the South, a region whose values -- ascendant in the late 20th-century -- now have less and less influence in the rest of the U.S. ...

... NEW. Driftglass: "The GOP cannot be saved, and our nation can no longer endure permanently half-Fox and half-free. The Republican Party must go."

Colin Powell defends Hillary Clinton, Chuck Hagel, rips GOP:

     ... Charles Pierce comments on Greggers-Powell non sequiters & denialism, then moves on to shenanigans on other riveting Sunday morning shows. Thanks to James S. for the link.

     ... Ginger Gibson of Politico: "While continuing to identify as a Republican, former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday criticized the GOP for a series of racist attacks against President Barack Obama. 'There's also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party,' Powell said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' "What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities."

Obama 2.0

Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "The campaign now being waged against [Chuck] Hagel's nomination as secretary of defense is in some ways a relitigation of that decade-old dispute [over Iraq]. It is also a dramatic return to the public stage by the neoconservatives whose worldview remains a powerful undercurrent in the Republican Party and in the national debate about the United States' relationship with Israel and the Middle East." ...

... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "In what could be a crucial moment in the Obama administration’s efforts to advance the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, he will meet this week with Senator Charles E. Schumer [D-N.Y.], the most influential Jewish member of the Senate, who is expected to press Mr. Hagel on issues concerning Iran and Israel."

Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "A poisonous unraveling of U.S. relations with Russia in recent months represents more than the failure of President Obama's first-term attempt to 'reset' badly frayed bilateral relations. It threatens pillars of Obama's second-term foreign policy agenda as well. From Syria and Iran to North Korea and Afghanistan, Russian President Vladimir Putin holds cards that he can use to help or hurt Obama administration objectives."

Lydia Saad of Gallup: "In the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, and as Vice President Joe Biden leads a federal task force that will recommend ways to curb gun violence in the U.S., 38% of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation's gun laws and want them strengthened. This is up from 25% who held this set of views a year ago, and is the highest since 2001. Still, more Americans are either satisfied with current gun laws, 43%, or think they should be loosened, 5%." ...

... David Jackson of USA Today: "Vice President Biden, poised to propose new gun violence legislation this week, meets Monday morning with Democratic lawmakers who will consider the administration's plans. Biden sits down with members of the House Democratic task force on gun violence, as the Obama administration is marking the week of its second inaugural with a robust debate on guns. Biden says he wants to present a gun package to President Obama by Tuesday...." ...

... Aaron Davis & John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley will seek to institute some of the nation's strictest gun-licensing requirements, ban assault weapons and restrict visitor access to schools in one of the most expansive government responses sought to last month's school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Perhaps most controversially, O'Malley (D) will ask the General Assembly to force prospective gun owners to provide fingerprints to state police, complete a hands-on weapon-familiarization and gun-safety course, and undergo a background check to be licensed." ...

... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Nearly 80,000 Americans were denied guns in 2010, according to Justice Department data, because they lied or provided inaccurate information about their criminal histories on background-check forms. Yet only 44 of those people were charged with a crime. The staggeringly low number of prosecutions for people who 'lie and try,' as it is called by law enforcement officials, is being studied by the Obama administration as it considers measures to curb gun violence after the Connecticut elementary school shootings in December." ...

... Will Dunham & David Brunnstrom of Reuters: "Gun rights groups on Sunday forecast that bids to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips would fail in Congress, as Vice President Joe Biden prepares this week to give President Barack Obama proposals to curb gun violence. Even some congressional Democrats indicated that a bill to revive the U.S. assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 would have a difficult time winning passage in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate." ...

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Gun advocate Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners Of America, spoke out against expanding background checks for gun purchases during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, arguing that the proposal would provide Americans with a 'false sense of security' and waste time. Instead, Pratt encouraged lawmakers to eliminate gun-free zones in schools and self defense." With video. ...

Screenshot of NRA app via Think Progress.... Bambi Gets a Break as NRA Turns Focus to Killing People. Annie-Rose Strasser of Think Progress: "... over the weekend [the NRA] released a shooting app, called 'NRA: Practice Range.' ... It allows players practice shooting at targets -- coffin-shaped targets, with red bullseyes at head-and heart-level."

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The Center for American Progress is recommending 13 new gun policies to the White House -- some of them executive actions that would not require the approval of Congress -- in what amounts to the progressive community's wish list. CAP's proposals ... include requiring universal background checks, banning military-grade assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and modernizing data systems to track gun sales and enforce existing laws...." ...

... Rahmbo's Back. Daniel Strauss of The Hill: "Rahm Emanuel, who put the brakes on gun control in the Obama White House, is now pushing for broad changes to firearm policies in Chicago.... Emanuel wants to strengthen Chicago's gun laws to address an alarming increase in homicides. In late December, Chicago attracted national attention when law-enforcement officials confirmed the city's 500th homicide in 2012." ...

... Digby is not impressed: "Until we racked up a huge body count of innocent people, it was best to STFU and elect as many government officials of both parties who would oppose any kind of gun control. That's what people in the beltway call 'pragmatism.' I call it immoral." ...

... CW: I hope you all had a chance to read at least one of the "history of gun laws" pieces I linked over the weekend, one from the Atlantic by Adam Winkler & one by several Wash Po reporters. They are both fascinating. One thing that struck me is that a big impetus for gun control legislation in the late '60s, early '70s was fear of black men; now a big impetus for lax guns laws is fear of a particular black man. We-all of the Great Melting Pot never do seem to melt, do we? Plus read George Packer, linked today.

New York Times Editors: "Until now, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has not seen a single member of his caucus dare to buck his fierce opposition to a law requiring fuller disclosure of campaign contributions. But last month, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, broke through the partisan wall to propose a badly needed mandate for [campaign finance] transparency.... The measure, co-sponsored by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, would require any campaign organization spending $500 or more on federal political activity to disclose who its donors are, and to do so in 'real time' at every point, from 'candidacy to advocacy.'"

Noam Cohen of the New York Times: Aaron "Swartz was a flash point in the debate over whether information should be made widely available. On one side were activists like Mr. Swartz and advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Students for Free Culture. On the other were governments and corporations that argued that some information must be kept private for security or commercial reasons. After his death, Mr. Swartz has come to symbolize a different debate over how aggressively governments should pursue criminal cases against people like Mr. Swartz who believe in 'freeing' information."

Ginger Gibson of Politico: "Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Sunday continued to teeter the line about whether he will run for the U.S. Senate and potentially challenge incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg to a primary. 'That's my intention, but it's over a year away,' Booker said when asked if he's going to run. 'A lot could change between now and then.'"

Paul Krugman: Shinzo Abe, the new Prime Minister of Japan, "returned to office pledging to end Japan's long economic stagnation, and he has already taken steps orthodoxy says we mustn't take. And the early indications are that it's going pretty well.... While getting out of a prolonged slump turns out to be very difficult, that's mainly because it's hard getting policy makers to accept the need for bold action. That is, the problem is mainly political and intellectual, rather than strictly economic."

News Ledes

New York Times: "At least two deadly explosions, possibly caused by aircraft missiles or bombs, devastated the campus of Aleppo University in Syria on Tuesday as students were taking exams, a major escalation of the violent struggle for control of the country's largest city. The opposition and government blamed each other for the blasts, among the worst since the Syrian conflict began nearly two years ago."

AP: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office said Monday he was never involved in a deal to have a Utah businessman pay the senator to make a federal investigation disappear. St. George, [Utah,] businessman Jeremy Johnson, who's accused of running a $350 million software scheme, said a top official in the Utah attorney general's office orchestrated an agreement in 2010 to pay $600,000 to someone connected to Reid. Johnson told The Salt Lake Tribune over the weekend that he believed Reid would intervene in the Federal Trade Commission's investigation into his business."

NBC News: "Former President George H.W. Bush will be released Monday from a Houston hospital after nearly two months of treatment for a bronchitis-related cough and other health issues...." ...

     ... Houston Chronicle: "Former President George H.W. Bush was discharged from Methodist Hospital on Monday after being treated for bronchitis, a bacterial infection and a lingering cough during his seven-week stay."

Reuters: "U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay called on Monday for an international investigation into what she said were decades of serious violations in North Korea, including torture and executions of political prisoners held in shadowy camps."

The Commentariat -- Jan. 13, 2013

An Extraordinary White House Friday Afternoon News Dump. Tim McDonnell of Mother Jones: "The National Climate Assessment is produced by the US Global Change Research Program, which is tasked with collating climate research from a wide variety of federal agencies and, every few years, distilling it into one major report. The latest, a first draft, is the third such report (the last was in 2009), product of a 1990 law that requires the White House to produce semi-regular updates on climate science to Congress. Today's report echoes the themes of earlier editions, and paints a picture that is all the more grim for being an unsurprising confirmation of the dangers we've come to know all too well." McDonnell lists the report's major findings. ...

... John P. Holdren & Jane Lubchenco explain the purpose of the report on the White House blog. It's all about "expanding the conversation."

... Ben Geman of The Hill: "A major draft federal report concludes that climate change is already affecting U.S. residents through heat waves, droughts and other changes, and warns that temperatures could increase as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit if global carbon emissions keep soaring. The third National Climate Assessment, released Friday, said there's 'unambiguous evidence' that earth is warming, and that climate change over the past 50 years is driven primarily by human activity, especially from burning fossil fuels.

The Eisenhower Presidency, Redux. Maureen Dowd, after dissing a number of the country's most successful female leaders (because that's what she does), Dowd get it right this time in this week's takedown of President Obama: "It's passing strange that Obama, carried to a second term by women, blacks and Latinos, chooses to give away the plummiest Cabinet and White House jobs to white dudes.... Word from the White House is that the president himself is irritated, and demanding answers about the faces his staff is pushing forward. Unfortunately, he has only a bunch of white guys to offer an explanation of why the picture looks like a bunch of white guys."

I agree with practically everything Ross Douthat writes in his column today. I do.

Daniel Drezner in Foreign Affairs: "During the Cold War, the party of Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Reagan was strongly anticommunist, but these presidents took foreign policy seriously and executed their grand strategies with a healthy degree of tactical flexibility. Since 9/11, however, Republicans have known only one big thing -- the 'global war on terror' -- and have remained stubbornly committed to a narrow militarized approach. Since the fall of Baghdad, moreover, this approach has produced at least as much failure as success, leading the American public to be increasingly skeptical of the bellicosity that now defines the party's foreign policy.... The 2012 election was the nadir of the GOP's decadelong descent.... Since the knee-jerk Republican response has been to call for military action anywhere and everywhere trouble breaks out, the American people have tuned out the GOP's alarmist rhetoric." ...

... It's 'I Like Ike" Day! James Joyner, a self-described Eisenhower Republican, agrees with Drezner. So does Susan Eisenhower: "Ike's granddaughter and a Republican foreign policy leader in her own right, argues that 'the impact of the [Chuck] Hagel nomination could well be about the future of the Republican Party.... The Republican Party is now at a crossroads. Over the last decade moderate Republicans have felt increasingly out of place in its ranks. If the GOP confirms Hagel, it could bolster the idea of a 'big tent' Republican Party. A GOP-led rejection of a Republican war hero with impeccable centrist credentials, however, could well be a fatal blow to that concept, along with some of the party's longest and most successful traditions."

Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit. -- Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the Treasury Department

Now What? ... if we didn't have some history here I might be confident that the administration knows what it's doing. But we do have that history, and you have to fear the worst. -- Paul Krugman, earlier

There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills, or it can fail to act and put the nation into default. Congress needs to do its job. -- Jay Carney, White House press secretary, in a statement

The White House insists that it is absolutely, positively not going to cave or indeed even negotiate over the debt ceiling -- that it rejected the coin option as a gesture of strength, as a way to put the onus for avoiding default entirely on the GOP. -- Paul Krugman, later

Here's Krugman on Bill Moyers' show, which aired Friday:

New York Times Editors: "... prematurely forcing through a COLA cut [in Social Security payments, as the Obama administration apparently plans to do,] would be unnecessary and unwise." Read the whole piece. CW: Krugman may think he's really influential, but once again Obama isn't listening. It looks here as if Obama & Jon Stewart got their economics training at the same school (see Infotainment).

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "President Obama plans to push Congress to move quickly in the coming months on an ambitious overhaul of the immigration system that would include a path to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, senior administration officials and lawmakers said last week."

First They Cheat You, Then They Cheat You. Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: often when banks make settlements for their own wrongdoing, they reduce their tax liability by deducting the cost of the settlements as business expenses. "Taxpayers, therefore, will likely lighten the banks' loads.... Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, [said] You can be sure the Wall Street banks consider tax consequences in negotiations and the government should, too. Any portion of a settlement that's intended to be a penalty should include language clarifying it isn't deductible.'"

Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog makes the case that James Yeager, the Tennessee guys who threatened to "start killing people" if President Obama expanded gun control, may not get his carry permit back. I hope he's right ...

... BUT I'm with Imani Gandy on this one: "If James Yeager had been Jalal al Yeager or Tyrone Yeager, who wants to wager that the response to his roid tantrum this week would have been vastly different?" ...

... Update: Apparently on the advice of his lawyer, Yeager has decided not to "start killing people," after all. According to his latest video, embedded on the linked Raw Story page, Yeager only plans to kill people when he gets angry. He says it is not time for violent action [against the government]. Perhaps he'll let us know when it is time.

... ** AND that leads to this fascinating read by Prof. Adam Winkler, writing in the Atlantic: "The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership -- and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers -- the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement." ...

... Joel Achenbach, et al., of the Washington Post: "How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby."

"Don't Just Make a Living; Make a Mark." Robert Hooker of the Tampa Bay Times: "Eugene Patterson, a journalist who crusaded for civil rights in American society and higher standards in America's newsrooms, died Saturday after a long illness. The former editor, chairman and chief executive officer of the Times was 89. During his 41 years in journalism, Mr. Patterson won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors...." The Tampa Bay Times has more here. The New York Times obituary is here. ...

... Patterson's most famous column, published in the Atlanta Constitution September 16, 1963, was titled "A Flower for the Graves," & is republished here.

John Schwartz of the New York Times: "Aaron Swartz, a wizardly programmer who as a teenager helped develop code that delivered ever-changing Web content to users and later became a steadfast crusader to make that information freely available, was found dead on Friday in his New York apartment. An uncle ... said that Mr. Swartz had apparently hanged himself.... At 14, Mr. Swartz helped create RSS, the nearly ubiquitous tool that allows users to subscribe to online information. He later became an Internet folk hero, pushing to make many Web files free and open to the public. But in July 2011, he was indicted on federal charges of gaining illegal access to JSTOR, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals, and downloading 4.8 million articles and documents, nearly the entire library." ...

... Digby: "I'm pretty sure that one of the main [reasons for Swartz's suicide] was the fact that he was being pursued with single-minded, Javert-like obsession by the US Justice department over an alleged crime that hurt no one and which was not even being pursued by the alleged victim.... As we've seen with RIAA, the Manning case and Wikileaks, the government seems to be overreacting to 'computer crime' much like the authorities in the Salem Witch trials overreacted to some hysterical teen-age behavior.... We are supposed to be a democracy in which the government works for us, not the commercial enterprises and national security apparatus that apparently has the government obsessively chasing citizens who have the talent and the ideals to expose their crimes and shortcomings. This is a very ugly, very shameful episode." ...

... Taylor Berman of Gawker posts more commentary from Swartz's friends, along the same line.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee toots its own horn. And rightly so. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. Meanwhile, in ...

Right Wing World

Algebra Has a Well-Known Liberal Bias

Algebra Textbook: Distributive Property states that the product of a number and a sum is equal to the sum of the individual products of the addends and the number. That is, a(b + c) = ab + ac.

Eric Bolling of Fox "News": ... some textbooks are pushing the liberal agenda. [Holding up a Scholastic Books algebra worksheet above designed to "give students insight into the distributive property as it applies to multiplication."] Distribute the wealth! Distribute the wealth with the lovely rich girl with a big ole bag of money, handing some money out.

Kimberly Guilfoyle of Fox "News," responding: My son is in kindergarten.... We're on high alert especially after this inappropriateness.

Constant Weader: Isn't it great that kindergartners are learning algebra?

News Ledes

Washington Post: "U.S. military fighter jets provided backup support to a failed French hostage rescue mission in Somalia, the White House announced Sunday in a rare public acknowledgment of American combat operations in the Horn of Africa. In a letter to Congress, President Obama said U.S. combat aircraft 'provided limited technical support' to French forces late Friday as they attempted to rescue a French spy who had been held captive for more than three years."

Washington Post: "Police in the northern Indian state of Punjab said Sunday that they have arrested seven men in the gang rape of a 29-year-old woman who was traveling alone on a bus, less than four weeks after the brutal rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus created a national outcry about the safety of women in public places."

Reuters: "Japan Airlines Co (JAL) said on Sunday that a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner jet undergoing checks in Tokyo following a fuel leak at Boston airport last week had leaked fuel during tests earlier in the day."

New York Times: "An Egyptian appeals court on Sunday overturned the life sentence of former President Hosni Mubarak for directing the killing of protesters and ordered a new trial, a ruling that could prolong a politically fraught legal battle over the fate of Egypt's deposed autocrat two years after he was ousted." Al Jazeera story here.

New York Times: "Israeli security forces evicted scores of Palestinian activists before dawn on Sunday from a tent encampment they had set up set up two days earlier in a strategic piece of Israeli-occupied West Bank territory known as E1, east of Jerusalem, where Israel says it plans to build settler homes." ...

... Al Jazeera Update: "Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has pledged to move ahead with building a Jewish settlement in a strategic area of the West Bank, speaking just hours after Israeli troops dragged anti-settlement protesters from the site marked for construction. The planned settlement, known as E1, would deepen east Jerusalem's separation from the West Bank, both war-won areas the Palestinians want for their state."

AP: "The battle to retake Mali's north from the al-Qaida-linked groups controlling it began in earnest Saturday, after hundreds of French forces deployed to the country and began aerial bombardments to drive back the Islamic extremists. At the same time, nations in West Africa authorized the immediate deployment of troops to Mali, fast-forwarding a military intervention that was not due to start until September." ...

     ... Update: "French fighter jets bombed rebel targets in a major city in Mali's north Sunday, pounding the airport as well as training camps, warehouses and buildings used by the al-Qaida-linked Islamists controlling the area, officials and residents said."

Al Jazeera: "At least 17 Pakistani soldiers have been killed and 11 wounded after a roadside bomb hit a military convoy in a northwestern lawless tribal area, officials said. The attack happened on Sunday in Dosali village in the North Waziristan tribal district, a stronghold of Taliban fighters."

AP: "Police said Sunday they have arrested six suspects in another gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws."

New York Times: "Thousands of Russians marched on Sunday in condemnation of the Russian Parliament's move to ban adoption of Russian children by American families, an event dubbed a 'March Against Scoundrels,' where participants chanted, 'Take your hands off children,' and carried posters showing the faces of lawmakers stamped with the word 'Shame.'"

Reuters: "The Vatican newspaper on Sunday stressed that children should be raised by a father and a mother after Italy's top appeals court granted a gay mother custody of her son.... The court ruled it was 'mere prejudice' to think that a child could not be brought up normally by homosexual parents.... Gay rights group Arcigay hailed the decision as a 'historic ruling' in Italy, where it is illegal for gay couples to adopt...."