Citizen Cartwright

House GOP releases immigration principles

The Republican leaders' plan would require tighter border security and more domestic immigration enforcement and allow the country's undocumented immigrants to "get right with the law" and stay in the country.

But many Republicans on Thursday rejected the one-page “standards for immigration reform” outright, and others said now wasn't the time for a legislative push on a number of contentious issues in an election year with trends going their way, according to The New York Times.

Meanwhile, Hispanic residents’ faith in the American Dream in many cases exceeds that of whites and African Americans, according to a national survey by The Washington Post and the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

Need a loan? It may be easier to get one

Big banks in the United States and Europe are slowly starting to increase their appetite for risk, according to reports from the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency and the European Central Bank.

"There has been some melting away of that frigid ice that most applicants had received," says Patrick O'Keefe, director of economic research for the consulting firm CohnReznick. Credit "is not flowing freely, but when [borrowers] call a prospective lender and investor, their calls are now returned."

Rep. Henry Waxman to retire after 40 years

The California Democrat is "one of the most prolific and successful lawmakers of modern times," says The Washington Post.

He leaves "two giant legacies: as a master craftsman in the art of cutting the big deal and someone who could throw a potent political punch," says Politico.

"Anyone who has worked in the Washington policy trenches over the past four decades — especially in public health and the environment — also will remember Waxman as a legislative maestro who had an instinctive feel for finding the perfect equilibrium to pass landmark legislation," Politico says.

But Waxman told The New York Times on Thursday, "It’s been frustrating because of the extremism of Tea Party Republicans. Nothing seems to be happening.”

When Waxman's retirement was announced at a closed meeting during a House Republican retreat Thursday, the room erupted in applause, the Post says.

Also in the news

Syrian government has demolished thousands of homes, Human Rights Watch says

State Department releases list of ‘special government employees’ raising conflict-of-interest questions

Justice Department starts quest for low-level drug criminals to be freed

Senate passes bill to prevent jump in flood insurance rates

New study links fracking to birth defects in Colorado

U.N. expected to name former Mayor Bloomberg as special envoy for cities and climate change

Study: One in 3 chronically ill Americans unable to afford food, medicine

Veterans dying because of diagnosis, treatment delays at VA hospitals, internal report finds

NFL says concussions have dropped 13 percent this season

Edward Snowden is a Rorschach test

Insiders like the former National Security Agency contractor who leak secrets about sensitive U.S. intelligence programs are a potentially greater danger to national security than terrorists, America's spy chiefs warned Wednesday in their annual report to Congress on global security risks.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the leaks are the "most damaging theft of intelligence information in our history."

Investigators believe Snowden copied 1.7 million documents from NSA servers, though only a fraction have been disclosed so far. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says the classified documents Snowden downloaded, if printed, would form a stack more than three miles high.

By comparison, Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, sent 750,000 classified diplomatic cables, military field reports and other material to WikiLeaks.

Both Snowden and Manning have been called traitors by critics and whistle-blowers by supporters.

Meanwhile, two Norwegian politicians have nominated Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize.

GOP reaching out to the middle class

As President Obama traveled the nation Wednesday promoting a more populist economic agenda, Republicans were racing to prove that they, too, have a plan to alleviate ­middle-class anxiety, says The Washington Post.

In the past few days, three senior GOP senators unveiled an alternative to Obamacare that offers a conservative vision for covering the uninsured; House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called experts to a Capitol Hill hearing to discuss new ways to help the poor; and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., proposed making adults without children eligible for a tax credit now available only to working families.

Rich 'freaking out' over income inequality meme

Economists, advisers to the wealthy and the wealthy themselves are talking about a deep-seated anxiety that the national — and even global — mood is turning against the super-rich in ways that could be dangerous and hard to control, says Politico.

For example, Thomas Perkins, co-founder of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, wrote to The Wall Street Journal comparing Nazi Germany’s persecution and mass murder of Jews to “the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.’”

Jamie Traeger-Muney, a psychologist whose Wealth Legacy Group focuses on counseling the affluent, says: “I think that with Occupy Wall Street there was a sense of the heat getting turned up and a feeling of vilification and potential danger. There is a worry among our clients that they are being judged and people are making assumptions about who they are based on their wealth.”

Here is an interactive to enable you to get a sense of income inequality in your area, by ProPublica.

Ready for a $1,000 haircut?

I guess this is my week to show what a miser I am. First it was my shock over some of the amenities in huge homes as their sales rebound.

Now it's The Wall Street Journal's report that, after holding prices steady since the financial crisis, elite hairdressers are raising their prices to $1,000 and beyond.

What do you get for the money?

"Theoretically," you will get a hairstyle customized to your body and bone structure — a cut that hits at the most slender part of your neck to make you look thinner, or layers so you look younger, says the WSJ.

"It's an alternative to a face-lift," says Laura-Jean Mallon, a former Wall Street executive turned stay-at-home mother.

Also in the news

Syria to miss next week's deadline on chemical weapons

U.S. says Russia tested new missile despite arms control treaty

Afghanistan can’t be trusted to prevent the misuse of U.S. aid, report says

Ukraine parliament passes law offering conditional amnesty to protesters

In China, smog is eroding new year fireworks tradition

Terror suspect challenges constitutionality of NSA surveillance program

Judge: Defense in terrorism case can see secret FISA request documents

House easily passes farm bill that was long overdue

Fed continues stimulus reduction despite turmoil in emerging markets

Concerns that securitization of home rentals could be a new bubble

Won’t work hard, pay their dues? How business leaders see young workers

Here's some help using Facebook's privacy controls

Why the monarch butterfly population keeps dropping

New way discovered to create stem cells

Study: Being overweight in kindergarten sets stage for obesity later

New treatment could reduce peanut allergies in kids

'Bioengineered skin' getting closer to the real thing

Obama executive orders could be short-lived

While a major theme of the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night was his vow to use his executive powers to get around the gridlocked Congress, The New York Times does point out that:

"Anyone who succeeds him can use the stroke of a pen to undo Mr. Obama’s actions just as Mr. Obama did to some Bush-era policies one day after his inauguration in 2009."

And, speaking of gridlock, here's an example of just how bad it is, according to the Times:

"Lawmakers cannot find a way to extend emergency jobless benefits even when leaders of both parties acknowledge the aid should and could be approved."