The Commentariat -- Jan. 19, 2013

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

My column in the New York Times eXaminer, linked yesterday, is on Paul Krugman's takedown of Tom Friedman.

To find out how you can participate, CLICK ON THE IMAGE.Today is a National Day of Service honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Click on the image to get to a site that will help you find a place to serve locally. There's more information at serve.gov

If you're looking for something patriotic & fun to do on Monday, the National Park Service is waiving entrance fees to all national parks across the country on the official holiday commemorating Dr. King's birthday.

How to Nickel-&-Dime a Trillion-Dollar Deal. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Backing down from their hard-line stance, House Republicans said Friday that they would agree to lift the federal government's statutory borrowing limit for three months, with a requirement that both chambers of Congress pass a budget in that time to clear the way for negotiations on long-term deficit reduction. The agreement, reached in closed-door negotiations at a party retreat in Williamsburg, Va., was a tactical retreat for House Republicans.... House Republicans will include a provision in the debt ceiling legislation that says lawmakers will not be paid if they do not pass a budget blueprint." The Washington Post story, by Rosalind Helderman & Lori Montgomery, is here. ...

... Natalie Jennings of the Washington Post: "The White House is 'encouraged' by House Republicans' decision to hold a vote next week to raise the debt ceiling for three months and wants to see a 'clean debt limit increase,' Obama administration spokesman Jay Carney said Friday." ...

... The Markets Are Encouraged. Rita Nazareth & Sarah Pringle of Bloomberg News: "U.S. stocks rose, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a five year-high, as House Republicans plan to vote next week on a temporary increase in the debt-limit and investors watched corporate earnings." ...

... Darrell Issa, Not So Encouraged. Igor Bobic of TPM: "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Friday poured cold water all over the GOP's newly announced plan to raise the debt ceiling. 'That's unconstitutional,' Issa told Roll Call's Jonathan Strong." ...

     ... Update. More Encouraged than He Was an Hour Earlier. Sahil Kapur of TPM: Constitutional scholar & "House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), after initially declaring the GOP's debt limit plan 'unconstitutional,' clarified to TPM late Friday that he 'strongly support[s]' the proposal, which would withhold lawmakers' pay if their chamber does not pass a budget." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the links to this hilarious story. ...

     ... Well, Constitutionality Is Optional. Jonathan Chait: "Also, the part about making Congress go without pay turns out to violate the Constitution ('No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened'). The Constitution used to be a really big theme to the House Republicans, who have been regularly accusing Obama of violating their oddball interpretations of it and even, as recently as last week, reading it aloud on the House floor to demonstrate that they are its sole vigilant guardians, but whatever. The 27th Amendment is obviously not a real part of the Constitution, like the 2nd Amendment or the three-fifths clause." ...

... What's the "Logic" Here? David Firestone of the New York Times: "If forcing the nation into financial chaos is a terrible political option now -- as Republicans have obviously come to recognize -- then it will remain so in 90 days. Following through on this threat will always be impossible, so postponing its use, instead of abandoning it, makes little strategic sense.... Until the Republicans formally reject the use of chaos as a governing technique, it will be hard for Democrats to negotiate seriously with them." ...

... Still Crazy. James Downie of the Washington Post: "... underneath the gestures toward less brinkmanship, Republicans remain committed to the same extreme policies. It would be silly, of course, to expect Republicans to cave to all Democratic demands, but to continue to refuse to raise revenue in any meaningful amount means that any talk of moderation remains just that." ...

... David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "... the momentum of negotiation is now ... with Democrats [who are] now demanding a clean debt ceiling hike with no funny business attached. This would force Boehner to come up with at least a Hastert Rule majority of Republicans for the three-month extension, which will be no easy task with the rabid Tea Party faction demanding immediate default absent spending cuts. After the Plan 'B' fiasco, it's not clear that Boehner could achieve that. The two major concerns at this point are 1) whether Boehner can maintain his leadership position while constantly undercutting the Tea Party crowd; and 2) what sort of concessions Democrats will be tempted to make in order to take the sequester off the table."

... Paul Krugman: "When you're wrong, you're wrong. I thought that by ruling out any way to bypass the debt limit, the White House was setting itself up, at least potentially, for an ignominious cave-in. But it appears that the strategy has worked, and it's the Republicans giving up. I'm happy to concede that the president and team called this one right." CW: I still love the coin. ...

... However, I must concede that Michael Cohen of the Guardian is right: "... while liberals, mostly, have been pushing for Obama to mint a platinum coin, or invoke his executive powers to raise the debt limit, these scenarios would be dreams come true for Republicans: they wouldn't have to vote on the debt limit, and they could launch a political attack on Obama for making a power grab and bypassing Congress." This worked:

Molly Hooper & Russell Berman of The Hill: "Coming off what many viewed as a defeat in the fiscal cliff deal, and with Obama adopting a hardline position on fiscal matters, Republicans have diminished hopes of what they can force Democrats to accept."

Joe Nocera exposes a number of public pension funds which invest in Cerberus, "the fund that bought Bushmaster Firearms, the company that made the assault weapon used by Adam Lanza to massacre 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, Conn., last month. It bought Remington Arms, the maker of the pump-action shotgun that was among the guns James Holmes used to kill 12 people and wound 58 in Aurora, Colo. It bought a handful of other firearms companies, which it then merged into a new parent company, Freedom Group. At which point, Cerberus was the largest manufacturer of guns and ammunition in the country." When he called "these investors to ask their rationale for investing in a fund that financed a gun 'roll-up,' as the Cerberus strategy is called," they came up with a bunch of lame excuses." CW: I was not happy to see that one of the funds that has a chunk o'Cerberus is TIAA-CREF, my husband's major pension fund. ...

... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed finds that the false claim in the extended NRA ad "of armed guards at Obama's school ... came from the Weekly Standard's blog. CW: Are we surprised that the NRA gets is "facts" from right-wing blogs?

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "The Journal News has taken down its controversial gun databases, which carried the names and addresses of gun-permit holders in Rockland and Westchester counties. The move represents a reversal of its position that the databases provide a public service, as well as a capitulation to weeks and weeks of negative publicity, threats and pressure from gun owners, lawmakers and media types over the maps."

"Days Before Housing Bust, Fed Doubted Need to Act." Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "... the transcripts of the 2007 [Federal Reserve] meetings, released after a standard five-year delay, provide fresh insight into the decisions made at the outset of its great intervention [in the economy]. They show that [Fed Chair Ben] Bernanke and his colleagues continued to wrestle with misgivings about the need for action, because at the time there was little evidence of a broader economic downturn. Several officials worried that the economy would instead overheat, causing inflation to rise. By December, as the Fed began to act with consistent force, the economy was already in recession." ...

... Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: with a few exceptions, Tim Geithner among them, members of the Fed showed little or no foresight or "understanding the possibility that the entire financial system had become a house of straws built on mortgage securities that were anything but secure...." ...

... CW: the release of the transcripts are really good for Geithner's career prospects. It's almost as if he planned to leave government service just as the meeting minutes became public & showed him to be the sharpest tack in the box. (True, he reportedly wanted to quit his job earlier.) ...

... AND we see here why Wall Street considers Geithner to be "Our Man in Washington": Alister Bull of Reuters "In the summer of 2007, as storm clouds gathered over the world's financial system, then-New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner allegedly informed the Bank of America and other banks about the possibility the U.S. central bank would lower one of its critical interest rates, according to a senior Fed official, [Jeffrey Lacker, head of the Richmond, Virginia, Fed].... Private disclosure of confidential, market-sensitive information by the central bank would be highly unusual, but it was not immediately clear if it would be illegal."

Danielle Douglas of the Washington Post: "Starting next January..., brokers' and loan officers' compensation will no longer be based on the terms of the mortgages they originate, according to new guidelines released Friday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.... In the past eight days, the agency has handed down a series of guidelines that include requiring mortgage servicers to provide struggling homeowners with options to avoid foreclosure and curtailing harmful practices such as interest-only payments.."

Buh-bye.Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "After years of complaints by passengers and members of Congress, the Transportation Security Administration said Friday that it would begin removing the controversial full-body scanners that produce revealing images of airline travelers beginning this summer. The agency said it canceled a contract, originally worth $40 million, with the maker of the scanners, Rapiscan, after the company failed to meet a Congressional deadline for new software that would protect passengers' privacy."

Brian Sonenstein of Firedoglake: "Former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who helped expose the Bush administration's torture program, recently plead guilty to sharing the name of a colleague to journalists to use as a source. He is expected to receive a sentence of 30 months in prison. It's a cruel irony that the first agent connected to the CIA torture program to go to prison is the whistleblower who spoke out against the heinous practices of our government."

"The Girl of My Dreams." Gail Collins on the Manti Te'o fake girlfriend thing.

Joshua Prager in Vanity Fair: Norma McCorvey, a/k/a "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade "is a phony." Prager traces the life of McCorvey & provides evidence that she has long been an opportunist. A cynic might conclude that McCorvey converted to the anti-abortion cause because it paid better. Thanks to contributor MAG for the link.

Congressional Race

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Stephen Colbert may have 'run for president,' but his sister is actually going to run for Congress. Elizabeth Colbert-Busch's soon-to-be-official campaign has informed South Carolina Democratic Party executive director Amanda Loveday that it will file Tuesday for the special election for appointed Sen. Tim Scott's (R-S.C.) old House seat, Loveday has told the Washington Post."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Stan Musial, one of baseball's greatest hitters and a revered figure in the storied history of the St. Louis Cardinals -- the player they called Stan the Man -- died Saturday. He was 92."

New York Times: "The four-day hostage crisis in the Sahara reached a bloody conclusion on Saturday as the Algerian Army carried out a final assault on the gas field taken over by Islamist militants, killing most of the remaining kidnappers and raising the total of hostages killed to at least 23, Algerian officials said." ...

... AP: "Faced with international outrage over the killing of hostages at a sprawling gas plant in the middle of the Sahara desert, Algeria was under pressure to bring an end to a four-day standoff with Islamist extremists that has killed at least 12 captives and left dozens unaccounted for. The standoff has put the spotlight on militancy plaguing the region and al-Qaida-linked groups roaming remote areas from Mali to Libya, threatening vital infrastructure and energy interests." ...

... Reuters: "Algerian special forces on Saturday found 15 burned bodies at the desert gas plant attacked by al Qaeda-linked fighters, a source familiar with the unfolding hostage crisis there said." ...

... The Guardian has a liveblog here.

AP: Part 2 of "Confessions of Lance," wherein Lance Armstrong says stuff to Oprah Winfrey, who is hoping to get even richer off Lance's saying stuff. ...

... Reuters has "key quotes" from among the stuff Armstrong said.

The Commentariat -- Jan. 18, 2013

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Paul Krugman's takedown of Tom Friedman.

To find out how you can participate, CLICK ON THE IMAGE.President Obama in a Yahoo! op-ed: "Each January as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we are called not just to pause and reflect, but to act.... This Saturday, we're continuing that tradition with another National Day of Service. Michelle, the girls and I will be volunteering in our community, and we're asking all Americans to join us."

Michael Cooper & Dahlia Sussman of the New York Times: "The massacre of children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., appears to be profoundly swaying Americans' views on guns, galvanizing the broadest support for stricter gun laws in about a decade, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.... The poll found that a majority of Americans -- 54 percent -- think gun control laws should be tightened, up markedly from a CBS News poll in April that found that only 39 percent backed stricter laws. The rise in support for stricter gun laws stretched across political lines, including an 18-point increase among Republicans. A majority of independents now back stricter gun laws." ...

Michael Cooper: "... as mayors from around the nation gathered [in Washington, D.C.,] on Thursday for the 81st winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, many said they were heartened by President Obama's call for new laws to curb gun violence, which included several measures that the conference had sought for decades. Many said they planned to urge Congress to enact them."

... Dave Weigel of Slate: "Gun massacre trutherism isn't tied to election results. It bubbles over after every massacre.... The theories ... spread in part because of the confirmation bias of worried gun owners. And that's actually been egged on, multiple times, by the National Rifle Association.... The idea that the government is one short step away from a gun ban is actually integral to the lobby's pitch."

Susan Eisenhower in the Washington Post: "For the eight years that my grandfather, Dwight Eisenhower, was president of the United States, I had Secret Service protection.... These armed agents protected my sisters, brother and me from potential kidnappings or other targeted attacks.... Any thinking person has to be disgusted by the National Rifle Association ad ... suggesting that the president is an 'elitist hypocrite' because his children have the benefit of armed protection at school and the nation's children as a whole do not. This is absurd. The nation's children are not individually at risk the way the Obama children are.... The NRA's attack ad should be condemned for exacerbating the dangers faced by the president and his family...." ...

"The Dwindling Deficit." Paul Krugman: "Even without [taking specific action to reduce the deficit], however, the budget outlook for the next 10 years doesn't look at all alarming. Now, projections that run further into the future do suggest trouble, as an aging population and rising health care costs continue to push federal spending higher. But ... why, exactly, should we believe that it's necessary, or even possible, to decide right now how we will eventually address the budget issues of the 2030s?"

Navel-Gazing, GOP Edition

Rosalind Helderman & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "House Republicans are cloistered at a tony golf resort [in Williamsburg, Virginia,] for three days hoping to resurrect their battered political brand, as they prepare for what could be another damaging confrontation with President Obama over federal spending.... Although there was some urgency for a change, the consensus was that the change was about how to communicate, not about rethinking core policy positions." CW Trans.: "We are still greedy, misogynistic, sociopathic martinets, but we're looking at ways to Stockholm-Syndrome you into liking it."

The Vote No/Hope Yes Caucus. Ashley Parker of the New York Times: the Vote No/Hope Yes Caucus is "the small but significant number of Republican representatives who, on the recent legislation to head off the broad tax increases and spending cuts mandated by the so-called fiscal cliff, voted no while privately hoping -- and at times even lobbying -- in favor of the bill's passage, given the potential harmful economic consequences otherwise.... The Vote No/Hope Yes group is perhaps the purest embodiment of the uneasy relationship between politics and pragmatism in the nation's capital and a group whose very existence must be understood and dealt with as the Republican Party grapples with its future in the wake of the bruising 2012 elections."

Actually, They're All Wingers. Ed Kilgore: "I would object to the neat characterization of House GOPers as falling into three equivalent baskets of 'moderates, pragmatic conservatives, and hard-core conservatives.' ... Calling any House Republican in a competitive district a 'moderate' is both dangerous and wrong.... As for the 'pragmatic conservatives' (presumably led by John Boehner), exactly how much pragmatism can be attributed to the decision not to blow up the economy? ... The temptation to treat the two parties as composed of balanced groups of ideologues and 'pragmatists' or 'moderates' is at the very center of the false-equivalency meme.... There is an extremist ideology that unites most Republican pols...." ...

Charles Pierce. Paul "Ryan has a brand-new shiny idea that he's out in the yard playing with. It's called 'prioritization,' and it's the latest thing in zombie-eyed granny starving. By this theory, which is the brainchild of Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, himself an economic extremist..., we hit the debt limit and then the government 'prioritizes' its spending, beginning with interest on the debt, because that's what most Americans are sweating in their shoes about, and then skipping right to veterans benefits, because cutting them would cause actual political problems for hacks like Toomey and Ryan.... It seems to me that the American people gave Ryan a 'crystal clear' indication what they thought of his ideas..., but that's just me.... It really is time to stop taking this guy seriously." ...

     ... UPI Update: "U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Republicans may back a short-term debt-ceiling increase -- a notion the White House immediately rejected.... White House spokesman Jay Carney rejected the notion of raising the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling in the short term, saying postponing Congress' responsibility would create drama in Washington that will hurt the U.S. economy." ...

     ... Steve Benen on the debt ceiling war: "It would probably be an overstatement to say Republicans are already surrendering, but let's just say they've taken the white flag off the shelf, even if they're not yet ready to wave it."

Jamelle Bouie, in the Washington Post: "On issues that don't obviously relate to the party's long-term survival, [Sen. Marco] Rubio [RTP-Fla.] is a conventional conservative, responding to a base that remains far to the right of the average American. To wit, Rubio's response to President Obama's gun safety measures -- which are modest in scope and broadly popular -- is nothing short of hysterical.... Republican lawmakers -- even so-called reformers -- must still respond to their supporters. And by and large, the GOP remains committed to the values of its right-wing base."

Here's why Republicans have become ever so self-aware. Henry Decker of the National Memo: "According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, President Barack Obama's approval rating is near an all-time high, and the public is on his side in the upcoming debt ceiling debate. The poll finds Obama's approval rating at 55 percent, his highest level since November, 2009 (excluding a brief bump up to 56 percent after the president ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011) 61 percent view Obama as a strong leader -- his highest level in three years -- and 53 percent say they're optimistic about the policies he'll pursue in his second term. By contrast..., Congress has just a 19 percent approval rating; 37 percent approve of House Democrats, and 24 percent approve of House Republicans."

Jonathan Bernstein on the Separation of Powers That Isn't. "You won't hear it from House Republicans and other conservatives, who are talking impeachment over the prospect that Obama might use executive orders as part of his gun-safety initiatives (this notwithstanding that, by one count, Obama uses executive orders less frequently than most presidents), but executive orders save Congress from passing laws that would have to be far more detailed and complex than they currently are. Not only that: sometimes the easiest way to get a bill over the finish line is to leave the specifics up to the regulators over in the executive branch. So often the path of least resistance for Congress is to pass vague legislation and leave it to the executive branch to fill in the details."

Rigging the 2016 Presidential Election. Erik Loomis of Lawyers, Guns & Money: "Why this story isn't getting more attention, I don't know.... Rather than broaden their message to appeal to young and non-white voters, Republicans are looking to commit the greatest suppression of votes since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.... It is entirely possible that a Democratic candidate could win 55% of the vote in 2016 and lose the election."

** "A Tale of Two Dead Girls & Notre Dame Football." Amanda Marcotte of Slate: "Lizzy Seeberg was a real person and she really did kill herself in 2011, at age 19, after accusing a football player of sexual assault." People harassed her, the campus police investigated her but not the accused, who -- once "investigated" after Seeberg's death, was immediately cleared. "Te'o's story has been all over the news today -- and with good reason. It's nuts. But what's also nuts is that the story of Lennay Kekua -- the dead girl who never lived -- is a bigger deal ... than the story of Lizzy Seeberg, whose real life ended in real tragedy.... Beautiful, selfless, perfect woman does not exist? Now that's a story. The horrors faced by women trying to find justice for sexual violence? Sorry, ladies, that's just boring old everyday life." ...

... ** Melinda Henneberger of the Washington Post: "... evidence that the University of Notre Dame covers up for sexual predators on the football team in hopes of winning some games has been mostly ignored.... We know for sure that Notre Dame collaborated with at least one story, on Charlie Rose's CBS morning show, that told the phony boohoo tale after the school knew no such woman had ever walked the earth." ...

... Tim Egan: "The Internet is the cause of much of today's commitment-free, surface-only living; it's also the explanation for why someone could tumble head-over-heels for a pixelated cipher. Online dating was only the start of what led us down this road."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama's Jobs Council hit a notable milestone on Thursday: one year without an official meeting. The 26-member panel is also set to expire at the end of the month.... Politico caused a stir last July by reporting that the panel had not convened officially for six months. The story noted some simmering tension between the slew of business executives on the board and a pair of labor leaders who are also members of the group. The report also said that some CEOs were reluctant to appear with Obama at the height of the presidential campaign...." CW: the less Obama talks to those scheming reprobates, the better.

"Les Insufferables." Nicholas Beaudrot of Donkeylicious: "There is plenty to mock in the Wall Street Journal's profile of some hypothetical households that will see tax increases.... A huge chunk of the tax increase on the fake single mom and fake single can be chalked up to the lapse of the payroll tax holiday [which Republicans demanded].... Perhaps the most laughable part ... is that all of these households realize a substantial portion of their income through taxable investment income.... Given the WSJ's insistence on including an absurdly large amount of investment income in their hypotheticals, it's quite possible that there are zero households that come close to matching these characteristics. They might as well be reporting on how the tax changes will affect Elvis Presley, JFK, and Sasquatch...." Via Jonathan Bernstein. CW: Here's some mockery, courtesy of Charles Pierce, which includes a comment from me.

News Ledes

New York Times: "C. Ray Nagin, the former mayor of this city who fulminated against the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina but became for many a symbol of the shortcomings of government himself, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on 21 counts including conspiracy, bribery and money laundering." CW: presumed innocent, but, um, what a surprise.

** AP: "A federal appeals court on Friday upheld Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's contentious law stripping most public workers of nearly all of their collective bargaining rights in a decision hailed by Republicans but not undoing a state court ruling keeping much of the law from being in effect."

New York Times: "Gussie Moran, who as a ranked American tennis player in 1949 caused an international stir and gained worldwide fame for competing at Wimbledon wearing a short skirt and lace-trimmed underwear, died on Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 89."

New York Times: "... some of the hundreds of workers who managed to escape the national gas field on the eastern edge of Algeria that had been stormed by Islamist militants two days before" told "chilling tales" of their ordeal. "The gunmen, fighters with a group called Al Mulathameen, said they were acting to avenge the French intervention in nearby Mali, Algerian officials said. But there were indications that the attack had been planned long before the French military began its offensive to recapture the northern half of that country from Islamist insurgents." ...

... New York Times: "Britain said on Friday that an Algerian military operation against kidnappers in the Sahara was not over and the fate of some captives remained unclear a day after Algeria mounted an assault on heavily armed fighters holding American and other hostages at a remote gas field facility." ...

... Reuters: "Hundreds of workers from international oil companies have been evacuated from Algeria on Thursday and many more will follow, BP said on Friday following the al-Qaeda-linked attack on a major gas facility."

New York Times: "The discovery by American intelligence agencies that North Korea is moving mobile missile launchers around the country, some carrying a new generation of powerful rocket, has spurred new assessments of the intentions of the country's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, who has talked about economic change but appears to be accelerating the country's ability to attack American allies or forces in Asia, and ultimately to strike across the Pacific."

New York Times: "In a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, Lance Armstrong admitted to using banned substances but did not say how he did it or who helped him."

AP: "The former Century 16 [in Aurora, Colorado], now renovated and renamed the Century Aurora, opened its doors to victims of the July 20 attack on Thursday night with a somber remembrance ceremony and a special showing of 'The Hobbit.'"

The Commentariat -- Jan. 17, 2013

My column in the New York Times eXaminer, also linked yesterday afternoon, is on Maureen Dowd's & Tom Friedman's columns.

New York Times Editors: "It is past time that elected leaders did something about gun legislation without worrying, as Mr. Obama said on Wednesday, about getting 'an A grade from the gun lobby.' It has been a bipartisan betrayal of the public's safety, the fault of Democrats and Republicans, and of a string of presidents who have said mournful things after the mass murders at Columbine and Virginia Tech and Aurora and Newtown but did not act. Wednesday was the exception. One month after the Newtown, Conn., murders, Mr. Obama presented a comprehensive set of initiatives that was, for a change, structured around what needs to be done and not what political tacticians think the president could get a dysfunctional Congress to pass."

Brad Plumer of the Washington Post talks to gun & crime experts to try to determine "which of [President Obama's] proposals might have the most meaningful impact on gun violence."

Nicholas Kristof on "the role that guns too often play in our society: an instrument not of protection but of escalation."

Charles Blow: "On virtually every measure, the N.R.A.'s messaging is off. The president’s proposals, on the other hand, are very much in step with public opinion, which has shifted toward more restrictions, according to a number of polls reported Monday."

Michael Tomasky of Newsweek: "Among the moon-howling reactions to the president's surprisingly bold gun-control proposals on the right, the one that most struck me was the boiling indignation that he had the temerity to speak of, and surround himself with, school children. Rush Limbaugh led the way as usual: 'He's using these kids as human shields ... He brings these kids who supposedly wrote letters to the White House ...' And so on. It was a shocking rant, even for that flatulent pile of gelatin, and amazingly out of touch with how the country feels about what happened in Newtown.... And it made me realize: they're going to lose. Their excess outrages America, and even if they prevail for the time being in Congress, in the long run, they're cooked."

James Downie of the Washington Post relates the restrictions Republicans placed on gun research to restrictions they have placed on other scientific study. "Regardless of where one stands on gun control, or on any of these other issues, the far right's attempts to restrict scientific research should concern everyone.... President Obama's call for gun violence research is an important stand against this war on science." ...

... CW: I would go one further than Downie. As I repeatedly imply in linking to stories about Right Wing World, Republicans are waging a War on Reality. This was never more clear than during the presidential election when Mitt Romney & his campaign not only lied with impunity; they flat-out said they were running a fact-free campaign -- one that "would not be dictated by fact-checkers." Of a piece was this was the entire GOP talking machine which vigorously disputed "inconvenient" polling data, so vigorously that they smeared Nate Silver -- the statistician who got it right. Meanwhile, other candidates were using god & something they read on the Intertoobz to justify their radical anti-abortion, anti-sex, anti-women platform. Much of the anti-fact campaign is opportunistic; e.g., politicians beholden to the gas-&-oil lobby dismiss climate change science & environmental impact research as hoaxes. But some is just an unshakeable abhorrence of anything that destabilizes the fundamentalist religious beliefs which they & their constituents hold. Efforts at the state level to control science & history (& now math!) curricula & to divert public funds to religious schools is another manifestation of the anti-reality campaign. Relatedly, "think tanks" are not havens for pointy-headed academics; they are propaganda machines. Count on this getting worse before it gets better.

Ed Kilgore: "The case against Obama's right to do or propose what he is doing or proposing is ... based on a radical belief in the Second Amendment as unconditional, and as the supreme constitutional guarantee that ensures all the others. So any gun regulations, existing or potential, are suspect as 'tyrannical' in that they limit the ability of 'law-abiding Americans' to stockpile weapons against the day when 'patriots' decide being law-abiding is no longer acceptable. Those shouting epithets at Obama over his executive orders and legislative proposals are not, moreover, focusing strictly on gun issues. Many have been claiming from practically the day of his inauguration that his policy agenda ... represent[s] gross and intolerable violations of American liberties. They are prisoners of their anti-Obama rhetoric, and/or champions of the radical ideology of 'constitutional conservatism,' which defends as permanent and inalienable rights to all sorts of things like unlimited exploitation of natural resources, 'fair' (i.e., low and regressive) taxes, freedom from non-discrimination laws, and zygote personhood." ...

In case you're interested in a sane interpretation of presidential powers vis-a-vis Obama's executive orders, Greg Sargent spoke to Charles Fried, President Reagan's solicitor general. According to Fried, "These are either standard exercises of presidential power, or even more benignly, standard examples of the power of the president to exhort the public or state officials to be aware of certain problems and to address them."

Domenico Montanaro of NBC News also fact-checks GOP charges that Obama is a "tyrant" and a "dictator." Is he or isn't he? Conclusion: nope.

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: puts the NRA ad [see yesterday's Commentariat] to an objective test: "The ad gives the impression that a phalanx of armed police are guarding students, such as the Obama and Gregory children, at Sidwell Friends. But that is completely false. Far from being elitist, the relatively small force of unarmed security personnel at Sidwell is not unusual for a school of its size. Moreover, the ad also suggests that Obama rejects out of hand boosting security at schools, when in fact his proposals include provisions that would provide funding for more school security. If the NRA is also trying to count Secret Service protection for Obama's children as part of that force of armed guards, that's even more ridiculous.... Such protection is mandated under federal law -- and only exists for the president's children." ...

... Ron Fournier of the National Journal: "The ad is indisputably misleading, and is arguably a dangerous appeal to the base instincts of gun-rights activists." ...

... Conseervative Joe Scarborough thinks the NRA is helping the gun control movement because of "the NRA's bizarre choices.... Republicans really have a choice ... they can either pass a comprehensive gun control right now or they can wait two years ... and have [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi write that bill":

... Reality-based people may recognize the NRA has gone too far, but as Peter Wallsten & Tom Hamburger write in the Washington Post, "In state capitals and city halls nationwide, the National Rifle Association is demonstrating its enduring ability to thwart new firearms regulations and expand rights for gun owners -- even after a school massacre in Newtown, Conn., gave the gun-control cause new momentum."

Ezra Klein rounds up "smart" Republicans & conservatives opposed to the GOP's deficit-ceiling hostage-taking. CW: Klein, who is good at numbers but not so good at prognosticating (whatever happened to Treasury Secretary Bowles?), thinks Republicans will cave. He does make one interesting point: "The danger of the debt ceiling, in my view, is less that Republicans make a decision to breach than that they make a last-minute miscalculation or miscount the votes -- think Boehner's Plan B debacle -- and a breach happens accidentally." But Klein does not take into account an important factor -- if & when the House raises the debt limit, it will do so primarily with Democratic votes. Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer & Jim Clyburn can count. Boehner only has to be able to count up to about 20. And he has 20 fingers & toes. That should work. ...

... Yes, those "smart" Republicans have a tough row to hoe. From the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

Obama 2.0

Uh-oh, Another White Guy. Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama is planning to elevate a key national security deputy, Denis R. McDonough, to White House chief of staff, administration officials said on Wednesday, making perhaps his closest foreign policy adviser the gatekeeper to the Oval Office."

** Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Earlier this week, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus endorsed a Republican plan to rig the next presidential election to make it nearly impossible for the Democratic candidate to win the White House, no matter who the American people vote for. The election-rigging plan, which would allocate electoral votes by congressional district rather than by states as a whole in a handful of states that consistently vote for Democratic presidential candidates, would have allowed Mitt Romney to narrowly win the Electoral College last November despite losing the popular vote by nearly four points. On Monday, seven Pennsylvania Republican state representatives introduced a bill to make this vote-rigging scheme a reality in their state.... both Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) and state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-PA) support the plan, so there is a real risk that Pennsylvania Republicans will try to write the voters out of the next presidential election." ...

... Here's Rachel Maddow on the same topic. (She doesn't actually get to discussing the electoral college until about 2:20 min. in.) This is serious. It's a plan that Pennsylvania Republicans tried even before the November elections. Now they are going for it again. Thanks for contributor Diane for the link to Maddow's segment:

Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "The annual compensation for Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase's chief executive, was slashed in half to signal that the bank's board was a strong watchdog.... The board voted unanimously to reduce Mr. Dimon's pay to $11.5 million from $23.1 million a year earlier...."

Steven Ohlemacher of the AP: the Business Roundtable, "an influential group of business CEOs, is pushing a plan to gradually increase the full retirement age to 70 for both Social Security and Medicare and to partially privatize the health insurance program for older Americans." ...

... Richard Eskow in the Huffington Post: "The Business Roundtable was founded specifically to win political favors from the largest and most ruthless companies in America, often at the expense of smaller business, and its accomplishments read like a rap sheet." Read the whole post if you think these guys might be the "nonpartisan pragmatists" they claim to be. CW Plus: not a one of those fat cats has the foggiest idea of what it's like to do manual labor at age 60, much less 70. Plus: Americans who most need Social Security & Medicare benefits do not have longer life expectancies than did Americans way back when. ...

** Kevin Brown of Remapping Debate: "Each spring since 2010, some of Washington's A-list politicians ... submit to questions from some of the media's A-list journalists on the future of the federal fiscal policy. These interviews ... [are] conducted ... at private 'Fiscal Summits' convened by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire former commerce secretary.... Peterson ... is now beginning his fourth decade of arguing that there is no alternative to enacting 'entitlement reform' (read: cut Social Security and Medicare) and 'tax reform' (read: raise regressive taxes and lower progressive ones) in the name of curbing the country's 'unsustainable' debt and deficits.... An essential and successful element of the Peterson strategy is to create an environment where it is widely if not universally believed that there is no alternative to his vision.... In this view, it's 'not realistic' to believe the country can afford the same programs it once did." Via Charles Pierce.

... ** Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post: "U.S. manufacturers have added a half-million new workers since the end of 2009.... And yet there were 4 percent fewer union factory workers in 2012 than there were in 2010.... The new manufacturing jobs are different from the ones that delivered millions of American workers a ticket to the middle class over the past half-century.... On balance, all of the job gains in manufacturing have been non-union.... By one measure -- average hourly earnings -- a typical manufacturing worker now earns less than a typical private-sector worker of any industry. Throughout the 30 years before the recession, the reverse was the case."

Danielle Douglas of the Washington Post: "Rules released by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Thursday ... requir[e] mortgage servicers to maintain accurate records, offer ongoing access to staff and provide options for delinquent homeowners to avoid foreclosure, among other things. They are aimed at vanquishing the unscrupulous practices that were commonplace during the financial crisis, such as 'robo-signing,' where servicers processed foreclosure documents without a proper review. The rules, which take effect in January 2014, are part of a broader reform of the mortgage market that includes limiting upfront fees and curtailing harmful practices such as interest-only payments -- provisions that were unveiled last week."

A Message to BMOC John Roberts from the Pew Research Center: "As the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision approaches, the public remains opposed to completely overturning the historic ruling on abortion. More than six-in-ten (63%) say they would not like to see the court completely overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman's constitutional right to abortion at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Only about three-in-ten (29%) would like to see the ruling overturned. These opinions are little changed from surveys conducted 10 and 20 years ago." CW: if you want to remain popular with the girls, John -- and we know you do -- don't overturn Roe.

Gail Collins: "... once you get past the now-demolished race record, there’s not much point to Lance Armstrong, Famous Person. He has no other talents. He isn't particularly lovable.... Between 1996 and 2004, our American mail system invested an estimated $40 million in [the U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team].... This would be the same Postal Service that lost $16 billion last year.... Republicans and Democrats could join together to ban the use of federal taxpayer dollars for sponsorship of sports events.... The Lance Armstrong debacle would have a point! Although, actually, Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota proposed banning the use of taxpayer money to sponsor Nascar race teams in 2011, and she was voted down, 281 to 148."

Inauguration

Fredrick Kunkle of the Washington Post: The Rev. Luis Leon, rector of Saint John's Church, which is across the street from the White House, "was picked this week to replace the Rev. Louie Giglio, a conservative evangelical minister who withdrew two days after his selection was announced because of controversy over anti-gay remarks he made more than a decade ago." Leon will deliver the closing benediction.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Pauline Phillips, a California housewife who nearly 60 years ago, seeking something more meaningful than mah-jongg, transformed herself into the syndicated columnist Dear Abby -- and in so doing became a trusted, tart-tongued adviser to tens of millions -- died on Wednesday in Minneapolis. She was 94."

MarketWatch: "New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell by 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 335,000 in the week ended Jan. 12, the Labor Department said Thursday. Claims fell to the lowest level since January 2008, but the big drop likely stems from a seasonal-adjustment quirk whose effects could quickly fade and push the numbers back up in the next few weeks."

New York Times Update: "Kidnappers and at least some of their hostages were killed on Thursday as Algerian forces raided a gas facility where a heavily armed group of Islamist extremists was holding dozens of captives, including Americans and other foreigners, the Algerian government announced." ...

... Reuters: "Some hostages were reported to have escaped from a remote Algerian gas plant on Thursday, where dozens of foreigners and scores of Algerians were seized by Islamist gunmen demanding a halt to a French military campaign in neighbouring Mali. Governments around the world were holding emergency meetings to respond to one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades, which sharply raises the stakes over the week-old French campaign against al Qaeda-linked rebels in the Sahara." ...

... Washington Post: "French and Malian troops expanded their ground operations Thursday as they battled militants in the desert village of Diabaly in central Mali, senior Malian military officials said, and hundreds of French reinforcements arrived in the West African nation. The confrontations marked the first direct engagement since France launched a military assault last week to oust radical Islamists who have advanced to within 250 miles of the capital."

... AP: "The Obama administration has declared it cannot accept new terrorist sanctuaries in Mali or anywhere else and has promised to support French and African efforts to restore security. Yet after almost a year of disorder in the West African nation, Washington is still keeping the conflict at arm's length."

AP: "Lenders took possession of fewer U.S. homes in 2012 than a year earlier, as the pace of new homes entering the path to foreclosure slowed and banks increasingly opted to allow troubled borrowers to sell their homes for less than what they owed on their mortgage. All told, banks repossessed 671,251 homes last year, down nearly 17 percent from 804,423 the year before...."

Reuters: "The United States will on Thursday officially recognize the Somali government in Mogadishu, ending a hiatus of more than 20 years and opening the door to increased U.S. and international economic help for the violence-plagued African nation, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will announce the shift during a meeting with visiting Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud...."

AP: "The main battery beneath the cockpit of the Boeing 787 forced to make an emergency landing in Japan was swollen from overheating, a safety official said Thursday, as aviation regulators worldwide joined the U.S. and Japan in grounding the technologically advanced aircraft because of fire risk."

AP: "The IOC has stripped Lance Armstrong of his bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics because of his involvement in doping, officials familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Thursday."