The Commentariat -- March 14, 2014

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama said Thursday that deportations of illegal immigrants should be more humane, and to make that happen, he has ordered a review of his administration's enforcement efforts. Mr. Obama revealed the effort in an Oval Office meeting with Hispanic lawmakers on Thursday afternoon, telling them that he had 'deep concern about the pain too many families feel from the separation that comes from our broken immigration system,' according to a White House statement. Representative Luis V. Gutiérrez, Democrat of Illinois, said afterward that it was 'clear that the pleas from the community got through to the president.'"

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Senate negotiators struck a bipartisan deal Thursday that would renew federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless allowing for retroactive payments to go to more than 2 million Americans whose benefits expired in late December. Ten senators, evenly divided among Democrats and Republicans, announced the pact and set up a timeline in which the legislation could pass the Senate in late March. Its outcome in the House remains up in the air, however." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... it's happening again. Suddenly, it seems as if all the serious people are telling each other that despite high unemployment there's hardly any 'slack' in labor markets — as evidenced by a supposed surge in wages -- and that the Federal Reserve needs to start raising interest rates very soon to head off the danger of inflation.... Although the current monetary debate isn't as openly political as the previous fiscal debate, it's hard to escape the suspicion that class interests are playing a role."

Walter Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times in McClatchy: "There are more millionaires in the United States than ever before. The number of households with net worth of $1 million or more, excluding their homes, is at a record 9.63 million, according to a new report. That eclipses the old mark of 9.2 million in 2007 before the global financial crisis, according to the Spectrem Group research firm. The tally of millionaires slipped to 6.7 million in 2008 as the financial crisis struck. The study reinforces other data showing that the wealthy are doing well compared to many other segments of society."

Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama ordered the Labor Department on Thursday to 'modernize' regulations to allow millions more workers to be paid overtime. The regulations being changed govern which types of employees qualify for the 'white collar' exemption that allows employers to avoid paying overtime at a time-and-a-half rate":

"New Rules for For-Profit Schools." Maya Rhodan of Time: "On Friday, the Department of Education released new regulations that will cap loan payments for graduates of so-called 'gainful employment programs,' offered both at for-profit schools and community colleges, to 20% of discretionary income and 8% of total income. The institutions must stick to the caps and keep loan default rates under 30% in order to continue receiving federal financial aid. Though some of these job-training institutions properly prepare students for the work force, the majority of for-profit schools designed to propel students straight into careers do not.... For profit institutions can receive up to 90 percent of their revenue from taxpayer money."

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -- Archilochus, c.a. 7th century, B.C.E.

The op-ed columnists at the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal are probably the most hedgehoglike people. They don't permit a lot of complexity in their thinking. They pull threads together from very weak evidence and draw grand conclusions based on them. They're ironically very predictable from week to week. If you know the subject that Thomas Friedman or whatever is writing about, you don't have to read the column. You can kind of auto-script it, basically. -- Nate Silver

The world is divided into two sorts of people: those who think the world is divided into two sorts of people and those who don't. -- Robert Benchley, 1920s

Jonathan Chait notes that Democrats & Republicans now agree about the politics of ObamaCare. ...

... Nagging Moms:

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to confirm President Obama's nominee [Caroline Krass] to become the C.I.A.'s top lawyer, as senior lawmakers escalated pressure on the agency's director to make public a voluminous report on the C.I.A.'s defunct detention and interrogation program."

Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian: "Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, are to meet in London on Friday for talks on Ukraine before Sunday's planned referendum in Crimea. The two will meet at the US ambassador's residence in central London as Kerry attempts to head off a vote that could lead to Crimea -- now under the control of Russian troops -- deciding to become part of Russia." ...

... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "A proposed U.S. aid package for Ukraine's fledgling pro-Western government stalled Thursday amid festering Republican Party feuds over foreign policy. Tensions erupted on the Senate floor late in the day after the chamber did not advance the measure, with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) berating the dozen or so of his Republican colleagues who, for various reasons, objected to the legislation.... A House version of the package passed last week." ...

... Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "Ukraine's interim prime minister, seeking to rally support for a Security Council resolution criticizing the Russian takeover of Crimea, took pains on Thursday to say that his country wanted a peaceful resolution to the crisis."

... Steven Myers & Alison Smale of the New York Times: "With a referendum on secession looming in Crimea, Russia massed troops and armored vehicles in at least three regions along Ukraine's eastern border on Thursday, alarming the interim Ukraine government about a possible invasion and significantly escalating tensions in the crisis between the Kremlin and the West. The announcement of the troop buildup by Russia's Defense Ministry was met with an unusually sharp rebuke from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany...."

Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "The US came under sharp criticism at the UN human rights committee in Geneva on Thursday for a long list of human rights abuses that included everything from detention without charge at Guantánamo, drone strikes and NSA surveillance, to the death penalty, rampant gun violence and endemic racial inequality. At the start of a two-day grilling of the US delegation, the committee's 18 experts made clear their deep concerns about the US record across a raft of human rights issues. Many related to faultlines as old as America itself, such as guns and race." ...

... ** Charlie Savage of the New York Times: " The Obama administration declared Thursday that a global Bill of Rights-style treaty imposes no human rights obligations on American military and intelligence forces when they operate abroad, rejecting an interpretation by the United Nations and the top State Department lawyer during President Obama's first term."

Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "A second batch of 4,000 pages of records from former President Clinton's White House are slated to be released Friday. The records ranging from the 2000 presidential recount in Florida to documents related to terrorism in the decade before 9/11 will be available online at the Clinton Presidential Library at 1 p.m."

Congressional Races

** Frank Rich: "The Democrats are in deep trouble this fall, but not because of any reading of the tea leaves in this single district [Florida's 13th], and not because the entire country hates Obamacare. The fundamentals are far more basic." And other stuff. ...

... Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "Geoff Garin, the pollster who did [Alex] Sink's polling in the race. Garin argues in a memo he released the day of the voting that 'the issue ultimately provided more of a lift than a drag to her campaign.' He followed up by telling me yesterday: 'She would have done worse if she'd neglected to hit back and engage the issue.' There's a lesson in there for Democrats as they march toward November." ...

... Driftglass feels responsible for Reagan. CW: As many of you know, I am totally with his thinking here.

Steve Peoples of the AP: "Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has begun seeking campaign staff while aggressively courting New Hampshire's political elite, marking what local Republicans consider serious steps toward launching a Senate campaign against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.... In the meantime, Brown continues his role as a paid contributor for Fox News...."

Beyond the Beltway

 Adding Insult to Cold-Blooded Murder. Tamara Lush of the AP: "A former police officer accused of killing a man in a movie theater during a dispute over texting had used his own phone to send a message to his son moments before the incident, according to documents released Thursday by Florida prosecutors." ...

... CW: If there was any sort of person whom I thought could be trusted to carry a firearm into a movie theater, it would be a kindly old retired police captain who had taught gun safety classes. This case is refutation of the NRA's argument that we're all a lot safer when "responsible" gun owners can carry their loaded weapons into public places, the better to protect us from the occasional mass murderer.

Salvador Rizzo of the Star-Ledger: "Angry protesters turned up at Gov. Chris Christie's town hall today, shouting criticisms about the governor's handling of the George Washington Bridge scandal and Hurricane Sandy relief funding. Amid the heckling, six people, including four Rowan University students, were escorted out by State Police.... Protesters kept piping up until the end of the event, police kept removing them, and the governor scolded them for interrupting while he answered other people's questions."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "While the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has expanded westward amid concerns of foul play, a satellite company confirmed that signals from the plane were registered by its network. British satellite telecommunications company Inmarsat said Friday that signals from the Boeing 777 were 'routine' and 'automated.'" ...

... Reuters: "Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday. Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe, said sources familiar with investigations...."

The Commentariat -- March 13, 2014

** Joe Williams in the Atlantic: "My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Poor." Via Charles Pierce. CW: Williams' story is not some isolated case. This is what life is like for workers in many, if not most, American retail establishments today. This pervasive horror, BTW, is brought to you by the systematic unfettering of the Gods of Capitalism, a feature presentation produced & directed by the Grand Old Party.

Peter Baker & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "President Obama and Ukraine's interim prime minister opened the door on Wednesday to a political solution that could lead to more autonomy for Crimea if Russian troops withdraw, as the United States embarked on a last-ditch diplomatic effort to defuse a crisis that reignited tensions between East and West. The tentative feeler came as Mr. Obama dispatched Secretary of State John Kerry to London to meet with his Russian counterpart on Friday, two days before a Russian-supported referendum in Crimea on whether to secede from Ukraine."

Jonathan Landay, et al., of McClatchy News: "The White House has been withholding for five years more than 9,000 top-secret documents sought by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for its investigation into the now-defunct CIA detention and interrogation program, even though President Barack Obama hasn't exercised a claim of executive privilege. In contrast to public assertions that it supports the committee's work, the White House has ignored or rejected offers in multiple meetings and in letters to find ways for the committee to review the records.... The dispute indicates that the White House is more involved than it has acknowledged in the unprecedented power struggle between the committee and the CIA...." ...

... Jonathan Weisman & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: Sen. Dianne "Feinstein [D-Calif.] shocked her Senate colleagues, caught the [C.I.A.] flat-footed and forced a response from [C.I.A. Director John] Brennan on something he had hoped could be resolved without the rancor's becoming public. The 40-minute broadside by Ms. Feinstein, the normally circumspect chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has set up a showdown between the executive and legislative branches of government.... What ultimately pushed Ms. Feinstein to make her accusations public, according to congressional officials, were news media reports at the end of last week that contained anonymous accusations against the committee's staff."

Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Thursday will urge reduced sentences for defendants in most of the nation's drug cases, part of his effort to cut the burgeoning U.S. prison population and reserve stiff penalties for the most violent traffickers. Holder's proposal, which is expected to be approved by the independent agency that sets sentencing policies for federal judges, would affect 70 percent of drug offenders in the criminal justice system, according to figures provided by Justice Department officials. It would reduce sentences by an average of nearly a year."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) previewed his upcoming legislative proposals for reforming America's poverty programs during an appearance on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America Wednesday, hinting that he would focus on creating work requirements for men 'in our inner cities' and dealing with the 'real culture problem' in these communities. 'We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with,' he said." ...

... CW: In case your GOPese is rusty, allow me to translate: Thesis: "Black men are lazy. Their fathers are lazy. Their grandfathers were lazy." Corollary: "I'm going to cure their lazy asses by kicking them off the dole." ...

... CW: Maybe the reason Republicans hate/fear President Obama so much is a kind of "secondary racism." Their core belief -- a belief on which they conveniently justify all their mean-spirited pro-poverty policies -- is that "black people are lazy." They may think this character flaw dates back to the days when slavery was legal & work slowdowns were a means of protest, or they may think it is genetic. Whatever. But these guys believe black people are lazy as surely as they believe in the Second Coming. And Obama just does not accommodate their stereotype. Ergo, he is not even a legitimate black man, much less a legitimate president. Everything Obama Does Is Wrong because that is as it must be: a lazy guy cannot be a good POTUS. ...

... Julia Azari, in the Washington Post, on President Obama's "Between Two Ferns" bit, & on presidential communications techniques: "Traffic appears to be up at the HealthCare.gov site, which, of course, was the immediate goal. In the long term, we may see whether a president has finally succeeded in changing what it means to 'look presidential.'"

Obama Derangement Syndrome, Ctd.

At a stopover on a fundraising trip to New York City, President Obama visited a Gap store to buy sweaters for his wife & daughters & to thank stores like the Gap & Costco for raising the minimum they pay their employees:

... Reuters: "Using a credit card to pay, Obama pretended that he did not know that he could sign his name on the credit card machine." ...

... This of course was not enough for wingers. All over the Internets yesterday, they were describing the President as "out of touch."

Gail Collins: "Most American mothers work, and they are already guilt-ridden over everything under the sun.... Most American mothers feel remarkably successful when everybody gets off to school with matching socks. Now Paul Ryan wants to tell them they've committed child abuse by failure to fill a brown bag." ...

... Philip Elliott of the AP: "Invoking fiery references to Satan, 'savagery' and a 'culture of death' to criticize their opponents, anti-abortion lawmakers on Wednesday insisted that Republican contenders keep an intense focus on social issues in the upcoming midterm elections and the 2016 presidential race." Among the headliners: Sens. Mike Lee (RTP-Utah) & Ted Cruz (RTP-Texas) & former Gov. Mike Huckabee (RTP-Ark.). ...

... Laura Stampler of Time: "When speaking at a gala funded by pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List Wednesday night, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee posed a question: if Americans condone abortion, then could the next step be killing people at the end of their lives for the sake of convenience? Huckabee named financial and social hardships as a popular justification for abortions, Politico reported, and said the very same justification could be used for ending the life of an elderly parent who has become a burden."

Alan Blinder & Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "The most important sexual assault prosecution in the military [-- that of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair --] came apart on Monday. But cracks had appeared two months earlier in the same North Carolina military courtroom." CW: Fairly fascinating, and a good example of why the New York Times is an important newspaper: their reporters get the goods & know how to write 'em up.

Beyond the Beltway

"Rape Insurance." Laura Conaway of NBC News: "The Michigan state legislature yesterday finished passing a bill that requires women to buy separate coverage ahead of time for abortion if they want to have coverage for it at all. The measure applies to private health insurance, and it has no exceptions for rape or incest.... The final vote was 27-11 in the Senate, to go along with passage in the House of 62-47. Republican Governor Rick Snyder vetoed a similar bill last year. But because the bill this time arose as a citizens' initiative, it does not require a signature from the governor -- neither can he veto it. Had the Michigan legislature sent it on to the ballot, it faced a divided electorate, with voters opposed to it by 47 percent to 41 percent in a recent poll. The bill will take effect early next year." Thanks to Julie for the link. She says Rachel Maddow ran a segment on this new law Wednesday night.

Yvonne Sanchez of the Arizona Republic: "Gov. Jan Brewer announced Wednesday she will not seek another term in office, an effort that would have required a long-shot court challenge to the state's term limits."

Kelly Heyboer of the Star-Ledger: " The faculty at Rutgers-Newark's voted today to call for the university to rescind an invitation to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as the university's commencement speaker. The Rutgers-Newark professors joined their counterparts on the university's New Brunswick campus, who last month called for Rice to be disinvited because of her role in the Iraq war and the Bush administration's approval of controversial prisoner interrogation techniques."

Florida Was Not Always Stupid

Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "Reubin Askew, a progressive 'New South' Democrat who promoted racial equality and ethics reforms as a two-term governor of Florida in the 1970s and campaigned briefly for the presidency in 1984 and for the Senate in 1988, died early on Thursday in Tallahassee. He was 85."

Congressional Race

CW: There's a lot of morning-after analysis on the Jolly/Sink/Other-Guy special election in Florida's 13th Congressional district, & a lot of it focuses on the ObamaCare factor. But I think Brian Beutler is one guy who gets this right: "Isolating an 'Obamacare effect' is pretty complex, and anyone claiming today that the Obamacare effect was huge or obviously decisive is probably peddling snake oil."

CW: I will say that Alex Sink is one of the most boring candidates imaginable. She makes Bill Nelson (that's our Democratic Senator, in case you -- understandably -- never heard of him) seem exciting. The only Democratic Florida politician I can think of off the top of my head who is a vaguely interesting person is Charlie Crist, and he was a Republican not so long ago. The 2008 Democratic primary gave the state's party a chance to recruit really good local candidates. But the party, which is moribund, either could not be bothered or is so ossified the group-think is that Alex Sink -- a former Bank of America executive -- is fun & delightful.

News Ledes

New York Times: "As lawmakers press General Motors and regulators over their decade-long failure to correct a defective ignition switch, a new review of federal crash data shows that 303 people died after the air bags failed to deploy on two of the models that were recalled last month."

New York Times: "Four years after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, BP is being welcomed back to seek new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico. An agreement on Thursday with the Environmental Protection Agency lifts a 2012 ban that was imposed after the agency concluded that BP had not fully corrected problems that led to the well blowout in 2010 that killed 11 rig workers, spilled millions of gallons of oil and contaminated hundreds of miles of beaches."

Guardian: "Malaysian authorities have said reports that the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have flown for an additional four hours beyond its last sighting are inaccurate, and that the final information received from its engines indicated everything was operating normally. Sources described as familiar with the details of the missing Boeing 777's data had told the Wall Street Journal that US investigators believed the plane had flown for a total of five hours, indicating that the plane may have been diverted 'with the intention of using it later for another purpose'." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "The search for a missing Malaysian jetliner with 239 people on board could expand west into the Indian Ocean based on information that the plane may have flown for four more hours after it dropped from radar, U.S. officials said Thursday. A senior American official said the information came from a data stream sent directly by engines aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. If the two engines on the Boeing 777 functioned for up to four additional hours, that could strengthen concern that a rogue pilot or hijacker took control of the plane early Saturday over the Gulf of Thailand." ...

     ... The New York Times update is here.

Reuters: "The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell and hit a fresh three-month low last week, suggesting a strengthening in labor market conditions."

The Commentariat -- March 12, 2014

Internal links removed.

Mark Mazzetti & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "A festering conflict between the Central Intelligence Agency and its congressional overseers broke into the open Tuesday when Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the intelligence committee and one of the C.I.A.'s staunchest defenders, delivered an extraordinary denunciation of the agency, accusing it of withholding information about its treatment of prisoners and trying to intimidate committee staff members investigating the detention program." ...

... Via Roll Call, here's the full transcript of Feinstein's speech. ...

... ** New York Times Editors: Sen. "Dianne Feinstein has provided stark and convincing evidence that the C.I.A. may have committed crimes to prevent the exposure of interrogations that she said were 'far different and far more harsh' than anything the agency had described to Congress.... The lingering fog about the C.I.A. detentions is a result of Mr. Obama's decision when he took office to conduct no investigation of them. We can only hope he knows that when he has lost Dianne Feinstein, he has no choice but to act in favor of disclosure and accountability." ...

... Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "The normally cool and calm director of the CIA, John Brennan, may have flinched Tuesday. After a scathing speech from Sen. Dianne Feinstein..., Brennan largely defended the CIA from charges that it illegally spied on Senate staffers.... But the CIA chief also left open the prospect that he may have been wrong. 'If I did something wrong,' Brennan said. 'I will go to the president and I will explain to him what I did and what the findings were. And he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go.'" CW: Sounds as if he's typed his resignation letter & is prepared to, well, fall on it. Which could lead to a paper cut, not a pre-existing condition that would preclude his getting a lucrative private-sector job. ...

... Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "... Edward Snowden accused the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee of double standards on Tuesday, pointing out that her outrage at evidence her staff were spied on by the CIA was not matched by concern about widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens." ...

If it is correct that the CIA breached the security of Senate computers, that is a very serious allegation. I would note, it is consistent with a pattern of the Obama administration, of disregarding the constitutional liberties of the citizenry and disrespecting the constitutional role of the United States Congress. And I would say that protecting the institutional authority of the U.S. Congress is not helped, when during the State of the Union, President Obama says, 'If Congress won't act, I will,' and virtually every Democrat in Congress stands and cheers. -- Sen. Ted Cruz (RTP-Texas)., forgetting to specifically mention Benghaaazi! ...

... David Corn of Mother Jones: "What Feinstein didn't say -- but it's surely implied -- is that without effective monitoring, secret government cannot be justified in a democracy. This is indeed a defining moment. It's a big deal for President Barack Obama, who, as is often noted in these situations, once upon a time taught constitutional law. Feinstein has ripped open a scab to reveal a deep wound that has been festering for decades. The president needs to respond in a way that demonstrates he is serious about making the system work and restoring faith in the oversight of the intelligence establishment. This is more than a spies-versus-pols DC turf battle. It is a constitutional crisis." ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "There were crimes, after September 11th, that took place in hidden rooms with video cameras running. And then there were coverups, a whole series of them, escalating from the destruction of the videotapes to the deleting of documents to what Feinstein now calls 'a defining moment' in the constitutional balance between the legislature and the executive branch, and between privacy and surveillance. Senator Patrick Leahy said afterward that he could not remember a speech he considered so important." ...

... Dana Milbank: "President Obama's foes have been trying for years to uncover scandal in his administration. But the most damning allegation of wrongdoing was leveled on the Senate floor Tuesday morning -- by ... Dianne Feinstein.... The White House needs to cough up documents it is withholding from the public, and it should remove the CIA officials involved and subject them to an independent prosecutor's investigation. ...

... Maureen Dowd: "Barack Obama, the former Constitutional law teacher who became president vowing to clean up the excesses and Constitutional corrosion of W. and Cheney, will now have to clean up the excesses and Constitutional corrosion in his own administration. And he'd better get out from between two ferns and get in between the warring Congressional Democrats and administration officials -- all opening criminal investigations of each other -- because it looks as if the C.I.A. is continuing to run amok to cover up what happened in the years W. and Vice encouraged it to run amok. Langley needs a come-to-Jesus moment -- pronto." ...

... CW BTW: If you didn't watch Zack Galifianakis's "Between the Ferns" "interview" of President Obama yesterday, you missed something. President Obama is an excellent comedian. Although I had no trouble playing it early in the day yesterday, I did notice that there were loading problems both with my embed & at the Funny or Die site, as there are now (late Tuesday). An unintentional tribute to Healthcare.gov, I guess. (I had better luck in Chrome than in Firefox.) ...

Abe Lincoln would never have appeared on 'Funny or Die.' -- Bill O'Reilly

[Lincoln was] 'the first authentic humorist to occupy the Executive Office in Washington, his gift of laughter and his flair for the funny being taken as a national belonging. -- Carl Sandburg (via Steve M.)

Personally, I believe that Zack Galifianakis is a Russian agent. You would, too, if you followed O'Reilly's logic. Also, As Steve M. points out, O'Reilly -- the supposed co-author of a book about Lincoln -- seems to know nothing about Lincoln. But, hey -- Bill O'Reilly, Carl Sandburg -- who ya gonna believe? -- Constant Weader

** David Firestone, of the New York Times, responding to commenters' claims that unions "far outspend" the Koch brothers' political contributions: "... unions poured about $400 million into the 2012 elections. That almost matched the $407 million raised and spent by the Koch network in that same election cycle. Two brothers, aided by a small and shadowy group of similarly wealthy donors, spent more than millions of union members.... For the most part, unions, unlike the Koch network, don't try to disguise their contributions in a maze of interlocking 'social welfare' groups.... There's a world of difference between a small group of tycoons writing huge checks, and a huge group of workers writing small ones." P.S. Many Times commenters are ignorant, as is Kim Stassel of the Wall Street Journal.

Eduardo Porter of the New York Times: "In his bracing 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century,' which hit bookstores on Monday, Professor [Thomas] Piketty provides a fresh and sweeping analysis of the world's economic history.... The economic forces concentrating more and more wealth into the hands of the fortunate few are almost sure to prevail for a very long time. It is possible to slow, or even reverse, the trend, if political leaders like President Obama, who proposed that income inequality was the 'defining challenge of our time,' really push." Porter has a Q&A with Piketty here.

Michael Shear & Steven Greenblatt of the New York Times: "President Obama this week will seek to force American businesses to pay more overtime to millions of workers, the latest move by his administration to confront corporations that have had soaring profits even as wages have stagnated. On Thursday, the president will direct the Labor Department to revamp its regulations to require overtime pay for several million additional fast-food managers, loan officers, computer technicians and others whom many businesses currently classify as 'executive or professional' employees to avoid paying them overtime...."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Almost a million people signed up last month for private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, federal officials said Tuesday, bringing the total to date to 4.2 million but leaving the Obama administration well short of its original goal, with less than a month to go before the end of the open enrollment period."

The '60s Are Back. Emily Bazelon of Slate: "What the religious right really thinks of birth control: ... Protected sex demeans women by making men disrespect them.... By separating sex from childbearing, birth control is to blame for the erosion of marriage, for the economic difficulties of single motherhood, and even for the rotten behavior of men who beat their girlfriends and wives. Birth control is the original sin of modernity. Its widespread availability changed everything, for the worse." The right of women to have protected sexual relations is what the Supreme Court will decide in two cases coming before it this year.

Charlie Savage of the New York Times & Laura Poitras: Documents leaked by Edward Snowden "add new details to the emerging public understanding of a secret body of law that the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance C]ourt has developed since 2001. The files help explain how the court evolved from its original task -- approving wiretap requests -- to engaging in complex analysis of the law to justify activities like the bulk collection of data about Americans' emails and phone calls."

Nicholas Watt of the Guardian: "The European Union is on course to impose travel bans and to freeze the assets of Russian officials and military officers involved in the occupation of Crimea by next Monday if Moscow declines to accept the formation of a 'contact group' to establish a dialogue with Ukraine."

Where in the World Is Russ Feingold? Stuart Reid has the answer in a long Politico Magazine piece.

Congressional Race

Alex Cleary, et al., of the Tampa Bay Times: "Republican David Jolly on Tuesday night won the closely-watched, extremely expensive and relentlessly negative battle for Florida's 13th Congressional District, signaling trouble for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections and face the weight of Obamacare.... Jolly's victory over Democrat Alex Sink was secured about 7:30 p.m., and he will fill the seat that had been occupied more than four decades by his former boss, Rep. C.W. Bill Young, whose death in October set off the special election."

Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal: "Tuesday night's special election in Florida should be a serious scare for Democrats who worry that Obamacare will be a major burden for their party in 2014. Despite recruiting favored candidate Alex Sink, outspending Republicans, and utilizing turnout tools to help motivate reliable voters, Democrats still lost to Republican lobbyist David Jolly -- and it wasn't particularly close."

Greg Sargent: "... there are too many variables in play to say whether this means Dems will be in serious trouble in states like Michigan and Colorado many months from now. Maybe they will be, but we just don;t know yet." ...

** Charles Pierce: "If you want to take any lesson from the election in Florida, take this one. Defend the [Affordable Care Act]. Defend it on the basis of the fact that millions of people no longer face economic ruin because a member of their family might get sick. Defend the law on the basis of economic populism; marry your support for the law to an increase in the minimum wage, Elizabeth Warren's student-loan reform, and expanded unemployment benefits. (Tie it to this excellent idea that the president announced today.) Explain, in detail, why expanding Social Security makes sense in a stalled economy. Defend the law on the basis of the fact that the Republicans have absolutely nothing to offer on the issue...."

David Nir of Daily Kos: "Daily Kos Elections is moving this [November's] race [for Florida's 13th] from Tossup to Lean Republican, though we anticipate it will become less competitive and not more so in the future."

Beyond the Beltway Disgusting

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "... New Hampshire Republican ... State Rep. Kyle Tasker (R-Nottingham) posted an image Monday on his public Facebook page that showed two figures engaged in oral sex with the caption, '50,000 battered women and I still eat [mine] plain.'" ...

... William Tucker of Miscellany.blue posts the original Facebook entry. ...

... CW: New Hampshire legislators receive a salary of $100/year. Tasker is overpaid. His colleagues should impeach him.

News Ledes

New York Times: "After four days of reticence and evasive answers, the Malaysian military acknowledged on Wednesday that it had recorded, but initially ignored, radar signalsthat could have prompted a mission to intercept and track a missing jetliner -- data that vastly expands the area where the plane might have traveled. Radar signals from the location where the missing aircraft, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, was last contacted by ground controllers suggested that the plane may have turned away from its northeastward.... Military radar then detected an unidentified aircraft at several points, apparently headed west across the Malay Peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean, the head of the country's air force told reporters. The last detected location was hundreds of miles to the west of where search and rescue efforts were initially focused."

New York Times: "The nutritional supplement company Herbalife said on Wednesday that it had received a civil investigative demandfrom the Federal Trade Commission. The company has been the focus of a 15-month crusade by the hedge fund billionaire William A. Ackman, who has accused the company of being a pyramid scheme and has wagered $1 billion on its collapse."