The Commentariat -- Sept. 3, 2013

In Search of a Third Musketeer, McCain & Graham Tap Obama. Jackie Calmes, et al., of the New York Times: "The White House pushed forward aggressively on Monday for Congressional approval of an attack on Syria as President Obama got tentative support from one of his most hawkish Republican critics, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for a 'limited' strike -- as long, Mr. McCain said, as the president did more to arm the Syrian opposition. After an hourlong meeting with Mr. Obama at the White House, Mr. McCain emerged with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, to say that the two senators' discussions with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office had been 'encouraging'" ...

... Evidently, the lonesome duo needed a Constitutional scholar in their coterie. ...

On CNN just now, McCain says Congress overruling Prez on a national security matter would set dangerous precedent. -- Greg Sargent, tweet today ...

... Jonathan Bernstein, in the Washington Post: "The 'McCain Doctrine Is Nonsense.... To remind Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of the basics of the Constitution: Congress and the president are co-equal. That's true in general, and it's true of 'national security matters' in particular. The president is commander-in-chief, but Congress not only has the power to declare war, but also the responsibility for funding the armed forces, the diplomats and, well, everything else in the government." ...

... The Big News, Charles Pierce Translation: "The president had Senator Angry Grampy and Senator Huckleberry, the presiding geopolitical thinkers in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body, over today to discuss Syria, and to give them the opportunity to stand on the White House lawn afterwards and call him a dithering dilettante whom they will support if he stops his dithering and his dilettanting and give them the Great Big Boom Boom in Syria that they want." Also, Abyssinia. ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: Tea Party Republicans & neocon-hawky Republicans split over the use-of-force against Syria. "'Right now, the easy Republican vote looks like the vote against Obama,' said Michael Goldfarb, a neoconservative lobbyist and writer. 'Ten days from now, a vote against Obama could look like a vote for Assad, especially if Republicans succeed in blocking U.S. action, and Assad goes on to prevail, having used chemical weapons, with Iran at his side.'" ...

... Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal: "The formula for legislative victory [on a use-of-force resolution] starts ... with [Obama's] own Democrats, runs through the still-powerful pro-Israel caucus and ends with a band of Republican hawks who have been far more eager for action in Syria than has the president now seeking their help." ...

... E. J. Dionne elaborates on why President Obama had to go to Congress in this instance. ...

... Fred Kaplan of Slate: " Those who have long urged Obama to do something about Syria, and then criticized him in recent days for doing something (just because it’s Obama who’s doing it), will now have to step up and take a stand.... Who knows? Maybe we will learn -- contrary to the experience of the past decade -- that a democracy can go to war in a full and open vote without deceit." ...

... ** Garance Franke-Ruta of the Atlantic provides a list of all the times Congress has passed a declaration of war or authorization to use military force. Franke-Ruta also links to the Congressional Research Service reports from which she cribbed. ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post whips the House & Senate for members' likely votes on the resolution to use force in Syria. The Post provides an interactive feature that lets you see where MOCs stand. Post staff will update the feature as members weigh in &/or change their positions. ...

... Alex Seitz-Wald of the Washington Post: "After spending much of the past four years decrying President Obama's alleged overreach in circumventing Congress, neoconservatives are furious with the president for ... deciding to consult Congress before attacking Syria."

... Kim Willsher of the Guardian: "The French government has published an intelligence dossier that it says shows the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, carried out a 'massive and co-ordinated' chemical attack that is believed to have killed hundreds of people. A nine-page document, published at around 7pm French time on Monday, stated the information had come from "France's own sources" and was based on a detailed technical analysis of evidence supplemented by "additional elements gathered in co-operation with our principal partners'." Le dossier est ici. ...

... Elliot Hannon of Slate: "In a letter to U.N. leaders, Syria has called on the international organization to protect it from 'any aggression' directed at the country following the regime's alleged use of chemical weapons. The letter, from Syrian ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja'afari, is addressed to U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon and President of the Security Council Maria Cristina Perceval." ...

... Former NATO commander James Stavridis, in a New York Times op-ed: "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization must be part of an international effort to respond to the crisis in Syria, beginning immediately with punitive strikes following the highly probable use of chemical weapons by President Bashar Al-Assad's regime. The president, the secretaries of defense and state, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should all approach their counterparts to secure NATO action. Such action could be justified based on self-defense, owing to the threat posed to Turkey, a NATO member that has backed Mr. Obama's call for an American-led intervention; the overall threat posed by weapons of mass destruction; and, more controversially, on the evolving international doctrine of a 'responsibility to protect.'" ...

... Julie Pace of the AP: "For President Barack Obama's new foreign policy advisers, the first test of their willingness to undertake military action wound up being a stark lesson in the president's ability to overrule them all.... As Obama grappled with putting military action to a vote in Congress, he didn't consult his foreign policy team. Instead, he sought out Denis McDonough, a longtime adviser who now serves as his chief of staff."

Greg Miller, et al., of the Washington Post: "A 178-page summary of the U.S. intelligence community's 'black budget' shows that the United States has ramped up its surveillance of Pakistan’s nuclear arms, cites previously undisclosed concerns about biological and chemical sites there, and details efforts to assess the loyalties of counter­terrorism sources recruited by the CIA. Pakistan appears at the top of charts listing critical U.S. intelligence gaps. It is named as a target of newly formed analytic cells. And fears about the security of its nuclear program are so pervasive that a budget section on containing the spread of illicit weapons divides the world into two categories: Pakistan and everybody else."

Max Seddon of BuzzFeed: "Following his cancellation of a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Barack Obama may infuriate the Kremlin further by meeting Russian human rights activists, including LGBT rights groups, during his upcoming trip to St Petersburg for the G20 summit."

Just Thinking about Larry Summers Terrifies Wall Street. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "The spreading expectation that President Obama will name Lawrence H. Summers to lead the Federal Reserve Board appears to be working against the central bank's efforts to stimulate the economy. The jitters even have some analysts betting that a Summers nomination could lead to slower economic growth, less job creation and higher interest rates than if the president named Janet L. Yellen, the Fed's vice chairwoman." CW Note: this is a straight news report, not an opinion piece. Hope President Obama can take a few moments out of his busy schedule cajoling the massive coalition of the unwilling to read the Times this morning.

Fernanda Santos & Heath Haussamen of the New York Times: "The decision by clerks in six of New Mexico's most populous counties to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples has added a sense of urgency to a fight that some of the state's top political leaders had seemed in no hurry to join." New Mexico is the only state that has no law sanctioning or forbidding same-sex marriage.

Washington Post Editors: "Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court found most of its provisions to be constitutional. Republicans, having opposed the bill and supported the legal challenge to it, are entitled to be unhappy about the outcome, though in our view they are wrong on the merits. They are not entitled to obstruct and flout the laws of the United States. On the contrary, they have an obligation to cooperate in good faith with wholly legitimate laws duly passed and reviewed by all three branches of government." ...

Much to everyone's surprise, Ted Cruz has videotaped a TV ad the purpose of which is to lie about ObamaCare.

... Kevin Bogardus of the Hill: "Labor has watched with growing annoyance as the White House has backed ObamaCare changes in response to concerns from business groups, religious organizations and even lawmakers and their staffs. They ... don't understand why their concerns so far have fallen of deaf ears.... The key issue are union members who are among the roughly 20 million people who use non-profit multi-employer 'Taft-Hartley' health plans. Unions want the administration to change ObamaCare so that those plans are treated as qualified health plans that can earn tax subsidies.... Without those subsidies, employers may have the incentive to drop the plans and force workers onto the insurance exchanges."

Lobbyists Kill People. Margaret Clapp, et al., in a New York Times op-ed: a "legal" drug cartel is causing life-threatening & deadly shortages in generic drugs. Congress has allowed this to continue "because of the enormous political clout of the industry's lobby, which includes the Healthcare Supply Chain Association and the American Hospital Association." CW: another example of why we need a Constitutional Amendment reforming campaign financing.

Slow Gnus Day

Here's a Reuters report linked especially for contributor James S. who complains Monday was a slow news day: "A motorist said intense sunlight reflected from the 'Walkie Talkie' -- one of several flashy towers under construction in The City, London's historic financial district -- warped his Jaguar which he had parked across the road. The skyscraper's developers said they were seeking to rectify the problem which they blamed on the position of the sun at certain times of day." CW: Yes, evidently their engineers were unaware of the rotation of the earth & all that astrology stuff. Spin, Galileo, spin.

Right Wing World v. "Family Guy"

The National Memo: "At the Right Online conference this weekend -- where conservative activists were treated to a free night at Universal Studios thanks to the Koch brothers -- [conservative blogger Bill] Whittle explained how Hollywood is systematically destroying the Republican Party:

... if you're a young person out there today and you can finish the theme song from Family Guy, then all the anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, anti-morality messages of Family Guy are in your head as completely and thoroughly as that theme song is. -- Bill Whittle ...

The show's dad once described the two symbols of the Republican Party as 'an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change.' ... The best part of the accusation that Family Guy is destroying the GOP is that the network that airs the show, of course, is Rupert Murdoch's Fox Broadcasting Company. -- The National Memo

      ... The post includes a portion of an episode of "Family Guy" that illustrates the utility of government. Thanks to Barbarossa for the link.

News Ledes

Reuters: "Russia raised the alarm on Tuesday after detecting the launch of two ballistic 'objects' in the Mediterranean Sea but Israel later said it had carried out a joint missile test with the United States. There were no reports of missile strikes on Syria. Syrian state sources said the missiles had fallen harmlessly into the sea...."

AP: "Egyptian helicopter gunships fired rockets early Tuesday at militants in the northern Sinai Peninsula, killing at least eight and injuring 15 others in an ongoing campaign to put down Islamic radicals who have escalated attacks in the largely lawless region, Egypt's official news agency said."

AFP: "Tokyo on Tuesday unveiled a half-billion dollar plan to stem radioactive water leaks at Fukushima, creating a wall of ice underneath the stricken plant, as the government elbowed the operator aside. Acknowledging global concerns over the 'haphazard' management of the crisis by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his administration will step in with public money to get the job done."

Reuters: "The Philippines accused China on Tuesday of violating an informal code of conduct in the South China Sea by planning new structures on a disputed shoal, as China's premier told Southeast Asian leaders Beijing was serious about peace. Friction over the South China Sea, one of the world's most important waterways, has surged as China uses its growing naval might to assert its vast claims over the oil- and gas-rich sea more forcefully, raising fears of a military clash."

AP: "Microsoft is buying Nokia's line-up of smartphones and a portfolio of patents and services in an attempt to mount a more formidable challenge to Apple and Google as more people pursue their lives on mobile devices. The 5.44 billion euros ($7.2 billion) deal announced late Monday marks a major step in Microsoft's push to transform itself from a software maker focused on making operating systems and applications for desktop and laptop computers into a more versatile and nimble company that delivers services on any kind of Internet-connected gadget."

AP: "Verizon will own its wireless business outright after agreeing Monday to pay $130 billion for the 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless owned by British cellphone carrier Vodafone."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 2, 2013

Carl Morris, 1942. Eugene, Oregon Post Office.... Paul Krugman: "... believe it or not, Labor Day actually had something to do with showing respect for labor.... Many of today's politicians can't even bring themselves to fake respect for ordinary working Americans.... There are evidently a lot of wealthy people in America who consider anyone who isn't wealthy a loser -- an attitude that has clearly gotten stronger as the gap between the 1 percent and everyone else has widened. And such people have a lot of friends in Washington." ...

... Pre-distribution: if the law required incomes to be distributed more evenly before taxes, fewer Americans would need the programs Krugman mentions. E. J. Dionne: "The genius of the labor movement has always been its insistence that if the law genuinely empowered workers to defend their own interests, the result would be a more just society requiring fewer direct interventions by government. This Labor Day could be remembered as the moment when that idea rose again."

AP: "The information the U.S. showed Moscow trying to prove that the Syrian regime was behind an alleged chemical weapons attack is 'absolutely unconvincing,' Russia's foreign minister said Monday." ...

... Steve Gutterman of Reuters: "Russia is sending a reconnaissance ship to the eastern Mediterranean, Interfax news agency reported on Monday, as the United States prepares for a possible military strike in Syria." ...

... Michael Gordon & Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The Obama administration launched a full-press campaign on Sunday for Congressional approval of its plan to carry out a punitive strike against the Syrian government." ...

... Bradley Klapper of the AP: "President Barack Obama is inviting former foe Sen. John McCain to the White House, hoping one of Congress' most intractable foreign policy hawks will help sell the idea of a U.S. military intervention in Syria to a nation deeply scarred by more than a decade of war." ...

... Paul Kane & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Leading lawmakers dealt bipartisan rejection Sunday to President Obama's request to strike Syrian military targets, saying the best hope for congressional approval would be to narrow the scope of the resolution. From the Democratic dean of the Senate [Patrick Leahy] to tea party Republicans in their second terms, lawmakers said the White House's initial request to use force against Syria will be rewritten in the coming days to try to shore up support in a skeptical Congress. But some veteran lawmakers expressed doubt that even the new use-of-force resolution would win approval, particularly in the House." ...

... Ben Geman of the Hill: "Members of the Senate plan to narrow President Obama's authorization request for military action in Syria, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Sunday. Leahy told reporters about the planned rewrite of the resolution after attending a classified intelligence briefing on Sunday at the Capitol." ...

... Andrea Shalal-Esa of Reuters: "The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and other ships in its strike group are heading west toward the Red Sea to help support a limited U.S. strike on Syria, if needed, defense officials said on Sunday." ...

... Steve Coll of the New Yorker: "President Obama, in fashioning a response [to the Syrian chemical attack], has been burdened by the United States' recent history with Iraq. The Administration of Ronald Reagan stood by as 'Chemical Ali' waged his campaign against the Kurds.... The Administration of George W. Bush infamously claimed that Saddam Hussein still possessed chemical and biological arms. It soon became apparent that Saddam had abandoned them.... Last Thursday Britain's Parliament, citing the West's failures in Iraq, voted to reject an attack on Syria for now, because a majority did not judge the available evidence of Assad's guilt to be definitive.... The Reagan Administration's decision to tolerate Saddam's depravities proved to be a colossal moral failure and strategic mistake; it encouraged Saddam's aggression and internal repression, and it allowed Iraq to demonstrate to future dictators the tactical value of chemical warfare. The consequences of similar passivity in Syria now are unknowable."

Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government suspects that individuals with connections to al-Qaeda and other hostile groups have repeatedly sought to obtain jobs in the intelligence community, and it reinvestigates thousands of employees a year to reduce the threat that one of its own may be trying to compromise closely held secrets, according to a classified budget document. The CIA found that among a subset of job seekers whose backgrounds raised questions, roughly one out of every five had 'significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections,' according to the document, which was provided to The Washington Post by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden."

Scott Shane & Colin Moynihan of the New York Times: "For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans' phone calls -- parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency's hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.... The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Justice [Anthony] Kennedy has emerged as the most important judicial champion of gay rights in the nation's history, having written three landmark opinions on the subject, including this summer's Windsor decision, which overturned a ban on federal benefits for married same-sex couples. Those rulings collectively represent a new chapter in the nation's civil rights law, and they have cemented his legacy as a hero to the gay rights movement." CW: Evidently Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagan, not to mention gay rights advocates, don't count.

Jeffry Rosen in the New Republic: "Eric Holder's Suit Against Texas Gives the Supreme Court a Chance to Gut Even More of the Voting Rights Act."

Local News

Florida -- Home of America's Worst Mayors! Nick Madigan of the New York Times: "On Wednesday, Steven C. Bateman, 58, the mayor of Homestead, was arrested. He is accused of accepting under-the-table payments from a health care company that sought to build a clinic in town, the state attorney's office for Miami-Dade County said. Mr. Bateman was turned in by City Council members and staff, said employees interviewed Friday at City Hall. On Aug. 6, Manuel L. Maroño, 41, the mayor of Sweetwater and president of the Florida League of Cities, and Michael A. Pizzi, 51, the Miami Lakes mayor, were picked up along with two lobbyists. The United States attorney's office has accused them of involvement in kickback and bribery schemes concerning federal grants." CW: Yeah, I know, it's hard for three crooks to make up for one Bob Filner, but we're trying.

News Ledes

Wall Street Journal: "A collection of pro-Syrian government hackers apparently defaced a Marine Corps recruitment website Monday. The Syrian Electronic Army, which has hacked a series of websites, posted a letter on the Marines.com website arguing the Syrian government is 'fighting a vile common enemy.'"

AFP: "US Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the evidence for climate change was beyond dispute but it was not too late for international action to prevent its worst impacts.... [Kerry] was addressing climate experts meeting on the eve of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in the Marshall Islands, a low-lying nation where rising seas threaten to swamp many atolls."

AP: "Germany put a 92-year-old former member of the Nazi Waffen SS on trial Monday on charges that he executed a Dutch resistance fighter in 1944. Dutch-born Siert Bruins, who is now German, volunteered for the SS after the Nazis conquered the Netherlands in 1941. Bruins served as a member of the Sicherheitspolizei, or Security Police, in a unit looking for resistance fighters and Jews."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 1, 2013

Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "One day after Mr. Obama stunned the world by halting what had seemed an inexorable push toward a cruise missile attack, [Secretary of State John] Kerry, who has been the administration’s most forceful advocate for intervention, was left to defend the surprising reversal in a string of appearances on Sunday morning talk shows. The appearances -- Mr. Kerry was a guest on five morning shows -- underscored the administration's tenuous position after a week of fits and starts over Syria." ...

... Craig Whitlock & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Sunday that fresh laboratory tests indicate sarin nerve gas was used in an Aug. 21 attack in Syria that killed more than 1,400 people, the first time that U.S. officials have pinpointed what kind of chemical weapon may have been involved. Appearing on five television network talk shows, Kerry said blood and hair samples from emergency workers in east Damascus had tested positive for traces of sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent. He said that U.S. officials learned of the lab results in the past 24 hours, citing the evidence as yet another reason for Congress to pass President Obama's request to authorize the use of military force...." ...

... John Bresnahan of Politico: "The White House has sent Congress a draft resolution authorizing the use of American military force in Syria, with a narrow focus on interdicting chemical weapons -- or their use -- by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The draft resolution, crafted by White House officials, does not set any deadline for U.S. action, but it is clearly written to assuage some congressional concerns over open-ended American involvement in the two-year-old Syria civil war. The proposed resolution is here." ...

... Jonathan Allen of Politico: "The White House has provided a classified version of its intelligence estimate on the Syrian government's reported use of chemical weapons to Congress and will host an interagency classified briefing for all interested House members on Sunday, according to a memo circulated to House Republicans on Saturday." ...

... Ernesto Londoño of the Washington Post: "President Obama said Saturday that the United States has decided to use military force against Syria, calling last week's alleged chemical weapons attack there 'an attack on human dignity,' but said he would to seek congressional authorization for an attack. The announcement puts off an imminent cruise missile strike, a prospect that had put the region on edge and stoked intense debate in the United States, where many dread getting dragged into a new war. It is not clear what the Obama administration would do if Congress declines to authorize a military operation":

 ... The New York Times story, by Peter Baker & Anne Barnard, is here. ...

... Josh Lederman of the AP: "Senior administration officials say President Barack Obama had planned to take military action against Syria without congressional authorization, but told aides Friday night that he had changed his mind." ...

... Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: the President's decision to put the question to Congress blindsided top aides like Susan Rice & Chuck Hagel. ...

... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "The Oval Office meeting [with top aides] ended one of the strangest weeks of the Obama administration, in which a president who had drawn a 'red line' against the use of chemical weapons, and watched Syrian military forces breach it with horrific consequences, found himself compelled to act by his own statements. But Mr. Obama, who has been reluctant for the past two years to get entangled in Syria, had qualms from the start."

The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. -- Barack Obama, December 2007 ...

... Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: "President Barack Obama's abrupt decision to hand over the choice to strike Syria to Congress ... has already struck a rare and dramatic blow against his own power. Presidents for decades have ignored the Constitutional requirement that Congress authorize acts of war, launching attacks from Kosovo to Libya without authorization. Presidents Bush and Obama took a 2001 authorization of the use of force against terrorists as a carte blanche for a global secret war from Rome to Pakistan; the last formal authorization came in 2003, for Iraq." ...

... Smith, et al., Irk Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian: "... what makes the celebratory reaction to yesterday's announcement particularly odd is that the Congressional vote which Obama said he would seek appears, in his mind, to have no binding force at all." ...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "Administration officials refuse to comment on what Obama will do if Congress doesn't authorize strikes on Syria. Officials say they're confident Congress will vote yes on Obama's war." ...

... According to Jonathan Allen: President Obama "is reserving the right to exercise his legal authority to launch limited reprisals in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's reported use of chemical weapons, even if Congress turns him down."

Congress is now the dog that caught the car. -- David Axelrod

Meant to run this yesterday & forgot. Justine Sharrock of BuzzFeed: "The U.S. Army has been aware for years of a major security flaw in the system soldiers use to access computers -- and has done nothing to fix it, two sources, including an officer who alerted superiors to the risk, told BuzzFeed. Update: Roy Lundgren, the Army's Deputy of Cybersecurity, confirmed with BuzzFeed that the security failure exists and has the potential to provide users unauthorized access.... Today countless computers, and the soldiers who use them, remain vulnerable to a simple hack, which can be executed by someone with little or no security expertise." ...

... Sharrock Update: "The United States Army's Deputy of Cybersecurity Roy Lundgren ... say[s] the best fix is to make soldiers aware of proper conduct, instead of fixing the technology itself.... The hack allows users with access to shared Army computers to assume the identities of other personnel, gaining their securities clearances in the process, and having their activity logged as that user." CW: this seems to be the same thing Edward Snowden did to access accounts & download top-secret data which someone at his level would not have clearance to access. Thanks to safari for the links.

Der Spiegel: The NSA ... hacked into Al Jazeera's internal communications system, according to documents from former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden...."

Karoli of Crooks & Liars lays out the evidence: the "IRS scandal didn't happen to the Tea party; It was invented by the Tea Party."

Nick Renaud-Komaya of the Independent: "A sign outside St. John's Anglican Church ... [in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada] has been viewed over 1,000,000 times after a user of the social entertainment site Reddit posted a photo of the sign online, the Huffington Post reports."

Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "When courts can't even get the easy [rape] cases right, we're in big trouble." Last week was "a spectacularly awful week in rape."

Senate Race

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Mary Cheney, the younger sister of Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Senate candidate, sharply criticized her sister's stance on same-sex marriage.... Posting on Facebook on Friday evening, Mary Cheney, who is gay and married her longtime partner last year, wrote: '... I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage.' Their father..., Dick Cheney, supports same-sex marriage.... 'I am not pro-gay marriage,' Liz Cheney said in a statement [Friday] responding to an apparent push poll against her in Wyoming. 'I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.'" ...

     ... CW Translation: "I believe whatever it takes to win this seat in a state where I can't even get a fishing license; if it hurts my little sister's feelings, tough."

Local News

So Transvaginal Bob Is a Crook AND a Liar. Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Hilderman of the Washington Post: "Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell was aware of gifts and financial help provided by a wealthy Richmond area businessman during the same months the governor and his wife took steps to help his company..., contrasting with an assertion by McDonnell's attorneys that he was in the dark about the extent of the gifts [businessman Jonnie] Williams bestowed on his family.... Attorneys for the governor and first lady Maureen McDonnell argued to federal prosecutors two weeks ago that the governor should not be charged with any crimes, in part because of this ignorance...." Williams is apparently cooperating with investigators; McDonnell's attorneys say Williams -- whom McDonnell has described as a friend -- is not credible. Federal officials could decide this month whether or not to charge McDonnell.

Maureen Dowd profiles Cathy Lanier, the police chief of the District of Columbia.

David Halbfinger of the New York Times: "As he oversaw the city's $85 billion pension system, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, [Jr., a candidate for mayor,] steered the funds into a diverse range of new investment categories.... Yet performance was lackluster: nationwide, more than half of large public pension funds outperformed the five city funds.... Meanwhile, the city's roster of fund managers, and their fees, tripled -- and Mr. Thompson collected more than $500,000 in campaign donations from them.... [Records & interviews] suggest frequent overlap of Mr. Thompson's political ambitions and the comptroller's operation, and that like many pension overseers at the time, he raised campaign money aggressively from those seeking business from his office." ...

     ... CW: seems to be a more serious lapse than tweeting penis pix. Just sayin'.

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Egyptian prosecutors Sunday ordered deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to stand trial on murder-related charges, stepping up the military-backed government's purge of the Muslim Brotherhood amid weeks of unrest that have deeply divided the country.... Prosecutors referred Morsi and 14 others, including Essam Erian, former deputy of the Brotherhood's political wing, to criminal court on charges of inciting deadly violence during a December protest outside the presidential palace.

Guardian: "Radiation levels 18 times higher than previously reported have been found near a water storage tank at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing fresh concern about the safety of the wrecked facility."

BBC News: "Veteran broadcaster Sir David Frost has died at the age of 74 after a suspected heart attack while on board a cruise ship."

AP: "Nelson Mandela was discharged from the hospital on Sunday while still in critical condition and was driven in an ambulance to his Johannesburg home which has been set up to provide intensive care, South Africa's presidency said.... President Jacob Zuma said in a statement Sunday that Mandela's condition "is at times unstable. His home has been reconfigured to allow him to receive intensive care there,' ..."