While some are calling yesterday’s change of policy with regard to contraception coverage a win-win for both the Catholic church and the Obama administration, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops does not see this as a win. Instead, they see it as one small little step, and they are pressing for much, much more.

The first amendment’s protection of religious liberty is not a license for religious organizations or individuals to disregard any law or regulation they don’t like. If the White House wants to end this fight, that’s the argument they’re going to have to make to the public. Instead, they have allowed the USCCB to set the terms of the debate, and the USCCB is quite happy to continue doing so.

This isn’t over, folks. Not by a long shot.

Even Politico can’t spin the GOP’s intransigence in their ‘insiders’ writeup of what happened on the Stupid-Committee. Seeking faux balance, the reporters claim new bipartisan friendships, but as usually, the examples describe a one-way street.

Now that the Super Committee has failed — or succeeded — by doing nothing, the media are starting to notice that doing nothing would slash the federal deficits far more that anything the Committee, Catfood Commissions or White House have been proposing.

If you think that the committee is designed to fail, these are good members to that end. If you think that the entire exercise is a ploy to cut entitlements and lessen small-d democratic accountability, you can see that at work here as well. In that sense, ultimately the specific members of the committee don’t really matter.

Via everywhere, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has chosen Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) for the Super Congress, the bipartisan committee charged with finding at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. They will make up 1/4 of the 12-member committee: the other Majority and Minority Leaders in each chamber of Congress will chose the other nine.

As we watch the various markets react to recent events, it’s essential we keep our heads straight on some basics, because the media, and particularly the “news” reporters and editors of the New York Times, have got almost everything backwards.

You can ignore almost everything you’re hearing from Washington politicians, including the White House, and Beltway media. Here’s what knowledgeable economists are telling us.

The fact that the Pentagon is handing out “imminent danger” pay to troops working in Libya suggests that “hostilities” are taking place.

On Wednesday, I noted that Senator John Kerry (D-MA) was quoted in the Washington Post pointing out the impossibility of David Petraeus’ plan to train Afghan forces to take over security responsibility in Afghanistan after a US pullout. I predicted a ramping up of the Petraeus propaganda machine kicking into gear to protect Petraeus’ reputation as he prepares to assume control of the CIA in his planned preparation for the presidency. Friday’s Los Angeles Times has a remarkable article where we see that the Obama administration is planning to “scale back” training of Afghan forces under cover of saving money. The Times tries to present this as the administration somehow pushing back against Petraeus’ plans, but it looks to me much more like the administration is covering for the abject failure, once again, of Petraeus’ training myth.

So I picked the wrong day to be stuck without Internet access, I guess. It was March 19, eight years to the day after the invasion of Iraq, the US lobbed Tomahawk missiles into Libya, attempting to take out air defenses in preparation for enforcing a no-fly zone.

WHEN: Monday, March 14, 2011, 12:00PM – 2:00PM

WHERE: 12:00PM, State Department, 22nd Ave and C St NW, D.C. followed by a march to the White House for a rally at 1:30pm

CONTACT: Blair Fitzgibbon, Fitzgibbon Media, 202 506 7162

Sign the petition: Tell Secretary Gates to Drop the Ridiculous “Aiding the Enemy” Charges Against Bradley Manning.