The Commentariat -- Jan. 27, 2014

Internal links removed.

Emmarie Huetteman of the New York Times: "Aides to President Obama on Sunday offered a preview of the strategy of the president's State of the Union address, emphasizing Mr. Obama's willingness to bypass a gridlocked Congress to achieve his goals. ...

... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "White House officials are setting the scene for a confrontational state of the union address on Tuesday night, claiming that President Barack Obama is preparing to 'bypass' Congress with executive action on divisive issues such as economic inequality." ...

... John Harwood of the New York Times: This is because Republicans are still getting their way. "'We've been playing on a Reagan playing field -- a cut-government, shrink-programs field -- since 1981,' [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] said in an interview. 'It's all turning around now.' If he is right, the president has three years left to capitalize. Neither Mr. Obama nor his aides evince much confidence."

... Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: The Republicans' planned/canned responses to the State of the Union address are evidence of a party in disarray, with no clear message & no clear leader. ...

... Alex Pareene of Salon: "... the responses are multiplying for the same reason phony talking filibusters suddenly caught on among Senate Republicans last year: Because the GOP is effectively leaderless and acting like a rebel insurgent is the only way to win over grassroots conservative voters. In other words, expect even more responses in 2015."

Griff Witte of the Washington Post: The British are likely to raise the minimum wage to about $10/hour, & the Conservative Party is for it.

New York Times Editors: "The clandestine influence of the Kochs and their Palm Springs friends would be much reduced if they were forced to play in the sunshine. The Internal Revenue Service and several lawmakers are beginning to step up their interest in preventing 'social welfare' organizations and other tax-sheltered groups from being used as political conduits, but they have encountered the usual resistance from Republican lawmakers. Considering how effectively the Koch brothers are doing their job, it's easy to see why." See also safari's comments on the Koch Party in yesterday's Comments. ...

... ** Paul Krugman: "Extreme inequality, it turns out, creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality -- and simultaneously gives these people great power. The example many are buzzing about right now is the billionaire investor Tom Perkins.... In a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Perkins lamented public criticism of the 'one percent' -- and compared such criticism to Nazi attacks on the Jews, suggesting that we are on the road to another Kristallnacht.... President Obama has not, unfortunately, done nearly as much as F.D.R. to earn the hatred of the undeserving rich. But he has done more than many progressives give him credit for -- and like F.D.R., both he and progressives in general should welcome that hatred, because it's a sign that they're doing something right." CW: Krugman's column is an elaboration on a blogpost MAG linked in yesterday's comments. ...

... ** Matthew O'Brien in the Atlantic: "Upward mobility has stayed the same the past 50 years despite skyrocketing inequality. But it's lower in the South (and Ohio) than anywhere else in the U.S. -- or the rest of the developed world."

Click on map to see larger image.

... Amy Chua & Jed Rubenfeld in the New York Times: "... for all their diversity, the strikingly successful [ethnic/cultural] groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex -- a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite -- insecurity, a feeling that you or what you've done is not good enough. The third is impulse control." ...

... Robert Reich posits three reasons Americans don't mount a popular revolution (tho massive protest is justified).

Yesterday the New York Times ran a big profile of Rand Paul, by Sam Tanenhaus & Jim Rutenberg. CW: I didn't read it, but P. D. Pepe did. As do I, Pepe thinks Paul is a viable presidential candidate. A few more scandals, & he'll be the Last Man Standing (yes, "Man"; there will be no GOP women in the running. Or Democratic women, if Paul has it his way ...

... Sins of the Husband. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested Sunday that the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal should give Americans pause when it comes to evaluating the Clinton legacy -- and, by extension, Hillary Rodham Clinton's potential presidential campaign. Paul's wife, Kelley, made similar remarks in a Vogue profile last year, and her husband agreed with her Sunday in an interview on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'" ...

For I Acqua Buddha am a jealous Buddha, visiting the iniquity of the husbands upon the wives unto every presidential election henceforce and forevermore. -- Proverbs of Paul 5:8

... Sam Youngman of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "During a Lexington luncheon Thursday, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul discussed the possibility of cutting government benefits for unwed mothers who have multiple children, though the potential Republican candidate for president in 2016 didn't directly endorse such a policy.... 'Maybe we have to say "enough's enough, you shouldn't be having kids after a certain amount,'" Paul told the business group at one point. Paul told the audience that being "married with kids versus unmarried with kids is the difference between living in poverty and not. We should sell that message,' Paul said. 'Not in a mean way to tell people who already have made a bad decision, but if you've had one child and you're not married, you shouldn't have another one.'" ...

For I Acqua Buddha am a jealous Buddha, visiting the iniquity of the mothers upon the children unto the second and third and fourth of them. -- Proverbs of Paul, 5:9

     ... Ashley Killough of CNN: Paul clarified his comments on Sunday. "'I mostly concluded by saying it's a community, it's a religious, it's a personal problem, but it is a problem,' Paul said." ...

... Ashley Killough: "Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that Democrats are failing in their attempts to frame the GOP as a party that wages a war against women, and argued the message comes from the party of former President Bill Clinton, whose reputation is still tarnished from his 'predatory behavior' in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. 'The whole thing of the 'war on women,' I sort of laughingly say, 'Yeah, there might have been -- but the women are winning it,'" the Republican senator from Kentucky said on CNN's 'State of the Union.' He said women have made great strides and, as an example, now make up more than half the students at medical and law schools." CW: There is no war on women, but a woman cannot seek high office if her husband behaves badly.

Clinton's husband must be above suspicion. -- Paulus Minor

David of Crooks & Liars: "CBS host Bob Schieffer's was driven nearly to a fit of giggles on Sunday after Sen. Ted Cruz R-TX) repeatedly refused to take responsibility for last year's government shutdown." CW: Actually, you can hear Schieffer chortling off-camera. And Schieffer didn't just laugh; after Cruz repeated his claim that President Obama was the one who shut down the government, Schieffer said, "Senator, I know what Republicans were telling me -- like John Boehner -- that this was a disaster and never again":

McConnell: I'll Say Anything to Get Re-elected. Zack Ford of TPM: "In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told host Chris Wallace that it would be 'irresponsible' for Republicans not to try to add amendments to a bill raising the debt ceiling, which they may need to pass as early late February." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: "Republicans and their allies are still insisting that a key Obamacare provision amounts to a taxpayer-funded 'bailout' of the insurance industry. And now they may demand its repeal in exchange for giving the U.S. Treasury authority to borrow money and pay the government's bills." Cohn explains why this doesn't make sense, even in terms of GOP ideology.

Brass Behaving Badly. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Since November 2012, when an adulterous affair felled David H. Petraeus..., the armed forces have struggled to cope with tawdry disclosures about high-ranking commanders."

Reuters: "The National Security Agency leaker, Edward Snowden, would be willing to enter talks with attorney general Eric Holder to negotiate his return to the US, his legal adviser said on Sunday, but not without a guarantee of amnesty. Jesselyn Radack said she was glad Holder indicated last week he would talk to lawyers for Snowden to negotiate his return from Russia, but said that he would need better protection."

Local News

Times-Picayne: Former New Orleans Mayor Ray "Nagin stands accused of participating in the very cronyism he had vowed to combat. He is the first New Orleans mayor to face federal charges. And on Monday, he will be the first to stand trial, barring any last-minute plea deal. Federal prosecutors charged Nagin in January 2013 with 21 counts of bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy, stemming from misdeeds they say go back to 2004. He could get more than 20 years in prison if prosecutors can prove he broke the law for a meager bounty of $300,000, a truckload or two of granite, a ride in a limousine and a few trips on a private jet." The Times-Picayune will liveblog the trial here.

News Ledes

Coins for Coke. New York Times: "One of the most prominent players in the Bitcoin universe, Charles Shrem, was arrested by federal prosecutors on Sunday and accused of helping grease the wheels for drug transactions.... Mr. Shrem was the founder and chief executive of a popular website, Bitinstant, where Bitcoins could be bought using dollars. The criminal charges unsealed on Monday by the United States attorney's office in Manhattan claim that Mr. Shrem used his company to convert money anonymously for people interested in buying narcotics on the Silk Road site, and also personally bought drugs on the site.... According to the complaint, the scheme was operated in cooperation with another man, Robert Faiella, known as BTCKing, who was arrested on Monday."

Washington Post: "A powerful council of Egypt's top military commanders announced Monday that it is backing Defense Minister Abdel Fatah al-Sissi for president, a move likely to entrench the military's political power and intensify its battle with an increasingly sophisticated Islamist insurgency."

New York Times: "Islamist militants shot down an Egyptian military helicopter in the Sinai Peninsula with a surface-to-air missile over the weekend, raising new alarms about the terrorist insurgency that developed there in response to the military takeover last summer....All five soldiers in the helicopter were killed, security officials said."

Guardian: "Lost letters, photographs and diaries by Heinrich Himmler have been discovered in Israel, shedding new light on one of the men most directly responsible for the Holocaust. The stash of documents from the Nazi era is currently held in a bank vault in Tel Aviv, but has been authenticated by the German federal archive, considered the world's leading authority on material from the period. Its contents are to be published over eight days in the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, starting on Sunday with Himmler's letters to his wife Margarete."

Yonhap (South Korea) News: "All relatives of the executed uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, including children and the country's ambassadors to Cuba and Malaysia, have also been put to death at the leader's instruction, multiple sources said Sunday." Via New York.

The Commentariat -- Jan. 26, 2014

Internal links removed.

No, Prime Minister. Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "... for the first time, following what many allies view as a lost year, the White House is reorganizing itself to support a more executive-focused presidency...." ...

... SOTU. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... perhaps more so than in any of his previous congressional addresses, Mr. Obama realizes that he has little chance of major legislative victories this year, with the possible exception of an overhaul of immigration law that Republicans are also making a priority. As a result, aides said, he will present a blueprint for 'a year of action' on issues like income inequality and the environment that bypasses Congress and exercises his authority to the maximum extent." ...

... Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: " Income inequality is out, 'ladders of opportunity' is in. Eager to dispel claims that President Barack Obama is engaging in 'class warfare' as he heads into his State of the Union address next week, the White House is de-emphasizing phrases focusing on economic disparity and turning instead to messages about creating paths of opportunity for the poor and middle class. The adjustment reflects an awareness that Obama's earlier language put him at risk of being perceived as divisive and exposed him to criticism that his rhetoric was exploiting the gap between haves and have-nots." ...

... Digby: "It's actually getting quite boring tracking the administration feints and retreats on these issues. The president clearly would like to be able to say some populist stuff that his supporters want to hear. But the Big Money Boyz are very sensitive about this and he's not going to cross them. Make no mistake, there are no policy proposals coming from anyone of either party that would seriously erode this wealth inequality. That's simply out of the question. What has everyone so agitated is populist rhetoric, which these narcissists see as akin to being a powerless minority attacked by the state. And that means the president and his men have to fall back on 'meritocracy' and mobility tropes that ensure these narcissists will remain on top." CW: On the sensitivity of the Money Boyz, see today's Right Wing World below. Also, Jamie Dimon: ...

When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it. I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country. -- Jamie Dimon, in a prepared speech, March 2009

I just think this constant refrain -- bankers, bankers, bankers, it's just -- it just doesn't -- it's really an unproductive and unfair way of treating people. -- Jamie Dimon, February 2011

I think a lot of it was unfair. -- Jamie Dimon, a few days ago, on JP Morgan Chase's mega-settlement with federal regulators

If JPMorgan is so happy with their settlements that they are rewarding their CEO with a big raise, do you really think the federal bank regulators were tough enough? -- Elizabeth Warren, on her blog

Justin Sink of the Hill: "The White House will host a virtual 'Big Block of Cheese Day' later this month in a nod to historical tradition -- and the popular West Wing television show. In the show, White House staffers were required on one day a year to meet with citizens and interest groups who normally might not earn attention from top administration officials. The fictional tradition was a nod to President Andrew Jackson, who in 1837 hosted an open house with a 1,400 pound block of cheese in the White House's foyer. But the real White House said Friday that they would be hosting a real version of the event -- albeit in cyberspace. 'On Wednesday, January 29th, with a nod to history (and maybe the TV show the West Wing), the Obama Administration ... will take to social media for a day long "open house" to answers questions from everyday Americans in real-time on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and via Google+ Hangout,'... Users of the social networks can flag questions using the hashtag #AsktheWH." Links to more info at this White House Webpage.

Clifford Krauss & Jad Mouawad of the New York Times: "... trains have increasingly been used to transport the oil from the new fields of Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota, in part as a result of delays in the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. About 400,000 carloads of crude oil traveled by rail last year to the nation's refineries, up from 9,500 in 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads. But a series of recent accidents -- including one in Quebec last July that killed 47 people and another in Alabama last November -- have prompted many to question these shipments and have increased the pressure on regulators to take an urgent look at the safety of the oil shipments."

AFP: "The US National Security Agency (NSA) sometimes uses data it collects for economic purposes, intelligence leaker Edward Snowden reveals in an extract of an interview with a German television chain to be broadcast Sunday." And other stuff. ...

... Like this: "On its website, NDR said that Snowden assured he was no longer in possession of any confidential documents, as they had all been handed out to handpicked journalists. The former NSA contractor said he no longer wants to, or is able to, take part in any future revelations." CW: So no rationale for granting him the amnesty or immunity that some in the U.S. spy community have suggested could spare the nation further embarrassment & security breaches.

Nidhi Subbaraman of NBC News: Drones will soon be assisting emergency personnel.

Local News

Terry Tang of the AP: "The Arizona Republican Party formally censured Sen. John McCain on Saturday, citing a voting record they say is insufficiently conservative. The resolution to censure McCain was approved by a voice-vote during a meeting of state committee members in Tempe...."

Billy Corriher in Think Progress: "Last week, the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by a conservative 'dark money' group to keep its donors secret. The lawsuit alleges that the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) illegally 'coordinated' its ads with Attorney General Greg Abbott's (R) 2002 campaign. If evidence emerges that the LEAA coordinated with Abbott's campaign, then the millions of dollars it spent on ads could be considered illegal in-kind campaign contributions." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

He Said/They Said. Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post write a fairly fascinating story on how the prosecution of Bob & Maureen McDonnell came about. They concentrate on Jonnie Williams' cooperation, which apparently resulted from a routine SEC probe of securities irregularities re: Star Scientific. Maureen appears to be one greedy babe. ...

... Quentin Kidd in the Washington Post: Gov. Bob & wife Maureen McDonnell of Virginia "were trying to keep up with the Joneses. And in the upper echelons of Virginia politics, the Joneses tend to have a certain look and lifestyle.... We can identify with some of their struggles and impulses without condoning the use of the governor's office for personal gain. Their relatively modest background should have made them realize what their constituents would see: What they were doing was outrageous." ...

     ... CW: Ironically, had the McDonnells lived within their means (sorry, no beach-house investments) & emphasized what a financial struggle they were having, they would have come across as sympathetic characters, & we might be looking at Transvaginal Bob for President posters. Didn't they notice that one thing that made the Obamas appealing was their rags-to-middle-class story? When in 2008 they said they had only finished paying off their college loans a few years earlier (& that was thanks to Barack's best-sellers), voters learned that the Obamas were people who understood their own difficulties.

John Reitmeyer of the Bergen Record: "Chris Christie launched his first term as governor in 2010 by putting pressure on what he said was New Jersey's 'shadow government' of unelected authorities, boards and commissions. But the Port Authority, a bi-state agency with decades of political influence and a budget of more than $7 billion -- larger than many states' -- has been a different story for the governor."

Star-Ledger Editors: "The Christie administration has fired the contractor that's been bungling the distribution of federal Hurricane Sandy relief money.... But now here's the bad news: The administration fired HGI last month, and we are all just finding out about this now.... First Christie's officials publicly deny that HGI is mishandling their grant programs. Then they silently fire the contractor?"

Right Wing World

The Persecuted Rich. Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Venture capitalist Tom Perkins compared liberals' push to reduce inequality in the United States to Nazi Germany's war on Jews. In a letter to the editor published in The Wall Street Journal Perkins, a founding member of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, asks whether a 'progressive Kristallnacht' is coming. Perkins's letter is in response to an editorial on speech codes at American colleges. 'Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich,"' Perkins wrote in the letter to the editor." ...

... This is not the first time horrible people have conspired to persecute Perkins. Nick Denton of Gawker, June 2007: "In 1996, the yacht-crazed financier was racing off the French coast when he collided with a smaller boat, killing a French doctor on board. In a passage from the Valley veteran's forthcoming memoirs, Perkins writes: 'I was arrested and tried in a foreign court in a language you don't understand, by judges indifferent - or worse - to justice, represented by an inappropriate lawyer with the negative outcome preordained.'" Via Erik Loomis of Lawyers, Guns & Money. ...

... Elias Isquith of Salon: "Kristallnacht was a giant anti-Semitic riot, organized by the Nazi government, that left nearly 100 Jews in Germany and Austria murdered and resulted in the incarceration of some tens of thousands more in concentration camps. It was an act of coordinated barbarism done in service of the Nazis' ultimate goal, the expulsion (and, later, elimination) of Europe's Jewish population. American progressives, on the other hand, would like to see Tom Perkins pay more in taxes."

David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma has proposed a controversial way to stopping same-sex marriages in the state. According to News9.com, state Rep. Mike Turner (R) has proposed scrapping marriage in the state altogether. The lawmaker contends that it is the only way to keep same-sex marriage illegal in the state while still defending the U.S. Constitution." ...

... Martin Longman of Washington Monthly: "Don't let straight people have legally-recognized marriages if it means that gay people can have them, too. This is petulance defined."

Dan Friedman & Dareh Gregorian of the New York Daily News: Dinesh "D'Souza, 52, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges he made illegal contributions to New York Republican senate hopeful Wendy Long in her ill-fated 2012 campaign. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. Long, an old friend of D'Souza's from their Dartmouth days, will testify against him at trial, prosecutor Carrie Cohen told Judge Richard Berman at the 'Roots of Obama's Rage' author's arraignment. Long 'informed the government that Mr. D'Souza lied to her about the source of those donations,' Cohen said."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A Fort Worth hospital that kept a pregnant, brain-dead woman on life support for two months, followed a judge's order on Sunday and removed her from the machines, ending her family's legal fight to have her pronounced dead and to challenge a Texas law that prohibits medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant woman."

Here's an updated Washington Post story on a shooting yesterday at the Columbia, Maryland, Mall that left three, including the shooter, dead. ...

     ... UPDATE: "... a 19-year-old College Park resident has been identified by police as the assailant in Saturday's shooting at the Mall in Columbia, which left three people dead, including Aguilar."

... Baltimore Sun: "On Saturday night, police said they had tentatively identified the shooter, who had arrived at the mall with a shotgun, a large amount of ammunition and a bag in which they found two crude devices that 'appeared to be an attempt at making explosives using fireworks.'"

New York Times: "Thousands of Egyptians celebrated the third anniversary of their revolt against autocracy on Saturday by holding a rally for the military leader who ousted the country's first democratically elected president. Elsewhere, at least 49 people died in clashes with security forces at rival antigovernment protests organized by Islamists and left-leaning activists."

Guardian: "Ukraine's embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, on Saturday night made a surprising and wide-ranging compromise offer to the protesters who have occupied his capital, promising to make an opposition leader prime minister, give amnesty to those involved in clashes with police and institute major constitutional reforms. The trio of politicians who have become the de facto leaders of the protests rejected the offer but said they were willing to negotiate."

The Commentariat -- Jan. 25, 2014

Internal links removed.

David Remnick, Ryan Lizza & Dorothy Wickenden discuss President Obama's final three years in office and his legacy:

White House: "In his weekly address, President Obama said that the Administration has taken another important step to protect women at college by establishing the White House Task Force on Protecting Students from Sexual Assault":

** Mean Mike. Gail Collins: "Basically, [Mike] Huckabee seems to be telling us that the Republican Party will not insult women by suggesting the federal government should require health insurance policies to include birth control pills in the prescription drug coverage. He appears confident that women will find that an attractive proposition.... He laid bare a fact that the party has always tried desperately to hide -- that its anti-abortion agenda is also frequently anti-contraception.... Over the past five years, as his party got raw and angry and mean, Huckabee got raw and angry and mean." ...

... CW: It's worth contrasting Collins' straight talk with moderate conservative & sometime-feminist Kathleen Parker's take on Huckabee's concerns about our out-of-control libidos. Apparently one must be a liberal to understand what Huckabee said. In any event, Parker totally misses Mean Mike's message. ...

... Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: "... why do [Republicans] keep doing this? ... The simple answer is that they can't help themselves, but more specifically, it's a combination of ignorance, contempt, and Puritan morality that inevitably leads to these eruptions.... These kinds of statements tend to come from older conservative men who have no idea how ladyparts work, and really don't want to know.... The morality clearly reflected in these statements is that sex is inherently sinful.... Republicans think they're talking to a nation of nuns...." ...

... Digby: "... the fact that no one wants to have sex with the Mike Huckabees of the world (at least unless they are paid to do so) might just reflect badly on the men rather than the women. After all, if a man can't even be bothered to figure out how birth control works, I'm going to guess he hasn't spent a lot of time figuring out how a woman's sexual response works either." ...

... "The Speech about Women You Should Have Heard." Irin Carmon: "For anyone listening [to President Obama's remarks about protecting college students from sexual assault], this speech was profoundly radical. It accepted as a basic premise that freedom from sexual violation is a ground rule for equal participation in society. It lacked even a passing, prurient interest in drunk girls or in boys who would be boys. It proposed a higher form of masculinity that wasn't about chivalrous deference to women as gentler creatures, but about seeing women as people deserving autonomy, people for whom violence could mean that 'we're all deprived of their full potential'":

Lawrence Hurley of Reuters: "The U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday that, while litigation continues, an order of Roman Catholic nuns need not comply with a part of President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring employers to provide insurance that covers contraception. In the latest skirmish over religious objections to providing government-mandated contraception, the four-sentence court order was a partial victory for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Baltimore-based order of nuns that runs nursing homes, and Illinois-based Christian Brothers Services, which manages healthcare plans for Catholic groups." ...

... Lyle Denniston elaborates on ScotusBlog. ...

... Irin Carmon: "... in a one-paragraph answer to the Little Sisters' emergency appeal for a reprieve from the rule, the Supreme Court has made it even weirder."

Sy Mukherjee of Think Progress: "Chain retailer Target announced on Wednesday that it will stop offering health insurance to employees who work less than 30 hours per week, instead sending these workers to Obamacare's insurance marketplaces to buy new plans. The announcement was quickly picked up by conservative outlets as proof that the health law is giving workers short shrift. To the contrary, these part-time workers will most likely be better off under Obamacare plans, and Target's decision to shift the employees into the marketplaces is definitive proof that the health law is doing exactly what it's intended to do."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Critics of the Affordable Care Act are seizing on a decades-old provision in Medicaid law to scare lower-income Americans from signing up for health care insurance, warning newly eligible enrollees that the federal government could take their house and other assets once they die."

Joe Nocera: For the severely mentally ill, care options are worse today than they were 30 years ago.

Zeke Miller of Time: "... the Republican National Committee passed a resolution Friday calling for an investigation into the 'gross infringement' of Americans' rights by National Security Agency programs that were revealed by Edward Snowden. The resolution also calls on on Republican members of Congress to enact amendments to the Section 215 law that currently allows the spy agency to collect records of almost every domestic telephone call."

Cameron Joseph of the Hill: "A series of changes aimed at tightening the GOP presidential primary calendar sailed through a vote at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, giving the party new tools to control its nomination process. The new 2016 rules will make it much harder for states to cut in line in the nomination process and will help Republicans avoid a repeat of a drawn out, bloody primary many believe damaged Mitt Romney's chances in 2012 of defeating President Obama."

Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: The White House is establishing an internal political operation & has named a director.

Dana Milbank: "Apologize, then blame someone else." Hey, it's the conservative way. ...

Joe Coscarelli of New York: "[Thursday], Think Progress noted that in the first fourteen school days of 2014, there have been at least seven school shootings in the United States. That number is already out of date: One student was shot and killed this afternoon on the campus of South Carolina State University...." ...

... Here's the Think Progress story, by Adam Peck.

Senate Race

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: The senatorial campaign of Michelle Nunn, daughter of former George Sen. Sam Nunn (D) "will test whether the rapidly changing demographics of Georgia -- where state elections data show that the white vote dropped to 61 percent of the total in 2012 from 75 percent in 2000 -- have shifted enough to return a Democrat to Washington. And it will reveal how much legacy still matters in politics."

Presidential Election 2016

"Planet Hillary." Amy Chozick has the cover story for the New York Times Magazine on All Hillary's Friends. The raw ambition is sort of sickening. The cover itself is hideous. ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "The real news in on the front of Friday's [New York Times], though, and it comes from Nicholas Confessore.... [Story linked in yesterday's Commentariat.] Right now, twenty-four months before the Iowa primary, and at a point when not a single serious candidate has declared that she or he is running for President, Priorities USA, the Democratic Super PAC that raised and spent wads of cash in support of President Obama's 2012 reëlection campaign, is putting its money and expertise behind -- you guessed it -- Hillary Clinton.... The most immediate implications of the decision by Priorities USA, which was founded by two former Obama-campaign officials, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney, are for anybody who is thinking of challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination ... : don't bother! This thing is already sewn up. If you go ahead with your foolhardy pursuit, you'll be crushed. Not only will you be confronting the candidate with the most experience and strongest poll numbers, you will also be going up against practically the entire Democratic establishment: the best campaign managers, the wiliest spinmeisters, the biggest of big-name endorsers, the most modern technology, and the deepest pockets."

Local News

Shawn Boburg of the Bergen Record: "The Port Authority will not pick up the legal bills of a former executive at the center of an investigation into the George Washington Bridge access lane closures. On Friday morning, the agency notified David Wildstein, the agency executive who ordered the September lane closures, that it had turned down his request for indemnification, a Port Authority spokesman said. The notification said Wildstein's request 'would not be warranted' under the agency's bylaws, the spokesman said. Those bylaws state that the Port Authority will provide current and former employees with legal representation if the action in question fell within their job duties, according to its bylaws. It will not pay if there was fraud, malice, misconduct or intentional wrongdoing, the bylays state."

News Ledes

AP: "Someone armed with a gun opened fire at a busy shopping mall in suburban Baltimore late this morning and three people died, including the person believed to be the shooter, died, police said. The shooting took place at the Mall in Columbia, a suburb of both Baltimore and Washington, D.C." ...

     ... The Washington Post story is here.

     ... CW: I wonder when the governments of "normal" countries are going to start issuing travel warnings to their citizens, urging them not to travel to the U.S. because it's an unstable, dangerous place.

Guardian: "The Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, has offered two opposition leaders top government posts on Saturday, the presidential website said on Saturday, after the two sides met for talks aimed at seeking an end to a violent political crisis. Former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk would be offered the post of prime minister and Vitaly Klitschko ... would be proposed as deputy prime minister responsible for humanitarian issues, the website said."

AP: "A judge on Friday ordered a Texas hospital to remove life support for a pregnant, brain-dead woman whose family had argued that she would not want to be kept in that condition. Judge R. H. Wallace Jr. issued the ruling in the case of Marlise Munoz. John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth has been keeping Munoz on life support against her family's wishes. The judge gave the hospital until 5 p.m. CST Monday to remove life support. The hospital did not say Friday whether it would appeal."

Politico: "Jesse Ryan Loskarn, a one-time star staffer who was the former top aide to Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, was found dead Thursday afternoon following charges he possessed and distributed child pornography, according to the sheriff's office in Carroll County, Maryland. Loskarn, 35, is believed to have committed suicide."

AP: "Egyptian riot police have fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi protesting as the country marks the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising." ...

     ... Washington Post UPDATE: "Rival groups of demonstrators across the country were met with deadly force. Clashes between police and anti-coup protesters aligned with Mohamed Morsi, the ousted Islamist president, left 29 dead and nearly 170 injured, according to the Health Ministry, one day after six people were killed in a string of attacks on security targets in Cairo. Twenty-six of the deaths were in greater Cairo, the ministry said.