The Commentariat -- April 6

To those of you linking from The Sideshow, the site's main page is here.

Ezra Klein asks the question we've all been asking -- Where is President Obama? And why is he so disappointing when he does show up? ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones cites Klein & adds, "I really have no idea what [President Obama] thinks of taxes, the deficit, Medicare cuts, or much of anything else on the domestic agenda. I guess he's figuring that if his political opponents insist on digging themselves into a hole, he might as well stand back and let them. But if he keeps this up much longer, there's going to be nothing left of his presidency except 'Well, I guess he's better than the wingnuts from the other party.'"

Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Robert Pear of the New York Times: federal agencies prepare for a shutdown. ...

     ... Update. Ed O'Keefe & Michael Raufe of the Washington Post: "Failure to reach a budget deal would mean furloughing about 800,000 federal employees nationwide — many of whom are expected to surrender their BlackBerries, according to senior administration officials familiar with shutdown planning. A shutdown might also require organizers to cancel Washington’s storied Cherry Blossom Parade, which is scheduled to occur Saturday morning along the Mall."

... Ben White of Politico: "Some market observers and federal government officials say [the shutdown] actually could be helpful by making a failure to raise the federal debt limit — a potentially catastrophic event — significantly less likely.... From an economic perspective, failure to raise the debt limit — or to even come close to failure — would have vastly larger implications than a brief shutdown. It could lead to an equity market collapse and a huge spike in interest rates as investors demand much larger payments for the increased risk of buying U.S. debt. But a government shutdown could ... make a deal to raise the debt limit later this spring easier for conservatives to swallow and more akin to previous, noncontroversial votes to raise the borrowing limit."

More on "The Path to Disparity Prosperity" -- the Ryan/Republican plan to gut entitlement programs and lower taxes on corporations & the rich: ...

How do you define "courage"? Probably not the same way Washington pundits do ...

What ConservaDem Senate Budget Deficit Hawks Think of the Ryan/Republican House Proposal:

I think that it completely lacks balance. He has dramatic cuts in taxes for the wealthiest among us and finances that by draconian cuts to those of us who are dependent on Medicaid and Medicare.
-- Kent Conrad (D-ND) Senate Budget Committee Chair

Independent experts agree the House plan would make deep cuts to the Medicare benefits seniors count on. It would end Medicare as we know it and funnel Medicare dollars directly into private insurance companies’ pockets. Under the House plan, seniors’ coverage would be cut drastically, benefits would no longer be guaranteed and seniors’ costs would skyrocket. -- Max Baucus (D-Montana), Senate Finance Committee Chair

... Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker: "... the Ryan budget plan relies on dubious assertions, questionable assumptions and fishy figures. The ideas may be bold, but the budget presentation falls short of his claim that he is getting rid of budget gimmicks." ...

... Meredith Shiner of Politico: "Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) touted the help of former Clinton advisor Alice Rivlin — 'a great, proud Democrat' — in promoting a key Medicare provision in his budget proposal Tuesday. The only problem? Rivlin said she told the Republican she doesn’t support the final version of the measure he wrote into his budget — a provision Ryan referred to generally as the 'Ryan-Rivlin' plan when rolling out his sweeping economic blueprint."

... New York Times Editors: "Representative Paul Ryan’s proposals to reform Medicare and Medicaid are mostly an effort to shift the burden to beneficiaries and the states. They have very little reform in them.... For decades the Republicans have made clear their antipathy toward Medicare and Medicaid. Now they are trying to use the public’s legitimate concerns about the deficit to seriously cripple both programs. This isn’t real reform. If it moves forward, Americans will pay a high price." ...

... AND the Times Editors again: "The plan would condemn millions to the ranks of the uninsured, raise health costs for seniors and renege on the obligation to keep poor children fed. It envisions lower taxes for the wealthy than even George W. Bush imagined: A permanent extension for his tax cuts, plus large permanent estate-tax cuts, a new business tax cut and a lower top income tax rate for the richest taxpayers. Compared to current projections, spending on government programs would be cut by $4.3 trillion over 10 years, while tax revenues would go down by $4.2 trillion. So spending would be eviscerated, mainly to make room for continued tax cuts." ...

... "Not a Budget." Dana Milbank: "... for all ... the cuts, the Republicans’ plan increases the federal debt by more than $8 trillion over the next 10 years, and it continues federal budget deficits until nearly 2040. Under the proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that Ryan and his Republican colleagues claim to support, Ryan’s budget wouldn’t be in compliance for at least the next quarter century. How could the House Republicans make such enormous cuts and yet not solve the debt crisis? Simple: Ryan’s proposal isn’t a budget. It’s a manifesto for the anti-tax cause." ...

... Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "If it does nothing else, the budget that House Republicans unveiled Tuesday provides the first real Republican program for the 21st century, and it is this: Repeal the 20th century." ...

... Jon Chait of The New Republic: "It contains a massive, regressive tax cut. Ryan does not want to talk about the tax cut. His video touting the plan focuses entirely on the debt, and makes no mention whatsoever of the tax cuts. Ryan doesn't mention the tax cuts, of course, because they unravel the entire rationale for his proposal.... He is making a choice -- not just cut Medicare to save Medicare, but also to cut Medicare in order to cut taxes for the rich." Includes video of Ryan's pitch, which I refuse to post. ...

... David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "... there is at least one big way in which the plan isn’t daring at all. It asks for a whole lot of sacrifice from everyone under the age of 55 and little from everyone 55 and over. Representative Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who wrote the plan, calls the budget deficit an “existential threat” to the United States. Then he absolves more than one-third of all adults from responsibility in dealing with that threat." Why? Because Boomers & the elderly vote. ...

... Bob Reich: "... if the shutdowns contribute to the belief among Americans that government doesn’t work, Republicans win over the long term.... That's why it’s so important that the President have something more to say to the American people than 'I want to cut spending, too, but the Republican cuts go too far.' The 'going too far' argument is no match for a worldview that says government is the central problem to begin with."

CW: somehow the MSM manages to cover every meeting of two or more teabaggers [Bloomberg] (and here [ABC News] and here, [New York Times], etc.) but when 2,000 people in Washington, & people in other cities across the country, march on the Koch brothers, you have to turn to alternative media to find out about it. Here's Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress on the April 4 marches on Koch & Co., which coincided with the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. With video. As Karen Garcia noted in a post last week, when 5,000 people marched in New York City against the state's budget cuts, the New York Times, "the paper of record," didn't cover the event that took place in its own city. Garcia read about it on Al Jazeera!

The Lord-High Executioner. Mark Benjamin of Time: "Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement Monday that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 plotters will be tried in military commissions rather than civilian courts means that KSM might face lethal injection at Guantanamo, and the President might have to personally sign off on his death.... In civilian court, a judge assigns the death penalty according to sentencing guidelines. In a military commission, the President must explicitly approve a death sentence. And the Military Commissions Act of 2009, which governs those cases, gives the President wide latitude to use his own judgment in a capital case." ...

... Kristen Breitweiser, 9/11 widow and activist, in Common Dreams, on the military trials: the Obama DOJ has abandoned the Constitution and President Obama has broken "his golden word," personally delivered to victims' families, to prosecute the remaining alleged 9/11 conspirators in open court. ...

... Dahlia Lithwick: "Attorney General Eric Holder finally put the Obama administration's stamp on the proposition that some criminals are 'too dangerous to have fair trials.' In reversing one of its last principled positions — that American courts are sufficiently nimble, fair, and transparent to try Mohammed and his confederates — the administration surrendered to the bullying, fear-mongering, and demagoguery of those seeking to create two separate kinds of American law.... It's about the president and his Justice Department conceding that the system of justice in the United States will have multiple tiers — first-class law for some and junk law for others."

Alex Pareene of Salon: "Liberty University, the evangelical private Christian school founded by dead apartheid-supporting bigot Jerry Falwell, received $445 million in federal financial aid last year. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the way, received $420 million from the federal government.... Liberty University -- where the biology department teaches Young Earth Creationism -- is, astoundingly, an accredited school of higher learning. The school was broke and in debt until God killed Falwell for the insurance money."

Right Wing World *

The Mysterious Governor Huckabee. CW: I'm late out of the box on this April 1 post by Siddhartha Mahanta of Mother Jones, but it's no April Fools joke:

Send a public records request seeking documents from his 12-year stint as Arkansas governor, as Mother Jones did recently, and an eyebrow-raising reply will come back: The records are unavailable, and the computer hard drives that once contained them were erased and physically destroyed by the Huckabee administration as the governor prepared to leave office and launch a presidential bid.... What do the Huckabee files hold?

     ... Read Mahanta's whole post. It's pretty fascinating. Oh, and he appends this 2007 video of Huckabee touting open government and transparency:

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

We linked to this story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a couple of days ago, but let's milk it a little (hey, we're talking about the Dairy State): "Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions. Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce." His qualification: he is the son of one of Walker's big campaign backers. Thom Hartmann puts the story in perspective. First he notes that there is "a little-known provision in Scott Walker’s anti-union bill converts 37 government workers into political appointees to be handpicked by Walker himself." Then Hartmann assesses Walker's hiring skills:

So let’s get this straight -- a Wisconsin teacher with a Master’s degree doesn’t deserve to take home $50,000 a year -- but the drunken son of a big campaign donor with no experience or qualification whatsoever deserves $80,000 a year. Republican government at its finest.

     ... Wisconsin State Journal Update: "The son of a prominent lobbyist is being demoted following controversy over his selection for a high-paying post in the Walker administration. Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday announced that Brian Deschane would be sent back to the Department of Regulation and Licensing where he worked earlier this year as the bureau director of board services — a job that paid $64,728 a year.... Deschane never graduated from college and ... had no discernible experience in the field. Yet ... he was chosen to replace a 25-year state employee with a degree in chemical engineering and a resume full of management and regulatory experience.... The Walker administration and Jerry Deschane [Brian's father] both denied any quid pro quo took place." Journal Sentinel story here. ...

     ... Update from Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel: "the two candidates Deschane beat out to get the position as head of environmental and regulatory affairs": ... (1) a former state cabinet secretary under Republican Gov. Scott McCallum with a doctoral degree and eight years' experience overseeing the cleanup of petroleum-contaminated sites"' & (2) "a professional engineer who served since 2003 in the post to which Deschane was appointed." Neither got so much as an interview. Democrats want an investigation of whether or not Deschane is qualified for the job he has returned to & whether that hire was proper. Brian Deschane's father Jerry has admitted "he might have mentioned" his son's availability to Gov. Walker's chief of staff, who is the person who recommended young Brian for the $65K job.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke to the press briefly after his meeting with Sen. Reid & Speaker Boehner:

President Obama talks about the budget fight/government shutdown at his townhall in Bucks County:

     ... Update: video of the full event is here.

President Obama spoke at a National Action Networks event in New York City this evening. Update: the video is here.

Al Jazeera: "A coalition of Gulf allies has begun efforts to convince Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, to step down in response to anti-government protests that have swept the country in recent weeks. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations will convene a meeting among themselves and Yemeni representatives in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, in coming days, though an exact date has yet to be set."

Boston Globe: "An employee of a Christian summer camp on Cape Cod shot himself to death today just days after he became the focus of a criminal investigation into allegations that he sexually abused a camper during the 1980s, officials said.... The camp is the same one that apologized recently to US Senator Scott Brown for potential abuse he may have suffered there four decades ago.... Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents a former camper who brought a sex abuse allegation to prosecutors on Monday, said the employee was his client's alleged abuser: Charles 'Chuck' DeVita, 43, who is listed on the camp's website as part of the leadership team and director of the physical plant."

New York Times: "President Obama has asked House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, to come to the White House Wednesday at 8:45 p.m. to discuss the stalemate over the budget negotiations, White House officials said." Story has been updated: "President Obama emerged from an Oval Office meeting with Congressional leaders on Wednesday night with no breakthrough on the budget stalemate, but he said the 90-minute discussion had helped to 'narrow the issues' that are outstanding." See video above.

Love Letter from Gaddafi. AP: "Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has appealed directly to President Barack Obama to halt what the Libyan leader called 'an unjust war,' and wished Obama good luck in his bid for re-election next year. In a rambling, three-page letter to Obama obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Gadhafi implored Obama to stop the NATO-led air campaign...."

President Obama visited a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, wind turbine plant & held a townhall meeting this afternoon. See video clip above.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin State "Justice David Prosser clung to a narrow lead over Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in the state Supreme Court race early Wednesday.... But even with 99% of the vote counted, fewer than 600 votes -- about 0.04% of ballots -- separated the candidates.... That close margin had political insiders from both sides talking about the possibility of a recount, which Wisconsin has avoided in statewide races in recent decades. Any recount could be followed by lawsuits - litigation that potentially would be decided by the high court." AP story here. ...

     ... Journal Sentinel Update: "In a race still too close to call, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg took a paper-thin lead over Justice David Prosser in the state Supreme Court race early Wednesday, capping a race marked by massive voter turnout, Gov. Scott Walker's union bargaining plan, and record spending by outside interest groups. As of 11:30 a.m. [12:30 pm ET], The Associated Press had results for all but 1 of the state's 3,630 precincts and Kloppenburg had taken a 235 vote lead...." This story has been updated: "As of 2:15 p.m., The Associated Press had tallied results for all of the state's 3,630 precincts and Kloppenburg had taken a 204-vote lead after Prosser had been ahead most of the night by less than 1,000 votes. Kloppenburg declared victory based on the AP's results."

... Rout. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Chris Abele -- a 44-year-old philanthropist, scion of a wealthy Boston family and political neophyte -- handily defeated state Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) ... to become the next Milwaukee County executive. Abele had 61% of the vote to 39% for Stone...." The position -- last held by Gov. Scott Walker -- is nonpartisan, but Abele is a long-time supporter of Democrats. Abele will complete the last year of Walker's term, and says he will run again for a full four-year term. Stone blamed "the unrest we had in Madison" for his defeat.

AP: "The protective ozone layer in the Arctic that keeps out the sun's most damaging rays — ultraviolet radiation — has thinned about 40 percent this winter, a record drop, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday. The Arctic's damaged stratospheric ozone layer isn't the best known 'ozone hole' — that would be Antarctica's, which forms when sunlight returns in spring there each year. But the Arctic's situation is due to similar causes: ozone-munching compounds in air pollutants that are chemically triggered by a combination of extremely cold temperatures and sunlight."

New York Times: "Opposition forces in Ivory Coast said on Wednesday they had begun an assault to dislodge strongman Laurent Gbagbo from a bunker under his residence after he refused French and United Nations demands to leave."

Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for a meeting with King Abdullah.... Gates planned to report to Abdullah on the progress of a $60 billion arms deal with the Saudis and discuss plans for upgrading the nation’s missile defense system.... Saudi Arabia is the largest buyer of U.S. arms.... Some U.S. officials have bristled at the aggressive role of the Saudi military in last month’s crackdown in neighboring Bahrain. But a senior defense official ... said Wednesday that the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia remained strong."

Remembrances of Pantyhose Past

Since Frank Rich left the Times, Maureen Dowd has been trying to fill his shoes. Rich has a knack for seeing and exploiting the connections between retail politics and cultural fads and phenomena. Dowd does not, though evidently she thinks she does. In today's column, one of her lamest yet, she makes a stab at contrasting the demented, abusive Charlie Sheen with a fashion photographer named Bill Cunningham. She begins her essay by recounting an incident in which "a fashion designer" once "humiliated" her by publicly dissing her choice of pantyhose, after which Cunningham cheered her up by snapping her photo. Dowd ends her tour de faiblesse with Cunningham's remark, “As a kid, I went to church and all I did was look at women’s hats.”

Not surprisingly, the Times moderators rejected my comment, but I think it's a valid criticism. It probably is more worthwhile reading than Dowd's column. The terms of usage on your Adobe Flashdrive download are more worthwhile reading than Dowd's column. My comment:

This column would be appropriate to the "Style" section or perhaps even to the "Arts" section, but it does not belong on the op-ed page. The opposition you attempt to draw between Bill Cunningham and Charlie Sheen is thinner than a runway model. That both men have something to do with women is about as useful as contrasting the National Organization for Women with pantyhose, both of which have -- something to do with women.

Speaking of pantyhose, I don't know any adult women who would care if some evidently drunken and unquestionably boorish fashion designer didn't like theirs. I cannot think of anything any more trivial than the fashion correctness of pantyhose. I don't wear them. Besides, fashion designers are incapable of humiliating me. I don't care what they think because their entire frame of reference is superficial -- sort of like a guy who goes to church and thinks about hats.

If you want to write about how the world treats women, there are dozens of better ways to do so, and some of those better ways have come from you: for instance, your columns on the Roman Catholic Church's mistreatment of American nuns. Get back to journalism, please, Ms. Dowd, and leave the film reviews and fashion-world profiles for the pros in other sections of the paper.

The Commentariat -- April 5

Tim Kaine, current DNC Chair & former Virginia governor, announces he will run for the Senate in 2012:

The Road Wreck is now relabeled "The Plan for Disparity Prosperity." It's the SOS. ...

... "The Threat Within." Paul Krugman: "The great danger now is that Obama — with the help of a fair number of Senate Democrats — will kill Medicare in the name of civility and outreach. This doesn’t have to happen. Republicans have, in fact, offered Democrats a huge political opportunity — much as Bush did in 2005. But I’m sorry, I have no confidence in the current leadership’s willingness to do the right thing, even when it’s also politically smart."

Brian Beutler of TPM has a pretty good summary of Paul Ryan's new Road Wreck for America budget plan, the details of which are conveniently TBA but the broad outlines of which are radically Gilded Age. ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM on "how political actors use press cowardice to deceive the public. Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, which is now the official Republican plan, phases out Medicare over 10 years. Yet you'll be treated to numerous articles that call this a 'reform' or 'overhaul' or even 'saving' Medicare. But each are no better than straight outright deceptions, whether by design or ignorance." ...

... AND Kevin Drum of Mother Jones remarks on "the courageous, serious. gutsy Paul Ryan.... I imagine that within a few days this will be the consensus view of the entire Beltway punditocracy. A plan dedicated almost entirely to slashing social spending in a country that's already the stingiest spender in the developed world, while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich in a country with the lowest tax rates in the developed world — well, what could be more serious than that? I think I'm going to be sick." ...

... Which brings to mind David Brooks' dishonest paean to Paul Ryan's "courageous budget reform proposal," I urge you to read some of the comments. The first five are informative; I'm sure many more are, too. Too bad the Times won't let us say what we really think. I came as close as I could within the paper's guidelines, & Gemli inadvertently crossed over the line, but the moderators didn't catch him. His closing sentence is my Quote of the Day:

I don't know what Paul Ryan is grabbing with both hands, but I don't think it's 'reality.' It seems a lot more personal, and I'm already starting to feel the squeeze. -- Gemli of Boston

... Ezra Klein has a much more honest analysis (which does not copy Ryan's talking points as Brooks does, & which I cited in my comment on Brooks) of the Ryan/Republican Road Wreck. ...

... Merrill Goozner of the Fiscal Times, in an article reprinted in Kaiser Health News, backs up Klein. "... just because the government slowed its spending doesn’t mean that old people and the poor wouldn’t have the same health care bills they had before. Health care for these vulnerable populations absent some other force in the marketplace would continue growing at rates significantly faster than the Ryan plan’s GDP+1 formula, just as it has for decades." Who will pay? Why, you will, and at a rate higher than your tax liability would have been under current Medicare & Medicaid laws. ...

... AND Bob Reich explains federal fiscal policy so even a child can understand it: "Here’s the truth: The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich." Any questions?

Monica Davey of the New York Times: a judicial race in Wisconsin turns into a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker & state Republican legislators.

Binyamin Appelbaum & Jo McGinty of the New York Times: "During the frenetic months of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve stretched the limits of its legal authority by lending money to more than 100 banks that subsequently failed.... Eight owed the Fed money on the day they failed, including Washington Mutual, the largest failed bank in American history."

Neil Irwin of the Washington Post: prices are rising, but wages are not. "In the past three months, consumer prices have been rising at a 5.7 percent annual rate while average weekly wages have barely budged, increasing at an annual rate of only 1.3 percent. And the particular prices that are rising are for products that people ... have the least flexibility to avoid. For the most part, it’s not computers and cars that are getting more expensive, it’s gasoline, which is up 19 percent in the past year, ground beef, up 10 percent, and butter, up 23 percent."

Joe Nocera of the New York Times writes about General Electric's super-duper tax break. Comments are here. ...

... BUT Allan Sloan & Jeff Gerth of Fortune say the Times story (link to the Times story) on which Nocera bases his column was misleading. Sloan & Gerth write what they call "The Truth about GE's Tax Bill" (link to Sloan & Gerth story): "Did GE get a $3.2 billion tax refund? No. ... Will GE ultimately pay U.S. income taxes for 2010? After much to-ing and fro-ing -- the company says it hasn't completed its 2010 tax return -- GE now says that it will pay tax.... Why should you care about this? Because we all have a stake in how this plays out. Thanks to the uproar over GE, we now risk ending up with legislation that targets GE but produces all sorts of unintended consequences. Public rage can make for bad law." CW: I think Allan Sloan is a good financial reporter, but I should tell you that Jeff Gerth is the guy who practically single-handedly dreamed up Whitewater -- the "scandal" that wasn't, but that ultimately led to Bill Clinton's impeachment & cost taxpayers millions.

CW: I linked to a story on this on Saturday, but if you want to read it in the Times, here ya go: Geraldine Fabrikant: "Lawsuits involving David L. Sokol after he joined Berkshire Hathaway suggest that management had some warnings about his rules-pushing nature long before his resignation last week for buying stock in a company shortly before Berkshire acquired it." ...

... AND Andrew Ross Sorkin of the Times wants to know: "... as speculation of insider trading swirls around [financier Warren] Buffett’s onetime heir apparent, David Sokol, it has to be asked: Why hasn’t Mr. Buffett been ruthless?"

Michael Kinsley in Politico: "... the Washington culture of influence peddling is not entirely, or even primarily, the fault of the corporations that hire the lobbyists and pay the bills. It’s a vast protection racket, practiced by politicians and political operatives of both parties."

Jonathan Chait of The New Republic on why Democrats are such wimps: "The reason you see greater levels of partisan discipline and simple will to power in the GOP is that it has a coherent voting base willing to support aggressive, partisan behavior and Democrats don't."

Local News

AP: "If Gov. Paul LePage [R-Maine] does not want to display a mural depicting the state’s labor history, then the federal money used to create it should be returned, the United States Department of Labor says. The department said Monday that when the governor removed the artwork from state offices last month, he violated the terms of federal laws governing money that was used to pay for most of its $60,000 cost. ...

... Susan Sharon of Maine Public Broadcasting Network: "Hundreds of artists, labor activists and others upset over the decision by Governor Paul LePage to remove a labor history mural from the Maine Department of Labor rallied at the State House today to demand its return." ...

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins is depicted in this panel (left). A likeness of former Maine Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman is second from right. ... Ted Homer of WGME: The Maine Republican party, noting that one of the mural's panels includes a likeness of former state Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman, said in a statement: "The real story here is not that Governor LePage decided to move this mural. The real story is that [Democratic former Gov. John] Baldacci's Labor Commissioner wasted $60,000 of taxpayer funds to decorate her office with a painting of herself.... This is an insult to the hard working people of Maine." Homer reports that, "The artist commissioned to paint the mural, Judy Taylor, [said] ... that no one asked her to be in the mural.... Taylor said she used several people in real life to go by when painting the mural."

News Ledes

President Obama speaks at the White House press briefing on the budget impasse:

Here's John Boehner's response:

New York Times: "United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

Politico: "President Barack Obama has chosen Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) as the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, top Democratic sources said Tuesday. Wasserman Schultz, 44, was chosen for her strength as a fund-raiser and as a television messenger, and for her clout in the crucial swing state of Florida, the sources said.

The Plan. New York Times: "House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a far-reaching budget proposal that cuts $5.8 trillion from anticipated spending levels over the next decade and is likely to provide the framework for both the fiscal and political fights of the next two years. The ambitious plan, drafted principally by Representative Paul D. Ryan..., proposes not only to limit federal spending and reconfigure major federal health programs, but also to rewrite the tax code, cutting the top tax rate for both individuals and corporations to 25 percent from 35 percent, reducing the number of income tax brackets and eliminating what it calls a “burdensome tangle of loopholes.” Here's the plan, which the Times has annotated.

Washington Post: all sides in the budget battle (and there are at least four) agree that if a deal is not reached by the end of today, the government will shut down Friday when the government "runs out of money." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "In dueling news conferences just moments apart, President Obama and the speaker of the House, John A. Boehner, dug in their heels on Tuesday over terms of a budget deal to stave off a partial shutdown of the federal government as early as Saturday." See videos above. ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "The first federal government shutdown in more than 15 years drew closer Tuesday as President Obama and congressional leaders failed to make progress after back-to-back meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Obama and Congress remained billions of dollars apart and at odds over where to find savings after an 80-minute West Wing meeting that included House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). In the meeting, Boehner floated the possibility that he may seek as much as $40 billion in cuts, $7 billion more than the two sides have been discussing for the past week."

Washington Post: "Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said that even if he uses 'extraordinary measures' to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations, lawmakers will need to raise the legal limit on government borrowing by July 8. Current projections show the United States will reach its $14.3 trillion cap on borrowing 'no later than May 16,' Geithner wrote in a letter Monday to leaders on Capitol Hill." The letter is here.

** New York Times: "The United Nations and France went on the offensive Monday against Ivory Coast’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, striking targets at his residence, his offices and two of his military bases in a significant escalation of the international intervention into the political crisis engulfing the nation." CW: I've brought this story forward from yesterday's ledes. It has been updated: "By early Tuesday, Mr. Gbagbo was in a bunker beneath his residence and was negotiating a possible surrender through the French ambassador, according to Alain Lobognon, a spokesman for the prime minister, Guillaume Soro." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "Ivory Coast’s embattled strongman Laurent Gbagbo clung precariously to power Tuesday as his military commanders offered to surrender in the face of attacks by a coalition of French troops, U.N. peacekeepers and fighters loyal to the country’s internationally recognized president-elect."

New York Times: "The Obama administration dropped financial sanctions on Monday against the top Libyan official who fled to Britain last week, saying it hoped the move would encourage other senior aides to abandon Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the country’s embattled leader. But the decision to unfreeze bank accounts and permit business dealings with the official, Moussa Koussa, underscored the predicament his defection poses for American and British authorities, who said on Tuesday that Scottish police and prosecutors planned to interview Mr. Koussa about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other issues....”