The Commentariat -- April 8

This is no longer about the deficit. It’s about bumper stickers. -- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on why Republicans won't fund the government

... You heard it first from Anonymous. An anonymous aide says he heard Speaker Boehner tell an anonymous congressperson there would be a deal by the end of the day. Are you feeling optimistic? ...

... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post has reproduced the memo from OMB Director Jack Lew that went out to agency heads giving them guidance on how to shut down their agencies. ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time on Boehner's Choice.

** "A Problem on the Borderline of Ethics and Accounting." Conservative columnist Michael Gerson of the Washington Post: Republicans don't want to hear about the dire consequences of their budget cuts. They should listen. "And it should give any pro-life member pause to support minuscule budget savings that risk the death of children from malaria."

So who are these budget negotiators who are working late into the night to try to avoid a government shutdown? Two guys you probably never heard of, writes Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: Boehner aide Barry Jackson & Reid aide David Krone. ...

... It's about Sex. Steve Benen: "What we're talking about here is Republicans shutting down the government over ccess to contraception and family planning services. This is the basis for the GOP hostage strategy."

I think the biggest thing the Republicans have done so effectively is to make it socially acceptable to be totally selfish and self-serving. -- Valerie Long Tweedie, commenting on a post by Karen Garcia

What We Really Need Is Higher Taxes. Business writer Charles Morris in Politico: "If one listens to the din from new conservative governors, from the Pauls, père et fils, and from most Republicans in Congress, America is groaning under a unique burden of heartless taxation. In truth, however, we live in one of the most lightly taxed advanced nations in the world.... Federal taxes, at about 15 percent of GDP, are the lowest since 1950....America’s low taxes, compared with any of its competitors, make it nonsense to claim that we need tax cuts for the sake of 'competitiveness.'”

Your Next Tweet May Be a Terror Alert! Eileen Sullivan of the AP: "Terror alerts from the government will soon have just two levels of warnings — elevated and imminent — and those will be relayed to the public only under certain circumstances. Color codes are out; Facebook and Twitter will sometimes be in, according to a Homeland Security draft obtained by The Associated Press."

A. O. Sulzberger of the New York Times: as states and cities compete with each other & try to lure businesses with tax breaks and other incentives, the businesses are the big winners.

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Several previously undisclosed U.S. diplomatic cables, provided by ... WikiLeaks, show that influential Yemenis and U.S. allies repeatedly warned U.S. diplomats of [President Ali Abdullah] Saleh’s growing weakness in 2009 and 2010. But despite those warnings, the Obama administration continued to embrace Saleh and became increasingly dependent on him to combat an al-Qaeda affiliate that was plotting attacks against the United States from the Arabian peninsula.

Right Wing World *

If You Don't Like the Numbers, Just Flip Them. Travis Waldron of Think Progress: on the Senate floor, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) says 90 percent of Planned Parenthood's service are providing abortions. Uh, it's less than 10 percent. ...

... According to Planned Parenthood, the percentage of their services related to abortion is three percent, tho PolitiFact explains why the three-percent figure is squishy. PolitiFact rates Kyl's remark false. I think a "Pants-on-Fire" designation would be more appropriate. ...

... Here's a pie chart of Planned Parenthood's patient services, via Ezra Klein:

Obama's Long-standing Plot to Shut Down the Government. Conspiracy theorist, teabagger and all-around loon "Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suggested Thursday that President Obama might have begun planning a government shutdown last year with 'malicious' intent," Josiah Ryan of The Hill reports. And Lee has evidence! CW: Utah elected this guy because their previous ultra-conservative Senator, Bob Bennett, just wasn't crazy enough.

Medicare is Sacrosanct Expendable. Greg Sargent: "... the 60 Plus Association, a shadowy, well-funded right wing group that purports to represent seniors’ interests..., ran an ad during the health care debate last cycle that may have been the single most reprehensible piece of Medicare-related demagoguery of the health reform wars.... And yet, wouldn’t you know it, the 60 Plus Association has now endorsed Paul Ryan’s proposal to end Medicare as we know it."

Tanya Somanader of Think Progress: House Republicans leaders rushed to the mics to criticize President Obama for threatening to veto a bill "to fund the troops" right after they voted down two continuing resolutions to ensure U.S. military troops get paid on time even if the government shuts down. ...

... ALSO from Somanader. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Idaho legislators figure rape and incest are part of God's plan, so they're not making exceptions for them in their latest anti-abortion bill.

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Good-government group One Wisconsin Now, noting that Dubya-appointed U.S. Attorney J. B. Van Hollen spent millions investigating alleged Democratic voter fraud without finding any, must now -- as co-head of the Election Integrity Task Force -- investigate Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus who suspiciously "found" more than 14,000 ballots, which changed the outcome of the state supreme court election. ...

... She's Done This Before. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress sums up the dubious history of Waukesha, Wisconsin, County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, who accidentally found 14,315 "lost" votes, giving the state supreme court election to her former boss, conservative Republican David Prosser. ...

... Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Brian Deschane..., the 27-year-old son of a prominent supporter of Gov. Scott Walker, resigned from his state job following public criticism over his appointment to an $81,500-per-year job in the Walker administration. He informed officials at the state Department of Commerce, where he had been named administrator of environmental and regulatory matters in February.... Agency spokesman Tony Hozeny ... said he didn't believe Deschane gave a reason for leaving the government job.... Earlier this week, Walker demoted Deschane from the post after No Quarter highlighted how Deschane -- who has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions -- had landed his plum assignment. Walker's team gave Deschane the cushy job despite the governor's repeated statements that the state is broke and government workers are overpaid."

Travis Waldron of Think Progress: "Democrats and labor activists are ready to file another recall petition in Wisconsin, as they are expected to submit nearly 24,000 signatures against state Sen. Randy Hopper (R). Only about 15,000 signatures are needed to successfully trigger a recall. It will mark the second time in less than a week that a recall petition has been successfully filed against a Wisconsin Senate Republican...." Hopper, who is reportedly having an affair with a staffer, has moved outside the district. His wife says she'll vote for his opponent. ...

... David Dayan of Firedoglake: "It turns out that Hopper was estranged from his wife and living with a mistress in an apartment in Madison. That called into question residency requirements. And further investigation revealed that the mistress received a state job from Gov. Walker’s administration, despite a late application."

News Ledes

Budget Deal!

Washington Post: "Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have reached an agreement that would avert a federal government shutdown, yielding more spending cuts for Republicans while giving Democrats a key win on an issue related to abortion rights, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office announced Friday night." New York Times story here. Politico story here. ...

     ... Update: Wall Street Journal story here.

Al Jazeera: "Hundreds of army soldiers and Central Security officers stormed Cairo's Tahrir Square in the early morning hours on Saturday, firing shots into the air and beating protesters with cattle prods and batons to disperse a crowd of thousands, witnesses said."

Tens of thousands of people had flooded into the square in one of the largest demonstrations since former President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on February 11.

New York Times: "Dozens of communities across Syria erupted in protest on Friday in what activists said were by far the largest and bloodiest demonstrations against the iron rule of President Bashar al-Assad. Opposition leaders said the protesters numbered in the hundreds of thousands. While that number could not be independently confirmed, the size of the protests and their level of coordination suggest that Syria’s fragmented opposition movement is reaching new levels of coherence and organization."

New York Times: "More than 100,000 people converged on Yemen’s capital for a second Friday of dueling demonstrations over the fate of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who faces a rising tide of international sentiment in favor of his departure."

Milwaukee Journel Sentinel: "The state's top elections official said Friday he is sending state staff to examine results in Waukesha County, where thousands of previously uncounted votes were revealed Thursday in a bombshell that upended the tight Supreme Court race."

Washington Post: "The Justice Department approved a controversial deal by Google on Friday that would allow the firm to acquire a powerful travel search software firm, though with some strings attached."

Harry Reid on Title X. Republicans want to shut down the government because Democrats won't let them remove legislation that provides cancer-screening for women:

>

Washington Post: "Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Friday that negotiators came very close to a budget agreement overnight, but the deal broke up in a dispute over funding to a group that provides abortions. House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio), the lead Republican in the budget impasse that has transfixed Washington and brought the nation to the brink of a government shutdown, immediately disputed Reid’s account." Story has been updated to reflect that negotiators are still working. ...

     ... National Journal Update: "The likelihood of a war-time federal government shutdown — the first in American history — diminished dramatically on Friday night as all parties began reviewing, with the goal of approving, a broad array of cuts and a short-term bill to keep the government operating while the details are put into legislative language for full congressional action next week."

New York Times: "NATO said on Friday that it would not apologize for the killing of at least four people in what Libyan rebels said was “likely” a mistaken attack on them by allied warplanes in the east of the country — the second case of friendly-fire deaths in a week....At a news conference in Naples..., Rear Adm. Russell Harding, the deputy commander of the NATO operation, said the alliance had not been informed that the rebels were using tanks at the time the attack took place."

AP: "'... Suspected terrorists are still being held [by the U.S./NATO forces] under hazy circumstances with uncertain rights in secret, military-run jails across Afghanistan, where they can be interrogated for weeks without charge. The Pentagon has previously denied operating secret jails in Afghanistan, although human rights groups and former detainees have described the facilities."

Madison, Wisconsin State Journal: "The Walker administration went directly to the state Supreme Court on Thursday to get it to lift an order blocking implementation of a controversial measure that sharply curtails public employee bargaining rights, telling the high court that a Dane County judge unconstitutionally overstepped her authority."