The Commentariat -- January 8, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Ross Douthat's "Sin of Omission," his sneaky skirting of Rick Santorum's exploitation of his wife's terminated pregnancy. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

There is an Open Thread on Off Times Square this weekend. I am shutting down Off Times Square after this weekend. I am not certain how long I will continue to maintain Reality Chex, but I will definitely stick with it till Willard -- or somebody -- clinches the GOP presidential nomination. I doubt I'll continue all the way to November as that would require me to make an additional financial investment in Reality Chex. In any event, I'm moving in a direction away from public service. I've done my bit.

** Lakhdar Boumediene, a Red Crescent (like the Red Cross) worker whom the U.S. (that's "us," or more properly here, "we") imprisoned in Guantánamo for seven years, without charges, writes a New York Times op-ed about his ordeal and about the continuing imprisonment of 171 men, some 90 of whom have been cleared for transfer but have no place to go (& the U.S. won't have them). ...

... Murat Kurnaz, a German national we held for at Guantánamo for five years, is more forthcoming in his New York Times op-ed about the torture to which we subjected him. According to his account, the U.S. had no evidence whatsoever against him. The German government secured his release.

Thanks to reader Haley S. for directing me to this:

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the conventional wisdom goes, is exceptionally supportive of free speech. Leading scholars and practitioners have called the Roberts court the most pro-First Amendment court in American history. A recent study ... says that a comprehensive look at data from 1953 to 2011 tells a different story, one showing that the court is hearing fewer First Amendment cases and is ruling in favor of free speech at a lower rate than any of the courts led by the three previous chief justices. The study arrives as the Supreme Court prepares to consider two major First Amendment cases. On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations.... Next month, the court will consider United States v. Alvarez...."

Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "Caterpillar is one of dozens of companies, many with growing profits and large cash reserves, that have come to expect ... largess from states in return for creating jobs.... Although the sums spent on training are usually small compared with the tax breaks and other credits doled out by states, some critics question the tactic.... Critics suggest the programs may not even be in the best interest of workers if the resulting jobs pay low wages or simply disappear after a few years, leaving employees with narrow skills that do not help them land new positions.... Various studies have long questioned whether states get their money’s worth from incentives for companies that build facilities or expand existing ones. In a report last month, Good Jobs First, a nonprofit research organization that tracks such spending, found that states often attract companies that create few jobs, pay low wages or scrimp on health insurance."

Scott Wilson & Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "For a president denounced by Republican rivals as a weak and irresponsible commander in chief, the show of military support [during his announcement of national defense priorities last week] represented a political windfall for [President] Obama as he begins campaigning in earnest for a second term. But it also marked an evolution in Obama’s practice of Washington politics, evidence that after being outmaneuvered by congressional Republicans several times, he does not intend to make the same mistakes in an election year. By enlisting the military’s help in defining its strategic priorities, Obama has sought to ensure that he has the military’s support when his defense budget goes before Congress.... Military leaders, in turn, now have reason to believe that Obama will not agree to further cuts."

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A nearly two-month lull in American drone strikes in Pakistan has helped embolden Al Qaeda and several Pakistani militant factions to regroup, increase attacks against Pakistani security forces and threaten intensified strikes against allied forces in Afghanistan, American and Pakistani officials say."

Right Wing World

Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "A relaxed and self-assured Mitt Romney sailed above the fray at a crucial debate on Saturday night as his Republican rivals engaged in a spirited fight to determine which of them would emerge as his most formidable opponent when the party’s nominating contest moves past New Hampshire." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: 'Short version: nothing happened to derail Mitt Romney tonight, and Republican debates are a lot more entertaining (albeit even less reality-based) with Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann around." ...

... Roger Simon of Politico: "The press, which gives away its insights every day for free, predicted a brawl. Four of the five would attack Romney verbally, while Newt Gingrich might actually sink his teeth into Romney’s leg. But if there is one thing that marks the press, it is our unquenchable optimism. And, once again, our hopes were dashed. The debate seemed old and tired within minutes of its start.... The debate was notable for one thing, however: It was the first time Romney demonstrated he was shockingly uninformed on a serious subject: ABC moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Romney whether he believed states ought to be able to outlaw the sale of contraceptives. It was not a whacky question: Santorum believes each state should have that power to decide for itself. But Romney" had no idea about the issue and was evidently unaware of the landmark 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, which went against the state.

... ABC News fact-checks 10 assertions candidates made during Saturday's debate. No, Willard, you did not create 100,000 jobs at Bain Capital, and no, Rick [Perry, that is], President Obama is not "waging a war on religion." ...

... AND the righty-right New Hampshire Union Leader is still behind the Newt. In a front-page editorial, publisher Joe McQuaid writes, "Romney is a nice, rich man with a tin ear...."

** Maureen Dowd writes an excellent take-down of Rick Santorum. ...

... Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "At a campaign stop Thursday, [Rick Santorum] got into a verbal sparring match with a college student about same-sex marriage, after suggesting an equivalence between same-sex relationships and polygamy. Ever since, Santorum has faced a series of confrontations — and some heckling — over his opposition to same-sex relationships and abortion. And there are some signs this reception in a state where same-sex marriage is legal is taking some of the spring out of the momentum Santorum picked up by nearly winning the Iowa caucuses Tuesday. A new Suffolk University/7News tracking poll of voters likely to take part in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary showed that following the widely televised exchange with the college student, Santorum’s support, which had been rising, had appeared to plateau."

Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "An early favorite of the pundit classes in Washington and New York — invited for cameos on 'The Colbert Report' and 'Saturday Night Live' — [former Utah Gov. Jon] Huntsman, Jr., out of other options, has bet it all on New Hampshire."

Local News

Tom Tolan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "A judge ruled Thursday that the state Government Accountability Board needs to take more aggressive action to vet recall signatures that are expected to be submitted in two weeks against Gov. Scott Walker and other Republican office holders. The ruling by Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis came in a case filed Dec. 15 by Walker's campaign committee and Stephan Thompson, executive director of the state Republican Party, asking Davis to order the accountability board to seek out and eliminate duplicate and fictitious signatures and illegible addresses in recall petitions." ...

... CW: a friend told me Judge Davis was a bit of a partisan. There's this from Eric Kleefeld of TPM: "Judge J. Mac Davis. As for his own background, Davis was a Republican state Senator over 20 years ago, and during the final years of the Bush administration, he was nominated for a federal circuit judgeship, but the nomination was never taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Global regulators vowed on Sunday to press ahead with tough new liquidity rules for banks from 2015, but in a move to head off opposition from industry, also said lenders can tap into safety buffers in times of stress."

Reuters: "Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cautioned global rivals on Sunday not to misjudge U.S. plans to slash military spending over the next decade, saying America would still field the world's strongest military and nobody should 'mess with that.' Panetta, speaking on CBS's 'Face the Nation,' also reiterated the tough U.S. stance toward Iran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, which is vital for oil shipping in the Gulf, saying the United States would not 'tolerate' it."

New York Times: "Here come the scathing attacks on Mitt Romney by Newt Gingrich and his outside supporters. A flier that Mr. Gingrich’s campaign created called 'Not Romney!' hammers the message that 'Romney is not a conservative' and 'Romney is not electable.' Meanwhile a super PAC supporting Mr. Gingrich has acquired a blistering 30-minute film about Mr. Romney’s career at Bain Capital, which it portrays as fabulously enriching for him but devastating for hundreds of workers who lost jobs at companies he shrank and resold."

Politico: "Center stage on this Sunday’s television talk shows is a special edition of NBC’s 'Meet the Press,' which is joining Facebook to host the last Republican presidential debate before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. It will be the second encounter for the six contenders in 12 hours, following an ABC News/Yahoo/WMUR-TV debate Saturday night. Both are originating from New Hampshire." CW: And you can watch it here, too! Ugh!

Washington Post: "Advocates for unfettered access to the 'morning-after pill' Plan B One-Step took their case to President Obama’s chief science adviser [John Holdren] Friday, asking him to find out the basis for the administration’s controversial decision last month to continue requiring that young teens get the drug only by prescription. In brief presentations wedged into a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, five experts decried Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s rejection of the Food and Drug Administration’s move to make Plan B available over the counter."

Reuters: "Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords made a surprise return to the Tucson grocery store where she was wounded in a deadly mass shooting on January 8 last year, as the city braced on Saturday for the event's somber anniversary.... In another unannounced visit earlier in the day, Giffords hiked outside Tucson on a desert trail named for her slain aide Gabe Zimmerman, her office said, stopping briefly to talk to hikers." The Tucson Arizona Daily Star lists activities planned for today to commemorate the lives of the shooting victims. ...

     ... Washington Post update here. ...

     ... Arizona Daily Star Update: "President Obama telephoned U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords today, marking the one-year anniversary of the Tucson shooting spree." ...

     ... New York Times update story of the day's events in Tucson here.

The Commentariat -- January 7, 2012

President Obama's Weekly Address:

... The transcript is here. Caren Bohan & Jeff Mason of Reuters: "President Barack Obama kicked off an effort to encourage businesses to keep jobs at home instead of outsourcing them overseas, as he rolled out a new election-year theme on Saturday aimed at courting middle-class voters."

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Today ... DOJ filed its brief defending the Affordable Care Act’s insurance coverage requirement, and with one sentence the Justice Department takes the plaintiff’s silliest and most successful argument off the table." You can read the brief here.

Citizens United Redux? As a follow-up to an item we linked several days ago, here's David Sirota in Salon: "Last week ... a major ruling out of Montana paved the way for a likely U.S. Supreme Court showdown over the role of corporate money in politics. In the case, which was spearheaded by the state’s Democratic Attorney General Steve Bullock, Montana’s top court restored Big Sky country’s century-old law banning corporations from directly spending on political candidates or committees. Legal experts believe that upon appeal, this case will come before the nation’s highest court. While there, it could serve as the first test of the precedents in the infamous Citizens United decision." Sirota spoke to Bullock about the case, and includes an edited transcript of the interview in the post. Audio of the full audio podcast is here.

Elizabeth Warren speaks in Franklin, Massachusetts. Warren begins speaking about 3 min. in. Thanks to reader Trish R. for the heads-up:

Right Wing World

"Willard Must Be Destroyed" -- Charles Pierce

Charles Pierce gives you the lowdown on what to expect during the two -- yes, two -- GOP unpresidential debates AND the Sunday morning talkshows. He makes it fun!

Here's your drinking game for your Sunday morning mimosa: Take a sip every time [that twit David] Gregory begins a question with the phrase, 'Last night, you said....' Drink the whole thing down every time he prefaces matters with the phrase, 'Do you stand by...?' I promise you, if you play this game, you will be utterly sockless long before Pittsburgh and Tebow tee it up Saturday afternoon. ...

... Steve Benen chooses Willard's "Top Five Lies of the Week." This could be a running series. ...

... Edward Mason in Salon: "Money may not be buying Mitt Romney much Republican love, but it’s going a long way toward helping him buy the next best thing: endorsements in the GOP primaries. Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC and its affiliates states have lavished close to $1.3 million in campaign donations to federal, state and local GOP politicians, almost all since 2010. His recipients include officials in the major upcoming primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, and in three southern Super Tuesday states where he was trounced four years ago."

... Randy Johnson, one of the thousands of people Willard laid off, speaks out: 

Live Free or Die if You're a One Percenter. Center for Tax Justice: "Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s $6.6 trillion tax plan would give the richest one percent of New Hampshire residents an average tax cut of $125,900 which would be over 90 times as large as the average tax cut of $1,400 that the middle fifth of the state’s residents would receive. Former Senator Rick Santorum’s $9.4 trillion tax plan would give the richest one percent of New Hampshire residents an average tax cut of $219,570, which would be over 90 times as large as the average tax cut of $2,390 that the middle fifth of the state’s residents would receive." (File is a pdf.)

Gene Robinson on why progressives should not be rooting for Rick Santorum on the theory that President Obama could easily beat him. (1) Santorum is a good campaigner who connects with working people. (2) "With the exception of Ron Paul, the Republican candidates have competed to see who can be most hawkish on Iran’s nuclear program. Santorum wins, hands down.... It’s quite difficult for a president to change the nation’s culture. It’s quite easy for a president to start a war. Yes, the GOP’s clown-car nomination battle is a source of amusement. The prospect of a Santorum presidency, though, is a source of alarm."

Dana Milbank on Newt Gingrich's Ego Bus Trip: "Me! Largest! First! Best! Gingrich talks often on the stump about 'American exceptionalism,' but his campaign seems to be based on the theory of Newtonian exceptionalism...."

Elections Have Consequences. Reader Haley S. points us to an article by Thomas Mann & Norm Ornstein in the Washington Monthly, which presents an entirely plausible -- in fact, likely -- path to how the GOP, if they hold the House & take back the Senate & presidency, would complete dismantle the social safety net in 2013.

** You Thought I Was Kidding When I Said The GOP Wants to Take Us Back to the Dark Ages. They're already back to 1215. That's close. The following would be local news, except for the fact that the same people who elected these guys are about to have an outsized impact on deciding who the Republican presidential nominee, and possibly the next POTUS, will be:

     Karen Langley & Matthew Spolar of the Concord Monitor: Republicans in the New Hampshire state legislature plan to introduce a bill requiring all civil rights legislation to derive from the Magna Carta. You can't make this stuff up. Here's their whole bill:

All members of the general court proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived.

     The bill doesn't specify which version of the Magna Carta must be cited, so I guess there's some leeway. Here's the model -- directly from the Magna Carta, mind you, that women's rights legislation would have to follow: "No-one is to be taken or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of anyone save for the death of that woman’s husband." Bankers & the Anti-Defamation League will love this one from the 1297 (and more important) version of the charter: "If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age." BTW, -- much as they cherished it -- the Brits repealed most of the Magna Carta in the 19th century. In New Hampshire, the GOP is bringing it back!

Local News

Chris Bowers of Daily Kos: "Thirty-seven Indiana Democrats are on their third day of denying Republicans the 67-member quorum necessary to proceed with union-busting 'right to work' legislation in the Indiana House of Representatives. The Democrats continue to not show up to the chamber despite now facing fines of $1,000 a day.... Democrats and unions are within striking distance of stopping the bill."

News Ledes

ABC News: "The [GOP presidential] debate ... will air from 9-11 p.m. ET [tonight] from Saint Anselm College, where it will be moderated by ABC News’ Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos, as well as WMUR-TV anchor Josh McElveen." CW: Be sure to check if the candidates are wearing flag pins, George. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Mitt Romney and his rivals for the Republican nomination appealed to voters across [New Hampshire] Saturday, while also bracing for a weekend of debates that could reshape the contest just before Tuesday’s primary."

     ... Los Angeles Times Update: "An unusually sunny Newt Gingrich pledged to be a happy warrior at tonight’s debate, contrasting Mitt Romney’s record with his own but not attacking him."

     ... The New York Times has a pretty good live update of the debate, including some fact-checking. Here are the Washington Post updates on the debate.

New York Times: "In a naval action that mixed diplomacy, drama and Middle Eastern politics, the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis broke up a high-seas pirate attack on a cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman, then sailors from an American destroyer boarded the pirates’ mother ship and freed 13 Iranian hostages who had been held captive there for more than a month." ...

... Washington Post Update: "Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday welcomed the U.S. Navy’s rescue of 13 Iranian fishermen held captive by pirates, just days after it had warned all U.S. ships to leave the region."

AP: "Defending President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul, the administration is urging the Supreme Court to uphold the contentious heart of the law, the requirement that individuals buy insurance or pay a penalty. The administration filed a written submission with the court Friday describing the 2010 law as an appropriate response to a 'crisis in the national health care market.'" See also today's Commentariat.

Reuters: "A wrongful death lawsuit linked to a defining moment of the Iraq war has ended with the company formerly known as Blackwater agreeing to settle with the families of four security contractors killed in a gruesome 2004 ambush. The victims' survivors reached a confidential settlement with the company's successor, Academi, agreeing to dismiss the case before the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit."

The Commentariat -- January 6, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' second love letter to Rick Santorum. The NYTX front page is here. Also, you can contribute to NYTX here. ...

... BTW, today's topic on Off Times Square relates to the "Elections Have Consequences" links below. We had quite a good discussion in the previous thread, so I'm hoping for the same today.

** Elections Have Consequences. Dahlia Lithwick in the Washington Monthly: "If you care about the future of abortion rights, stem cell research, worker protections, the death penalty, environmental regulation, torture, presidential power, warrantless surveillance, or any number of other issues, it’s worth recalling that the last stop on the answer to each of those matters will probably be before someone in a black robe. Republicans have understood that for decades now, and that’s why the federal bench — including the Supreme Court — is almost unrecognizable to Democrats today."

Edward Wyatt of the New York Times: "The new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau outlined a vigorous oversight and enforcement agenda on Thursday, saying that financial companies that take unfair advantage of consumers would face 'real consequences.' The director, Richard Cordray, who was appointed to the post on Wednesday by President Obama, encouraged consumers to contact the agency through its Web site [www.consumerfinance.gov] with complaints about banks, payday lenders and other financial institutions that they think have sold deceptive products or engaged in abusive behavior."

Floyd Norris of the New York Times: "For the first time in many years, manufacturing stands out as an area of strength in the American economy. When the Labor Department reports December employment numbers on Friday, it is expected that manufacturing companies will have added jobs in two consecutive years. Until last year, there had not been a single year when manufacturing employment rose since 1997."

Jake Sherman of Politico: "A year to the day since Ohio’s John Boehner and 87 eager freshmen took Washington by storm, House Republicans are bruised from battle, irritated with each other and have lost trust in their leadership. The president whose agenda they came to Washington to stop is vowing to spend the year scoring political points against Republicans now, and they don’t have much leverage against him."

Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: "... while corporate profits have rebounded to their pre-recession heights, setting a record in the third quarter of 2011, corporate tax revenue has yet to follow suit.... Corporate tax revenue has plummeted for several reasons, but one of the big ones is the growth of deductions, loopholes, and outright tax evasion that helps companies limit, or entirely eliminate, their income tax liability. 30 major corporations, in fact, paid no corporate income tax over the last three years, while making $160 billion in profits." CW: this story also falls in the "Elections Have Consequences" category. These companies aren't paying their fair share because Congress has decided they don't have to. Another good reason to support Sen. Bernie Sanders' Constitutional Amendment drive.

Ryan Reilly of TPM: "Federal law enforcement officials had been worried about the 'uncertainty' that a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would create for agents dealing with a terrorist attack.... But the signing statement issued by President Barack Obama on New Year’s Eve appears to indicate that it should be business as usual.... Broadly, the administration will interpret the law in a way that gives them the ability to wave [sic. "waive"] any military custody requirement and enact it in a way that allows counterterrorism flexibility."

Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Elementary- and middle-school teachers who help raise their students’ standardized-test scores seem to have a wide-ranging, lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates and greater college matriculation and adult earnings, according to a new study that tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "Obama administration officials announced on Friday that they will propose a fix to a notorious snag in immigration law that will spare hundreds of thousands of American citizens from prolonged separations from immigrant spouses and children."

Kevin O'Brien of the New York Times: "The world’s congested mobile airwaves are being divided in a lopsided manner, with 1 percent of consumers generating half of all traffic. The top 10 percent of users, meanwhile, are consuming 90 percent of wireless bandwidth."

Right Wing World

Offensive Quote of the Day. I'm prepared. If the N.A.A.C.P. invites me, I’ll go to their convention, talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. -- Newt Let-Them-Be-Janitors Gingrich

(CW: I so often have to resist the urge, after quoting one of these jackasses, to type, "Really, I'm not making this up." These bozos are so mired in racist, ethnic, religious & sexist stereotypes that their remarks defy credulity.)

The Editorial Board of the Boston Globe, which is New Hampshire's "big city" paper, endorses Jon Huntsman, Jr., in the GOP presidential primary. You may recall that Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, and just for the edification of Michele Bachmann, Boston is in Massachusetts. Read the endorsement to see why the Globe editors don't trust Romney.

Nate Silver: It's Friday, but the official Iowa Caucus vote is still too close to call.

Rick Ungar in the Washington Monthly on why he's glad he watched the candidates' Iowa speeches, particularly Newt's "kamikaze effort to take down Mitt Romney at any cost," Romney's "boring and barren ... canned repetition of [his] stump speech, and Santorum's "soulful and searing" victory speech:

Romney could hardly discuss his own family lineage, which includes his great-grandfather’s emigration from the United States to Mexico to avoid American anti-polygamy laws. Indeed, while Rick Santorum’s grandfather came to these shores to find freedom and opportunity, Romney’s grandfather returned to the United States to avoid the Mexican Revolution.

Elections Have Consequences. Brian Beutler of TPM: Mitt Romney's tax plan is a fucking disaster: "... the plan constitutes a major tax cut for wealthy Americans. But compared to today’s rates, Romney proposes effective tax increases for people making less than $40,000." Includes an interactive chart that shows the biggest break would be for those earning over a million a year, & the biggest tax increase would be for those earning less than $10,000 a year. And in case you're the last person in Amurrica who thinks Republicans care about the deficit, "The Romney plan would reduce federal tax revenues substantially."

Elections Have Consequences. If you think Mitt Romney will "move to the center" should he become president, as Nicholas Kristof argued in his wishful-thinking column yesterday (see my rebuttal of one aspect of it here), read Jonathan Bernstein's article in the Washington Monthly. Guess what? "Campaign promises set the presidential agenda, even when they don’t tell you which items will pan out and which won’t.... So as you listen to Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republicans..., don’t assume that it’s all meaningless, empty rhetoric that will be dropped once the campaign is over and governing begins. Don’t assume, either, that ... specific pledges made in the primary season will be left behind...." BTW, you can blame Steve Forbes for the deficit. (Read Bernstein to find out why.)

PolitiFact: "The Romney ad claimed that the NLRB told Boeing that it 'can’t build a factory in South Carolina because South Carolina is a right-to-work state.' The NLRB’s complaint started a legal process that could ultimately have resulted in a factory closure, but the NLRB as a whole didn’t tell Boeing anything. What’s more, the legal basis for the action centered on whether Boeing was punishing the union for staging strikes, not that Boeing had opened a factory in a right-to-work state." ...

... What's more Romney knows it's a lie. PolitiFact debunked the same claim when Romney made it in October 2011. CW: I'm not that crazy about PolitiFact, but they're right on this. ...

... Steve Benen has more on Romney's absurd claim that he created more than 100,000 jobs at Bain while President Obama has done little in the way of jobs creation. ...

... AND Paul Krugman devotes his column to Romney's big lies on jobs creation. He adds,

... after the companies that Bain restructured were downsized — or, as happened all too often, went bankrupt — total U.S. employment was probably about the same as it would have been in any case. But the jobs that were lost paid more and had better benefits than the jobs that replaced them. Mr. Romney and those like him didn’t destroy jobs, but they did enrich themselves while helping to destroy the American middle class. And that reality is, of course, what all the blather and misdirection about job-creating businessmen and job-destroying Democrats is meant to obscure.

Mike McIntire & Michael Luo of the New York Times: "As [Rick] antorum’s standing in the race for the Republican presidential nomination has been energized by his strong showing in the Iowa caucus, so too has the scrutiny of his activities since leaving the Senate. When he left office he was not especially wealthy, but records show he wasted little time fashioning a lucrative post-government career based largely on income from businesses that had benefited from his work in Congress." ...

... Dan Eggen & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Rick Santorum has vaulted to the front ranks of the Republican presidential nomination race in part by depicting himself as a religious family man of lowly beginnings who would bring needed change to Washington. But that characterization leaves out two decades in which Santorum was a central and often high-ranking player in Washington politics, with connections to K Street lobbyists and a lucrative consulting career that made him a millionaire. In the Senate, for example, he played a pivotal role in advancing the controversial K Street Project, a highly organized effort to pressure industry groups and lobbying firms to hire Republicans for influential jobs and punish those who brought in Democrats.... After losing a reelection bid in 2006, he capitalized on his congressional experience by beginning a profitable career on K Street as an adviser to industry groups and lobbying firms...." ...

...Michael Shear of the New York Times: Rick Santorum got into a "Socratic exchange" on gay marriage with students in New Hampshire at the College Convention 2012. With video I won't be watching. ...

... Robert Mackey of the New York Times: "Writing in The Jewish Week on Monday, Douglas Bloomfield reminded readers that [Rick] Santorum told a man in Iowa six weeks ago that 'all the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They’re not Palestinians — there is no Palestinian — this is Israeli land.' ... Even Israel’s government calls the West Bank a 'disputed territory,' whose future status 'is subject to negotiation.'” With more video I won't be watching.

AND "Herman Cain Is Back and Weirder than Ever." The video below is not a parody. Cain released it himself. He is not stupid:

Local News

Scott Walker's Cronies. Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Three individuals -- including a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker -- were charged Thursday with felonies as part of the ongoing John Doe investigation into Walker staffers. Tim Russell, a longtime Walker campaign and county staffer, was charged with two felonies and one misdemeanor count of embezzlement.... Also charged Thursday was Brian Pierick, Russell's longtime partner and a staffer at the state Department of Public Instruction, and Kevin Kavanaugh, Walker's appointee to the Milwaukee County Veteran Service Commission."

News Ledes

The President speaks at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He talks about the jobs reports, too:

New York Times: "The United States added a robust 200,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, in a sign that the long-awaited economic recovery has finally built up a head of steam. The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent in December, from a revised 8.7 percent in November, the government said."

New York Times: "... in an unusual case of intraparty defiance, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey is holding up President Obama’s nomination of a judge to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the only time a Democrat has tried to block one of Mr. Obama’s judicial nominees. Mr. Menendez would not comment. But the nominee, Patty Shwartz, has been in a relationship for more than two decades with the head of the public corruption unit for New Jersey’s federal prosecutor. And that unit investigated the senator during his 2006 election fight, an inquiry Mr. Menendez has long contended was politically motivated.... The connection has led lawyers and judges in the state to speculate that Mr. Menendez is acting out of resentment, rather than any concern about Judge Shwartz’s qualifications."

New York Times: "An explosion tore through a densely populated neighborhood in Damascus on Friday, killing 25 people and wounding dozens more in the second attack in the Syrian capital in two weeks, Syrian television and other state media reported." Guardian liveblog here.

Reuters: "The Muslim Brotherhood won more than a third of the votes in the last stage of elections for Egypt's lower house of parliament, according to partial results on Friday, which show the Islamists are set to dominate the legislature."

Guardian: "Portia Simpson Miller has been sworn in for the second time as Jamaica's prime minister with a pledge to ease poverty, boost the economy, heal political divisions and drop the Queen as head of state."

New York Times: "Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan will be among those elevated to cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church in a Vatican ceremony next month, the Archdiocese of New York announced in a news release on Friday." Related AP story here.