The Commentariat -- April 3, 2013

** New York Times Editors: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gets it wrong on the political climate at the time the Court decided Roe v. Wade. Her misunderstanding could negatively affect how she helps decide the gay marriage cases before the Court now. ...

... AND, as Maureen Dowd points out, it's the Supremes who are behind the times now, not the public. So Ginsburg is doubly wrong.

Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: President "Obama was traveling to the Denver suburbs Wednesday, stepping up his call for universal background checks for gun buyers as well as his demands for Congress to at least vote on an assault weapons ban and limits on large-capacity ammunition magazines." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "With Senate Democrats still struggling to line up support, the success or failure of President Obama's four-month campaign to overhaul gun laws will most likely revolve around a single provision: a proposal to expand federal background checks for gun purchases.... Even though around 90 percent of those polled in public surveys support background checks, the fight for it and the rest of the first major piece of gun control legislation since 1993 faces a difficult test in the coming weeks." ...

... Peter Finn of the Washington Post: "A 225-page study commissioned by the National Rifle Association has endorsed and amplified the gun rights group's immediate response to the mass killing in Newtown, Conn.: that all schools in the United States should have police or armed staff members trained to confront a shooter. Although ostensibly independent of the NRA, the examination of school safety issues, released Tuesday, provides the organization with an alternative narrative to the various gun control measures on Capitol Hill that it is opposing or seeking to dilute." CW: a study! I'll bet it's really scientific & all. ...

... Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas who led the task force, unveiled the report at a packed news conference with unusually heavy security, including a bomb-sniffing yellow Labrador retriever. A dozen officers in plain clothes and uniforms stood watch as he spoke; one warned photographers to 'remain stationary' during the event." ...

... ** Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "In a spectacle that officials at the National Press Club said they had never seen before, the NRA gunmen directed some photographers not to take pictures, ordered reporters out of the lobby when NRA officials passed and inspected reporters' briefcases before granting them access to the news conference. The antics gave new meaning to the notion of disarming your critics." If the NRA prevails, "American schoolchildren may grow accustomed to the sort of scene Hutchinson caused Tuesday, protected by more armed guards than a Third World dictator." ...

... Charles Pierce: "Well, the NRA has managed to come up with its 'Guns For Everybody School Safety Plan' and it contains pretty much what you'd expect it to contain, including whole new markets and increased profits for the guns-and-ammo manufacturers that represent the NRA's primary constituency.

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place. President Obama's economic advisers and outside experts say the nation's much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened by the recession."

Jonathan Bernstein, in the Washington Post: "Media Matters has noticed something important: Climate was almost completely absent on the national broadcast network news last year. Only twelve stories, combined, on the CBS, ABC, and NBC news shows, were devoted to the topic -- which certainly has a legitimate claim as the single most important policy problem facing the United States right now." Bernstein says to get climate change in the news, politicians need to talk about it more often. ...

... Media Matters has a "Take Action" petition here. ...

... Matthew Wald of the New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency's latest proposed tightening of limits on sulfur in gasoline, and its previous rules, will most likely have the perverse consequence of retarding the development of cars running on batteries, advanced biofuels or hydrogen -- all promising but expensive technologies that have not become mass-market products. At the least, domestically produced gasoline and rapid advances in technology to make the internal combustion engine more efficient are likely to help the conventional automobile survive against competition from vehicles powered by electricity, natural gas and other cleaner alternatives." CW: this is a "perverse consequence" we're lucky to have.

Dion Nissenbaum of the Wall Street Journal: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to voluntarily give up part of his $200,000 annual salary in solidarity with about 700,000 of his civilian workers facing mandatory furloughs this summer ... even though his paycheck is immune from the mandatory cuts."

Words Matter. Paul Colford of the AP: "The AP Stylebook today is making some changes in how we describe people living in a country illegally. Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explains...: 'The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term "illegal immigrant" or the use of "illegal" to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that "illegal" should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.'" CW: to Rep. Don Young's (R-Alaska) dismay, the AP Stylebook has also dropped "wetback" from its list of acceptable descriptors. ...

 ... Margaret Sullivan of the New York Times: "The Times, for the past couple of months, has also been considering changes to its stylebook entry on this term and will probably announce them to staff members this week....From what I can gather, The Times's changes will not be nearly as sweeping as The A.P.’s." CW: For instance, the Times will continue to permit the use of terms like "beaner," where appropriate. ...

Washington Post Editors: Sen. Marco Slo-Mo "Rubio [R-Fla.] appears paralyzed -- or to be trying to have it both ways. At first he led the charge, trying to brand an overhaul of the immigration system as his signature achievement. Then, when progress was made last weekend, he backed away, warning that talk of a breakthrough was premature.... [But] it's one or the other; Mr. Rubio needs to decide."

... SO, expect reactions like this one from the person who writes the Right Scoop: "I refuse to call illegals by any other name, no matter how insensitive people are going to claim it is. Because that is next, papers and news orgs will fall in line and minorities here illegally will begin claiming discrimination in a louder voice and pretty soon saying 'illegal' when referring to someone will be akin to hate-speech." CW: mind you, there's not an iota of hate in her/his big heart. ...

... Weasel Zippers calls the change a "major victory for the lib PC enforcers." ...

... AND Allahpundit at Hot Air sees an insidious liberal plot: "The timing here suggests that this is the AP's dumb little way of cheerleading for immigration reform in Congress...."

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog: "Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois became the second GOP Senator to endorse gay marriage today...." ...

... Justin Sink of the Hill: "Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said Tuesday he now supports same-sex marriage, now leaving just seven Senate Democrats who have not publicly voiced support for allowing gays to marry. 'As our society has changed and evolved, so too has the public's opinion on gay marriage -- and so has mine,' Carper said in a post to his Facebook page." ...

... Rep. John Carney, also a Delaware Democrat and the only Delaware representative in the House, announced his support for same-sex marriage today, too. ...

... Josh Israel of Think Progress notes that "With Vice President Joe Biden the tie-breaker, this marks the first time that a majority in the U.S. Senate has endorsed same-sex marriage." CW: yet another reason the filibuster matters. ...

... Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs provides some examples of how wingers are responding to the senators' announcements. I won't reproduce any of the remarks here.

Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "... the Atlanta school cheating scandal, the largest in recent history..., is fueling critics who say that standardized testing as a way to measure student achievement should be scaled back."

Jim Williams of the Pew Public Policy Center: "On our national poll this week we took the opportunity to poll 20 widespread and/or infamous conspiracy theories. Many of these theories are well known to the public, others perhaps to just the darker corners of the internet. Here's what we found: 37% of voters believe global warming is a hoax, 51% do not. Republicans say global warming is a hoax by a 58-25 margin, Democrats disagree 11-77, and Independents are more split at 41-51. 61% of Romney voters believe global warming is a hoax." CW: this one is scary, but the rest of the results are more fun.

Congressional Races

Steve Holland of Reuters: "President Barack Obama will launch a fund-raising drive for the 2014 U.S. mid-term elections on Wednesday with addresses to deep-pocketed donors in California, hoping the Democratic Party can defy the odds and gain congressional seats in the polls."

Bruce Smith of the AP: Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford won the Republican primary race to fill a vacant Congressional seat in South Carolina. Sanford "faces Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, in a May 7 special election." ...

... Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal: Colbert Busch could beat Sanford. ...

... Even Politico is wary of Sanford's chances. Alex Isenstadt: "Fellow GOP pols don't like him. Neither do female voters. His campaign is largely an exercise in seeking forgiveness for his transgressions four years ago -- a defensive crouch that makes it tricky to take the fight to Colbert Busch...."

Local News

Michael Wilson & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: according to a criminal complaint which federal prosecutors unsealed Tuesday, influential state Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Democrat turned Republican, & Queens City Councilman Daniel Halloran, a Republican, conspired with others to buy Smith the Republican nomination for mayor of New York City. "Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan whose office is prosecuting the case, said the arrests demonstrated 'that a show-me-the-money culture seems to pervade every level of New York government.'" ...

... Jim Dwyer of the Times has more. ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the Times: "The charges against Mr. Smith were particularly disruptive [to state government] because he was part of an unusual and fragile two-party coalition controlling the Senate and because he was the only nonwhite member of that coalition, criticized for a lack of diversity."

Andrew Kirell of Mediaite: "On his radio show last night, Mark Levin had on newfound conservative 'hero' Dr. Ben Carson to discuss all the lashings he's received from the 'left-wing media' over his views on gay marriage and religion. While discussing his being a black conservative, Carson told Levin that, in his experience, white liberals are the 'most racist people there are. They need to shut me up, they need to delegitimize me,' Carson told the radio host while explaining why he believes the media has [sic.] scorned him for lumping homosexuality in with unsavory sexual acts like bestiality and pedophilia." CW: right you are. Because liberals would not have even noticed if a white person had made the bigoted remarks Carson did. ...

... Fer instance, Tim Rohan of the New York Times: "In a video shown Tuesday on ESPN, the Rutgers men’s basketball coach, Mike Rice, is seen yelling homophobic slurs at his players, kicking them, grabbing them and shoving them. He also throws basketballs at their legs, their heads and their bodies from point-blank range -- as if he were playing dodge ball." Rutgers fired the person who shot the video & reported it to higher-ups. CW: Now, Coach Rice looks like a white guy to me, so I'm guessing white liberals will see those homophobic slurs & all as A-okay, especially because it appears most of the players Rice abused were black....

... CW: Here's the portion of the video ESPN aired. Rutgers' athletic director Tim Pernetti gave Rice only a three-game suspension & $50K fine for repeated criminal assault & battery on the players. As far as I can tell, it was Pernetti who fired videographer Eric Murdock, who is black. Rice should be in jail, & both he & Pernetti -- an accessory after the fact -- should be banned from working in school sports programs:

... Update: Tom Canavan of the AP: "Now that the video has gone viral, many -- including the governor of New Jersey -- are wondering why Rutgers let Rice keep his job at all. Athletic director Tim Pernetti said Tuesday that the school was reconsidering its decision to retain the fiery 44-year-old coach. The videotape, broadcast Tuesday on ESPN, prompted scores of outraged social media comments as well as sharp criticism from Gov. Chris Christie and Miami Heat star LeBron James. The head of the New Jersey Assembly called for Rice to be fired." ...

... Steve Politi of the New Jersey Star-Ledger: "Mike Rice has to go. That's the easy part. If Pernetti doesn't reach that decision soon, and doesn't lead the healing process for his broken basketball program, he'll be the next one out the door."

The Gohmert Daily News

Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch: "During the course of [a conference call with a notorious anti-gay activist, Rep. Louis] Gohmert [RTP-Texas] was asked about his opposition to any gun control legislation, which he explained by bizarrely linking the topic to gay marriage and bestiality.... Earlier in the discussion, Gohmert called on Christians to take a more active role in politics ... because otherwise their churches are going to be forced to hire cross-dressing Satan-worshipers."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Jane Henson, the widow of and original collaborator with Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, died on Tuesday at her home in Greenwich, Conn. She was 78."

New York Times: "Milo O'Shea, an Irish character actor -- recognizable by his black bushy eyebrows, tumble of white hair and impish smile -- whose films included 'Ulysses,' 'Barbarella' and 'The Verdict,' died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 86."

New York Times: "The United States announced Wednesday that it was speeding the deployment of an advanced missile defense system to Guam in the next few weeks, two years ahead of schedule in what the Pentagon said was 'a precautionary move' to protect American naval and air forces from the threat of a North Korean missile attack."

New York Times: "In one of the deadliest insurgent attacks in the decade-long war in Afghanistan, nine Taliban fighters dressed as Afghan soldiers stormed a government compound in the western part of the country on Wednesday morning, killing at least 44 people and wounding more than 100 in a hostage standoff."

AP: "A sheriff known for cracking down on the drug trade in southern West Virginia's coalfields was fatally shot Wednesday in the spot where he usually parked his car for lunch, a state official said, and a suspect was in custody."

Reuters: "African heads of state on Wednesday refused to recognize rebel leader Michel Djotodia's self-appointment as president of Central African Republic, calling instead for the creation of a new transitional body to guide the country to elections."

Washington Post: "The United States and Jordan have stepped up training of Syrian opposition forces that may be used to establish a buffer zone along Syria's southern border, according to U.S. and Jordanian officials. Training begun last year has been expanded and accelerated after rebel gains in the south, including capture of a stretch of the Jordanian-Syrian border near the Golan Heights, two military outposts and the country's main border crossing with Jordan."

Reuters: "A Syrian jet flew 20 km (12 miles) into Lebanon and fired a missile into a field on the outskirts of the border town of Arsal on Wednesday but caused no casualties, witnesses said. Lebanon has maintained a policy of 'dissociation' from Syria's two-year-old conflict. But many Lebanese officials feel their country is increasingly at risk of being dragged into the civil war, which the United Nations says has killed 70,000 people."

Washington Post: "North Korea on Wednesday banned South Korean workers from entering a joint industrial complex near the demilitarized zone, officials in Seoul said, jeopardizing a project that provides the only daily contact between the two Koreas amid an escalating threat of conflict on the peninsula."

Reuters: "Uganda has suspended the hunt for fugitive warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army fighters, blaming hostility towards foreign troops by Central African Republic rebels who seized power last month. Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. He and his commanders are accused of abducting thousands of children to use as fighters in a rebel army that earned a reputation for chopping off limbs as a form of discipline." ...

... Update: "The United States on Wednesday offered a reward of up to $5 million each for fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and some of his top aides in the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group."

ABC News: "The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a white supremacist prison gang, has become one of the top focuses of authorities investigating the murders of two Texas prosecutors, sources told ABC News. Prosecutors from Kaufman County,Texas, had helped imprison dozens of Aryan Brotherhood of Texas members late last year...."

The Commentariat -- April 2, 2013

John Markoff & James Gorman of the New York Times: "President Obama on Tuesday will announce a broad new research initiative, starting with $100 million in 2014, to invent and refine new technologies to understand the human brain."

Chris Hayes launches his MSNBC 8 pm show with a look at the Keystone XL pipeline:

... Charles Pierce: "This is the way we do things in America these days. Everything's working fine, until the catastrophe, which nobody could have foreseen, because everything's working just fine since the previous catastrophe. The pelicans must think we're all crazy."

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees -- a major selling point for the health care legislation. The law calls for a new insurance marketplace specifically for small businesses, starting next year. But in most states, employers will not be able to get what Congress intended: the option to provide workers with a choice of health plans. They will instead be limited to a single plan." ...

Richard Kirsch of the Roosevelt Institute, in Salon: "Big flaws in the [Affordable Care Act] will mean that many low-wage workers will be forced to choose between paying huge chunks of their income on premiums or on a penalty that leaves them with no coverage at all.... The news is much worse for family coverage." ...

... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress explains why it's bad news for women that the full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to hear Hobby Lobby's case against the Obama administration's requirement that health insurance include contraceptive coverage. ...

... Ed Kilgore: the ACA has myriad problems. "Supporters of Obamacare need to get out of the habit of thinking that Obamacare's a done deal that the president's re-election entrenched beyond serious challenge." ...

... ObamaCare to Turn Violent Criminals Out on the Streets. Well, okay, no, that's just something Ted Cruz said. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "States that expand their Medicaid programs under a provision in the Affordable Care Act will be forced to open their prison doors and allow violent criminals to roam the streets, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) claimed during a radio interview on Monday, insisting that the cost of providing health care to lower-income residents would reduce state funding for priorities like incarceration or education." CW: For Ted Cruz, April Fools' Day never ends.

Jonathan Chait of New York: "I'm an advocate of the theory, first put forward a decade ago by Ruy Teixeira and John Judis, that the electorate is forming a natural Democratic majority.... The picture looks grim for the GOP." CW: let's hope Chait is right.

Andrew Rosenthal: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's relationship with Jonnie Williams, the head of Star Scientific, "is a clear and direct example of the improper use of government money, facilities and power for the personal enrichment of friends. If the speech and the party were not a quid pro quo for the help with the wedding feast, it's hard to imagine what a quid pro quo is. Mr. Williams, it goes without saying, is also a big campaign contributor to Mr. McDonnell."

What's the Matter with Marco? Joan Walsh: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) "wants the stature bump that would come with being key to hammering out a[n immigration reform] deal, but he can't let it come about too quickly, lest he seem to have capitulated to [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.].... For now, anyway, he's putting the Tea Party over Latinos." ...

... CW: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is a weasly waffler who is fond of dancing with Democrats till he brushes them off, & he may do so again. But he is running for re-election in Red State Heaven & he still has a lot more guts than Sen. Marco Slo-Mo Rubio (R-Fla.) on immigration reform -- an issue where even red-state voters would probably cut Marco some slack on accounta his heritage. A person who is demonstrably weaker-willed than Lindsey Graham just might not be of presidential timbre, Marco.

Mark Follman of Mother Jones: "Ever since the massacres in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, it's been repeated like some surreal requiem: The reason mass gun violence keeps happening is because the United States is full of places that ban guns.... Not only is there zero evidence to support [this theory], our in-depth investigation of America's mass shootings indicates they are just plain wrong.... [Also,] if more guns in more places is a solution to the bloodshed, then why did we just witness the worst year for mass shootings in recent history?" ...

... Jon Lender & Jenny Wilson of the Hartford Courant: "With the nation watching, Newtown parents still grieving and gun owners objecting, legislative leaders Monday said they had met the solemn challenge presented by the Sandy Hook school massacre with a bipartisan agreement for the nation's strongest gun control bill. Easy passage of the legislative response to the Dec. 14 killings is expected in House and Senate votes scheduled for Wednesday, leaders of both the Democratic majority and Republican minority said after completing weeks of negotiations on the bill."

David Voreacos of Bloomberg: "Salomon Melgen, the Florida political donor at the center of a criminal probe, said he and Senator Robert Menendez are 'like brothers' who spoke weekly, yet his companies never benefited and he broke no laws." CW: well, okay then, totally believable; that settles that.

Colby Itkowitz of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, Morning Call: "Sen. Bob Casey told The Morning Call on Monday he now supports same-sex marriage. In an interview, the Pennsylvania Democrat said he had decided over time that the Defense of Marriage Act -- the federal law that defines marriage as one man and one woman -- should be repealed, and determined that such a belief could not be separate from the overall question of gay marriage." Via Greg Sargent. ...

... Dan Amira of New York chronicles Bill O'Reilly's evolution on gay marriage. ...

... Peter Beinert of Newsweek: "O'Reilly is a conservative populist, which is to say, he only champions those conservative viewpoints that he believes enjoy mass appeal." Beinert notes several hot-button issues where O'Reilly has "evolved" along with popular opinion. "If I were a GOP presidential aspirant, I'd watch O'Reilly closely over the next few years, because the Republican candidate who best articulates his brand of conservatism will be the candidate best able to regain the White House in 2016." Oh, you know who hasn't evolved? Why -- serial-husband Rush Limbaugh. ...

... In a letter to the New York Times, law professor & former Reagan solicitor general Charles Fried argues that President Obama should have defended DOMA or hired an outside advocate to do it. This would have eliminated the "standing" question. CW: he has a point.

Obama 2.0. Emily Heil of the Washington Post: "Caroline Kennedy is heading to Tokyo to be the U.S. ambassador." Jason Horowitz of the Post has more.

Andy Kroll of Mother Jones: "The Internal Revenue Service is taking a closer look at the finances of some 1,300 nonprofit organizations, including unions, trade associations, and the type of dark-money groups that controversially spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2012 elections. That includes Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the pro-Obama outfit Priorities USA, all of which keep their donors secret." ...

... Peter Overby of NPR has more.

Andy Revkin of the New York Times: "After nearly half a century of research in planetary and climate science for NASA, James E. Hansen is retiring on Wednesday to pursue his passion for climate activism without the hindrances that come with government employment."

Where's the Beef Stroganoff? Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times public editor, agrees with critics of the obituary of rocket scientist Yvonne Brill: "The emphasis on her domesticity -- and, more important, the obituary's overall framing as a story about gender -- had the effect of undervaluing what really landed Mrs. Brill on the Times obituaries page: her groundbreaking scientific work." The obit department defended the writing. CW: I'll have to admit I am so accustomed to this sexist style of writing -- especially in the Times -- that when I read & linked the obit, I just skipped right over the beef stroganoff & good mother folderol & got to the science stuff. Whatever you think of the NYT, it is still a newspaper largely written by, for and about men. ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker is brutal. P.S. Making beef stroganoff is not rocket science. "It is one notch above macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper, and has much in common with both." ...

... Megan Garber of the Atlantic has a well-nuanced critique: "An obituary that can't easily marry the professional and the personal is symptomatic of a society that has trouble marrying them, too." Also, she introduces what should become a new idiom: "getting stroganoffed."

Congressional Race

Harriet McLeod of the Reuters: "Voters in South Carolina's coastal first congressional district will choose on Tuesday between former Governor Mark Sanford and former Charleston County Council member Curtis Bostic as the Republican nominee for the open seat."

Local News

GOP Outreach, Ctd. Morgan Whitaker of NBC News: "Arkansas Republicans have officially overridden Democratic Governor Mike Beebe's veto of legislation that would require voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot. The Arkansas House voted 52-45 to override the veto Monday. Last week, the GOP-led Senate voted 21-12 to override it.... Only a simple majority is needed in each chamber in order to override a veto."

GOP Outreach, Ctd. AND Most Original Argument against Gay Marriage Yet. Tom Kludt of TPM: "Sue Everhart, chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, told the Marietta Daily Journal ... that once gay nuptials are legally permitted, there will be nothing to stop a straight person from exploiting the system in order to claim marital benefits." ...

... Steve Benen: "If the Georgia GOP chair's argument seems vaguely familiar, there's a reason for that: it was the basis for a 2007 movie called 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.' ... If this is an argument against same-sex marriage, isn't it also an argument against opposite-sex marriage? After all, what's to stop a man and a woman who are friends from pulling the same scam? ... If avoiding fraud is paramount, does the chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party want to prohibit all marriages?"

Jack Norman of the Institute for Wisconsin's Future, in a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel op-ed: "... it's totally appropriate to blame the governor's policies for the slumbering condition of Wisconsin's economy.... Wisconsin slump[ed] to 44th among the states in private-sector job growth....[ An] accompanying chart shows the extraordinary picture that Wisconsin's job slump - relative to the national economy - coincides almost exactly with [Gov. Scott] Walker's time in office and deepened just when his policies went into effect.... My colleagues and I ... made exactly that prediction two years ago.... Wisconsin, unfortunately, has become a case study in the failure of austerity economics at the state level." ...

... Mike Ivey of the Madison Capital Times has more.

Just When You Think State Legislators Can't Come up with Any Worse Ideas ... Tom Humphrey of the Knoxville (Tennessee) News-Sentinel: "Legislation to cut welfare benefits of parents with children performing poorly in school has cleared committees of both the [Tennessee] House and Senate after being revised to give the parents several ways to avoid the reductions." ...

Okay, More Worser Ideas. Kate Brumback of the AP: "Backers of a newly adopted ordinance requiring gun ownership in a small north Georgia town acknowledge they were largely seeking to make a point about gun rights. The ordinance in the city of Nelson -- population 1,300 -- was approved Monday night and goes into effect in 10 days. However, it contains no penalties and exempts anyone who objects, convicted felons and those with certain mental and physical disabilities."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to create the first treaty regulating the international arms trade, a landmark decision that imposes new constraints on the sale of conventional arms to governments and armed groups that commit war crimes, genocide and other mass atrocities. The vote was hailed by arms-control advocates and scores of governments, including the United States...."

New York Times: "Confusion, anger and charges of racism played out at the Fulton County Jail [in Atlanta, Georgia] on Tuesday as the players on both sides of the nation's largest school-cheating scandal began the arduous process of jailing 35 educators."

AP: "North Korea said Tuesday it will escalate production of nuclear weapons material, including restarting a long-shuttered plutonium reactor, in what outsiders see as Pyongyang's latest attempt to extract U.S. concessions by raising fears of war."

AP: "Because of a paperwork error, the suspect in last month's killing of Colorado's corrections chief was freed from prison in January -- four years earlier than authorities intended. Judicial officials acknowledged Monday that Evan Spencer Ebel's previous felony conviction had been inaccurately recorded and his release was a mistake."

Reuters: "The euro zone jobless rate was stable at 12.0 percent in February, the European Union statistics office Eurostat said on Tuesday, which could add pressure for an interest rate cut by the European Central Bank."

The Commentariat -- April 1, 2013

As contributor MAG pointed out yesterday, Paul Krugman was not impressed with what he called David Stockman's "rant": "It's cranky old man stuff, the kind of thing you get from people who read Investors Business Daily, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and maybe, if they're unusually teched up, get investment advice from Zero Hedge." ...

... In a later post, Krugman adds, "As Mark Thoma points out, the verdict among everyone who knows anything is that Stockman’s piece, mysteriously given star treatment, was pathetic and embarrassing.... This is not a bipartisan problem of runaway deficits! Pre-1980, no problem at all; after 1980, deficits were very much a monopartisan issue until the financial crisis, which was a time when running deficits was appropriate. Anyone who says differently hasn't done his homework." ...

... Thoma gives Stockman 'the wingnut of the day award. ...

... Jared Bernstein: "... like most crazed rants, it's hard to pick out the argument, but I think it's this: for almost a century, economic policy makers have ... um ... made policy, and that's led to cheap money, high indebtedness, crony capitalism, and econo-moral-turpitude.... It's like hearing a crazy person on a street corner ranting against whatever: they invariably stumble on some profound and piercing insights, but it's mostly nonsense, and instinctually, we keep our heads down and move on." ...

... ** Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider: "The piece can truly be characterized as Hard Money Buzzword Bingo, as Stockman tries to get in as many  scare lines as possible.... Probably the most telling and self-contradicting aspect, is the fact that he traces the original sin of the economy back to FDR taking the US off of the gold standard.... The problem is that the last 80 years, since then have represented a marvelous time for economic progress in America (and elsewhere).... Beyond that, the fact that things have gone on for 80 years without the gigantic collapse that Stockman has predicted is a sign that perhaps FDR's move wasn't so horrible." ...

James Surowiecki of the New Yorker does not directly address Stockman, but he does refute Stockman's assertion that the Fed has been profligate in gifting the big banks: "Currently, the big risk isn’t that the Fed will wait too long to raise interest rates; it's that pressure from savers will cause it to raise them prematurely."

<'>In his column today, Krugman writes, California's "problems bear no resemblance to the death-by-liberalism story line the California-bashers keep peddling. California is ... a state where a liberal majority has been effectively hamstrung by a fanatical conservative minority that, thanks to supermajority rules, has been able to block effective policy-making.... The era of hamstrung government seems to be coming to an end.... California's political story — in which a radicalized G.O.P. fell increasingly out of touch with an increasingly diverse and socially liberal electorate, and eventually found itself marginalized -- is arguably playing out with a lag on the national scene too."

** Canadian professor Thomas Homer-Dixon, in a New York Times op-ed: "If President Obama blocks the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all, he'll do Canada a favor.... Tar sands production is one of the world's most environmentally damaging activities.... Also, bitumen is junk energy.... Both the [Canadian] cabinet and the Conservative parliamentary caucus are heavily populated by politicians who deny mainstream climate science.... [Canada] behaves like a gambler deep in the hole, repeatedly doubling down on our commitment to the industry.... Stopping Keystone XL would be a major step toward stopping large-scale environmental destruction, the distortion of Canada's economy and the erosion of its democracy." ...

... Steve Mufson of the Washington Post: "Exxon Mobil said that one of its pipelines leaked 'a few thousand' barrels of Canadian heavy crude oil near Mayflower, Ark., prompting the evacuation of 22 homes and reinforcing concerns many critics have raised about the Keystone XL pipeline that is awaiting State Department approval.... Many critics of the Keystone XL pipeline say that corrosion risks are greater in pipelines carrying low-quality bitumen-laden crude from the oil sands. They have urged President Obama to reject the Keystone XL permit application."

Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration has begun to search for a replacement for FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, and for the first time one of the leading contenders is a woman. One of several people under consideration, according to current and past administration officials, is Lisa Monaco, who left a senior post at the Justice Department this month to become President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser."

David Sirota in Salon: "... in a coincidental turn of events, the president's visit [to Colorado Wednesday] will occur at the very moment the Colorado Republican Party is making a high-profile effort to derail Democratic legislation that would disarm domestic abusers.... The president is swooping in to the home of Columbine and Aurora to draw national attention to the gun extremism of the Republican Party -- and he will be able to point right to the state capitol where that Republican Party is opposing legislation to simply enforce federal law that is supposed to be protecting women from gun-wielding domestic abusers. Not only that, he will be in the state where Democrats' have most maximized their inherent advantage with women." ...

... Niall Stanage & Amie Parnes of the Hill: "Vice President Biden is calling his former colleagues on Capitol Hill on a near-daily basis as he mounts a full-court press to achieve new gun control measures. Biden has already held private meetings with Republican senators including John McCain (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Johnny Isakson (Ga.), according to a senior administration official. The official added that Biden would also be spending considerable time on Capitol Hill in the weeks to come." Via Greg Sargent.

Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times: "As Republican leaders try to woo Latino voters with a new openness to legal status for the nation's illegal immigrants, the party remains at odds with America's fastest-growing ethnic community on another key issue: healthcare. Latinos, who have the lowest rates of health coverage in the country, are among the strongest backers of President Obama's healthcare law. In a recent national poll, supporters outnumbered detractors by more than 2 to 1. Latinos also overwhelmingly see guaranteeing healthcare as a core government responsibility, surveys show. Yet congressional Republicans continue to make repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act a top agenda item and have renewed calls for deep cuts in health programs such as Medicaid, which are very popular with Latinos." ...

... AND the GOP has this itty-bitty problem. Jonathan Martin of Politico: "... as some [(Oxymoron Alert!) Republican] party intellectuals openly wonder if the heyday of the religious right has come and gone, social conservatives are responding with ferocity, indicting John McCain and Mitt Romney for their losses and bluntly warning that the GOP will cease to exist if the party abandons those voters who are in the party because of, not despite, its platform on values. If cultural conservatives are headed toward extinction, they are making clear they won't go away without a fight." ...

... MEANWHILE, Greg Sargent reports that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee "has launched online video advertising that hits 17 vulnerable House Republicans over their support for Paul Ryan's 'Robin Hood in reverse' fiscal vision for America":

Michael Catalini of the National Journal: "The efforts to woo a moderate Democrat to defeat [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell are part of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's plans to compete in the most inhospitable territory for Democrats -- for open seats in Georgia, South Dakota, West Virginia, and possibly, even in Kentucky against the powerful and well-funded Senate minority leader. Facing a challenging political landscape in 2014, the party is close to landing credible candidates in all of those states." ...

... Our Political Aristocracy. Beth Reinhart of the National Journal: in other red states, Democrats are relying on the scions of political dynasties -- like Mary Landrieu of Louisiana & Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

** The Evolution of Harry Reid. Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: Harry "Reid’s evolution from a proponent of gun rights to the shepherd of legislation that would expand background checks, among other gun control measures, emerges from a complex web of political calculations that have come to define his leadership style over the last decade.... After the Senate returns from its recess next week, it will consider a bill that would expand background checks and increase penalties for so-called straw purchases...."

Susanne Craig of the New York Times: "Since the financial crisis, compensation for the directors of the nation's biggest banks has continued to rise even as the banks themselves, facing difficult markets and regulatory pressures, are reining in bonuses and pay."

Neil Irwin of the Washington Post, in an adaptation of his new book: "... over three days and four nights in May 2010 is essential to understanding the economic predicament in which the world still finds itself. In that moment, the major Western central banks -- and their leaders, Ben S. Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mervyn King of the Bank of England, and [Jean-Claude] Trichet of the ECB -- made a series of decisions that created the world economy we inhabit today, and likely far into the future."

Boxers or Briefs? Who Cares? Scalia Doesn't Read Them. Although -- as Ezra Klein points out -- the American Sociological Association presented an amicus brief in the DOMA case which states flat-out, "Whether a child is raised by same-sex or opposite-sex parents has no bearing on a child' wellbeing," Scalia opined -- based on his "feelings," I guess -- during oral argument that "there's considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not." Actually, Nino, there's no disagreement at all.

Now is the time to furlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send the focus groups home and throw out the political scripts, because if we truly know what we believe, we don't need professionals to tell us. -- Sarah Palin, at CPAC

Palin's PAC spent $5.1 million in the last election cycle (more than it raised in that time period, raising some questions about Palin's claims of fiscal responsibility). how donors' money was actually doled out: just $298,500 to candidates. The bulk of the rest of it, more than $4.8 million, went to -- you guessed it -- consultants. -- Jon Avlon of the Daily Beast

... CW: I avoided linking to this story this weekend because I don't really care what Cardinal Timothy Dolan has to say about gay relationships, but since most of the press is making a big deal out of it, I guess readers should know that the head of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops says you gay peoples should not be having sex with each other. So cut it out right now. With video. ...

... ALSO, Ross Douthat, the Vatican's Emissary to the New York Times, says you're ruining straight marriage after all: "Since [David] Frum warned [in 1997] that gay marriage could advance only at traditional wedlock's expense, the marriage rate has been falling faster, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has been rising faster, and the substitution of cohabitation for marriage has markedly increased. Underlying these trends is a steady shift in values: Americans are less likely to see children as important to marriage and less likely to see marriage as important to childbearing (the generation gap on gay marriage shows up on unwed parenting as well) than even in the very recent past." CW: Maybe by way of penance you could take Dolan's advice. ...

... The Father (Dolan), the Son (Douthat) & the Holy Spirit (Noonan). Charles Pierce comments on both & throws in Peggy Noonan's random ramblings on the abortion thing. Amen.

Rick Hertzberg has a terrific piece on the word "entitlement(s)." Especially if you're prone to use the term &/or think it "makes sense," read Hertzberg.

Awesome Homemaker Was Pretty Good Rocket Scientist, Too (for a Girl). Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon: "When Yvonne Brill, who died last week at age 88, was remembered in the New York Times over the weekend, the first paragraph of her obituary described her as a woman who 'made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. She was also, according to her son Matthew, "The world's best mom."' It was only in the second graph that the paper of record got around to mentioning that stroganoff champ, husband follower and awesome mom Brill also 'invented a propulsion system to help keep communications satellites from slipping out of their orbits.' Oh, that too." (NYT obit, now altered, is linked in March 30 Ledes.)

Right Wing World

Google's War on Easter, Ctd. The Guardian has a funny piece on the right's outrage over Google's honoring Cesar Chavez Day, made all the more hilarious by the screamers' inability to distinguish Cesar Chavez from Hugo Chavez. Also, it's Barack Obama plot. What's funny is not the story -- it's a straight news piece -- but the content. ...

... Eric Dolan of Raw Story names some of the usual freaked-out suspects.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Elwin Wilson, a former supporter of the Ku Klux Klan who made repeated apologies late in life for racist acts he committed decades earlier — including the bloody beating of a civil rights worker who later became a member of Congress [Rep. John Lewis {D-Ga.}] -- died on Thursday at a hospital in South Carolina. He was 76."

New York Times: "The Indian Supreme Court rejected a Swiss drug maker's patent application for a major cancer drug Monday in a landmark ruling that will allow poor patients continued access to many of the world's best drugs, at least for a while. The ruling allows Indian makers of generic drugs to continue making copycat versions of the Novartis drug Gleevec.... The ruling's effect ... will help maintain India's role as the world's most important provider of inexpensive medicines, which is critical in the global fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases."

The New York Times has more on the assassinations of Kaufman County, Texas, district attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia McLelland.

Reuters: "President Hamid Karzai held talks with Qatari leaders on Sunday ... on a visit the Kabul government has said would seek to explore the possibility of talks with Taliban insurgents on ending Afghanistan's war."

Reuters: "The condition of South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela has improved further, the government said on Sunday, as the 94-year-old anti-apartheid hero spent a fourth day in hospital receiving treatment for pneumonia."