The Commentariat -- Jan, 10, 2014

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "A year after promising to direct federal attention and support to needy areas across the country, President Obama on Thursday said the government would begin helping five economically hard-hit communities fight poverty and help children":

... Paul Krugman: "... the problem of poverty has become part of the broader problem of rising income inequality, of an economy in which all the fruits of growth seem to go to a small elite, leaving everyone else behind.... On its 50th birthday, the war on poverty no longer looks like a failure. It looks, instead, like a template for a rising, increasingly confident progressive movement."

Richard Cowan of Reuters: "Senate Democrats on Thursday offered a new plan to revive federal unemployment benefits until mid-November and pay the $18 billion price tag with new spending cuts, but hopes of a bipartisan deal dissolved into bickering by day's end."

Doug Palmer & Adam Behsudi of Politico: "Three senior lawmakers on Thursday unveiled long-awaited legislation to help President Barack Obama strike major trade deals in Asia and Europe, setting the stage for a potential election-year battle between the president and many of his fellow Democrats...." ...

... Charles Pierce: "The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a million-ton dunghammer aimed at what's left of the American middle-class.... This bill is the worst kind of Beltway Potemkin transparency. It seeks to guarantee that the debate is carefully circumscribed within the parameters in which the Serious People feel most comfortable -- one in which a goody-bag for corporate interest supported by Orrin Hatch and Max Baucus is considered to be a 'bipartisan' triumph.... It is a monstrosity, negotiated in secret, and utterly heedless of labor standards and environmental protections. The president who speaks so eloquently on income inequality wants an easier time passing a trade deal that inevitably will make that inequality worse. In a week where everybody in Washington was talking about poverty, we are asked to take this gigantic job-sucker on faith."

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "In public, President Obama has focused this week on income inequality, touting initiatives to help the poor and unemployed. But in private, the president and his top aides have spent more time dealing with ... his review of the National Security Agency's vast surveillance program." ...

... Peter Baker & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "As he assembles a plan to overhaul the nation's surveillance programs, President Obama is trying to navigate what advisers call a middle course that will satisfy protesting national security agencies while tamping down criticism by civil liberties advocates." ...

... Denver Nicks of Time: "Two leading members of the House Intelligence Committee say a classified Pentagon report found that Edward Snowden's leaks have let terrorists discover U.S. military tactics, and put troops in danger. Republican committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers and ranking Democrat Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger said the report found that most of Edward Snowden's leaks of National Security Agency documents pertained to ongoing military operations. 'Snowden handed terrorists a copy of our country's playbook and now we are paying the price, which this report confirms,' said Ruppersberger, in a statement."

Laura Barron-Lopez of the Hill: "The Environmental Protection Agency published its rule limiting carbon emissions from new power plants on Wednesday to the dismay of coal advocates and the GOP. The proposed rule, published nearly four months after EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced it, is a core element of President Obama's climate change agenda. Included in the new performance standards, the EPA pushes for new coal-fired power plants to be built with carbon capture technology, which Republicans argue is impossible since the technology isn't ready. McCarthy says the technology is ready and is already being used."

Ezra Klein interviews Robert Laszewski, a health policy expert/lobbyist who says, "The problem with Obamacare is it's product driven and not market driven. They didn't ask the customer what they wanted. And I think that's the fundamental problem with Obamacare. It meets the needs of very poor people because you're giving them health insurance for free. But it doesn't really meet the needs of healthy people and middle-class people."

Ryan Cooper in the New Republic: "The Republican Reaction to the Polar Vortex Explains Why So Many Scientists Are Democrats."

The All-Male Keep 'Em Barefoot & Pregnant Marching Band. Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "On Thursday morning, the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice held a hearing on HR 7, the 'No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act.' That subcommittee, which is headed up by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and comprised of 12 other male lawmakers, is deciding whether to advance sweeping restrictions on abortion coverage that would make the procedure less affordable for women across the country." CW: Among those deciding the fates of millions of American women & their families: Louie Gohmert. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

Michael Schmidt & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Islamic extremist groups in Syria with ties to Al Qaeda are trying to identify, recruit and train Americans and other Westerners who have traveled there to get them to carry out attacks when they return home, according to senior American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.These efforts, which the officials say are in the early stages, are the latest challenge that the conflict in Syria has created, not just for Europe but for the United States, as the civil war has become a magnet for Westerners seeking to fight with the rebels against the government of President Bashar al-Assad."

Nothing to Worry About. Olivia Nuzzi of New York: "Officers in charge of nuclear missiles were possibly on drugs. The timing of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's morale-boosting trip to a Wyoming nuclear missile base on Thursday proved a bit awkward, as it coincided with the report that two nuclear launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana are under investigation for allegations of drug possession." The AP story is here.

Frank Rich on Bill Clinton, Iraq & Liz Cheney.

Local News

Melissa Hayes of the Bergen Record: "The Assembly panel investigating into whether lane closures at the George Washington Bridge were done for political retribution and what involvement Governor Christie's staff and appointees had in the traffic flap is expected to release thousands of pages of documents today. The documents, obtained through subpoenas of Port Authority officials, include emails and text messages between the governor's staff and his appointees at the agency -- David Wildstein and Bill Baroni who have both since resigned."

I've terminated her employment because she lied to me. -- Chris Christie, on senior aide Bridget Kelly

... Marc Santora & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie repeatedly apologized to the people of New Jersey on Thursday, saying he was 'embarrassed and humiliated' by revelations that a top aide and appointees ordered the closing of lanes to the George Washington Bridge to deliberately snarl traffic as an act of political vengeance." See yesterday's Commentariat. Here's the first part of yesterday's press conference, which lasted about two hours:

... The Washington Post has the full transcript. ...

... Josh Barro of Business Insider: "Here are the four big uncomfortable questions that arise from the story Chris Christie is telling today: How did Christie not know? Why would Christie's appointees have thought this was a good idea? Why didn't anybody narc on Bridget Kelly? When did Christie really learn about his staff's involvement?" Barro elaborates on the questions. CW: He picks up on one inconsistency I noticed -- an inconsistency that suggests Christie was lying through his teeth about when he learned of the e-mails (the kind of detail on which good murder mysteries hang). ...

... Alec MacGillis of the New Republic also has four questions: "If Christie only found out this week that the lane closures had been a political hit job, why did he last month accept the resignation of his two top men at the Port Authority? If Christie really didn't know about any of this, who else in his inner circle did? Will the scorned aides seek payback? What about all the Democratic mayors that did endorse Christie?" MacGillis elaborates on each. ...

... Star-Ledger Editors: "Christie's insistence that he found out about this 'for the first time at 8:50 yesterday morning' ... stretches the bounds of belief. When his appointees at the Port Authority resigned, did he really not ask why? And was he not curious enough to inquire about the content of the emails being handed over in these subpoenas? Did he really just wait to read about it all in the papers?" ...

... AND there's this. Andrew McCarthy of National Review: In a December 23 radio "town hall," "Christie explained ... he had already looked thoroughly into the matter with the help of his staff. 'I've asked my staff to give me a full briefing,' he told Scott and listeners. 'They've told me everything that we know. None of this makes sense; it's all about politics. None of it makes sense.' ... Christie was first elected governor based on the reputation he cultivated for himself as a hard-charging United States attorney -- a tireless investigator who never hesitated to take on the tough cases, ask the hard questions, and keep digging until he got convincing answers. As governor, he has portrayed himself as very hands-on in the Giuliani mold."

... The "full briefing," Jed Lewison of Daily Kos points out, was this: telling his staff an hour before a scheduled press conference that they had to confess immediately or he would deny they were involved. This isn't "about leading a serious investigation, it's about bullying them into telling you what you want to hear and giving yourself plausible deniability in the process." ...

Arturo Garcia of the Raw Story: "Rachel Maddow speculated on Thursday that the traffic closures that nearly shut down Fort Lee, New Jersey for four days at the behest of Gov. Chris Christie's (R) ex-deputy chief of staff weren't an act of revenge against the town's mayor, but against Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg. 'The leader of the Senate Democrats represents Fort Lee,' Maddow explained. 'Roughly 12 hours after Governor Christie blows up at the Senate Democrats and torpedoes the career of a [state] Supreme Court justice who he likes because he says the Senate Democrats are "animals," and he is not going to let that justice lose to those animals, the leader of those "animals" sees her district get the order of destruction from Governor Christie's deputy chief of staff.'" ...

     ... CW: The Maddow segment, in which Maddow is almost as long-winded as Christie, is here. She makes her case. ...

     ... Update: Charles Pierce buys Maddow's theory & adds some more context. ...

... Benjamin Wallace-Wells in New York: "It was all about him. He barely mentioned the people who had actually suffered from the vast traffic jam his giggling aides had unleashed, and downplayed the delays it imposed upon ambulances trying to get to sick people. He refused to concede that there had been no real traffic study. The drama of the event, as Christie described it, occurred entirely within the confines of the governor's office, and it was about loyalty, friendship, trust." ...

... Charlies Pierce writes an excellent & entertaining summary of the presser -- and its possible consequences: "... the simple fact is that Big Chicken remains a bully, and now he stands exposed as a coward, as most bullies are, and an entirely self-centered cad." ...

... Greg Sargent: "... there's little chance Dems watched today's presser and emerged with any genuine confidence that Christie's long term viability is beyond repair." ...

... BUT. John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "... in simultaneously putting the blame on a single staffer and saying he had no involvement whatsoever, he staked his career on the belief, hope, desperate gamble -- call it what you want -- that no new information will emerge to challenge his version of events. If Kelly, or anybody else, contradicts Christie and provides evidence to back up his or her story, the governor is toast." ...

... Sally Kohn of the Daily Beast: "Conservatives have been contorting themselves all year to try and argue that President Obama should have known about the detailed goings-on of an IRS branch in Cincinnati and a gun-walking scheme run out of the Arizona field office of the ATF.... Compare this grasping-at-straws logic to Christie, now faced with a genuine scandal based on politically motivated spite that originated ... with ... the governor's own deputy chief of staff.... 'I have 65,000 people working for me every day and cannot know what each of them is doing at every minute,' Christie said in his press conference. Yes, but ... that excuse not work for President Obama -- which has over 4.4 million employees. More importantly, this involves staff who are very close to Christie -- his deputy chief of staff, his campaign director and maybe others." ...

... Jenna Portnoy of the Star-Ledger: "Citing his right to plead the Fifth Amendment, David Wildstein has declined to answer questions [Thursday] posed by a state Assembly committee investigating his role in the George Washington Bridge scandal.... The committee voted unanimously to hold Wildstein in contempt, which is a misdemeanor offense." ...

... Nate Schweber of the New York Times: "The daughter of a 91-year-old woman from Fort Lee, N.J., who died on the day of a major traffic jam precipitated by top aides to Gov. Chris Christie said on Thursday that she did not believe the inability of an ambulance to reach her mother's house was a factor in her death." ...

... Patrick McGeehan of the New York Times: "The governor's pilgrimage [to Fort Lee yesterday afternoon] caused a stir in the borough -- and, inevitably, caused another tie-up of traffic on its downtown streets. Two women trying to catch a bus home in front of the borough hall took turns cursing the governor for leaving them standing in the near-freezing cold while traffic on Main Street was diverted. 'I find it ironic that the governor chose the height of rush hour to do this,' said Sam Gronner, a Fort Lee resident, who said it had taken an extra 15 minutes to go to the nearby A.&P. supermarket...." ...

... Steve M. figures that "now the right might close ranks with Christie" because U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman is launching an investigation of the lane closings. "You know how this will be spun on the right, don't you? Eric Holder's Justice Department is now investigating Christie after refusing to investigate blah blah blah blah blah.... Fishman is an Obama appointee who once (cue sinister music) worked for Holder in Washington. He was expected to get the U.S. attorney's position in 2001 if Al Gore (boo! hiss!) had become president (George W. Bush chose Christie instead). Wikipedia says he's a registered Democrat." ...

... Driftglass & contributor Barbarossa are thinking along the same lines. (Please be kind enough to click on Driftglass's site since I have purloined his artwork):

Art by Driftglass.

... AND Jed Lewison: "Mitt Romney's best decision of 2012: passing on Pufferfish Christie." ...

... CW: Yesterday I speculated that Shawn Boburg of the Record must have got the incriminating e-mails from a New Jersey Democrat. Not true. As Erik Wemple of the Washington Post reports, Boburg obtained them through leaks from & FOIA requests to the Port Authority.

Senate Race

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman, has told senior members of his party that he will challenge Senator Mark R. Warner of Virginia and announce his candidacy as early as next week, giving Republicans a top-tier candidate in what has become one of the nation's most competitive swing states."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Larry Speakes, who became the public face of Ronald Reagan's presidency when a would-be assassin's bullet gravely wounded his boss, press secretary James Brady, died Friday in his native Mississippi. He was 74."

Washington Post: "The U.S. military secretly deployed a small number of trainers and advisers to Somalia in October, the first time regular troops have been stationed in the war-ravaged country since 1993, when two helicopters were shot down and 18 Americans killed in the 'Black Hawk Down' disaster."

AFP: " The United States said Friday that it 'deeply regrets' India's expulsion of a US embassy official in New Delhi in a bitter diplomatic dispute, but is seeking to patch up relations. Ties have become increasingly frayed since December 12 when Indian consulate worker Devyani Khobragade was arrested in New York for alleged visa fraud and making false statements relating to the employment of a domestic servant."

AP: "A charity formed after the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School has been unable to account for more than $70,000 it raised through marathon running, one of its co-founders said Friday. Ryan Graney, of Nashville, Tenn., said only $30,000 of the $103,000 taken in by the 26.4.26 Foundation was used for the organization's purpose. That money was presented last January by co-founder Robbie Bruce to the nonprofit NYA, a youth sports center in Newtown, where the December 2012 shooting occurred. Graney said Bruce was in charge of the organization's finances but has cut off contact with her."

AP: "An Air Force investigation into alleged drug use in the ranks has expanded to include 10 officers at six bases in the U.S. and Britain. Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Brett Ashworth says nine lieutenants and one captain are being investigated for illegal possession of recreational drugs. He said the case began with the investigation of two officers at Edwards Air Force Base in California and expanded based on their contacts with others."

Bloomberg News: "Payrolls in December increased at the slowest pace since January 2011, indicating a pause in the recent strength of the U.S. labor market that may partly reflect the effects of bad weather. The 74,000 gain in payrolls, less than the most pessimistic projection in a Bloomberg survey, followed a revised 241,000 advance the prior month, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington."

AP: "A federal disaster declaration has been issued for a West Virginia chemical spill that may have contaminated tap water and prompted officials to order residents in nine counties not to bathe, brush their teeth or wash their clothes." The Guardian story is here.

Washington Post: "An Indian diplomat whose arrest sent U.S.-India relations into a tailspin left the U.S. late Thursday following her indictment by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of visa fraud and making false statements regarding the employment of a domestic worker."

Reuters: "China defended on Friday its new fishing restrictions in disputed waters in the South China Sea against criticism from the United States, saying the rules were in accordance with international law. The rules, approved by China's southern Hainan province, took effect on January 1 and require foreign fishing vessels to obtain approval to enter the waters, which the local government says are under its jurisdiction."

AP: "While North America freezes under record polar temperatures, the southern hemisphere is experiencing the opposite extreme as heat records are being set in Australia after the hottest year ever.... Brazil is also sizzling, with the heat index reaching 49 degrees Celsius (120 F). Zookeepers in Rio de Janeiro were giving animals ice pops to beat the heat." CW: Explain that, Fox "News."

The Commentariat -- January 9, 2014

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "On the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson's declaration of a War on Poverty, Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a battle over whether its 40 government programs have succeeded in lifting people from privation or worsened the situation by trapping the poor in dependency. Many of today's fiercest political debates can be traced to the aspirations of the Great Society, the domestic programs it spawned during the 1960s, and the doubts it raised about the role and reach of Washington." ...

... Dana Milbank: "Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty turned 50 on Wednesday. Conservatives marked the semi-centenary by reviving something nearly as old: the War on the War on Poverty.... Other than making food-stamp recipients take nonexistent jobs, the [House Republican Study Committee] had few specific ideas for replacing the War on Poverty.... After 50 years, there are shortcomings in the War on Poverty. But the answer is not to scrap it and to return us to the 19th century." ...

... Nicholas Kristof: "America’s war on poverty turned 50 years old this week, and plenty of people have concluded that, as President Reagan put it: 'We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.' ... Yet a careful look at the evidence suggests that such a view is flat wrong. In fact, the first lesson of the war on poverty is that we can make progress against poverty, but that it's an uphill slog."

Julie Pace of the AP: "President Barack Obama is expected to rein in spying on foreign leaders and is considering restricting National Security Agency access to Americans' phone records, according to people familiar with a White House review of the government's surveillance programs. Obama could unveil his highly anticipated decisions as early as next week."

Sebeeeeeelius! Brett Norman of Politico: "House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa continued his intense push to highlight security risks of HealthCare.gov, accusing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of giving 'false and misleading' testimony to Congress. In a letter Wednesday to Sebelius, he accused the secretary of making false statements on several points based on what he characterized as contradictory testimony by the agency's security testing contractors and CMS's chief information security officer...." CW: Issa is going to force me to stick up for Sebelius.

There Are No Constitutional Absolutes. The always-interesting Lyle Denniston on the Second Amendment.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... a resurgence by Islamic militants in western Iraq has reminded the world that the war is anything but over. What Mr. Obama ended was the United States military presence in Iraq, but the fighting did not stop when the last troops left in 2011; it simply stopped being a daily concern for most Americans. While attention shifted elsewhere, the war raged on and has now escalated to its most violent phase since the depths of the occupation." ...

... More Bob Gates

Philp Ewing in Politico: "'Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War' belongs to a subgenre of Washington memoirs in which the author emerges as the last honest man or woman in a capital beset by greed and ignorance. The book is also, in large measure, Gates's attempt to answer the question of why on earth he didn't quit if he felt he was surrounded by administration apparatchiks and congressional dolts."

Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times: "... widely quoted bits of the book -- now being dissected on TV -- give the impression that as a whole it is less nuanced and measured than it actually is. In fact, Mr. Gates seems less intent on settling scores here than in trying candidly to lay out his feelings about his tenure at the Pentagon and his ambivalent, sometimes contradictory thoughts about the people he worked with." CW Subtext: Woodward is not a journalist.

... ** "Top Ten Things Bob Gates Was Wrong About, Some Criminal." Juan Cole: "Gates's petty gossip about his former colleagues should put an end to the pusillanimous Democratic Party tradition of appointing Republicans as secretaries of defense in Democratic administrations.... Lest it be forgotten, Gates's career has been checkered and he has been consistently wrong about foreign policy himself.... His lifetime record is not one that gives him a platform to attack Joe Biden."

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "Robert Gates' new memoir is the first entry in the 'Who lost Afghanistan?' sweepstakes. It will not be the last. The trouble for Gates' memoir -- which, for full disclosure, I haven't yet read -- is that from the vantage point of 2014, it is hard to see how Obama wasn't correct ... and how Gates and the Pentagon aren't guilty of overpromising what the military could accomplish in Afghanistan.... It may be lost in the media din about Gates' criticism, but Obama gave the generals almost everything they asked for."

Charles Pierce: "I mean, is there any possible reason to criticize the president because he injured the rather peripatetic fee-fee of Saint David Petraeus, or to find it unprecedented that a president might wonder whether or not a war he inherited -- and, yes, supported, as a candidate -- wasn't ultimately a futile proposition, or whether his generals were giving him the straight dope."

Matt Gertz of Media Matters: "Woodward's portrayal of the book, which has been adopted by the rest of the media, depicting it as a bombshell attack on the president simply does not follow from the facts at hand."

What's a Fundamentalist to Do? Kate Nocera of BuzzFeed: "Israel adopted this week one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world, and will now provide government funding for non-medical abortions for Israeli women aged 20 to 33. But Washington's most anti-abortion lawmakers are largely silent on the new policy. These same members of Congress are also some of Israel's loudest defenders, highlighting a peculiar aspect of the relationship between many of Israel's ardent U.S. supporters and Israel's domestic political landscape."

Local News

Jason Grant of the Star-Ledger: "The U.S. Attorney for New Jersey has announced his office is reviewing the facts surrounding the decision of Gov. Chris Christie's aides and associates to close lanes leading from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge, in an effort to 'determine whether a federal law was implicated.'"

... Jenna Portnoy of the Star-Ledger: "Gov. Chris Christie today apologized to Fort Lee, the people of New Jersey and the state Legislature, and fired a senior aide, Bridget Anne Kelly, one day after e-mails surfaced showing she was intimately involved in George Washington Bridge scandal." ...

... Christie announces in his presser he has fired Bridget Kelly, & he's giving his staff one hour to come forth with other info. Says he first saw e-mails yesterday morning, was "blindsided." Says he's heartbroken that Kelly betrayed his trust. Says he repeatedly asked staff if they had involvement in lane closings. Says he was disturbed by the tone & indifference of his former campaign manager Bill Stepien & asked him to withdraw his name as state party chair & his consultancy to Governors Association. Will go to Fort Lee today to apologize personally to Mayor & to residents of Fort Lee. Says this is the exception, not the rule, of what's happened over the past 4 years of his administration. "I had no knowledge nor involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution & I am stunned by the abject stupidty that was shown here.... This was handled in a callous & indifferent way.... I have 65,000 people working for me every day & I cannot know what each of them is doing, but that doesn't matter.... I am responsible." Says he's not really a friend of David Wildstein; they happened to go to the same large high school where they didn't know each other, never saw each other for decades & only vaguely knew each other later: "He's Baroni's hire, not mine."

New Jersey Gov. Chis Christie is scheduled to hold a press conference at 11 am ET today. The New York Times will have a livefeed here. ...

     ... CW UPDATE: Just for the fun of it, I'll carry it live here.

I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it.... -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, upon the release of e-mails proving a top aide helped engineer GWB lane closings

Christie & top aide Bridget Kelly in happier days.Shawn Boburg of the New Jersey Record: "... documents obtained by The Record raise serious doubts about months of claims by the [Gov. Chris] Christie administration that the September closures of local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were part of a traffic study initiated solely by the Port Authority. Instead, they show that one of the governor's top aides was deeply involved in the decision to choke off the borough's access to the bridge, and they provide the strongest indication yet that it was part of a politically-motivated vendetta -- a notion that Christie has publicly denied. 'Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,' Bridget Anne Kelly, one of three deputies on Christie's senior staff, wrote to David Wildstein, a top Christie executive at the Port Authority, on Aug. 13, about three weeks before the closures. Wildstein, the official who ordered the closures and who resigned last month amid the escalating scandal, wrote back: 'Got it.'" Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the lead. ...

     ... Update. Linh Tat of the Record: "Emergency responders were delayed in attending to four medical situations -- including one in which a 91-year-old woman lay unconscious -- due to traffic gridlock caused by unannounced closures of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, according to the head of the boroughs EMS department. The woman later died, borough records show." ... The woman later died, borough records show.

     ... CW: If there's a scandal here that knocks Christie out of the presidential running, it will be the cover-up, not the crime. I still don't know that this story will have a lasting impact, as some have suggested it would. ...

     ... For instance, the Star-Ledger Editors: Christie's "attempts to laugh this off now appear to be dishonest, though we can't yet be sure that he personally knew about the correspondence of one of his top aides. Still, Christie bears responsibility either way. If it turns out he did know, he is obviously lying and unfit for office -- let alone a 2016 presidential run. And even if he did not, his officials are liars. If Christie can't control them, how can we trust him as a potential future leader of our country?" ...

     ... AND Jonathan Chait: "Christie's loyalists ... display an almost comical venality bordering on outright sociopathy. And they will probably destroy Christie's chances in 2016. The bridge story itself, while small in nature, reveals a political culture around Christie of people who have no business holding power." Chait elaborates. ...

... BUT. Steve M. argues that what has really doomed Christie's chances to win the GOP primary is his embrace of New Jersey's DREAM Act: "I think Christie's stance on immigration will have much more impact on his 2016 chances in the GOP primaries than the lane-closure thing, unless somehow that can be linked directly to death or serious harm (at least of a white person) as a result of emergency personnel being ensnared in a traffic jam." ...

... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has built a remarkable brand in Republican politics around a simple message: that his bluster and brashness, grating as they might be, were driven by a desire to transcend partisan rancor and petty politics in the service of the public good. He would never let himself engage, he once pledged, in the 'type of deceitful political trickery that has gone on in this state for much too long.' But embarrassing revelations about his office's role in shutting down some access lanes to the George Washington Bridge now imperil that carefully cultivated image." ...

... Niraj Chokshi of the Washington Post: "Each of the 16 New Jersey newspaper front pages ... and even a handful of New York ones -- featured the scandal -- often in big, splashy ways." Chokshi posts photos of the papers' front pages. ...

... "Positively Nixonian." Olivia Nuzzi of New York: Richard Merkt, a former Republican ally of Christie's & later rival in the 2009 gubernatorial primary compares Christie to Richard Nixon: Nixon "had no need to engage in an abuse of power to win re-election, and, in fact, he won by a landslide. But Nixon just couldn't help himself.... One might surmise that it was the arrogance of power that did him in, but I suspect it was really his control-freak nature and deep vindictiveness fundamental to his nature. Remind you of anyone we know?" ...

... Gail Collins: "On Wednesday, the governor declared in a brief statement that he was shocked, shocked, shocked, and was determined to hold people 'responsible for their actions.' He has apparently dropped his earlier position that the whole thing was probably just the result of a useful study of traffic patterns.... America has not been this conscious of Fort Lee since the early days of Weekend Update on 'Saturday Night Live,' when Gilda Radner played correspondent Roseanne Roseannadanna, continually answering questions from 'Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, New Jersey.'"

This Is Heartbreaking. Brooke Adams & Michael Piper of the Salt Lake Tribune: "The state will not recognize the validity of marriages that occurred before the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a district court judge's decision overturning a ban on gay marriage, the governor's office announced Wednesday. In a letter to state agencies Derek Miller, chief of staff to Gov. Gary Herbert, said those marriages will be 'on hold' while it appeals the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Shelby."

I am a gun owner. It happens. -- Kentucky State Rep. Leslie Combs (D), after accidentally firing her semi-automatic handgun in the state capitol building

Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Kentucky State Rep. Leslie Combs (D) accidentally fired her semi-automatic handgun in the state capitol building Tuesday night just before Gov. Steve Beshear (D) gave his state of the state address, WHAS11 reported. Combs was unloading her gun in the Capitol annex office when it went off. The bullet hit the floor and ricocheted toward a bookshelf, according to WHAS11. Rep. Jeff Greer (D) was in the room at the time, but Combs said she was following safety procedure and that nobody was in harm's way.... Nobody was injured." CW: Greer is probably fairly happy he wasn't standing in front of that bookshelf.

Yeah, Socialism Sucks

Alister Doyle of Reuters: "Everyone in Norway became a theoretical crown millionaire on Wednesday in a milestone for the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund that has ballooned thanks to high oil and gas prices. Set up in 1990, the fund owns around 1 percent of the world's stocks, as well as bonds and real estate from London to Boston, making the Nordic nation an exception when others are struggling under a mountain of debts."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Amiri Baraka, a poet and playwright of pulsating rage, whose long illumination of the black experience in America was called incandescent in some quarters and incendiary in others, died on Thursday in Newark. He was 79."

Washington Post: 'An Indian diplomat whose arrest sent U.S.-India relations into a tailspin was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on Thursday on charges of visa fraud and making false statements regarding the employment of a domestic worker. The indictment, however, came just hours after the State Department moved to resolve the case in a way that would allow Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, to leave the country without facing the allegations in court."

New York Times: "A silver thief who has been called the 'burglar to the stars' for breaking into the homes of the rich and sometimes famous has been charged with eight counts of burglary [& is being held in Fulton County, Georgia]. The police said the thief, Blane Nordahl, 51, might be linked to more than a hundred burglaries throughout the South. In each case, the thief took nothing but high-end silver, much of it historic and irreplaceable. The silver pieces, including vintage flatware and Tiffany trays, would then be smashed and shipped to smelters for cash."

Guardian: "A European parliament committee has invited Edward Snowden to testify via video link in its investigation of US surveillance practices."

AP: "Cuban news media say former President Fidel Castro has appeared in public for the first time since April. The Communist Party newspaper Granma reports that the 87-year-old Castro appeared Wednesday night at the opening of a Havana art studio."

The Commentariat -- January 8, 2014

Internal links removed.

In a moving op-ed in the New York Times, on the third anniversary of the day she was shot, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), writes: "Our fight [for sensible gun safety legislation] is a lot more like my rehab. Every day, we must wake up resolved and determined. We'll pay attention to the details; look for opportunities for progress, even when the pace is slow. Some progress may seem small, and we might wonder if the impact is enough, when the need is so urgent."

As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn't trust his commander, can't stand Karzai, doesn't believe in his own strategy and doesn't consider the war to be his. For him, it's all about getting out. -- Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, on President Obama's view of the war in Afghanistan in March 2011 ...

I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades. -- Robert Gates, on Vice President Biden

Thom Shankar of the New York Times: "President Obama eventually lost faith in the troop increase he ordered in Afghanistan, his doubts fed by top White House civilian advisers opposed to the strategy, who continually brought him negative news reports suggesting it was failing, according to his former defense secretary, Robert M. Gates." ...

... The Wall Street Journal has published an excerpt of Gates' book. ...

... Here's Bob Woodward, putting his own spin on the Gates memoir so as to make Obama look like a jerk & Biden a buffoon. ...

     ... Isaac Chotiner of the New Republic: "Unfortunately, Woodward's account of the book is as flawed and overly simplified as, er, Woodward's own books about the Obama administration.... It wouldn't be the first time that Woodward showed a strong dislike for the president, and allowed his opinions to get ahead of the facts." ...

... Digby: " It sounds as though Obama and Biden (who Gates loathed) were both skeptical of the military POV on this and that is to their credit. Civilian leadership should be skeptical of the military and challenge it to prove that what it says is necessary is actually necessary. They have many institutional and individual incentives to do otherwise." Digby covers a lot of ground, so it's well worth reading her whole post. ...

... Here's a more balanced Washington Post review, by Greg Jaffe. ...

... Max Fisher of the Washington Post: "... if Gates is going to take shots at Biden on this scale, it's worth asking how Gates would fare under similar scrutiny.... I can tell you how he performed on the single most important one he ever confronted: ending the Cold War. He was, quite simply, dead wrong." Via Digby. ...

... Oliver Knox of Yahoo! News: "The White House politely but firmly defended Biden. 'The President disagrees with Secretary Gates' assessment -- from his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time, and has helped advance America's leadership in the world,' National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement emailed to reporters. 'President Obama relies on his good counsel every day.' ... Shortly after the statement went out, the White House announced that news photographers would be allowed to snap pictures of Obama and Biden's regular lunch together on Wednesday -- a nearly unheard-of occurrence that will serve as a visual reminder that the two are close."

President Obama spoke yesterday about extending unemployment benefits:

... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic: The unemployment extension bill has passed one 60-vote hurdle in the Senate but still has to pass another, & the House is the House. Republicans are saying they won't vote for the bill without Democrats conceding offsets to pay for it. "Paying for such extensions has not been a precondition for extending benefits in the past, on the very sound theory that temporary expansions of benefits don't significantly affect the long-term fiscal picture -- and that, if ever there's a time to borrow money without offsets, it's periods of economic hardship when deficits stimulate economic activity. The case for offsets would seem particularly weak now, since the deficit happens to be falling and falling fast." If Democrats agree to offsets, "to get the maximum effect, you'd want the offsetting cuts or revenue to take place in the future." But that, of course, is not what Republicans are asking. No, they want to take the money from (this will come as a big surprise to you) -- ObamaCare. ...

... Robert Costa publishes, in the Washington Post, the House GOP's talking point guidance to its members re: extended unemployment benefits. CW Short Version: "Sorry if you're broke & outta work, but unless Democrats will cut your neighbors' benefits and give more breaks to fat cats, get off your lazy ass & take a job at WalMart." ...

... Patricia Murphy of the Daily Beast describes Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who co-sponsored the Senate bill & for weeks was the only GOP senator to back it, as "the Senate's last compassionate conservative." ...

... Tom Edsall turns to academic studies to try to figure out why some Republicans have suddenly become so compassionate. "... one of the ironies of political economy [is] that support for the liberal agenda declines just when the needs of the needy are strongest. Conversely, when the economy begins to expand and the spending cuts sought by conservatives would be least painful, support for conservative belt-tightening drops.... John Boehner ... knows that in order to protect his members who are running in battleground districts, he cannot afford to let the compassion gap get too wide. The Tea Party is the loser in this calculus and the long-term unemployed are likely to be the winners." CW: Bottom line (though Edsall doesn't say so): to Republicans, "compassion" = "helping the needy just enough to get re-elected."

Dana Milbank: "Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Tuesday outlined his party's priorities for 2014. They are, in ascending order of importance:

●Obamacare.
●Obamacare! Obamacare!
●OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE!!!

And Yet. And Yet. Steve M. at least partially explains why "voters will again vote for a party that promises to block everything they want."

Reed Abelson & Julie Creswell of the New York Times: "Although the federal government is spending more than $22 billion to encourage hospitals and doctors to adopt electronic health records, it has failed to put safeguards in place to prevent the technology from being used for inflating costs and overbilling, according to a new report by ... the Office of the Inspector General for the Health and Human Services Department...."

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The National Security Agency is exploring how it could relinquish control of the massive database of domestic phone logs that has been the focus of an intense national debate, according to current and former officials briefed on the discussions.... The intelligence community is motivated, in part, because Congress likely will not renew the NSA's bulk collection authority when the statute it is based on expires in June 2015. It is also possible that Congress ... could take action sooner."

"Too Big to Manage." Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "To settle a barrage of government legal actions over the last year, JPMorgan Chase has agreed to penalties that now total $20 billion, a sum that ... most of the nation's banks could not withstand if they had to pay it. But since the financial crisis, JPMorgan has become so large and profitable that it has been able to weather the government's legal blitz.... Breaking up the banks to make them smaller might improve their [ethical] cultures, some bank specialists contend."

Outline of a StoneWall. Hadas Gold of Politico: "The Unites States Navy inadvertently sent a memo to a local NBC News reporter this week detailing how it intended to try and deter requests he had filed under the Freedom Of Information Act. Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for NBC 4 in Washington, D.C., tweeted out a screenshot of a portion of the memo...." CW: You can bet this is SOP. ...

... Adam Weinstein of Gawker has more details.

Now Here, Dear Wingers, Is Religious Freedom. Sean Murphy of the AP: "A satanic group unveiled designs Monday for a 7-foot-tall statue of Satan it wants to put at the Oklahoma state Capitol, where a Ten Commandments monument was placed in 2012."

Senate Races 2014

John Bresnahan of Politico: "Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $2.5 million to a super PAC aimed at helping Senate Democrats maintain their majority, a potentially significant development that could have a big impact in 2014. Bloomberg, one of the richest men in the world, made the donation to Senate Majority PAC, which is run by former aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other top Democrats." CW: Does this mean Mike isn't a Republican any more?

Local News

William Rashbaum & James McKinley of the New York Times: "Eighty retired New York City police officers and firefighters were charged on Tuesday in one of the largest Social Security disability frauds ever, a sprawling decades-long scheme in which false mental disability claims by as many as 1,000 people cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to court papers.... The indictment, brought by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., charges a total of 106 people.... Several people involved in the case said that it was likely that as many as 50 more people would be charged in the coming weeks with making fraudulent claims."

Charles Bagli of the New York Times: "A state judge on Tuesday unexpectedly blocked about half of New York University's large and hotly debated expansion plan to build four towers in the school's leafy and largely low-scale Greenwich Village neighborhood. The judge, Donna M. Mills, of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, ruled that the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had wrongfully agreed to turn over three public parks to the university to enable construction without first obtaining approval from the State Legislature." CW: I know this isn't big news, but I have a degree from NYU & the Village -- specifically the part that belonged to NYU -- was my home for 15 years, so let's call it "Marie's Special Interest News."

"60 Minutes" -- The New Fox "News"

Joe Strupp of Media Matters: "A 60 Minutes segment claiming that federal government efforts to encourage clean tech ... have failed drew some harsh disagreement among reporters covering the energy beat who say the negative report ignored many successes and focused too narrowly on a few unsuccessful companies.... [Lesley] Stahl's segment has drawn criticism from observers who have noted that 60 Minutes focused on Solyndra and a handful of other failed companies whose loans made up a tiny fraction of federal loans and ignored the clean tech breakthroughs and the explosive growth in the sector that have occurred."

J. K. Trotter of Gawker took a look into the military record of Dylan Davies, the main source of "60 Minutes'" discredited Benghaaazi! story. Despite the reportorial expertise (they worked on the story for a year!) of the "60 Minutes" staff, it turns out Davies is an even bigger liar than other media have discovered. He most likely was a corporal, not a sergeant as he claimed, in the British Army, and his length of service was apparently shorter than he alleged on account of his taking a brief, unsuccessful foray into the gutter-cleaning business. An hour after Trotter published his post, An hour after this article was published, Davies' publisher Simon & Schuster (which withdrew his book after the "60 Minutes" scandal) "deleted Davies' bio from its website." Via Media Matters.

News Ledes

New York Times: "... the Federal Trade Commission ... charged four companies with deceptively marketing weight-loss products, asserting they made 'unfounded promises'.... The four companies -- Sensa Products, L'Occitane, HCG Diet Direct and LeanSpa -- will collectively pay $34 million to refund consumers. They neither admitted nor denied fault in the case. The case is part of a broader crackdown on companies that the government says 'peddle fad weight-loss products.' ... The settlements made clear that the commission would accept only double-blind, placebo-controlled studies to document the medical effectiveness of diet regimes."

Reuters: "The Dutch foreign minister signed an agreement on Tuesday with his Cuban counterpart to engage in political consultations, breaking ranks with the European Union which limits high-level visits and talks with [Cuba]."

Guardian: "India has ratcheted up the pressure on US diplomats in Delhi as the deadline nears for the indictment of an Indian envoy in New York charged with visa fraud and underpaying a maid. Washington has been told that restaurants and other facilities at the social club in its Delhi embassy will have to close to non-diplomats and that inquiries into the tax affairs of US staff will be pursued aggressively."

Al Jazeera: "Syria has started moving chemical weapons materials out of the country in a crucial phase of an internationally backed disarmament programme that has been delayed by war and technical problems. The joint mission overseeing the disarmament, the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said on Tuesday that the materials had been moved from two sites to the port of Latakia and then loaded onto a Danish commercial vessel."

AP: "Syrian rebels on Wednesday seized control of a hospital in the northern city of Aleppo that was used as a base for the area by their al-Qaida rivals, activists said."