The Commentariat -- December 18

The weekend Open Thread continues on Off Times Square. Yesterday's comments in the thread are interesting and substantive.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Tom Friedman's interesting week. The NYTX front page is here. ...

... For more depth on the far-right "pro-Israel" bloc -- and Elliott Abrams' diatribe against Friedman in particular -- see Jim Lobe's commentary, also in NYTX. ...

... AND Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss reproduces the full Republican Emergency Committee for Israel ad against the Obama Administration. With commentary.

Prof. Michael Sandel, Episode 3, "Free to Choose":

Nicholas Kristof: "WHEN President Obama decides soon whether to approve a $53 million arms sale to our close but despotic ally Bahrain, he must weigh the fact that America has a major naval base here and that Bahrain is a moderate, modernizing bulwark against Iran."

Prof. Andrew Bacevich, in a Washington Post op-ed, sees the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as marking the end of the era of U.S. world dominance: "After Iraq, the future no longer bears the label 'Made in the USA.'” ...

... Roy Gutman of McClatchy News notes one legacy of the war: our two closest allies in the region -- Saudi Arabia and Iraq -- are not on diplomatic speaking terms. "Saudi Arabia refuses to set up an embassy in Baghdad, and while it has allowed Iraq to set up a mission in Riyadh, its officials receive Iraqi government officials only as private individuals." ...

... Not surprisingly, Maureen Dowd treats the same subject with considerably less heft, weaving in President Obama's teevee preference for the Showtime series "Homeland." "Homeland" is Dowd's favorite new series, too, but she finds Obama's interest in it "a little worrisome."

Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Senate Democrats say the Obama administration will kill the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, a controversial issue in the debate to extend the payroll tax holiday."

Samuel Freedman in the New York Times' "On Religion": "It would be upsetting enough if a well-financed, well-organized mass movement had misrepresented a television show, insulted an entire religious community and intimidated a national corporation. What makes the attack on 'All-American Muslim' more disturbing — and revealing — is that it was prosecuted by just one person, a person unaffiliated with any established organization on the Christian right, a person who effectively tapped into a groundswell of anti-Muslim bigotry.... If there is any upside to the campaign against 'All-American Muslim,' it is that national scrutiny has cut Mr. Caton down to size. Several major companies that he claimed had stopped advertising — Home Depot and Campbell’s Soup — issued statements saying they had done no such thing." ...

... Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress lists companies who did not pull their "All-American Muslim" ads despite pressure from and claims made by Caton.

... Update: How about This? EarlyAmerica.com: "George Washington urged Congress in his first inaugural address to propose amendments that offered 'a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for public harmony.' ... Congress responded by submitting Amendments to the Constitution providing for essential civil liberties.... Of the original twelve, Articles 3-12 were ratified. Accordingly, in 1791 these articles became the first ten amendments to the Constitution.....known collectively as The Bill of Rights." I'd call the Bill of Rights a pretty big accomplishment, Mr. President Barack. (See following entry for evidence of my close personal relationship with the President:)

I just got this nice note from One of the Best Presidents Ever:

Marie --

Early this morning, the last of our troops left Iraq.

As we honor and reflect on the sacrifices that millions of men and women made for this war, I wanted to make sure you heard the news.

Bringing this war to a responsible end was a cause that sparked many Americans to get involved in the political process for the first time. Today's outcome is a reminder that we all have a stake in our country's future, and a say in the direction we choose.

Thank you.

Barack

Right Wing World

Ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the influential Des Moines Register endorses Mitt Romney. ...

... MEANWHILE, AP: "Newt Gingrich tried to quiet unrelenting campaign criticism that he acknowledged had taken a toll as Mitt Romney stepped up insider attacks Saturday in hopes of regaining front-runner status with the first presidential vote little more than two weeks away." ...

I'm going to let the lawyers decide what is and what is not lobbying, but when it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, typically it's a duck. -- Mitt Romney, on Newt Gingrich's claim that Freddie Mac employed him as an historian

... Frank Bruni offers no new insights, but he does give us a run-down of some of Newt Gingrich's most megalomaniacal claims. ...

... Even Crazier after All These Years. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "Never one to be accused of timidity, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich is turning up the volume of his ongoing assault on 'activist judges' so high that even conservatives say he is going too far. In a half-hour phone call with reporters Saturday, Gingrich said that, as president, he would abolish whole courts to be rid of judges whose decisions he feels are out of step with the country.... Judicial experts, including conservatives, are questioning the constitutionality of Gingrich’s stance. The Constitution ... provides only for impeachment as the way to remove bad judges. To do so by other means, [experts] say, is an encroachment on judicial independence and an affront to the separation of powers doctrine that underlies the entire document." ...

Overall, he’s racing towards a cliff. It may be expedient to appeal to specific voters in primaries or caucuses, but it’s a constitutional disaster. Americans want courts that can uphold their rights and not be accountable to politicians. When you get to the point where you’re talking about impeaching judges over decisions or abolishing courts or calling them before Congress, it’s getting very far away from the American political mainstream. -- Bert Brandenburg, director of the nonpartisan Justice at Stake

Opinion of a Candidate Who Is Not Going to Be President about a (Former) Candidate Who Is Not Going to Be President: Herman Cain has all the characteristics of the type of person I would bring forward. -- Rick Perry, responding to a question about whether or not he would choose Cain for his Cabinet

Local News

Harbor Shores. The town of Benton Harbor can be seen in the distance, upper left. New York Times photo.Jonathan Mahler in the New York Times Magazine: "During its heyday as a racially mixed, economically vibrant manufacturing center through the 1960s, Benton Harbor, [Michigan,] grew into a home to more than 20,000 people. Today its population is closer to 10,000, about 90 percent of whom are black. The per capita income of its residents is roughly $10,000; about 60 percent of its population is on some form of public assistance.... On the northern edge of Benton Harbor, just beyond the grim grid of housing projects, shuttered storefronts, boarded-up homes and junk-laden yards that dominate much of the town, sits an emerald oasis known as Harbor Shores..., a resort development. At its heart is a pristine Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course that ... overlooks Lake Michigan.... The juxtaposition of Benton Harbor’s impoverished population and its two rising monuments to wealth ... make it almost a caricature of economic disparity in America. But at the same time, it offers a window into one possible future for towns across the country...." Thanks to reader Jay J. for the link.

Rachel Stassen-Berger of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch resigned from her leadership post the day after fellow Republicans confronted her about allegations that she had an 'inappropriate relationship' with a staff member.... Koch, the state's first female majority leader, was widely considered a hard-working and savvy campaigner who helped Republicans win control of the Senate last year for the first time in four decades.... Not long after the news conference, Michel announced that Michael Brodkorb, who was Koch's powerful communications chief, was no longer employed as a Senate staffer, effective Friday.... Koch, 40, is married and has a teenage daughter."

News Ledes

Reuters: "The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and left a country grappling with political uncertainty."

Reuters: "The euro zone will pursue measures to tackle its sovereign debt crisis this week by offering more cash to the IMF and long-term liquidity to banks, while moving towards tighter fiscal rules, after ratings agency Fitch cast doubt on it ability to forge a decisive response."

Reuters: "Rescuers searched for more than 800 people missing in the southern Philippines on Sunday after flash floods and landslides swept houses into rivers and out to sea, killing more than 650 people in areas ill-prepared to cope with storms."

New York Times: "Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75.... Mr. Havel was his country’s first democratically elected president after the nonviolent 'Velvet Revolution' that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as 'Absurdistan.' As president, he oversaw the country’s bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia."

Politico: "House Republicans are in full revolt in the wake of Senate passage of a two-month payroll tax holiday package, casting serious doubt on the fate of a bill that already has President Barack Obama’s approval. In a private conference call on Saturday afternoon, rank-and-file House Republicans complained bitterly about the contents of the deal...." Update: Reuters story here. ...

     ... Think Progress Update: "Appearing on Meet the Press today, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said he and his members oppose the Senate bill."

New York Times: "Egypt’s military rulers escalated a bloody crackdown on street protesters on Saturday, chasing down and beating unarmed civilians, even while the prime minister was denying in a televised news conference that security forces were using any force."

AP: "CNN star Piers Morgan may be known to Americans as an empathetic English interviewer, but it's his past at the heart of Britain's troubled tabloid newspaper world that is being trotted out before the cameras this week.... Morgan's rise to the top will be revisited Tuesday, when the former editor appears by videolink at a judge-led inquiry into the ethics and practices of Britain's scandal-tarred press."

The Commentariat -- December 17

We have an Open Thread on today's Off Times Square.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Charles Blow's really stupid piece in today's Times: "The Times employs a brilliant statistician – Nate Silver – but Silver does not have a regular column that appears in the print edition of the paper. Blow does. This week, he didn’t have time to write it. Maybe he was busy buying holiday gifts for the kids. What we readers got was a pre-winter snow job that misinterprets poll results in a way that helps Republican politicians and attempts to make Americans look stupider than we are." If you were taken in by Blow's column, as almost all of the early commenters were, read my column. The NYTX front page is here.

President Obama's weekly address. The transcript is here:

Chris Spannos of the New York Times eXaminer has a fascinating article on the New York Times' scant coverage of Bradley Manning's court proceedings. As Spannos points out, "If found guilty Manning could prove to be one of the Times’ most important sources since Daniel Ellsberg." So why is the Times' giving so little coverage to Manning? -- apparently none in the dead-tree edition; a short post in the online edition. Here Spannos talks with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange about Manning and the Times:

     ... Links to more segments of the interview here. ...

... Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Adrian Lamo, the hacker who betrayed the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning to the US authorities, has said it would be to his 'lasting regret' were the soldier to be given a lengthy custodial sentence." And, boo-hoo, his fellow-hackers don't like him anymore. See also Spannos above on Lamo.

 ... Also of interest to people who live in the New York City area is a public discussion about mainstream media’s representation of OWS and lessons for the new year, to be held Tuesday, December 20, from 7:30 pm ET to 9:30 pm at the Brecht Forum at 451 West Street in Lower Manhattan. Spannos will be one of the panelists. More information and map here.

Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "... in the weeks since Occupy Wall Street was evicted from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, relations between the demonstrators and Trinity Wall Street, a church barely one block from the New York Stock Exchange, have reached a crossroads. The displaced occupiers had asked the church, one of the city’s largest landholders, to hand over a gravel lot, near Canal Street and Avenue of the Americas, for use as an alternate campsite and organizing hub. The church declined, calling the proposed encampment 'wrong, unsafe, unhealthy and potentially injurious.'” ...

... Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "Archbishop Desmond Tutu has waded into an ecclesiastical row over a New York church's refusal to allow protesters from Occupy Wall Street to camp on a vacant lot it owns. The South African activist and retired church leader urged Trinity Church to heed the pleas of demonstrators to allow the camp and, failing that, at least to stop any violence or arrests at the site during a day of action this Saturday to mark its three month anniversary."

** Adam Serwer of Mother Jones has a reality check on the National Defense Authorization Act about which I've been pretty upset, based on reports from the usually fairly reliable sources: the Guardian, the New York Times editors, Glenn Greenwald (on the facts, anyway). Serwer writes, "It does not, contrary to what many media outlets have reported, authorize the president to indefinitely detain without trial an American citizen suspected of terrorism who is captured in the US. A last minute compromise amendment adopted in the Senate, whose language was retained in the final bill, leaves it up to the courts to decide if the president has that power.... Still..., it is the first concrete gesture Congress has made towards turning the homeland into the battlefield, even if the impact in the near term is more symbolic and political than concrete." Read his whole post. ...

... Steve Benen: "President Obama has been facing quite a bit of criticism from the left over the NDAA’s provisions, and that’s understandable.... That said, if I’m making a list of those responsible for the NDAA’s most odious measures, the White House wouldn’t be on top. I’d start, obviously, with congressional Republicans whose misguided worldview intended to make the NDAA even more offensive, but it was a whole lot of congressional Democrats who went along with them." ...

... Sen. Al Franken, on why he voted against the bill. ...

... CW: other than Serwer, I can't find anyone who will write dispassionately about this bill, so I can't offer anything I think is definitive. That's partly on purpose, & it brings up a point that has broad application, an application that makes Constitutional "originalists" look as silly as they are: you can't decide the "intent" of the framers of the Constitution -- 200 years ago -- or a single bill -- yesterday -- because the "framers" do not agree. They have different intents and different aims -- they hope a bill will be interpreted in a certain way, but even they often know they've written something ambiguous to get it past the opposition.

Gail Collins: No matter what the occasion, it's always a great opportunity to restrict women's reproductive rights. And everybody does it! ...

... Amanda Marcotte in Slate: "Seems the Obama administration will be disappointed, if they were hoping for an end to the backlash against HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius making the unprecedented move of overruling the FDA's decision to make Plan B emergency contraception available over the counter without age restrictions. For one thing, the legal manuevering is far from over, with a federal judge specifically recommending to the Center for Reproductive Rights that they reopen a 2005 lawsuit against the FDA, and add Kathleen Sebelius as a defendant."

Prof. William Gould, in a New York Times op-ed: "UNLESS something changes in Washington, American workers will, on New Year’s Day, effectively lose their right to be represented by a union. Two of the five seats on the National Labor Relations Board, which protects collective bargaining, are vacant, and on Dec. 31, the term of Craig Becker, a labor lawyer whom President Obama named to the board last year through a recess appointment, will expire. Without a quorum, the Supreme Court ruled last year, the board cannot decide cases."

Victor Gilinsky, a former NRC member, writing in a New York Times op-ed on the application for renewal of the Westchester County, New York, Indian Point nuclear reactor license: "... we now know that radioactive material in the melted fuel can escape to contaminate a very large area for decades or more. It doesn’t make sense to allow such a threat to persist a half-hour’s drive from our nation’s largest city."

David Dayen of Firedoglake writes a provocative post titled "Republicans demand to kill the Keystone XL pipeline." CW: He has a point. And with a different president he'd be right. But giving a choice to President Pretzel A. Rollover, along with his Interior Secretary Ken Dig-In Salazar, practically guarantees the pipeline deal will go through if Democrats cave to this particular Republican demand.

Mitt Romney likes the Ryan-Wyden Kill Medicare Plan (which quickly became "Ryden") because he says he invented it. But Jed Lewison of Daily Kos, with backing from Center for Budget & Policy Priorities analysis, reminds us that "Because Medicare would [no] longer be a single payer system, it would become less efficient and would be in a worse position to keep costs down. Meanwhile, the fact that beneficiaries would be getting a subsidy rather than insurance means that either (a) their share of medical costs would grow or (b) public health care spending would grow even faster than before. Either way, the idea is a stinker."

A lovely tribute to Christopher Hitchens, and to any well-lived life, from Christopher's brother Peter Hitchens. Thanks to a reader for the link. ...

... ** NEW. AND for a well-wrought view from the loyal opposition, I highly recommend Glenn Greenwald's column on the hagiographic nature of the coverage of Hitchens' death & of Ronald Reagan's.

Right Wing World

Mitt Romney's New Look, via Media Matters:

     ... Romney sure looks presidential, doesn't he? Fox "News" later corrected the graphic.

News Ledes

... A transcript of the President's remarks is here.

New York Times: Hundreds of protesters and an untold number of NYPD officers converged on Trinity Church in downtown Manhattan after the church declined to allow Occupy Wall Street to set up an encampment in its vacant lot.

New York Times: "Flash floods in the southern Philippines on Saturday sent water gushing into homes, killing more than 400 people and surprising families who fled to rooftops clutching children, officials said."

Reuters: "Deeply divided U.S. lawmakers on Friday eked out an agreement to extend payroll tax cuts for just two months, and only after Democrats bowed to Republican demands on a controversial oil pipeline. The deal, which still needs approval of the full Senate and House of Representatives, fell far short of President Barack Obama's push for a one-year extension of the tax relief and long-term unemployed benefits to boost the country's fragile economic recovery." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "The Senate agreed Saturday to extend the payroll tax cut for two months, in a deal that would avert a New Year’s tax increase for millions of workers. The agreement, approved in an 89-to-10 vote, also would require the administration to decide quickly whether to allow construction of a controversial transcontinental oil pipeline. President Obama had demanded that Congress extend the tax holiday, but Republicans had refused to go along unless the White House agreed to an accelerated decision on the pipeline."

New York Times: "In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said Friday that it would not define a single uniform set of 'essential health benefits' that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories."

Reuters: Bradley Manning, "an American Army intelligence analyst suspected of being behind the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history, made his first court appearance on Friday, sitting stone-faced as military prosecutors launched their case against him." The New York Times story is here. ...

     ... AP Update (via the NYT): "An Army appeals court has rejected the defense’s effort to remove the presiding officer in the military hearing for [Bradley Manning] the soldier accused of the largest leak of classified material in American history."

Al Jazeera: "Egyptian soldiers with batons have charged into Tahrir Square, the focal point of anti-military demonstrations in the capital, on the second day of violent clashes with protesters. The renewed fighting on Saturday came as Egypt's health ministry reported nine people were killed and more than 350 others injured since Friday when soldiers stormed an anti-military protest camp outside the parliament building, a short distance from Tahrir." With video. Al Jazeera's liveblog on Egypt is here.

Reuters: "Syrian forces killed 13 people on Friday during widespread protests against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said, a day after Syria's big power ally Russia sharpened its criticism of Damascus in a draft United Nations resolution." Al Jazeera's liveblog on Syria is here.

The Commentariat -- December 16

Andy Rosenthal, the New York Times editorial pages editor, writes a number of posts opposing the "National Defense Authorization Act, which President Obama has indicated he’ll sign." You can start here and "back into" the earlier posts. CW: I'm not sure how a guy who seems so cognizant of and sensitive to the erosion of Constitutional rights and other important issues could be the same guy who hired Frank Bruni, Ross Douthat & Joe Nocera. I do think the publisher must have had a heavy hand in those personnel decisions. ...

     ... Update. "Politics over Principle." The Times editorial: "This is a complete political cave-in, one that reinforces the impression of a fumbling presidency. To start with, this bill was utterly unnecessary. Civilian prosecutors and federal courts have jailed hundreds of convicted terrorists, while the tribunals have convicted a half-dozen. And the modifications are nowhere near enough." (CW: we're seeing a lot of "politics over principle" coming out of the White House, aren't we?) ...

.. Here's Glenn Greenwald, way unsurprised by President Obama's decision to sign the bill into law, with a long exposition on how terrible & terrifying is this law against "terrorists." ...

... If you think "So What? It Can Never Happen to Me," read this story by James Grimaldi of the Washington Post. It nearly happened to the Speaker of the House: "The [FBI] considered a sting operation against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich after sifting through allegations from a notorious arms dealer that a $10 million bribe might get Congress to lift the Iraqi arms embargo. The FBI ended up calling off the operation in June 1997. It decided there was no evidence that Gingrich knew anything about the conversations the arms dealer was secretly recording with a man who said he was acting on behalf of Gingrich’s then-wife, Marianne, according to people with knowledge of the investigation." All the feds "had" on Newt was an assertion about by an arms dealer about Newt's wife. If the same sort of assertion were made about you or your spouse, you can bet you'd be locked away for safekeeping till somebody got through sorting stuff out. ...

... You can read the original story here, by Joseph Trento of DC Bureau. Please at least click on the link to give Trento a hit. The Post describes the author of the scoop as "a nonprofit journalist" and provides no link. It wasn't hard to find because other for-profit writers aren't so stingey, but why can't the Post handle competition from nonprofits and give credit where credit is due?

Bernie Sanders talks to Al Sharpton about class warfare by the rich against the rest of us and on his proposed Constitutional Amendment to reverse Citizens United. The petition on the amendment is here (I also posted a link a short time ago):

Ilyse Hogue of The Nation: "... the speed of [Lowe's] surrender to an extreme group peddling outright bigotry should give us pause and force a closer look at how the landscape has shifted in a country that claims religious tolerance as a founding principle. Simply put, the bigots won way too easily." (See earlier Commentariats for more background, though Hogue includes the basics in her essay.)

John Sides of the New York Times on how the rich are different from the rest of us when it comes to politics. A Gallup study found that "The 1 percent cares more about deficits than the economy"; the 1 percent want government spending cuts while most of the 99 percent do not think spending cuts alone are the way to cut the deficit; "the 1 percent is vastly more politically active." CW: so now you know why Washington -- especially President Obama -- spent a year talking about nothing but "belt-tightening" (and he still is). The belt-tighteners are not speaking for you. The motivation has been attributed to "inside-the-Beltway pressure." No, it was Wall Street/big corporate pressure.

Prof. Gar Alperovitz, a friend of a friend, in a New York Times op-ed, suggests that the U.S. could move toward a bold new economic form: a kind of cross between capitalism & socialism, wherein governments at all levels, as well as individual citizen co-ops, would become the owners of a large percentage of big businesses. There are already quite a few such companies in existence or in the works.

Writer & personality Christopher Hitchens died yesterday. See links to obituaries in today's Ledes. Here's the Vanity Fair page on Hitchens, which includes a remembrance by Graydon Carter, video & links to some of his writings. Slate links here to some of Hitchens' best pieces for them. Here's a brief remembrance by Jacob Weisberg of Slate. And a funny one from novelist Julian Barnes. (The novel in question, BTW, was Metroland.) The Atlantic has a page of links to Hitchens' writings for them here. The Atlantic's literary editor Benjamin Schwartz has a remembrance here.

Fred Kaplan of Slate writes a post-mortem on the Iraq War that was.

Jim Fallows of The Atlantic: "... airlines and the FAA were engaged in a form of 'safety theater,' with their insistence that 'everything with an On-Off switch must be in the OFF position' on taxi, takeoff, descent, and landing." With lots o'links.

Right Wing World

The New York Times does a spot-fact-check of last night's GOP presidential candidates' debate. Here's the Washington Post's quick fact-check. ...

... NEW. Charles Pierce has as good a take as any on the debate, because it's mostly good for laughs.

** Paul Krugman: Rep. Ron "Paul [R-Texas] has maintained his consistency by ignoring reality, clinging to his ideology even as the facts have demonstrated that ideology’s wrongness. And, even more unfortunately, Paulist ideology now dominates a Republican Party that used to know better. I’m not talking here about Mr. Paul’s antiwar views or his less well-known views on civil and reproductive rights, which would horrify liberals who think of him as a good guy. I’m talking, instead, about his views on economics." CW: This really is a must-read, because Krugman so succinctly explains why Ron Paul is a disaster waiting to happen. Short version: "Great Depression, here we come." ...

... Steve Kornacki of Salon: "... if you need further proof that Ron Paul is starting to make Republican elites uneasy, here’s Exhibit A: Sean Hannity went after him hard on Wednesday night.... Hannity’s preferred strategy has been to ignore Paul, so it’s telling that less than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses he felt the need on Wednesday to bring Bill Bennett on his show for a segment of unsaturated Paul-bashing."

... William Broad of the New York Times: Newt Gingrich is ready to carry his Armageddon scenarios & sciencey-fictiony stuff into the policy arena. He's up for nuclear war, which he will "pre-empt" by attacking nuclear-armed countries! That's the plan. Help!

** Liar for Hire. Jim Rutenberg & Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "As [Newt] Gingrich runs for president, he is working to appeal to Republican primary voters suspicious of big-government activism, especially in the realm of health care. But interviews and a review of records show how active Mr. Gingrich has been in promoting a series of recent programs that have given the government a bigger hand in the delivery of health care, and at the same time benefited his clients. During the Bush administration, he was a leading Republican advocate for the costly expansion of Medicare, which many in his party now regret. And he and his center pushed some policies that are reflected in Mr. Obama’s health care record — a record Mr. Gingrich regularly criticizes on the campaign trail. All the while, his center functioned as a sort of high-priced club where companies joined him in working the corridors of power in Washington and in state capitals."

** Matt Yglesias of Slate: "Paul Ryan’s Medicare Scheme. His new proposal is less radical than his last one, and it just might pass if Obama loses." CW P.S.: Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who is co-sponsoring the newest Ryan Medicare scheme, is a dangerous loose cannon -- a "progressive" who can be had. He's another politico who fancies himself a "big thinker" a la Gingrich, but Wyden's thinking is pretty fuzzy-headed and often counter-productive and wildly impractical, especially when he allows Republicans to help him "tweak" his plans. ...

... NEW. Sam Baker of The Hill: "Democrats and their allies quickly united against the Medicare proposal introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). As he introduced the plan Thursday morning, Wyden insisted that there was plenty for Democrats to support. But lawmakers, the White House and healthcare interest groups took a hard line against the proposal, even linking it to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich."

Local News

AP: "Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s boundary-pushing foray into Arizona’s immigration enforcement over the last six years met its most bruising criticism when the U.S. Justice Department said the lawman’s office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a 'systematic disregard' for the Constitution." ...

... NEW. The New York Times story, by Marc Lacey, is here. ...

... Jeff Biggers in Salon: "... a real clock may be finally ticking for the countdown of the nearly 20-year reign of America’s self-proclaimed 'Toughest Sheriff.' One federal department is not even waiting: Within hours of the DOJ announcement, the Department of Homeland Security terminated Maricopa County’s access to immigration status data under the federal Secure Communities program."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought civil actions against six former top executives at the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying that the executives did not adequately disclose their firms’ exposure to risky mortgages in the run-up to the financial crisis.... The agency filed complaints against three former executives at Fannie Mae – its chief executive, Daniel H. Mudd; chief risk officer, Enrico Dallavecchia; and executive vice president, Thomas A. Lund. Freddie Mac’s former chief executive, Richard F. Syron; Patricia Cook, its chief business officer; and its executive vice president, Donald J. Bisenius, were also named in a separate complaint."

New York Times: "Retreating from their harsh partisan sniping, and perhaps fearing public rebuke, Congressional leaders said Thursday that they had agreed on a large-scale spending measure to keep the government running for the next nine months. But an accord on extending a payroll tax holiday set to expire at the end of the month remained elusive, with Democrats weighing a possible short-term extension, setting the stage for another fight with Republicans over how to pay for it." ...

     ... Update: "As the House headed toward a vote on a $1 trillion spending measure that would avert a government shutdown, Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday that House Republicans would insist on including the Keystone XL oil pipeline in any legislation that extended the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits."

ABC News: "Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary said today that he did not actually witness former coach Jerry Sandusky penetrating a young boy in the shower, but saw activity he believed was sexual and told as much to head coach Joe Paterno.... McQueary was the first of five witnesses that will testify today in a hearing before District Judge William C. Wenner to determine what Penn State officials knew about Sandusky's alleged child sexual abuse on the Penn State campus." ...

     ... New York Times update here.

New York Times: "The leading Republican presidential candidates largely shelved their contentious attacks on one another to deliver their closing arguments on Thursday night at the final debate before the nominating contests begin, but Newt Gingrich did not escape sharp questions about his record in and out of government and his ability to defeat President Obama."

New York Times: "Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62." Washington Post obituary here. Guardian obit here.

President Obama announced yesterday that he has assured, by executive order, that home healthcare workers would now be included in the same minimum wage and overtime protections afforded to other workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act. CW: This is a progressive move Congress has refused to make. If you think it doesn't matter who's in the White House, here's as good an example as any of why that's wrong-headed:

... Here's some background that's pretty sweet: