The Commentariat -- January 18, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on, oh, the banality of the Times op-ed writers. A huge chunk of it is by Akhilleus, which you wouldn't know to read it at this point (9 am ET), as most of the part he wrote is not indented. I'm working on getting that fixed.

Wikipedia is blacked out today. Go to this page to find out why. Also, if you try to call up any Wiki entry, you'll get this page, which guides you to contact your Representative. Do it. ...

     ... Update. Jenna Wortham of the New York Times: "With a Web-wide protest on Wednesday that includes a 24-hour shutdown of the English-language Wikipedia, the legislative battle over two Internet piracy bills has reached an extraordinary moment — a political coming of age for a relatively young and disorganized industry that has largely steered clear of lobbying and other political games in Washington. The bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate, are backed by major media companies and are mostly intended to curtail the illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online. But the tech industry fears that, among other things, they will give media companies too much power to shut down sites that they say are abusing copyrights." ...

     ... The Washington Post story, by David Fahrenthold, is here.

In a fascinating New York Times op-ed, historian Kevin Kruse explains how corporate leaders co-opted God in the 1930s & '40s in an effort to discredit "creeping socialism" & restore their own prestige. Their pet phrase: "One nation under God" was meant to be used as propaganda in exactly the way Mitt Romney used it the other day -- to protect the One Percent:

When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 percent versus 1 percent, you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. -- Mitt Romney

CW: As Kruse notes, Congress [at the behest of President Eisenhower] added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. As a child, I found this change confusing, but our teacher instructed us to say the newly amended pledge, so I did. I don't anymore. I just pause while everybody else says the "under god" bit. I wish more of us would skip the addition. Or skip the pledge altogether. It's a pretty annoying piece of indoctrination, even if it was written by a socialist (who purposely left out the word "equality" because so many Americans were opposed to equality!).

If you read Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek cover story, which I linked a couple of days ago, do go and read Driftglass's response to it. Sullivan is Sullivan. Driftglass is in a class by himself.

Bob Reich: "Mitt Romney is casting the 2012 campaign as 'free enterprise on trial.'" It sure is, but he has it upside-down. "What Romney and the cheerleaders of risk-taking free enterprise don’t want you to know is the risks of the economy have been shifting steadily away from CEOs and Wall Street – and on to average working people. It’s not just income and wealth that are surging to the top. Economic security is moving there as well...."

Stewart & Colbert do this wonderful segment that shows you the total absurdity of pretending there is a "separation" between candidates & the superPACs that support them:

Right Wing World *

Paul Krugman: "Aha. Romney concedes that the estimates people have been making about his taxes are basically right:

At an event in Florence, SC, Mitt Romney told reporters that his effective tax rate is probably close to 15% because most of his income comes from investments, reports Bloomberg’s Julie Davis.

... "And an immediate question is, do you agree that unearned income should be taxed at a rate so much lower than earned income?" ...

Out. Of. Touch. Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times: "He also characterized as 'not very much' the $374,327 he reported earning in speaking fees last year, though that sum would, by itself, very nearly catapult most American families into the top 1 percent of the country’s earners.... As a candidate, Mr. Romney has also advocated for tax policies that would significantly benefit people who, like him, derive most of their income from investments." CW: These are tidbits from a feature article. Read the whole thing. ...

... Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "But that might not be the end of the issue for Romney. It’s likely he also benefited from related tax privileges during his time at Bain. While the lower rate on capital gains and dividend income is supposed to benefit investors, private-equity executives and hedge-fund managers who get paid by taking a share of their firm’s profits rather than a normal salary are also able to classify their income as a capital gain rather than a wage, and so they, too, pay a 15 percent tax rate — even when that money is, effectively, their salary. Ultimately, the private-equity tax loophole could become far more controversial than whether private-equity deals destroy or create jobs. Today, even the Wall Street Journal came out against the loophole...." CW: My tax rate is about double that of Romney's. And I resent it. Big time. ...

... More from Robert Reich on "The Romney Tax Loophole.... "Congress has vowed for years to close this loophole. But somehow it persists. Even when Democrats have been in charge, they haven’t been able to close it. Guess why. The managers and executives of private-equity funds are big donors to Republicans and Democrats alike."

... ** Richard Escow: "Taxing Romney under the same rules most of us follow would have put something in the neighborhood of $61 million more into the US Treasury." Escow lists some programs that just Romney's taxes (not people like Romney -- just Mrs. & Mrs. Willard) could have saved -- and hey, some of those programs actually do create jobs! Thanks to reader Bonnie for the link. ...

... Ruth Marcus: "Romney would spend hundreds of billions for a tax cut whose benefits flow overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans, even as he would cut even more from programs that help the most vulnerable. Those skewed priorities are hard to square with Romney’s stated concern, however heartfelt, for the poor. The man from Bain Capital needs to take another look at his figures." CW: Read Marcus' column to get a good overview of Romney's plans to make live easier for him & his super-rich friends & harder for everyone else.

How South Carolina Republicans Celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Reader Haley S. sent me the link to this video. Listen to the crowd reaction -- if you can stand it. Never mind Gingrich; he is just playing to the crowd. It is they who make me weep:

... CW: I don't know how many cheering racists attended the debate, but assuming there were 2,000 there, that means than for every one of those bigots, 500 Badgers signed petitions to recall Scott Walker. On, Wisconsin! ...

... ** New York Times Editors: "In South Carolina, where a Confederate flag still waves on the front lawn of the State Capitol largely because of the efforts of the state Republican Party, it remains good primary politics to stir up racial animosity and then link it to President Obama. Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Santorum and the crowd that cheered them are following in a long and tawdry tradition, singling out a minority group for lectures while refusing to support policies that help all Americans." ...

... Dog-Whistling through Dixie. Charles Blow of the New York Times: "Gingrich seems to understand the historical weight of the view among some southern whites..., that blacks are lazy and addicted to handouts. He is able to give voice to those feelings without using those words. He is able to make people believe that a fundamentally flawed and prejudicial argument that demeans minorities is actually for their uplift. It is Gingrich’s gift: He is able to make ill will sound like good will." ...

... Ari Berman of The Nation: "This racially inflammatory rhetoric was on full display last night, as candidate after candidate auditioned to be the next George Wallace." ...

... Jon Stewart comments:

... This what that reprobate Gingrich -- I mean his non-coordinated superPAC -- thinks an Obama-Romney debate would look like. I hope he's -- I mean they are -- right:

* Where racial bigotry is a citizenship requirement.

Local News

John Nichols of The Nation on the Wisconsin recall effort: "No other gubernatorial recall drive in American history has gathered the signatures of so large a proportion of the electorate. The total number of signatures submitted Tuesday represents 46 percent of the turnout in the 2010 Wisconsin gubernatorial election." ...

... Think Progress: "The number of signatures comes close to the 1,128,941 votes Walker received, and was far more than the 540,000 needed." ...

... Charles Pierce on the Wisconsin recalls: "On the day that his state rose up and hocked a loogie in his general direction, Scotty Walker was in the Big Apple, raising money with [Maurice Greenberg,] the founder of AIG &mdash a guy with his own checkered history — the company which, if this were a just world, would have its corporate logo serve as the official collective mugshot of the criminals and grifters and dunces who almost wrecked the world's economy. The company that paid its executives $165 million in bonuses a year after all of us bailed their sorry asses out? I mean, what the fk, Scotty? Was the banquet hall in the old Enron building booked?"

News Ledes

Reuters: "The Obama Administration rejected the Keystone oil pipeline on Wednesday, a move that Republicans decried for sacrificing jobs and energy security in order to shore up the president's environmental base before elections. President Barack Obama said the administration denied TransCanada's application for the $7 billion Canada-to-Texas oil sands pipeline because there was not enough time to review an alternate route that would avoid a sensitive aquifer in Nebraska -- within a 60-day window set by Congress."

New York Times: "Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday threw his unequivocal support behind a $100 billion high-speed rail line that has come under fire here in California and across the country, embracing it in a strikingly optimistic State of the State speech in which he asserted that government should pursue ambitious ventures even during times of economic strife."

AP: "As details emerged Wednesday about the missing and the dead in the grounding of the Costa Concordia, the captain was quoted as saying he tripped and fell into the water from the listing vessel and never intended to abandon his passengers.... Capt. Francesco Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship before everyone was safely evacuated, was placed under house arrest Tuesday, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship."

Small Fry. New York Times: "On Wednesday, federal prosecutors announced criminal charges against [Sandeep] Goyal and six others, depicting a 'circle of friends' that together earned about $62 million in illegal gains in Dell stock."

Washington Post: "Four people were arrested as hundreds of protesters from the Occupy movement gathered Tuesday on the west lawn of the Capitol, chanting, singing, marching and disrupting congressional offices throughout the day. The demonstrators came from across the country for Occupy Congress, billed as the first nationwide gathering for the movement that began in September as a protest against corporate greed on Wall Street." ...

... ABC News: "While the Obamas were dining at one of Washington's finest steak houses, Occupy DC protesters gathered in front of the White House and for a couple of hours, drew dozens of police cars to Pennsylvania Avenue and briefly kept the press on lockdown inside the building. The cause of the commotion is unclear but may have been a smoke bomb or firecracker hurled by a protester over the White House fence from Pennsylvania Avenue."

New York Times: "With both parties largely in agreement on a yearlong extension of President Obama’s payroll tax cut, the fight in Congress over the coming weeks will boil down to how to pay for it, and Democrats appeared to hold the advantage as members of the House returned to Washington on Tuesday."

AP: "The Obama administration is providing senior state and local police officials with its analysis of homegrown terrorism incidents, including common signs law enforcement can use to identify violent extremists.... The conference Wednesday at the White House marks the first time this unclassified analysis will be presented to 46 senior federal, state and local law enforcement officials, many of whom are police chiefs and sheriffs."

New York Times: A Canadian naval officer who worked in some of the country’s key military intelligence centers has been charged with breach of trust and passing along government secrets to a 'foreign entity.' The officer, Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle, 40, remained in jail on Tuesday after his lawyer asked a court in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to delay a bail hearing to give him more time to study the government’s case."

New York Times: " China will expand nationwide a trial program that requires users of the country’s wildly popular microblog services to disclose their identities to the government in order to post comments online, the government’s top Internet regulator said on Wednesday." CW: See also stories above for more news on our own Internet freedom controversies.

ABC News: "Authorities in Italy suspended search operations today after the rough seas apparently shifted the grounded Costa Concordia cruise ship."

The Commentariat -- January 17, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Joe Nocera's complaint that bank regulators are imposing too many complex and sometimes contradictory regs on Wall Street. Especially if you found Nocera's argument compelling, please take a gander at the caveats I've added to his "analysis." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. ...

... Here's a terrific article by Russ Baker on how the Times slants -- or as he puts it, sugarcoats -- the news. He relies on just one day's main headlines. ...

... AND there's this from Gregory Harms: the New York Times is liberal (not leftist) on domestic social policies, but it is hawkish on American foreign policy, basically following Washington's lead. It defines and solidifies, in effect, "the liberal parameters of American political discourse: basically progressive on domestic issues; basically compliant on matters of statecraft and foreign policy." Well-worth a read.

Gene Robinson: "... capitalism means never having to say you’re sorry. Perish the thought that anyone would critically examine this ethos except in a 'quiet room' [according to Mitt Romney]. But to the horror of radical free-market ideologues, the myth of no-fault capitalism is under scrutiny.... What the ideologues ignore, however, is that workers also have 'capital' at risk — in the form of mind and muscle, creativity, loyalty, years of service. Why is this investment so casually dismissed?"

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "To head off medical conflicts of interest, the Obama administration is poised to require drug companies to disclose the payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment. Many researchers have found evidence that such payments can influence doctors’ treatment decisions and contribute to higher costs by encouraging the use of more expensive drugs and medical devices."

Manu Raju of Politico: "Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Scott Brown on Monday demanded a cease-fire of the third-party spending that’s certain to play a major role in this state’s pivotal Senate race. Senior officials from Brown’s and Warren’s campaigns will soon meet to try to craft an unusual pact to curtail the influence of so-called super PACs.... Whether the talk amounts to anything more than public posturing to distance themselves from the millions of dollars in negative attacks launched by the groups remains to be seen. Experts are skeptical that groups will unilaterally disarm knowing that this race could tip the balance of power in the Senate."

Right Wing World *

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post lists the 11 biggest whoppers and head-scratchers from last night's GOP presidential debate. ...

... Steve Benen elaborates on Romney's audacious lie that President Obama "doesn't have a jobs plan." ...

... Jordan Fabian of Univision on Romney's doubling-down on his opposition to measures favored by the Hispanic community. (Report is in English.) Read the whole story.

Major Garrett of the National Journal: "Republican front-runner Mitt Romney said Monday he might release his tax returns -- but not before South Carolina's primary on Saturday. Romney, who has said previously he had no intention of releasing tax returns, said if he becomes the nominee he may release them in mid-April." Romney didn't answer the question when Rick Perry posed it, but responded to the question when the Fox "News" panel asked it. ...

... The Democratic National Committee elaborates:

... Winners shoot big game:

... Losers shoot "varmints and small rodents." Here's Romney in 2007. He lost the primary race:

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: don't kid yourself, Mitt Romney is no moderate. "Romney's proposal to cap federal spending ... would result in harsher cuts to domestic spending than even Paul Ryan has embraced."

Jason Volack of ABC News: "Behind the scenes Campaign Manager Jesse Benton admits to ABC News that [Ron Paul's] team is plotting a back up strategy in case the congressman doesn't pull in enough delegates to become the nominee. If the campaign comes up short at the convention, Benton says the plan is to use all the delegates awarded to Paul as a bargaining chip to force the Republican Party to stick to its limited government platform."

The God Vote Gets Ugly. Ralph Hallow of the Washington Times: "In an evolving power struggle, religious conservatives are feuding about whether a weekend meeting in Texas yielded a consensus that former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is the best bet to stop Mitt Romney’s drive for the Republican presidential nomination. A leading evangelical and former aide to President George H.W. Bush said he agreed with suspicions voiced by others at the meeting of evangelical and conservative Catholic activists that organizers 'manipulated' the gathering and may even have stuffed the ballot to produce an endorsement of Mr. Santorum over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich." CW: Sorry, I think preachers stuffing the ballot box is funny as -- hell. Isn't there some commandment against that? ...

... Speaking of Rick Santorum, he approved this message:

... Your Fun Scandalette of the Day. Nancy Hass of the Daily Beast: Before she was Karen Santorum, anti-abortion zealot, she was Karen Garver, and "her live-in partner through most of her 20s was Tom Allen, a Pittsburgh obstetrician and abortion provider 40 years older than she, who remains an outspoken crusader for reproductive rights and liberal ideals. Dr. Allen has known Mrs. Santorum ... her entire life: he delivered her in 1960."

Stephen Colbert drives Jon Huntsman from the GOP presidential race:

... AND Colbert figures out how to get on the South Carolina ballot. Sort of:

Tanya Somanader of Think Progress: Rep. Steve Womack (RTP-Ark.) is proud that the government paid for his college education (he served in the National Guard to get his grant) -- except that he doesn't seem to understand the government paid for his education -- but he voted to cut 100,000 low-income students from Pell Grant funding. And he was really nasty to a college student when she asked him about it.

* Where "I got mine; to hell with you," is the rule.

News Ledes

** Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Democrats and organizers filed petitions Tuesday afternoon with more than a million signatures as they sought to force a recall election against Gov. Scott Walker -- a massive number that seems to cement a historic recall election against him for later this year. It would mark the first such gubernatorial recall in state history and would be only the third gubernatorial recall election in U.S. history. Organizers Tuesday also handed in 845,000 signatures against Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch as well as petitions against four GOP state senators including Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau."

New York Times: "Mitt Romney withstood forceful attacks during a debate here on Monday evening, with his Republican rivals lining up to question his job-creation record, wealth and character, as they implored voters to scrutinize his candidacy more deeply before allowing him to sail to the party’s presidential nomination." The Washington Post story is here.

AP: "A French judge is seeking U.S. permission to visit the Guantanamo prison camp to investigate claims by former French inmates that they were tortured."

ABC News: "Search-and-rescue divers today blasted holes in the hull of the Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off Italy's Tuscan coast as they accelerate a frantic search for 29 missing passengers and crew members, as well as a second black-box recorder."

AP: "Strikes and demonstrations against Greek austerity measures hit the capital Athens on Tuesday, as international debt inspectors returned to decide whether the country's reforms are strong enough for it to secure a vital bailout. The officials from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, which are lending money to Greece to keep it from bankruptcy, are expected to press the government for faster cost-cutting reforms."

Los Angeles Times: "Israel's top justice authorities began a two-day hearing Monday for one of the government's top officials, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman. The proceedings move a years-long legal case closer to the end and signal what could also be the end of the current chapter in Lieberman's politicalcareer -- and eventually the government too. For more than a decade, Lieberman has been under investigation for a wide range of suspicions."

Haaretz: "A recent string of cyber attacks against Israeli credit card companies, banks, and government websites was aided by thousands of Israeli computers operated by remote assailants, a top Israeli software security expert on Tuesday. Hackers shut down both the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) and El Al’s respective websites on Monday, one day after a hacker network threatened to carry out attacks on both sites."

AP: "British scientists have found scores of fossils the great evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin and his peers collected but that had been lost for more than 150 years. Dr. Howard Falcon-Lang, a paleontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Tuesday that he stumbled upon the glass slides containing the fossils in an old wooden cabinet that had been shoved in a 'gloomy corner' of the massive, drafty British Geological Survey."

The Commentariat -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

President Obama speaks to volunteers today:

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Springtime for Vultures -- Ross Douthat on the Benefits of Creative Destruction." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to the online journal here. ...

... CW: Writing on another topic, but still backing up my riposte to Douthat, Paul Krugman writes, "... the bulk of a consumer dollar spent in America falls on American-produced goods and services. For one thing, most consumer spending is on services, few of which are really tradable. For another, even if the thing you buy in WalMart says 'Made in China', the price includes a lot of US value-added in the form of transportation and retailing costs."

Oh, and the Commentariat is open for comments.... Thanks to Haley Simon & Kate Madison for the "Atta Girls" in yesterday's comments!

Paul Krugman: "When we observe Martin Luther King’s Birthday, we have something very real to celebrate: the civil rights movement was one of America’s finest hours, and it made us a nation truer to its own ideals. Yet if King could see America now, I believe that he would be disappointed, and feel that his work was nowhere near done.... King — who was campaigning for higher wages when he was assassinated — would surely have considered soaring inequality an evil to be opposed.... The chances that someone born into a low-income family will end up with high income, or vice versa, are significantly lower here than in Canada or Europe. And there’s every reason to believe that our low economic mobility has a lot to do with our high level of income inequality.... Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in 'quiet rooms.' There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet." ...

Rick Hertzberg: Martin Luther King, Jr. -- a "drum major for justice"? Nope. Hertzberg suggests the Naitional Parks Service carve the Web address for King's full speech into what he and I agree is an "unfortunate" monument "unequal to" King on the National Mall. That Web address -- and the speech, of course, is here.

... Stephen Tuck, who is British, in a New York Times op-ed on the influence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., outside the U.S. In the U.S., "I have heard the man who marched for jobs and freedom invoked by all sides of the political spectrum. African-American activists seek to honor his legacy by calling for race-based remedies to combat stubborn racial inequality. Conservatives invoke his color-blind ideology to remove those same race-based remedies."

Andrew Sullivan in Newsweek/Daily Beast on President Obama's long game. Pretty interesting.

Tim Egan: "The Tea Party has proved to be a fraud, betraying the professed ideals from which it sprang.... The Tea Party gang never intended to govern, or — God forbid — compromise. They were birthed by Fox News and right-wing radio, where fact-challenged outrage is the blood that keeps the heart pumping."

Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: the train to nowhere is going nowhere. President Obama's plans for high-speed rail hit speed bump after speed bump.

Right Wing World

What's the Matter with Kansas? Well, they voted in this guy. Then his fellow Republicans made him Speaker of the state House. I think the Secret Service should pay him a call, preferably while he's in the middle of delivering a speech on the floor of the Kansas state House.

A short, brilliant post by Driftglass: "I personally find it hilarious that the only way for the 75% of the GOP who fucking hate Willard Romney to deny him the nomination would be to act like a pack of evil S!O!C!I!A!L!I!S!T!S and put the interest of the group ahead of the interest of any one individual." Watch the clip.

Post Mortem. Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: Jon "Huntsman's campaign has been, from the beginning, a fantasy driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of his own party.... The party Huntsman imagined -- modernizing, reforming, and youthful -- could still be born."

David Carr of the New York Times on the film "When Mitt Romney Came to Town": "... there is something deeply funny about watching Republicans, who routinely invoke the film industry as an epicenter of all that is wrong with this country, brazenly aping the techniques of Hollywood to influence how primary voters see the front-runner. 'The Republicans fought for as much freedom as possible in campaign spending, but now it looks like they are beginning to eat themselves,' said [producer/director Judd] Apatow. 'I don’t think they anticipated that they would use some of that money to Swift Boat themselves.'”

Jeffrey Frank of the New Yorker on a bit of the history of the modern Republican party: ".... the increasingly angry, suspicious, and divided party of Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Perry seems ever more immersed in its current orthodoxies. None of the candidates, though, seem the least bit interested in even addressing how they, or their party, might actually govern the 'whole people' of a fractious nation."

Rick Santorum, Earmark King. Michael Luo & Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "A review of some of his earmarks, viewed alongside his political donations, suggests that the river of federal money Mr. Santorum helped direct to Pennsylvania paid off handsomely in the form of campaign cash."

Brett Blackledge & Stephen Braun of the AP: "Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been spending large amounts on airfare as a congressman, flying first class on dozens of taxpayer-funded flights to his home state. The practice conflicts with the image that Paul portrays as the only presidential candidate serious about cutting federal spending."

Ariel Levy of the New Yorker has a new profile of Callista Gingrich, which I haven't yet taken the time to read, but I might.

CW: I hate to promote the Huff Post, but this article by Robert Greenwald is too good to pass on: "Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch ... released its rankings this week of senators and congressman who tow the Koch line most, and it gave a total of 44 A+s for the 112th Congress. Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party group funded by the Kochs, based its grades on opposition to affordable health care, clean air, alternative energy and net neutrality. Scores were also boosted if the elected official signed the tea party group's anti-revenue pledge.... The five senators who scored 100 percent on the Americans for Prosperity how-can-we-make-the-Kochs-richer test received $187,400 in campaign contributions from the Kochs and their allies. These senators are Ron Johnson (R-WI), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and potential Republican vice presidential nominee Marco Rubio, a freshman from Florida." ...

... AND this from the Koch Boys Gang. Jake Tapper of ABC News: "Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group that promotes lower taxes and fewer regulations for businesses, is unleashing a $6 million ad campaign against President Obama leading up to the State of the Union on January 24, ABC News has learned. The ad contains claims that are not tethered to facts.... The 60-second TV ad seems an attempt to muddy the waters amidst the charges against GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney and his tenure at Bain Capital...."

News Ledes

CW: Oh, I completely missed the fact that there's another GOP presidential debate tonight beginning at 9 pm ET. And, as usual, I'll be completely missing the debate itself. Update: here's the Times liveblog. Here's the WashPo's liveblog.

New York Times: "Reversing himself in what had become an awkward intraparty stalemate for Democrats, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey said Friday that he would no longer block President Obama’s nominee to a federal appeals court."

Despite our nation’s record of progress, and long tradition of extending voting rights – today, a growing number of citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that Dr. King fought throughout his life to address and overcome. -- AG Eric Holder, at an MLK Day event in Columbia, S.C. ...

... Politico: "Attorney General Eric Holder used Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on the anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birthday Monday to emphasize the Obama administration’s dedication to protecting the American people from discriminatory voting practices.... Holder’s remarks in the Palmetto State come just weeks after the Justice Department blocked the state’s new voter ID law from taking effect, citing an unfair burden on minority voters."

New York Times: "Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will announce Monday that he is ending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsing Mitt Romney, narrowing the field and erasing a challenge to Mr. Romney from the moderate wing of his party." ...

     ... Politico Update: "Jon Huntsman ended his presidential campaign Monday and immediately endorsed Mitt Romney."

New York Times: "Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month."

New York Times: "The owners of a cruise ship that ran aground and capsized near an Italian island, killing at least six people, on Monday blamed human error by its commander, saying he made an “unapproved, unauthorized maneuver” to divert from its programmed course."

AP: "House and Senate negotiators are drawing on Obama's budget and the work of the defunct congressional supercommittee on deficit reduction to come up with the $160 billion or so needed to continue the tax cut and federal jobless benefits. Both of are set to expire Feb. 29."

AP: "Al-Qaida militants seized full control of a town south of the Yemeni capital on Monday, overrunning army positions, storming the local prison and freeing at least 150 inmates, security officials said. The capture of Radda in Bayda province, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Sanaa, underscores the growing strength of al-Qaida in Yemen as it continues to take advantage of the weakness of a central government struggling to contain nearly a year of massive anti-government protests."

AP: "Pakistan's Supreme Court ramped up the pressure on the nation's beleaguered government Monday, beginning contempt proceedings against the prime minister for failing to carry out its order to reopen a corruption case against the president. The court ordered Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to appear before the bench on Thursday to explain his refusal to reopen the graft investigation, injecting fresh uncertainty into the political crisis threatening to engulf the country."