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.

[More...]

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...]

I'm still really busy with work stuff, not much time for news. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Back in 2010, the feds brought an 89 count indictment against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and others, concerning the awarding of contracts in the city's Department of Water and Sewerage. The charges included racketeering, extortion, bribery, mail and wire fraud, tax evasion and filing false tax returns.

His father, Bernard Kilpatrick, was charged with racketeering, extortion, and two counts of filing false tax returns.

The trial lasted five months. The Government called 80 witnesses. A brief history of the trial is here.

Today the jury returned guilty verdicts against Kwame on 24 counts. His father, Bernard Kilpatrick, was convicted of one tax count, and contractor Bobby Ferguson was convicted on 9 counts.

It seems a little early for Daylight Savings Time, but it's here. Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead (spring forward, fall back.)

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

What happens when you refuse to comply with a request for information about your citizenship at an immigration checkpoint within the U.S.? Apparently, they have to let you continue on your way and you don't have answer questions or go to the secondary area. At least, that's what happens to those stopped in this video that refused -- the agents backed down.

Good to know. But why are there immigration checkpoints 30 miles from the border?

Busy at work today. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Found in a comment by Tara at Conservative Treehouse: this link to ABC's website with 5 minutes of ABC's recording of the telephone call between Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump and Witness 8, Trayvon's phone friend, recorded on March 19, 2012. Crump has acknowledged ABC's Matt Guttman and his assistant were present during the interview and Guttman tweeted at the time he had a recording of the conversation.

Why are we only finding this clip now? Did ABC recently release this? It appears so. Does it have anything to do with O'Mara's motion for a subpoena to ABC News for the original recordings, to which it filed an objection but which has not yet been heard by the court? Or does it have to do with Benjamin Crump's oh-so carefully worded affidavit about his interview with Witness 8 and the circumstances of the recording?

While this ABC clip is only 5 minutes and 19 seconds of the 14 minute recording, it is so much clearer than any version Crump or the State have produced to date. Witness 8 is much easier to understand.

I'm still working on the analysis I began last night, and won't get to finish it until this evening. In the meantime, please see Diwataman's preliminary analysis.