The People's View writes:

Why Obama and Democrats Should Strike a Grand Bargain and Leave Behind The Great Progressive Resistance When everyone digs in their heels, nothing gets done. As I have noted earlier this week, Paul Ryan apparently doesn't remember that his party and his ticket lost the election largely on the merits of their budget plans. House Republicans are digging in their heels, furiously opposed to any additional revenue and hell bent on ending the social safety net. But there also seem to be plenty of Democrats and liberals digging in their heels - Bernie Sanders being the leading contender of the mantle of Leader of the Great Progressive ResistanceTM - and are declaring themselves adamantly opposed to any meaningful reforms to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The argument appears to be that pre-concessions from the president and Democrats are necessary, and ultimately a good thing, because if they do not make a pre-concession, nothing will get done. I disagree with this negotiating approach. While it is true that Obama and the Dems can "get something done" by conceding points to the GOP, it is not by definition a good thing to get that "something" done. Moreover, the president does not even get credit for the pre-concession anyway.

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Guess who is on American Idol night? He will also be on "Katie" tomorrow. And in 32 days, he'll be in Denver. I've got really good seats.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The task force designated by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to make recommendations for the implementation of Amendment 64, legalizing marijuana in Colorado, has concluded its work and issued this 165 page report.

Included in the report are 58 recommendations,

....on everything from how recreational marijuana stores should be regulated to whether people should be able to smoke pot in bars.

The report will be considered by a joint legislative committee (not a pun, that's the terminology used to reflect it will include both House and Senate members.) The committee will meet twice in March.

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Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic has an excellent article on the impact of the sequester on the federal judiciary. Already there are layoffs and furloughs at federal defenders' offices and courts are reducing staff. Law enforcement is also taking a hit.

The Federal Times reports 21,000 court employees could be affected.

U.S. marshals, who furnish courthouse security, and federal prosecutors face furloughs of up to 14 days by the end of September.

There are some exemptions: "Like members of Congress, judges cannot be furloughed. Also exempted are law clerks and other “chambers” staff employees."

Open Thread.

Via Ryan Grim and Ryan Reilly at Huffington Post, Aaron Swartz's lawyers have asked the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to review the conduct of AUSA Stephen Heymann. In their letter to OPR, available here, they allege Heymann withheld evidence and improperly sought to coerce Swartz into a plea deal. From the letter:

First, AUSA Heymann appears to have failed timely to disclose exculpatory evidence relevant to Mr. Swartz's pending motion to suppress. Indeed, evidence suggests AUSA Heymann may have misrepresented to the Court the extent of the federal government's involvement in the investigation into Mr. Swartz's conduct prior to the application for certain search warrants.

Second, AUSA Heymann appears to have abused his discretion when he attempted to coerce Mr. Swartz into foregoing his right to a trial by pleading guilty. Specifically, AUSA Heymann offered Mr. Swartz four to six months in prison for a guilty plea, while threatening to seek over seven years in prison if Mr. Swartz chose to go to trial.

Swartz' lawyers say they are filing the claim on behalf of Aaron's family. [More...]

New York Times:

With a puff of white smoke from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel and to the cheers of thousands of rain-soaked faithful, a gathering of Catholic cardinals picked a new pope from among their midst on Wednesday — choosing the cardinal from Argentina, the first South American to ever lead the church.

The new pope, 76, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (pronounced Ber-GOAL-io) will be called Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He is also the first non-European leader of the church in more than 1,000 years.

One of the interesting aspects of the ongoing budget negotiations is that while Paul Ryan's proposal is an attack on the social safety net with a huge tax giveaway for the rich, the one thing it is not is a call to cut Social Security:

Here is Paul Ryan’s path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor and some combination of education, infrastructure, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts remain, but the military is spared, as is Social Security. [Emphasis supplied.]

Obama had discussed entitlement reform with a dozen Senate Republicans over a private dinner last week. “I urged him not to cut Social Security and benefits for disabled veterans,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats. [...] “At this point I think he is more inclined to cut benefits, which I strongly disagree with,” Sanders said.[Emphasis supplied.]

At this point it is impossible to deny that the idea of cutting Social Security is on Obama's wish list, not the GOP's.

At a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee today, National Intelligence Director James clapper said cyberthreats are the biggest problem facing the U.S. today. His prepared remarks are here.

Clapper explained that cyber threats are broken into two terms: cyberattacks and cyberespionage. Cyberattacks aim at creating physical effects or to manipulate, disrupt or delete data. “It might range from a denial-of-service operation that temporarily prevents access to a website to an attack on a power turbine that causes physical damage and an outage lasting for days,” he said. Cyber espionage refers to stealing data from a variety of sources.

“We judge that there is a remote chance of a major cyberattack against U.S. critical infrastructure systems during the next two years that would result in long-term, wide-scale disruption of services, such as a regional power outage,” Clapper said.

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Defense lawyers for James Holmes in the Aurora theater case refused to enter a plea today, saying they needed more time. The judge denied the request for a continuance and entered a not guilty plea for Holmes. He can still change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity at a later date.

KUSA was allowed to take video of the proceedings but no audio capture was permitted. The Denver Post was granted permission to have a still camera in the courtroom and photos are here.

Holmes parents were in the courtroom. The judge set trial for August, 2013.

The Colorado legislature took a step forward today as the House passed Senate Bill 11, providing equal benefits to partners in civil unions. The bill is now on its way to Gov. Hickenlooper, who has said he will sign it. The law will take effect May 1.

The bill does not have an exemption for businesses and individuals with moral or religious objections.

The text of the bill is accessible here.

James Holmes, the alleged Aurora Theater shooter, will enter a plea tomorrow. He is expected to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The defense filed a lot of motions objecting to the procedure that will be followed, but the Judge denied them (Order here.)

Today the court issued its proposed advisement form for entering plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. You can read it here.

Of note, is paragraph 13, which will require Holmes, if asked, to submit to a "narcoanalytic interview." [More...]