The Commentariat -- Jan. 31, 2014

Internal links removed.

David Sanger & Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "The Obama administration announced Thursday that it would nominate Vice Adm. Michael S. Rogers to become the new director of the National Security Agency and the commander of the new Pentagon unit that directs the country's offensive cyberoperations, according to senior administration officials. Admiral Rogers, a cryptologist by training who has quietly risen to the top of naval intelligence operations, would become the public face of the N.S.A. at a moment that it is caught in the cross hairs of the roiling debate about whether its collection of information about American citizens and foreign leaders has exceeded legal constraints and common sense."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "The House Republican leadership's call on Thursday to provide legal status for 11 million undocumented workers, and possible citizenship for those brought to this country as children, caused sharp division within the party even as it provided a starting point for negotiations with Democrats on overhauling the nation's immigration system. Many Republicans rejected the one-page 'standards for immigration reform' outright, and others said now was not the time for a legislative push on a number of contentious issues in an election year with trends going their way." ...

... Seung Min Kim & Jake Sherman of Politico: "The House Republican leadership is trying to sell their colleagues on a series of broad immigration principles, including a path to legal status for those here illegally. Speaker John Boehner's leadership team introduced the principles at their annual policy retreat here. Top Republicans circulated a tightly held one-page memo titled 'standards for immigration reform' toward the tail-end of a day that include strategy conversations about Obamacare, the economy and the national debt." ...

... Rebecca Leber of Think Progress: "House Republicans have used a variety of excuses -- citing Obamacare, sequestration, Syria, or the drug war -- to explain their reasons for not passing a comprehensive immigration bill. But a Republican congressman cited one reason for the stalemate the GOP won't admit publicly. The Southern congressman told BuzzFeed it is a matter of race. 'Part of it, I think -- and I hate to say this, because these are my people -- but I hate to say it, but it's racial,' said the lawmaker, who remained anonymous. 'If you go to town halls people say things like, "These people have different cultural customs than we do." And that's code for race.' Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) noted that race and demagoguery has always been a factor when it's come to U.S. immigration policy, and it certainly is one now. 'There's nothing new going on today that's gone on before,' Graham said. 'This isn't the first time that there's been some ugliness around the issue of immigration.'"

** Tim Egan on Cathy McMorris Rodgers: "Her district, poorer than the west side of the state, with much of the broken-family, broken-promise poverty of white rural America, is in real trouble. But the policy prescriptions of McMorris Rodgers have nothing to offer these people. Through her, you can see what happens when biography trumps substance in politics.... McMorris Rodgers voted to drastically cut food aid last year, and joined her party in resisting emergency benefits to the unemployed. She has been a leading strategist in the unrelenting Republican attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act.And yet, in her district, people are flocking to Obamacare -- well beyond the national average." ...

... Hannah Rosin in Slate: "... she is in fact, day to day, the kind of woman who not all that long ago would have made Republicans distinctly uncomfortable. That is she's a woman who works nonstop and has limitless ambitions, all while tending to three children under the age of 7.... The social values and the workaholic lifestyle sometimes make for a confusing message. McMorris Rodgers says she supports the 'traditional family,' but in front of women's groups she sometimes sounds like an overeager feminist.... But in public policy terms, the swaggering-woman rhetoric translates into 'don't ask for handouts.' McMorris Rodgers has voted like a standard conservative, for cuts to nearly every social service. She voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and in favor of cutting funding for birth control. Last year, she supported a version of the Violence Against Women Act that excluded gay, immigrant, and Native American women." ...

... Ann Friedman in New York: "The supermom archetype is perfect for a party whose policies send the message that if you're not getting ahead, it's because you aren't working hard enough." ...

... The GOP Response to the SOTU Was a Sham. David Wasson of the Spokane Spokesman-Review: "The woman described only as 'Bette in Spokane' during a nationally televised address by U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Wednesday she had no idea her frustrations ... would become part of the Republican attack on health care reform.... But the 'nearly $700 per month' increase in her premium that McMorris Rodgers cited ... was based on one of the pricier options.... The carrier also offered a less expensive ... option.... And, [Bette] acknowledged the couple probably could have shaved another $100 a month off the replacement policy costs by purchasing them from the state's online portal..., but they chose to avoid the government health exchanges.... McMorris Rodgers' office provided no explanation Wednesday on what steps were taken to verify the figures." CW: No kidding. ...

... Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: "According to [Cathy McMorris] Rodgers, Bette ... had 'hoped the president's healthcare law would save her money -- but found out instead that her premiums were going up nearly $700 a month.' The lesson, according to Rodgers: 'This law is not working.' ... Unsurprisingly, her story is much different from the sketchy description provided by Rodgers.... A ... plan ... actually is available from Washington's insurance exchange for much less -- and with a deductible far lower than the $10,000 [Bette] was paying under the old plan and broader coverage, though lacking a provision for four free doctor visits a year provided by her old plan.... Her plight has nothing to do with Obamacare. It's a product of her own apparently flawed decision to refuse even to look into [the ACA plans]. And it's another sign of how threadbare the GOP criticism of the Affordable Care Act has become." ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "Yes, on the very same day that the Republican House voted on yet another anti-abortion bill, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers actually said: 'Republicans believe health care choices should be yours, and not the government's.' Unless, obviously, the you she is talking to has a uterus falling somewhere in the age range of 10 to 55.... [The bill] would prohibit the government of the District of Columbia from spending any local, public funds to provide abortion care for low-income women. It would not allow insurance companies participating in the exchanges to offer any abortion coverage. (By the way, 80 percent of private insurance plans cover abortion now.) It would take tax credits away from small businesses offering health insurance to their employees, if that insurance covered abortion." ...

... Amanda Marcotte in Slate: "After Tuesday, it became clear that the Republican strategy is now to send positive messages of support for working women while doubling down on the attacks on reproductive rights."

Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "The Air Force said Thursday that it had now suspended 92 officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base -- nearly half of the nuclear launch crew there -- in a cheating scandal, and it acknowledged a 'systemic problem' in the culture of the team that is entrusted to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Air Force secretary, Deborah Lee James, said a 'climate of fear' that was pervasive in the ballistic missile force might have encouraged launch officers to share answers to monthly proficiency tests. She said the nation's nuclear arsenal remained safe." ...

... Which Brings to Mind ... Matt Ballinger of the Los Angeles Times: "'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' was released 50 years ago this week." ...

... Eric Schlosser in the New Yorker: "Half a century after Kubrick's mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of 'our precious bodily fluids' from Communist subversion, we now know that American officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on their own. And despite the introduction of rigorous safeguards in the years since then, the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation hasn't been completely eliminated."

Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times: "Rep. Henry A. Waxman, whose legislative record has made him one of the country's most influential liberal lawmakers for four decades, announced Thursday that he will retire from his Westside seat, the latest in a wave of departures that is remaking the state's long-stable congressional delegation."

Goldman Sachs Just Wrecked Another Country. Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "When Denmark gave the global financial giant Goldman Sachs the go-ahead on Thursday to buy a stake in its state utility..., [it] so divided ... the Socialist People’s Party that it withdrew its ministers from the country's governing coalition. Some party members said the deal ceded too much power to Goldman. Annette Vilhelmsen, the party's leader, who supported the deal, stepped down from her leadership role since she could not reach agreement within her party. The party's withdrawal from the coalition left the government of Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the prime minister, with a tenuous grip on power. That so many Danes have been aghast at the idea of giving Goldman Sachs a prominent role in the country's energy future reflects how far the damage to the investment bank's reputation has spread since the financial crisis."

Paul Krugman explains "secular stagnation," by way of Turkey. CW: Like "quantitative easing," "secular stagnation," IMHO, is a stupid term. If you asked me what "secular stagnation" meant, I'd say, "Religious fundamentalism is surging, & the non-theists are giving up!" That would not be what Krugman & Larry Summers mean, however. As for "quantitative easing," I think that's when I have to let out my waistbands a few inches. Check that with Bernanke or Yellen, will you? Maybe one reason economics is so hard for laymen to grasp is that economists don't really understand English, so their jargon, besides being jargon, is nonsensical.

Thanks to James S. for reminding us that today is the anniversary of the day "Ida May Fuller, a resident of rural Vermont...., became the first beneficiary of a recurring Social Security payment.... After working for decades as a teacher and legal secretary, and contributing to Social Security for almost three years, she filed her retirement claim in November 1939. The check she received two months later for $22.54 (roughly $350 in today's dollars) bears the historic number 00-000-001. Fuller lived to be 100 and died on the 35th anniversary of receiving her first check, on Jan. 31, 1975. In her three years of contributing to the program, the accumulated taxes on her salary were $24.75. She collected $22,888.92 in benefits." -- Kristin Aguilera in Bloomberg News

Local News

Lisa Schencker of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts -- a move that shocked and angered parents."

News Ledes

Inside Job. Reuters: "Target Corp said on Wednesday that the theft of a vendor's credentials helped cyber criminals pull off a massive theft of customer data during the holiday shopping season in late 2013. It was the first indication of how networks at the No. 3 U.S. retailer were breached, resulting in the theft of about 40 million credit and debit card records and 70 million other records with customer information such as addresses and telephone numbers."

AP: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel hinted Thursday at growing U.S. impatience with Afghan President Hamid Karzai for his refusal to sign an accord permitting American troops to remain in his country after the U.S. combat mission ends in December."

AFP: "The United States on Thursday rebuked China over its treatment of foreign media following the departure of a New York Times reporter after authorities did not renew his visa. A White House statement said the United States was 'very disappointed' that reporter Austin Ramzy was obliged to leave China and that Beijing's actions 'stand in stark contrast with US treatment of Chinese and other foreign journalists.'"

AFP: " Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych scrapped controversial anti-protest laws Friday but faced calls from the military to take 'urgent steps' to ease the ex-Soviet nation's worst crisis since independence."

The Commentariat -- Jan, 30, 2014

Internal links removed.

Nielsen: 33.3 million people watched the State of the Union address. CW: As far as I can tell, that's only U.S. teevee viewers. It doesn't count people like me who watched it on the Internets. ...

Jon Stewart reports on the SOTU & the GOP responses.

     ... CW Update: Sorry, I had to remove these videos as they began playing automatically. You can view them here.

E. J. Dionne: The conservatism built into our Congressional structure "means that initiatives such as an increase in the minimum wage, background checks for gun purchases, expanded pre-kindergarten programs and the extension of unemployment insurance can be foiled even when they enjoy broad national support.... It's natural to contrast Obama's soaring legislative ambitions of a year ago with this week's less adventurous 'I'll do it myself' speech. But he has to deal with the Congress he has, not the Congress he wishes he had. The path forward is a lot more crooked than Obama once imagined it would be, and realism in pursuit of a degree of social justice is no vice."

Tara Bernard of the New York Times: "Making good on a State of the Union address promise, President Obama on Wednesday ordered the creation of new employer-sponsored savings accounts intended to help more people get started saving for retirement.... In a stop in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Mr. Obama signed a presidential memorandum and handed it to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. It instructed him to create the new 'starter' retirement savings program called 'myRA,' a name intended to mimic the I.R.A.'s, or individual retirement accounts, that were first made available to workers in the mid-1970s":

We make fun of the executive orders and that is in fact something that, you know, you never really heard Lincoln and FDR say, 'I'm going to rebuild America on an executive order. You know, it's not something that resonates off the tongue. -- Pultizer Prize-winning fake historian & professional hand-wringing WASP Jon Meacham, on "Morning Joe"

** Meacham ... appears to be badly mistaken. Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued more executive orders than any president in American history -- both in raw numbers and in annual averages -- and relied extensively on the presidential tool to implement New Deal reforms during the Great Depression. As for Lincoln's reluctance to 'rebuild America on an executive order,- let's not forget that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation -- which was an executive order. -- Steve Benen (Thanks to Diane for the link.)

Of course, the Parson's observation was easily shredded, and that's not even to mention that he is a guy who has produced a book on Thomas Jefferson, who bought Louisiana pretty much on his own and who sent the Navy after Mediterranean pirates and didn't tell Congress until it was halfway there, and another book on that noted advocate for limited executive power, Andrew Jackson. -- Charles Pierce

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "As President Obama traveled the country Wednesday promoting a new and more populist economic agenda, Republicans were racing to prove that they, too, have a plan to alleviate middle-class anxiety.... The challenge for Republicans is convincing voters that their newfound concern is sincere. After three years of budget cuts and fiscal crises that badly damaged the GOP brand, voters not only rejected presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 but also have told pollsters that they view Republicans generally as indifferent to middle-class interests."

Peter Kasperowicz & Erik Wasson of the Hill: "The House on Wednesday approved a mammoth $956 billion farm bill in a bipartisan vote. Members approved the House-Senate agreement on farm policy in a 251-166 vote. A majority of Republicans backed the bill, with only 63 voting 'no.' But a majority of Democrats opposed it, with 103 voting against. Democrats opposed to the bill complained about cuts to federal food stamps, while Republicans focused their ire on the bill's cost and the way GOP leaders rushed it through the chamber.... The Senate is expected to approve the package, and White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that if the bill 'as it is currently designed' reached President Obama's desk, 'he would sign it.'" ...

... Washington Post Editors: "... what the [farm] bill takes from the ag lobby with one hand, it largely gives back with the other." President Obama should veto it. ...

... New York Times Editors: "On balance, the bill is clearly worthy of support, particularly because it will prevent austerity fanatics in future Congresses from gutting food stamps for the next five years.... As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues, rejecting the farm bill means rolling the dice that the next Congress will do a better job. In today's environment, that's a tough bet." ...

... Dana Milbank on "a series of losses on key issues for the party's conservative fan base. First, GOP lawmakers ignored complaints from conservative groups when they passed a 2014 appropriations bill this month that raised spending above previously set levels. Then, before leaving town Wednesday morning for their retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore, they passed a compromise farm bill that abandoned conservatives' effort to make deep cuts in food stamps. Now come reports that the Republicans will abandon plans to fight over the next debt-limit increase. In addition, House GOP leaders will reportedly outline immigration legislation at the retreat that includes a path to legal status for illegal immigrants.... The problem for Republicans is that the people who brought them to power didn't ask for consensus and smooth processes."

Alexander Bolton & Vickie Needham of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday suggested he will not bring legislation to the floor that would grant President Obama greater trade powers. Reid said he is 'against' trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation -- often called 'fast track' -- that, if passed, would make it easier for Obama to negotiate trade deals by preventing Congress from amending them."

Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "A few of the senators co-sponsoring an Iran sanctions bill now warn the measure could have serious consequences, a day after President Obama repeated his threat to veto the measure."

Ben Goad of the Hill: "A dozen House Republicans on Tuesday pressed their leadership to move ahead with a federal lawsuit challenging President Obama's use of executive power. Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.), who first introduced the Stop This Overreaching Presidency (STOP) Resolution last month, said a formal legal challenge is needed to counter Obama's aggressive use of administrative authority. 'The president doesn't have the power to waive the law,' Rice said Wednesday."

Sarah Wheaton & Marc Santora of the New York Times: "Representative Michael G. Grimm of Staten Island, once considered a rising star in the Republican Party, touched off a political firestorm after delivering unusually vitriolic threats against a reporter inside the United States Capitol building on Tuesday night, just moments after the State of the Union speech.... Initially, Mr. Grimm sought to justify his behavior and did not apologize.... [New York City] Mayor Bill de Blasio, joining a chorus of critics..., called on the House to sanction him. Citing a House rule requiring all members to conduct themselves 'at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House,' the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ... filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics against the lawmaker.... He is an avid weight lifter who earned the nickname Mikey Suits for his often flashy style." ...

     ... Update. This New York Times story, by N. R. Kleinfield, contains much of the same info, but begins with the lede, "Representative Michael G. Grimm is a hothead," & develops that theme late in the piece. And this: "Had [Michael] Scotto[, the NY1 reporter] made the same threat against Mr. Grimm, Mr. Scotto could have been charged with a federal crime." CW: Somehow I don't think its lawful under the First Amendment to threaten to murder a reporter for politely asking a Member of Congress a valid question.

     ... CW: I hope you people know this never would have happened had Grimm -- a former Marine & FBI agent -- not been forced to sit thru an hour-and-a-half speech by a black Muslim Kenyan imperial communist. (I don't know how someone can be both a commie & a monarchist, as the wingnuts claim, but I'm sure they've worked it out.) ...

... Hadas Gold & Dylan Byers of Politico have more on Grimm's sordid history. The New Yorker story Gold & Byers cite is really chilling. If the story is to be believed, and it seems credible, the guy is a violent nut job who uses his positions of authority to intimidate people to the extent of threatening to kill them while demonstrating he has the means to do so. ...

... The New Yorker story, by Evan Ratliff & published in May 2011, is here. ...

... In a New Yorker blogpost, Ratliff comments on Grimm's latest blow-up.

Sharon Bernstein of Reuters: There is a "disconnect between Washington politics -- particularly the Republican Party's push to kill Obama's Affordable Care Act ... -- and the experiences of at least some rank-and-file party members who are finding practical reasons to sign up. The discrepancy may complicate GOP efforts to use voter dissatisfaction over Obamacare's troubled launch to win control of the Senate in November."

Chris Moody of Yahoo! News: "Ted Cruz would appreciate it very much if you would kindly stop discussing his role in the government shutdown. The Texas senator who burst onto the public scene when he convinced congressional Republicans to adopt a scheme to withhold federal funding unless President Obama's health care law was repealed, defunded or delayed, said Tuesday that talk of the shutdown in 2014 amounts to nothing more than a distraction."

Kate Sheppard & Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post: "The National Security Agency monitored the communications of other governments ahead of and during the 2009 United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, according to the latest document from whistleblower Edward Snowden." ...

... A portion of the interview Edward Snowden gave to German television network ARD:

... Robert Mackey of the New York Times: "In another part of the interview, which was broadcast Sunday night..., Mr. Snowden told the documentary filmmaker Hubert Seipel that President Obama's proposed reforms to the N.S.A.'s vast surveillance programs constituted just 'minor changes to preserve authorities that we don't need.' ... According to the transcript of the interview, Mr. Snowden cited previous testimony from Mr. Clapper, in March of last year, as a prime factor in his decision to leak information to the public about the agency's work. 'I would say sort of the breaking point was seeing the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress,' Mr. Snowden said." CW: You can read the full transcript of the interview beginning here; there's a video, too, but I couldn't get it to load. ...

... CW: Snowden's claim that Clapper's March 2013 false testimony was "the breaking point" that caused him to become a principled, patriotic whistleblower is pure bullshit. As Janet Reitman reported in Rolling Stone last month, "In April 2012, while working for Dell, Snowden reportedly began to download documents, many pertaining to the eavesdropping programs run by the NSA and its British equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Eleven months later, he quit his job and accepted another, with Booz Allen, which he said he'd sought specifically for the broader access he'd have to the wealth of information pertaining to U.S. cyberspying." According to Glenn Greenwald, Snowden first contacted him December 1, 2012. So months Snowden began implementing his elaborate plan nearly a year before Clapper testified, & he contacted Greenwald three months before his supposed "breaking point." ...

... Mark Mazzetti & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The nation's top intelligence official on Wednesday delivered a scorching attack on Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, and called on him and his 'accomplices' to return the trove of classified documents he took from the N.S.A. James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told lawmakers that Mr. Snowden's disclosures had done grave damage to the country's security and had led terrorist groups to change their behavior to elude American surveillance. Mr. Clapper did not give specific examples to bolster his assessment about the damage Mr. Snowden had done. He also did not say whom he believed Mr. Snowden's accomplices to be.... For the second year in a row, Mr. Clapper listed cyberattacks as the most significant threat facing the United States." ...

... Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "... a pair of Norwegian politicians have nominated [Edward Snowden] for a Nobel Peace Prize. In their nomination letter, Baard Vegar Solhjell and Snorre Valen, who hail from the Socialist Left party, said Snowden's revelations 'contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order.'"

Gail Collins: "How much of the new enthusiasm for early childhood education is real, and how much is just an attempt to dodge the whole inequality debate? Maybe we could agree that no politician is allowed to mention pre-k without showing us the money."

** Jamelle Bouie of the Daily Beast: "The Rich Really are as Selfish as You Think. According to a new study, the wealthiest Americans have no interest in policies that boost the incomes of ordinary people.... What the rich do support, however, are policies that would shift burdens to individuals, or introduce some nebulous 'competition' into public goods. That includes charter schools (90 percent support), vouchers (55 percent), Social Security privatization (55 percent), and merit pay for teachers (93 percent). If this agenda looks familiar, it's because it's basically identical to the one pushed by 'centrist' deficit hawks in Washington, who have devoted themselves to the consensus positions of business and other economic elites." ...

... Ben White of Politico: "The co-founder of one the nation's oldest venture capital firms fears a possible genocide against the wealthy. Residents of Manhattan's tony Upper East Side say the progressive mayor didn't plow their streets as a form of frosty revenge. And the co-founder of Home Depot recently warned the Pope to pipe down about economic inequality. The nation's wealthiest, denizens of the loftiest slice of the 1 percent, appear to be having a collective meltdown. Economists, advisers to the wealthy and the wealthy themselves describe a deep-seated anxiety that the national -- and even global -- mood is turning against the super-rich in ways that ultimately could prove dangerous and hard to control." ...

... Jason Sanchez of CNN Money: "Tom Perkins boasted that his Richard Mille watch was worth 'a six-pack of Rolexes', but a comparable model is actually worth 69 Rolex Air-King watches." Thanks to contributor Patrick for the link. See also Patrick's comment below.

... "Perkinsnacht." The Wall Street Journal Editors are incensed that liberals -- and Perkins' own corporation, in an "ungallant rebuke" -- are picking on Tom Perkins: "The liberals aren't encouraging violence, but they are promoting personal vilification and the abuse of government power to punish political opponents." Paul Krugman wrote the other day that he suspected the Journal's editors thought Perkins "was making a useful point." Krugman was right. ...

... Laura Clawson of Daily Kos: "... the simple act of observing that inequality is staggeringly high and is endangering our economy, or that a few billionaires exert enormous power over our political process is simply too much for these crybaby defenders of plutocracy."

Corruption, Inc.

Patrick McGeehan & Charles Bagli of the New York Times: "... whatever the outcome of the inquiries [into Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's charges that the Christie administration held back federal Sandy relief funds], the emails and interviews [obtained by the Times] make clear that the development-wary mayor was coming under increasing and repeated pressure from politically connected lawyers working for Rockefeller Group and from the Christie administration." CW: The New York Times is on the story. If you missed it, see also this longish Times piece on the Christie political operation linked in yesterday's Commentariat. ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "The New York Times is pretty clearly expending a lot of resources on the various Chris Christie scandals. So far they haven't produced any smoking guns, but they're sure digging up some stuff that doesn't look good for Team Christie.... It's pretty obvious that stories like these are going to keep dripping out. The Times has several reporters assigned to bird dog this story, and once the New Jersey legislature starts subpoenaing people, there's going to be continuing grist for an endless succession of lurid headlines."

CW: It's hardly surprising that relatives and cronies of political bosses use their connections to gain favors. But this Bergen Record story by Shawn Boburg & Jean Rimbach demonstrates how brazenly Gov. Christie's brother Todd Christie plans to profit from a PATH project funded by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. AND this Record story by Boburg demonstrates that "Port Authority Chairman David Samson voted for a $256 million reconstruction of the rundown PATH station in Harrison three months after a builder represented by his law firm proposed converting a nearby warehouse into hundreds of luxury apartments, according to records and interviews." Samson is a Christie appointee. ...

... AND this from Matt Friedman of the Star-Ledger: " Gov. Chris Christie helped channel $6 million in federal Hurricane Sandy recovery dollars to a project conceived years before the storm struck, in an Essex County town that was not particularly hard hit, records show. The funding, pushed for personally by the Republican governor, was announced less than two weeks before the town's Democratic mayor formally endorsed him for reelection.... Statements from the governor and officials from Essex County and Belleville at the project's unveiling barely mentioned storm recovery, focusing almost exclusively on how the 137-unit housing project would help keep Belleville's seniors in town."

Aliyah Fruman of NBC News: "Meanwhile, Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell Jr. –both of New Jersey – are calling for a federal probe into the state's dealing with a New Orleans-based firm that was hired to oversee the divvying up of approximately $600 million in federal homeowner relief following Hurricane Sandy. The $68 million deal, made in May with Hammerman & Gainer Inc., was 'suddenly' cancelled Dec. 6 without any reason, the two congressman said in a letter to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. The two congressmen also want an independent monitor to look into the state's usage of disaster recovery fund, concerned it was being 'recklessly mismanaged.'"

Gubernatorial Race

Manny Fernandez of the New York Times: "Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator and Democratic candidate for governor under attack for blurring and misstating details of her experience as a single mother, accused critics late Tuesday of distorting her past and vowed in a tough-talking speech not to let anyone 'take my family's truth away from me.' But it was clear that her long-shot campaign had already taken a turn deep into the thicket of gender politics ... and culturally charged questions about women's balancing work, ambition and parenthood."

Senate Race

Georgia GOP U.S. Senate candidates on extending unemployment benefits. Via Daniel Strauss of TPM:

... Maybe that helps explain this. Public Policy Polling: "PPP's first look at the Georgia Senate race since Michelle Nunn (D) jumped in shows a potentially competitive general and primary. Nunn is tied with or leads all of her potential opponents, but a lot of voters are undecided, and they lean Republican. Phil Gingrey could be her stiffest competition, and also leads a stocked primary field."

Presidential Race 2016

Tom Kludt of TPM: Mike "Huckabee Is Now The GOP's Top Choice For 2016.... Uncle Sugar has apparently provided Mike Huckabee with a polling bounce. The latest survey from Democratic PPP released Wednesday showed the former Arkansas governor surging among Republican voters nationwide in the wake of his head-scratching comment about the female libido."

CBS Miami: "Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been rumored to be a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2016 and Wednesday he did nothing to end the speculation when asked about a possible run. 'I'm going to think about it later (a run for president),' Bush said during a school tour Wednesday. 'I don't wake up each day saying, "what am I going to do today to make this decision?"' ... There is one person who Bush would have to convince who recently threw cold water on another Bush presidency. Former first lady Barbara Bush, Jeb's mom, said she hopes he won't run, even though 'Jeb is the best qualified person to run.'" ...

It is a big job to do, to run for president. It would take traveling around the country, it would mean I'd be home less time, get to see my kids [for] less time. And the people in the media, they get meaner and meaner when you run for president because they pick you apart and say your clothes don't look good, your hair looks bad, you need a haircut. You get all that kind of grief from the media when you run for president. -- Sen. Rand Paul (RTP-Ky.), explaining to a 4th-grade reporter what a sacrifice he will make if he runs for president. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link.

News Ledes

Boston Globe: "US Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has authorized federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man accused in the Boston Marathon terror bombings in April that killed three people, injured more than 260 others, and sent a wave of shock and fear through the region."

New York Times: "The United States informed its NATO allies this month that Russia had tested a new ground-launched cruise missile, raising concerns about Moscow's compliance with a landmark arms control accord."

The Commentariat -- Jan. 29, 2014

Internal links removed.

Dana Bash, et al., of CNN: "House Speaker John Boehner warned President  Barack Obama that he will 'run into a brick wall' by using his executive power and bypassing Congress, as the White House has signaled the President intends to do. 'We're just not going to sit here and let the President trample all over us,' said Boehner." ...

... Ed Kilgore: "Somebody needs to explain to Boehner that executive orders typically flow from laws authorizing the president to issue them.... As for the 'brick wall,' it should be fairly obvious that the inertia produced by divided control of Congress and exceptional levels of Republican obstruction will not be Boehner's ally when it comes to overturning executive orders. That 'brick wall' has two sides, and at least so long as Democrats control the Senate, they're not going to be participating in any crusade against Obama's agenda." ...

... For an Example of the Boehner Brick Wall. John Bresnahan & Jake Sherman of Politico: "House Republicans are getting ready to surrender: There will be no serious fight over the debt limit. The most senior figures in the House Republican Conference are privately acknowledging that they will almost certainly have to pass what's called a clean debt ceiling increase in the next few months, abandoning the central fight that has defined their three-year majority."

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to impose tighter restrictions on federal payments for abortions, thrusting the issue of a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy into the polarizing politics of an election year. The bill stands no chance of being passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate. But that mattered little to members of both parties, who seemed to relish the chance to accuse their opponents of blatantly twisting the issue to their political advantage."

Zeke Emanuel, in a New York Times op-ed, compares ObamaCare to Sen. Republicans' "replacement" plan. Here's one bit: "In addition, the proposed plan would take us back to the old days when insurance companies could charge women more than men for the same health plan. And older people would also be penalized." Emanuel concludes, "Now that Americans have the chance to examine the alternative, it might help them see the advantages of Obamacare."

That's Not What We Meant! Liz Goodwin of Yahoo! News: "In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, 19 Democratic senators are siding with the Obama administration against evangelical Christian businessmen who argue that paying for their employees' birth control, a requirement under Obamacare, violates their company's religious freedom.... The 19 senators -- all of whom voted for the popular [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] in 1993 -- argue that the law's religious protections were never intended apply to a for-profit company. Hobby Lobby's 'gross misapplication' of the law perverts Congress' intent in passing it, they write in the brief...." CW: Now let's see how the conservative originalists weasel around this undeniable statement of "original intent."

Jon Pareles in the New York Times: "Pete Seeger sang until his voice wore out, and then he kept on singing, decade upon decade. Mr. Seeger, who died on Monday at 94, sang for children, folk-music devotees, union members, civil-rights marchers, antiwar protesters, environmentalists and everyone else drawn to a repertoire that extended from ancient ballads to brand-new songs about every cause that moved him. But it wasn't his own voice he wanted to hear. He wanted everyone to sing along." ...

... John Nichols of the Nation: Seeger "surrounded hate & forced it to surrender." ...

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker: "94 Reasons Pete Seeger Matters."

Richard Esposito, et al., of NBC News with Glenn Greenwald: "The British government can tap into the cables carrying the world's web traffic at will and spy on what people are doing on some of the world's most popular social media sites, including YouTube, all without the knowledge or consent of the companies. Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News detail how British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their U.S. partners in 2012 in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time and collect addresses from the billions of videos watched daily, as well as some user information, for analysis. At the time the documents were printed, they were also able to spy on Facebook and Twitter." ...

... ** BUT Bob Cesca: But this, & the "Angry Birds" revelations (linked in yesterday's Commentariat) are pretty much bunk: "... just because this information is available via the apps doesn't mean NSA is collecting it. If it is, there's no confirmation of it in the article.... Neither revelation presents any evidence whatsoever that Americans are being illegally and individually targeted. So the question needs to be asked again: why, if there's no evidence of these operations being used unlawfully against the general public, are these articles in the public interest?"

Eugene Kiely & D'Angelo Gore of FactCheck.org: "Sen. Rand Paul was wrong when he said that 60% of law students and 55% of medical students are women. The share of female students at law and medical schools in the United States is 47% each and hasn't varied much in 10 years. The Kentucky Republican also repeated a myth that 'nine out of 10 businesses fail.' Government data show that almost one-half of new businesses last beyond five years and about one-third of them continue operating after 10 years."

Local News

The New York Times Story Chris Christie Does Not Want You to Read. Kate Zernicke & David Chen defy you to believe Christie had no idea that the political operation he was directing to focus on mayors & communities was, you know, intimidating mayors. They literally draw a map to show how close the Whack-a-Mayor office is to Christie's.

Maureen Dowd interviews Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper about pot & other stuff.

Kat Stoeffel of New York: "Wendy Davis's daughters Amber and Dru have published open letters addressing the inconsistencies in their mother's biography, which have led conservative commentators to call Davis a gold-digger Abortion Barbie who abandoned her children with Sugar Daddy Ken. Both women emphasize that -- regardless of the exact details of her divorces and tuition payments -- Davis worked unusually hard to complete law school in a different state without missing a parent-teacher conference. 'No matter what happened within our family, our mother always made it known that we were and remain the most important thing in her life,' Amber wrote. Both letters [are] available at PoliticsUSA...."

Right Wing World

Sylvie Krekow of Gawker: "After experiencing immense backlash for writing a letter comparing the treatment mega-rich in America today to the persecution of Jews during Nazi Germany, Tom Perkins is furiously backpedaling -- or at least, attempting to do so." Reading Perkins' "self-defense" is as sickening as reading his original letter to the WSJ.

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "Less than 3 inches of snow brought [Atlanta, Georgia] to a freezing halt. Children camped out in schools or on buses. Hundreds of motorists were marooned for hours on highways and onramps; some abandoned their cars and walked home through the snow. Workers spent the night in their offices."

Washington Post: The Columbia, Maryland, mall shooter "mentioned killing people in his journal and expressed a 'general hatred of others,' police said Wednesday. The 19-year-old wrote that he was sorry to his family for what he was planning to do, although he did not indicate precisely what that was." ...

... Washington Post: "... the 19-year-old gunman who opened fire in a Maryland shopping mall Saturday, killing two people and himself, was a 'mall rat' who occasionally hung out in the skateboarder shop where the shootings occurred, a store employee said Tuesday."

New York Times: "Islamist rebels and extremist groups have seized control of most of Syria's oil and gas resources, a rare generator of cash in the country's war-battered economy, and are now using the proceeds to underwrite their fights against one another as well as President Bashar al-Assad, American officials say."

Guardian: "The US supreme court granted a stay of execution for the Missouri death row inmate Herbert Smulls, after his lawyers protested that the state had refused to disclose the source of the drug due to be used to kill him. Justice Samuel Alito signed the order that was sent out on Tuesday night after Barack Obama's state of the union speech."

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "A 300-year-old Stradivarius violin on loan to Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Frank Almond was stolen during an armed robbery after a performance by Almond at Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn saidTuesday. Almond was attacked with a stun gun and robbed of the instrument -- Flynn said it was valued in the 'high seven figures.'..."