The Commentariat -- June 10

Paul Krugman blames "rentiers" -- creditors, and specifically bondholders -- for Washington's failure to help the unemployed. ...

... Our Mister Brooks pulls out his tattered copies of Edmund Burke & of Anthony Trollope novels to explain that the ideal politician does not behave like -- Anthony Weiner. ...

... While we're at it, Tim Egan thinks Jon Huntsman's presidential candidacy is doomed because the Republican base is prejudiced against Mormons, especially slightly apostate Mormons. ...

I have a comments page up on Krugman & Brooks on Off Times Square, but take it where you will. There's plenty of fodder for comments today. Update: Karen Garcia, Kate Madison & I have posted comments. Update 2: AND Akhilleus explains Brooks:

Mr. Brooks, for all of his pretensions to precious knowledge from received literary wisdom merely demonstrates once again the paucity and parochialism of his parched and penurious intellectual dishonesty. Read all of Akhilleus' comment.

Karen Garcia has a powerful post on Michelle Obama's trip to Hollywood, where she will meet with suits & screenwriters to pitch her script ideas for heartwarming movies about military families -- feel-good ways to promote our numbing, endless wars.

I want to have as few people touching our products as possible.
-- Dan Mishek of Vista Technologies in Minnesota ...

... Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "Workers are getting more expensive while equipment is getting cheaper, and the combination is encouraging companies to spend on machines rather than people."

Republicans Are Still Not Getting It. Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: In yesterday's deficit reduction talks, led by Vice President Biden, "Republicans have rejected any move to raise taxes, and [House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor restated that position, arguing that a package that includes tax increases cannot pass the Republican-dominated House." ...

... The White House Is Still Not Getting It. Same story by Montgomery: "So far, the Biden group has not discussed new forms of stimulus. Instead, the White House is focused on cutting a deal that permits spending cuts and tax increases to start slowly and ramp up over time." ...

... BUT. Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Senior Senate Democrats are growing frustrated by what they see as President Obama’s passivity on the economy, and are beginning to discuss a large infrastructure package funded by tax increases. Some Democrats ... think such a package could lower the unemployment rate by as much as two percentage points":

I am concerned about the Obama administration’s approach on this. It always has been about jobs. I think the administration kind of got snookered talking about the deficit and the debt after the last election. The last election was about jobs and the economy, and now we’re in a position where we really do need some economic pump-priming by the federal government. -- Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

... AND Annie Lowrey of Slate: "Happy 10th Birthday, Bush Tax Cuts. You've been a failure in every conceivable way.... The Bush tax cuts were followed by low GDP growth, negative median wage growth, and little job growth. Even before the Great Recession, growth in the Bush business cycle was the weakest since World War II. And the cuts cost about $2.6 trillion between 2001 and 2010, according to the Economic Policy Institute—adding to a debt future generations of taxpayers will pay for, plus interest."

William Yardley & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "On Friday, more than 24,000 pages of e-mails [Sarah] Palin sent as governor, mostly using private accounts, are to be released in response to public records requests first made in 2008." ...

... Reader Participation. Derek Willis of the New York Times: "We’re asking readers to help us identify interesting and newsworthy e-mails, people and events that we may want to highlight." Willis says the Times will provide a form to readers, but his post does not include the form. Some of the reader comments are pretty funny. ...

... Meanwhile, Ryan Kellett of the Washington Post tells readers how to cull & comment for the Post. ...

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "Rationing is already a fixture of our health care system. It happens every time an insurer says no to a treatment..., a doctor or hospital recommends against a procedure because it doesn't seem worth the cost..., and ... somebody forgoes care because it's too expensive.... The Affordable Care Act ... directs Medicare to cut payments more judiciously.... Democrats countenance rationing for all through some collective mechanism. Republicans favor rationing by price and ability to pay, that is, by income class, through the market place." [emphasis mine]

Adam Serwer of American Prospect cites a Pew poll that describes how Americans want to reduce the deficit, and notes, "For all the conventional wisdom about the U.S. being a center right country, public opinion seems to be mostly on the Democrats' side when it comes to the specifics, which makes one wonder why they so consistently seem to be negotiating with a weak hand -- or at least why they feel so compelled to adopt Republican frames on policy matters."

Republican Assignment Editors. Steve Benen takes on NBC's excuse that the only reason the media are covering the Weiner scandal more heavily than the Ensign & Vitter sex-and-money stories -- where the Republican Senators likely committed actual crimes -- is that Republicans were all over the Weiner story.

Right Wing World *

... Driftglass has a terrific post on Ayn Rand v. Bible thumpers & how the right manages to simultaneously embrace both: "The fundamental incompatibility of these two ideologies is so shotgunning-fish-in-a-teacup obvious, how is it that no one in our Elite Media ever asks these clowns to climb off the giant pile of Bibles atop which they have spent their political careers screaming at 120 decibels and explain the contradiction? (Hell, I'd like to know why Paul Ryan gets a free pass on any inquiries about whether or not he either urges or requiring his staff to read the works of a radical pro-abortionist like Ayn Rand....)"

CW: I can't believe I'm linking to a Facebook page, much less Newt Gingrich's Facebook page. But he looks so happy to be screwed by his own staff -- who dumped him while/because he was cavorting in the Aegean. The running commentary by "fans" is fun anyway. ...

... The Sun Sets on a Man of Ideas. Greg Sargent: "... Newt believed that he could run for President on the force of his ideas alone — amplified and disseminated through new technology. After all, not long ago, Newt stated this explicitly.... Newt’s Iowa staff has now also resigned en masse, precisely because he seemed unwilling to do the work necessary to keep a presidential campaign running. All these lemmings, clearly, were unable to grasp that his candidacy was something historic; something profoundly transformative; even something Messianic." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein has a nice collection of Newtimplosion tweets. Here's my favorite:

To understand why Newt Gingrich's staff quit 'en masse,' you have to understand Kenyan anti-colonial behavior. -- Luke Johnson

... AND as reader P.D. Pepe points out, Jonathan Chait offers this appropriate tribute to Gingrich, a/k/a the Black Knight, in his post titled "Gingrich approval rating down to 0% among Gingrich staffers":

     It's just a flesh wound!

Jed Lewison of Daily Kos: Rick Santorum says all government-regulated healthcare plans -- including RomneyCare -- are socialized medicine "which lead to lines, which leads to rationing." Santorum endorses RyanCareLess, which -- as Lewison points out -- also preserves what Santorum calls "rationing," at least till Medicare is completely dismantled. So, looks like Santorum is a socialist, too.

CW's Ethical Question of the Day: if you just tell lies without bothering to find out that they're lies, will St. Peter let you past the pearly gates?

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

A Thank-You Note from Qadaffi. New York Times: "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has written to members of Congress thanking them for criticizing President Obama last week over his involvement in the NATO-led military campaign in Libya.

New York Times: "Investors anxious about the outlook for global economic growth sent stocks sharply downward on Friday as the Dow closed below 12,000 for the first time since March. The drag on stocks is especially troubling because it suggests that one of the few bright spots for the United States economy may be starting to fade."

New York Times: "Representative Anthony D. Weiner said on Friday that he exchanged at least five private messages on Twitter this spring with a 17-year-old Delaware girl who became an admirer of his after hearing him speak during a high school trip to Washington."

No Way Ioway. Boston Globe: "Mitt Romney is planning to forgo the Iowa straw poll ... as he continues to downplay his chances in a state that was seen as vital to his campaign four years ago." CW: why this item is accompanied by a picture of Anthony Weiner (no, not that picture), I cannot imagine, but Romney might not be happy about it.

New York Times: "Security forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria began military operations in the country’s restive northwest on Friday, Syrian state television reported, heightening fears of a widening crackdown on dissent." Reuters story here.

New York Times: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly criticized NATO nations on Friday for what he said were shortages in military spending and political will, warning of “a dim if not dismal future” for an alliance at risk of becoming irrelevant in a dangerous and uncertain world." AP story here.

AP (via the NYT): "A French court has postponed a decision on whether to open an investigation into Christine Lagarde, the country's finance minister and front-runner to take the helm at the International Monetary Fund, a judicial official said Friday.... Questions have been raised about Lagarde's role in getting arbitration in 2008 for French businessman Bernard Tapie, who won euro285 million ($449 million) as compensation for the mishandling of the sale of sportswear maker Adidas."

Reuters: "The head of the U.S. nuclear safety regulator did not break the law when he stopped a review of a proposed Nevada burial site for radioactive waste, but he 'strategically' kept information from his fellow commissioners, the Wall Street Journal said, citing a report from the agency's internal watchdog. The confidential report is being studied by Republican lawmakers who are already fiercely critical of Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). They have accused him of helping end work on the Yucca Mountain waste site for political reasons."

Washington Post: Secretary Clinton denies she is considering a job as president of the World Bank.

San Mateo County Times: "In the most extensive independent analysis of PG&E [Pacific Gas & Electric] since the Sept. 9 San Bruno catastrophe, an expert panel's report Thursday scathingly criticized the utility, finding 'multiple weaknesses' in its natural gas-line operations and accusing the company of putting profits ahead of public safety."

New York Times: "A former spy agency employee agreed late Thursday to plead guilty to a minor charge in a highly publicized leak prosecution, undercutting the Obama administration’s unusual campaign to prosecute government officials who disclose classified information to the press. The National Security Agency official, Thomas A. Drake, had faced a possible 35 years in prison if convicted on felony charges under the Espionage Act. Instead, he agreed to admit to a misdemeanor of misusing the agency’s computer system by providing 'official N.S.A. information' to an unauthorized person, a reporter for The Baltimore Sun."

The Commentariat -- June 9

CLICK ON IMAGE TO READ THE FINAL EDITION.I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square today.

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Far from embracing Republican calls for immediate cuts in federal spending, the White House should be looking at crafting another stimulus package." ...

... CW: If you want to know why the economy is stalled, blame voters. Yes, Republicans have wooed them with lies, and Democrats have not effectively fought back with truths, but we voters are ultimately responsible for our own bad lot. As Michael Scherer writes in Time, "

Exit polls in 2010 found that voters said reducing deficits was a higher priority than spending money to create jobs — a clear rejection of Keynesian theories, which hold that in hard times, government should increase spending and decrease taxes. The concern was not only among Republicans: 32% of voters who favored deficit reduction voted for Democrats last fall.... The people have spoken. And now, they are on their own.

... The End of the Affair. He’s a politician who no longer corresponds to the grand ideas that many students had in their heads about him. And that’s deflating and disheartening for them. -- Oberlin College Prof. Michael Parkin on Oberlin students' falling out of love with Barack Obama, a bad -- and scarcely unexpected -- sign for Obama's 2012 campaign

"Swipe Fees." As Karen Garcia lays out in this post, there were a lot of Senators crossing traditional party lines in yesterday's vote on an amendment to delay the Fed's new Dodd-Frank mandate to cap the amount banks can charge retailers for customer debit card sales. Needless to say, both banks & retailers made huge lobbying investments (one lobbyist called it the lobbyists "full employment amendment") to influence senators. Biggest surprise for me: North Carolina Republican Johnny Isakson voted against the banks; North Carolina is a big bank mecca, second only to New York, whose two Democratic Senators Schumer & Gillibrand sided with their Wall Street BFFs. ...

... BUT as Ann Carnns of the New York Times points out, "What remains to be seen, however, is whether the savings will be passed on to shoppers." The majority of consumers/voters don't think so. ...

... AND Aaron Couch of the Christian Science Monitor, who has a longer piece on the expected effects of the swipe fee limitations (worth a read), notes that "It’s a win for retailers, who say the fee cap will allow them to pass savings onto consumers, but experts say shoppers are unlikely to see lowered prices at the checkout line." Besides, banks will probably make up for their losses here by increasing customer fees elsewhere. ...

... Bottom Line: As the old adage goes, 'The customer is always the loser.' Or something like that. -- Constant Weader

CW: The Atlantic dubs its blog, The Atlantic Wire, "What Matters Now." Oh, maybe not. Here's a post by Uri Friedman titled "Osama bin Laden Hogged the Air Conditioner." "... bin Laden's room had the only air conditioner in the house -- in a region where summer temperatures can rise above 100 degrees Fahrenheit." ...

... Friedman cites this AP story by Kimberly Dozier, which actually is "what matters now": "Surveillance has been stepped up on possible terrorist targets around the world, as intelligence experts near the end of decrypting and translating material seized from the bin Laden compound. The trove of material has helped fill in the blanks on how known al-Qaida operatives work and think, and where they fit in the organization."

Click to link to feature.More on the Very Serious Media: while reading Michael Scherer's actually serious article on why Washington won't do anything to improve the economy, I glanced at the sidebar featured at left. The only serious thing about this little feature is that Time is famous for its Top Tens. What does that tell you the future holds for Playboy bunnies? BTW, that particular bunny, her pouty painted lips notwithstanding, looks neither happy about her "success" nor anxious to fuck you.

Steve Kornacki of Salon on "The Dirty Trick that Launched Anthony Weiner's Campaign": Weiner anonymously sent out race-baiting literature that undemined a top competitor in his first campaign for public office. Kornacki concludes, "Is it unfair if he loses his political future because of a scandal as dumb as this one? Sure. But it's also not exactly fair that he ever made it this far." ...

... Oh, nice. Michael Barbaro & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: Anthony Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, is pregnant. ...

... Joan Walsh of Salon: If Abedin is pregnant, Weiner should resign. ...

... Adrian Chen of Gawker has the cock-shot here. As Chen "It is the Osama bin Laden Death Picture of our time." Do you really want your Congressman sending photos of his penis erectus to young women? ...

... Finally, and this really is an antidote to the last bit, "Fragments from "Weiner! The Musical."

Right Wing World *

** Michael Grunwald of Time explains the dynamics of the Republican presidential primary to shut-ins: "These days being a real Republican means defying reality — not just on global warming, but on the tax code, the deficit, health care, and just about everything else.... Unfortunately for [Mitt] Romney, he’s not quite as comfortable defying reality as Tim Pawlenty, who’s running on a platform that magical tax cuts will cure all our problems by producing forty-twelve percent growth for the next eleventy thousand years. And he’s not as comfortable in his own skin as Jon Huntsman, who’s also reality-based, and therefore probably doomed in the primary, but seems less likely to sacrifice his dignity running away from his public record; if the primary electorate somehow decides that it’s more desperate for electability than purity, Huntsman seems much more plausible than Romney, even if he did serve in the Kenyan Socialist Administration."

"A Tale of Two Mitts." Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post: "The Good Mitt had so much potential: the distinguished political pedigree, the successful career, the beautiful family. The latest Washington Post poll has him beating Obama. The Bad Mitt jeopardizes it all by pandering so shamelessly and so inartfully to the Republican right wing. Instead of demonstrating the honesty and character to boldly lead the country beyond the partisan feud and the ideological holy war, the Bad Mitt reveals himself to be just another ambitious, poll-tested pol that no one can trust."

Steve Benen: to conservatives, ideology always trumps facts: case in point -- even though the evidence demonstrates that tax cuts for the rich reduce rather than increase revenues, Republicans ignore the empirical evidence & continue to promote this disastrous policy on the theory, evidently, that the left only opposes it because lefties hate rich people. ...

... Jonathan Chait of The New Republic on Tim Pawlenty's bold economic plan: "... this is just your basic supply-side pixie dust plan, sprinkling massive windfall gains on the rich, not bothering to make the numbers add up and assuming implausibly high economic benefits will result. The interesting thing is that Pawlenty's version of voodoo economics is more radical than George Bush's 2000 version of voodoo economics, which was in turn more radical than Bob Dole's 1996 version of voodoo economics, which was itself totally nuts." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of TNR contrasts Republican pixie dust (packaged, ironically, by Pawlenty as "hard truths") with 2008 Democratic pesidential candidates' actual plans.

"Decimating Medicare." After WashPo fact-checker Glenn Kessler asserts that Democrat Kathy Hochul won her New York 26th special election seat partly because of misleading Mediscare ads, he reviews this NRCC ad against Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) The ad is being or will be used against nine targeted House Democrats. Kessler says, "... the new NRCC campaign is one of those misleading ads that cites biased editorials and pretends that the quotes are from objective news sources, i.e., 'the media.' ... The claim ... that the 'Democrat plan' would 'bankrupt' Medicare or cut benefits by '17 percent'" is not true. What Republicans are calling the "Democrat plan" is today's Medicare, as modified by the Affordable Care Act, which reputable analysts say improves Medicare cost efficiency and quality of health care. Here's the NRCC's four-Pinocchio ad:

Wishing It Could Make It So. Ali Gharib of Think Progress: despite the right-wing meme that "Obama is losing Jewish donors," there is no evidence of that.

*Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

ABC News: "A new poll by New York 1 and Marist College found 56 percent of registered voters in New York’s 9th congressional district think [Anthony] Weiner should stay, despite bold public lies about his online behavior and the embarrassing details that have since come to light. Thirty-three percent said Weiner should immediately resign, while 12 percent were undecided, according to the poll." CW: bet his backers didn't see the penis pic.

Common Dreams: "President Barack Obama is considering nominating Treasury aide and former banker Raj Date as head of the new consumer financial watchdog agency, a source familiar with the decision-making said Wednesday. Date is a close associate of Elizabeth Warren...."

The Hill: "A group of House Democrats is calling for any deal to raise the debt ceiling to bring about the end of the Bush tax rates for the wealthy. The lawmakers, led by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), also say that, following last week’s weak job report, they are concerned that certain decreases in federal spending could hurt the economy’s recovery."

Chicago Tribune: "The fate of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is in the hands of a federal jury at his corruption retrial. U. S. District Court Judge James Zagel instructed jurors on the law following closing arguments by the lawyers and then sent them from the courtroom at about 5:30 p.m."

While Gingrich Cruises, Campaign Staff Jumps Ship. Time: "While Newt Gingrich and his wife are off on a two-week Greek cruise to recuperate from three exhausting weeks of campaigning, his political operation is imploding. The AP and Politico are currently reporting that six senior campaign staffers–including campaign manager Rob Johnson and spokesman Rick Tyler – are quitting en masse."

Washington Post: "Federal prosecutors will withdraw key documents from their case against a former National Security Agency manager charged with mishandling classified material, a move that experts say could signal the unraveling of one of the Obama administration’s most prominent efforts to punish accused leakers. Prosecutors informed U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett this week that they would withhold documents they had planned to introduce as evidence to keep from disclosing sensitive technology. Former NSA executive Thomas A. Drake is charged with unlawfully retaining classified information at a time when he was in touch with a Baltimore Sun reporter who later chronicled mismanagement at the agency."

New York Times: "Citigroup acknowledged on Thursday that unidentified hackers had breached its security and gained access to the data of hundreds of thousands of its bank card customers. 'During routine monitoring, we recently discovered unauthorized access to Citi’s account online,' the bank said in an e-mailed statement. 'We are contacting customers whose information was impacted.' The giant bank said about 1 percent of its bank card holders had been affected, putting the total count of customers exposed in the hundreds of thousands...."

The Commentariat -- June 8

Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: historians will not kindly judge President Obama's economic policy. "By mid-2011, it was clear that Obama had done little to address the nation’s fundamental economic problems. As had not been the case during previous recoveries, America’s major corporations and banks were investing abroad rather than at home. Unemployment still exceeded 9 percent. Almost all the growth the nation had experienced since the economy bottomed out in mid-2009 had gone to profits; wages during that time actually declined. Their incomes diminished and mired in debt, Americans were unable to purchase enough to get the economy going." ...

... AND Benanke Shrugged. Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: "The recent slowdown in the U.S. economy is being driven by temporary factors, and growth is likely to accelerate later in the year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Tuesday."...

... Tim Geithner, Exactly the Little Prick You Thought He Was. Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post. Geithner is the Last Man Standing of Obama's original economic team, and he's really influential. It was his bright idea to reduce the deficit at the expense of jobs. ...

... Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "Wal-Mart, which cooperates with unions abroad but is a union-buster in the U.S. & Canada, is coming up against actual international unions, which are demanding the mega-corporation adopt global pro-union policies & practices. CW: so what we have here is union leaders & rank-and file members in other countries standing up for American workers' rights, when our own officials, including the POTUS, can't be bothered.

Michael Cooper & Sam Roberts of the New York Times: "It may be a first in the annals of government secrecy: Declassifying documents to mark the anniversary of their leak to the press. But that is what will happen Monday, when the federal government plans to finally release the secret government study of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers 40 years after it was first published by The New York Times."

CW: looks like today means more Weinermania. Sorry about this:

Anthony Weiner gives Maureen Dowd a chance to do her best stuff: "After seeing a cascade of famous men marrying up and dating down — Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Dick Morris, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Tiger Woods, David Vitter, John Ensign and Arnold Schwarzenegger — and with Dominique Strauss-Kahn being supported by his prominent, elegant and wealthy journalist wife as he fights charges that he assaulted a 32-year-old hotel maid, maybe feminists have learned that male development stops at power." ...

... ** I've posted a comments page for Dowd's column on Off Times Square. ...

     ... Update: comments from Karen Garcia, Kate Madison & me on Weiner & Friends, none published by the Times as of 6:45 am ET.  Not necessarily a great way to start your day, gentlemen.

... Michael Barbaro & David Chen of the New York Times: "Representative Anthony D. Weiner ... moved rapidly on Tuesday to make amends as Republicans called for his resignation and leading members of his own Democratic Party distanced themselves from him." ...

... Jim Dwyer of the New York Times: (a) Weiner is nuts. (b) "... we are about to begin months of inquiries over whether Mr. Weiner sent seminaked pictures of himself to strangers from his personal BlackBerry or from a government-issued computer? Or whether he brought discredit on the House of Representatives? Having abetted nearly a decade of wars, and permitting fat cats to bring the economy to a state of collapse, Congress ought to be able to tolerate a few embarrassing and crude messages sent by one foolish man in Queens." ...

... CW: the three things that most annoyed me about Weiner's virtual dickathon were (1) the likelihood that he was communicating with underaged kids, (2) the likelihood he would get caught & compromise all the stuff he claimed to be fighting for, & (3) he lied to me. Rick Hertzberg, however, explains away my last complaint: "... a pet theory of mine: the Clinton Rule, which states that when a married politician appears before cameras and microphones and starts babbling absurd lies about some sexual something, the person he is really trying to lie to is his spouse. The lies that get told to the public and the press are side effects." ...

... Boys Will Be "Journalists." Glenn Greenwald: "Reporters who would never dare challenge powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, wage illegal wars or feed at the trough of sleazy legalized bribery suddenly walk upright ... pretending to be hard-core adversarial journalists as they collectively kick a sexually humiliated figure stripped of all importance." Thanks to reader Kat for the link. ...

... Jon Stewart apologizes for not covering the Anthony Weiner press conference:

... Risky Business. Dana Milbank: "... we’d be better off if lawmakers gambled more with their private parts and less with the public good."

** Jim Fallows has an answer to the Peter Diamond fiasco in which a know-nothing, no-everything Southern Senator nixed the confirmation of a Nobel Laureate for the Federal Reserve board because, according to the Senator (Richard Shelby [R-Ala.]), the Nobel Laureate (Diamond, an MIT professor of economics) just didn't know enough. Diamond withdrew his name from consideration ealier this week. Fallows says President Obama should appoint Diamond to replace the departing Austan Goolsbee as Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. This position also requires Senate confirmation, & Fallows says Obama should fight for the Senate to allow Diamond to lead his economic team.

Right Wing World *

Trying to Get Everything Wrong in One Speech. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty called on Tuesday for more than $2 trillion in tax cuts for individuals and businesses over the next decade and two to three times as much in federal spending reductions and loophole closings, saying that such policies would drive rapid economic growth." ...

... Ezra Klein: Pawlenty's fantasy economic "plan" is hilarious. "This plan isn’t optimistic. It isn’t a bit vague. It’s a joke. And I don’t know which is worse: The thought that Pawlenty knows that and went forward with this pandering, fantasy-based proposal anyway, or the thought that he doesn’t know it, and he really thinks this could work."

Dave Weigel in Slate: Republicans express concern/horror that John Bryson, President Obama's Commerce Secretary nominee, has spoken favorably of the United Nations. Radical leftist anti-American.

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

One-Party Rule. A Tale of Two States:

... Peter Applebome of the New York Times: "Lawmakers over the last several weeks have enacted the largest tax increase in Connecticut history and approved the nation’s first law to mandate paid sick leave for some workers. They voted to extend protections for transgender people, to charge in-state college tuition rates to illegal immigrants, to extend an early-release program for prisoners and to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. As legislators wrap up the first session in 20 years with a Democratic governor, who is working with two chambers in the Legislature under Democratic control, it is clear that either they did not receive or they decided to tear up the antitax, budget-slashing, confront-the-unions script that has characterized state legislative sessions elsewhere." ...

... Monica Davey of the Times: "In just the last few weeks, Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, has signed legislation to require voters to show photo identification cards at the polls and to deregulate elements of the telecommunications industry. And the Republican-dominated Legislature is now in the midst of advancing provisions to expand school vouchers, to allow people to carry concealed weapons, to cut financing for Planned Parenthood and to bar illegal immigrants from paying in-state tuition at Wisconsin’s universities. Why the urgency? ... They are at risk of losing their newly won majority in the State Senate as early as next month."

News Ledes

"President Obama visits Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia to announce new commitments by the private sector, community colleges and the National Association of Manufacturers to give 500,000 community college students industry-accepted credentials":

Los Angeles Times: "Skeptical questions from three federal judges in Atlanta suggest they may be ready to declare unconstitutional all or part of the healthcare law promoted by the Obama administration and passed last year by Congress." Here's the New York Times story.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The [Wisconsin] state Government Accountability Board voted Wednesday to set recall elections for three Democratic state senators, bringing to nine the number of senators facing recall elections."

New York Times: "The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials."

The Hill: "Obama administration officials and lawmakers are lowering the bar for success in Afghanistan ahead of the first strategic review of war policy in the post-Osama bin Laden era."

The Hill: "Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) won one of the biggest victories of his career Wednesday by leading the defeat of a controversial banking proposal supported by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the powerful banking industry.  An amendment sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) that would have delayed regulations on debit-card fees fell six votes short of the 60 it needed to win passage, 54-45.  The vote abruptly ended the biggest K Street battle of 2011, a debate that pitted banks and credit unions against a coalition of retailers and consumer-rights groups."

New York Times: "House Democratic leaders began an orchestrated effort on Wednesday to force Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York to resign his seat, saying his sexually explicit Internet messages and subsequent lies about them were making him, and the party, the subject of ridicule. The push came as an angry Representative Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader from California, concluded that Mr. Weiner was becoming too much of a problem for his colleagues as they planned to retake the House in 2012."

AP: "Consumers are caught in the middle of a fight between financial institutions and merchants as the Senate approaches a showdown vote over whether to block the Federal Reserve from capping fees that stores pay banks every time a shopper swipes a debit card. The vote, scheduled for Wednesday, is the climax of a long, expensive lobbying battle between two industries that lawmakers hate to cross because of their influence back home and their campaign contributions."

Reuters: "Lawyers for President Barack Obama will on Wednesday ...will present oral arguments as it appeals a ruling by a Florida judge who declared the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, backing claims by 26 U.S. states that are seeking repeal. A three-judge panel at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear oral arguments by both sides.... No ruling is expected for months and legal experts expect an appeal to the Supreme Court...."

Hostage-Takers Ransom Note Released. Washington Post: "Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.) told reporters that Republicans want $2.5 trillion in budget savings in exchange for voting to raise the country’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit through the end of next year."

Wall Street Journal: "President Barack Obama met quietly with the crown prince of Bahrain on Tuesday to press the royal family to investigate alleged human-rights abuses by its security forces, said senior U.S. officials. By meeting Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, albeit only briefly and without cameras present, Mr. Obama sought to reinforce his position among the prince's royal relatives while not appearing to endorse Bahrain's continuing crackdown on political opponents...."