The Commentariat -- Jan. 26, 2014

Internal links removed.

No, Prime Minister. Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "... for the first time, following what many allies view as a lost year, the White House is reorganizing itself to support a more executive-focused presidency...." ...

... SOTU. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... perhaps more so than in any of his previous congressional addresses, Mr. Obama realizes that he has little chance of major legislative victories this year, with the possible exception of an overhaul of immigration law that Republicans are also making a priority. As a result, aides said, he will present a blueprint for 'a year of action' on issues like income inequality and the environment that bypasses Congress and exercises his authority to the maximum extent." ...

... Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: " Income inequality is out, 'ladders of opportunity' is in. Eager to dispel claims that President Barack Obama is engaging in 'class warfare' as he heads into his State of the Union address next week, the White House is de-emphasizing phrases focusing on economic disparity and turning instead to messages about creating paths of opportunity for the poor and middle class. The adjustment reflects an awareness that Obama's earlier language put him at risk of being perceived as divisive and exposed him to criticism that his rhetoric was exploiting the gap between haves and have-nots." ...

... Digby: "It's actually getting quite boring tracking the administration feints and retreats on these issues. The president clearly would like to be able to say some populist stuff that his supporters want to hear. But the Big Money Boyz are very sensitive about this and he's not going to cross them. Make no mistake, there are no policy proposals coming from anyone of either party that would seriously erode this wealth inequality. That's simply out of the question. What has everyone so agitated is populist rhetoric, which these narcissists see as akin to being a powerless minority attacked by the state. And that means the president and his men have to fall back on 'meritocracy' and mobility tropes that ensure these narcissists will remain on top." CW: On the sensitivity of the Money Boyz, see today's Right Wing World below. Also, Jamie Dimon: ...

When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it. I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country. -- Jamie Dimon, in a prepared speech, March 2009

I just think this constant refrain -- bankers, bankers, bankers, it's just -- it just doesn't -- it's really an unproductive and unfair way of treating people. -- Jamie Dimon, February 2011

I think a lot of it was unfair. -- Jamie Dimon, a few days ago, on JP Morgan Chase's mega-settlement with federal regulators

If JPMorgan is so happy with their settlements that they are rewarding their CEO with a big raise, do you really think the federal bank regulators were tough enough? -- Elizabeth Warren, on her blog

Justin Sink of the Hill: "The White House will host a virtual 'Big Block of Cheese Day' later this month in a nod to historical tradition -- and the popular West Wing television show. In the show, White House staffers were required on one day a year to meet with citizens and interest groups who normally might not earn attention from top administration officials. The fictional tradition was a nod to President Andrew Jackson, who in 1837 hosted an open house with a 1,400 pound block of cheese in the White House's foyer. But the real White House said Friday that they would be hosting a real version of the event -- albeit in cyberspace. 'On Wednesday, January 29th, with a nod to history (and maybe the TV show the West Wing), the Obama Administration ... will take to social media for a day long "open house" to answers questions from everyday Americans in real-time on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and via Google+ Hangout,'... Users of the social networks can flag questions using the hashtag #AsktheWH." Links to more info at this White House Webpage.

Clifford Krauss & Jad Mouawad of the New York Times: "... trains have increasingly been used to transport the oil from the new fields of Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota, in part as a result of delays in the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. About 400,000 carloads of crude oil traveled by rail last year to the nation's refineries, up from 9,500 in 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads. But a series of recent accidents -- including one in Quebec last July that killed 47 people and another in Alabama last November -- have prompted many to question these shipments and have increased the pressure on regulators to take an urgent look at the safety of the oil shipments."

AFP: "The US National Security Agency (NSA) sometimes uses data it collects for economic purposes, intelligence leaker Edward Snowden reveals in an extract of an interview with a German television chain to be broadcast Sunday." And other stuff. ...

... Like this: "On its website, NDR said that Snowden assured he was no longer in possession of any confidential documents, as they had all been handed out to handpicked journalists. The former NSA contractor said he no longer wants to, or is able to, take part in any future revelations." CW: So no rationale for granting him the amnesty or immunity that some in the U.S. spy community have suggested could spare the nation further embarrassment & security breaches.

Nidhi Subbaraman of NBC News: Drones will soon be assisting emergency personnel.

Local News

Terry Tang of the AP: "The Arizona Republican Party formally censured Sen. John McCain on Saturday, citing a voting record they say is insufficiently conservative. The resolution to censure McCain was approved by a voice-vote during a meeting of state committee members in Tempe...."

Billy Corriher in Think Progress: "Last week, the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by a conservative 'dark money' group to keep its donors secret. The lawsuit alleges that the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) illegally 'coordinated' its ads with Attorney General Greg Abbott's (R) 2002 campaign. If evidence emerges that the LEAA coordinated with Abbott's campaign, then the millions of dollars it spent on ads could be considered illegal in-kind campaign contributions." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

He Said/They Said. Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post write a fairly fascinating story on how the prosecution of Bob & Maureen McDonnell came about. They concentrate on Jonnie Williams' cooperation, which apparently resulted from a routine SEC probe of securities irregularities re: Star Scientific. Maureen appears to be one greedy babe. ...

... Quentin Kidd in the Washington Post: Gov. Bob & wife Maureen McDonnell of Virginia "were trying to keep up with the Joneses. And in the upper echelons of Virginia politics, the Joneses tend to have a certain look and lifestyle.... We can identify with some of their struggles and impulses without condoning the use of the governor's office for personal gain. Their relatively modest background should have made them realize what their constituents would see: What they were doing was outrageous." ...

     ... CW: Ironically, had the McDonnells lived within their means (sorry, no beach-house investments) & emphasized what a financial struggle they were having, they would have come across as sympathetic characters, & we might be looking at Transvaginal Bob for President posters. Didn't they notice that one thing that made the Obamas appealing was their rags-to-middle-class story? When in 2008 they said they had only finished paying off their college loans a few years earlier (& that was thanks to Barack's best-sellers), voters learned that the Obamas were people who understood their own difficulties.

John Reitmeyer of the Bergen Record: "Chris Christie launched his first term as governor in 2010 by putting pressure on what he said was New Jersey's 'shadow government' of unelected authorities, boards and commissions. But the Port Authority, a bi-state agency with decades of political influence and a budget of more than $7 billion -- larger than many states' -- has been a different story for the governor."

Star-Ledger Editors: "The Christie administration has fired the contractor that's been bungling the distribution of federal Hurricane Sandy relief money.... But now here's the bad news: The administration fired HGI last month, and we are all just finding out about this now.... First Christie's officials publicly deny that HGI is mishandling their grant programs. Then they silently fire the contractor?"

Right Wing World

The Persecuted Rich. Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Venture capitalist Tom Perkins compared liberals' push to reduce inequality in the United States to Nazi Germany's war on Jews. In a letter to the editor published in The Wall Street Journal Perkins, a founding member of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, asks whether a 'progressive Kristallnacht' is coming. Perkins's letter is in response to an editorial on speech codes at American colleges. 'Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich,"' Perkins wrote in the letter to the editor." ...

... This is not the first time horrible people have conspired to persecute Perkins. Nick Denton of Gawker, June 2007: "In 1996, the yacht-crazed financier was racing off the French coast when he collided with a smaller boat, killing a French doctor on board. In a passage from the Valley veteran's forthcoming memoirs, Perkins writes: 'I was arrested and tried in a foreign court in a language you don't understand, by judges indifferent - or worse - to justice, represented by an inappropriate lawyer with the negative outcome preordained.'" Via Erik Loomis of Lawyers, Guns & Money. ...

... Elias Isquith of Salon: "Kristallnacht was a giant anti-Semitic riot, organized by the Nazi government, that left nearly 100 Jews in Germany and Austria murdered and resulted in the incarceration of some tens of thousands more in concentration camps. It was an act of coordinated barbarism done in service of the Nazis' ultimate goal, the expulsion (and, later, elimination) of Europe's Jewish population. American progressives, on the other hand, would like to see Tom Perkins pay more in taxes."

David Ferguson of the Raw Story: "A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma has proposed a controversial way to stopping same-sex marriages in the state. According to News9.com, state Rep. Mike Turner (R) has proposed scrapping marriage in the state altogether. The lawmaker contends that it is the only way to keep same-sex marriage illegal in the state while still defending the U.S. Constitution." ...

... Martin Longman of Washington Monthly: "Don't let straight people have legally-recognized marriages if it means that gay people can have them, too. This is petulance defined."

Dan Friedman & Dareh Gregorian of the New York Daily News: Dinesh "D'Souza, 52, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges he made illegal contributions to New York Republican senate hopeful Wendy Long in her ill-fated 2012 campaign. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted. Long, an old friend of D'Souza's from their Dartmouth days, will testify against him at trial, prosecutor Carrie Cohen told Judge Richard Berman at the 'Roots of Obama's Rage' author's arraignment. Long 'informed the government that Mr. D'Souza lied to her about the source of those donations,' Cohen said."

News Ledes

New York Times: "A Fort Worth hospital that kept a pregnant, brain-dead woman on life support for two months, followed a judge's order on Sunday and removed her from the machines, ending her family's legal fight to have her pronounced dead and to challenge a Texas law that prohibits medical officials from cutting off life support to a pregnant woman."

Here's an updated Washington Post story on a shooting yesterday at the Columbia, Maryland, Mall that left three, including the shooter, dead. ...

     ... UPDATE: "... a 19-year-old College Park resident has been identified by police as the assailant in Saturday's shooting at the Mall in Columbia, which left three people dead, including Aguilar."

... Baltimore Sun: "On Saturday night, police said they had tentatively identified the shooter, who had arrived at the mall with a shotgun, a large amount of ammunition and a bag in which they found two crude devices that 'appeared to be an attempt at making explosives using fireworks.'"

New York Times: "Thousands of Egyptians celebrated the third anniversary of their revolt against autocracy on Saturday by holding a rally for the military leader who ousted the country's first democratically elected president. Elsewhere, at least 49 people died in clashes with security forces at rival antigovernment protests organized by Islamists and left-leaning activists."

Guardian: "Ukraine's embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, on Saturday night made a surprising and wide-ranging compromise offer to the protesters who have occupied his capital, promising to make an opposition leader prime minister, give amnesty to those involved in clashes with police and institute major constitutional reforms. The trio of politicians who have become the de facto leaders of the protests rejected the offer but said they were willing to negotiate."

The Commentariat -- Jan. 25, 2014

Internal links removed.

David Remnick, Ryan Lizza & Dorothy Wickenden discuss President Obama's final three years in office and his legacy:

White House: "In his weekly address, President Obama said that the Administration has taken another important step to protect women at college by establishing the White House Task Force on Protecting Students from Sexual Assault":

** Mean Mike. Gail Collins: "Basically, [Mike] Huckabee seems to be telling us that the Republican Party will not insult women by suggesting the federal government should require health insurance policies to include birth control pills in the prescription drug coverage. He appears confident that women will find that an attractive proposition.... He laid bare a fact that the party has always tried desperately to hide -- that its anti-abortion agenda is also frequently anti-contraception.... Over the past five years, as his party got raw and angry and mean, Huckabee got raw and angry and mean." ...

... CW: It's worth contrasting Collins' straight talk with moderate conservative & sometime-feminist Kathleen Parker's take on Huckabee's concerns about our out-of-control libidos. Apparently one must be a liberal to understand what Huckabee said. In any event, Parker totally misses Mean Mike's message. ...

... Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: "... why do [Republicans] keep doing this? ... The simple answer is that they can't help themselves, but more specifically, it's a combination of ignorance, contempt, and Puritan morality that inevitably leads to these eruptions.... These kinds of statements tend to come from older conservative men who have no idea how ladyparts work, and really don't want to know.... The morality clearly reflected in these statements is that sex is inherently sinful.... Republicans think they're talking to a nation of nuns...." ...

... Digby: "... the fact that no one wants to have sex with the Mike Huckabees of the world (at least unless they are paid to do so) might just reflect badly on the men rather than the women. After all, if a man can't even be bothered to figure out how birth control works, I'm going to guess he hasn't spent a lot of time figuring out how a woman's sexual response works either." ...

... "The Speech about Women You Should Have Heard." Irin Carmon: "For anyone listening [to President Obama's remarks about protecting college students from sexual assault], this speech was profoundly radical. It accepted as a basic premise that freedom from sexual violation is a ground rule for equal participation in society. It lacked even a passing, prurient interest in drunk girls or in boys who would be boys. It proposed a higher form of masculinity that wasn't about chivalrous deference to women as gentler creatures, but about seeing women as people deserving autonomy, people for whom violence could mean that 'we're all deprived of their full potential'":

Lawrence Hurley of Reuters: "The U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday that, while litigation continues, an order of Roman Catholic nuns need not comply with a part of President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring employers to provide insurance that covers contraception. In the latest skirmish over religious objections to providing government-mandated contraception, the four-sentence court order was a partial victory for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Baltimore-based order of nuns that runs nursing homes, and Illinois-based Christian Brothers Services, which manages healthcare plans for Catholic groups." ...

... Lyle Denniston elaborates on ScotusBlog. ...

... Irin Carmon: "... in a one-paragraph answer to the Little Sisters' emergency appeal for a reprieve from the rule, the Supreme Court has made it even weirder."

Sy Mukherjee of Think Progress: "Chain retailer Target announced on Wednesday that it will stop offering health insurance to employees who work less than 30 hours per week, instead sending these workers to Obamacare's insurance marketplaces to buy new plans. The announcement was quickly picked up by conservative outlets as proof that the health law is giving workers short shrift. To the contrary, these part-time workers will most likely be better off under Obamacare plans, and Target's decision to shift the employees into the marketplaces is definitive proof that the health law is doing exactly what it's intended to do."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Critics of the Affordable Care Act are seizing on a decades-old provision in Medicaid law to scare lower-income Americans from signing up for health care insurance, warning newly eligible enrollees that the federal government could take their house and other assets once they die."

Joe Nocera: For the severely mentally ill, care options are worse today than they were 30 years ago.

Zeke Miller of Time: "... the Republican National Committee passed a resolution Friday calling for an investigation into the 'gross infringement' of Americans' rights by National Security Agency programs that were revealed by Edward Snowden. The resolution also calls on on Republican members of Congress to enact amendments to the Section 215 law that currently allows the spy agency to collect records of almost every domestic telephone call."

Cameron Joseph of the Hill: "A series of changes aimed at tightening the GOP presidential primary calendar sailed through a vote at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, giving the party new tools to control its nomination process. The new 2016 rules will make it much harder for states to cut in line in the nomination process and will help Republicans avoid a repeat of a drawn out, bloody primary many believe damaged Mitt Romney's chances in 2012 of defeating President Obama."

Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico: The White House is establishing an internal political operation & has named a director.

Dana Milbank: "Apologize, then blame someone else." Hey, it's the conservative way. ...

Joe Coscarelli of New York: "[Thursday], Think Progress noted that in the first fourteen school days of 2014, there have been at least seven school shootings in the United States. That number is already out of date: One student was shot and killed this afternoon on the campus of South Carolina State University...." ...

... Here's the Think Progress story, by Adam Peck.

Senate Race

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: The senatorial campaign of Michelle Nunn, daughter of former George Sen. Sam Nunn (D) "will test whether the rapidly changing demographics of Georgia -- where state elections data show that the white vote dropped to 61 percent of the total in 2012 from 75 percent in 2000 -- have shifted enough to return a Democrat to Washington. And it will reveal how much legacy still matters in politics."

Presidential Election 2016

"Planet Hillary." Amy Chozick has the cover story for the New York Times Magazine on All Hillary's Friends. The raw ambition is sort of sickening. The cover itself is hideous. ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "The real news in on the front of Friday's [New York Times], though, and it comes from Nicholas Confessore.... [Story linked in yesterday's Commentariat.] Right now, twenty-four months before the Iowa primary, and at a point when not a single serious candidate has declared that she or he is running for President, Priorities USA, the Democratic Super PAC that raised and spent wads of cash in support of President Obama's 2012 reëlection campaign, is putting its money and expertise behind -- you guessed it -- Hillary Clinton.... The most immediate implications of the decision by Priorities USA, which was founded by two former Obama-campaign officials, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney, are for anybody who is thinking of challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination ... : don't bother! This thing is already sewn up. If you go ahead with your foolhardy pursuit, you'll be crushed. Not only will you be confronting the candidate with the most experience and strongest poll numbers, you will also be going up against practically the entire Democratic establishment: the best campaign managers, the wiliest spinmeisters, the biggest of big-name endorsers, the most modern technology, and the deepest pockets."

Local News

Shawn Boburg of the Bergen Record: "The Port Authority will not pick up the legal bills of a former executive at the center of an investigation into the George Washington Bridge access lane closures. On Friday morning, the agency notified David Wildstein, the agency executive who ordered the September lane closures, that it had turned down his request for indemnification, a Port Authority spokesman said. The notification said Wildstein's request 'would not be warranted' under the agency's bylaws, the spokesman said. Those bylaws state that the Port Authority will provide current and former employees with legal representation if the action in question fell within their job duties, according to its bylaws. It will not pay if there was fraud, malice, misconduct or intentional wrongdoing, the bylays state."

News Ledes

AP: "Someone armed with a gun opened fire at a busy shopping mall in suburban Baltimore late this morning and three people died, including the person believed to be the shooter, died, police said. The shooting took place at the Mall in Columbia, a suburb of both Baltimore and Washington, D.C." ...

     ... The Washington Post story is here.

     ... CW: I wonder when the governments of "normal" countries are going to start issuing travel warnings to their citizens, urging them not to travel to the U.S. because it's an unstable, dangerous place.

Guardian: "The Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, has offered two opposition leaders top government posts on Saturday, the presidential website said on Saturday, after the two sides met for talks aimed at seeking an end to a violent political crisis. Former economy minister Arseny Yatsenyuk would be offered the post of prime minister and Vitaly Klitschko ... would be proposed as deputy prime minister responsible for humanitarian issues, the website said."

AP: "A judge on Friday ordered a Texas hospital to remove life support for a pregnant, brain-dead woman whose family had argued that she would not want to be kept in that condition. Judge R. H. Wallace Jr. issued the ruling in the case of Marlise Munoz. John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth has been keeping Munoz on life support against her family's wishes. The judge gave the hospital until 5 p.m. CST Monday to remove life support. The hospital did not say Friday whether it would appeal."

Politico: "Jesse Ryan Loskarn, a one-time star staffer who was the former top aide to Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, was found dead Thursday afternoon following charges he possessed and distributed child pornography, according to the sheriff's office in Carroll County, Maryland. Loskarn, 35, is believed to have committed suicide."

AP: "Egyptian riot police have fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi protesting as the country marks the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising." ...

     ... Washington Post UPDATE: "Rival groups of demonstrators across the country were met with deadly force. Clashes between police and anti-coup protesters aligned with Mohamed Morsi, the ousted Islamist president, left 29 dead and nearly 170 injured, according to the Health Ministry, one day after six people were killed in a string of attacks on security targets in Cairo. Twenty-six of the deaths were in greater Cairo, the ministry said.

The Commentariat -- Jan. 24, 2014

Internal links removed.

... Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute: "The minimum wage is 23 percent less than its peak inflation-adjusted value in 1968. This is despite productivity (how much output can be produced in an average hour of work in the economy) more than doubling in that time period. The low-wage workforce has surely contributed to this rise in economy-wide productivity, since as a group they have far more education now than they did then." Via Daily Kos.

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes. -- John Maynard Keynes,1936 ...

     ... ** Paul Krugman: "... it applies to our own time, too. And, in a better world, our leaders would be doing all they could to address both faults." Krugman goes on to show how unemployment, inequality, & economic crisis go hand-in-hand-in-hand. ...

... Tim Egan: Bill Gates predicted that "by 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world."

Savvy Businessman Jamie Dimon gets a raise, despite the fact that JPMorgan Chase had to pay $20 billion in fines this past year.

I think a lot of it was unfair. -- Jamie Dimon, while hobnobbing with the super-rich & famous in Davos, Switzerland, on the way federal regulators' "assaulted" JPMorgan

David Remnick of the New Yorker has more from "The Obama Tapes."

Richardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: "The uninsured rate dropped modestly this month as expanded coverage rolled out under President Barack Obama's health care law, a major survey released Thursday has found. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that the uninsured rate for U.S. adults dropped by 1.2 percentage points in January, to 16.1 percent. That would translate to roughly 2 million to 3 million people gaining coverage."

Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Democrats are drawing their red line against debt limit concessions -- again. Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) will release a letter later Friday saying Democrats will not heed any GOP demands in exchange for hiking the debt limit next month in the latest round of the fiscal fights that have plagued the Capitol." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "Two years ago, the demands were for trillions of dollars in cuts. Then it became 'the Boehner Rule,' which was the Speaker's made-up requirement that the House would demand equal-size spending cuts every time it lifted the debt ceiling. Now they're just floating a bunch of scattershot attacks on Obamacare, without even the pretext of reducing the debt, which was the whole rationale for threatening a crisis in the first place.... But you can only try this bluff once. The only way it could still work would be if Obama either paid a ransom or Republicans shot the hostage. Once the mark knows you're bluffing, it's over. You can't do it again. Nobody is falling for this":

Julie Creswell & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "This month, the Justice Department said it had joined eight separate whistle-blower lawsuits against [Health Management Associates, a for-profit hospital chain based in Naples, Fla.,] in six states. The lawsuits describe a wide-ranging strategy that is said to have relied on a mix of sophisticated software systems, financial incentives and threats in an attempt to inflate the company's payments from Medicare and Medicaid.... The accusations reach all the way to the former chief executive's office, whom many of the whistle-blowers point to as driving the strategy." CW: I am totally shocked that a Florida-based for-profit hospital conglomerate would engage in Medicaid & Medicare fraud, Rick Scott.

Steve Kenny of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday that the United States was willing to discuss how the criminal case against Edward J. Snowden would be handled, but only if Mr. Snowden pleaded guilty first. Mr. Holder, speaking at a question-and-answer event at the University of Virginia, did not specify the guilty pleas the Justice Department would expect before it would open talks with Mr. Snowden's lawyers. And the attorney general reiterated that the United States was not willing to offer clemency to Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has leaked documents that American officials have said threaten national security." ...

... Kate Tummarello of the Hill: "National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden on Thursday said he would be willing to return to the United States if he were able to mount a legal defense as a whistleblower. 'Returning to the US, I think, is the best resolution for the government, the public, and myself, but it's unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistleblower protection laws, which through a failure in law did not cover national security contractors like myself,' Snowden wrote during an online chat." CW: Apparently his bids to help Germany & Brazil guard against U.S. cyberspying did not go well.

"The Hidden History of the CIA's Prison in Poland." Adam Goldman of the Washington Post: "The CIA prison in Poland was arguably the most important of all the black sites created by the agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It was the first of a trio in Europe that housed the initial wave of accused Sept. 11 conspirators, and it was where Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-declared mastermind of the attacks, was waterboarded 183 times after his capture.... But what happened in Poland more than a decade ago continues to reverberate, and the bitter debate about the CIA's interrogation program is about to be revisited."

Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Dinesh D'Souza ... was indicted on Thursday on charges that he used straw donors to illegally donate to a 2012 Senate campaign. Mr. D'Souza is an outspoken political commentator who directed '2016: Obama's America,' a scathing anti-Obama documentary released in the final months of the president's re-election campaign. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said that Mr. D'Souza encouraged others to give $20,000 to a Senate candidate and reimbursed them for the donations. Election law prohibits such arrangements and caps donations at $5,000 per donor to any one candidate." ...

... Schadenfreude Gives Way to Guffaws. J. K. Trotter of Gawker: "D'Souza is scheduled to be arraigned in Manhattan on Friday. He is also scheduled to debate former Weatherman Bill Ayers on January 30 at Dartmouth College about what makes America so great."

Laura Barron-Lopez of the Hill: "Climate change may get in the way of future Olympic Winter Games, a new study finds. If the globe continues to warm at its current rate -- without taking measures to mitigate climate change -- only six out of the last 19 locations that hosted the winter games will be cold enough to hold them by the end of the century, according to the report conducted by the University of Waterloo and Austria's Management Center at Innsbruck." CW: Finally something that could get politicians to do something to abate global warming. ...

... Ah, Another Incentive. Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "Today, after a decade of increasing damage to Coke's balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force." Thanks to contributor Mushiba for the link.

Thomas Caton & Brody Mullins of the Wall Street Journal: "Behind the scenes..., [Google] has been working hard to change its profile as an ally of the Democratic Party, courting Republicans and building alliances with conservatives at a time when regulators and Congress are considering issues affecting its business interests." CW: Story is firewalled. If the link doesn't work, cut & paste part of the sentence into a Google search box. Irony intended required.

All Bob's Friends -- Are Crooks. Jonathan Deinst of NBC News-4 New York: "The federal criminal investigation into New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez [D] is broader than previously known.... The Department of Justice is investigating Menendez's efforts on behalf of two fugitive bankers from Ecuador, multiple current and former U.S. officials tell NBC 4 New York. The probe into Menendez's dealing with the bankers comes as federal authorities are also investigating his relationship to a big campaign donor from Florida." With video. ...

... Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast: "Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez is striking back against new corruption allegations regarding his ties to two Ecuadorian bankers who are accused of defrauding account holders in Ecuador to the tune of $100 million."

Local News

Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "FBI agents have begun questioning witnesses in the investigation into whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's aides threatened to cut off Hurricane Sandy relief money to Hoboken unless the city's mayor backed a billion-dollar development project, three sources with direct knowledge of the probe told NBC News on Wednesday. Federal prosecutors and agents have also instructed key witnesses to preserve all documents and emails relating to the allegations by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, these sources said.... Federal agents questioned Dan Bryan, Zimmer's chief of staff, and Juan Melli, her communications director.... The two Zimmer aides are among at least five witnesses who Zimmer told the FBI could confirm that she had previously told them about the conversation she says she had with Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno last May." ...

... Darryl Isherwood of NJ.com: "The U.S. Attorney for New Jersey has issued a subpoena for documents to both the Christie for Governor reelection campaign and the New Jersey Republican State Committee, an attorney for both organizations confirmed today.... The subpoenas request documents from the two organizations in relation to the investigation into lane diversions at the George Washington Bridge in September." ...

... Tom Haydon of the Star-Ledger reported this story January 17, but it's just now getting more attention: "Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage says recalling he complained about political retribution back in 2010. Bollwage on Thursday said that shortly after Christie first became governor, he closed the Motor Vehicle Commission office in Elizabeth because Bollwage, along with Union County Democrats state Sen. Raymond Lesniak and Assemblyman Joe Cryan, opposed some of governor's legislative efforts, such as an annual cap on budget and property tax hikes. Bollwage said Elizabeth also was denied red-light cameras, while surrounding municipalities received approvals. Christie spokesman Colin Reed disputed Bollwage's claim that closing the motor vehicles office was political, stating the move saved hundreds of thousands of tax dollars." CW: Yes, withholding basic services can save lots of tax dollars. (It's true that the DMV is revenue-producing, but almost everybody who needs drivers licenses or car tags will go out of his way to get them.) ...

... Matt Katz of WNYC: "The Christie administration has quietly cut its ties to an embattled company that had New Jersey's biggest contract for getting Sandy victims back in their homes. Homeowners and legislators had widely criticized the company's performance, taking some of the gloss off Governor Chris Christie's signature project: Sandy recovery. Christie officials - who as recently as two weeks ago gave legislators in Trenton no hint that the contract had been cancelled - wouldn't say on Thursday why the deal with Hammerman and Gainer, or HGI, was terminated more than two years before completion." CW: Could there be a seedy untold backstory here?

Can This Marriage Be Saved? Rosalind Helderman & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Maureen McDonnell relayed to federal prosecutors last summer that she felt responsible for the relationship with a wealthy businessman..., and her attorney asked whether the case could be resolved without charges for her husband.... Instead, months later, authorities proposed that then-Gov. Robert F. McDonnell plead guilty to one felony fraud charge that had nothing to do with corruption in office and his wife would avoid charges altogether. The governor rejected the offer.... Since the indictment was handed up on Tuesday, the former governor's comments have focused almost exclusively on his own innocence." ...

... Gene Robinson: "Nobody's as stupid as Bob McDonnell pretends to be."

Jeff Karoub & David Eggert of the AP: "Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asked the federal government Thursday to set aside thousands of work visas for bankrupt Detroit, a bid to revive the decaying city by attracting talented immigrants who are willing to move there and stay for five years.... The proposal involves EB-2 visas, which are offered every year to legal immigrants who have advanced degrees or show exceptional ability in certain fields.... The visas are not currently allocated by region or state. And the number he is seeking -- 50,000 over five years -- would be a quarter of the total EB-2 visas offered."

Ian Simpson of Reuters: "The company behind a chemical spill that left about 300,000 people in West Virginia without tap water failed to disclose a second chemical in the leak, state officials said on Wednesday. The company, Freedom Industries, had previously said that only one chemical, crude MCHM, had spilled from one of its storage tanks into the Elk River at Charleston on January 9. Freedom Industries told the state Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday that a second chemical, PPH, was in the above-ground tank despite an order immediately after the spill to disclose what was in it, the department said in a statement."

Congressional Races

** A Sobering Reality Chek. Molly Ball of the Atlantic: "The GOP's effort to rebrand itself didn't get far -- but it may not matter: It's winning anyway.... Republicans are almost guaranteed to keep the House of Representatives in November; they have about a 50-50 chance of taking the majority in the U.S. Senate; and they are likely to keep their majority of the nation's governor's mansions." AND "Republicans will have a 64 percent chance of victory" in the 2016 presidential contest, according to a model developed by John Sides. ...

... Presidential Election 2016

This Is Depressing. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "The Obama political operation that once buried Hillary Rodham Clinton's White House ambitions is now rapidly converging around her possible 2016 presidential bid, conferring on Mrs. Clinton enormous early advantages in money, expertise and voter targeting techniques. On Thursday, Priorities USA Action, a 'super PAC' that played an important role in helping re-elect President Obama, announced that it was formally aligning itself with Mrs. Clinton and would begin raising money to fend off potential opponents for 2016. The group -- the largest Democratic super PAC in the country -- also named new directors, appointments that will cement the group's pro-Clinton tilt...."

Zeke Miller of Time: "The Republican National Committee took steps Thursday to change how it will pick its presidential candidate in 2016, the latest effort by the national party to tighten control over the primary calendar.... It’s all about the money. The RNC, is looking to free up those general election dollars sooner by moving the 2016 convention to late June or mid-July. On Thursday, the RNC's Rules Committee, continued to ease the path for better-funded establishment candidates to avoid the type of 'long slog' against poorly-organized and under-funded candidates that Mitt Romney was subjected to."

Sex and the GOP

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Mike Huckabee says Democrats make women feel helpless to control their libido by offering government-sponsored birth control":

     ... Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: "'It sounds offensive to me, and to women,' said White House spokesman Jay Carney when asked about the remarks, which Huckabee made during a luncheon appearance at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting." ...

     ... Fade to Guffaw. Again. Dave Weigel: "Earlier today, Harvard's Institute of Politics announced that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who's currently a Fox News host and who may run for president again in 2016, would be a 'visiting fellow' for the spring semester." ...

     ... CW: May I suggest, in the interest of efficiency, that the Harvard student clinic set up its free contraceptives booth in front of Huckabee's classroom so the ladies of Harvard can picket while they wait in line for condoms, pills & other Democratic reproductive handouts.

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) revealed on Thursday that he had become a congressman because he was outraged that single women were having as many as 15 babies and getting welfare checks." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

News Ledes

AP: "Syria's government handed an ultimatum to a U.N. mediator hoping to broker peace in the country's civil war, vowing to leave if 'serious talks' do not begin by Saturday. The delegation chosen by President Bashar Assad met for less than 90 minutes Friday with U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi as part of a peace conference with the Western-backed opposition. The meeting has been on the verge of falling apart ever since it was conceived."

AP: "A string of bombings hit police around Cairo on Friday, including a suicide car blast that ripped through the city's main police headquarters and wrecked a nearby museum of Islamic artifacts. Five people were killed in the most significant attack yet in the Egyptian capital at a time of mounting confrontation between Islamists and the military-backed government."