I recently wrote that a risk of taking Proposition 8, California's voter-enacted gay marriage ban, to the Supreme Court is not only that a loss would be a legal and political setback, as others have noted, but that a victory would feed a backlash. I cited the history of school desegregation and affirmative action, the fall and rise of the death penalty, and Proposition 8 itself, which was a voter reaction to a prior state-court victory. Here I speak of the alternative to litigation: the political activity of educating and convincing people through the media and in our workplaces, congregations and neighborhoods. It is more painstaking and requires greater courage, effort and patience, but I think it will be more effective in what the earlier piece called the "long, multifaceted battle not only for equality under the law but for ending the status of 'demeaned other.'" How Did We Come So Far So Fast? We are at a place where court victories on the gay-rights front are even possible because of political and social action. Many of us still remember when few people, gay or straight, questioned the assumption there was something wrong with "deviants," and when most straight people thought there was something fundamentally different about gay people. But things began changing with the movement sparked by the 1969 Stonewall riots protesting police raids on a New York gay bar. Gay people soon began speaking out in all kinds of day-to-day settings. Straight people began to learn about friends, family members and colleagues who were gay. In 1986, when a majority of Americans still supported the continuing criminalization of sex between gay people, the Supreme Court upheld it. As Dale Carpenter explains, by 2003, developments in society at large had created a reversal in pubic opinion and resulted in a Supreme Court whose justices had openly gay clerks and heard gay lawyers argue major business cases. In that year a 6-to-3 majority held, in Lawrence v. Texas, that the Constitution had been wrongly interpreted just 17 years earlier. Even so, according to materials cited in Carlos Ball's study on lessons that Brown v. Board of Education holds for marriage-equality advocates, Lawrence, and the resulting conservative criticism, produced a significant (but temporary) reversal in pubic opinion on that issue and may have contributed to 2004 Republican victories. I think the timing of that suit was probably appropriate in the long run, but, if so, it was only because the political groundwork had been laid. So I don't mean to oversimplify. There are situations, perhaps including Lawrence, where a court battle is a good way to reach the public and complements a political strategy or secures its gains. Sometimes the need to counter some harm is so urgent that, if judicial relief can be found, so much the better. Normally, though, if the law is on one's side, typically there was enough of a political consensus to create the favorable legal rule, at some point at least. "Wedge Issues": The Bigger Picture There is a broader context for all of this, although if I were a gay person who could not marry his partner or receive federal spousal benefits, I might have trouble giving it much weight. As Thomas Frank has shown, Republicans use the divisive "social issues" of homosexuality, abortion and even gun control to distract huge numbers from what their pro-corporate policies do to the middle and working classes. I would add that contention over these questions serves the same purpose for many Democrats. If they are in progressive-leaning districts, they can use their liberalism on those matters to cover what they allow on energy and the environment, the military, labor law, food and farm issues, taxing, spending and economic policy. Most non-gays who support gay rights -- and surely a goodly percentage of gays as well -- want very different policies on each of these fronts. We want social justice in all its forms, as well as peace, sane environmental choices and the reordered priorities of a caring society. To achieve such a program, sooner or later we will have to build a new kind of grassroots-based party that is focused not on elections but on educating, uniting, organizing and empowering "the 99 percent" and working for its genuine interests. One of the many ways it will differ from the dominant parties is that it will support dialogues that would permit faster progress and consensus on the wedge issues with which the major parties distract us. Some of this could be modeled on the work of groups like Justice for All, which creates respectful conversations around abortion, and Free Press, which builds right-left coalitions to defend internet neutrality. When I was in high school my mother joined the Panel of American Women. They provided panels composed of a white Protestant woman, an African-American woman, a Jewish woman, and a Catholic woman to appear before church groups, civic clubs, PTAs and the like, where they described their personal experiences with prejudice and how it affected them and their children. Stereotypes dissolved as listeners learned to see people from other backgrounds as human beings like themselves. Lacking a party that would use these and many other tools to unite the majority on all the issues that affect it, the litigation route is tempting for any minority oppressed by society at large. Having to work separately on the various problems severely hamstrings us: Gay activists must work nearly alone on gay issues, peace activists on militarism, housing activists on foreclosures, civil rights and justice-system activists on how we decimate minority communities with massive, lengthy incarcerations, and so on. I've written elsewhere about the imperative for unifying these campaigns in a new kind of party and shared some thoughts on how to do so, and it is frustrating to see "the 99 percent" so unnecessarily disempowered. But we are where we are, and I respectfully submit that the slowness and difficulty of raising public awareness do not excuse us from carefully evaluating whether short-term gains in the courts will be at the expense of our long-term struggles.

Michael Barone, DC ExaminerBarack Obama is said to believe that he can win the political fight over the sequester. That's certainly the conventional wisdom.And there is some evidence to support it. When you ask voters who will be to blame if the sequester occurs, Obama or "congressional Republicans," they're much more likely to say they'll blame the latter.Obama also comes out on top when you ask whether they will blame "Obama and congressional Democrats" or "congressional Republicans." 

The question of intervention in Syria is a hotly debated topic, largely thanks to the insistence of the dominant elements of opposition on its pursuit. Of course, had a regime not answered to peaceful calls for reform with criminal and excessive force nearly two years ago, and unrelentingly ever since, nobody would be counting more than 70,000 killed, 700,000 in refuge and 2 million displaced, or the pros and cons of intervention. By intervention, I am referring to the prospect of outright intervention, such as no-fly zones and air defense, cross-border exercises and/or the deployment of foreign troops. Yet I also understand the situation to be characterized already by other de facto forms of intervention, including the arming and funding of rebels, the provision of technical and "nonlethal" support and the presence of foreign fighters. As opposed to the pursuit of intervention, the most important objectives at this point of the conflict should be to bring an end to the bloodshed and to pursue a negotiated transition toward democracy. A negotiated transition will require a willingness from both sides of the conflict to engage in a political settlement. Neither side has shown genuine efforts toward this end. My focus is on one side -- the opposition -- and its strategic failures in the pursuit of intervention, in addition to the negative trajectory based on path dependence that intervention will lead the country on. Realism and Strategic Choices The dominant elements of the opposition have failed in their pursuits related to intervention externally, militarily and internally. On the world stage they have been squandering money, time and political capital on the question of intervention. Their diplomatic energies have been focused on this pursuit in direct conflict with the realities they are facing: They have not secured the external intervention they have spent over a year appealing for. The Obama administration is not choosing intervention. President Obama opposes even the limited forms of intervention supported by some U.S. allies and members of his own administration. In his recent articulation of his views on Syria, he explained, "How do I weigh tens of thousands who've been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?" The significance of this statement is in its blunt articulation that the United States will not intervene on humanitarian bases. That's because states act on their interests, not on their emotions, so one must question the interests of the states that are advocating intervention and recognize the distinction between their motives and those of activists and opposition members. Though the opposition and intervening states are both interested in the overthrow of Bashar al-Asad, intervening states are much less interested in the development of a democratic Syria. Rather, they are intent on removing a hindrance in their balance of power against the Iranian regime, and many of them are keen on the emergence of a Sunni-dominated government. They are not in it to quell the humanitarian crisis nor to promote democracy. Although the U.S. is not choosing intervention, its ambivalence has put off any meaningful political initiatives in its place. Other powers, however, are less ambivalent. It was back in October 2011 that China and Russia vetoed the UNSC resolution that might have opened the door to intervention. As unsavory as their motives might be, the reality is that they are both powers with significant influence in world affairs. For the dominant elements of the opposition to believe that they are righteous enough to ignore world powers (not just China and Russia but even an ambivalent U.S. and a UN advocating a political solution) is to ensure that a new Syrian government enters an international arena with little political capital. The U.S., furthermore, is becoming less ambivalent of late and seems more eager to pursue a political solution. The administration was obviously excited by Moaz al-Khatib's offer of negotiations with the regime and is itself in talks with the Russians and the Iranians. If the U.S. can talk to its rivals, then the opposition can do so as well. Militarily, the record already shows that political opposition groups do not and will not have control over the distribution of arms and the events in battle. I anticipate the response that if only U.S. intervention and support were increased, then these military activities would be better directed and controlled. However, it seems that the most moderate groups that the U.S. might choose to support do not themselves have robust support on the ground. Furthermore, selective arming is already among the factors dividing the opposition; more selective arming will mean more fissures. If the dominant elements of the opposition want to exhibit their moderation, they should distinguish themselves from the armed and violent regime and the armed and violent extremists by not being armed and violent. Internally, the dominant elements of the opposition are failing strategically as well. By advocating for foreign intervention, they are forgoing a broad coalition of support across Syrian society. There are two segments of society that the opposition is neglecting to bring into a broad-based coalition because of their focus on intervention: the "silent majority" (or maybe we should call them "silent minorities") and the disunited elements of the opposition, including Kurdish opposition groups, secular regime opponents, minority regime opponents and much of the educated and liberal class. It should not have been hard to unite a society against a regime like Asad's, but the dominant elements of the opposition have failed to do so, in no small part thanks to their narrow focus on foreign intervention. The Future and Path Dependence Path dependence is a concept in social science that simply means "history matters." The events and circumstances that occur at a point in time are determinant of the institutions and norms that follow. Path dependence is a critical concept in transition periods. Foreign intervention in Syria will set the country on a course of path dependence that gives outside powers undue influence in its affairs and severely diminishes its sovereignty and unity. In the best-case scenario, in which foreign intervention "goes well," Asad is overthrown. And then what? Those who have intervened from all sides will vie for their proxies to come into power so as to see the country fall into their preferred regional alignment. If anyone "wins" in this struggle, it will be to the loss of all other groups. (Even if it happens through elections, it would be a more pronounced version of Egypt's current political turmoil, in which one dominant group has managed to malign and marginalize all others). But foreign intervention is hard-pressed to be surgical in a country with the demographic diversity and population densities of Syria. If further control is lost and anarchy increases, the proliferation of arms and heavy weaponry will create the circumstances in which warlords, extremists and covert foreign interference thrive. We can expect to get used to the sectarian attacks that dog Iraq and Pakistan daily, and to the sounds of drones in Syrian skies. It is not hard to envision these violent struggles, buoyed by easy access to arms, leading to the physical breakup of the country along ethnic and/or sectarian lines. We can also expect to ignite further violence in neighboring countries, with the easy movement of arms across borders. Syria will always struggle to thrive in a region consumed by violence and conflict. Yet foreign intervention is neither the only nor even the most important factor that will set Syria on a negative course of path dependence. The very way in which this uprising is being conducted -- that is, violently -- is anathema to a peaceful, just and democratic future for all Syrians. The Asad regime came into power and maintained it through the constant threat and occasional use of force. That is why it answered peaceful calls for change with force. To again have another government come into power through force will severely diminish chances of success in democracy and regular peaceful transitions of power. It could potentially make Syria an unwelcome place for its minorities and any segments of society that diverge in their views from the dominant power. Furthermore, it will be nearly impossible to restrict the most extreme jihadi elements for years to come. After all these years, Syria deserves better. There are many elements of the opposition that are pursuing peaceful and nonviolent means of change and preparing for a transition. They recognize that Syria's problem was a failed political regime and are working toward a better political future and thus are pursuing political solutions to the crisis. The opposition calling for intervention should give up on a failing strategy that portends more violence and bloodshed and get on board for a democratic and just future. After all, that is what I've always understood to be the purpose of the uprising, not merely the overthrow of Bashar al-Asad. A version of this essay was presented on a panel at the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC, on Feb. 13, 2013.

Thomas Edsall, New York TimesEarlier this month, I wrote about research by social scientists at Brown and the University of Michigan who reported that despite the fact that President Obama won a higher percentage of the white vote than any Democratic presidential nominee since 1976, racial resentment had increased during Obama's first term.Over the past three weeks, a number of experts in race relations have brought contrary findings to my attention.Seth K. Goldman and Diana Mutz of the University of Pennsylvania find that the Obama 2008 campaign, in and of itself, had a strong, positive impact on racial attitudes....

Daniel Henninger, Wall Street JournalIt may be that we have to move beyond politics alone to explain events in Washington. We are in the fifth year of the Obama presidency, and Washington is still dead in the water. Four straight years in which the government of the United States of America fails to enact a budget is, well, amazing.The sense is growing around Washington, and this increasingly includes Democrats, of living in an alternative universe. Barack Obama gives his State of the Union speech, the sequester looms, and the president flies around the country giving speeches. He's had virtually no contact on the sequester...

President Obama seems to be playing a long game in the budget negotiations, as evidenced by the press blitz over the past few weeks. So far, the White House has been very effective in setting the direction of the conversation taking place over the budget. By doing so, they have laid the groundwork for a much more realistic conversation on the federal budget which is long overdue -- the specifics of what to cut. This gets into territory the Republicans have been shying away from for a very long time, for very good reason. Because when you get down to the details of what, exactly, to cut from the federal budget, the questions get a lot tougher than easily-tossed-off campaign rhetoric. To put this another way: Obama is opening a conversation with the American people into what our federal priorities should be. That's what has been missing from the political debate for a long time. So far, Obama seems to be dominating this argument. The president knew he was going to lose the first of three upcoming budget battles. As early as two or three weeks ago, just about everyone inside the Beltway knew that the sequester was going to take place on schedule. The next budget battle -- over the "continuing resolution" which will keep the government funded for the rest of this budget year -- is going to be the big one, however. The third will (hopefully) never happen, as if any sort of Grand Bargain is reached, it will likely include an extension of the debt ceiling as part of the deal. The American people, as always, want more from the federal government than we are willing to pay for. It's a historical fact -- it's been true throughout all of our history, back to 1776. We like government, but we hate taxes. We can't make up our minds, which current polling shows once again. When asked if (in the abstract) cutting federal government spending is a good idea, something like two-thirds to three-fourths of Americans agree. When asked specifically (program by program) where the cuts should be, large majorities agree -- on virtually every single program -- that spending should not be cut. We want it all, we want it now, and we certainly don't want to pay for it. It is just who we are, as a people. What Obama has been doing has been highlighting the specifics, in a way that simply has not occurred throughout all the budget debates, cliffs, supercommittees, commissions, and crises of the past two years. By doing so, he is forcing the American public to confront the disconnect between wanting to cut "the federal budget," and also not wanting to cut any individual part of it. The federal budget can be divided up into five large chunks. Four of those chunks are largely understood by the public. The fifth is where the rubber meets the road, and is what Obama has been pointing out in the sequester debate. The four everyone can wrap their minds around easily are: interest on the national debt, the Pentagon, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid. All these subjects are easy to identify, so when the budget talks bring them up, everyone is fairly comfortable with the boundaries of the discussion. The fifth and largely unknown part of the budget is a kind of "everything else" category, where all other money the feds spend is lumped together as: "discretionary spending." This discretionary spending is what the White House has been highlighting for over a week, hand-in-hand with highlighting the sequester cuts to the Pentagon's budget. Now, if you conducted a poll, I bet Americans would be just as willing to "cut federal discretionary spending" as they are willing (in the abstract) to "cut the federal budget." I'd further predict that Republicans would probably poll overwhelmingly in favor of such cuts. "Discretionary" doesn't sound all that important, so we can cut that stuff, right? Republicans have always been in favor of cutting the discretionary chunk of the budget, in general. Or, at the very least, more willing to cut discretionary money than, say, the Pentagon's budget. Many Republicans see discretionary spending as all that "nanny state" liberal stuff that they'd just as soon not fund at all. Problem is, discretionary spending includes all sorts of things. Sure, there are programs conservatives have been trying to kill for decades (the Department of Education springs immediately to mind). But there are also a whole lot of things which are (or should be) non-partisan and neutral, even in the midst of a budget fracas. These would be the things that virtually nobody could make an argument against -- things like food inspectors and air traffic controllers. While Republicans might argue that this or that item in this category could have its funding trimmed, they're (at least) not fundamentally or ideologically opposed to any of them. But what Obama has so far been doing a pretty good job of pointing out is that there is also a third sub-category of discretionary spending that Republicans are actually strongly for. These mostly fall under the "law and order" umbrella. Things like the Border Patrol, federal prosecutors, the F.B.I., the T.S.A., and pretty much all the other alphabet-soup agencies which make up the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department. So even "discretionary spending" has things in it which Republicans likely wouldn't drastically cut, given the chance. This is what Obama has been laying on the table in the past week, card by card. You want across-the-board budget cuts? Well then, guess what? Fewer Border Patrol agents. That's the way it works. Fewer anti-terrorism dollars. Because that's part of the discretionary slice of the budget pie. This has been a good argument for the president to make, and it has already laid the groundwork for the upcoming (and much bigger, with a government shutdown as the threat) budget battle over the continuing resolution. The government can't spend money past the end of March, so we've got another three or four weeks of this fight. Up until now, politicians could argue their budget priorities in shorthand. This has allowed Republicans to get away with hiding behind the vague nature of the label "discretionary spending." While everyone knows what the Republican and Democratic priorities are on things like the Pentagon budget, Social Security, or Medicare, all other federal spending was conveniently brushed under the discretionary rug. The much-vaunted Paul Ryan budget plan had precious few statistics on how discretionary spending would be cut -- he would have just "let the committees deal with that" instead of laying out what to cut himself. Mitt Romney ran on a campaign platform of "trust me -- I'll cut a bunch of stuff, but I'm not going to tell you what!" for the entire election season. Up until now, Republicans have been able to avoid specifics when it comes to the last chunk of the federal budget. Entering into the next round of budgetary battling, what is the media now talking about? The particulars of discretionary spending. What are the arguments revolving around? This or that agency's budget priorities. What are the "scare stories" the Republicans are denouncing? Actual, tangible cuts in what the federal government actually does -- not some pie in the sky "let's just cut the budget" campaign-trail hoo-hah. The conversational conventional wisdom inside the Beltway has visibly shifted -- right before the real debate begins over what the federal budget will contain for the next six months (and, if a real "grand bargain" is met, perhaps the next eighteen months). President Obama will not be able to stop the sequester. But, as with any shift in federal spending, it won't happen overnight. If a deal can be reached in March, then most of the sequester's impact can be adjusted before the worst of it happens. The main budget battle is just beginning this Friday, not ending. So far, President Obama has done an excellent job of laying out exactly what the Republicans don't want to talk about in public -- that when the federal budget is cut, it has real and lasting consequences to the American economy and to what the American government does for the people. The budget conversation will now revolve around: "OK, if you don't want to cut the budget of Agency X or Bureau Y, then what exactly do you think we should cut instead?" This is a much more realistic discussion to have, and it is one that -- up until the White House began the conversation last week -- has so far been long overdue.   Chris Weigant blogs at: Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigantBecome a fan of Chris on The Huffington Post  

Layoffs, hiring freezes and cutbacks are already starting at major medical research institutions as they face the impending across-the-board cuts to the federal budget known as sequestration. The advancement of medical cures and the careers of countless scientists are at stake. The National Institutes of Health will be forced to reduce its spending by 5.1 percent, or about $1.6 billion this year, starting Friday if President Barack Obama and Congress don't strike a deal. Research labs in universities across America are bracing for the cuts, which they say will slow down progress on vital projects. An accumulation of small increases, freezes and cuts over a decade is taking its toll and threatens the United States' position as the preeminent source of scientific breakthroughs, said Scott Zeger, the vice provost for research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "America will be a little bit less competitive. We're still going to make these discoveries ultimately. It may take a little longer, people may suffer in the meantime, but we're going to make these discoveries. It's human nature," Zeger said. "The question is, what role does America want to play in the discoveries that will define our future?" The federal government is the chief source of financing for basic medical research, so fewer dollars leads to fewer jobs for scientists and technicians, fewer projects being completed and fewer treatments for people suffering from disease, said Teresa Woodruff, who runs a laboratory studying fertility treatments for women who undergo chemotherapy to treat cancer at Northwestern University in Chicago. "Some of our science is going to be a little slower to get done," Woodruff said. "If we're simply filling in gaps, maybe coloring within the lines, then maybe we're not making sure that the next generation of medical breakthroughs are happening at the pace that I think we want them to happen." So far, Woodruff has avoided laying off any of the 14 people who work for her. But, she has instituted a hiring freeze and won't be taking on any new people, she said. "My lab is a small business, and we have to keep everybody funded," said Woodruff, who receives 92 percent of her budget from NIH grants. Some university labs have already begun layoffs, and the situation could worsen if the federal sequestration cuts take effect, said Keith Yamamoto, a scientist and the vice chancellor for research at the University of California at San Francisco. UCSF, which receives more NIH money than any other research institution and stands to lose more than $28 million, has shed a few researchers so far, he said. "In many ways, the cuts are already with us," said Yamamoto. In anticipation of sequestration, the NIH has trimmed the size of previously approved grants by 10 percent to 20 percent, he said. Many projects that can't be put on hold while researchers seek additional money would have to be scrapped, he said. Salaries and stipends for researchers are by far the biggest cost for a medical research lab, so that's where the pain will be felt the most, Yamamoto said. "There's just no way to escape the impact on employment." At Johns Hopkins, Zeger said he sees the same math, and knows that the leading research institution won't be able to hold on to all of its scientists and students under sequestration. "If you put a grant in that was going to support all 10 of your people and it's cut 10 percent, that means you have now one person who can't be supported," Zeger said. "What people are doing is they are making their labs smaller." Alternative funding sources like nonprofit foundations and private philanthropies can't cover the losses created by NIH budget cuts, Zeger said. "There is not a well to go to if this money disappears. We're just going to do less science." The worst-case scenario over the long-term is that promising students and young scientists will abandon the field in search of more secure employment, which would lead to less progress in the search for cures, Zeger said. "The uncertainties around trying to be a scientist in America are growing today, and I worry that the best and brightest are going to Wall Street. They're not going to science," he said. Universities across the U.S. are facing the same pressures, said Carrie Wolinetz, the president of United for Medical Research, a coalition of academic institutions, laboratory-equipment suppliers and drug and biotechnology interests. United for Medical Research estimates that the NIH supports more than 400,000 jobs, and that the 5.1 percent cut could result in the elimination of more than 20,000 of them. "NIH is at the center for a very complex and economically stimulating ecosystem," Wolinetz said. The impact may not be immediately severe if sequestration takes effect, but it would be damaging over time, Wolinetz said. "It's more equivalent to a slow bleed than it is an arterial gushing situation -- but either one will kill you in the end," she said. Academic researchers also are dealing with years of state budget cuts and a relative decline in federal support for medical research over the last decade, said Wolinetz, who also is associate vice president for federal relations at the Association of American Universities. The National Institutes of Health currently has a budget that exceeds $30 billion. Between 1999 and 2003, President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush oversaw a doubling of the agency's funding. Since then, however, NIH funding has been held nearly flat, especially when inflation is considered, except for a two-year infusion of extra money from the economic stimulus law in 2009. Source: Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology The private sector won't step into the void, said Woodruff, who previously worked at Genentech, a biotechnology company. Drug companies look for quick turnarounds on their investments in the form of treatments that can be sold to a large market -- like people with diabetes -- not basic scientific research, she said. Without federal support for her work, Woodruff doesn't believe private companies or any other funder would step to finance her efforts to prevent or treat infertility among female cancer survivors. "It's so important for the public to understand what they're funding is innovation that wouldn't happen anyplace else," Woodruff said.

Karl Rove may have wanted to make Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) a test case for his "Conservative Victory Fund" -- dedicated to tamping down future Todd Akin-style dingbat eruptions by throwing money at Republican candidates deemed "electable" -- but his cause has now hit a snag. Rep. Tom Latham, the more even-keeled Republican representative of Iowa's 3rd District, is declining to put his hat in the ring to replace retiring Republican Sen. Tom Harkin, thus denying Rove a potential "victor" for his "victory fund." Latham broke the news in an email to supporters, telling them that while he found the "opportunity to serve in the Senate" to be "appealing," the prospect of campaigning so hard on the heels of his last endeavor was anything but. Via The Des Moines Register: "However, only 56 days ago I took an oath to 'faithfully discharge the duties' of an office with which the people of Iowa's Third Congressional District entrusted to me. I cannot in good conscience launch a two-year statewide campaign that will detract from the commitment I made to the people who elected me, at a time when our nation desperately needs less campaigning and more leadership." For Rove, this really damages any hope of preventing the nomination of King, the man he specifically named as a target for his efforts. An early February poll conducted by Wenzel Strategies found that Latham was the only Republican candidate in the ballpark with King -- prospective poll numbers for Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and state Sen. Brad Zaun put them, to varying degrees, in the "long shot" category. (The same was true for one-time Iowa gubernatorial aspirant and conservative Christian kingmaker Bob Vander Plaats, who would have been of no use to Rove, anyway.) The good news for Democrats is that they now will likely get the candidate they want to face, and you can expect them to take whatever opportunities are available to turn King into the next Todd Akin (they start with a wealth of material). The Democrats' most likely contender, Bruce Braley, actually polled worse against Latham than he did against King, despite the fact that King's been the de facto frontrunner from the start. Indeed, Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was very quick on the draw following Latham's email, with a statement of his own: This is yet another potential candidate in a long line of Republicans who have decided not to face down the extremist elements within their own party. Regardless of who runs on the Republican ticket, we are focused on supporting our great Democratic candidate, Bruce Braley. Bruce has repeatedly proven himself to be a fighter for middle class families and someone who will always put Iowa first. The Register's Jennifer Jacobs, however, reads the tea leaves a bit differently, suggesting that Latham's wording -- "I cannot in good conscience launch a two-year statewide campaign" -- means that he is leaving "the door open a crack." She writes: "Asked if the congressman could, say, wait to announce a candidacy a year from now, Latham Chief of Staff James Carstensen said the 'statement speaks for itself -- that’s all I can give you.'" [Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not?]

The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Ray LaHood: sequestration will delay air travel President Barack Obama and his Cabinet secretaries are running a full-court press warning Americans about the consequences of sequestration and goading Republicans to act to prevent it. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been making the rounds on political talk shows and appeared at a White House press conference. He says the sweeping spending cuts will force the Federal Aviation Administration to furlough employees, and that will mean headaches for travelers. "Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco and others could experience delays of up to 90 minutes during peak ... >> More

Dennis Berman, Wall Street JournalI spent the last week trying to write a column that proved Twitter wasn't worth $10 billion. Then the facts intervened. Stubbornly, they arranged themselves into a most unexpected conclusion, one that seems almost blasphemy to type: Twitter has the potential to match some of the money-gushing properties of the Internet's greatest money gusher, Google Inc.If you watched the Oscars Sunday night, you saw Twitter's raw influence on display as jaunty red carpeters, advertisers and actors gabbed in Twitter's sometimes-obtuse language of hashtags and handles. It was as...

Charles Hurt, Washington TimesThe Oscar-winning tale “Argo” contains a movie within the movie. Comparisons to Shakespeare’s Hamlet — or anything worth remembering, for that matter — certainly end there.So, it was altogether fitting that first lady Michelle Obama horned her way into the insufferable ceremony to award the night’s most coveted honor to the hostage thriller.After all, she knows something about hostage-takers and their diabolical demands. She sleeps with the most daring and nihilistic of them all. 

Glenn Reynolds, USA TodayIn The K-12 Implosion, an Encounter books "broadside", I suggest that public education may be in trouble. The problem is not so much that public schools are getting worse -- overall, they're more or less stagnant. We've been putting more money in and not getting better results out.The problem for public schools, instead, is that the alternatives are getting better. Not long ago, there weren't many other choices: You could send your kids to a traditional private school (either religious, or socially upscale, usually) but that was about it. 

Quentin Tarantino deals in tawdry fiction writ large -- bloody, and outrageous, as is the case with his latest Best Picture Oscar-nominated exploitation epic, Django Unchained. Even he would be cowed by the pathetic tale of woe that follows. From the onset of Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, U.S. military servicemembers and their families have borne the tragic brunt of prolonged operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Herculean task at hand, spanning the full spectrum of human endurance, from coping with multiple deployments to the hopelessly bleak, inhospitable frontlines of the War on Terror hasn't fallen on war fighters alone. Indeed, the oozing sores of perpetual anxiety, debilitating depression, and other extreme disorders have proven themselves across military and civilian communities to be communicable diseases, affecting servicemembers and their dependents alike. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has become a household word across the nation, as active-duty servicemembers, for the first time in a generation, are more likely to fall on their own swords and take their own lives than face death in a war zone. This national tragedy continues to play out despite the phasing out of the U.S. role in Iraq and a sharp drop in troop levels in Afghanistan. Some of the most acute psychological torment has fallen heaviest on servicemembers' children. Speaking as a veteran "military brat" from a family with a long and proud multigenerational tradition of service in our nation's armed forces, I can surely empathize with these youth in terms of the trials that they face.  Enter Tarantinoesque fiction -- except it's real. It came as a sickening jolt of shock when we at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) learned that a group of savagely opportunistic fundamentalist Christian vultures known as "Club Beyond" are using taxpayer dollars -- let me emphasize that point one more time: TAXPAYER DOLLARS -- and Department of Defense property to aggressively prey on these youth, as well as advertising their activities via the official Army.mil website. Club Beyond's mission, in their own words, is to "'celebrate life with military kids, introducing them to the life giver, Jesus Christ, and helping them to become more like him,' while offering youth a chance build meaningful relationships." [italics added]. All of the foregoing would be just fine and dandy if only the United States military was not subject to the United States Constitution -- but it is. Thus, the just-mentioned "sickening jolt." In other words, Club Beyond's nefariously unconstitutional modus operandi is the outright, incontestable proselytization and religious indoctrination of vulnerable youth perceived to be "unchurched." Club Beyond is a sectarian enterprise with global reach. It's a subsidiary of a raging fundamentalist Christian parachurch organization called "Military Community Youth Ministries" (MCYM). MCYM offers, get this, "well chaperoned" weekly 90 minute club meetings, retreats, and Bible Study courses facilitated by "staff and volunteers [that] love young people and are available to journey with them through the hard challenges of adolescence, providing positive role models and exhibiting Christ-like behavior." Uh huh. Want some more? Ok. Well, one of the ways that Club Beyond shows its "love" for these captive audiences is by hosting so-called "Purity Conferences," events where the widely debunked abstinence-only movement is, ahem, propagated. In fact, this year's Valentine's Day was the occasion for one such "Virginity Ball," an event called "Can't Lose." At this "ball," rather than receiving a realistic sexual education, youth enmeshed in a cannonade of hormonal tides of teenage passion are schooled solely in the ways of puritanical self-denial. The "virginity movement" has long been exposed as a transparent, fundamentalist Christian campaign that perniciously undermines reproductive health and cloaks old-school misogyny of the very worst kind in mawkish rhetoric regarding "preserving yourself for your future husband." Yep. That'll work for sure. In 2012's annual "Wastebook" published by the office of Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) -- in case you didn't notice, a Republican -- the glut of wasteful "non-defense" spending by the Pentagon earned it the notorious and ignominious title of the "Department of Everything." As our brilliant MRFF Senior Research Director Ms. Chris Rodda uncovered, a not-insignificant portion of these shamefully gluttonous expenditures skirt not only the realm of usefulness in the field of national defense but are utterly devoid of lawful constitutionality as well. A virtual king's ransom has been set aside by the Department of Defense (DoD) for the wretchedly theocratic purpose of "saving souls," with a major portion of this sum going directly towards MCYM. Since 2000, this child-targeting, taxpayer funded, proselytizing monstrosity has received a little known largesse of literally hundreds of lucrative DoD contracts for the explicitly-stated purpose of evangelizing ever-vulnerable military youth. In 2011 alone it received nearly $2 million, and in 2012 this sum increased to nearly $2.5 million!  It goes without saying that this treasure of treachery represents a staggering violation of the First Amendment's No Establishment Clause, which clearly prohibits the intertwining of church and state. As our excellent researcher Ms. Rodda also noted, the cold, calculated, clever, cult-like tactics of these fundamentalist Christian parachurches include luring teens to pizza parties and movie nights, infiltrating the public schools surrounding military bases, and quite literally stalking minors by following their school buses from their on-post school bus stops to their off-post public schools. Wait...did I really say stalking minors by following their school buses? Indeed I did. It would be one thing if these sectarian religious predators carried out this style of proselytizing on their own time and own dime, as is the case with The Gideons International, who leave Bibles in the dressers of seedy motels. What MRFF takes grave exception to is the hideous fact that the DoD contract descriptions THEMSELVES actually command the utilization of these buzzard-like, textbook, ambulance-chasing tactics, totally negating the Constitution's "No Religious Test" mandate (see Clause 3, Article VI). Noting that the military base "Religious Education Director" and other related positions are the exclusive domain of Christians, contracts include the requirement to  "ensure [that] all programs and activities are inclusive of all Christian traditions." Further, the DoD contract descriptions urge these state-sanctioned, uber-fundamentalist Christian proselytizing vultures to "use a variety of communications medium that shall appeal to a diverse group of youth, such as music, skits, games, humor, and a clear, concise, relevant presentation of the Gospel." What? No candy, bubblegum, kittens, puppies, and popcorn? These stinking travesties, odiously repulsive in their own right, represent merely the tip of the tip of a proverbial iceberg threatening not only the bedrock Constitutional protections of our military personnel and their families, but our comprehensive national security as well. The campaign to indoctrinate our military youth, at taxpayer expense, with the apocalyptic dogmas of fundamentalist Christianity goes hand-in-hand with other acts meant to advance a scurrilous Dominionist agenda -- such as the Pentagon's recently-discovered blocking of LGBT websites. Under the false guise of "freedom of religion," Constitutional tramps have been given carte blanche to ride roughshod over the foundational religious rights of servicemembers and their families, most importantly their right to go unmolested by hectoring, seething, salivating fundamentalist proselytizers. The eventual goal of these parachurch entities isn't simply to comfort military youth by assisting them in some sectarian conception of what constitutes a "walk with God." Quite on the contrary, the obsession is to raise a "Crusader force" championing weaponized Christianity -- to be more specific, a twisted version steeped and marinated in poisonous, parochial religious exclusivity, supremacy, exceptionalism, and belligerent fundamentalist backwardness. To underestimate the enormity of the colossal danger posed by this fifth column to America's core Constitutional values, not to mention our strategic national security interests, would be a fatal mistake of literally Jovian proportion. It must be stopped. It must be stopped now. Perhaps the next DoD Secretary is listening?

The Gang of 8's framework for immigration reform mostly deserves praise. It seeks to fill gaps in immigration enforcement, make the legal immigration system more responsive to U.S. economic and labor needs, and create a path to lawful permanent resident (LPR) status for unauthorized immigrants. As a first step in the legalization process, it proposes a "registration" program that would remove the threat of removal from the unauthorized, and allow criminal and security checks to be run against persons who -- while less likely than the native born to be public safety risks -- have nonetheless been largely invisible to the government. The plan would also expedite the path to LPR status for three deserving groups, agricultural workers, persons brought to the United States as children, and graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. However, the plan also includes three provisions that could indefinitely delay, if not permanently block, LPR status for most unauthorized immigrants. The first would require that visa backlogs be eliminated before the unauthorized can obtain LPR status. In fact, hundreds of thousands of unauthorized persons are themselves "waiting in line" for a visa based on a qualifying family relationship to a U.S. citizen or LPR (See "Immigration Reform for U.S. Families: Not a Special Pathway, Just a Better One" at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-kerwin/immigration-reform-for-us_b_1130512.html ). Clearance of current visa backlogs -- due to caps by nationality and category of family relationship -- could delay the legalization process by decades. Reform legislation must provide additional visas and ensure that unauthorized persons do not lose their place "in line." Second, the plan provides that the United States would need to complete a national entry/exit system for persons with temporary visas before "registrants" could begin the process of earning LPR status. An entry/exit system has been legislatively mandated since 1996 and repeatedly affirmed by Congress in the interim. Yet the United States still does not track departures: it mostly relies on airline departure records for this information. Thus, if history is any indication, this "trigger" could delay the onset of an earned legalization program for many years. The plan also provides for an increase in agents at and between ports-of-entry (POE). POEs suffer from outdated physical infrastructure that stymies economic growth. They also represent the entry point for 90 percent of illegal narcotics smuggled to the United States. In addition, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector reportedly remains more porous than other sectors. That said, proposed increases in enforcement funding should be considered in light of the dramatic growth in spending over many years, unprecedented reductions in illegal crossings, competing federal spending priorities, and a budget crisis that may make additional spending unlikely or even impossible. The Migration Policy Institute recently reported that funding for Customs and Borders Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the US-VISIT program -- the Department of Homeland Security's primary enforcement data base and identity assurance program -- now exceeds the combined budgets of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. While some level of CBP and ICE funding also supports non-enforcement functions, MPI did not count immigration enforcement spending by many other federal agencies with significant programs and responsibilities in this area or by the federal court system whose resources have been severely taxed by zero-tolerance immigrant prosecution policies. Third, the plan would task a commission comprised of Southwest border governors, attorneys general, and community leaders with recommending when border security has been achieved. Of course, politicians that have long espoused enforcement-only strategies, defined border security as the prevention of all illegal entries, and exploited fears of mayhem on the border would be unlikely to make such a recommendation. If this group is not to become a source of indefinite delays, it must either be advisory not mandatory, or be constrained by objective evidence. The plan's proposal to create "a meaningful opportunity" for border communities to critique and share input on enforcement strategies holds greater promise. In El Paso, a group of this sort has recently begun to take shape. The Council for Border Security, Development and Human Rights is comprised of border residents from law enforcement, local government, business, labor, faith communities, community-based agencies, the media, academia and other sectors from across the length of the border. Based on the Council's early discussions, border residents strongly support border security. They also support long-term investments in POEs and believe that inefficient POEs damage local economies and the environment. They argue that the Border Patrol's presence has reached saturation levels in many communities and they report that many agents privately complain of inactivity. They take pride in the fact that border communities have been found to be among the safest in the nation, and they note that this has resulted, in part, from a carefully designed wall between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement. They raise concerns over stops and searches of border residents that would be unthinkable (and unconstitutional) in the rest of the country. Most of all, they argue that the well-being of their communities should not be ignored or sacrificed in the legislative process, but should be a centerpiece of reform.

I wanted to take a minute to draw attention to a story that isn't getting much play in the headlines. It turns out that deaths resulting from asbestos exposure of 20-50 years ago are expected to peak in 2015. Experts estimate that total U.S. deaths from asbestos will reach a half a million lives lost. Many of these deaths could have been prevented had the dangers of asbestos not been covered up and safety regulations stalled, which means that there will likely be waves of litigation on behalf of the victims of asbestos poisoning. As a result, a recent ratings firm report estimated that insurers will need to set aside an additional $11 billion for claims that will eventually total $85 billion. That's $170,000 per victim. For some, this is not the time to make things right with the victims. Or a chance to make sure we protect against this happening in the future. Oh no, to them, this is a time to defend who they see as the real victims in all of this: the insurance companies and others who would be on the hook for the damages. As we speak, ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) is drafting and pushing legislation to make it harder for victims to sue. Because as they see it, a "flood" of victims seeking compensation must be evidence of fraud -- rather than a lot of people suffering and dying. It goes without saying that legislation to protect companies from asbestos victims makes good economic sense for corporations. In spite of the fact that the culpable companies are likely to outlast plaintiffs who can expect to die within 18 months after diagnosis, the insurers would rather just not have to go to court and deal with victims at all. ALEC is teaming up with lawmakers (predominantly Republican) to protect corporations from the toxic exposure compensation claims in Ohio, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, West Virginia, and at the federal level. (You remember ALEC, right? They are the wonderful folks who brought us the "Stand Your Ground" laws and "The Voter Fraud Prevention Act." Even Walmart was too ashamed to support them.) As in so many other areas on this, ALEC and their allies are in direct opposition to the popular sentiment of the American people by protecting insurers. Studies published in the insurance industry's own professional publications show that they have lost credibility in the public's eyes: "Interestingly, insurers fared poorly against other industries when it comes to public trust. For example, while 71 percent of respondents expressed trust in the retail sector and 65 percent expressed trust in packaged food manufacturers, only 39 percent expressed trust in insurance companies. Indeed, only financial services companies (35 percent) and the federal government (31 percent) tallied a lower degree of trust among respondents." By diverting the blame on "damn lawyers," ALEC and their allies in the press are trying a little sleight of hand. And, unfortunately, it looks like corporate press will once again change the debate from "asbestos victims who are real people who deserve justice" to their favorite trope of "lawyers vs. business." Sadly, most of the victims of high intensity direct exposure to asbestos in the workplace are already dead. The current wave of diagnosis includes family members with secondary exposure, like wives who washed their husbands asbestos-contaminated work clothes every day. In response to their claims, insurance companies formed a posse with their friends in government and are spending their time and resources trying to prevent victims and their families from seeking remedy for their pain, instead of accepting responsibility, paying their debt to society, and changing their ways. ALEC and their allies in government and the media can cry their crocodile tears for the poor, downtrodden insurance companies, but I won't shed a tear for the multimillion dollar industry. Like most people, I will send my sympathies to the families of people whose loved ones suffered and died terrible deaths -- and I will cheer the lawyers who defend them when they get their well deserved day in court.

Phil Gramm, Wall Street JournalPresident Obama's message could not be clearer: Life as we know it in America will change dramatically on March 1, when automatic cuts are imposed to achieve $85 billion in government-spending reductions. Furloughed government employees, flight delays and criminals set free are among the dire consequences the president has predicted. If the Washington Monument weren't already closed for repairs, no doubt it too would be shut down.Scare tactics such as these are similar to the ones that were made when I co-authored the first sequester legislation in 1985, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings...

Dana Bash, CNNAnticipating possible political backlash if forced federal spending cuts kick in as expected later this week, the Senate's No. 2 Republican said Monday that he is preparing a message he plans to hit hard: The cuts are not going to have as negative an impact as the Pentagon and others in the Obama administration are saying. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he plans to make the case to other Republicans and the public that despite warnings from the Pentagon that the mandated cuts will be devastating, the overall amount of defense spending will actually still rise.

WASHINGTON -- This is how wars start: self-righteousness, wounded pride and ignorance about the determination of the other side. The level of enmity and distrust here between Democrats and Republicans is as deep as it has been in a long time -- and both sides are in danger of underestimating the other's willingness to let destructive things happen to the country. Once the sequester starts -- and everyone assumes that it will, on Friday -- there is a risk that things may spiral out of control. That is what sometimes happens in war. A spark starts a fire. White House officials are convinced they have won the pre-sequester spin war, and they are right. They are equally sure that they will be winning it once the effects of the sequester begin to hit home. The aides are probably right about that, too. They also are convinced that the GOP will crack -- is beginning to crack -- under the pressure of shouldering blame for sequester-engendered reductions in military force and layoffs of defense contractors. They may be right about that -- at least in the short run -- but even if they are, where will that get the White House? If the GOP is dragged to the negotiating table, will that lead to a so-called Grand Bargain? Will any resulting deal short-circuit the other pending disruptions: a vote on the regular budget March 27, another debt ceiling vote this summer? Will it do anything to ease the gridlock that has turned Washington into a never-ending standoff? Or will it just make the atmosphere all the more toxic, resentful and angry? The White House might consider the winning formula of legendary Washington attorney Edward Bennett Williams. One of the great criminal defense lawyers, Williams always said that he wasn't representing a client per se. "I represent the situation," he said. Whether he knows it or not, or admits it or not, or knows how to do it or not, President Barack Obama is now representing the situation, which is that he is presiding over a country with a broken political system at a time when the world has begun to doubt American leadership, economic prowess and staying power. Obama argues that if he is to preserve all three, Republicans must accept that wealthy Americans should pay more to the Treasury. As a matter of fairness, he is right. But what if insisting on his obligation to make that point, and extract that concession, leads to the chaos that most Republican House members seem to welcome? This isn't politics. It's a hostage-taking situation, but it is the Situation. As ironic and unfair as it seems to say, Obama, having resurrected and unified his own Democratic Party, may need to try to save the GOP from itself. How is anyone's guess, but that's the situation. It's ironic and unfair, but Obama's task now may be to unsettle his own party as he attempts to salvage the GOP as a viable negotiating partner. "The Republicans think we are out to destroy them, but the opposite is true," one Obama insider told me. "We need somebody to talk to." The administration is full of wounded pride about what it has done, and anger about the GOP refusal to take all the blame. And Obama insiders make a raft of valid points as the battle lines form. Yes, Obama has a plan, even if Democrats in the Senate haven't introduced it per se, and it includes cuts in entitlement programs. Yes, Republican House Speaker John Boehner pulled the plug on negotiations over a so-called Grand Bargain last year. Yes, the GOP in the House has taken an "absolutist" stance in recent weeks against any further revenue-raising measures -- only months after Boehner was willing to countenance even more of them than Obama now says he wants. Yes, the president has been willing to put "entitlement cuts" -- very loosely defined for the most part -- "on the table and that the GOP campaigned in 2012 against cuts in entitlements the president himself had wanted to make. Yes it is true that the annual deficits are shrinking somewhat as a percentage of the overall economy. And yes it is true that most of the GOP is behaving like college protestors, and their motivations are as hard for outsiders to fathom as, say, North Koreans. And yes Obama won the election, and yes he wants to keep faith with the people who elected him. These points are near and dear to the hearts of White House spinners. They make it abundantly clear that the president has not been a bad actor on deficits and budgets and that he is not solely, or necessarily even primarily, to blame for the mess we are in. But all of this furious spinning and blame-placing misses the point. The president and his people can either keep piling up points in a game they have already won, or figure out a way forward at a time when the rest of the world increasingly is inclined to doubt American leadership for a host of other reasons. No one claims to know what that way forward. But "Forward" was Obama's winning campaign slogan. So that is the situation we are in.

Sheila Bair, New York TimesLAST month Emmanuel Saez, a celebrated economist at the University of California, Berkeley, issued another depressing report on income inequality. Among other things, Mr. Saez examined how real family incomes changed in the United States from 2009 to 2011, the first two years of the recovery. The richest 1 percent of Americans, he found, saw their incomes grow, on average, by more than 11 percent. As for the other 99 percent? You guessed it: incomes shrank by nearly half a percent.The phenomenon is hardly new. The yawning gap between rich and poor has been growing since the 1970s and reached...

Ralph Peters, New York Post

David Freddoso,Examiner

The President's "sequester" offer slashes non-defense spending by $830 billion over the next ten years. That happens to be the precise amount we're implicitly giving Wall Street's biggest banks over the same time period. We're collecting nothing from the big banks in return for our generosity.  Instead we're demanding sacrifice from the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the young, the middle class - pretty much everybody, in fact, who isn't "too big to fail." That's injustice on a medieval scale, served up with a medieval caste-privilege flavor. The only difference is that nowadays injustices are presented with spreadsheets and PowerPoints, rather than with scrolls and trumpets and kingly proclamations. And remember: The White House represents the liberal side of these negotiations. The Grandees The $83 billion 'subsidy' for America's ten biggest banks first appeared in an editorial from Bloomberg News - which, as the creation of New York's billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg, is hardly a lefty outfit.  That editorial drew upon sound economic analyses to estimate the value of the US government's implicit promise to bail these banks out. Then it showed that, without that advantage, these banks would not be making a profit at all. That means that all of those banks' CEOs, men (they're all men) who preen and strut before the cameras and lecture Washington on its profligacy, would not only have lost their jobs and fortunes in 2008 because of their incompetence - they would probably lose their jobs again today. Tell that to Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, or Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, both of whom have told us it's imperative that we cut social programs for the elderly and disabled to "save our economy." The elderly and disabled have paid for those programs - just as they paid to rescue Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein, and just as they implicitly continue to pay for that rescue today. Dimon, Blankfein and their peers are like the grandees of imperial Spain and Portugal. They've been given great wealth and great power over others, not through native ability but by the largesse of the Throne. Lords of Disorder Just yesterday, in a rare burst of candor, Dimon said this to investors on a quarterly earnings call: "This bank is anti-fragile, we actually benefit from downturns." It's true, of course. Other corporations - in fact, everybody else - has to survive or fail in real-world conditions. But Dimon and his peers are wrapped in a protective force field which was created by the people, of the people, and for ... well, for Dimon and his peers. The term "antifragile" was coined by maverick financier and analyst Nassim Taleb, whose book of the same name is subtitled "Things That Gain From Disorder." That's a good description of JPMorgan Chase and the nation's other megabanks. Arbitraging Failure Dimon's comment was another way of saying that his bank, and everything it represents, is The Shock Doctrine made manifest. The nation's megabanks are arbitraging their own failures, and the economic crises that flow from those failures. These institutions are designed to prey off economic misery. They suppress genuine market forces in order to thrive, and they couldn't do it without our ongoing help. The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve are making it happen. We who have made these banks "antifragile" have crowned their leaders our Lords of Disorder. Once Dimon told reporters that he explained to his seven-year-old daughter what a financial crisis is - "something that happens ... every five to seven years," which "we need to do a better job" managing. Thanks to fat political contributions, Dimon manages them well. So do his peers. Misery is the business model. And by Dimon's reckoning another shock's coming any day now. Money For Nothing Bloomberg's use of the word 'subsidy' in this instance can be slightly misleading. Public institutions don't issue $83 billion in checks to Wall Street's biggest banks every year. But they didn't let them fail as they should have - through an orderly liquidation - after they created the crisis of 2008 through fraud and chicanery. Instead it allowed them to prosper from it, creating that $83 billion implicit guarantee. As we detailed in 2011, the TARP program didn't "make money," either. Banks received a free and easy trillion-plus dollars from our public institution, on terms that amounted to a gift worth tens of billions, and possibly hundreds of billions. That gift prevented them from failing. In private enterprise, this kind of rescue is only given in return for part ownership or other financial concessions. But our government asked for nothing of the kind. Unpaid Debts Breaking up the big banks would have protected the public from more harm at their hands. That didn't happen. Government institutions could have imposed a financial transaction tax, whose revenue could be used to repair the harm the banks caused while at the same time discouraging runaway gambling.  They still could. They could have imposed fees on the largest banks to offset the $83 billion per year advantage we've given them. They still could. But they haven't. This one-sided giveaway is the equivalent of an $83 billion gift for Wall Street each and every year. Cut and Paste $83 billion per year: Our current budget debate is framed in ten-year cycles, which means that's $830 billion in Sequester Speak.  You'd think our deficit-obsessed capital would be trying to collect that very reasonable amount from Wall Street. Instead the White House is proposing $130 billion in Social Security cuts, $400 in Medicare reductions, $200 billion in "non-health mandatory savings," and $100 billion in non-defense discretionary cuts. That adds up to exactly $830 billion. No doubt there is genuine waste that could be cut. But $830 billion, or some portion of it, could be used to grow our economy and brings tens of millions of Americans out of the ongoing recession that is their daily reality, even as the Lords of Disorder continue to prosper. It could be used for educating our young people and helping them find work, for reducing the escalating number of people in poverty, for addressing our crumbling infrastructure, for giving people decent jobs. It's going to Wall Street instead. Trillion-Dollar Tribute The right word for that is tribute. As in, "a payment by one ruler or nation to another in acknowledgment of submission ..." or "an excessive tax, rental, or tariff imposed by a government, sovereign, lord, or landlord ... an exorbitant charge levied by a person or group having the power of coercion." (Courtesy Merriam-Webster) In this case the tribute is made possible, not by military occupation, but by the hijacking of our political process by the corrupting force of corporate contributions. The fruits of that victory are rich: Bank profits are at near-record highs. Most of the country is still struggling to dig out from the wreckage they created but, as Demos' Policy Shop puts it, "for the banks it's 2006 all over again." On Bended Knee "Millions for defense," they said in John Adams' day, "but not one cent for tribute." Today we're paying for both. That doesn't leave much for the elderly, the disabled, the impoverished, the children, or anybody else who doesn't "benefit from disorder." Nobody's fighting for them in this budget battle. That leaves the public with a clear choice: Demand solutions that are more just and democratic - or submit willingly to the Lords of Disorder.

James Antle, Daily Caller

David Ignatius, Washington PostWASHINGTON -- Some of us can recall the helpless feeling of being in a vehicle driven by someone who is intoxicated. If you're like me, you don't want to cause a scene unless the driving is really erratic. But there comes a moment when you need to say: Stop the car. You're going to hurt someone. Hand over the keys.We have a political system that is the equivalent of a drunk driver. The primary culprits are the House Republicans. They are so intoxicated with their own ideology that they are ready to drive the nation's car off the road. I don't know if the sequestration...