The Commentariat -- Feb. 19, 2013

Here's Gail Collins' New York Times Magazine piece on Betty Friedan & The Feminine Mystique, which MAG mentions in today's Comments. Sorry I missed the article when the Times published it in January.

Steve Holland of Reuters: "President Barack Obama will make a fresh push on Tuesday to force congressional Republicans to make concessions that will head off budget cuts that appear increasingly likely to kick in starting on March 1. Obama, just back from a three-day golf getaway in Florida, will appear at the White House at 10:45 a.m. EST (1545 GMT) with emergency responders who would lose their jobs if the cuts go into effect." ...

     ... Update: Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "Speaking at the White House, surrounded by firefighters and other emergency personnel, Obama urged Congress to pass a short-term measure that would delay the cuts, known as the sequester, for a period of time until Congress can pass a permanent fix."

... Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "More than he ever did in his first term, Obama is describing the country as he believes it should be, not the one it has been for much of the past decade.... Obama and his senior staff ... hope to harness his post-election political freedom on behalf of a domestic agenda still broadly unpopular among Republicans in a divided Congress. He is threatening executive action to confront such issues as climate change.... His vast former campaign organization also is mobilizing to fight outside the Beltway for a political agenda whose fate will be determined inside it." ...

... MEANWHILE, Molly Hooper of The Hill: "House GOP lawmakers say they do not fear political blowback if Congress fails to prevent $85 billion in automatic spending cuts from triggering in two weeks."

Mark Landler & Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "With conditions [in Syria] continuing to deteriorate, [U.S.] officials could reopen the debate over providing weapons to select members of the resistance in an effort to break the impasse in Syria."

** Michael Lofgren, a disaffected former GOP staffer in the Huffington Post: because of gerrymandering,* "it is unlikely Republicans will lose control of the House at least until the census of 2020. Dixie and the Tornado Belt are prone to send candidates of the intellectual caliber and world view of James Inhofe to the Senate for the foreseeable future, thus assuring a veto over legislation via the filibuster. The voting base itself, endlessly stoked by talk radio and Fox News, thrives on its martyr-like self-image as a persecuted remnant of Real Americans; and all the would-be messiahs they adore are Republicans, not third party candidates. There is also just too much money to be made by hucksters, so it is doubtful that the GOP will go the way of the Whigs." Thanks to Calyban for the link. ...

... I think this piece, written in September 2011 & published in TruthOut (& perhaps elsewhere), was what put Lofgren on the map. It's a doozy.

* BUT see John Sides & Eric McGhee on gerrymandering, linked below.

Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Criticized for letting Wall Street off the hook after the financial crisis, the Justice Department is building a new model for prosecuting big banks. In a recent round of actions that shook the financial industry, the government pushed for guilty pleas, rather than just the usual fines and reforms. Prosecutors now aim to apply the approach broadly to financial fraud cases, according to officials involved in the investigations." CW: read the whole article & see what you think. This sounds to me a little more like PR than like actually sending fat cats to the clink.

** Forget "Real America." Tim Noah of The New Republic: "We think of rural-heartland dwellers as real Americans, but they currently represent less than 20 percent of the population; nearly all of us live in and around cities. We think of churchgoers as real Americans, but only 40 percent of Americans attend any kind of religious service at least once a week.... We think of people who own guns as real Americans, but they represent only 21 percent of the population.... By fetishizing a fading tradition, liberals have only made their arguments for increased gun control less likely to have much of an impact. A recognition of their -- our -- dominant position would be a better way to start the debate."

Stupid Immigration Policy. Kevin Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Much of the immigration debate in Washington has centered on the 11 million undocumented migrants in the country. But, from the halls of MIT to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, business and academic leaders are more focused on what they call an even greater threat to the U.S. economy: immigration laws that chase away highly skilled foreigners educated in U.S. universities, often with degrees funded by U.S. taxpayers. While other countries are actively recruiting foreign-born U.S. graduates, the United States has strict limits on visas for highly skilled workers that often put them on waiting lists of many years. And unlike Canada and other countries, the United States offers no specific visa for young entrepreneurs ... who want to start a business in America."

David Dayen, writing in Salon, on how to save the U.S. Postal Service: institute a postal banking service, which would be a great help to "unbanked" or "underbanked" Americans who rely on payday lenders, pawn shops, etc., for "banking." "The National Association of Letter Carriers is ready to do this; they endorsed a resolution at their annual convention in 2012 to adopt a postal banking system in the US." CW: read the whole post. It's a pretty compelling idea & not nearly as novel as I thought. Of course, as Alex Pareene notes in the piece linked below, getting Congress off its collective ass to do something that's good for Americans -- & in this case, good for the USPS -- is a mighty heavy lift.

A Party without a Policy. Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "The problem with Republicans today on public policy isn't that they're stuck in the 1980s; it's that they've given up entirely." ...

... So, in Lieu of Policy, Here's What They Have -- Benghazi!!!. Ed Kilgore: "Sen. John McCain's insistence on Meet the Press yesterday that the Obama administration was engaged in a 'massive coverup' of Benghazi! is an indication that conspiracy-shouting on the subject among Republicans won't go away any time soon, or perhaps ever."

Alex Pareene of Salon: "After [Sen. Ted] Cruz's [RTP-Texas] hostile questioning of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, [Sen. John] McCain [R-Az.] publicly rebuked the Texas senator, something McCain only does to practically everyone who annoys him in any fashion.... But ... Ted Cruz's loudmouthed Senator Asshole routine is not what's wrong with the Senate.... Ted Cruz didn't blow up immigration reform on multiple occasions. Ted Cruz isn't why senators like McCain and [Lindsey] Graham [R-S.C.] decide to stop supporting things they used to support, like cap-and-trade.... What's wrong with the Senate is just about every other senator, most of whom ... never evinc[e] any concern whatsoever for the real-life consequences of their inaction on nearly every single one of America's most urgent problems...." ...

... Steve Benen: "A strange website with a troubled reputation published an unsubstantiated rumor about something Chuck Hagel is accused of having said in 2007. There is no proof that Hagel made the comment or anything like it, but two Republican senators nevertheless demanded an explanation. In other words, for [Lindsey] Graham and Kelly Ayotte [N.H.], there's nothing odd about effectively saying, 'We heard some unsubstantiated rumor on a website we know little about, and we expect you to take it seriously and provide us with an immediate explanation.'"

Jon Chait of New York: Joe Scarborough is pretty dimwitted & it shows when he tries to write down his "thoughts." "The fiscal scolds have so successfully inculcated their moralistic urgency about debt, so thoroughly dominated the news agenda, that millions of people like Joe Scarborough think it is self-evidently insane and evil to in any way minimize the awesome scale of the crisis. Scarborough can't really explain why Krugman is wrong, because the nub of the issue is that Krugman's way of looking at the issue simply offends him."

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: Justice Clarence Thomas, who hasn't asked a question from the bench in seven years, says he sometimes gets Justice Stephen Breyer to ask questions for him.

John Sides & Eric McGhee in the Washington Post on gerrymandering, which these political scientists argue, based on a series of tests they applied to election results, had very little effect on the 2012 Congressional races: "... the ability of Republicans to retain the House majority may have been due to incumbency advantage, not new and more favorable districts. Why do Democrats have a somewhat chronic disadvantage in these graphs, especially in the last 20 years? Part of the reason is that Democratic votes are increasingly concentrated in urban areas where they are more likely to waste votes with large majorities.

Congressional Races

Ed Kilgore: "Life often imitates parody in South Carolina: former Gov. Mark Sanford has just put up his first ad in his campaign to get back his old congressional seat, recently vacated by now-Sen. Tim Scott. Seems he's going full-tilt into the paradox of simultaneously begging for forgiveness for his sins (which include not just adultery and public idiocy but a variety of financial irregularities that might have in some jurisdictions landed him in the hoosegow), while posing as the guy that can smite Washington with demands for strict fiscal accountability and moral rectitude." CW: meanwhile, Sally Quinn & other Washington hostesses with the mostesses are likely rooting for Sanford in hopes he & his lovely Argentinian fiancee will star at their little get-togethers.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Mike Johanns, a Nebraska Republican who is in his first term, announced on Monday that he would not seek re-election next year, the fifth lawmaker to bow out of a Senate that has become increasingly polarized and dysfunctional."

CW: Sorry, but this extended wail from Jim VandeHei & Mike Allen of Politico is one long unintentional knee-slapper. Apparently, President Obama is not being transparent enough currying favor with these turdwingers & their buddies in the hard-working White Press corps. "The frustrated Obama press corps neared rebellion this past holiday weekend when reporters and photographers were not even allowed onto the Floridian National Golf Club, where Obama was golfing. That breached the tradition of the pool 'holding' in the clubhouse and often covering -- and even questioning -- the president on the first and last holes." Etc., etc.

... Digby is also "relieved that the fourth estate has its priorities straight." ...

... Anne Laurie, in Balloon Juice: "You'd think Tha Meeja would at least admire the Obama administration's deftness in beating them at their own game, but ... 'The president's staff often finds Washington reporters whiny, needy and too enamored with trivial matters or their own self-importance.'...Oooo, burn" ...

... AND Reid Epstein of Politico: "... after months of buildup and a week since his State of the Union address, key aides on the Hill and at the White House acknowledge that even GOP senators who fit Obama's vision of bipartisanship -- Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma -- are all waiting to hear anything from the president.... They'd like to have a conversation. Or at least get a phone call. And with the president's whole agenda on the line, they're surprised that hasn't happened yet." ...

... CW: I'm surprised the Senate has not yet installed phones where they can call out. I guess the two-way walkie-talkies thingies are too new-fangled. Well, shucks, maybe Obama doesn't have a real phone, either:

Right Wing World

America's Worst Nightmare. It turns out people -- at least very bad people -- can return from the dead.Local News

Carly Carioli of The Phoenix: Massachusetts "State Rep. Marty Walsh and Joyce Linehan -- the legendary rock publicist turned political rainmaker -- had teamed up to file HD3506, a bill to make 'Roadrunner,' by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, the official rock song of Massachusetts." CW: I agree with Richman who said, through a spokesperson, "I don't think the song is good enough to be a Massachusetts song of any kind."

Apropos of yesterday's inconsequential discussion, contributor Julie sends along this by Marshall Ramsey:

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Afghanistan authorities have captured a senior member of the blank">Pakistan Taliban in a stretch of mountains near the frontier between the two countries, Afghan and Pakistani officials said on Tuesday. One Afghan official said the militant, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, had been arrested after American airstrikes, some carried out via drones, had flushed him out of a more remote haven."

New York Times: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a criminal inquiry into suspicious trades placed ahead of the $23 billion acquisition of H.J. Heinz, a person briefed on the matter said on Tuesday.The F.B.I.'s involvement adds to the scrutiny surrounding the deal and further highlights the temptation that major takeovers present to traders. Last week, a day after the deal was announced, the Securities and Exchange Commission promptly froze a Swiss account linked to possible insider trading in the Heinz takeover."

New York Times: "A growing body of digital forensic evidence -- confirmed by American intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of [a Chinese] army unit for years -- leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around" a building in Shanghai, which is the People's Liberation Army base for China's growing corps of cyberwarriors." ...

... Washington Post: "A U.S. security firm has tied more than a hundred cyber attacks on U.S. corporations to China's military, according to a report released Tuesday. The 60-page study by investigators at the Alexandria-based Mandiant security firm presents one of the most comprehensive and detailed analysis to date tracing corporate cyber espionage to the doorstep of Chinese military facilities. And it calls into question China's repeated denials that its military is engaged in such activities."

Reuters: "A seven-member delegation of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Cuba on Monday in the latest effort to move forward political relations that have been at a standstill since U.S. government contractor Alan Gross was imprisoned there in 2009. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who saw Gross and met with Cuban President Raul Castro and other high-ranking officials a year ago, is leading the group of five senators and two members of the House of Representatives on a three-day visit to communist Cuba.... Gross, 63, was arrested in Havana in December 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for installing Internet networks under a secretive U.S. program the Cuban government considers subversive."

New York Times: "Prosecutors accused Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee track star and one of the world's best-known athletes, of premeditated murder on Tuesday, saying he opened fire four times on his girlfriend through a locked bathroom door after putting on his prosthetic legs and walking more than 20 feet from a bedroom."

CBS News: "Law enforcement sources say Adam Lanza, [the Newtown, Connecticut, mass murderer,] was motivated by violent video games and a strong desire to kill more people than ... Anders Breivik, a Norwegian man who killed 77 people in July 2011." With video report.

AP: "Now that investigators have determined the origins of the engine-room fire that paralyzed a Carnival cruise ship at sea for five days, they will try to learn more about the cause, the crew's response, and why the ship was disabled for so long. A Coast Guard official said Monday that a leak in a fuel oil return line caused the engine-room fire that disabled the Carnival Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving 4,200 people without power or working toilets for five days."

AP: "Eight masked gunmen made a hole in a security fence at Brussels' international airport, drove onto the tarmac and snatched some $50 million worth of diamonds from the hold of a Swiss-bound plane without firing a shot, authorities said Tuesday. The gang used two black cars in their daring raid late Monday, grabbed the cache of stones and sped off into the darkness...."

Reuters: "Nestle, the world's biggest food company, has removed beef pasta meals from sale in Italy and Spain after finding traces of horse DNA. The discovery of horsemeat in products labeled as beef has spread across Europe since last month, prompting product withdrawals, consumer anger and government investigations into the continent's complex food-processing chains."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 18, 2013

Happy Presidents' Day George Washington's Birthday

Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: "... there is no federal Presidents' Day holiday. We don't care what your mattress ad says -- is that a legal document? The official name of today's day off is 'George Washington's Birthday.' It's supposed to honor the Father of Our Country, and only him.... [According to] the Office of Personnel Management list of 2013 holidays..., 'This holiday is designated as 'Washington's Birthday' in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees.... Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in law.' Washington's Birthday has been a national holiday since 1885." Aw, shucks:

My column in the New York Times eXaminer takes down Tom Friedman's latest effort to "reform entitlements"; i.e., cut Social Security & Medicare. ...

... Dean Baker does an excellent job of debunking all of Friedman's economic arguments.

** Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker on naked Dubya & naked power, with reflections -- literal & figurative -- on the state of the GOP.

Philip Elliott of the AP: "The White House is downplaying its draft immigration proposal as merely a backup plan if lawmakers don't come up with an overhaul of their own. It won't be necessary, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are telling the Obama administration." ...

... Jamelle Bouie, in the Washington Post: despite the high degree of similarity between Obama's plan (which actually contains some detail) & Rubio's plan, "Rubio has come out against the administration's proposal.... Is Rubio interested in passing immigration reform, or does he want credit for being the kind of GOP senator who is interested in immigration reform."

Margaret Hartmann of New York: as the deadline for a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline looms, President Obama will have to choose between the environment & our Canadian friends. ...

... Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: according to organizers, a crowd of 35,000 "protesters descended on Washington DC on Sunday demanding Barack Obama shut down the Keystone XL pipeline project to show he is serious about taking action on climate change.... The event, billed as the largest climate protest in US history, was intended as a show of force before Obama renders his decision on the pipeline project in the next few months. Protesters were bussed in from 30 states and Canadian provinces."

Paul Krugman: "... just about everyone except Republican men believes that the lowest-paid workers deserve a raise. And they're right. We should raise the minimum wage, now." ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker agrees. CW: an excellent explanation of why.

New York Times Editors: The sequester cuts, "which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost, under threat of a default on the nation's debt.... Last week, Senate Democrats produced a much better plan to replace these cuts with a mix of new tax revenues and targeted reductions. About $55 billion would be raised by imposing a minimum tax on incomes of $1 million or more and ending some business deductions, while an equal amount of spending would be reduced from targeted cuts to defense and farm subsidies. Republicans immediately rejected the idea; the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, called it 'a political stunt.'" ...

... MEANWHILE, the ever-brilliant Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says a good solution would be for "the government [to] protect the Defense Department from automatic spending cuts by slashing $1.2 trillion from the Affordable Care Act," as Josh Israel of Think Progress reports. As Israel notes, not only would that cost 30 million Americans the opportunity to obtain health coverage, "Obamacare actually reduced the deficit. [Graham's] proposal to put its elimination on the table would mean increasing the budget deficit by an estimated $109 billion over the same 10-year period, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office." CW: do you think Lindsey Graham gives a rat's ass about the deficit? He just doesn't want you to have affordable healthcare. Of course, he has great government-sponsored health insurance.

Max Rivlin-Nadler of Gawker: "During the year it went public, Facebook made $1.1 billion in profits. But thanks to some nifty accounting, the company won't be paying any federal or state taxes on it -- instead, it will actually be receiving a federal tax refund of about $429 million.... Not only that, but Facebook is actually carrying 'forward another $2.17 billion in additional tax-option tax breaks for use in future years.' Basically, they would like to do this every year. One of our most successful new companies is not paying a dime in taxes. Yes, let's please cut Medicare. That's the thing that's broken." CW: a good answer to Tom Friedman.

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "Marco Rubio ... has now capitalized on [his Big Gulp] moment to raise more than $100,000 for his Reclaim America political action committee by selling branded water bottles. A source close to Rubio tells BuzzFeed that the water bottles, which were sold on the senator's PAC website to anyone who makes a donation of $25 or more, sold like hotcakes. In the period since they went on sale Wednesday, more than 3,100 of the PAC's 'Marco Rubio Water Bottles' have been sold."

Obama Planning to Put Chips in Every American Brain. Here's the genuine New York Times headline: "Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain." Oh, the story sounds benign enough: "The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics. The project, which the administration has been looking to unveil as early as March, will include federal agencies, private foundations and teams of neuroscientists and nanoscientists in a concerted effort to advance the knowledge of the brain's billions of neurons and gain greater insights into perception, actions and, ultimately, consciousness." CW: If this doesn't bring the conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork, I'll eat my ... brain.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post: United Arab Emirates helps poor communities in third-world nations -- like the United States. CW: the low-tax, no-union GOP mentality, most prevalent in the South, is responsible for where we are today, a country that can't afford to or chooses not to pay for basic needs.

Satire Alert. Andy Borowitz: "The chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology said today that the committee would hold hearings next week 'to settle the question, once and for all, of whether meteors exist. The media has been in something of a frenzy recently on this whole topic of meteors,' said chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). 'I think it's irresponsible of them to frighten the public about something that, at the end of the day, may be about as real as unicorns.'"

The Big News from the Barack Obama-Tiger Woods Golf Game -- White House Press Corps Is "Livid":

Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency. -- Ed Henry, WHCA president & Fox "News" correspondent

I really can't tell you how important it is to me -- and to history -- to know the particulars of that golf game. -- Constant Weader

Hillary Cashes In. Dan Amira of New York: Clinton will begin her career as a well-paid speaker in April or May. And she write another book/cash-cow.

Local News

Emory University Needs a New President, or at Least Three-Fifths of One. Max Rivlin-Nadler: "Writing in the winter issue of Emory Magazine, President James Wagner rhapsodizes about the need for compromise in a politically turbulent society. He points out that the constitution was in itself a compromise. Another example he cites, is the Three-Fifths Compromise, which legally represented slaves as less than a person.... He then goes on to explain that compromises, like the Three-Fifths Compromise, keep our country great." ...

... With all due respect to those 19th-century do-gooders who had the idea of repatriating American blacks to Africa, it would have been a far, far better thing if, after the Civil War, the U.S. had deported all the white people in the Confederate states.

Here's the Maggie Smith interview, by Steve Kroft, which I mentioned in the Comments section. There are some Web extra segments here:

My tilting teapot.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Rejecting a push by Britain, European governments on Monday decided against providing weapons to Syrian rebel forces, expressing fears that more arms would only lead to more bloodshed in a conflict that already has taken nearly 70,000 lives. The decision, by European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, illustrates the difficulty that Europe and the United States have had in dealing with the two-year-old Syrian civil war despite their unanimous condemnation of President Bashar al-Assad and his ruthless battle to remain in power."

Reuters: "Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa reveled in a sweeping re-election victory that allows him to deepen his socialist revolution even as he seeks to woo foreign investment in the resource-wealthy Andean nation."

Reuters: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise return [to Venezuela] from Cuba on Monday more than two months after surgery for cancer that has jeopardized his 14-year rule of the South American OPEC member."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 17, 2013

If you don't think Saint Ronald of Reagan & the Ghost of Saint Ronald have put this country on the skids, read the essays by Coontz & Stiglitz, neither of which, BTW, mentions Saint Ronnie:

... Stephanie Coontz, in a New York Times op-ed: "... despite the increased workload of families, and even though 70 percent of American children now live in households where every adult in the home is employed, in the past 20 years the United States has not passed any major federal initiative to help workers accommodate their family and work demands.... When the United States' work-family policies are compared with those of countries at similar levels of economic and political development, the United States comes in dead last....We must stop seeing work-family policy as a women's issue and start seeing it as a human rights issue that affects parents, children, partners, singles and elders." ...

... Joe Stiglitz in a New York Times op-ed: "Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country.... Probably the most important reason for lack of equality of opportunity is education: both its quantity and quality.... While racial segregation decreased, economic segregation increased. After 1980, the poor grew poorer, the middle stagnated, and the top did better and better." ...

... Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: "For the first time since the New Deal, a majority of Americans are headed toward a retirement in which they will be financially worse off than their parents, jeopardizing a long era of improved living standards for the nation's elderly, according to a growing consensus of new research. The Great Recession and the weak recovery darkened the retirement picture for significant numbers of Americans. And the full extent of the damage is only now being grasped by experts and policymakers."

Paul Krugman: increasing the minimum wage is good economic policy. ...

... Also, Krugman, from Saturday morning: "On both sides of the Atlantic, the austerians seem to be freaking out. And that has to be good news, an indication that they realize, at some level, that they're losing the debate." Krugman goes on to explain how Joe Scarborough is going crazy. Fairly funny, because it takes so few words for Krugman to eviscerate him. ...

     ... None of this high-profile discussion on the failure of austerity has any effect on that idiot Tom Friedman, who today rolls merrily along, urging a Grand Bargain to cut entitlements because "We can't protect both generations in full anymore, but we must not sacrifice one for the other -- favoring nursing homes over nursery schools -- and that's what we're on track to do. One should not be surprised, I suppose, to learn that a person who lives in the Palace of Versailles is, well, rather unconcerned about old ladies in nursing homes. I'd like to smack Tom Friedman in the face. And if he turned the other cheek, I should smack that, too, because I can't protect both cheeks & must not sacrifice one for the other. ...

... MEANWHILE, in a post titled, "The Deficit Hawk Delusion," Derek Thompson of the Atlantic does a lovely job of explaining actuarial projections to dummies (see Scarborough, Friedman). For all the good it will do. ...

... BECAUSE that idiot Joe Scarborough got out his home photocopying machine & plagiarized -- or claims to have plagiarized; who the hell knows? -- some unnamed "senior economist" at the Rand Corporation. ...

... Samuel Knight in the Washington Monthly thinks Scarborough would have been better off to argue that our imaginary currency problems came about "because space aliens raided the Treasury in the dead of night because Nicholas Cage and Chuck Norris were off duty, having been contracted by the Navy to fight a flotilla of krakens in the Caribbean the week before."

The Fed -- Still Bailing out B of A. Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "... last week's details of the undisclosed settlement between the New York Fed and Bank of America are remarkable. Not only do the filings show the New York Fed helping to thwart another institution's fraud case against the bank, they also reveal that the New York Fed agreed to give away what may be billions of dollars in potential legal claims."

Matt Taibbi has a long piece in Rolling Stone on the criminal element that runs HSBC. I've been trying to read for a few days, but can't get to it. So here it is: "People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greedheads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze.... But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated­ with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder -- well, aiding and abetting it, anyway. That nobody from the bank went to jail or paid a dollar in individual fines is nothing new in this era of financial crisis. What is different about this settlement is that the Justice Department, for the first time, admitted why it decided to go soft on this particular kind of criminal. It was worried that anything more than a wrist slap for HSBC might undermine the world economy."

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "Advocates for the vast numbers of visitors to America’s national parks are pressuring Congress to prevent deep automatic spending cuts that would result in reduced hours and services across the country, from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Yellowstone. Few corners of the federal government directly touch the public as do the 398 parks, monuments and historic sites, which draw 280 million visits a year. The system would feel the effects immediately of a $110 million slash should budget cuts take effect March 1...." CW: this is actually an upside to sequestration; Tea Partiers who want to deep tax cuts will be in for a rude awakening when they find out the GOP's starve-the-government project has closed or limited access to their favorite park & ruined their family vacations.

Sarah Halzack & Josh Hicks of the Washington Post: "The Department of Labor has suspended new enrollment into one of the nation's largest job-training programs for low-income youths, citing cost overruns that critics have blamed on mismanagement. The Job Corps enrollment freeze could close the door on as many as 30,000 young adults struggling in a troubled economy and could cost about 10,000 staff jobs, according to the association that represents private operators for the program."

Alan Gomez of USA Today: "A draft of a White House immigration proposal obtained by USA Today would allow illegal immigrants to become legal permanent residents within eight years. The plan also would provide for more security funding and require business owners to check the immigration status of new hires within four years. In addition, the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants could apply for a newly created "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa...."

Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The background story of how the accusations [against Sen. Bob Menendez {D-N.J.}] were initially made has all the makings of a Hollywood political thriller, even snaring the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the process.... The way Mr. Menendez first came under broader scrutiny, at a minimum, illustrates the often-hidden role that partisan players have in helping push the major news media to dig into ethical allegations lodged against sitting members of Congress." ...

... Ernesto Londoño and Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post have another big story on Menendez's Dominican shenanigans, a story which also ensnares the U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Raul Yzaguirre. CW: the more I read about this sorry affair, the more I see it as political hackery all around -- Menendez batting for his team, Republicans batting for theirs. The citizens of the U.S. & the Dominican Republic be damned.

David Adams of Reuters: "Using stolen names and Social Security numbers, criminals are filing phony electronic tax forms to claim refunds, exploiting a slow-moving federal bureaucracy to collect the money before victims, or the Internal Revenue Service, discover the fraud.... [The scheme] has ballooned into a massive, and dangerous, illegal industry that could cost the nation $21 billion over the next five years, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.... While the IRS says it has detected cases in every state except North Dakota and West Virginia, the fraud's epicenter is Florida, and it is mostly concentrated in Miami and Tampa."

Maureen Dowd & I share a pet peeve: "historical" films that make up stuff because some Hollywood blockhead thinks real history isn't dramatic enough. I know history is subjective & there are plenty of unknowns, but tossing out the knowns in favor of car chases or whatever is irritating. I'd like to think when I watch a bazillion-dollar movie, they could afford to hire a few historians to fact-check the script.

Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post: "VatiLeaks ... exposed the church bureaucracy's entrenched opposition to Benedict's fledgling effort to carve out a legacy as a reformer against the backdrop of a global child sex abuse scandal and the continued dwindling of his flock. It showed how Benedict, a weak manager who may most be remembered for the way in which he left office, was no match for a culture that rejected even a modicum of transparency and preferred a damage-control campaign that diverted attention from the institution's fundamental problems."

Right Wing World

Frank Bruni: Ted Cruz is an asshole.

Over at Fox "News," the patriotic hosts don't see anything wrong with making a 102-year-old woman stand in line to vote -- in the heat -- for 5 hours. "'What's the big deal? She was happy," [Martha] MacCallum argued. 'She waited on line, she was happy that she voted.' 'They held her up as a victim!' [Bill] Hemmer alleged. 'What was she the victim of? Rashes on the bottom of her feet?'" CW: another occasion to remind ourselves that the U.S. is one of a very few so-called democracies in which citizens do not have a constitutional right to vote.

News Ledes

CNN: "President Barack Obama hit the greens Sunday with famed golfer Tiger Woods, according to deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest. Obama is spending President's Day weekend at a sprawling resort in Palm City, Florida, where he's polishing his golf game. On Saturday, he worked on his swing with Woods' former coach, Butch Harmon." CW: I guess this means Tiger is rehabilitated now. Either that or he & Obama went partying while the First Lady & daughters are skiing out West.

AP: "Angry residents [of Quetta, Pakistan] on Sunday demanded government protection from an onslaught of attacks against Shiite Muslims, a day after 81 people were killed in a massive bombing that a local official said was a sign that security agencies were too scared to do their jobs. Saturday's blast at a produce market in the city of Quetta also wounded 160 people and underlined the precarious situation for Shiites living in a majority Sunni country where many extremist groups don't consider them real Muslims." CW: so if -- before the attack -- a U.S. drone had taken out the terrorists who planted the bomb, would that have been a bad thing? Just asking.