The Commentariat -- March 30

President Obama explains why I love Steven Chu. Hear it through:

Karen Garcia has a new post about former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold's effort to remove GE CEO Jeff Immelt as head of the President's Craven Council on Jobs. As Feingold writes, not only did GE pay no taxex on $14 billion in profits [actually, GE got government grants, too, so they had a net gain], Immelt's salary doubled & Feingold hears GE is planning to ask union workers for major concessions in wages & benefits. Garcia's post includes a link to Feingold's petition drive, which is also here. 

President Obama speaks with NBC News' Brian Williams about assistance to Libya. He says he will not rule out arming the rebels:

... CNN Staff: "President Barack Obama made clear in interviews Tuesday with the three major U.S. television networks that he was open to arming the rebel fighters."

** This is a Blood-Boiling Must-Read. Neil Barofsky, who is retiring today as Special Inspector General for TARP, says TARP utterly failed the American people:

The government has declared [TARP's] mission accomplished, calling the program remarkably effective 'by any objective measure.' ... I regret to say that I strongly disagree. The bank bailout, more formally called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, failed to meet some of its most important goals.... Treasury’s mismanagement of TARP and its disregard for TARP’s Main Street goals ... may have so damaged the credibility of the government as a whole that future policy makers may be politically unable to take the necessary steps to save the system the next time a crisis arises. This avoidable political reality might just be TARP’s most lasting, and unfortunate, legacy." ...

... Michael Powell & Andrew Martin of the New York Times: "... the [Obama] administration’s broader foreclosure prevention effort [was a dismal failure], as tens of billions of dollars remain unspent and hundreds of thousands of homeowners have been rejected. Now the existence of the main program, the Home Assistance Modification Program, is in doubt. Saying it is a waste of money, the Republican-controlled House voted on Tuesday night to kill the foreclosure relief program. The Senate, which the Democrats control, will pursue a rescue. But Democrats, too, consider the program badly flawed. The effort has failed to stanch a wave of foreclosures and a decline in home prices, which have fallen for six consecutive months and are now just barely above their recession low, according to a key index updated on Tuesday. All of this threatens the fragile economy...."

Mark Bittman, a New York Times food critic, "stopped eating on Monday and joined around 4,000 other people in a fast to call attention to Congressional budget proposals that would make huge cuts in programs for the poor and hungry." ...

... Bittman, et al., would not have to go hungry if fat, lazy Democrats had done their jobs. Steve Benen: "... most of the country has no idea the extent to which the GOP's proposed cuts would be devastating to key domestic priorities. These are cuts that, if put to a poll, the vast majority of the American mainstream would reject out of hand. But here's another thought: maybe most of the country has no idea how brutal these cuts are because Dems haven't told them.... It might be frustrating to Democrats in Washington to be on the defensive right now, but much of this is the result of the party choosing not to go on the offensive when it had the chance." CW: WTF is the leadership doing? Partial answer here: ...

... Party Line. Jennifer Steinhauer: in a conference call to reporters, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) lets slip that House Republicans are extremists. ...

... Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said riders to defund Planned Parenthood and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wouldn't fly in the upper chamber.... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signaled earlier Tuesday that while he wasn't thrilled with the riders, he'd be willing to consider them." ...

... Government Shutdown, Step 2. Molly Hooper & Erik Wasson of The Hill: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Tuesday ruled out another short-term measure to fund the government, raising pressure on both parties to reach a deal to avert a government shutdown after April 8." ...

Artwork for Politico.Twitterwars. The Budget Debate in 140 Characters or Less. Meredith Shiner of Politico reports on the dueling tweets of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) & House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

"Everybody Floss!" Karen Garcia. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius -- in a letter to all 50 governors reminding them their states could opt out of, well, optional portions of the Affordable Care Act -- provides a blueprint for reducing coverage.

Bill Maher isn't sorry he called Sarah Palin a cunt & Michele Bachmann a bimbo, says the local reviews for his standup gig in Dallas, Texas, were great:

... Bush Administration foreign policy advisor & serious hawk Dan Senor on Sarah Palin's and other Republicans' criticism of President Obama's speech on Libya (the video quality sucks, but it's worth hearing):

     ... Video of Half-Gov. Palin's "analysis," in which she calls President Obama's speech "full of chaos", "dodgy", and "dubious," is here.

Justice Scalia Violently Forces American People to the Right (would make a good HuffPost headline). The Reliable Source: on his way to court yesterday, Justice Antonin Scalia caused a four-car pileup on the Washington Parkway when he rear-ended the car in front of him. The Park Police ticketed the justice. Brooke Salkoff, a former NBC reporter, "told us she was just behind Scalia’s vehicle, a shiny black BMW in the left lane. 'It slammed into the car in front of his, which pushed the other two forward,' and caused them all to skew into the right lane." [Emphasis added.]

Right Wing World *

Her action today again flies in the face of the separation of powers between the three branches of government. -- Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, on Judge Sumi's restatement of her injunction barring implementation of Wisconsin's anti-union law. Fitzgerald of course has it backwards; by refusing to conform to the judge's ruling, it is he who violates separation of powers. Oh, and that's "among the three branches," you illiterate twit. ...

... Extremer & Extremer. Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "A Dane County judge [Maryann Sumi] said Tuesday she is concerned the Department of Justice has a conflict in representing Secretary of State Doug La Follette and must provide him with independent counsel.... The issue arose after La Follette grew frustrated that his attorneys were not asking questions of a witness. 'My attorney won’t ask a question on my behalf,' La Follette told the court." CW: I think an attorney's refusal to represent his client is grounds for disbarment.

Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "In newly uncovered audio, a Fox News executive boasts that he lied repeatedly during the closing days of the 2008 presidential campaign when he speculated on-air 'about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism.' Speaking in 2009 onboard a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Fox Washington managing editor Bill Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to 'socialism' as 'mischievous speculation.' Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that 'privately' he had believed that the socialism allegation was 'rather far-fetched.' ... Sammon also pushed Fox News colleagues to play the socialism card." Includes audio. ...

... Howard Kurtz in the Daily Beast: but now Sammon says "he doesn’t regret repeatedly raising it on the air because ... 'it was a main point of discussion on all the channels, in all the media' — and by 2009 he was 'astonished by how the needle had moved.'”

... Greg Sargent: Sammon "... doesn’t regret having spread an idea he personally found far-fetched, because so doing helped ensure that the far-fetched idea ultimately gained widespread acceptance. That’s a peculiar attitude for a 'news' executive, isn’t it?"

... So Adam Serwer of American Prospect suggests an appropriate new Fox slogan:

Fox News: We lie to you. But it's okay, because you believe it.

     ... Simon Miloy of Media Matters Update: "Bill Sammon: 'It wasn't a lie. It was pre-truth!'"

The "Squirmish" in Libya." George Zornick of Think Progress: "Last night [Monday] on Fox News, Greta van Susteren hosted former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) to discuss what Palin termed the 'squirmish' in Libya.... The former governor ... casually septupled the cost of U.S. intervention. According to figures released by the Pentagon, the intervention cost $600 million in the first seven days. Palin, however, claimed that the no-fly zone — which, for the record, she called for — cost that amount daily." With video.

Joe Klein of Time: "It is particularly excrutiating watching the Republican Party presidential candidates who, on a daily basis, pronounce some ignorant racist or irreligious twaddle.... I have never before seen such a bunch of vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers coagulated under a single party's banner. They are the most compelling argument I've seen against American exceptionalism."

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Reuters: "Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into law a controversial bill that makes the state the first in the nation to outlaw abortions performed on the basis of the race or gender of the fetus.... Under the new Arizona statute, doctors and other medical professionals would face felony charges if they could be shown to have performed abortions for the purposes of helping parents select their offspring on the basis of gender or race.... Opponents [of the law] have maintained that while such abortions may be happening in other countries like China, no clear evidence can found of it occurring in Arizona."

News Ledes

NBC News: the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "the U.N. nuclear watchdog, suggested Japan consider widening the evacuation zone around the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant." ...

... NBC News: "The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration say that very low levels of radiation have turned up in a sample of milk from the West Coast state of Washington. The FDA said such findings are to be expected in the coming days because of the nuclear crisis in Japan, and the levels are expected to drop relatively. (Iodine-131 has a very short half-life — only about eight days.)"

Washington Post: "After weeks of arguing, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill began negotiations Wednesday on a possible budget agreement that would slash federal spending by as much as $33 billion and avert a government shutdown." ...

... Washington Post: "Having difficulty finding consensus within their own ranks, House Republican leaders have begun courting moderate Democrats on several key fiscal issues, including a deal to avoid a government shutdown at the end of next week."

New York Times: "The two houses of the Ohio Legislature approved a far-reaching bill on Wednesday that would hobble the ability of public-employee unions to bargain collectively and undercut their political clout. They sent the bill to Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, who lawmakers said would sign it in the next few days.The Republican-dominated Senate voted 17 to 16 in favor of the bill Wednesday evening, hours after the House passed it, 53 to 44, with 5 Republicans joining 39 Democrats in opposition."

Wisconsin State Journal: "State officials have not stopped putting in place changes to collective bargaining rules for public employees despite a judge's order barring the law's implementation — and a threat of sanctions against anyone who violates it."

** Reuters: "President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Obama signed the order, known as a presidential 'finding', within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources...." ...

... Boots on the Ground? New York Times: pursuant to that finding, "the Central Intelligence Agency has inserted clandestine operatives into Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and to contact and vet the beleaguered rebels battling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces, according to American officials." ...

... Al Jazeera: "Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister, has defected to the United Kingdom, the British foreign ministry has confirmed. The ministry said in a statement that Koussa had arrived at Farnborough Airport, in the south of England, on a flight from Tunisia on Wednesday. 'He travelled here under his own free will. He has told us that he is resigning his post. We are discussing this with him and we will release further details in due course,' the statement said.... It added that Koussa was one of the most senior officials in Gaddafi's government with a role to represent it internationally, which is 'something that he is no longer willing to do'."

... AP: "Rebels retreated Wednesday from the key Libyan oil port of Ras Lanouf along the coastal road leading to the capital Tripoli after they came under heavy shelling from ground forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi. NATO planes flew over the zone where the heaviest fighting was under way and an Associated Press reporter at the scene heard explosions, indicating a new wave of airstrikes against Gadhafi's forces."

... New York Times: "The Obama administration is engaged in a fierce debate over whether to supply weapons to the rebels in Libya, senior officials said on Tuesday, with some fearful that providing arms would deepen American involvement in a civil war and hat some fighters may have links to Al Qaeda. The debate has drawn in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, these officials said, and has prompted an urgent call for intelligence about a ragtag band of rebels who are waging a town-by-town battle against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, from a base in eastern Libya long suspected of supplying terrorist recruits."

New York Times: "The Syrian government resigned Tuesday in what might have been a prelude to other concessions in a speech President Bashar al-Assad is expected to give to the nation on Wednesday, part of an expanding effort to address protests against his authoritarian rule. The resignation was seen as a significant — if primarily symbolic — gesture in a nation where the leadership rarely responds to public pressure and where decisions are made not by the cabinet but by the president and his inner circle, including multiple security services."

New York Times: "Ivory Coast tipped further toward civil war on Wednesday as forces opposed to the nation’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, dismissed a ceasefire offer and advanced toward the nation’s political capital, Yamoussoukro."

** Washington Post: "An ideologically divided Supreme Court on Tuesday stripped a $14 million award from a wrongfully convicted man who had spent 14 years on death row and successfully sued New Orleans prosecutors for misconduct. Conservative justices prevailed in the 5 to 4 ruling, which shielded the district attorney’s office from liability for not turning over evidence that showed John Thompson’s innocence. It was the first decision of the court term that split the justices into ideological camps, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized her disagreement by reading a summary of her dissent from the bench." Read the opinion, concurring opinion & dissent here (pdf).

Our Mister Brooks Goes to College

David Brooks went to a symposium, then he wrote about some stuff people said there in a format he evidently thinks is a newspaper column. Somewhere toward the end of the sentences he strung together he writes, "Public life would be vastly improved if people relied more on the concept of emergence. Many contributors to the Edge symposium hit on this point." He tries, fairly unsuccessfully, to explain what "emergence" is.* Not surprisingly, the New York Times moderators chose not to publish my comment on Brooks' column, which follows (also, terrific update below):

Like Jerry Seinfeld's proposal for a "show about nothing," this is a column about nothing. There's no unifying theme other than, "Once I went to a symposium where scholars said stuff." Ticking off broad glosses of some of the stuff the scholars said does not an essay make.

Maybe if you thought of an essay as an "emergent system," you could write a coherent column. By your definition an "emergent system" (which is, to say the least, an awkward label for what you describe) is "bottom-up and top-down simultaneously." Emergent systems "have to be studied differently, as wholes and as nested networks of relationships." Your column is neither a "whole" nor do you make a connection to create a "nested network of relationships." Instead, your column reads more like class notes -- unrelated topics you will think about when it's time to study for the test.

You have valuable real estate here on the pages of the New York Times -- so valuable, in fact, I will now have to pay for the pleasures and pains of reading what you construct on that parcel of real estate. Next time, give me my money's worth.

* Evidently, "emergence" is an old concept going back to the Greeks. According to Wikipedia, pioneeringy psychologist G. S. Lewes first coined the term in the 1870s to apply to the general concept. Lewes doesn't explain it much more clearly than Brooks does, but at least I think I get it now:

Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same -- their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference.

(This footnote on Lewes was not part of my comment to Brooks' column.)

After reading my comment, a friend who also comments on New York Times columns (don't try to guess who; you'll be wrong) sent me this e-mail. I've edited out some unrelated portions of the e-mail (which were hilarious but I'm not sharing 'em):

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. -- David Brooks

Oh yeah? Spoken like someone who has never been hungry, or out of a job, or afraid for his life. "I'm worried about being able to feed my kids and pay the rent." "Oh...not to worry, stop thinking about it and it won't seem nearly as important."

Sez you.

This is the sort of ivory tower think-tank speak that makes it clear how disconnected people like Brooks are from the real world most of the rest of us inhabit. Oh, not his buddies on the right. They're all very well off. Like the Kochs in that Greenwald piece, their biggest worries are that people say mean (and well deserved) things about them, not that they're scared to go out at night because their neighborhood no longer has adequate lighting or police protection or that the local school has been closed by cutbacks demanded by well-off white right-wingers who need that money in the form of even more tax breaks for themselves, so now the boarded up school has become a shooting gallery for heroin addicts and a hangout for thugs.

The rest is just pure pseudo-intellectual wanking. And not even good wanking. If you're gonna jerk off for 1,500 words, make it worthwhile, make it fun at least. Not boring, repetitious, and needlessly recondite. And not quite so stupid.

(Reproduced with permission from the author.)

The Commentariat -- March 29

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The Obama doctrine he presented Wednesday night was frustratingly nondoctrinal. Where Bush was all bright lines and absolute morality, Obama dwelled in the gray area, outlining a foreign policy that is ad hoc and situational.... In the Obama doctrine, there is a tension between bear-any-burden aspirations and the constraints of an overstretched superpower.... As a doctrine, Obama’s is maddeningly subtle. Cost-weighting can’t compete with 'smoke ‘em out' and 'dead or alive.' But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong." ... CW: see video of the President's full speech in yesterday's Commentariat.

... Robert Kagan of the Washington Post: "The president ... deserves credit for showing, once again, how bold and effective U.S. leadership can pave the way for multilateral efforts. He has been right to insist that others take their fair share of the burden, but he has also made clear that American leadership was essential, even indispensable. This was a Kennedy-esque speech." ...

... Tom Malinowski of The New Republic: "Here is one lesson we can draw from the mostly negative media commentary about the Obama administration’s actions in Libya: Presidents get more credit for stopping atrocities after they begin than for preventing them before they get out of hand." ...

... Greg Jaffe & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The U.S. military dramatically stepped up its assault on Libyan government ground forces over the weekend, launching its first missions with AC-130 flying gunships and A-10 attack aircraft designed to strike enemy ground troops and supply convoys.... A mission that initially seemed to revolve around establishing a no-fly zone has become focused on halting advances by government ground forces in and around key coastal cities."

Brian Beutler of TPM: federal budget negotiations are not going well. Late yesterday Harry Reid issued a statement saying, "... Tea Party Republicans are scrapping all the progress we have made and threatening to shut down the government if they do not get all of their extreme demands." He said the House leadership needed to rein in their extremist members. ...

... Ezra Klein: not only are Republicans demanding deep cuts, they are demanding the cuts come from their menu. Klein says, "It's beginning to look like a shutdown." ...

... Jonathan Chait of The New Republic on why there will be a government shutdown: because the vast majoritiy of teabaggers believe President Obama is "destroying the country"; ergo, any deal that he agrees to is inherently evil. Chait uses polling data to make his case.

... Jackie Calmes & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Already resigned to a final budget for this year that cuts deeply into domestic spending, Democrats in the White House and Congress are struggling to regroup behind a strategy to limit the reductions — or to set up House Republicans for blame if the current standoff shuts down the government." ...

... Alexander Bolton & Molly Hooper of The Hill with an update: "Democrats are deploying a divide-and-conquer strategy in their negotiations with House Republicans over spending cuts. After being put back on their heels earlier in the budget message battle, Senate Democrats are now trying to drive a wedge between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Tea Party freshmen." ...

... AND Melanie Starkey of Roll Call: "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee slammed more than 50 House Republicans on Monday, the 32nd anniversary of the Three Mile Island disaster, for voting to reduce nuclear security spending. The targeted statements distributed to the Members’ districts accuse the lawmakers of supporting 'a dangerous plan to drastically reduce the security of nuclear facilities across the nation.'”

Stephen Colbert spars with Michael Moore on the role of unions:

"Ordinary Wisconsinites" make the case for recall of GOP state senators. CW: actually, I think these activists are extraordinary:

Tony Pugh of McClatchy News: "Across the country, taxpayers jarred by cuts to government jobs and services are reassessing the risks and costs of a variety of tax reductions, exemptions and credits, and the ideology that drives them. States cut taxes in hopes of spurring economic growth, but in state after state, it hasn't worked." CW: surprise, surprise.

Karen Garcia: right-wing Rep. Wally "Herger [R-Calif.] is co-chair of an investigative joint House Oversight and Health subcommittee 'looking into' AARP - the American Association of Retired Persons. According to Herger and his sidekick, Louisiana Republican Charles Boustany, the purpose of Friday's go-fish game hearing will be to see if AARP is profiting unfairly from selling Medicare supplement insurance policies to its members." Funny, Herger's & Boustany's top campaign contributors are other insurance companies.

Unforced Error, Revisited. A. G. Sulzberger of the New York Times on Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D) charging taxpayers for her use of her own airplane & her failure to pay about $300,000 in property taxes on it. The controversy, on which Republicans have capitalized, has put retention of her Senate seat in serious jeopardy.

Andrew Higgins of the Washington Post: "Masataka Shimizu..., the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the company that owns a haywire nuclear power plant 150 miles from the capital, is the most invisible — and most reviled — chief executive in Japan. Amid rumors that Shimizu had fled the country, checked into a hospital or committed suicide, company officials said Monday that their boss had suffered an unspecified “small illness” because of overwork...."

Rob Stein of the Washington Post: "a drug to prevent babies from being born too early won federal approval in February," but "the list price for the drug, Makena, turned out to be a stunning $1,500 per dose. That’s for a drug that must be injected every week for about 20 weeks, meaning it will cost about $30,000 per at-risk pregnancy.... What really infuriates patients and doctors is that the same compound has been available for years at a fraction of the cost — about $10 or $20 a shot." The company that's selling Makena, KV Pharmaceutical, claims the price is justified by the costs associated with R&D, but critics say "the main study used to demonstrate the drug’s effectiveness was a $5 million project conducted by the National Institutes of Health — paid by taxpayers."

CW: I am running this story by James McKinley & Erica Goode of the New York Times only because it's sort of a do-over for the Times. The first story, by McKinley, was roundly criticized by Times readers and even by the Times' excuse-maker in-chief public editor Arthur Brisbane for its blame-the-victim posture, the victim being an eleven-year-old girl who was repeatedly gang-raped. Tellingly, the Times does not link to the first story, as they normally do with follow-up pieces.

Right Wing World

I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American. -- Newt Gingrich ...

... Michael Crowley of Time comments.

Research data suggest many teabaggers are nuts. Okay, that's not exactly the way C. S. Parker of Washington University phrased it, but that's kinda what his results show. Oh, and for best results, "sound white" when you phone-poll them.

Is the Donald an American Citizen? Entrepreneur, self-promoter & fake Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has stoked the zombie birther movement recently by calling for President Obama to produce his birth certificate. With video. As part of the attack on Obama, Trump released his own birth certificate to the loony, lying right-wing Website Newsmax. But, as Ben Smith reports, the document Trump produced was not a birth certificate but a certificate of live birth from Jamaica (Queens) Hospital. Smith writes, and this is even funnier:

Trump's mother, it should be noted, was born in Scotland, which is not part of the United States. His plane is registered in the Bahamas, also a foreign country. This fact pattern -- along with the wave of new questions surrounding what he claims is a birth certificate -- raises serious doubts about his eligibility to serve as President of the United States. ...

... The Smoking Gun: "So, what is Trump trying to conceal? On a possibly related note, Jamaica Hospital has been the recipient of significant financial largesse from the Trump family." CW: OR maybe that "Jamaica Hospital" on the certificate of live birth is in, you know, Jamaica. ...

... Adam Serwer of the American Prospect provides a "birther lexicon" to identify all the kinds of birthers there are, from the totally nuts to the cravenly opportunistic "pseudo-birthism."

News Ledes

** Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "For the second time in less than two weeks, a Dane County judge [Maryann Sumi] Tuesday issued an order blocking the implementation of Gov. Scott Walker's plan to curb collective bargaining for public workers.... She warned that those who violate her order could face court sanctions." Republicans plan to continue implementation of the law anyway.

New York Times: "Barack Obama ... returned [to Harlem] on Tuesday evening as the nation’s first African-American president, and for a $30,800-a-person fund-raiser.... Afterward, Mr. Obama attended an invitation-only reception at the Studio Museum in Harlem for past Democratic donors.... Since being elected this was Mr. Obama’s first visit to Harlem...."

Washington Post: "Even Supreme Court justices who sharply questioned Wal-Mart’s pay and promotion policies regarding female employees expressed concern at Tuesday’s oral argument about how the largest gender discrimination class-action suit in history might proceed."

Washington Post: "Sen. Richard Durbin’s Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday on Muslim civil rights featured the same partisan sparring and many of the same arguments as Rep. Peter King’s hearing on Muslim radicals just three weeks ago. The hearing of the Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Durbin (D-Ill.) was a relatively low-key affair that saw witnesses and lawmakers in accord on the issue of protecting the civil rights of American Muslims...."

AP: "Moammar Gadhafi's forces hammered rebels with tanks and rockets, turning their rapid advance into a panicked retreat in an hourslong battle Tuesday. The fighting underscored the dilemma facing the U.S. and its allies in Libya: Rebels may be unable to oust Gadhafi militarily unless already contentious international airstrikes go even further in taking out his forces." ...

... New York Times: "The westward advance of rebels seeking the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi faced new resistance from loyalist forces on Tuesday as an array of diplomats and public figures prepared for a gathering in London to shape their political vision of a post-Qaddafi era." ...

... AP: "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met Tuesday with a representative of the Libyan opposition fighting Moammar Kadafii's regime as the Obama administration looked to expand ties with rebel leaders seeking an end to four decades of dictatorship."

New York Times: "Yemen’s political crisis deepened Monday when an explosion tore through a crowd of looters at an abandoned government weapons factory in the south, killing at least 110 people and underscoring an ominous collapse of authority after six weeks of rising protests."

New York Times: "The political crisis in Syria deepened on Monday as the armed forces in the restive southern city of Dara’a fired live ammunition in the air to disperse hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators who had taken to the streets."

New York Times: "The Taliban seized control of a district in eastern Nuristan Province on Tuesday, chasing the governor and police from the district capital, according to Afghan officials and a spokesman for the Taliban.... While the Taliban are present in a majority of districts in Afghanistan, the capture of administrative centers in the districts is relatively rare."

Washington Post: "Foreign nationals who are married to U.S. citizens of the same sex may apply for spousal green cards and other benefits, immigration authorities announced Monday, but it remains to be seen whether the government will issue them. In the past, foreign same-sex spouses who sought the immigration benefits granted to heterosexual married couples were automatically rejected.... But the agency has stopped that practice, at least temporarily, in light of last month’s decision by the Obama administration to no longer defend" DOMA.

AP: "Japan's prime minister insisted Tuesday that the country was on 'maximum alert' to bring its nuclear crisis under control, but the spread of radiation raised concerns about the ability of experts to stabilize the crippled reactor complex. Prime Minister Naoto Kan told parliament that Japan was grappling with its worst problems since World War II."

Bloomberg News: "Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue manslaughter charges against BP Plc (BP/) managers for decisions made before the Gulf of Mexico oil well explosion last year that killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in U.S. history, according to three people familiar with the matter. U.S. investigators also are examining statements made by leaders of the companies involved in the spill -- including former BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward -- during congressional hearings last year to determine whether their testimony was at odds with what they knew...."