The Commentariat -- April 25, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer looks at the New York Times' coverage of Mitt Romney's most recent flip-flops. the NYTX front page is here. (Highly recommended: Belen Fernandez on "10 of Thomas Friedman's Dumbest 'Big Ideas.'" Oh, she knows more.) You can contribute here.

President Obama slow-jams the news with Jimmy Fallon & The Root:

Part 1 of Fallon's interview of the President begins here. Play through to Parts 2, 3 & 4:

"Frontline"'s "Money, Power & Wall Street," Episode 1. Thanks to contributor Dave S. for the link:

The Inquisition Lives! (Really.) Norman Birnbaum of The Nation has a good post on "The Vatican's Latest Target in the War on Women -- Nuns."

Michael Schmidt & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "... the misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia, ranges from personnel, including at least one veteran supervisor, who knowingly took prostitutes to their hotel rooms to at least two employees who had encounters with women who investigators now believe were not prostitutes.... Of the dozen originally implicated, a total of three will remain; six have resigned; two have been dismissed; and one has retired." ...

... Carol Leonnig & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Some Secret Service employees accused of misconduct in the Colombian prostitution scandal are privately contending that their conduct didn't warrant dismissal because senior managers tolerated similar behavior during official trips.... Several of the men who agreed to resign under pressure last week are also considering reversing their decisions and fighting to keep their jobs.... The prospect of Secret Service agents sharing embarrassing tales about rank-and-file employees and superiors partying to the hilt could bring more anguish to an agency reeling from scandal."

Maureen Dowd reports from Greensboro, North Carolina, on the John Edwards trial. ...

... Robin Bravender of Politico: Campaign finance law experts from across the political spectrum, including some former Federal Election Commission officials, say the Justice Department is wasting its time and resources and setting a terrible precedent in the John Edwards case.... Even some campaign finance reform groups are arguing that it's overreach."

Jessica Greenberg of the New York Times: "Hospital patients waiting in an emergency room or convalescing after surgery are being confronted by an unexpected visitor: a debt collector at bedside. This and other aggressive tactics by one of the nation's largest collectors of medical debts, Accretive Health, were revealed on Tuesday by the Minnesota attorney general, raising concerns that such practices have become common at hospitals across the country."

Tom Hamburger, et al., of the Washington Post: "Wal-Mart..., now under fire over allegations of foreign bribery in Mexico, has participated in an aggressive and high-priced lobbying campaign to amend the long-standing U.S. anti-bribery law that the company might have violated. The push to revisit how federal authorities enforce the statute has been centered at a little-known but well-funded arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where a top executive of Wal-Mart has sat on the board of directors for nearly a decade."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Justice Department told the Supreme Court on Tuesday evening that it had provided incorrect information to the justices in an immigration case. The department, in a seven-page letter, expressed regret for failing in its 'special obligation to provide this court with reliable and accurate information at all times.'" Such letters "are quite rare." Post includes a copy of the letter.

Mike Allen of Politico: "A forthcoming biography of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ... by author Manuel Roig-Franzia ... reveals an immigration hell for Rubio's Cuban-born maternal grandfather, who was ordered deported from Florida because he flew in from Cuba without a visa, a decade before Rubio’s birth. Roig-Franzia ... writes that the grandfather's treatment during his 1962 run-in with federal authorities 'was not unlike the present-day experiences of many Mexicans and Central Americans who come to the United States legally but later run afoul of visa laws and find their lives irreversibly upended.'”

The Presidential Race

Ezra Klein with the most depressing thought for the day: "If Romney wins the election, it's almost a sure bet that Republicans win control of both the House and the Senate. And that matters. Right now, the GOP's agenda is the Ryan budget, and that's entirely fiscal: It's a premium support plan for Medicare, and tax cuts, and deep cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other domestic programs. All that can be passed through budget reconciliation -- which is to say, all that can be made immune to the filibuster. So if Romney wins and the Republicans take control, they could accomplish quite a lot on party-line votes, even if their majorities are slim, and Democrats are opposed. Indeed, Romney could end up being a fairly transformational president for conservatives...."

Reid Epstein of Politico reports on Mitt Romney's speech last night.

Paul Krugman has this exactly right: "... there's a dangerous lack of focus in the Obama campaign, all too reminiscent of previous episodes. Above all, Obama isn't telling a clear story about the economy." Read his whole post. (I can't link to the Edward Luce column he cites because Luce writes for the Financial Times which has an annoying subscriber requirement.)

Jamelle Bouie of American Prospect on student aid: "... neither Obama nor Romney has proposed anything appropriate to the scale of the problem [of the high cost of higher education].... To a large degree, Romney and Obama embody their respective platforms. The former Massachusetts governor came from a life of incredible wealth and privilege, and wants to defend it with the tools of government. President Obama, by contrast, rose from more modest means, and — at the very least — wants a government that will facilitate mobility for all Americans." ...

... Alexander Burns of Politico finds an instance of Romney 5.0 (or whatever) quite specifically expressing opposition to the government's getting "too involved in student loans." Now that Romney 6.0, contra the GOP Congress, is supporting Obama's push to extend low interest rates to students, Burns tried to get a straight explanation out of the Romney camp on the flip-flop. Surprise! No luck.

Dana Milbank: Russell "Pearce, the former Republican president of the Arizona Senate, is the author and self-described 'driving force' behind ... that state's law — endorsed by Romney -- cracking down on illegal immigrants. Pearce told The Post's Felicia Sonmez this month that Romney's 'immigration policy is identical to mine,' and he told reporters this week that Romney 'absolutely' gave him the impression that he saw the Arizona law as a national model. Democrats ... called Pearce to testify Tuesday before Congress on the eve of the Supreme Court's review of the Arizona law. Republicans boycotted the hearing.... [Pearce] argued, correctly, that the law reflects 'by far the majority opinion of my party.' This is why Romney will have trouble making it disappear." Read the whole column.

Greg Sargent: "In the last few days, Romney has signaled that he is Etch-A-Sketching away his previous positions on immigration and on student loans.... Both of these turnarounds are being widely covered in the press as mere process stories, as if they're as inevitable and unremarkable as a campaign staffing up in advance of the general.... He's paying little price in the way of pundit scorn for flip-flopping right back to the center again."

CW: I missed this post by Alec MacGillis in The New Republic about Willard's "middle-class" upbringing. The Washington Post apparently puts absolutely no fact-checkers at the disposal of their editors & reporters, so they must rely on the candidates' sanitized, nonfactual versions of their biographies. MacGillis points out that a Post "biographical" sketch of Romney's youth "is off on just about every count.... It requires willful blindness to ignore the advantages that carried him through his first decades in life. And it's the job of the rest of us to hold him to the basic facts of his biography, even as he now tries his best to blur them."

Right Wing World

Steve Benen: Speaker Boehner places the blame on Democrats for Republicans' objections to extending the low student loan interest rate. CW: Boehner has accomplished a feat of sociopathic "logic" that could occur only in Right Wing World. Benen explains. ...

... Speaking of right-wing "logic," Thomas Edsell got into the weeds a bit in a Campaign Stops post for the New York Times. It goes like this: income inequality isn't as bad as you think because the government(s) effectively raise their incomes with social safety net programs. So now we're going to cut social safety net programs (but we won't tell you that will of course drive people further into poverty -- it's good for their dignity or something).

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post has a short-course on the history of ALEC -- and how it became a dirty word. ...

... AND Aaron Blake of the Post tells us more than we will ever want to know about Romney's new international policy advisor Richard Grenell.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Justices across the ideological spectrum appeared inclined to uphold a controversial part of Arizona's aggressive 2010 immigration law, based on their questions on Wednesday at a Supreme Court argument."

New York Times: "The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that its expectations for domestic economic growth during the current year have increased modestly since January, but it reduced its growth forecast for 2013 and 2014."

New York Times: "Federal prosecutors ... spent Wednesday morning laying out the crumbling relationship between former Senator John Edwards and Andrew Young, the key witness in the government's case against Mr. Edwards, painting a vivid portrait of the frantic final months of a cover-up that ended Mr. Edwards's political career." News & Observer story here; the paper's Edwards page is here.

ABC OTUS News: "Less than a month after hearing a challenge to the controversial Obama health care law brought by 26 states, the Supreme Court today will explore the relationship between the federal government and the states on another hot-button issue: immigration. At issue is S.B. 1070 - Arizona's strict immigration law that empowers local police to enforce federal immigration laws. It was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer who says that the law was needed to combat illegal immigration."

New York Times: "With a political firestorm cascading over the British government's ties to his media empire, Rupert Murdoch faced rare public scrutiny about his ties to elected officials on Wednesday, seeking to deflect suggestions that he sought to use his links to powerful public figures to further corporate commercial interests." ...

     ... NEW Lede: "With a political firestorm cascading over the British government’s ties to his media empire, Rupert Murdoch presented himself to a judicial inquiry on Wednesday as a blunt-talking businessman with a wide variety of interests and acquaintances who nevertheless did not seek to use his considerable power to manipulate British governments over the last several decades."

... The Guardian's liveblog of the Rupert Murdoch testimony includes a live feed of the proceedings.

Reuters: "Britain's economy has fallen into its second recession since the financial crisis after a shock contraction at the start of 2012, heaping pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron's government as it reels from a series of political missteps."

ABC News: The Government Accountability Office "said in a new report that the Pentagon has squandered millions in taxpayer dollars on expensive and complex weapons systems by spending first and asking questions later." Highlights of the GAO report are here, with a link to the full report.

AP: "The retired top CIA officer who ordered the destruction of videos showing waterboarding says in a new book that he was tired of waiting for Washington's bureaucracy to make a decision that protected American lives. Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw the CIA's once-secret interrogation and detention program, also lashes out at President Barack Obama's administration for calling waterboarding torture and criticizing its use."

ABC OTUS News: "Although Newt Gingrich lost the Delaware primary by an overwhelming 29 percent to Mitt Romney, the former speaker of the House still did not announce the suspension of his presidential campaign Tuesday night." ...

     ... CNN Update: "Newt Gingrich will officially end his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and formally express his support for Mitt Romney next week, two sources close to Gingrich tell CNN. While details are still being worked out, Gingrich is likely to hold his final campaign event Tuesday in Washington, DC where he will make the announcement surrounded by his family and supporters." CW: Book a small room, Newt. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Newt Gingrich told Mitt Romney on Wednesday morning that he would suspend his presidential campaign next week and begin working to turn out conservative voters for Mr. Romney and Republican candidates in the fall election, Mr. Gingrich's spokesman said in an interview."

AP: "A senior North Korean army official says his country is armed with 'powerful mobile weapons' capable of striking America."

The Commentariat -- April 24, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Norm Ornstein's bright idea to entice Americans to vote by way of lotteries with big prizes. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. ...

... A better idea: Katrina vanden Huevel in the Washington Post argues for universal voter registration.

** NEW. Paul Krugman in a NYT Magazine article on what Professor Ben Bernanke would do vs. what Fed Chair Ben Bernanke has done. CW: Haven't read it yet, but I will.

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "... increasingly in recent months, the administration has been seeking ways to act without Congress. Branding its unilateral efforts 'We Can’t Wait,' a slogan that aides said Mr. Obama coined at that strategy meeting, the White House has rolled out dozens of new policies — on creating jobs for veterans, preventing drug shortages, raising fuel economy standards, curbing domestic violence and more." ...

... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "Government by executive order is not sustainable in the long-term. Nor is it desirable, whether you agree or disagree with those orders. But in this particular case, there may be no alternative."

Andrew Hacker reviews books by Charles Murray & Tim Noah on wealth inequality in the New York Review of Books. Thanks to contributor P. D. Pepe for the lead. ...

... An excellent post from Tim Noah, who is having a "conversation" in Slate with Matt Yglesias about wealth inequality: "... if you're at the median you have no positive reason to care how the economy does. Your only motivation is fear -- if the economy does really badly you may lose your job. But there’s no upside."

Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: "During an interview last week..., Alexandra Franceschi, Specialty Media Press Secretary of the Republican National Committee, said that the Republican party’s economic platform in 2012 is going to be the same as it was during the Bush years, 'just updated.' ... As a result of the Bush economic platform, 'growth in investment, GDP, and employment all posted their worst performance of any post-war expansion,' while 'overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967.' Meanwhile, the deficit and debt exploded."

John Burns of the New York Times: James & Rupert Murdoch are in for grillings this week before Lord Justice Brian Leveson. James will testify for up to six hours Tuesday, Rupert for the same period Wednesday. And the hearing will be broadcast on teevee!

Tara Bahrampour of the Washington Post: "A four-decade tidal wave of Mexican immigration to the United States has receded, causing a historic shift in migration patterns as more Mexicans appear to be leaving the United States for Mexico than the other way around, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center. It looks to be the first reversal in the trend since the Depression, and experts say that a declining Mexican birthrate and other factors may make it permanent."

"Covert Fashion." Attire for the Well-Dressed Gunslinger. Matt Richtel of the New York Times: Woolrich and several clothing companies are selling clothing designed for carrying concealed weapons. Woolrich "has added a second pocket behind the traditional front pocket for a weapon. Or, for those who prefer to pack their gun in a holster, it can be tucked inside the stretchable waistband. The back pockets are also designed to help hide accessories, like a knife and a flashlight."

The Presidential Race

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "The Liberal Media has consistently given more positive coverage to likely Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney compared to President Barack Obama, according to a new survey of media coverage from the Pew Research Center's Excellence in Journalism Project." ...

... Steve Benen: So much for Romney's claim that "a vast left-wing conspiracy" was out to get him.

Steve Peoples of the AP: "Mitt Romney's roadmap for governing the country is so vague that it has even Republican allies questioning his intentions.... In between heaping criticism on President Barack Obama, Romney spent the primary season sketching a broad conservative vision for leading the country should he win the White House.... But he's offered few detailed prescriptions on a range of the country's most pressing concerns from Social Security to potential military action in Iran. And in some cases where Romney and his aides have been specific, the former Massachusetts governor offers little significant change from the Democratic president he says is killing the American dream."

Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: "Mitt Romney appeared to publicly split on Monday with his 'informal' immigration adviser, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, setting up a general election pivot in which Romney potentially turns his back on the far-right anti-immigration sector of the GOP he courted heavily in the primary. At a press conference with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) Monday, Romney said Rubio’s nascent DREAM Act proposal, which offers the children of illegal immigrants a way to remain in the country, should pass muster with conservatives like Kobach. Kobach strongly opposes the DREAM Act on the grounds that it would provide amnesty to law-breakers — but Rubio's proposal differs from Democratic versions of the DREAM Act, which offers a path to citizenship."

I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans. There was some concern that would expire halfway through the year. I support extending the temporarily relief on interest rates...in part because of the extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market. -- Mitt Romney, yesterday, unprompted ...

... It would be popular for me to stand up and say I'm going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I’m not going to promise that. -- Mitt Romney, to a high school senior, ca. March 5, 2012

... Greg Sargent: "This would seem to put Romney at odds with Congressional Republicans. Obama has launched an all-out push to get Congress to extend a provision of a 2007 law that is set to expire on July 1st -- doubling the interest rate for nearly eight million students each year. Congressional Republicans are expected to oppose it along party lines...." ...

... Andrew Leonard of Salon: "The paint is hardly dry on Romney’s locking up of the GOP nomination, and already he is supporting big government handouts. Next thing you know, he'll be backing universal health care with an individual mandate."

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post on Fox "News" 'Steve Doocy interview of Mitt Romney. "The comical aspect of this entire episode is the fluency of the Doocy-Romney exchange. Even though Doocy grossly misquotes [President] Obama in his question to Romney, the candidate just runs with it." Doocy misquotes President Obama & Romney happily runs with the misquote." ...

... John Dickerson of Slate documents five times in this past when Obama has made this "silver spoon" remark, "long before Romney was the nominee. So has Michelle Obama. So has the press, in referring to the Obamas. "The 'silver spoon' construction is a standard Obama cliche." ...

... Also, Eugene Volokh traces how something Obama didn't say became a "quote": "But one reason Fox News and the New York Post get the big bucks, and have researchers on staff, is precisely so they can check what they say before they say it (especially nowadays, when video and transcripts of original events are so easily available) — even when, and perhaps especially when, the supposed 'facts' are useful to the speaker’s argument." ...

... BUT, the last word goes to Stephen Colbert:

Right Wing World *

Andy Rosenthal: "Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Republicans are not against all tax increases. Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, thinks poor people might need a tax hike.... There are many things wrong with this nonsense, but I’ll just point out one: Mr. Cantor and other Republicans who push this line have it exactly backwards. The problem is not that so many Americans don't pay taxes. It's that so many Americans are too poor to pay taxes."

Another Obituary for Facts. Robert Reich: "Bill O'Reilly, the tumescent personality of Fox News, said on his Friday show 'Robert Reich is a communist who secretly adores Karl Marx.' ... O'Reilly has no interest in arguing anything. Ad hominem attacks are always the last refuges of intellectual boors lacking any logic or argument. This is what's happening to all debate all over America: It's disappearing. All we're left with is a nasty residue.... A democracy depends on public deliberation and debate.... Hence the danger today -- when deliberation has stopped."

* Where fact, fiction, myth, reality -- it's all the same. -- Akhilleus

Stupid People News

Rachel D'Oro of the AP: "Rocker and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent was expected to plead guilty Tuesday to transporting a black bear he illegally killed in Alaska."

Local News

When Is a Reassessment Not a Reassessment? Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "Gov. Rick Scott has created a task force to review the controversial 'Stand Your Ground' law, the law behind which George Zimmerman hid after shooting and killing unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. He revealed the members of the task force on Thursday, and it should come as no surprise that among the four legislators appointed, two belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council and that all four voted for the law. One of the members, in fact, is state Rep. Dennis Baxley, who authored the law and who has said it doesn't need to be changed." ...

... Pema Levy of TPM: "The [local chapter of the] NAACP revoked an invitation to Florida Rep. Allen West to keynote an event over remarks he made accusing members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus of being communists, reports the TCPalm.... Four days before the event, the NAACP postponed the event and asked West not to attend the rescheduled event set for Sept. 15."

AP: "Social conservatives are objecting to plans by Gonzaga University, a Catholic institution [in Spokane, Washington], to give Archbishop Desmond Tutu an honorary degree when he makes a campus appearance in May. They are objecting because the Nobel laureate's social views contradict Catholic teachings, including support for abortion rights and gay marriage. More than 700 Gonzaga alumni, staff, faculty and students have signed petitions protesting Tutu's campus appearance and the university's plans to give him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree." CW: Archbishop Tutu is an Anglican, not a Roman Catholic. ...

... Charles Pierce: "Desmond Tutu is a genuine hero. He evinced more courage on any particular afternoon of the 1980's than these people collectively have demonstrated in their entire lives and then, when his work for justice was done, he helped put his country back together again.... At my graduation from Marquette in 1975, an honorary degree was given to Elie Wiesel. Strangely, the heretic Jesuits involved never asked him about The Pill."(The comments on Pierce's piece are excellent.)

News Ledes

New York Times: "Allegations of widespread bribery at Wal-Mart''s Mexican subsidiary continued to reverberate on Tuesday, with the company beginning a campaign to limit the damage as its shares declined further. In a statement, Wal-Mart said it had beefed up its internal controls to make sure it was complying with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits American companies from bribing foreign officials to secure business."

Here are the results of today's GOP presidential primaries, compliments of the New York Times. Romney won all five states. ...

... New York Times: "Five-term Representative Tim Holden of Pennsylvania was defeated in a Democratic primary on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, losing to Matt Cartwright, a lawyer, who made Mr. Holden's vote against President Obama's health care law a major issue in the newly redrawn 17th District."

AP: "The first new case of mad cow disease in the U.S. since 2006 has been discovered in a dairy cow in California, but health authorities said Tuesday the animal never was a threat to the nation's food supply. The infected cow, the fourth ever discovered in the U.S., was found as part of an Agriculture Department surveillance program that tests about 40,000 cows a year for the fatal brain disease."

Washington Post: "A former BP drilling engineer was arrested Tuesday on charges of intentionally destroying text messages sought by federal authorities as evidence in the wake of the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, the Justice Department said. The two charges of obstruction of justice filed against Kurt Mix, in the Eastern District of Louisiana, are the first criminal charges connected to the oil spill caused by a blowout on BP’s Macondo well."

ABC News: "Yemen has confirmed that a top member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed in a weekend airstrike that U.S. officials say was conducted by the CIA, another sign that the U.S. drone campaign in Yemen is gaining momentum."

The Guardian has a livefeed & liveblog of James Murdoch's testimony before the Leveson Inquiry. ...

... New York Times: "James Murdoch ... appeared on Tuesday before a judicial inquiry into the ethics and behavior of the British press, blaming his subordinates for keeping him ill-informed about the full extent of hacking at newspapers then under his control...." ...

     ... Update. The story's new lede: "The long-running tabloid newspaper scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire delivered a new jolt on Tuesday as its powerful and lucrative television operations moved to the center of a British judicial inquiry with disclosures that a senior cabinet minister, or at least an aide claiming to speak for him, worked covertly to help win approval for a $12 billion takeover of the BSkyB network." ...

     ... Guardian Update: "Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, has begged the Leveson inquiry to give him a chance to salvage his reputation after emails released by News Corp appeared to show that Hunt and his office passed confidential and market-sensitive information to the Murdoch empire to support its takeover of BSkyB. Facing calls from the Labour leader Ed Miliband to resign, Hunt urged Lord Justice Leveson to change his hearings timetable and give him a chance to clear his name."

AP: "Mitt Romney is all but certain to sweep Tuesday's five presidential primaries, marking a nearly definitive end to the Republican nomination process. Voters in New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania will cast ballots Tuesday. But Romney won't be in any of those states Tuesday night. Instead, he'll return to New Hampshire, the state where a sweeping primary victory in January set him down the path to the GOP presidential nomination."

Guardian: "California voters will decide in November whether to repeal the death penalty, after activists collected the more than 500,000 signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot... The move, which comes as a number of US states reconsider capital punishment, would abolish execution as the maximum sentence in murder convictions and replace it with life imprisonment."

Al Jazeera: "Salva Kiir, the South Sudanese president, has said his northern neighbour Sudan has 'declared war' on his country, as fighter jets from the north reportedly launched more strikes overnight in a border region. Although there has yet to be a formal declaration of war by either of the Sudans, Kiir's comments, made on Tuesday during talks on a visit to China, will likely stoke tension between the rival nations."

Al Jazeera: "Syrian troops have killed dozens of civilians in the city of Hama, activists have said, as UN military observers toured protest centres near the capital Damascus, and both Brussels and Washington imposed new sanctions."

Reuters: "Facebook Inc reported its first quarter-to-quarter revenue slide in at least two years, a sign that the social network's sizzling growth may be cooling as it prepares to go public in the biggest ever Internet IPO. The company blamed the first-quarter decline, which surprised some on Wall Street, on seasonal advertising trends."

Reuters: "The campaign aide who wrote a tell-all book about efforts to keep former Senator John Edwards' extramarital affair concealed during his 2008 presidential bid was expected to return to the stand Tuesday to testify against his former boss. Andrew Young is the federal government's key witness in the criminal campaign finance case against Edwards...." The Raleigh, North Carolina, News & Observer has a page dedicated to Edwards stories. ...

     New York Times Update: "The star prosecution witness in the corruption trial of former Senator John Edwards on Tuesday testified about elaborate efforts by Mr. Edwards to try to conceal an extramarital affair from his family, his campaign staff and reporters."

Reuters: Anders Behring Breivik, "the Norwegian who massacred 77 people to protest against Muslim immigration to Europe, said on Monday he had hoped to kill as many as 150 and kept on killing because police failed to respond urgently to his phone call."

Al Jazeera: "Israel has approved three settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, the office of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said in a statement [late Monday].... Condemning the decision, Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said 'Netanyahu has pushed things to a dead end yet again'."

AP: "Wherever George Zimmerman went after he was released on bond from a Florida jail, a sensitive GPS device will pinpoint his location for authorities and alert them if he drifts even a few feet away from where he is allowed."

The Commentariat -- April 23, 2012

No column from me today in the New York Times eXaminer. But this post by Peter Hart on how the New York Times has again bungled its reporting on the Keystone XL pipeline is short & to-the-point.

** R.I.P. Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune: "To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of theU.S. House of Representatives are communists.... Facts is survived by two brothers, Rumor and Innuendo, and a sister, Emphatic Assertion." Thanks to contributor Ken W. for the link.

"The Amnesia Candidacy." Paul Krugman: President Obama could have done a better job on the economy, but the Bush economy was a disaster, and Romney wants to go back to Bush policies. He just hopes the public will forget how bad they were. In a related blogpost, Krugman charts jobs losses under Bush & Obama. The blue columns are Bush job losses:

CW: Apparently I steered you wrong last week when I linked to an op-ed by former FDIC chair Sheila Bair in the Washington Post. Bair mocked the Fed's "gifts" to banks & suggested they offer the same generous "gifts"/loans to the rest of us. But Joe Weisenthal of the Business Insider writes that Bair is perpetuating a myth (and should know better): "In theory, the pro-inflation camp is the populist one, since a policy of inflation means borrowers see their burdens eased, and those with assets see the holdings devalued. But somehow people keep pushing the idea that it's the opposite, and that its the finance world screaming for higher rates, and that everyone else would benefit with tighter policy and more deflation. It's a very odd myth." ...

... How do I know Weisenthal is right & Bair is wrong? Because Krugman says so: "Quantitative easing isn't being imposed on an unwitting populace by financiers and rentiers; it's being undertaken, to the extent that it is, over howls of protest from the financial industry." ...

... On point: Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "... as [Fed Chair Ben] Bernanke prepares to meet the press for the fifth time Wednesday afternoon, after a scheduled meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee on Tuesday and Wednesday, there are reasons to doubt that the efforts are increasing public understanding of monetary policy."

Alex Pareene of Salon: "The crumbling of once-great institutions isn't to blame for middle-class decline and anger. Politicians are." CW: This short post on the real causes of problems in Real America is pitch-perfect.

Dahlia Lithwick & Jan Rodak in Slate: "Dodging real-world explanations for the state of the economy and high unemployment, conservatives are now attempting a backdoor campaign to chase women out of the workplace and into their proper roles as homemakers. How else to explain increasing moves toward repealing wage-discrimination laws, rollbacks on mandatory parental leave laws, and making it all-but impossible for poor women who work to choose when to bear children?"

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Medicare is wasting more than $8 billion on an experimental program that rewards providers of mediocre health care and is unlikely to produce useful results, federal investigators say in a new report ... to be issued Monday by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress." The GAO "urges the Obama administration to cancel the program, which pays bonuses to health insurance companies caring for millions of Medicare beneficiaries. Administration officials, however, defended the project...."

Larry Siems, who edits the Torture Report, in Slate: "I read nearly 140,000 formerly classified documents about America's abuse of prisoners since 2001. Here is what I learned.... Our highest government officials, up to and including President Bush, broke international and U.S. laws banning torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Worse, they made their subordinates in the military and civilian intelligence services break those laws for them. When the men and women they asked to break those laws protested, knowing they could be prosecuted for torture, they pretended to rewrite the law."

CW: This article by Philip Gourevitch for the New Yorker, first published in the magazine last December & made available on line this week, on Nicolas Sarkozy, looks to be interesting, tho I've only just skimmed it. Here's a quote, which is supposed to show how gauche Sarkozy is but which I like:

You've lost a good opportunity to shut up. -- Nicolas Sarkozy to British PM David Cameron, in response to something Camerson said in an E.U. meeting

... Also not yet read, this article by Nicholas Lemann of the New Yorker, briefly reviewing a number of recent books about the politics of inequality.

Brendan Sasso of The Hill: "The House is set to vote on a host of cybersecurity bills next week, but the fate of the legislation rests in the Senate. The House is expected to approve the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which would tear down legal barriers that discourage companies from sharing data about cyber attacks.... But the White House and Senate Democrats argue CISPA is inadequate." ...

... Scott Lemieux in Salon: "Congress is seriously considering a bill called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Intended to allow information sharing both between corporations and between corporations and the government, it presents serious dangers to individual privacy."

The Presidential Race

** Frank Rich of New York magazine: "If you want to appreciate what Barack Obama is up against in 2012, forget about the front man who is his nominal opponent and look instead at the Republican billionaires buying the ammunition for the battles ahead.... Whatever else happens in 2012, it will go down as the Year of the Sugar Daddy. Inflamed by Obama-hatred, awash in self-pity, and empowered by myriad indulgent court and Federal Election Commission rulings, an outsize posse of superrich white men will spend whatever it takes to have its way with the body politic and, if victorious, with the country itself."

Alex Pareene plugs his new e-book, The Rude Guide to Mitt. In this excerpt, Pareene writes about Willard's weirdness.

Kasie Hunt of the AP: Mitt Romney wants you to know that his grandfather went broke a few times. CW: which means Mitt knows what it's like to be poor with no prospects.

Right Wing World *

Dashiell Bennett of The Atlantic: Over the past few days, former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has been making comments that represent "a repudiation of what [the Republican party has] become in the last several years. He's basically saying that their best candidates are worthless, the American people don't trust them, and they treat anyone who doesn't toe the party line the same way 'they do in China on party matters.'" ...

... Here's the BuzzFeed article by Zeke Miller, reporting on Huntsman's remarks at the 92nd Street Y.

David Sirota, writing in Salon, finds evidence that younger evangelicals are less committed than their Tea Party elders to anti-Christian, right-wing policies policies.

* Where science is just another cracked pot. -- Akhilleus

News Ledes

Orlando Sentinel: "Sanford city commissioners voted 3-2 to reject Police Chief Bill Lee's resignation over the controversial Trayvon Martin investigation."

New York Times: "Wal-Mart's stock fell almost 5 percent on Monday, accounting for about one-fifth of the losses in the Dow Jones industrial average, as investors reacted to a bribery scandal at the retailer's Mexican subsidiary and a report that an internal investigation was quashed at corporate headquarters in Arkansas." ...

... Washington Post: "The Justice Department has been conducting a criminal probe of Wal-Mart for allegations of systematic bribery in Mexico, according to three people familiar with the matter."

Washington Post: "Senate Democrats are making plans to force a floor vote on legislation that would invalidate Arizona's controversialimmigration statute if the Supreme Court upholds the law this summer."

ABC News: "Today, during the opening statements of his trial in Greensboro, N.C., two-time presidential candidate John Edwards was accused of using illegal campaign contributions during the 2008 presidential race to cover up his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, a videographer for the campaign." The Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer has a full page of links on the Edwards trial.

Washington Post: "President Obama will issue an executive order Monday that will allow U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions against foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, from cellphone tracking to Internet monitoring, to help carry out grave human rights abuses.... Authoritarian governments, particularly in Syria and Iran, have shown that their security services can also harness technology to help crack down on dissent -- by conducting surveillance, blocking access to the Internet or tracking the movements of opposition figures."

AP: "George Zimmerman was released around midnight Sunday from a county jail on $150,000 bail as he awaits his second-degree murder trial for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin."

New York Times: Anders Behring Breivik,"the self-described anti-Islamic militant who has admitted killing 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree last July, told bereaved families on Monday that he had also lost his family and friends as a result of the massacre."