The Commentariat -- February 16

They had to know. But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.’ -- Bernie Madoff, about the banks & hedge funds with whom he did business ...

... Diana Henriques of the New York Times: "Mr. Madoff ... maintained that family members knew nothing about his crimes. But during a private two-hour interview... on Tuesday, and in earlier e-mail exchanges, he asserted that unidentified banks and hedge funds were somehow 'complicit' in his elaborate fraud, an about-face from earlier claims that he was the only person involved.... He also claimed he had been helping the court-appointed trustee who is seeking to recover lost billions on behalf of his swindled clients."

Mark Landler & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The Obama administration has responded quite differently to two embattled governments that have beaten protesters and blocked the Internet in recent days to fend off the kind of popular revolt that brought down Egypt’s government. With Iran..., the administration has all but encouraged protesters to take to the streets. With Bahrain, a strategically important ally across the Persian Gulf from Iran, it has urged its king to address the grievances of his people."

They Knew. Jay Solomon of the Wall Street Journal: "Early last year, a group of U.S.-based human-rights activists, neoconservative policy makers and Mideast experts told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that what passed for calm in Egypt was an illusion.... The[ir] correspondence was part of a string of warnings passed to the Obama administration arguing that Egypt, heading toward crisis, required a vigorous U.S. response. Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's 82-year-old dictator, was moving to rig a string of elections, they said. Egypt's young population was growing more agitated. The bipartisan body that wrote to Mrs. Clinton, the Egypt Working Group, argued that the administration wasn't fully appraising the warning signs in Egypt."

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, known to the CIA as the informant "Curveball," was the single source for the main justification the U.S. used to initiate the 2003 Iraq War. In his famous 2003 address before the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell cited Curveball's claims as his primary evidence that Iraq was holding biochemical weapons. Now al-Janabi, a chemical engineer by training, admits that he made up the whole story in an effort to topple Saddam Hussein. BTW, the CIA never talked to al-Janabi before Powell made his WMD claim; all of Curveball's conversations were with Germany's secret service, the BND. Here's the print story -- and the interview:

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses the Department of Defense of allowing a military culture that fails to prevent rape and sexual assault, and of mishandling cases that were brought to its attention, thus violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. The suit — brought by 2 men and 15 women, both veterans and active-duty service members — specifically claims that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, 'ran institutions in which perpetrators were promoted and where military personnel openly mocked and flouted the modest Congressionally mandated institutional reforms.'”

NEW. Joe Klein of Time: because it is technically an earmark, "Teach for America, the brilliant program that has sent tens of thousands of elite college graduates to work in the poorest, toughest schools, is about to get stiffed by the federal government."

Lisa Mascaro of the Los Angeles Times: "Criticism mounted at the start of a House debate [on the FY 2012 budget] as Democrats took aim at GOP plans to maintain tax breaks for oil companies and the wealthy while cutting medical research, community policing and funding for 'Sesame Street,' calling the proposal a 'mindless' exercise that would do little to address the nation's $1.5-trillion deficit." ...

... Glenn Thrush of Politico: for Congressional Democrats, President Obama's omission of entitlement cuts "was a gift, in their view, the setting of a political trap for a Republican Party divided between conservatives pushing for major changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and a GOP leadership wary of the political peril of tinkering with Americans’ retirement security."

If some of those jobs are lost, so be it. -- John Boehner, on job losses resulting from House budget cuts

The Million-Man Unemployment Budget. Dana Milbank writes that about 650,000 government jobs would be lost under the House budget plan & 325,000 indirect support jobs would go, too. "... the cuts Boehner and his caucus propose would cause a shock to the economy that would slow, if not reverse, the recovery.... The dirty truth is that a stall in the recovery would bring political benefits to the Republicans in the 2012 elections.... 'So be it' is callous but rational." Oh, and BTW, Boehner plans to protect his home state of Ohio from job losses: "Rather than take a so-be-it attitude toward jobs his constituents may hold, he's acking an earmark-like provision in the spending legislation to keep funding the unneeded GE engine, [which is built in Ohio]." ...

... UPDATE. Mark Thompson of Time: "... The House ... voted 233-198 against $450 million in funding for a second engine for the F-35 warplane.... The move is a blow to House Speaker John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, whose state would garner thousands of jobs from building the engine." Defense Secretary Robert Gates has repeatedly said he didn't want the project to go forward. ...

... NEW. CW: for his insupportable claim that President Obama added 200,00 federal jobs, I'm giving the Boner a --

     ... According to Ezra Klein -- who delves into facts, the actual number of jobs added isn't even close to Boehner's figure, & in fact the federal government is shrinking jobs by about 4 percent, outside of security & military personnel. Klein writes, "... the jobs that Boehner is deriding are, broadly speaking, jobs related to the military and homeland security, with perhaps a few more in the Justice and State departments. But the money Boehner is cutting from the government -- which is what his comment is in reference to -- comes from non-security discretionary spending. So the new jobs are coming in the part of the budget Boehner is protecting, not the part he's cutting." ...

     ... Oops, looks as if PolitiFact, the originator of the Pants-on-Fire designation beat me to it. They gave Boehner a mere --

... Mike Hall of the AFL-CIO: "Like their colleagues on the state level, Boehner and his Republican cohorts are trying to demonize and dehumanize public workers, in this case federal employees from aviation workers and food safety inspectors to nurses, immigration officers and teachers. They claim they are going after a so-called “bloated” federal workforce. But the Washington Post reported last September there were only 20,000 more federal employees under Obama in 2010 than under George W. Bush in 2002—and that, on a per capita basis (federal employees per 1,000 Americans), it’s at the lowest level at least since 1962." ...

... Steve Benen: "That's a rather extraordinary acknowledgement. Confronted with accusations that his own budget plan would kill jobs, Boehner not only conceded that the charges are correct, he went on to say he simply doesn't care." ...

... Democracy for America invites you to take on Speaker Boehner & "Join the campaign to stop cuts to vital programs, invest in jobs, and make sure everyone pays their fair share."

What we have is $1.6 trillion in new tax increases, $8.7 trillion in new spending. He's going to be adding $13 trillion to the debt over the course of his budget.
-- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Budget Committee, chair on President Obama's proposed budget ...

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "It's bad enough to toss around 10-year figures. And Obama could be faulted for not submitting a budget that gets federal government spending back to the 20.3 percent of the gross domestic product. But to demand that he meet a standard no modern president has ever met -- and then label it as 'new spending' -- is highly misleading."

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a Washington Post op-ed: "Democratic governments, including our closest allies, do not always agree with us. Yet they share our most fundamental belief -- that people must be governed by consent. It is as true today as it was when I said in 2005 that the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty. We have only one choice: to trust that in the long arc of history those shared beliefs will matter more than the immediate disruptions that lie ahead and that, ultimately, our interests and ideals will be well served." ...

... Craig Whitlock & Kathy Lally of the Washington Post: "Egypt geared up Tuesday for a breakneck rush to democracy as its military rulers vowed to hand authority to an elected civilian government in six months and ordered legal experts to draft a revised constitution in 10 days. The announcements are the latest signal that Egypt's generals are serious in their pledges to quickly transform the country and relinquish the power they seized when President Hosni Mubarak resigned last week after 18 days of street protests." ...

... How'd They Do That? James Glanz & John Markoff of the New York Times: "For all the Internet’s vaunted connectivity, the Egyptian government commanded powerful instruments of control: it owns the pipeline [CW: it's a series of tubes!] that carry information across the country and out into the world. Internet experts say similar arrangements are more common in authoritarian countries than is generally recognized."

Here's something that will cheer you up: the President & Mrs. Obama honor the 2010 Medal of Freedom winners. CW: I used to know one of the winners, so I was immensely pleased:

Here's a list of the recipients. Here are brief bios of the recipients.

Local News

More on America's Worst Governor from Michael Grunwald of Time: "Florida Governor Rick Scott just killed the Obama administration's marquee high-speed rail project, giving up a whopping $2.4 billion in federal funds for a Tampa-Orlando bullet train. This was the nation's most shovel-ready high-speed project, and the state wasn't required to spend a dime to build it; running through the heart of the politically sensitive I-4 corridor, it had bipartisan support in South Florida, where it was seen as a precursor to a long-awaited Orlando-Miami line." CW: a reminder to Floridians: Scott cannot be impeached.

Today We Are All Cheeseheads. WTAQ, Green Bay, Wisconsin: "Present and former Green Bay Packers are among those urging the Legislature to reject Governor Scott Walker’s proposed union cutbacks.... They called the right to negotiate wages and benefits, most of which Walker would take away, a, 'fundamental underpinning of our middle class.' And they said the current setup has worked for Wisconsin since the 1930’s."

News Ledes

New York Times: thousands of angry public workers stormed the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, as new Republican Gov. Scott Walker "forge[d] ahead with the plans that had set off the uprising: He wants to require public workers to pay more for their health insurance and pensions, effectively cutting the take-home pay of many by around 7 percent. He also wants to weaken most public-sector unions by sharply curtailing their collective bargaining rights." ...

... Wisconsin State Journal: "Schools and teachers were a central focus at a third day of protests at the Capitol on Wednesday as Madison teachers and students joined thousands of public union workers to blast a plan to strip them of collective bargaining rights. The Madison district canceled school Wednesday after nearly half the district's 2,600 union teachers had coordinated a sickout by late Tuesday."

New York Times: "Funds belonging to the family of Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, or his senior ministers have been discovered in Switzerland, a Swiss government official said Wednesday. But the official declined to specify how much money had been identified or who controlled the account."

New York Times: "The Federal Reserve revealed Wednesday that its policy makers had substantially upgraded their forecasts for how much the United States economy will grow this year, even though they expect that unemployment will remain painfully high for some time."

New York Times: in Manama, Bahrain, "... hundreds of people carried pro-democracy protests into a third straight day on Wednesday, joining a procession to mourn a demonstrator killed in a clash with security forces.... Around 2,000 people camped out at the major road junction in the city center demanding a change in the government of this strategically-placed Persian Gulf kingdom that is home to the United States Navy’s 5th Flee. Police massed nearby but did not intervene...." ...

... AP: "Yemen sent 2,000 policemen into the streets of the capital on Wednesday to try to put down days of protests against the president of 32 years, a key U.S. ally in battling al-Qaida. The policemen, including plainclothes officers, fired in the air and blocked thousands of students at Sanaa University from joining thousands of other protesters elsewhere in the capital who were holding a sixth straight day of demonstrations." ...

... New York Times: "The wave of turmoil and protests sweeping the Middle East appeared on Wednesday to have reached Libya, ruled for four decades by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, according to news reports." ...

... New York Times: "A day after the largest antigovernment protests in Iran in more than a year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday dismissed opposition attempts to revive mass demonstrations as certain to fail, while members of the Iranian Parliament clamored for the two most prominent leaders of the protest movement to be executed." ...

... AP: "Labor unrest ... flared again Wednesday in Egypt despite a warning by the ruling military that protests and strikes were hampering efforts to improve the economy and return life to normal."

We're Too Damned Cheap, Sez Brooks

David Brooks writes one of his usual pseudo-intellectual columns, this time about how someone who died in 1974, whom Brooks names "Sam," had a different outlook on life than does fictional Sam's fictional grandson "Jared." Brooks attributes the country's economic woes to all the Jareds of today. I thought I did a darned good job of ripping into Brooks' thesis. I guess the Times moderators thought so, too, because they scotched my comment. So here it is:

As you so commonly do, Mr. Brooks, you contradict yourself in this essay. After claiming that Jared isn't doing much to create jobs, you say that one thing that makes him happy is that "Every few months, new gizmos come out." You also imply that Jared, like others of his generation, "has spent much more on health care." You also say Jared "lives beyond his means."

Who do you think produces "gizmos"? It's people you describe as "down the income scale." True, our corporate laws and trade policies being what they are, nine out of ten of those gizmos are probably made entirely outside of the U.S. Still, they are generating wealth for the American corporate bigwigs who import the gizmos & for the American merchandisers who sell them.

In addition, almost all of the money you say Jared spends on health care stays in the U.S., and a good deal of that money goes into job creation: medical personnel, yoga instructors, health food store workers, etc.

And we know Jared is a big spender because you say he's living beyond his means. While that's not a good idea, spending every penny & then some does produce jobs.

In short, you disproved your own theory. It looks to me as if Jared has created more jobs than his more circumspect, cautious grandfather did.

So what has caused "The Great Stagnation"? Is Tyler Cowen right? Partly. He's right about this:

There was the tremendous increase in education levels during the postwar world. There were technological revolutions occasioned by the spread of electricity, plastics and the car. Those factors were causes of much of the improvement in our standard of living.

And to the extent that we have quit educating our children -- and we have -- and have fallen behind on technological innovations -- less so -- these factors contribute to economic stagnation.

But by far the greatest cause of stagnation is the work of your friends and neighbors, a/k/a the Congress & the President & the gentlemen of the Supreme Court (I say "gentlemen" because very few of the gentlewomen on the Court have been serially culpable.) Cowen uses a cutoff date of 1974. I would make it a few years later, but why quibble? Our economic policies, beginning with Jimmy Carter, & much exacerbated by every Administration & Congress since, are directly responsible for our falling behind other nations.

The most obvious factor is the tax code, which Congress has repeatedly made less progressive, so that the wealthy pay only a bit more than the middle class (tho with creative deductions, many pay less). The free ride we give corporations is a scandal. (G.E., for instance, pays about 3.5% of its profits in taxes; I pay a heckuva lot more in income tax, & I'm no Jeff Immelt.) In addition, we let corporations get away with moving jobs and profits overseas. And now the Supremes have given corporations individual rights! They're not even corporations anymore except when it comes to getting tax breaks.

Our trade policies are anti-American. The revolving door between Wall Street & other businesses on the one hand and government "regulators" on the other, is but one of the many disincentives for regulators to do their jobs. (Right now the Obama Administration is promising to cut regulations & the House is planning to underfund the S.E.C., for instance.) If businesses skirt the law, everybody -- except the big businessmen -- loses. The big guys get richer, through cheating, and we get comparatively poorer.

The Congress has modified our estate tax law to ensure a permanent aristocracy. The Congress's and state legislatures' restrictions on unions are unconscionable. Cutbacks on education funding at every level explain "why Johnny can't think." All of these factors, and more, explain why the U.S. has become a second-tier economy. In a country in which laws have been amended to leave only a small minority with discretionary income, it is only that minority who can afford to spend. Our governmental policies have put the brakes on a once-vibrant economy. And they keep on making matters worse.

Jared is in debt, not necessarily through his own doing, but because our governmental bodies made him poor. If he takes pleasure in other aspects of life, it's partly because that's all that's left to him. These other activities are coping mechanisms, not raisons d'êtres.

Update: Paul Krugman takes a different tack from mine, & his post is well worth reading. He says of Brooks' hypothesis: "My immediate reaction was that this is all wrong — that people like David’s hypothetical Jared are actually rare, that the reality is that we’re more into the rat race than ever before." Krugman backs up his "immediate reaction" with data. What a novel idea!

The Commentariat -- February 15

** "South Dakota Moves to Legalize Killing Abortion Providers." Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones: "A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of 'justifiable homicide' to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus — a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon."

** "The Great Abdication." Paul Krugman: "... the Obama administration has accepted the Republican claim that stimulus failed, and should never be tried again. What’s extraordinary about all this is that stimulus can’t have failed, because it never happened. Once you take state and local cutbacks into account, there was no surge of government spending.... Fiscal policy didn’t fail; it wasn’t tried." ...

... Jeannine Aversa & Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "Not since World War II has the federal budget deficit made up such a big chunk of the U.S. economy. And within two or three years, economists fear the result could be sharply higher interest rates that would slow economic growth. The budget plan President Barack Obama sent Congress on Monday foresees a record deficit of $1.65 trillion this year. That would be just under 11 percent of the $14 trillion economy — the largest proportion since 1945, when wartime spending swelled the deficit to 21.5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product."

... Peter Wallstein & Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "President Obama's new budget plan ... serves as a measure of his presidency -- revealing vastly diminished ambitions and practical political calculations.... In declining to embrace the most difficult ideas proposed by his bipartisan deficit commission..., the president deferred tough decisions that many in both parties say are necessary to fix the country's fiscal problems. That apparent tentativeness suggests the man who once said he would rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-termer is, in fact, very interested in winning that second term." CW: I disagree with this assessment; Obama's strategy is to exclude these cuts, then cave to Republican "pressure." ...

     ... Update. Looks as if Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities agrees with me: "Specific presidential proposals would have invited immediate attacks from lawmakers across the political spectrum and almost certainly led to pledges by scores or hundreds of members of Congress never to agree to them." Read Greenstein's whole post, which -- in a short space -- does a good job of describing the President's proposed budget & zeroing in on its weak points.

Noam Scheiber of The New Republic profiles Tim Geithner. CW: I only read the first page because it's a seven-page article with no single-page function, but I'll probably go back to it. The gist seems to be that Geithner, who is the lone man standing from Obama's original economic team, rehabilitated himself after a very shaky start.

Faking It. Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times: "A new study backed by pro-business groups takes a harsh stance on rules intended to bring transparency to the $600 billion derivatives market. The report, published on Monday, claims that proposed regulation could cost 130,000 jobs and could cut corporate spending by $6.7 billion.... The firm’s bona fides include an all-star roster of academics, including "Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economic science.... [But] it appears that Mr. Stiglitz and many of the firm’s advisers are not advisers at all." In fact, Stiglitz and others said the report results were nonsense.

Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Discrepancies in reports about an appearance by Justice Clarence Thomas at a political retreat for wealthy conservatives three years ago have prompted new questions to the Supreme Court from a group that advocates changing campaign finance laws.... Last month, a court spokeswoman said Justice Thomas had made a 'brief drop-by' at the event in Palm Springs, Calif., in January 2008 and had given a talk. In his financial disclosure report for that year, however, Justice Thomas reported that the Federalist Society ... had reimbursed him an undisclosed amount for four days of 'transportation, meals and accommodations.' ... The event is organized by Charles and David Koch...."

Here's Rachel Maddow on Justices Thomas' & Scalia's likely conflicts of interest:

Roni Rabin of the New York Times: "... a report being released Tuesday by the federally financed National Domestic Violence Hotline says 1 in 4 women who agreed to answer questions after calling the hot line said a partner had pressured them to become pregnant, told them not to use contraceptives, or forced them to have unprotected sex."

New York Times Editors: "The Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country has promised accountability and justice for children sexually abused by priests. We fear it has a long way to go. A new inquiry [conducted in Philadelphia] has found that nearly a decade after the scandal engulfed the American church, children are still in peril and some leaders are still stonewalling investigations." ...

     ... The backstory by David O'Reilly of the Philadelphia Inquirer, February 11: "A Philadelphia grand jury on Thursday brought felony charges against a former high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for 'purposefully' shielding sexually abusive priests and endangering children in the late 1990s, and said it was uncertain whether retired archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was culpable as well." ...

     ... And by Dave Warner of Reuters, February 14: "The Archbishop of Philadelphia and his predecessor were accused on Monday in a civil lawsuit of endangering children by concealing the identity and sexual abuse of predatory priests from law enforcement to save the church from a costly scandal."

Jennifer Preston of the New York Times: Facebook "finds itself under countervailing pressures after the uprisings in the Middle East. While it has become one of the primary tools for activists to mobilize protests and share information, Facebook does not want to be seen as picking sides for fear that some countries — like Syria, where it just gained a foothold — would impose restrictions on its use or more closely monitor users.... And Facebook does not want to alter its firm policy requiring users to sign up with their real identities."

How to Become an U.S. Citizen: First, Get a Million Dollars.... Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal reminds us of this longstanding U.S. immigration program:

According to the Department of Homeland Security, foreign investors have to invest only $500,000 to get residency, provided they meet other restrictions. They have to invest in a rural or underdeveloped community and they have to create at least 10 jobs, either directly or indirectly. They have to invest $1 million or more if they aren’t investing in rural or underdeveloped areas. (They are eligible for permanent residency after two years and full citizenship after another five years if they meet certain criteria.)

CW: a candidate for Infotainment: Colum Lynch of Foreign Policy: "Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna..., in his first appearance before the U.N. Security Council..., read the wrong speech. For three minutes, Krishna read from the official statement of the foreign minister of Portugal...." Adam Sorensen of Time calls Krishna "the Ron Burgundy of the U.N."

Right Wing World

In the right-wing alternate universe, Michelle Obama is a big fat pig who downs at least ten bacon-burgers at dinner. Think I'm kidding? Here's the proof. Have they ever looked at Michelle Obama?

Michelle Obama, in an Andrew Breitbart cartoon by James Hudnall & "Batton Lash." The real-world version.Nate Silver: "Republican insiders, reports the Washington Post’s plugged-in Jennifer Rubin, are worried about the quality of their slate of presidential candidates for 2012." Silver runs the popularity poll numbers & concludes The insiders are right to fret.

Andy Barr of Politico: "Haley Barbour is pushing back against a report that he helped the government of Mexico push for 'amnesty' during his time as a lobbyist.... Barbour issued a statement and fact sheet Monday night — and though neither explicitly says BGR did not work on citizenship issues for Mexicans living in the United States, it asserts that the firm Barbour founded 'never advocated amnesty for illegal aliens.'" Barbour's statement was a response to this Time magazine story by Michael Scherer, which we linked yesterday.

Gene Robinson: speakers at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) argued "that the world's 1.2 billion Muslims cannot be trusted to govern themselves. That's not what I call loving freedom."

Michelle Price of the AP: "Republican lawmakers want to widen Arizona's illegal immigration crackdown with a proposal to require hospitals to check on whether patients are in the country legally, causing outrage among medical professionals who fear becoming de facto immigration agents under the law.... Doctors envisioned scenarios in which immigrants with contagious diseases such as tuberculosis would stay home from the clinic or hospital and put themselves and the public at a grave health risk."

News Ledes

The President's full press conference:

** President Obama held a previously unannounced press conference this morning. The White House did not reveal what the President would discuss. Via Politico. Updates: here's a brief report from the New York Times on the content of the President's presser. Here's the AP report.

** The Hill: "The Obama administration on Tuesday threatened to veto the House GOP's measure funding the federal government.... 'If the president is presented with a bill that undermines critical priorities or national security through funding levels or restrictions, contains earmarks or curtails the drivers of long-term economic growth and job creation while continuing to burden future generations with deficits, the president will veto the bill,' said a statement from the OMB.

New York Times: "Lara Logan, the CBS News correspondent, was attacked and sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo on Feb. 11, the day that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced from power, the network said Tuesday. After the mob surrounded her, Ms. Logan 'suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers,' the network said in a statement. Ms. Logan is recovering at a hospital in the United States." Here's the CBS News statement, but it adds no details not contained in the NYT story.

New York Times: "Thousands of demonstrators poured into [Bahrain’s] symbolic center, Pearl Square [in Manama], late Tuesday in a raucous rally.... As momentum built up behind the protests on Tuesday, the 18 members of parliament from the Islamic National Accord Association, the traditional opposition, announced they were suspending participation in the legislature."

New York Times: "The military officers governing Egypt convened a panel Tuesday to revise the country’s constitution that included both a distinguished Coptic Christian jurist and a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, offering the first significant evidence of the military’s commitment to moving the country toward democratic rule."

New York Times: "A review of the F.B.I.’s scientific work on the investigation into the anthrax letters of 2001 concludes that the bureau overstated the strength of genetic analysis linking the mailed anthrax to a supply kept by Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, the late Army microbiologist whom the investigators blamed for the attacks. The review, by a panel of experts convened by the national Academy of Sciences, says the genetic analysis 'did not definitively demonstrate' that the mailed anthrax spores were grown from a sample taken from Dr. Ivins’s laboratory...." Dr. Ivins committed suicide in 2008.

The Street: "Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, said Monday that he will be resigning his post on March 30."

Reuters: "Deutsche Boerse will take over NYSE Euronext to create the world's largest exchange operator in a deal worth $10.2 billion, but the two exchanges dodged key questions that could yet threaten its completion. While shareholders of the German exchange will control 60 pct of the new company and 10 of 17 board seats there are suspicions in Germany over whether NYSE management will be in the driver's seat. There are also concerns in the U.S. that the New York Stock Exchange will lose influence and any sense of independence. That tension could raise obstacles to final regulatory approval to Deutsche Boerse's planned takeover...."

Guardian: Italian Prime Minister "Silvio Berlusconi is to go on trial charged with paying for sex with an underage prostitute and then trying to cover up the alleged offence by abusing his position as Italy's prime minister. All three judges named for the trial are women. A Milan judge, Cristina di Censo, agreed in full to the request lodged last week by prosecutors who have been investigating Berlusconi. She ruled that he should be sent straight to trial without committal proceedings, accepting the prosecutors' view that the usual procedures should be waived because of the 'obviousness of the evidence' against him. The trial will begin on 6 April." The New York Times story is here.

New York Times: "After weeks of turmoil rolling through the Arab world, protesters in ... [Bahrain] clashed for a second day with the police on Tuesday and a second demonstrator was killed by gunfire, spurring the largest Shiite bloc to suspend participation in the country’s Parliament. The events came as mourners gathered for the funeral of a Shiite protester shot to death during what was called a “Day of Rage” protest on Monday...." ...

... New York Times: "Hundreds of riot police officers in Iran beat protesters and fired tear gas Monday to contain the most significant street protests since the end of the 2009 uprising there, as security forces around the region moved — sometimes brutally — to prevent new unrest in sympathy with the opposition victory in Egypt." ...

... Washington Post: "Violent protests erupted in Iran, Yemen and Bahrain on Monday...." ...

... Washington Post: "Egypt's new military rulers tried to contain growing labor unrest Monday and to reach out to youthful revolutionaries as the formidable task of governing the politically unstable and impoverished country became apparent. Police officers, ambulance drivers, bankers, journalists and archaeologists marched through the streets of Cairo in separate protests Monday."

Reuters: "The Pakistani Taliban warned the government on Tuesday it would punish any move to release a U.S. consulate employee accused of murdering two Pakistanis in a case that has inflamed already strained ties with Washington. U.S. Senator John Kerry was due in Pakistan as part of the Obama administration's efforts to resolve the crisis." ...

... New York Times: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has chosen Marc Grossman, a retired senior diplomat and former ambassador to Turkey, as the Obama administration’s new special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, a senior State Department official said Monday."

AP: "Documents filed Monday night in Houston claim Kevin Lacy, BP's former senior vice president for drilling operations for the Gulf of Mexico, reached a mutual agreement with the company to resign in December 2009 because he believed the company was not adequately committed to improving safety protocols in offshore drilling operations to the level of its industry peers. The Deepwater Horizon rig explosion occurred on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers and causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history."

The Hill: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday said the House GOP budget for the Pentagon is 'disconnected' from operational realities. Gates said the Pentagon needs $540 billion for fiscal 2011, less than the $548 billion initially sought by the Obama administration but $14 billion more than what House Republicans are offering in a continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of the year."

AP: "A Tucson jury found Shawna Forde, 42, guilty of murder in the May 2009 killings of Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia at their home in Arivaca, a desert community 10 miles north of Mexico." Forde, "the leader of an anti-illegal-immigrant group, was convicted Monday in a home invasion robbery that left a 9-year-old girl and her father dead in what prosecutors said was an attempt to steal drug money to fund the group's operations." Here's the Arizona Daily Star story.