The Commentariat -- June 20, 2012

... Colbert Krugman Edition

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on the unresponsiveness of the Democratic party to American workers. The NYTX front page is here.

** "Follow the Dark Money." Andy Kroll of Mother Jones on "the down and dirty history of secret spending, PACs gone wild, and the epic four-decade fight over the only kind of political capital that matters." CW: haven't read it yet, but it looks like a winner.

CPAN has the video of President Obama's remarks at his press conference yesterday; the transcript is here.

Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The FBI has been given an expanded role in coordinating the domestic intelligence-gathering activities of the CIA and other agencies under a plan enacted this year by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., officials said. The bureau's highest-ranking field agents now also serve as the DNI's representatives across the country. The change is intended to improve collaboration, but some officials say it has created new friction between the FBI and CIA."

Isn't That Special? Chris Frates of the National Journal: "The Cato Institute and prominent Republican donors Charles and David Koch are set to settle their legal fight over control of the libertarian think tank, ending a high-profile dispute that split the conservative movement. 'Looks like we've come to an accommodation with the Koch brothers,' Cato founder and President Ed Crane said in a Tuesday e-mail to employees."

... I can't embed the BBC interview of Paul Krugman which contributor Dave S. recommended, so as a second-best -- and on a different topic -- here's Krugman on Rachel Maddow's show:

... AND. It's Krugman Week on PBS. Here's the first of five installments:

... Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "Meeting in the desert scrub of Mexico's Baja region..., the leaders of the so-called Group of 20 eschewed specific commitments, instead limiting themselves to more generalized promises to invest in public works, overhaul labor markets and use innovation, education and infrastructure investment to fuel economic growth. A more detailed plan to address Europe's crisis is expected to emerge next week after a European summit meeting in Brussels." ...

... Shaila Dewan & Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "... since its postrecession peak in April 2009 (not counting temporary Census hiring), the public sector has shrunk by 657,000 jobs. The losses appeared to be tapering off earlier this year, but have accelerated for the last three months, creating the single biggest drag on the recovery in many areas. With the economy expanding, albeit slowly, state tax revenues have started to recover and are estimated to exceed prerecession levels next year. Yet governors and legislatures are keeping a tight rein on spending, whether to refill depleted rainy-day funds or because of political inclination."

Maureen Dowd recounts the testimony of Dottie Sandusky, Jerry's wife. If Cairo is in Illinois, De Nile must be in Pennsylvania. One thing that comes out from the testimony: the "constant wife" resented -- and still resents -- the kids Jerry "allegedly" abused.

Charles Pierce interviews Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) about the U.S. Supreme Court, Citizens United & Montana's anti-corruption campaign finance law. Entertaining.

Michael Levenson of the Boston Globe: "Senator Scott Brown today rejected a debate proposed by Victoria Reggie Kennedy, after the widow of Senator Edward M. Kennedy refused his precondition that she not endorse a candidate in his reelection campaign against Democrat Elizabeth Warren." ...

     ... Markos Moulitsas: "... telling the widow to shut the hell up? That's ... unforgivable."

Presidential Race

** Dana Milbank seldom gets serious. Today is an exception: "Under the Obama presidency..., conservative leaders are encouraging the vulgarity -- if not joining in by heckling the president from the House floor. The Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, recently shared a stage with Donald Trump only hours after the buffoon tycoon had again floated the disproved allegation that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Among many such episodes before that, Romney failed to challenge a supporter who suggested to him that Obama 'should be tried for treason.' ... When conservatives sanction the debasement of Obama, they are debasing the presidency itself." Plus, Tucker Carlson should fire Neil Munro for heckling the President.

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "The tax reform plan that House Republicans have advanced would sharply cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and could leave middle-class households facing much larger tax bills, according to a new analysis set to be released Wednesday. The report, prepared by Senate Democrats and reviewed by nonpartisan tax experts, marks the first attempt to quantify the trade-offs inherent in the GOP tax package, which would replace the current tax structure with two brackets -- 25 percent and 10 percent -- and cut the top rate from 35 percent."

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post manages to write a positive story about Romney & Bain Capital, riffing off the photo above.

Peter Baker & Michael Cooper of the New York Times sort of fact-check the presidential candidates. Both sides do it, blah-blah.

Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "President Obama's campaign will begin airing two TV ads today in nine battleground states, attacking Mitt Romney for outsourcing state work and hiking a number of fees during his term as Massachusetts governor.... Independent fact checkers have examined Romney's record on the outsourcing issue and taxes/fee hikes and found neither to be as black and white as the Obama campaign ads suggest." Here's one of the ads:

Tales of the WaWa. In that MSNBC creative editing story I linked yesterday, I mentioned that what Romney said was "amazing" was actually an anecdote he'd told earlier, not the bit about how you get your sandwiches at WaWa. Well, it turns out the backstory is "amazing" because it's 100 percent untrue -- just crap Romney heard or made up to fit his point. In the anecdote that ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor, Romney said,

I met an optometrist this morning. And this optometrist wanted to change his billing address. He moved his office from one side of town to the other. Same zip code. Same post office. But he wanted to change his address. He got a form from the federal government. This is so he can get reimbursement for the services he provides for the poor and seniors. The form he gets to change addresses is 33 pages long.

     ... Apparently Romney was talking about a Medicaid form that's two pages long. TWO. If it turns out Romney's implausible story is right, Greg Sargent will get back to us. Don't hold your breaths.

Gene Robinson: "... if taking action on the immigration issue is good politics for Obama and the Democrats, then Republicans have only themselves to blame. The GOP has made a conscious decision to offer nativists and xenophobes a comfortable home where their extremist views go unchallenged.... It's tiresome having to spend so much time trying to figure out what Romney really believes. If anything, I mean." ...

... Greg Sargent: "Even as [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell is signaling that the party will wait for Romney's direction on the [immigration] issue, however, a handful of House Republicans are moving forward by introducing bills that would block enforcement of Obama's new policy.... Can Republicans leaders possibly want any bills to be on the table that would reverse Obama's order?"

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Mitt Romney told reporters here Tuesday that his vice presidential search team is vetting Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), revealing that one of the Republican Party's biggest young stars is under consideration to be his running mate.... Romney's comments came after ABC News reported that his search team had not asked Rubio to complete a questionnaire or submit any personal financial documents.... Romney strongly denied the ABC report, which was attributed to two anonymous sources."

Colbert discovers an election conspiracy. Thanks to Kate M. for the link:

AND. The presidential candidates try out campaign slogans:

News Ledes

Washington Post: "A House panel voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt for failing to cooperate with a congressional inquiry into Operation 'Fast and Furious,' hours after President Obama asserted executive privilege over related documents."

Washington Post: "The Federal Reserve on Wednesday renewed a program designed to provide a push to economic growth amid a warning that hiring is slowing. The Fed said it would extend 'Operation Twist,' a program that seeks to reduce long-term interest rates, through the end of the year. The decision was a sign that the Fed is not pulling back from its years-long campaign to support the U.S. economy." New York Times story here.

Philadelphia Inquirer: "Defense attorneys in the Jerry Sandusky trial rested their case today without calling their client to the stand -- forgoing his chance to counter a mountain of devastating testimony from men who said he molested them as boys. The judge said the court would be in recess until 9 a.m. Thursday, after which closing arguments would begin. Once deliberations start, the jury will be sequestered."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "After 11 days of deliberations, jurors at the landmark clergy-sex abuse trial of two Philadelphia priests said Wednesday they were deadlocked on all but one count. Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina immediately pressed them to keep trying."

New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Tuesday that the fate of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria should be left to the hands of the Syrians, saying that no one country has the right to tell another people whom [sic.] their leader should be."

AP: "The three parties that back Greece's commitments to bailout creditors have agreed in principle to form a coalition government and are negotiating the final details, officials said Wednesday."

AP: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is beyond the grasp of British authorities as long as he is holed up in Ecuador's London embassy, the government said Wednesday. But he faces arrest if he steps outside. Police said Assange had violated the terms of his bail, which include an overnight curfew, and 'is now subject to arrest.' Police officers were stationed Wednesday outside the Edwardian apartment block that houses the small South American country's London embassy."

AP: "Americans overwhelmingly want the president and Congress to get to work on a new bill to change the health care system if the Supreme Court strikes down President Barack Obama's 2010 overhaul as unconstitutional, a new poll finds."

The Commentariat -- June 19, 2012

Tecumseh killed by William Henry Harrison's forces at the Battle of the Thames, 1813.... Ishaan Tharoor in Time: why Canada is celebrating the bicentennial of "Mr. Madison's War" and the U.S. is not.

Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "Throughout the Great Recession and the not-so-great recovery, the most commonly discussed measure of misery has been unemployment. But many middle-class and working-class people who are fortunate enough to have work are struggling as well...."

How to Win at Monopoly. Christian Berthelsen & Alan Zibel of the Wall Street Journal: "A government program that helps struggling homeowners take advantage of low interest rates to cut monthly mortgage payments is providing an unexpected revenue boost to large banks such as Wells Fargo Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase.... Banks that collect those payments ... could get as much as $12 billion in revenue this year refinancing mortgages under the federal Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP.... That is because the new HARP rules make it easier for borrowers to refinance their loans with existing lenders.... 'There's essentially a monopoly on refinancing,' Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said at a Senate hearing last month.... A senior administration official said the administration tried to get the FHFA to change the policy last year but was unable to do so. The FHFA, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which finance the lion's share of home mortgages, defends the program's structure." ...

... Andrew Leonard of Salon highlights the sentence from the WSJ story I italicized in bold, and has some appropriately unkind words to say about Eddie DeMarco, who runs the FHFA. ...

... According to Peter Goodman, the HuffPost's business editor, a former New York Times reporter & an excellent analyst, there is no reason Obama can't fire DeMarco's ass inasmuch as he is "an acting director who was never confirmed by the Senate." In fact, Obama did try to replace DeMarco last year, but when the Senate refused to confirm his replacement, Obama left DeMarco on the job. Goodman calls DeMarco "the single largest obstacle to meaningful economic recovery."

Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon on why "the expected GOP backlash to Obama's immigration decision has failed to materialize." ...

... Lisa Lerer of Bloomberg News: "Sixty-four percent of likely voters surveyed after Obama’s June 15 announcement [re: deportation waivers] said they agreed with the policy, while 30 percent said they disagreed. Independents backed the decision by better than a two-to-one margin."

Hedge Fund Managers Shouldn't Call the Shots at Universities. Prof. Siva Vaidhyanathan in Salon on the University of Virginia's ouster of its president Theresa Sullivan: "The biggest challenge facing higher education is market-based myopia. Wealthy board members, echoing the politicians who appointed them (after massive campaign donations) too often believe that universities should be run like businesses, despite the poor record of most actual businesses in human history.Universities do not have 'business models.' They have complementary missions of teaching, research, and public service...." Vaidhyanathan fingers a hedge-fund operator named Peter Kiernan who boasted that he engineered Sullivan's ouster. ...

... BUT Kiernan did not act alone. Alec MacGillis of The New Republic: "Paul Tudor Jones, a highly successful Greenwich fund manager who was an early Obama backer last time around but has already given more than $200,000 to Romney's SuperPAC, Restore Our Future.... Tudor Jones ... is at the center of the mysterious and controversial coup d'etat at the University of Virginia." In 1998, Tudor Jones & his wife bought a venerable Greenwich mansion which they tore down and replaced with an "aggressive" mansion which "dominates the landscape. With its enormous center dome and columned portico, it may have been influenced by Thomas Jefferson's Monticello or by Jones's alma mater, the University of Virginia," according to a Vanity Fair article MacGillis cites. ...

... AND as MacGillis points out, the fact that Sullivan co-authored a book with Wall Street scold Elizabeth Warren (and Jay Westbrook), titled The Fragile Middle Class, probably did not make her particularly popular with her hedge-fund overlords at UVA.

Kirk Semple of the New York Times: "Asians have surpassed Hispanics as the largest wave of new immigrants to the United States, pushing the population of Asian descent to a record 18.2 million and helping to make Asians the fastest-growing racial group in the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center."

Presidential Race

We have our own places that we do that. -- Ann Romney, explaining why the Presidents Romney won't be vacationing abroad as often as the Obamas do ...

President Obama, however, has not taken any foreign vacations during his presidency. -- Justin Sink of The Hill ...

... One of the places "that they do that" is in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where the Romneys have a compound "on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. Over the years, they have combined 6 properties to create the compound, which consists of a main home, a converted /stable and other land that have been combined." ...

The main house at the Romney compound in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.

... Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog lists some of the Romneys' vacation options. Don't miss the tweet from Gotta Laff. ...

... Zillow has more photos of a few of their favorite places.

CW: Madame Dressage is supposed to be a great asset to the Romney campaign on account of her ability to "humanize" Willard. I'm having a hard time seeing that.

MSNBC, the Fox "News of the Left. This is a pretty funny video:

     ... The trouble is, the clip takes Romney's remark out of context -- the same way the Romney campaign took an Obama remark out of context to totally change his meaning. Dylan Byers of Politico reports that what "amazed" Romney referred not to the WaWa's scanner but to the preceding anecdote he told about an optometrist who he claimed was snowed under by government paperwork.

Philip Rucker & Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "President Obama has tapped Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, to play Republican Mitt Romney in mock debate rehearsals, Obama campaign officials and the senator's office confirmed Monday. Kerry will help Obama prepare for among the most consequential events of his reelection campaign -- the three fall debates against Romney. As the senior senator from Massachusetts, Kerry has studied Romney's career and campaign style for nearly two decades and has first-hand knowledge of his record as governor.

Local News

Vagina Monologues. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Last week, a Michigan state legislator was barred from speaking on the House floor because she used the word vagina in a statement about proposed abortion regulations in what is arguably the most restrictive bill yet proposed to curb reproductive freedom. State Republicans who rescinded her speaking privileges for a day variously expressed offense at Rep. Lisa Brown's use of the word vagina or the context in which she used the word vagina or her use of the phrase no means no in describing a 50-page proposed bill that contains the word vagina three times." Lithwick proposes a legislative antidote. ...

Dawson Bell & Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: "At least a few thousand women and at most a few hundred men thronged the state Capitol lawn Monday evening.... The two female legislators who were the spark for the gathering after they were barred from speaking on the state House floor Thursday as punishment for their remarks during an emotional debate over abortion were among the evening's star performers as the crowd on blankets and lawn chairs enjoyed a reading of the play, 'The Vagina Monologues.'"

News Ledes

New York Times: "The lawyer for President Obama demanded on Tuesday that Crossroads GPS disclose its donors, saying in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission that the group is plainly a 'political committee' subject to federal reporting requirements. In the complaint..., Robert F. Bauer, the campaign's chief counsel, writes that the group -- founded by Karl Rove, among others -- can no longer shield the identity of its donors by defining itself as a 'social welfare' organization."

New York Times: "Former President Hosni Mubarak, who led Egypt for three decades until he was toppled last year in a popular uprising, was on life support at a military hospital late Tuesday after he was declared 'clinically dead' by doctors, according to Egyptian officials and state news media." ...

     ... Washington Post: "Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out across Egypt late Tuesday to protest recent moves by the country's ruling generals, as conflicting reports about the health of former president Hosni Mubarak injected new uncertainty into a tumultuous political moment."

Guardian: "The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has sought political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, sparking a new crisis in the tortured history of his extradition to Sweden."

Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. failed to convince the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee late Tuesday to drop plans to hold him in contempt of Congress, meaning the panel is likely to vote Wednesday unless the Justice Department hands over documents related to the so-called 'Fast and Furious' gunwalking scandal."

New York Times: "Jerry Sandusky's wife [Dottie] ... took the witness stand on Tuesday to defend him against charges he sexually abused boys in their home and on Penn State's campus, and jurors also heard police investigators contradict themselves and psychological experts duel over evaluations of the defendant."

New York Times: "President Obamaand his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, finally had their face-to-face meeting on Monday, as Mr. Obama pressed Mr. Putin to work with him to ease President Bashar al-Assad of Syria out of power, a move increasingly viewed by the West as the only way to end the bloodshed that has been under way there for more than a year. But after two full hours together, Mr. Putin was still balking...." ...

... Guardian: "The opening day of the G20 summit was threatening to deteriorate into a fractious row between eurozone countries and other non-European members of the G20, notably the US, as EU commission president José Manuel Barroso insisted the origins of the eurozone crisis lay in the unorthodox policies of American capitalism." ...

     ... Update: "Angela Merkel is poised to allow the eurozone's €750bn (£605bn) bailout fund to buy up the bonds of crisis-hit governments in a desperate effort to drive down borrowing costs for Spain and Italy and prevent the single currency from imploding. Germany has long opposed allowing the eurozone's rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to lend directly to troubled eurozone countries, fearing that Berlin would end up paying the bill, and the beneficiaries would escape the strict conditions imposed on Greece, Portugal and Ireland."

... Reuters: "Under pressure from financial markets and anxious world leaders, Europe agreed on Monday to move towards a more integrated banking system to stem a debt crisis that threatens the survival of the euro."

Washington Post: "The Senate reached a deal late Monday that likely guarantees final passage of a new farm bill, likely to be one of the only significant spending bills passed by Congress before the November elections. The new five-year measure would cost $969 billion over the next decade and includes $23.6 billion in proposed cuts, making it a slimmed-down version of legislation that historically served as one of the main opportunities for members of Congress to deliver pork-barrel spending to their constituents."

New York Times: "Talks between Iran and six world powers went into a second day on Tuesday morning, as negotiators sought a compromise that would head off the danger of military confrontation over Tehran's nuclear ambitions."

Reuters: "Greek political parties meeting on Tuesday said they expected to form a coalition government soon and then seek concessions to the painful austerity measures tied to the international bailout deal keeping the country from bankruptcy."

Al Jazeera: "The United States has urged Egypt's military to move swiftly on plans to transfer full power to an elected civilian government and suggested failure to do so would prompt a review of US ties, which includes billions of dollars in military and civilian aid. Both the US State Department and the Pentagon -- which oversees the close military links between the two countries -- voiced concerns on Monday over moves by Egypt's generals to tighten their grip on power...."

Al Jazeera: "The Supreme Court of Pakistan has disqualified Yusuf Raza Gilani from his post as the prime minister of the nation. Tuesday's disqualification comes after an April 26 declaration convicting Gilani, the nation's longest-running prime minister, for contempt for refusing to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, state TV has reported. The high court ordered Zardari to take steps to elect a new prime minister, state media reported." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Pakistan's combative top judge made his most audacious foray into judicial activism yet on Tuesday, firing Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, emptying the cabinet and forcing President Asif Ali Zardari to reset his fragile governing coalition. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry's order was the culmination of a three-year transformation that has injected the once supine Supreme Court into the heart of Pakistan's power equation."

Washington Post: "A week of chaos and uncertainty set off by the removal of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan ended early Tuesday when the university's Board of Visitors appointed an interim leader after almost 12 hours of debate. Carl P. Zeithaml, dean of the university's top-ranked McIntire School of Commerce, will start Aug. 16."

Washington Post: "Brett McGurk, the Obama administration's pick to be the ambassador to Iraq, withdrew his nomination on Monday in the face of mounting opposition in the Senate. Senate Republicans last week expressed doubts about McGurk after a racy e-mail exchange surfaced between McGurk and a Wall Street Journal reporter covering him. The e-mails between McGurk and reporter Gina Chon -- whom he later married -- date from when McGurk was working in Iraq for the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and Chon was stationed in Baghdad."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "Friends and former colleagues described Jerry Sandusky as a 'local hero' and an exemplary role model as his lawyers began presenting his defense against child sex-abuse charges Monday."

The Commentariat -- June 18, 2012

The Most Transparent White House Ever:

Copy of an Office of Legal Counsel memo Charlie Savage of the New York Times received after making a Freedom of Information Request for it. The OLC memo is by Bush counsel Jack Goldsmith. WTF is the Obama Administration hiding? Other than everything.

Uninsured & Clueless. Alec MacGillis, writing for Kaiser Health News, visits a weekend free clinic in Tennessee. When he asked patients what they thought about the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling on "the new national health care law," here's the kind of response he got: "What new law? I've not heard about that." Via Adam Sorensen. We get the government we deserve.

CW: I can't believe I'm linking to an op-ed by Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post's editorial director: Republicans used to swear they favored full disclosure of those responsible for every type of political ad. "Now Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) have introduced legislation that would — without limiting a single act of political speech -- promote disclosure, sunlight and disinfectant. Not a single Republican has signed on."

Paul Krugman, Myth Buster: "... the origins of [the Greek economic] disaster lie ... in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin, where officials created a deeply -- perhaps fatally -- flawed monetary system, then compounded the problems of that system by substituting moralizing for analysis. And the solution to the crisis, if there is one, will have to come from the same places.

Bill Keller urges Roman Catholics "of open minds and open hearts" to leave the Church.

Congress is Back from One of Its Many Vacations. Russell Berman of The Hill: "The focus for congressional leaders ... will be on the highway and education [student loans] bills. As campaign fever engulfs the Capitol, deals on those two issues could be among the last agreements before Congress takes its July 4 recess. But they are no sure thing."

Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post on the Jerry Sandusky trial: "There's a shadow trial underway, because if the prosecution's case is correct, many people and important institutions failed to keep Sandusky from preying on boys despite direct eyewitness evidence that he was a pedophile."

Christine Haughney of the New York Times: "Three years after telling his shareholders that he would not buy a newspaper at any price, [Warren] Buffett has moved aggressively into the business, buying 63 papers and revealing a 3 percent stake in Lee Enterprises, a chain of mostly small dailies based in Iowa. In a letter Mr. Buffett sent to the publishers and editors of all Berkshire Hathaway daily newspapers, he described himself as a newspaper 'addict' who planned to buy more papers in the future."

Peter Boyer of Newsweek writes a long encomium on Chris Christie. He mentions New Jersey's great economy. (See Marvin Schwalb's comment in yesterday's Commentariat for a Reality Chek there.) CW: what impressed me was how Christie had mastered the "divide & conquer" strategy against public workers.

Dreams of My Father? More like Fables about Family & Friends, according to Ben Smith's reading of David Maraniss's new biography of the young Barack Obama. ...

... Jim Fallows reviews Barack Obama for the New York Times Book Review. ...

... AND you book-readers might want to read Dan Amira's review of Rielle Hunter's tell-all book about her affair with handsome John Edwards. As far as I can tell, Amira hasn't read the book, but that takes nothing away from his insightful take. ...

... Russell Goldman of ABC News has more. Also at the ABC link, a video so you book-readers who don't like to read words won't have to. And this tease: this Friday at 10 pm ET on ABC's "20-20," "Hunter will reveal the current status of her relationship with Edwards."

Julia Preston & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "In recent weeks, the White House faced intense pressure from some of its closest allies ... to provide some relief for immigrant communities. The urging came from Harry Reid of Nevada and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois ... and the Hispanic caucus in the House of Representatives, as well as Latino and immigrant leaders across the country.... And last week, students without immigration papers started a campaign of sit-ins and hunger strikes at Obama campaign offices in more than a dozen cities...." ...

... In a Time magazine essay, "The President explains his decision to no longer deport undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children." ...

... Alex Leary of the Tampa Bay Times: "Republicans were angered by Obama's [immigration] move, seeing the new policy as circumventing Congress but also deriding it as job-stealing amnesty (by that view, they must think [Sen. Marco] Rubio's [R-Fla.] proposal, which would create nonimmigrant visas, was amnesty as well.) But even as Rubio had yet to release his proposal, the dynamic has shifted. Republicans have dug in and Democrats may now feel that anything short of the full Dream Act is unacceptable." Via Greg Sargent.

Presidential Race

The only difference between negative and positive ads is that negative ads have facts in them. -- Mike Murphy, GOP campaign operative ...

... Frank Rich: "The serious questions raised by the early Obama ads [attacking Romney] are not whether they were too much but too little.... The president, any president, should go negative early, often, and without apology if the goal is victory. The notion that negative campaigning is some toxic modern aberration in American democracy is bogus." Top this, Barack:

In his public statements about Homeland Security's new deportation policy, including the Time magazine essay linked above, President Obama of course doesn't say a thing about screwing Romney. But the new policy does screw Romney. And Romney knows it. ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "... Mitt Romney declined to say on Sunday whether he would reverse the president's decision if he takes up occupancy of the White House.Although Mr. Romney said during the Republican primary debates that he would veto the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, he was more equivocal about Mr. Obama’s order last week." ...

... Greg Sargent: Romney refused to answer Schieffer's repeated question as to how he would pay for the massive tax cuts on the wealthy he has proposed. ...

... Philip Rucker & Dan Balz of the Washington Post, in a straight reporting piece, repeatedly write that Romney's campaign speeches are all about criticizing Obama policies without specifying any of his own.

Emily Friedman of ABC News: "President Obama's senior campaign strategist David Axelrod condemned the protesters who showed up at two of Mitt Romney's campaign events in Ohio today while taking a dig at the GOP candidate.... Axelrod wrote on Twitter, 'I strongly condemn heckling along Mitt's route. Shouting folks down is their tactic, not ours. Let voters hear BOTH candidates & decide.'" ...

... Gwen Florio of the Missoulian: at the Montana state GOP convention, "an outhouse labeled 'Obama Presidential Library' [was] parked outside Missoula's Hilton Garden Inn, where the convention took place.... The outhouse was painted to look as though it had been riddled by bullets. Inside, a fake birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama made reference to the disproven controversy over the president's origins. It was stamped 'Bull--;.' A graffito advised 'For a Good Time call 800-Michelle (crossed out), Hillary (crossed out) and Pelosi (circled in red.)'"

News Ledes

New York Times: baseballer "Roger Clemens ... was acquitted Monday of all charges that he lied to Congress in 2008 when he insisted he never used steroids or human growth hormone during his long career."

New York Times: "Saudi Arabia's Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who was governor of Riyadh for nearly 50 years until his recent promotion to Saudi Arabia's defense minister, was officially named crown prince on Monday, making him the heir apparent to the 88-year-old King Abdullah."

AFP: "The leaders of the world's major powers will seek to buy the global economy some breathing space at the G20 summit Monday with new support for an IMF financial firewall and for Greece."

Here's Al Jazeera's liveblog for Egypt. What a mess! ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Faced with the popular election of the first Islamist head of state in the Arab world, Egypt's ruling generals sought on Monday to soften the appearance of their supreme authority as they entered a period of negotiations with the prospective president over the balance of executive, legislative and military power."