Warning: For conspiracy buffs, this will be a very disappointing narrative. Also disappointing for those who think at least some of the world's leaders are capable of playing eleventy dimensional chess.

By Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, March 7/8, 2014

[....] An examination of the seismic events that set off the most threatening East-West confrontation since the Cold War era, based on Mr. Putin’s public remarks and interviews with officials, diplomats and analysts here, suggests that the Kremlin’s strategy emerged haphazardly, even misleadingly, over a tense and momentous week, as an emotional Mr. Putin acted out of what the officials described as a deep sense of betrayal and grievance, especially toward the United States and Europe [....]

By Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, March 7/8, 2014

A dispute over a classified C.I.A. report has led to a bitter fight between the agency and the Senate Intelligence Committee, with each side accusing the other of spying.

Oscar Wilde described marriage as the triumph of hope over experience. In finance and geopolitics, by contrast, experience must always prevail over hope, and realism over wishful thinking.

A grim case in point is the confrontation between Russia and the West in Ukraine. What makes this conflict so dangerous is that U.S. and EU policy seems to be motivated entirely by hope and wishful thinking. Hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin will “see sense” — or at least be deterred by the threat of sanctions to Russia’s economic interests and the personal wealth of his oligarch friends. Wishful thinking about “democracy and freedom” inevitably overcoming dictatorship and military bullying.

By Amy Davidson, Close Read @ newyorker.com, March 6, 2014

[...] “You have said that the Francis-mania will not last long,” the Corriere della Sera interviewer said. “Is there something in your public image that you don’t like?” The Pope replied, “I don’t like the ideological interpretations, a certain ‘mythology of Pope Francis’ ”:

"If I’m not wrong, Sigmund Freud said that in every idealization there is an aggression. Depicting the Pope to be a sort of superman, a type of star, seems offensive to me. The Pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly and has friends like everyone. A normal person"

Not everyone sleeps calmly; there is a difference between being human and being normal. There are all sorts of traps for the adored, including fastening too much on a sense of one’s own humility, piety, or helpfulness, or one’s transgressive charm. Francis, impressive as he is, still has to show that he can keep from falling into them. There is a certain grumpiness that tinges his answers, even some of the cheerful ones, which might prove to be an anchor against sanctimony [....]

Also see:

Full Transcript of Pope Francis’ March 5 Interview With ‘Corriere della Sera'
English translation, By CNA/EWTN NEWS 03/05/2014

For want of two senate votes the nominee to head the Dept of Justice Civil Rights Division was denied confirmation.  

Two of those voting against him were Democrats up for re-election this year.

If it's too late to primary them, they need to go down to defeat in the general election.

Not one dime should be spent, not one door knocked on.

In fact, send the Repugnant a donation.  It's for the greater good.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House tomorrow, President Barack Obama will tell him that his country could face a bleak future -- one of international isolation and demographic disaster -- if he refuses to endorse a U.S.-drafted framework agreement for peace with the Palestinians.

By Mary Agnes Carey, Kaiser Health News in collaboration with USA Today, March 3, 2014

[....] CMS’ plan to alter Part D has hit heavy opposition. In a letter to CMS, more than 200 groups representing patients, seniors, health insurers, drug makers and business urged the agency to withdraw the proposed rule. The groups say it would “dramatically expand the federal government’s role in Medicare Part D despite the fact that there is no compelling reason for doing so.” If it becomes law, “millions of seniors and beneficiaries with disabilities would lose their current plan of choice or face changes in coverage,” they wrote. 

Opposition is growing on Capitol Hill as well.  A bipartisan majority of the Senate Finance Committee wrote to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner on Friday to object to the proposed rule.  Given Part D's "remarkable success, we are perplexed as to why [CMS] would propose to fundamentally restructure Part D by requiring immediate, large-scale changes to the program that have direct consequences for beneficiaries. Many of the proposed changes are untested and unstudied and could result in significant loss of beneficiary choice, access and consumer protections."

But some of the proposal’s elements have won praise from seniors’ advocates. A plan to limit the number of Part D plans a company can offer in any one region – a proposal criticized by some Republican members of Congress for restricting seniors’ choices for coverage – may actually help ease confusion among seniors, said Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center.

“We observe that older adults and people with disabilities find choosing among a large number of Part D plans a dizzying experience,” he said. “Most people with Medicare fail to reevaluate their coverage options on an annual basis, largely because there are too many options and too many variables to compare.” [....]

By Gina Kolata, New York Times, March 2/3, 2014

A new study based on genetic testing of 150,000 people has found a rare mutation that protects even fat people from getting Type 2 diabetes. The effect is so pronounced — the mutation reduces risk by two-thirds — that it provides a promising new target for developing a drug to mimic the mutation’s effect.

The mutation destroys a gene used by pancreas cells where insulin is made. Those with the mutation seem to make slightly more insulin and have slightly lower blood glucose levels for their entire lives.

Already Pfizer, which helped finance the study, and Amgen, which owns a company whose data played a key role in the research, are starting programs aimed at developing drugs that act like the mutation, the companies said.

But Timothy Rolph, a Pfizer vice president, cautioned it can take 10 to 20 years to get a drug to market after discovering something new about human genetics and disease.

The study, published Sunday in Nature Genetics, involved a mutation so rare that finding it was only recently possible, with vast data from large numbers of people, researchers said [....]

log in to #miguelito

David McHugh and Vladimir Ischenkov from Kiev, Associated Press, March 1, 2013

Russia executed a de facto military takeover of a strategic region in Ukraine as the parliament in Moscow gave President Vladimir Putin a green light Saturday to proceed to protect Russian interests. The newly installed government in Kiev was powerless to react to the swift takeover of Crimea by Russian troops already in Ukraine and more flown in, aided by pro-Russian Ukrainian groups.

Putin's move follows President Barack Obama's warning Friday "there will be costs" if Russia intervenes militarily, sharply raising the stakes in the conflict over Ukraine's future and evoking memories of Cold War brinkmanship [....]

"I'm submitting a request for using the armed forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country," Putin said in his request sent to parliament [....]

Russia's upper house also recommended that Moscow recall its ambassador from Washington over Obama's comments [....]

Ukraine had already accused Russia on Friday of a "military invasion and occupation" of the Crimea peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk called on Moscow "to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations," according to the Interfax news agency. "Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine." [.....]

There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power.

[...] 

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an “establishment.” All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State’s protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.