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."

The Commentariat -- January 7, 2014

Internal links removed.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "A Democratic push to extend unemployment benefits that have expired moved forward in the Senate on Tuesday morning, barely avoiding a Republican filibuster. The 60-to-37 vote to take up a three-month extension of benefits passed with no room to spare, which will set off negotiations to try to pass the bill later this week. Even some of the Republicans who voted yes want the cost of the extension set off by cuts elsewhere in the budget." CW: The six Repubicans who voted for the bill were Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire), Dan Coats (Indiana), Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nevada), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) & Rob Portman (Ohio).

Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "The Senate confirmed Janet L. Yellen as the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve on Monday, marking the first time that a woman has led the country's central bank in its 100-year history.... Ms. Yellen was confirmed 56 to 26, with many senators kept away from the Capitol due to inclement weather. Nearly one dozen Republicans -- including Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma -- crossed the aisle in support of Ms. Yellen. Ms. Yellen will be the first Democratic nominee to run the Fed since President Jimmy Carter named Paul Volcker as chairman in 1979. Still, it is the thinnest margin of Senate approval for a Fed chairman in the central bank's history." ...

... The President's statement is here.

David Espo of the AP: "The Senate plunged into an election-year session Monday that promises to be long on political maneuvering and less so on accomplishment, beginning with a slow-motion struggle over legislation to renew lapsed jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. 'I'm optimistic, cautiously optimistic, that the new year will bring a renewed spirit of cooperation to this chamber,' said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the first remarks of the year on the Senate floor. Within moments, he pivoted, accusing Republicans of 'never ending obstruction' to President Barack Obama's proposals over the past five years." ...

... Burgess Everett of Politico: "The chances of the Senate moving forward with legislation that would restore expired unemployment benefits dimmed Monday. The bill's fate hung in the balance all day as Democrats desperately sought Republican votes to advance the bill. In a sign of how seriously the White House is taking the issue, President Barack Obama personally worked the phone lines." ...

... "Where Have All the Democrats Gone?" Dana Milbank: "It's hard to imagine a better gift falling into their laps: Republicans have just thrown 1.3 million unemployed Americans out into the cold and are prepared to cut off 3.6 million others who are out of work.... But in the two hours the Senate spent debating unemployment insurance Monday afternoon, only three Democrats showed up to talk: Harry Reid (Nev.), the soft-spoken majority leader, read a brief yet somniferous speech. Patrick Leahy (Vt.) offered a few words -- on immigration. Jack Reed (R.I.) delivered a professorial 20-minute lecture in support of extending jobless benefits. And then the chamber went silent for the next hour and 20 minutes -- in a quorum call because nobody else wanted to talk."

Charles Pierce has some thoughts on the "two freaking unaccountable guys" -- a/k/a David & Charles Koch -- who, with the help of the Supreme Court, have created a labyrinth of organized money that "has bought virtual plutocracy in state governments from Wisconsin to North Carolina. It has bought itself the single worst Congress in the history of the Republic. And it is growing in strength, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it, because Citizens United was decided in such a way as to choke off any regulatory solutions, and then Shelby County came along as the hook off the jab and what electoral remedies could not be buried under the floodtide of money could be washed away by the state legislatures in those virtual plutocracies."

Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson filed a lawsuit Monday in an attempt to block the federal government from helping to pay for health care coverage for members of Congress and their staffs. Johnson's filing further stirred a rift within his own party over how Republicans should attack the health care law. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a fellow Wisconsin Republican and ardent Obamacare critic, said Monday he personally appealed to Johnson on Friday to not file the lawsuit.... Sensenbrenner, who even before Johnson filed his suit called the litigation 'an unfortunate political stunt' that 'focuses on trivial issues,' amplified his criticism Monday." And there's this: Johnson "plans to raise money through his campaign account to fund the lawsuit. Johnson, who put nearly $9 million of his own money into his 2010 run for the Senate, said he may also use personal funds for the litigation." ...

... CW: When Jim Sensenbrenner, best know for impeaching Clinton & remarking on Michelle Obama's "big butt," is the voice of reason in your party, your party sucks. Also worth emphasizing: Johnson is a multi-multimillionaire. Many Congressional staffers earn in the $50K/year range. These are the people he wants to prevent from receiving assistance in paying for their health insurance. The suit is not just a political stunt; it's a nasty political stunt. ...

... Ryan Cooper of the Washington Post notes that Johnson's lawsuit is part of the "Benghazi-fication of ObamaCare."

Dan Williams of Reuters: "Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden has more secrets to reveal that relate to Israel..., [Glenn Greenwald] said on Monday ... in an Israeli television interview."

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "... on a night nearly 43 years ago, while Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier bludgeoned each other over 15 rounds in a televised title bout viewed by millions around the world, burglars ... broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation office in a suburb of Philadelphia, making off with nearly every document inside. They were never caught, and the stolen documents that they mailed anonymously to newspaper reporters were the first trickle of what would become a flood of revelations about extensive spying and dirty-tricks operations by the F.B.I. against dissident groups." The statute of limitations has long expired, and the burglars are now going public; Betty Medsger, who first reported on the contents of the files for the WashPo, has written a book about the break-in & discoveries.

Joe Nocera writes a worthwhile column on the digital economy -- how digital networking has helped to gut the middle class & how it could be revolutionized to enhance it. "'If Google and Facebook were smart,' [Jaron Lanier, the author of Who Owns the Future,] said, 'they would want to enrich their own customers.' So far, he adds, Silicon Valley has made 'the stupid choice' -- to grow their businesses at the expense of their own customers."

National Review Editors: "Launching 17 million 'Rocky Mountain High' jokes, Colorado has become the first state to make the prudent choice of legalizing the consumption and sale of marijuana, thus dispensing with the charade of medical restrictions and recognizing the fact that, while some people smoke marijuana to counter the effects of chemotherapy, most people smoke marijuana to get high -- and that is not the worst thing in the world." CW: David Brooks, whose first job was with the National Review, must be devastated.

It's a Cold Day in America. Which means it's time for Jim Inhofe (RStupid-Okla.) to take to the Senate Floor to scoff at the crazy notion of climate change. Besides not understanding that climate change helps explain the extremely cold weather we're having (and, yes, Jimbo, there is a difference between climate & weather), Sen. Science there doesn't seem to know the difference between the North & South Poles. This is entirely appropriate because in Right Wing World down is up and up is down. ...

... Andy Borowitz: "The so-called polar vortex caused hundreds of injuries across the Midwest today, as people who said 'so much for global warming' and similar comments were punched in the face."

** Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "When not attempting to shame their enemies on trumped-up charges of racism, the conservative movement busies itself appealing to actual racists." CW: Coates' post is part of our continuing effort to try to distinguish the behavior norms of left versus right. Coates get it just right in regard to racism. His regard for Harris-Perry, however, is somewhat overblown. I don't think, as does Coates, that Harris-Perry is "America's foremost public intellectual." ...

     ... Nor is David Brooks (see link below re: boutique hotels), whom actual intellectuals mistake for a public intellectual, suggesting that actual intellectuals hold the "public" ones in low regard. (In this interview, Brooks essentially describes himself as better than America's foremost public intellectuals. He talks to presidents! while the lowly intellectuals haven't the access he has.)

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) explains in a Politico essay how the House GOP's use of "closed rules" "has excluded most House members from full participation in the legislative process [and] ... has also empowered the most extreme members of the House to pursue narrow policy goals at all costs, triggering a government shutdown, debt-limit brinksmanship and partisan stalemates that are seemingly the new norm."

GOP to Go All Out for Anti-Woman Vote. Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "The Republican National Committee (RNC) will make accommodations to its official schedule this month to allow members to participate in the March for Life, a national anti-abortion protest held on each anniversary of Roe v. Wade.... In addition to modifying the RNC's schedule, [RNC Chairman Reince] Priebus is also arranging for buses to transport members to and from the March for Life activities." ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: " Rescheduling your annual political meeting so that your party members can be seen parading around demanding that abortion be banned is a dramatic statement, but perhaps not as dramatic as choosing to first shop the story to the Washington Times. Good gawd, Reince, did you have to deliver it in crayon?"

Ken Belson & Alan Schwarz of the New York Times: "The N.F.L. and lawyers for the more than 4,000 former players who said the league hid from them the dangers of repeated head hits have agreed on the details of a $760 million settlement that could determine how retirees with head trauma are compensated."

Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "An eruption of violence in Iraq is threatening to undo much of what U.S. troops appeared to have accomplished before they withdrew, putting the country's stability on the line and raising the specter of a new civil war in a region already buckling under the strain of the conflict in Syria."

Completely ignoring the mass-bashing of his last column on the Evils of Weed, David Brooks has turned to an important op-ed topic: boutique hotels. Honest-to-god. Boutique hotels. "A basic rule of happiness," Brooks writes, "is don't buy things; buy experiences." CW: No doubt the subtext here is a not-too-subtle message to his (ex)wife: "I am getting laid, Sarah or Jane or whatever your name is now, and this is happening in edgy, boutique hotels where my 'cultural discernment' shines." I do not think I can get through the Brooks divorce.

Congressional Races 2014

Larry Sabato in Politico Magazine: "Republicans Really Could Win It All This Year."

Todd Purdum in Politico: Liz "Cheney's campaign -- notable for its vocal (and seemingly newfound) opposition to gay marriage, which soured her relations with her own openly gay sister, Mary -- was as ham-fisted as it was polarizing. A University of Chicago-trained lawyer and political appointee in the George W. Bush-era State Department, Cheney had virtually no experience in the policy areas that matter most in Wyoming: public lands and grazing rights; minerals and mining; oil and gas extraction. She made one unforced error after another, from claiming 10-year residency on her application for a state fishing license (she only moved to the state from Virginia in 2012), to opposing taxes on Internet retailers just as local Wyoming merchants were gearing up for the recent Christmas sales season." ...

... Evan Osnos of the New Yorker with more on the Cheney debacle.

Presidential Election 2016

Dave Weigel of Slate interviews "former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the Democrat most likely to challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016." CW: Just a hoot.

Local News

Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog has an excellent post explaining the Supreme Court's decision to temporarily block gay marriages in Utah.

Jason Meisner of the Chicago Tribune: U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang "today declared Chicago's ordinance banning the sale of firearms in the city unconstitutional. The ruling is the latest legal blow to the city, which has lost a series of court challenges by the National Rifle Association since the Supreme Court forced the city to rewrite its blanket ban on handguns three years ago.... Chang delayed his ruling from taking effect to allow the city time to appeal." CW: Chang is an Obama appointee.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Two ships immobilized by ice floes near Antarctica broke free on Tuesday, news agencies reported."

AFP: "The United States said Tuesday it would send another 800 troops to South Korea as the allies warned North Korea against any provocation, amid deepening worries over the regime's stability. Amid concern after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un executed his uncle, Secretary of State John Kerry met in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se and said there was 'not a sliver of daylight' between the two countries."

Guardian: "At least four people have been killed after a US military helicopter crashed during a training exercise near a Royal Air Force base close to the north Norfolk coast."

Guardian: "South Sudanese rebels and a government delegation started peace talks on Tuesday to try to end fighting that has left the world's newest state on the brink of civil war."

CNN: "The historic freeze that proved too cold for polar bears in the Midwest is spreading, dropping temperatures in the eastern third of the country about 20 degrees below normal for Tuesday, forecasters said. Meanwhile, much of the Deep South is frozen solid, with hard freeze warnings in effect Tuesday from eastern Texas to the Florida Panhandle."

Washington Post: 'The Justice Department announced Tuesday a $1.7 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase to resolve allegations that the behemoth bank did not warn the government of Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Federal prosecutors say JPMorgan, which served as Madoff's bank for two decades, failed to comply with a federal law that requires banks to file a 'suspicious activity' report when a transaction raises alarm. The nation's biggest bank reported its suspicions of Madoff's business to British authorities in 2008 but did not alert anyone in the United States."

Reuters: "Iran on Monday appeared to rule out participation in Syrian peace talks later this month, dismissing a U.S. suggestion that it could be involved 'from the sidelines' as not respecting its dignity."

AP: "The U.N.'s human rights office has stopped updating the death toll from Syria's civil war, confirming Tuesday that it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July."

The Commentariat -- January 6, 2014

Internal links removed.

Most of the people I meet who are on unemployment are people who have had jobs for 25 years, lost them, they've been knocking on doors every week. I think it's a little insulting, a bit insulting to American workers when Rand Paul says that unemployment insurance is a disservice. They want to work, they don't want unemployment benefits. They're just hanging on with unemployment benefits, you cut them off, they may lose the house they paid for, take their kids out of college. So I would hope he would reconsider, past the three month extension. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on ABC's "This Week" Sunday ...

... Mike Lillis & Vicki Needham of the Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) remains open to an extension of emergency unemployment benefits even in the face of growing conservative opposition to such a move. The Ohio Republican maintains the position he expressed last month that Republicans would 'clearly consider' an extension of federal help for the long-term unemployed 'as long as it's paid for and as long as there are other efforts that will help get our economy moving once again,' Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Friday." ...

... E. J. Dionne sees a United States of America. The majority of Americans favor unemployment compensation and other New Deal-y programs; it is Congressional Republicans who are out-of-step. ...

... Alec MacGillis of the New Republic on the Boeing machinist union's forced capitulation to Boeing's demands. "But to really address the underlying trends will also mean taking on the more fundamental forces that lead to an outcome like we just saw in the Puget Sound: strengthening labor laws and unions in right-to-work states...; raising taxes on upper incomes and capital gains to slightly rebalance the equation...; and, perhaps most difficult of all, changing the norms for acceptable behavior by corporate titans, even if they've been named to the presidential exports council." This is an excellent piece, which P. D. Pepe linked in yesterday's Comments. MacGillis asks a question which demands -- and will not receive -- a federal answer: strengthening unions nationwide.

Brian Knowlton of the New York Times: "A debate over whether Edward J. Snowden deserves lenience or the strict treatment the Obama administration has demanded for divulging a vast array of national secrets drew sharply opposing views on Sunday from two prominent senators. Senator Rand Paul ... said he disagreed with those who have argued for the most severe penalties for Mr. Snowden.... Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, took a directly opposing view. 'I disagree with Rand Paul that we should plea-bargain with him prior to him coming back,' Mr. Schumer said." ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker disagrees with Fred Kaplan's required Reality Chex reading. Her major point sounds like a quibble to me: Kaplan wrote that Snowden "signed an oath ... not to disclose classified information, and knew the penalties for violating the oath." But Davidson says he did not sign an oath; instead, he signed "a contract in which the signatory says he will 'accept' the terms, rather than swearing to them." Her argument then is that breaking a contractual agreement is not as bad as breaking one's word. Okay. Of course, she writes much more than that. ...

... Gene Lyons, noted hyperbolist, takes down novice hyperbolist Ed Snowden. CW: Lyons get a lot right, but he gets some pretty important stuff wrong, too: ferinstance, Snowden is probably not -- by the Constitutional definition -- a traitor, as Lyons claims, unless Snowden has been sending stuff to Al Qaeda & North Korea." Thanks to Barbarossa for the link.

Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors.... The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups.... Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations." ...

... Matea Gold: "The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics identified a coalition of allied conservative groups active in the 2012 elections that together raised at least $407 million, backed by a donor network organized by the industrialists Charles and David Koch." Gold lists the coalition's current members. A graphic here shows how the organizations interact.

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "On the 50th anniversary of LBJ's initiative, [the War on Poverty,] Marco Rubio says it failed.... But the policies did succeed -- Democrats are just afraid to say so.... We have not, of course, been fighting any kind of serious war on poverty for five decades. We fought it with truly adequate funding for about one decade.... By 1981, Ronald Reagan's government was fighting a war on the war on poverty. The fate of many anti-poverty programs has ebbed and flowed ever since. But at the beginning, in the '60s, those programs were fully funded, or close. And what happened? According to Joseph Califano, who worked in the Johnson White House, 'the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century.' That's a staggering 43 percent reduction. In six years." ...

... Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Half a century after Mr. Johnson’s now-famed State of the Union address, the debate over the government’s role in creating opportunity and ending deprivation has flared anew, with inequality as acute as it was in the Roaring Twenties and the ranks of the poor and near-poor at record highs."

Larry Summers, in a Washington Post op-ed, uses terms like "secular stagnation" to say that if the economy keeps going as it is, bubbles will grow & burst, & one way to avert that is to have the federal invest in infrastructure. I don't know if the guy really cannot communicate with the average reading public or if he can't help showing off. In any event, he's a terrible writer.

Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Ben Protess of the New York Times: JPMorgan Chase "plans to reach as soon as this week roughly $2 billion in criminal and civil settlements with federal authorities who suspect that it ignored signs of Bernard L. Madoff's Ponzi scheme, according to people briefed on the case."

Linda Greenhouse on the Fair Sentencing Act: When new laws call for more leniency, shouldn't that leniency apply retroactively? ...

... CW: Luckily for me, my own excellent Congressman Trey Radel (RTP-Fla.) is as white as, well the driven snow, & he will be going back to doing the people's work today now that his cocaine bust is behind him.

Jordan Sargent of Gawker: "Republican congressman Aaron Schock -- who represents Illinois' 18th congressional district -- is known for one thing: being pretty and probably-almost-certainly gay. Schock is anti-gay on the record and he's frequently affirmed his straightness, but he may be feeling a gust of air this morning thanks to a sledgehammer wielded by journalist Itay Hod." ...

... Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic objects to Hod's methods, which are at best sophomoric.

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "After a two-week vacation on the windward side of Oahu, ensconced with his family in a private beachfront rental, President Obama prepared on Saturday to return to the chillier clime -- both politically and weather-wise -- of the nation's capital."

Politico publishes an adaptation of a portion of a new book by CIA attorney John Rizzo. In this section, Rizzo recalls the decision-making process that allowed the CIA to use waterboarding & other "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" like sleep deprivation.

Another Right-Wing Senator Sues Instead of Legislating. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.): "On Monday, Jan. 6, I am filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America. By arranging for me and other members of Congress and their staffs to receive benefits intentionally ruled out by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the administration has exceeded its legal authority." ...

... ObamaCare is Doomed! ObamaCare Is a Scandal! Jonathan Chait: "... the nature of [Republican] opposition [to ObamaCare] will ... slowly morph. Gleeful predictions of imminent collapse will give way to bitter recriminations at the nefarious tactics used to make the law work. Obamacare will cease to be the something certain to destroy Obama and become something Obama has gotten away with." CW: Chait cites some recent Republican potshots at the law. Johnson's is another one. ...

... Noam Scheiber of the New Republic is optimistic: he says "ObamaCare actually paves the way to single-payer." CW: Despite the way Scheiber frames his post, he is actually saying pretty much the same thing Michael Moore said in a NYT op-ed; Scheiber is just providing more examples of how he thinks politicians will be forced to morph ObamaCare into a single-payer system.

A climate denier studies global warming.Eric Holthaus of the Daily Beast explains to climate deniers why scientists theorize that global warming is causing this week's (and others, of course) deep freeze. I don't think people who keep their ears covered in all weather conditions while yelling "La La La" & shutting their eyes tight will get this.

Here's Mitt Romney's response to the Melissa Harris-Perry segment. I think he did fine. Chris Wallace, however, couldn't let it go:

Bob Schieffer has had about enough of Peggy Noonan -- which does make you wonder why his producers book Our Lady of Las Contras:

... Lest you have forgot why Peggy Noonan should know who was a Sandinista & who was not, David of Crooks & Liars reminds you of why she should know. ...

... Save the Children! Charles Pierce recaps Sunday show highlights. It turns out that almost everybody on these shows -- with the exception of Republican Steve Schmidt -- is a David Brooks clone, as if you didn't already know. ...

... Save the Children! Driftglass recaps Sunday show highlights. It turns out that almost everybody on these shows is a David Brooks clone, & the evidence suggests Greggers has a contractual obligation to recite Brooks verbatim.

Senate Race

Buh-bye to a Daughter of a Dick. John King & Peter Hamby of CNN: "Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday." CW: Worth Noting: Enzi himself is a Son of a Bitch. ...

... Brent Logiurato of Business Insider: "There was little public polling conducted on the race, but each public and partisan poll showed Enzi with wide leads." ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Liz Cheney announced early Monday morning that she is withdrawing from the Wyoming Republican Senate primary, bringing an abrupt end to her unsteady challenge to the incumbent, Michael B. Enzi. 'Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign,' Ms. Cheney said in a statement. 'My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority.'" Cheney didn't say what the health issues were. ...

... Margaret Hartmann of New York: "On the plus side, thanks to her public feud with her lesbian sister over gay marriage, Liz now knows she's Dick and Lynne Cheney's favorite daughter."

Presidential Race 2016

Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Publicly, [Hillary] Clinton insists she's many months away from a decision about her political future. But a shadow campaign on her behalf has nevertheless been steadily building for the better part of a year -- a quiet, intensifying, improvisational effort to lay the groundwork for another White House bid. Some of the activity has the former first lady's tacit approval. Some involves outside groups that are operating independently, and at times in competition with one another, to prepare a final career act for the former senator and secretary of state, whose legacy as the most powerful woman in the history of American politics is already secure." ...

... CW: Since Haberman's story is about a shadow campaign, not a shadowy candidate, this photo that accompanies the piece is a low blow:

AP photo.

Local News

** AP Brief: " The Supreme Court has put same-sex marriages on hold in Utah, at least while a federal appeals court more fully considers the issue. The court issued a brief order Monday blocking any new same-sex unions in the state."

     ... Update. Adam Liptak of the New York Times has a fuller story.

Alex Altman of Time: "The early success of pot's pilot program [in Colorado] was ushered in by a phenomenon almost as rare: a government working as it should."

News Ledes

Live Science: "A blast of Arctic air pushing south as far as Atlanta has caused air temperatures across the United States to plunge, creating a massive 140-degree Fahrenheit (77 degrees Celsius) temperature difference between the chilly Dakotas and balmy Florida yesterday (Jan. 5)."

New York Times: "Iran could improve its chances of playing at least a limited role in the upcoming peace conference on Syria if it persuaded President Bashar al-Assad to stop the bombardment of Aleppo and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged towns and cities, senior State Department officials said on Monday."