The New York Times had a few startling revelations this morning.  One story reported that the Russians leaked a recording of a phone conversation between two American diplomats.  Can you imagine a national government listening in on the phone conversations of another country? Atrocious.  The United States has every right to be outraged.  Another story (deep inside on page A15) noted the ranking House Republican woman, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, is being investigated for possible campaign spending irregularities.  She gave the official Republican response to the State of the Union address.  If you managed to stay awake for all ten minutes of it you got her entire autobiography, and the promise that the Republicans had a plan to make every American life peachy creamy without saying how.  Anyway, she is being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics.  What I found interesting is that such an Office exists.  “Congressional ethics” strikes me as an enormous oxymoron.  One editorial bemoaned Russia’s repressive government. The phrase that caught my eye was “charges against those demonstrators are baseless and more evidence of “Putin’s way of getting revenge” on his critics.”  Politicians extracting revenge?  Shocking.  At least he could have been more subtle and shut down a bridge leading to Sochi.  And finally, John Boehner expressed doubt that there will be immigration reform during this Congress.  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) laid the blame for the immigration reform impasse on, guess what, the Affordable Care Act.