The Commentariat -- January 26

Adam Sorensen of Time: "The Congressional Budget Office released its economic and budget forecast for the next decade Wednesday morning." Sorensen looks at the political implications of this:

Tom Junod has a profile of Fox "News" CEO Roger Ailes titled "Why Does Roger Ailes Hate America?" I've only skimmed the article, but it appears to be a worthy read, & I'll get back to it. Junod has some of the transcripts of his interview of Ailes here. Ben Smith recommended the Junod story yesterday. AND the upshot of Smith's recommendation is pathetic/hilarious & certainly supports Junod's suggestion that Ailes is a paranoid freak who runs a tight ship.

Chris Matthews breaks some news about gun control:

John Burns & Julia Werdigier of the New York Times: "Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government received a sharp political jolt on Tuesday with the release of official figures showing that Britain’s economy contracted slightly in the last three months of 2010, prompting some economists to warn that the country was at increased risk of a 'double dip' recession after four consecutive quarters of modest growth."

You Can't Make This Stuff up -- but Michele Bachmann Can. Sahir Kapur of the Raw Story: "Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said the United States was founded on racial and ethnic diversity and that the founding fathers were responsible for abolishing slavery."

News Items

New York Times: "The Defense Department is disputing an MSNBC report that the commander of the naval brig in Quantico, Va., exceeded his authority by placing Pfc. Bradley Manning – the Army intelligence analyst who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks – on suicide watch. MSNBC, quoting unnamed military officials, reported on Monday that James Averhart, the brig commander, violated procedure last week by placing Private Manning on suicide watch for two days after he was accused of failing to follow orders from his guards."

Politico: "The House passed a GOP-sponsored bill to end public financing for presidential campaigns Wednesday. Ten Democrats, most of them Blue Dogs, joined Republicans in the vote."

Washington Post: "In the weeks and days before the shooting rampage in Tucson, suspect Jared Lee Loughner surfed the Internet on his computer in what investigators believe was an effort to prepare for his alleged assassination attempt, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said. Loughner pulled up several Web sites about lethal injections and solitary confinement in prison.... He also viewed Internet sites about political assassins...."

AP: "Police stood guard as an ambulance took Rep. Gabrielle Giffords from intensive care to a rehabilitation hospital in Houston on Wednesday, an encouraging step that came after doctors upgraded her condition from serious to good." ...

... New York Times: "Doctors on Tuesday night upgraded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’s medical condition from serious to good, and announced they planned to move her from an intensive care unit to a rehabilitation hospital as early as Wednesday morning."

New York Times: "The nation’s budget deficit will widen to nearly $1.5 trillion this year, and the country faces 'daunting economic and budgetary challenges,' the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday as it released its most updated fiscal report. The budget office noted that 'the deficits of $1.4 trillion in 2009 and $1.3 trillion in 2010 are, when measured as a share of gross domestic product, the largest since 1945 – representing 10 percent and 8.9 percent of the nation’s output.'” ...

     ... NEW. Here's the CBO's summary report with links to a pdf of the full report & related documents.

AP: "A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit that blamed the security company formerly known as Blackwater for the deaths of four contractors killed in a grisly 2004 ambush on the restive streets of Iraq. U.S. District Judge James C. Fox said court-ordered arbitration fell apart because neither side was paying the costs of that process, so he decided to shut the case nearly seven years after the killings."

Decoding the State of the Union

Peter Nicholas of the Chicago Tribune: "President Obama will call for a five year freeze on non-security discretionary spending in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, White House officials said, in a bid to help reduce the deficit and counter public perceptions that he spent too freely in his first two years in power."

Ezra Klein on "Competitiveness": "Framing the global economy as a competition rather than a shared enterprise preys on our fear of rising powers such as China and India. But, to the White House, it's for a good cause: It gets America's competitive juices flowing, helping galvanize us into making the changes and investments needed to secure our own future. The true competition that the White House is setting up is not between the economic models of China and the United States, but between the economic policies of Democrats and Republicans."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... advisers say Mr. Obama will lay out his case for investment in education and infrastructure, while tempering his call for new initiatives with an acknowledgment of the country’s long-term fiscal challenges."

Michael Crowley of Time adds his two cents: "This will, in effect, be Obama's opening pitch for re-election in the 2012 presidential campaign."

Perry Bacon, Jr. of the Washington Post: "Now, the president is expected to offer a series of proposals that don't fall on sharp ideological lines as last year's health care bill did, but will still test the two parties' ability to work together. He is expected to tout deficit reduction, but the two sides don't agree on how to get there. Republicans largely favor spending cuts, Democrats a combination of cuts and tax increases."

Marching Orders for Talking Heads (Picture That). Jake Tapper: "A cavalcade of Democratic talking heads were beckoned to the White House to be briefed on the president’s State of the Union address by White House senior advisers David Axelrod and Stephanie Cutter and communications director Dan Pfeiffer."

Decodng the Rebuttal. Richard E. Cohen of Politico: "In rejecting [President] Obama’s planned call for 'targeted investments'—which Republicans contend is a metaphor for more stimulus spending—[Rep. Paul] Ryan reportedly will respond that the 'spending binge' of the past two years failed to stem historic unemployment and the nation’s largest deficits. Instead, he will emphasize the need to cut federal spending in order to boost job creation." CW: what a surprise.

AND for the subtext of Michele Bachmann's rebuttal to the rebuttal, she has released her own budget proposal which involves stuff like eliminating the Department of Education & raising revenues by leasing "leasing land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas companies." The sub-subtext of course is Bachmann for President.

Seating Arrangements (Con'd.)

Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will be honored Tuesday night with an empty seat in the House chamber during the State of the Union address. Jeff Flake, a Republican, and Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, plan to sit together for the speech and keep a seat open for Giffords...." Here's a related Arizona Republic story.

Some Seating Arrangement Are Written in Stone. We know Justice Alito won't show up for the State of the Union address, as he "is taking advantage of a perfectly timed speaking engagement in Hawaii to avoid the event at which he became a reluctant player last January." We don't know what other Supreme's will skip the SOTU, but we do know where they sit on the Court. Click on the picture below to take a fun interactive quiz to see if you can put the members in their seats on the Court:

The Commentariat -- January 25

Ignorance of the Law Is My Excuse. Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "Under pressure from liberal critics, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court acknowledged in filings released on Monday that he erred by not disclosing his wife’s past employment as required by federal law. Justice Thomas said that in his annual financial disclosure statements over the last six years, the employment of his wife, Virginia Thomas, was 'inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions.' To rectify that situation, Justice Thomas filed seven pages of amended disclosures.... Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, said he found Justice Thomas’s explanation about the omission to be 'implausible.'” ...

... Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has amended 13 years’ worth of disclosure reports to include details of wife Virginia Thomas’s sources of income, documents released on Monday show.... He also had checked a box marking no spousal income." CW: my emphasis. What is it about the term "spousal income" you don't understand, Mr. Justice? ...

... Judicial Watch has posted pdf's of Thomas' Financial "Disclosure" forms for the years 2003-2009. ...

... Roger Shuler in OpenSalon: "Does this mean a justice on the nation's highest court has committed a crime? The answer probably is yes. Will the legal system kick into high gear in an effort to protect one of its most exalted members? The answer to that definitely is yes -- in fact, it already seems to be happening." Shuler points to a similar failure to disclose case in which an FBI agent pleaded guilty to a felony this month. ...

... Protect Our Elections has "asked the Justice Department to bring criminal charges against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for making false statements on his Financial Disclosure forms.... Justice Thomas signed these forms under oath after certifying that the information in them was true and accurate." CW: good luck with that.

** The Editorial Board of the Chicago Tribune, which has been a right-wing bastion for 100 years, goes to bat for Rahm Emanuel: "With startling arrogance and audaciously twisted reasoning, two appellate judges ignored more than 100 years of legal precedent, invented a new definition of 'residency' and ordered Rahm Emanuel off the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot.... The Supreme Court must set this right, and fast."

Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The Bush White House, particularly before the 2006 midterm elections, routinely violated a federal law that prohibits use of federal tax dollars to pay for political activities by creating a 'political boiler room' that coordinated Republican campaign activities nationwide, a report issued Monday by an independent federal agency concludes." Here's a pdf of the Special Counsel's report.

Let's hope Megyn Kelly can tear herself away from watching Fox "News" long enough to catch this "Daily Show" segment:

Noam Scheiber of The New Republic: "Despite all the talk about Obama’s political reinvention as we head into the State of the Union, it’s become increasingly clear that Obama isn’t caving to business. He’s shrewdly co-opting it."

John Harwood of the New York Times: "Suddenly, Republicans face an unanticipated problem: less than three months after their midterm triumphs, President Obama has regained political momentum."

Jennifer Steinhauer & David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: top Democrats rip into Rep. Paul Ryan, Harry Reid calling him "the architect of a plan to end Social Security and Medicare." Reid added, "Republicans are not only endorsing Representative Ryan’s extreme plan but giving him unprecedented power to carry it out."

Sam Stein: "The Obama administration on Tuesday released a policy statement formally opposing a House Republican bill to end the public-financing system of presidential elections."

Federal Disaster Relief Is Unconstitutional, but We'll Take It. John Daley of the Deseret News: "Utah's newest U.S. senator has long championed state's rights and continues to campaign for shrinking the federal government's size and role in state affairs — including natural disasters. But until those changes happen, Republican Sen. Mike Lee backs the state's request for millions in federal disaster relief funds to help Utah's Dixie rebuild from major flooding." Via the Huff Post.

David Corn of Mother Jones: "Andree McLeod, a prominent [Sarah] Palin critic in Alaska, ... has been publicly threatened with assassination — just for requesting, under Alaska's open records act, the work-related emails Palin sent and received while governor."

News Items

New York Times: "Just hours before President Obama was to give his State of the Union address...,  Gen. David H. Petraeus, offered what amounted to his own 'state of the war' address, one noticeably more upbeat than a White House assessment issued late last year. The general’s assessment, in the form of a letter to troops posted on the NATO Web site, outlined a fight in which troops and the military machine here had gained the edge or was on the cusp of doing so on every front." A pdf of Gen. Petraeus' letter is here.

New York Times: "The long-predicted double-dip in housing has begun, with cities across the country falling to their lowest point in many years, data released Tuesday showed. Eight of the 20 cities in the index fell to new lows for this cycle, including Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Portland, Ore.; Miami; Seattle; and Tampa, Fla. Only a handful of places — essentially California and Washington, D.C. — saw prices rise."

Chicago Tribune: "The state Supreme Court today issued a stay of the appellate court order knocking Rahm Emanuel off the ballot and ordered Chicago election officials not to print any ballots without his name. The high court said it was still considering whether to grant Emanuel's request that it hear his appeal on an expedited basis." ...

     ... Update: "The high court issued an order this afternoon saying it would take up the dispute over whether Emanuel meets the state requirement that a candidate for office live in a municipality for a year prior to an election.... The order states the court will take up the case on an expedited basis, using briefs the parties filed with the appellate court. There will be no additional briefs and no oral argument before the high court...."