The Commentariat -- February 15

** "South Dakota Moves to Legalize Killing Abortion Providers." Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones: "A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of 'justifiable homicide' to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus — a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon."

** "The Great Abdication." Paul Krugman: "... the Obama administration has accepted the Republican claim that stimulus failed, and should never be tried again. What’s extraordinary about all this is that stimulus can’t have failed, because it never happened. Once you take state and local cutbacks into account, there was no surge of government spending.... Fiscal policy didn’t fail; it wasn’t tried." ...

... Jeannine Aversa & Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "Not since World War II has the federal budget deficit made up such a big chunk of the U.S. economy. And within two or three years, economists fear the result could be sharply higher interest rates that would slow economic growth. The budget plan President Barack Obama sent Congress on Monday foresees a record deficit of $1.65 trillion this year. That would be just under 11 percent of the $14 trillion economy — the largest proportion since 1945, when wartime spending swelled the deficit to 21.5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product."

... Peter Wallstein & Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "President Obama's new budget plan ... serves as a measure of his presidency -- revealing vastly diminished ambitions and practical political calculations.... In declining to embrace the most difficult ideas proposed by his bipartisan deficit commission..., the president deferred tough decisions that many in both parties say are necessary to fix the country's fiscal problems. That apparent tentativeness suggests the man who once said he would rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-termer is, in fact, very interested in winning that second term." CW: I disagree with this assessment; Obama's strategy is to exclude these cuts, then cave to Republican "pressure." ...

     ... Update. Looks as if Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities agrees with me: "Specific presidential proposals would have invited immediate attacks from lawmakers across the political spectrum and almost certainly led to pledges by scores or hundreds of members of Congress never to agree to them." Read Greenstein's whole post, which -- in a short space -- does a good job of describing the President's proposed budget & zeroing in on its weak points.

Noam Scheiber of The New Republic profiles Tim Geithner. CW: I only read the first page because it's a seven-page article with no single-page function, but I'll probably go back to it. The gist seems to be that Geithner, who is the lone man standing from Obama's original economic team, rehabilitated himself after a very shaky start.

Faking It. Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times: "A new study backed by pro-business groups takes a harsh stance on rules intended to bring transparency to the $600 billion derivatives market. The report, published on Monday, claims that proposed regulation could cost 130,000 jobs and could cut corporate spending by $6.7 billion.... The firm’s bona fides include an all-star roster of academics, including "Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economic science.... [But] it appears that Mr. Stiglitz and many of the firm’s advisers are not advisers at all." In fact, Stiglitz and others said the report results were nonsense.

Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Discrepancies in reports about an appearance by Justice Clarence Thomas at a political retreat for wealthy conservatives three years ago have prompted new questions to the Supreme Court from a group that advocates changing campaign finance laws.... Last month, a court spokeswoman said Justice Thomas had made a 'brief drop-by' at the event in Palm Springs, Calif., in January 2008 and had given a talk. In his financial disclosure report for that year, however, Justice Thomas reported that the Federalist Society ... had reimbursed him an undisclosed amount for four days of 'transportation, meals and accommodations.' ... The event is organized by Charles and David Koch...."

Here's Rachel Maddow on Justices Thomas' & Scalia's likely conflicts of interest:

Roni Rabin of the New York Times: "... a report being released Tuesday by the federally financed National Domestic Violence Hotline says 1 in 4 women who agreed to answer questions after calling the hot line said a partner had pressured them to become pregnant, told them not to use contraceptives, or forced them to have unprotected sex."

New York Times Editors: "The Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country has promised accountability and justice for children sexually abused by priests. We fear it has a long way to go. A new inquiry [conducted in Philadelphia] has found that nearly a decade after the scandal engulfed the American church, children are still in peril and some leaders are still stonewalling investigations." ...

     ... The backstory by David O'Reilly of the Philadelphia Inquirer, February 11: "A Philadelphia grand jury on Thursday brought felony charges against a former high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for 'purposefully' shielding sexually abusive priests and endangering children in the late 1990s, and said it was uncertain whether retired archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was culpable as well." ...

     ... And by Dave Warner of Reuters, February 14: "The Archbishop of Philadelphia and his predecessor were accused on Monday in a civil lawsuit of endangering children by concealing the identity and sexual abuse of predatory priests from law enforcement to save the church from a costly scandal."

Jennifer Preston of the New York Times: Facebook "finds itself under countervailing pressures after the uprisings in the Middle East. While it has become one of the primary tools for activists to mobilize protests and share information, Facebook does not want to be seen as picking sides for fear that some countries — like Syria, where it just gained a foothold — would impose restrictions on its use or more closely monitor users.... And Facebook does not want to alter its firm policy requiring users to sign up with their real identities."

How to Become an U.S. Citizen: First, Get a Million Dollars.... Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal reminds us of this longstanding U.S. immigration program:

According to the Department of Homeland Security, foreign investors have to invest only $500,000 to get residency, provided they meet other restrictions. They have to invest in a rural or underdeveloped community and they have to create at least 10 jobs, either directly or indirectly. They have to invest $1 million or more if they aren’t investing in rural or underdeveloped areas. (They are eligible for permanent residency after two years and full citizenship after another five years if they meet certain criteria.)

CW: a candidate for Infotainment: Colum Lynch of Foreign Policy: "Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna..., in his first appearance before the U.N. Security Council..., read the wrong speech. For three minutes, Krishna read from the official statement of the foreign minister of Portugal...." Adam Sorensen of Time calls Krishna "the Ron Burgundy of the U.N."

Right Wing World

In the right-wing alternate universe, Michelle Obama is a big fat pig who downs at least ten bacon-burgers at dinner. Think I'm kidding? Here's the proof. Have they ever looked at Michelle Obama?

Michelle Obama, in an Andrew Breitbart cartoon by James Hudnall & "Batton Lash." The real-world version.Nate Silver: "Republican insiders, reports the Washington Post’s plugged-in Jennifer Rubin, are worried about the quality of their slate of presidential candidates for 2012." Silver runs the popularity poll numbers & concludes The insiders are right to fret.

Andy Barr of Politico: "Haley Barbour is pushing back against a report that he helped the government of Mexico push for 'amnesty' during his time as a lobbyist.... Barbour issued a statement and fact sheet Monday night — and though neither explicitly says BGR did not work on citizenship issues for Mexicans living in the United States, it asserts that the firm Barbour founded 'never advocated amnesty for illegal aliens.'" Barbour's statement was a response to this Time magazine story by Michael Scherer, which we linked yesterday.

Gene Robinson: speakers at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) argued "that the world's 1.2 billion Muslims cannot be trusted to govern themselves. That's not what I call loving freedom."

Michelle Price of the AP: "Republican lawmakers want to widen Arizona's illegal immigration crackdown with a proposal to require hospitals to check on whether patients are in the country legally, causing outrage among medical professionals who fear becoming de facto immigration agents under the law.... Doctors envisioned scenarios in which immigrants with contagious diseases such as tuberculosis would stay home from the clinic or hospital and put themselves and the public at a grave health risk."

News Ledes

The President's full press conference:

** President Obama held a previously unannounced press conference this morning. The White House did not reveal what the President would discuss. Via Politico. Updates: here's a brief report from the New York Times on the content of the President's presser. Here's the AP report.

** The Hill: "The Obama administration on Tuesday threatened to veto the House GOP's measure funding the federal government.... 'If the president is presented with a bill that undermines critical priorities or national security through funding levels or restrictions, contains earmarks or curtails the drivers of long-term economic growth and job creation while continuing to burden future generations with deficits, the president will veto the bill,' said a statement from the OMB.

New York Times: "Lara Logan, the CBS News correspondent, was attacked and sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo on Feb. 11, the day that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced from power, the network said Tuesday. After the mob surrounded her, Ms. Logan 'suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers,' the network said in a statement. Ms. Logan is recovering at a hospital in the United States." Here's the CBS News statement, but it adds no details not contained in the NYT story.

New York Times: "Thousands of demonstrators poured into [Bahrain’s] symbolic center, Pearl Square [in Manama], late Tuesday in a raucous rally.... As momentum built up behind the protests on Tuesday, the 18 members of parliament from the Islamic National Accord Association, the traditional opposition, announced they were suspending participation in the legislature."

New York Times: "The military officers governing Egypt convened a panel Tuesday to revise the country’s constitution that included both a distinguished Coptic Christian jurist and a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, offering the first significant evidence of the military’s commitment to moving the country toward democratic rule."

New York Times: "A review of the F.B.I.’s scientific work on the investigation into the anthrax letters of 2001 concludes that the bureau overstated the strength of genetic analysis linking the mailed anthrax to a supply kept by Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, the late Army microbiologist whom the investigators blamed for the attacks. The review, by a panel of experts convened by the national Academy of Sciences, says the genetic analysis 'did not definitively demonstrate' that the mailed anthrax spores were grown from a sample taken from Dr. Ivins’s laboratory...." Dr. Ivins committed suicide in 2008.

The Street: "Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, said Monday that he will be resigning his post on March 30."

Reuters: "Deutsche Boerse will take over NYSE Euronext to create the world's largest exchange operator in a deal worth $10.2 billion, but the two exchanges dodged key questions that could yet threaten its completion. While shareholders of the German exchange will control 60 pct of the new company and 10 of 17 board seats there are suspicions in Germany over whether NYSE management will be in the driver's seat. There are also concerns in the U.S. that the New York Stock Exchange will lose influence and any sense of independence. That tension could raise obstacles to final regulatory approval to Deutsche Boerse's planned takeover...."

Guardian: Italian Prime Minister "Silvio Berlusconi is to go on trial charged with paying for sex with an underage prostitute and then trying to cover up the alleged offence by abusing his position as Italy's prime minister. All three judges named for the trial are women. A Milan judge, Cristina di Censo, agreed in full to the request lodged last week by prosecutors who have been investigating Berlusconi. She ruled that he should be sent straight to trial without committal proceedings, accepting the prosecutors' view that the usual procedures should be waived because of the 'obviousness of the evidence' against him. The trial will begin on 6 April." The New York Times story is here.

New York Times: "After weeks of turmoil rolling through the Arab world, protesters in ... [Bahrain] clashed for a second day with the police on Tuesday and a second demonstrator was killed by gunfire, spurring the largest Shiite bloc to suspend participation in the country’s Parliament. The events came as mourners gathered for the funeral of a Shiite protester shot to death during what was called a “Day of Rage” protest on Monday...." ...

... New York Times: "Hundreds of riot police officers in Iran beat protesters and fired tear gas Monday to contain the most significant street protests since the end of the 2009 uprising there, as security forces around the region moved — sometimes brutally — to prevent new unrest in sympathy with the opposition victory in Egypt." ...

... Washington Post: "Violent protests erupted in Iran, Yemen and Bahrain on Monday...." ...

... Washington Post: "Egypt's new military rulers tried to contain growing labor unrest Monday and to reach out to youthful revolutionaries as the formidable task of governing the politically unstable and impoverished country became apparent. Police officers, ambulance drivers, bankers, journalists and archaeologists marched through the streets of Cairo in separate protests Monday."

Reuters: "The Pakistani Taliban warned the government on Tuesday it would punish any move to release a U.S. consulate employee accused of murdering two Pakistanis in a case that has inflamed already strained ties with Washington. U.S. Senator John Kerry was due in Pakistan as part of the Obama administration's efforts to resolve the crisis." ...

... New York Times: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has chosen Marc Grossman, a retired senior diplomat and former ambassador to Turkey, as the Obama administration’s new special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, a senior State Department official said Monday."

AP: "Documents filed Monday night in Houston claim Kevin Lacy, BP's former senior vice president for drilling operations for the Gulf of Mexico, reached a mutual agreement with the company to resign in December 2009 because he believed the company was not adequately committed to improving safety protocols in offshore drilling operations to the level of its industry peers. The Deepwater Horizon rig explosion occurred on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers and causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history."

The Hill: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday said the House GOP budget for the Pentagon is 'disconnected' from operational realities. Gates said the Pentagon needs $540 billion for fiscal 2011, less than the $548 billion initially sought by the Obama administration but $14 billion more than what House Republicans are offering in a continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of the year."

AP: "A Tucson jury found Shawna Forde, 42, guilty of murder in the May 2009 killings of Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia at their home in Arivaca, a desert community 10 miles north of Mexico." Forde, "the leader of an anti-illegal-immigrant group, was convicted Monday in a home invasion robbery that left a 9-year-old girl and her father dead in what prosecutors said was an attempt to steal drug money to fund the group's operations." Here's the Arizona Daily Star story.

The Commentariat -- February 14

Short-sighted & Wrong-headed. Paul Krugman: House Republicans have decided to "focus [budget] cuts on programs whose benefits aren’t immediate; basically, eat America’s seed corn. There will be a huge price to pay, eventually — but for now, you can keep the base happy." ...

... Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "President Obama drew fire Sunday from congressional Republicans and independent budget experts for his reluctance to advance a plan that would tackle the nation's biggest budget problems in the spending blueprint he will submit to Congress on Monday." ...

... Lori Montgomery: "will roll out a $3.7 trillion budget blueprint Monday that would trim or terminate more than 200 federal programs next year and make key investments in education, transportation and research in a bid to boost the nation's economy and reduce record budget deficits." ...

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama ... on Monday released a fiscal year 2012 budget that projects an annual deficit of more than $1 trillion before government shortfalls decline to 'sustainable' levels for the rest of the decade." ...

... "Fighting Fire with Gasoline." Robert Reich in Salon on how Obama got the budget wrong: "Obama [has allowed] Republicans to frame the debate as how much federal spending can be cut and how to shrink the deficit. The President has to reframe the debate around the necessity of average families having enough to spend to get the economy moving again. He needs to remind America ... we’re still in a jobs crisis...." Reich offers a proposal on what the FY 2012 budget should look like. ...

... The President's budget proposal just came up online. Start here.

... AND OMB Director Jack Lew explains why his budget proposal is really, really a good one:

** Felix Salmon in a New York Times op-ed: "... the stock market is becoming increasingly irrelevant — a trend that threatens the core principles of American capitalism.... What the market is not doing so well is its core public function: allocating capital efficiently.... To invest in younger, smaller companies, you increasingly need to be a member of the ultra-rich elite [which don't trade on the NYSE]."

Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. President, Love forever, Fox "News." Here are the results of a Fox presidential match-up poll, via Brooklyn Mutt:

Obama 54% - Jeb Bush 34%

Obama 48% -  Mitt Romney 41%

Obama 49% - Mike Huckabee 41%

Obama 55% - Newt Gingrich 35%

Obama 56% - Sarah Palin 35%

... Here's a related story from Andy Kroll at Mother Jones: Republican dreams of a Jeb Bush run don't look so hot.

David Kirkpatrick & David Sanger of the New York Times report on the pan-Arab youth democracy movement which has been years in the making & centers on nonviolent techniques. ...

... Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times: "Governments across the Middle East are scrambling to step up political concessions, dole out financial benefits and — when that fails — deploy riot police in an attempt to ease instability and buy time.... Protesters from Morocco to Iran are setting aside the region's traditional religious and geopolitical divides to take on common culprits of corruption, police violence, political repression and vast gaps in wealth." ...

... Marc Lynch of Foreign Policy: "The Obama administration also deserves a great deal of credit, which it probably won't receive. It understood immediately and intuitively that it should not attempt to lead a protest movement which had mobilized itself without American guidance, and consistently deferred to the Egyptian people. Despite the avalanche of criticism from protestors and pundits, in fact Obama and his key aides -- including Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power and many others -- backed the Egyptian protest movement far more quickly than anyone should have expected."

Mark Lacey & James McKinley of the New York Times report some of the details of Gabriel Giffords' rehabilitation. ...

... Malcolm Ritter, a science writer for the AP, on Gabrielle Giffords' rehabilitation. "Too little has been revealed and it's too early to say if Giffords might be able to return to her job in Congress. One expert questioned whether that would be the best thing for her to do. Most people with such injuries have some level of impairment for the rest of their lives." ...

... which is why stories like this one, that Politico ran over the weekend, pretty much irritate me.

Right Wing News

Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones: "Two years ago, Tea Party Patriots got its start as a scrappy, ground-up conservative organization....Lately..., TPP has started to resemble the Beltway lobbying operations its members have denounced. The group's leaders have cozied up to political insiders implicated in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and have paid themselves significant salaries. TPP accepted the use of a private jet and a large donation of anonymous cash right before a key election, and its top officials have refused to discuss how the money was spent. And recently, the group has hired several big-time fundraising and public relations firms that work for the who's who of the Republican political class...." Part 1 of a 3-part series.

The Koch Bros. Don't Have Funny Bones. Noam Cohen of the New York Times: they have gone to court to shut down a pretty harmless parody site. CW: kinda reminds me of Bill O'Reilly & Fox "News" suing Al Franken. The judge laughed their suit out of court. ...

... Speaking of lawsuits, here's one we like. Peter Finocchiaro of Salon: "Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod has filed a lawsuit against conservative firebrand and web entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. The suit stems from the notorious video Breitbart posted online last year, showing an out-of-context excerpt from a speech Sherrod gave to the NAACP Freedom Fund in March 2010. The clip suggested she had used her position at the Department of Agriculture to discriminate against white farmers.... The NAACP denounced Sherrod and the Obama administration fired her. The charge was, in fact, entirely untrue."

Mitt Romney lies even when he's telling the truth:

"President Obama has stood watch over the greatest job loss in modern American history, and that, my friends, is one inconvenient truth that will haunt this president throughout history." -- Mitt Romney ...

     ... BUT Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post writes, "Romney's statement is technically correct but lacks context, making it meaningless. He attributes some job losses to Obama that are arguably not Obama's fault. And just using raw numbers is misleading, especially when, placed in context, the job losses under Obama are about the same at this point as under Romney's hero, Ronald Reagan."

Haley Barbour might not have given much thought to black civil rights BUT Michael Scherer of Time reports that he has a consistent history of favoring a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. With video. CW: this is good with me, but how good will it be for Republican presidential primary voters?

Don't Pick on Palin. CW: as is my habit, I've tried to stay in the Palin-free zone, but Andy Barr's February 12 Politico story on the political costs of criticizing Sarah Palin is germane to the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Besides, it's about two of the worst presidential candidates ever:

Rick Santorum, in a little-watched Web radio interview, on why Palin wasn't attending CPAC: “'I have a feeling that she has some demands on her time, and a lot of them have financial benefit attached to them.' He added that Palin had 'other business opportunities' as well as 'all these kids' to look after as a mother, both of which caused constraints on her time.

Sarah Palin on Fox "News": "My kids don’t hold me back from attending a conference. I will not call him the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. I’ll let his wife call him that instead.”

Local News

Rick Scott & the nasty rich guy Charles Montgomery Burns. A number of writers have pointed out Scott is meaner than Burns; Scott looks & acts like super-villain Lex Luthor. Karoli of Crooks & Liars: Florida Gov. Rick "Scott's budget is so draconian to the poor and middle class and so enriching to corporations and their wealthy overlords that he makes Simon LeGree look charitable. And as Ed Kilgore notes, the entire budget is intended to redistribute wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 10%."

Steve Benen: "The governor's plan cuts billions from already-underfunded public schools, cuts billions from Medicaid, would close a third of the state's public parks, and would eliminate every penny of funding that currently goes to assist the homeless and prevent teen suicides."

The President's speech this morning in Baltimore:

     ... Here's the transcript from the White House.

News Ledes

Buh-bye, Birther Bill. Arizona Republic: "An Arizona Senate committee rejected a proposal to require candidates for the presidency to show their birth certificates. The bill by Republican Sen. Ron Gould of Lake Havasu was defeated in a 3-to-5 vote Monday by the Senate's judiciary committee.... The bill was aimed at making President Barack Obama prove his nationality by birth.

New York Times: "The House on Monday voted to reauthorize and extend through Dec. 8 three ways in which Congress expanded the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterterrorism powers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.... Sixty-five Democrats voted for it..., and 27 Republicans voted against it...."

AFP: "The possible heirs of Egypt's uprising took to the streets Monday in different corners of the Middle East: Iran's beleaguered opposition stormed back to central Tehran and came under a tear gas attack by police. Demonstrators faced rubber bullets and birdshot to demand more freedoms in the relative wealth of Bahrain. And protesters pressed for the ouster of the ruler in poverty-drained Yemen." ...

... AP: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has expressed support for the tens of thousands of protesters in Iran's capital, saying they "deserve to have the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt and are part of their own birthright." ...

... NBC: "Clashes between Iranian police and tens of thousands of protesters wracked central Tehran on Monday with security forces beating and firing tear gas at opposition supporters looking to evoke the recent popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia."

AP: "Egypt's military rulers called for an end to strikes and protests Monday as thousands of state employees, from ambulance drivers to police and transport workers, demonstrated to demand better pay in a growing wave of labor unrest unleashed by the democracy uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak's regime." ...

... AP: "More than 1,000 people protested in Yemen for a fourth straight day Monday, demanding political reforms and the ouster of the U.S.-allied president in demonstrations inspired by the upheaval in Egypt."

... AP: "Egypt's ambassador to the United States says Hosni Mubarak may be in 'bad ealth,' the first word on the 82-year-old ousted president's health."

The Commentariat -- February 13

Yesterday, I linked to Joby Warrick's fascinating WashPo account of the behind-the-scenes workings of the Obama Administration as it wrestled with the rapidly-changing situation in Egypt. Today, here's an account by Helene Cooper and others of the New York Times: "A president who himself is often torn between idealism and pragmatism was navigating the counsel of a traditional foreign policy establishment led by Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Biden and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, against that of a next-generation White House staff who worried that the American preoccupation with stability could put a historic president on the wrong side of history." ...

... CW: if these reporters' accounts are relatively true -- and remember, they are stories that Administration CYA sources are spoonfeeding the media after Mubarak's unceremonious departure -- then we are better off with Obama as President than we would have been with Hillary Clinton. This sort of difference between Obama & Clinton, again -- if true -- is the reason I favored Obama over Clinton in the primary. ...

... Nicholas Kristof: "Even in the last month, we sometimes seemed as out of touch with the [Middle East] region’s youth as a Ben Ali or a Mubarak." Kristof "suggest[s] four lessons to draw from our mistakes." ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "For Mr. Obama, the challenge may be to define the spread of liberty and democracy as a nonpartisan American goal, removing it from the political debate that has surrounded it in recent years." ...

... Mubarak Doesn't Think Much of Arab Democracy. Reuters: "Hosni Mubarak had harsh words for the United States and what he described as its misguided quest for democracy in the Middle East in a telephone call with an Israeli lawmaker [former cabinet minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer] a day before he quit as Egypt's president." ...

... Neil MacFarquhar, et al., of the New York Times: "Now with Hosni Mubarak out of power, there are growing calls for an accounting [of his finances] to begin. Within hours of Mr. Mubarak’s resignation on Friday, Swiss officials ordered all banks in Switzerland to search for — and freeze — any assets of the former president, his family or close associates. In Egypt, opposition leaders vowed to press for a full investigation of Mr. Mubarak’s finances. Tracing the money is likely to be difficult because business in Egypt was largely conducted in secret among a small group connected to Mr. Mubarak."

As we salute and we cheer the coming of democracy in Egypt, it is time for democracy to come to our nation’s capital.... Take the opportunity to talk to three people and say, 'We need to bring democracy to the people of the District of Columbia.' -- Vince Gray, Mayor of Washington, D.C. (Via Ben Smith)

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A week from Tuesday, when the Supreme Court returns from its midwinter break and hears arguments in two criminal cases, it will have been five years since Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken during a court argument." ...

... CW: I personally dislike Harvard Law Prof. Noah Feldman, because I think he's an insufferably pompous ass, but his New York Times op-ed in defense of Supreme Court Justices' politicking is at least an interesting read on the history of Supremely judicial politicking, and it's getting a lot of buzz. Update: as reader Jim T. points out, "the extension of [Feldman's argument] is the excuse '...everybody does it.'"

Katy Steinmetz of Time: "The Transportation Security Administration ... is field testing a new technology ... called Automatic Target Recognition, or ATR, [which] displays only a generic stick-figure image, rather than the actual outline of the traveler being screened.... An image only pops up if there’s something unusual detected on the body -- otherwise there’s just a big green screen that says 'OK.' ..."

Right Wing News

Boehner Bats for Birthers: says people & members of Congress have a right to be ignorant:

News Ledes

New York Times: "A lawyer for victims of sexual abuse by priests says he plans to seek depositions from Archbishop Timothy R. Dolan and other church officials over the lawyer’s accusations that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee, while Archbishop Dolan was its leader, moved $130 million off its books to avoid paying abuse claims."

Washington Post: "President Obama will ... propos[e] sharp cuts of his own in a fiscal 2012 budget blueprint that aims to trim record federal deficits by $1.1 trillion over the next decade. Obama would reach his target in part by raising taxes, an idea that Republicans refuse to consider. But two-thirds of the savings would come from spending cuts that are draconian by Democratic standards and take aim at liberal priorities, such as a popular low-income heating assistance program and community development block grants. Obama also targets the Pentagon ... by adopting $78 billion in savings proposed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. ...

... AP: "An administration official says President Barack Obama is proposing to cut $100 billion over a decade from the Pell Grant program through belt-tightening, but use the savings to keep the maximum college financial aid award at $5,550."

AP: "Egypt's military leaders dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution Sunday, meeting two key demands of protesters.... The caretaker government held its first meeting since the president was ousted and before it began, workers removed a giant picture of Mubarak from the meeting room." New York Times story here. ...

... Al Jazeera: "Scuffles have broken out in Cairo's Tahrir Square as soldiers tried to remove activists from the epicentre of Egypt's uprising which resulted in the president stepping down. Hundreds of protesters remained in the square on Sunday and organisers said they would not leave until more of their demands are met. Meanwhile, normality was slowly returning to the rest of Egypt, at the start of the first working day since Hosni Mubarak was toppled during the weekend." AP story here. ...

... (London) Telegraph: "Hosni Mubarak used the 18 days it took for protesters to topple him to shift his vast wealth into untraceable accounts overseas, Western intelligence sources have said.

... AP: "Yemeni police have clashed with anti-government protesters demanding political reform and the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Several thousand protesters, many of them university students, tried to reach the central square in the capital of Sanaa on Sunday, but were pushed back by police using clubs. It was the third straight day of anti-government protests."

... New York Times: "The Palestinian leadership announced Saturday that it planned to hold presidential and parliamentary elections by September, apparently a response to the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt calling for greater democracy and government accountability." ...

... AP: "Bahrain's leaders promised Sunday to expand media freedoms in another apparent attempt to quell plans for the first major anti-government protests in the Gulf since the uprising in Egypt. The tiny kingdom of Bahrain is among the most politically volatile in the Gulf and holds important strategic value for the West as the home as the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet." ...

... AP: "Heavily outnumbered by riot police, thousands of Algerians defied government warnings and dodged barricades to rally in their capital Saturday, demanding democratic reforms a day after mass protests toppled Egypt's autocratic ruler." ...

     ... (London) Telegraph: "Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations."

AP: "US researchers said Friday they have found that people who used two specific varieties of pesticide were 2.5 times as likely to develop Parkinson's disease. The pesticides, paraquat and rotenone, are not approved for house and garden use."