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From Today’s Times:

In a step-by-step plan that stops short of military intervention, the Obama administration laid out on Thursday the actions it will take in an effort to force Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to relinquish power in Libya. The release of this plan came shortly after James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thinks Colonel Qaddafi will prevail in the current crisis — a statement from which the White House is distancing itself, The Times’s David E. Sanger reports.As President Obama presents a course of action in Libya, The Times’s Mark Landler and Helene Cooper offer a glimpse into the administration’s policy on the Middle East in a time of unrest: restraint. Weighing American national security interests, Mr. Obama has adopted a cautious, country-by-country approach to foreign policy, a method some criticize as a missed opportunity to tie himself to historic change in the region.With Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, at the helm, the House Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims on Thursday exposed the partisan divide in the way lawmakers approach investigating terrorism. In the tug of war between charges of McCarthyism and political correctness, committee members spent four hours trying to figure out whether or not Muslims were sufficiently cooperating with law enforcement to battle terrorism, The Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Laurie Goodstein report.In another bout of finger-pointing becoming increasingly common in televised congressional hearings, Thursday’s tense Homeland Security hearing seemed more an investigation of the committee than of extremism. The Times’s Alessandra Stanley talks about the tears, the Constitution-waving and the McCarthy references surrounding the House Homeland Security Committee’s inquiry.

Around the Web:

Washington Happenings:

President Obama has scheduled a news conference for this morning to discuss rising energy prices. And a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee will look at the United States’ energy dependence on hostile nations and the case for relying on Canadian oil.Mr. Obama will also be welcoming the Stanley cup champion Chicago Blackhawks to the White House today. As part of her Let’s Move! campaign, First Lady Michelle Obama will then join the commissioner of the National Hockey League, Gary Bettman, and the executive director of USA Hockey, Dave Ogrean, for a street hockey workout and clinic.On Capitol Hill, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, is scheduled to testify before a House Appropriations subcommittee about the implementation of health care reform.The Libyan ambassadors to the United States and the United Nations are expected to call for the United States to recognize the new National Transitional Council as the legitimate Libyan government in a press conference today at the National Press Club.

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House Republicans are expected to move Friday to assert themselves as defenders of the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Last month, the Obama administration said it had decided the law was unconstitutional, and had directed the Justice Department to stop defending it in court.

While Republican rebukes to Mr. Obama’s decision were largely muted, Speaker John Boehner has said that the Republican-controlled House would likely make a move to defend the law.

In an television interview Wednesday night, Mr. Boehner called the President’s decision “outrageous”. He added: “It’s the law of the land. It’s the job of the Justice Department to defend the work of our government. And I just think it’s outrageous. We’re looking at our options, what’s available to us to intervene. The short – the long and the short of this is that we are going to intervene. The question is how do we do it.”

Under federal law, whenever the executive branch declines to defend a statute it believes is unconstitutional, the Attorney General must inform Congress of that decision, which he has in this case, and lawmakers must then determine whether to appoint their own lawyer to defend the statute in court.

This decision can be done through a resolution, or via the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, made up of the three majority leaders and two most senior minority members in the House; the majority can then instruct the House General Counsel, on behalf of the House, to seek to intervene
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Neal Devins, a professor of law at William and Mary Law School, said that such disputes between the legislative and executive branches tend to center around the separation of powers, so the case around the marriage act is unusual. “The House can appear as an amicus or ask the court to appoint it as a party in the case,” he said.

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From Today’s Times:

- Washington is keeping a close eye on the drama in the Wisconsin Capitol. Republicans in Madison were unable to hold a vote on a controversial cost-saving measure after 14 Democrats skipped town to delay a bill that would slash collective bargaining rights for public employees, The Times’s Monica Davey reports.

- In Washington, Speaker John Boehner pledged his support for Wisconsin’s governor, a fellow budget hawk. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama’s political arm, Organizing for America, moved quickly to rally support for the state’s union leaders and public workers. That, of course, has conservatives riled up, some of whom point to a White House strategy session scheduled for early March at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters in Washington as evidence of the administration’s unabashed collusion with the unions.

-  While most of Congress is warring over the broad outlines of the federal budget, a smaller, yet similarly intense battle is brewing over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The Times’s Erik Eckholm delves into the strongest assault yet on federal funds for Planned Parenthood, including a proposal in the Republican-led House to cut the entire $317 million for family planning in its 2011 spending plan, which is expected to pass by the weekend.

- Unlike the case with devastating budgets released by other cities and states, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City had this to say about his city’s spending plan: “It’s good news.” The Times’s Javier C. Hernandez sums up the details of the $65.6 billion spending plan for the next fiscal year and identifies where the new revenues came from.

Around the Web:

-        If  Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on a budget plan by March 4, federal agencies will close their doors. What would a shutdown actually look like? The Washington Post offers one scenario.

-        More than half the states are not complying with a post-Virginia Tech law that requires them to report the names of mentally ill people to a national database to prevent them from buying guns, an Associated Press review has found.

-        In the last 10 years the technology industry’s top spenders on Washington lobbying have cycled out quickly. Only a third of the companies ranked in the top 15 for lobbying expenditures in 1998 remained on that list in 2010, the Center for Responsive Politics reports. Google, which was not even founded until September 1998, now ranks third. It is no wonder, given the attention they’re getting from the White House; Mr. Obama sat down with top tech C.E.O.s in California Thursday night.

-        The House voted Thursday to defund nine White House “czars,” passing an amendment to the 2011 spending bill 249 to 179. The Obama administration’s appointed policy jobs have been a favorite target of Republicans since the controversy surrounding Van Jones, the so-called “green jobs czar,” led to his resignation in September 2009.

Washington Happenings:

-        Mr. Obama heads to Hillsboro, Ore.,  Friday to meet with Paul Otellini, the executive of Intel, and learn about the company’s science, technology, engineering and math education programs. Later, he will deliver remarks on out-educating the country’s competitors.

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Another day, another progressive group hitting President Obama from the left on the Bush-era tax cuts.

This time, it’s MoveOn.org Political Action that is imploring the president to fight to prevent the tax cuts from being extended for the wealthiest Americans. (The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has been sounding a similar note.)

In a new minute-long television advertisement, MoveOn members, through video submissions, lobby Mr. Obama on the cuts, which are set to expire at year’s end. “I am in the highest tax bracket,” one woman says in the spot. “We don’t need the money. The country does.”

While the ad zeroes in on the tax issue, the people it features also take Mr. Obama to task for straying from the principles he espoused on his way to winning the Oval Office two years ago. “What’s happened to that bold, progressive man we elected president in 2008?” an elderly woman asks midway through the spot.

“The guy who stands for all the people and is not gonna let himself get pushed around,” a man adds.

Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the current tax rates should be extended for individuals making under $200,000 and couples making less than $250,000. But many Democrats want the cuts to expire on income above those figures, while Republicans have called for the lower tax rates to be extended for all income.

The House passed an extension of the tax cuts for all but the higher income brackets on Thursday. But that was largely a symbolic action, with little chance to be approved in the Senate. The Obama administration also has reportedly indicated that it wants an extension of aid to the unemployed and other tax breaks for the lower- and middle-class as part of a deal to extend all the Bush tax cuts.

A spokeswoman for MoveOn said the group’s ad was scheduled to air on national cable televison for a week.

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Musicians as diverse as Ozzy Osborne, Bonnie Raitt, Pearl Jam, Dr. John and My Morning Jacket are banding together to urge President Obama to “do all you can” to help the Gulf Coast recover from this year’s devastating oil spill. Nearly 90 artists signed a letter sent to the White House this week asking for [...]

A woman who was wrestled to the ground and then stepped on by a supporter of Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul says she was “traumatized” and injured in the incident and intends to take legal action. Lauren Valle, a MoveOn.org liberal activist who wanted to give Paul a bogus award outside a debate in Lexington, [...]