news/notes2009.04.20a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
Adolf Hitler
Born this day in 1889 in Austria, Adolf Hitler became leader of the Nazi Party in 1920 and chancellor of Germany in 1933, created a formidable war machine, provoked World War II, and orchestrated the Holocaust.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
1968: Trudeau sworn in as prime minister of Canada
Pierre Elliott Trudeau of the Liberal Party, who became prime minister of Canada this day in 1968, discouraged the French separatist movement, oversaw the formation of a new constitution, and established relations with China.


[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Monday, April 20, 2009
Crown Princess visits Yokohama
（皇太子妃殿下：１年３ヶ月ぶり地方公務横浜へ）

YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) Crown Princess Masako attended a greenery event Sunday in Yokohama along with Crown Prince Naruhito, performing an official duty outside Tokyo for the first time in about 15 months.

The 45-year-old princess, who is undergoing treatment for an adjustment disorder, last traveled outside Tokyo in January 2008, when she visited Nagano Prefecture to attend the opening ceremony of the winter national sports festival and other events.

The Crown Prince mentioned in his address Sunday the role greenery plays in efforts to curb global warming and improve the metropolitan environment.

"I hope everyone involved in various activities throughout the nation will deepen mutual exchanges and renew their feeling of protecting and nurturing greenery," he said.

The Crown Prince and Princess both planted memorial cherry trees at the venue.

The annual national gathering was hosted by the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry and other organizations.

The stress-related disorder suffered by Princess Masako, a former elite bureaucrat at the Foreign Ministry, is believed to stem from her difficulty in adjusting to the Imperial living environment.

She was under much pressure to give a birth to a boy, as only a male can succeed the Imperial throne. Her only child, Princess Aiko, was born in 2001.


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Monday, April 20, 2009
MSDF shoos off boat nearing Canada ship
（海自護衛艦：カナダ船籍に接近の不審船対処）

(Kyodo News) The Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Sazanami came to the aid of a Canadian-registered freighter Saturday that was being approached by a suspected pirate vessel off Somalia, the Defense Ministry said.

It is the third time an MSDF destroyer engaged in antipiracy patrols in the area warded off suspicious vessels approaching a ship not falling under the maritime police-action provision of the Self-Defense Forces Law under which the MSDF flotilla is operating.

The Sazanami received a radio call from the Canadian ship and then sent its helicopter to ward off the approaching vessel, the ministry said.

The MSDF's 4,550-ton destroyer Samidare and 4,650-ton Sazanami have been patrolling in the region since late last month to protect Japanese-linked ships, including Japanese-registered vessels, foreign ships with Japanese nationals or shipments on board and boats operated by Japanese firms.

Earlier this month, the destroyers helped a Singaporean-registered ship and a Maltese-registered ship on separate occasions.

The task force dispatch falls under a legal provision that only allows the MSDF ships to assist Japan-linked ships. The Defense Ministry has insisted, however, that coming to the aid of non-Japan-linked ships is also permissible because such action complies with the universal law of the sea, in which assistance must be rendered to any vessel in danger.

This has drawn criticism in Japan, however, that the MSDF ships have evaded the framework set by the SDF law.

The government has already submitted to the Diet a permanent bill to enhance and widen the MSDF's rules of engagement in antipiracy missions to include also assisting non-Japan-related vessels.

The Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition force, has demanded that the bill be revised so MSDF vessels can only be sent overseas after the Diet gives advance approval.

But during an NHK program aired Sunday, Taku Yamasaki, a foreign affairs panel member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, rejected that demand.

Natsuo Yamaguchi, policy affairs chief of New Komeito, the LDP's junior partner in the ruling bloc, agreed, saying the Diet is very unstable because it is divided between the ruling bloc-controlled Lower House and opposition-controlled Upper House.

The situation would be very unstable if an overseas dispatch had to suddenly be subject to advance approval of the Diet, Yamaguchi said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Monday, April 20, 2009
Nakagawa floats sobering option: going nuclear
（前中川財務大臣：近隣の脅威に対して核兵器の所有???示唆）

(Kyodo News) Japan should consider possessing nuclear weapons as a deterrent to a neighboring threat, former Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa suggested Sunday.

In a speech in Obihiro, Hokkaido, in reference to North Korea's rocket launch earlier this month that many believe was a ballistic missile test, the hawkish lawmaker said: "It is common sense worldwide that in pure military terms, nuclear counters nuclear."

In Sunday's speech, Nakagawa said he believes North Korea has many Rodong medium-range missiles that could reach almost any part of Japan and also has small nuclear warheads.

"North Korea has taken a step toward a system whereby it can shoot without prior notice," he said. "We have to discuss countermeasures."

He added that public discussions must be promoted on what has long been considered a national taboo: whether Japan should possess nuclear weapons.

Nakagawa stepped down as finance minister in February over what appeared to be drunken behavior at an international news conference in Rome.

He has called for debate in the past on whether Japan should go nuclear, telling a TV program as chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council in October 2006 that the Constitution does not rule out Japan possessing nuclear arms.

Pyongyang that month carried out a nuclear test.

news/notes2009.04.20b

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

Secret police intelligence was given to E.ON before planned demo
• Secret police intelligence passed to firm
• Emails show civil servants passed data on protesters to security officials at E.ON

Matthew Taylor and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Monday 20 April 2009
Article history

Government officials handed confidential police intelligence about environmental activists to the energy giant E.ON before a planned peaceful demonstration, according to private emails seen by the Guardian.

Correspondence between civil servants and security officials at the company reveals how intelligence was shared about the peaceful direct action group Climate Camp in the run-up to the demonstration at Kingsnorth, the proposed site of a new coal-fired power station in north Kent.

Intelligence passed to the energy firm by officials from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) included detailed information about the movements of protesters and their meetings. E.ON was also given a secret strategy document written by environmental campaigners and information from the Police National Information and Coordination Centre (PNICC), which gathers national and international intelligence for emergency planning.

At first officials at BERR refused to release the emails, despite a request under the Freedom of Information Act from the Liberal Democrats. The decision was reversed on appeal and although large sections have been blacked out, they show:

• BERR officials passed a strategy document belonging to the "environmental protest community" to E.ON, saying: "If you haven't seen this then you will be interested in its contents."

• Government officials forwarded a Metropolitan police intelligence document to E.ON, detailing the movements and whereabouts of climate protesters in the run-up to demonstration.

• E.ON passed its planning strategy for the protest to the department's civil servants, adding: "Contact numbers will follow."

• BERR and E.ON tried to share information about their media strategies before the protest, and civil servants asked the energy company for press contacts for EDF, BP and Kent police.

Last night the disclosures were criticised by environmentalists, MPs and civil liberty groups, adding to the growing controversy over the policing of protests.

The Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, last week requested an independent review of his force's tactics, amid mounting evidence of violent behaviour by officers at the G20 protests. Two Met officers have been suspended for alleged brutality, including one who has been questioned on suspicion of manslaughter following the death of the newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson on April.

Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, who will carry out the review, is now expected to look at other demonstrations, including last year's policing of Kingsnorth. Further concern about police tactics emerged last week when 114 environmental campaigners were arrested in a pre-emptive raid.

David Howarth MP, who obtained the emails, said they suggested BERR had attempted to politicise the police, using their intelligence to attempt to disrupt a peaceful protest. "It is as though BERR was treating the police as an extension of E.ON's private security operation," he said. "The question is how did that [police] intelligence get to BERR? Did it come via the Home Office or straight from police? And once they'd got this intelligence, what did they do with it?"

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said the sharing of police intelligence between BERR and E.ON was a serious abuse of power. "The government is in danger of turning police constables into little more than bouncers and private security guards for big business. Police should be used to protect potential victims but also to facilitate people's right to protest," she said.

Kevin Smith, a spokesman for the Climate Camp, said: "The proposed coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth is a source of both international climate embarrassment to the government and reputational damage to E.ON, so it comes as no surprise that they are colluding to undermine the growing social movement of people in this country who are determined to prevent it from happening ... We demand to know who is responsible for passing on this information and see them held accountable."

One email from E.ON to BERR on 24 July gave details of the company's security strategy. In another, sent on 28 July, BERR forwards intelligence from the PNICC, detailing activists' movements, listing times, dates and numbers involved.

Last night a spokesman for E.ON said it was normal practice for energy companies to confer with "relevant authorities ... when strategically important energy assets such as power stations are being threatened with mass trespass and potentially violent closure".

He said: "We absolutely respect people's right to protest peacefully and lawfully. However, it is clear that there are some groups which very publicly aim to disrupt the safe operation of our sites, in which case our priority will always be for the safety of everyone involved."

A spokeswoman for BERR said: "Policing the climate camp protests was firmly a matter for the local police force concerned. However, given the potential threats to the security of energy supplies posed by the protests, it is only right that the government liaised with the police and the owner of the power station to exchange factual information and discuss contingency plans."

news/notes2009.04.20c

[Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

Propositions 1D, 1E ask voters to think again
Citizens passed taxes to fund early childhood and mental health programs, specifically. Now lawmakers want the money for California's general fund instead.

By Eric Bailey
April 20, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento -- California voters routinely use the ballot box to approve big spending on big things -- canals and superhighways, light-rail systems, levees and social programs.

Now, with the state struggling financially, they're being asked to do some ballot box demolition.

State lawmakers fighting to escape a riptide of budgetary red ink have two propositions on the May 19 special election ballot that would yank more than $2 billion from a pair of popular programs that help some of the state's most vulnerable: young children and the mentally ill.

Both programs were approved by voters over the last decade. Now lawmakers want to take that money away to help balance the books.

"I don't recall anything like this before," said Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic political consultant. "We're asking for a do-over. We're saying give back the money."


But the measures, Propositions 1D and 1E, also represent ballot-box budgeting coming back to haunt the California electorate.

Though they often complain that statehouse lawmakers spend like drunken sailors, the state's voters have in recent decades repeatedly performed in much the same manner. Time and again they have approved propositions that critics say have combined to straitjacket the state's budgetary process.

"The voters have been as responsible for this budget mess as anyone else," said Larry Gerston, a San Jose State political science professor. "Election after election they have authorized money for this or that. And it ties the hands of the Legislature at budget time."

Californians have rarely shied away from funding public infrastructure projects -- and the state's annual debt to pay back money borrowed to build things has soared to 6% of the budget.

The Golden State's long-running budget travails -- the latest is a projected $8-billion deficit heading into next fiscal year -- have conspired to make California's bond rating on Wall Street the worst among all 50 states.

Meanwhile, the last 30 years have seen voters approve two dozen ballot measures telling lawmakers how to spend money. Gas taxes for transportation projects. Tobacco taxes for healthcare. Funding guarantees for education and after-school programs.

Two of the hardest-fought measures of recent years now stand to be retro-engineered if voters approve Propositions 1D and 1E next month.

In 1998, Hollywood actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner championed the California Children and Families First Act, which put a 50-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes to fund an early childhood development program.

Reiner's ballot measure, Proposition 10, overcame well-financed opposition by the tobacco industry to gain a narrow victory.

Proposition 1D would shift nearly $1.7 billion over the next five years -- about 70% of the cigarette tax's revenue during that period -- to help balance the state general fund.

Proposition 1E, meanwhile, would siphon money from mental health programs financed under a 2004 ballot measure, Proposition 63, which put an extra 1% tax on personal income over $1 million. That measure, pushed by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), garnered a victory with 54% of the votes.

Under 1E, about $460 million over the next two years -- roughly a quarter of the extra income tax's revenue during that time -- would be diverted to help balance the state's books.

The early childhood and mental health programs became prime targets for budget negotiators working to solve the state's $42-billion deficit. They were sporting a budget surplus of about $2.5 billion each at a time when health and welfare programs funded the old-fashioned way -- through the state's general fund appropriations -- were being stripped.

Backers say those surpluses were a fiscal mirage, because the money had been committed to future programs or was being saved for tough times.

Meanwhile, the two chief proponents have come down on starkly different sides.

Steinberg helped put together the February budget deal that put 1D and 1E on the ballot.

Reiner thinks it's another sign of the decline of governance in the California Republic.

"It's unbelievably shortsighted on their part," Reiner said. "These programs are designed to save money for the state -- to put children on the right path so they're not a drain on the system."

Reiner said he never would have pushed his original proposition if the Legislature had performed its job in the first place.

"The reason you have all these initiatives is you can't get anything done in Sacramento," he said. "That's why you have people like me stepping up. But I don't think it's the best way to govern."

Steinberg, meanwhile, has become one of the most eloquent boosters of Propositions 1D and 1E. The campaign has pitted him against friends from the fight for mental health programs.

But with the global economic crisis and California fighting to overcome a deep deficit, Steinberg contends that sacrifices needed to be made on all fronts -- including his own pet program.

Though admitting to being "conflicted," Steinberg said he felt compelled to "lead by example." He also said money diverted from each of the programs would mostly go toward similar efforts for children and the mentally ill -- it would just pass through the general fund.

"This doesn't undo anything," Steinberg said, describing it as a "temporary sacrifice" and expressing confidence that both programs would survive and ultimately "recover well."

Others aren't so sure.

Dave Fratello, a Manhattan Beach political consultant leading the fight against the two ballot measures, said he worries that approval of 1D and 1E would throw open the gates to future raids by lawmakers grappling to balance budgets.

"If we lose this election," he said, "it's just a small step toward undoing these."

But some experts say a bit of deconstruction seems inevitable given the surplus of initiatives by special interests eager to practice ballot-box funding.

"Frankly, the fact we're going back at a few of these isn't surprising to me," said Timothy A. Hodson, executive director at Sacramento State's Center for California Studies. "I'm just surprised it has taken this long."

news/notes2009.04.20d

[Today's Paper] from [The New York Times]

Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: April 19, 2009

C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, far more than had been previously reported.

The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.

The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Justice Department under the Bush administration declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.

President Obama plans to visit C.I.A. headquarters Monday and make public remarks to employees, as well as meet privately with officials, an agency spokesman said Sunday night. It will be his first visit to the agency, whose use of harsh interrogation methods he often condemned during the presidential campaign and whose secret prisons he ordered closed on the second full day of his presidency.

C.I.A. officials had opposed the release of the interrogation memo, dated May 30, 2005, which was one of four secret legal memos on interrogation that Mr. Obama ordered to be released last Thursday.

Mr. Obama said C.I.A. officers who had used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods with the approval of the Justice Department would not be prosecuted. He has repeatedly suggested that he opposes Congressional proposals for a “truth commission” to examine Bush administration counterterrorism programs, including interrogation and warrantless eavesdropping.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun a yearlong, closed-door investigation of the C.I.A. interrogation program, in part to assess claims of Bush administration officials that brutal treatment, including slamming prisoners into walls, shackling them in standing positions for days and confining them in small boxes, was necessary to get information.

The fact that waterboarding was repeated so many times may raise questions about its effectiveness, as well as about assertions by Bush administration officials that their methods were used under strict guidelines.

A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted.

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.

The sentences in the memo containing that information appear to have been redacted from some copies but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers.

Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, would not comment when asked on the program “Fox News Sunday” if Mr. Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times. He said he believed that that information was still classified.

A C.I.A. spokesman, reached Sunday night, also would not comment on the new information.

Mr. Hayden said he had opposed the release of the memos, even though President Obama has said the techniques will never be used again, because they would tell Al Qaeda “the outer limits that any American would ever go in terms of interrogating an Al Qaeda terrorist.”

He also disputed an article in The New York Times on Saturday that said Abu Zubaydah had revealed nothing new after being waterboarded, saying that he believed that after unspecified “techniques” were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh.

The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.

He revealed no new information after being waterboarded, the article said, a conclusion that appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been “unnecessary” in his case.

news/notes2009.04.20e

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

Obama to Order $100 Million in Budget Cuts

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 20, 2009

President Obama plans to convene his Cabinet for the first time today, and he will order its members to identify a combined $100 million in budget cuts over the next 90 days, according to a senior administration official.

Although the budget cuts would amount to a minuscule portion of federal spending, they are intended to signal the president's determination to cut spending and reform government, the official said.

Obama's order comes as he is under increasing pressure to show momentum toward his goal of eventually reducing the federal deficit, even as he goes about increasing spending in the short run to prop up the economy and support his priorities.

Earlier this month, both chambers of Congress passed Obama's $3.5 trillion budget outline for 2010, which includes unprecedented new investments in health care, education and energy. But the huge budget, which contemplates a $1.2 trillion deficit, has drawn the ire of small-government conservatives, who say that such high deficits jeopardize the nation's economic future.

Last week, conservative activists organized "tea parties" to protest Obama's budget, which House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) says "spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much from our children and grandchildren."

Obama will shift his attention back to the budget this week, as his administration has begun speaking more openly about tentative signs of improvement in the economy. But even as glimmers of improvement emerge, it is likely that some of the nation's largest banks will need additional help, which the administration should be able to provide without returning to an increasingly skeptical Congress for more money, top White House officials said.

The Obama administration is moving closer to releasing some results of the "stress tests" aimed at projecting how the nation's 19 largest banks would withstand further deterioration in the economic condition.

"We're confident that, yes, some are going to have very serious problems, but we feel that the tools are available to address these problems," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation."

The administration plans to release guidelines for the stress tests this week, and it hopes to make results available in early May. "It's important that there is disclosure," Axelrod said. "And I think the banks are going to want that because they're going to want the markets and the country and the world to know exactly what their condition is."

Obama yesterday wrapped up a visit to Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago, where he attended a summit of Caribbean and Latin American leaders.

Chief economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers said Obama would back efforts to tighten regulation of credit card companies. Executives from the nation's largest credit card firms have been summoned to the White House for a meeting with administration officials later this week. Meanwhile, members of Congress are pushing legislation to limit the ability of credit card companies to raise interest rates on existing balances and to require clearer disclosure of loan terms.

"He's going to be very focused in the very near term on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses, having to do with the way people have been deceived into paying extraordinarily high rates that they wouldn't have paid if they knew what they were getting themselves into," Summers said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

While officials talked cautiously about the obstacles that stand in the way of a turnaround in an economy that has been shedding more than 600,000 jobs a month and has seen a steady rise in home foreclosures, they also pointed to some improvements.

Some major banks have reported profits recently, and there are signs of credit thawing in some corners of the economy, officials have said.

news/notes2009.04.20f

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Frequently Using Water-Boarding

By Daniel Politi
Posted Monday, April 20, 2009, at 6:53 AM ET

The New York Times leads with word that CIA interrogators used water-boarding 266 times on two al-Qaida detainees. The CIA used the simulated drowning technique, which senior Obama officials have described as torture, 83 times on Abu Zubaydah in 2002 and 183 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003. USA Today leads with a look at how the federal government has so far committed only $60 billion for projects from the $787 billion stimulus package. Of the $499 billion allotted to new spending, the bulk of the money has so far gone out as financial aid to states and to help carry out highway repairs, among other public works. Some are raising concerns that the money isn't being spent quickly enough to help the ailing economy.

The Washington Post leads with a look at how the Taliban takeover of Pakistan's Swat Valley has emboldened Islamist militant leaders to publicly urge the implementation of sharia, or Islamic law, in the whole country. While government officials hoped that they could slow the spread of extremism in Pakistan by appeasing the Taliban, it seems militants are more motivated than ever to take their fight to the rest of the country. "The government made a big mistake to give these guys legal cover for their agenda. Now they are going to be battle-ready to struggle for the soul of Pakistan," one expert tells the paper. The Wall Street Journal leads with the positive responses that President Obama elicited from Latin American leaders during the fifth Summit of the Americas. Cuba's Raúl Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez both made it clear they were willing to work with the new president to improve relations, but it's unclear whether the "overtures … would augur improved relations with the U.S. or just a smooth patch in a long and often unfriendly road," notes the paper. The Los Angeles Times leads locally with a look at how California lawmakers will be asking voters to take away $2 billion from popular state programs designed to help young children and the mentally ill. The programs were approved by voters, but now lawmakers want to use that money to help balance the budget.

The number of times water-boarding was used on two key al-Qaida prisoners wasn't mentioned in the initial coverage of the CIA memos released last week because it seems the information had been redacted in some copies. But the numbers were visible in others and started trickling out this weekend after several bloggers pointed them out. It's unclear whether the information was supposed to be redacted. When asked whether it was true that Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, had been water-boarded 183 times, Michael Hayden, who led the CIA for the last two years of the Bush administration, told Fox News he believed that information was still classified. Regardless, the numbers indicate that the controversial interrogation technique was used far more often than previously believed and raise questions about its effectiveness in eliciting information from detainees. In 2007, a former CIA officer told news organizations that Zubaydah had been water-boarded for a mere 35 seconds before he broke down and spilled everything he knew.

The WP hears news that Obama will gather his Cabinet for the first time today and order officials to come up with $100 million in combined budget cuts over the next 90 days. Although the cuts would amount to a tiny proportion of federal spending, they are meant to show that Obama is serious about reducing costs and reforming government.

The NYT off-leads with word that the Obama administration is considering converting the government's preferred shares in the nation's largest banks into common stock. This would allow the White House to stretch the $700 billion bailout funds without having to go to Congress to ask for more money. Changing the loans to common stock could provide banks with more than $100 billion in additional capital. While it wouldn't involve more taxpayer money, the move is likely to be controversial because some are likely to consider it "a back door to nationalization," as the NYT puts it, since the government could end up being the largest shareholder at several institutions. It would also involve a higher risk for taxpayers as the government's investment would be more vulnerable to the ups and downs of the stock market. This tactic was already used with Citigroup, and now the White House "seems convinced that this maneuver can be used to make up for any shortfall in capital that the big banks confront in the near term," notes the paper.

The WSJ takes a look at Treasury Department data and points out that biggest recipients of federal money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program made or refinanced 23 percent less in new loans in February than in October, when the program got started. All but three of the 19 largest recipients of TARP funds made fewer loans in February than October. The WSJ's way of slicing the data "paints a starker picture of the lending environment" than the government's monthly reports. Many say the Treasury analyzes the data in such a way that ultimately understates the drop in lending.

In the LAT 's second piece in its series on Obama's first 100 days, the paper takes a look at the president's carefully thought out media strategy to portray the first family as "regular folks." The White House periodically releases images of the family to decrease the value of paparazzi shots. At the same time, the administration has invited unconventional outlets, such as Access Hollywood and Extra, to get a glimpse of the first family's life. This access means that a celebrity news outlet thinks twice before publishing unauthorized pictures since angering the White House could translate into being cut off from any further "exclusives." Although dealing with celebrity news outlets is hardly a new trend for presidents, experts say "the Obamas are taking this engagement to a new level."

Today is April 20, a date that "has long been an unofficial day of celebration for marijuana fans," notes the NYT in an article that points out legalization advocates feel like they'll have more to celebrate in this year's "high holiday" because there's a feeling that more are beginning to accept the drug. "There's a sense that the notion of legalizing marijuana is starting to cross the fringes into mainstream debate," one advocate said. The movement has won some high-profile backers recently, including Reps. Barney Frank and Ron Paul. In the face of economic woes, some state lawmakers have suggested the drug should be legalized and taxed to help close budget shortfalls. Even conservative firebrand Glenn Beck has sounded amenable to the idea. "[A]ny time you've got Glenn Beck and Barney Frank agreeing on something," said the director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, "it's either a sign that change is impending or that the end times are here."