The Commentariat -- June 19, 2013

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Congressional budget analysts ... said Tuesday that legislation to overhaul the nation’s immigration system would cut close to $1 trillion from the federal deficit over the next two decades and lead to more than 10 million new legal residents in the country. A long-awaited analysis by the Congressional Budget Office found that the benefits of an increase in legal residents from immigration legislation currently being debated in the Senate — which includes a pathway to citizenship — would outweigh the costs.... The report ... came just hours after Speaker John A. Boehner raised potential new obstacles for the bill, saying he would not bring any immigration measure to the floor unless it had the support of a majority of House Republicans." CW: okay, let's see how serious Republicans are about reducing the deficit. ...

... Steve Benen: obviously, action immigration reform will not pass if Boehner insists that "a majority of the majority" must approve whatever bill reaches the floor. "... just two weeks ago, nearly every member of the House Republican caucus voted to deport Dream Act kids."

Mark Landler & Peter Baker of the New York Times: President Obama's "main counterparts on the world stage are not his friends, and they make little attempt to cloak their disagreements in diplomatic niceties." ...

Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: "Trying to tamp down concerns about government over-reach, President Barack Obama on Wednesday defended U.S. Internet and phone surveillance programs as narrowly targeted efforts that have saved lives and thwarted at least 50 terror threats. 'This is not a situation in which we are rifling through ordinary emails' of huge numbers of citizens in the United States or elsewhere, the president declared during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He called it as a 'circumscribed, narrow' surveillance program." ...

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Challenged personally by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany about American intelligence programs that monitor foreigners’ communications without individualized court orders, President Obama said Wednesday that German terrorist threats were among those foiled by such operations worldwide — a contention that Mrs. Merkel seemed to confirm." ...

... Stephen Brown & Noah Barkin of Reuters: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel told U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday that government monitoring of Internet communications needed to remain within proper limits. 'I made clear that although we do see the need for gathering information, the topic of proportionality is always an important one and the free democratic order is based on people feeling safe,' Merkel said at a joint news conference with Obama." ...

... New York Times Editors: "If the president is serious about declassifying some secrets, he should have said he would start with the [FISA] court. And at the top of the list should be its opinion that broadened the Patriot Act to allow the collection of every phone record, a power that surprised even the Republican lawmakers who wrote the act." ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Top national security officials on Tuesday promoted two newly declassified examples of what they portrayed as 'potential terrorist events' disrupted by government surveillance. The cases were made public as Congress and the Obama administration stepped up a campaign to explain and defend programs unveiled by recent leaks from a former intelligence contractor."

John Harwood of the New York Times piles on, suggesting that the country would be more "united" if Obama had visited North Dakota & other red states. CW: might be nice if Harwood recalled the great success of Richard Nixon, who campaigned in all 50 states in 1960. (He "wound up wasting valuable time visiting states that he had no chance to win, or that had few electoral votes and would be of little help in the election, or states that he would almost certainly win regardless.") Harwood also fails to mention that Obama has visited all 50 states, if you include the year before he became president. And Harwood makes a big deal about Obama's not visiting Mississippi, but Michelle Obama has been there at least twice since her husband became president. ...

... MEANWHILE, contributor MAG highlights this piece by Charles Pierce: "Everybody thought his main job would be to disenthrall the country from the policies of George W. Bush. It has turned out that his main job has been to disenthrall -- haltingly, slowly, maddeningly discursively --  the country from the policies of the last previous Democratic president, and if there's been a more towering irony in American politics over the past several decades, I don't know what it is." ...

... CW: "Towering irony?" Not really. Pierce has ignored rudimentary American political history here. We have political, social and bureaucratic systems which dictate that change occurs slowly. (No, I don't like it, either.) Ike did not undo the New Deal and neither did Nixon. The fact that Obama & Congressional Democrats were able to undo so many of Clinton's failures -- failures of a generation ago -- is about par for the course. Pierce did not mention, BTW, that Obama also "undid" Clinton's failure to pass a health insurance law or that Obama somewhat undid some of Clinton's catastrophic financial-sector "reforms," too. Presidents -- and their contemporaneous Congresses -- seldom reverse the course of history; they only modify it. And what they modify is not likely to be the previous administration's errors but ones from a time long past. The New Deal may seem like the exception, and in some ways it was, but in fact, Roosevelt & Congressional Democrats were undoing longstanding Republican policies, not just Hoover's policies. Change in the U.S. tends to be generational. And that explains the changes Pierce does mention -- especially the Clinton-era anti-gay policies & laws. Americans elect people who represent their "values," and those values are slow to evolve.

Trust Us, Ctd. Charlie Savage & Michael Schmidt: "...  from 1993 to early 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot about 70 'subjects' and wounded about 80 others — and every one of those episodes was deemed justified, according to interviews and internal F.B.I. records.... The last two years have followed the same pattern: an F.B.I. spokesman said that since 2011, there had been no findings of improper intentional shootings. In most of the shootings, the F.B.I.’s internal investigation was the only official inquiry. In the Orlando case, for example, there have been conflicting accounts about basic facts like whether the Chechen man, Ibragim Todashev, attacked an agent with a knife, was unarmed or was brandishing a metal pole. But Orlando homicide detectives are not independently investigating what happened." Includes links to documents obtained by the Times.

Cummings Comes Through. Josh Hicks of the Washington Post: "The House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat on Tuesday released the full transcript of a congressional interview that he said 'debunks conspiracy theories' about the IRS targeting controversy. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the committee, produced a complete interview transcript in which an IRS manager in Cincinnati said he elevated the first tea party case that led the agency to begin singling out conservative groups for extra scrutiny." Here's Part 1 of the transcript (pdf). Here's Part 2 (pdf). Democrats have posted what they think are key pages of the transcript. ...

... Greg Sargent: "... Cummings had previously insisted Issa release the full transcript himself, arguing it would show that the Republican chairman’s claims of White House involvement are false, and that Issa’s own selective release of testimony was misleading the public. Issa refused, insisting that releasing full transcripts would damage the investigation. Cummings then asked Issa to detail what specifically in the transcript would do this, and demanded an answer by yesterday. According to Cummings..., Issa has yet to reply — hence the decision to go forward with the release today."

The "New" GOP. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved the most restrictive ban on abortion considered by Congress in a decade, a largely symbolic vote that laid bare the deep ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans.... Just six Republicans voted against the bill; six Democrats voted for it." CW: worth reading Peters' piece to get a feel for the histrionics -- & for those of you who associate "histrionics" with female caterwauling, the term is apt here -- after passing the bill out of committee with not a single female vote, Republicans pushed their female members to do most of the speaking during debate on the House floor Tuesday." ...

... Parity! Katie Hiler of the New York Times: A class of eight astronaut trainees — "the first NASA has named in four years, and the first group to include equal numbers of men and women — were selected from 6,300 applicants and will start training at the Johnson Space Center in Houston in August, the space agency said Monday." ...

... CW: For the second day in a row, we see the stark contrast in treatment of women between a male-dominated government entity -- this time NASA -- and Congressional Republicans. I won't call our GOP Congresscritters Neanderthals, as I think that might be unfair to Neanderthals. ...

... OR, as David Atkins writes in Hullabaloo: "In the constant internal GOP tug-of-war between 'tone it down to appeal to sane voters' and 'ramp it up for the wingnut base', guess which side is winning? ... Republican misogyny may doom them faster than their racism."

Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "The Internal Revenue Service is about to pay $70 million in employee bonuses despite an Obama administration directive to cancel discretionary bonuses because of automatic spending cuts enacted this year, according to a GOP senator. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says his office has learned that the IRS is executing an agreement with the employees' union on Wednesday to pay the bonuses. Grassley says the bonuses should be canceled under an April directive from the White House budget office. The directive was written by Danny Werfel, a former budget official who has since been appointed acting IRS commissioner.... The IRS said it is negotiating with the union over the matter but did not dispute Grassley's claim that the bonuses are imminent." ...

... CW: I hope IRS employee Lou Montoya gets a piece of the action. After both my financial adviser & my accountant told me I needed an attorney to get a new tax ID number (which they said I needed to defrost a bank account) & that it would take weeks to obtain, Montoya got me the new number in 20 minutes. And he was very nice about it.

Ben Smith of BuzzFeed remembers investigative reporter Michael Hastings. (See also Tuesday's News Ledes.)

Isaac Chotiner of The New Republic interviews Politico founders John Harris & Jim VandeHei. CW: I'm not sure why. I think we're supposed to get some insights into a couple of guys who eschew insights (tho they claim they're about to launch "a division devoted to 'deep, magazine-style journalism.'" Probably whatever Harris & VandeHei think "deep" and "journalism" mean is different from your concepts of the terms. ...

... Ed Kilgore figures "Harris and VandeHei think length will be the main and perhaps the only differentiator of the new long-form outlet"; that is, they reckon "deep journalism" = "more words." ...

... John Cole of Gawker: Harris & VandeHei both criticized Nate Silver. "Of course Silver wasn’t the lifeline for Politico - Silver basically said for months that Obama was going to walk away with the election, while the Politico staff needed a horse race so they could write the ten thousand inside baseball faux drama bullshit that they churn out every day just hoping for a link from Drudge or a call from the Morning Joe booking staff." ...

... Charles Pierce has a few choice words, beginning with "Fk you, you smug little prick." Pierce goes on: "But, by far, my favorite part of the interview comes when the Two Presiding Geniuses decide to pick another fight with Nate Silver that they have no hope of winning. You may recall that, at the end of the campaign, TBOTP [Tiger Beat on the Potomac] decided that Silver's fancy scienco-math wasn't for them, because it disagreed with what everybody was saying at John Harris's dinner table the night before. So they took off after him, and then Silver and the American electorate combined to kick their insidery asses all around the block." ...

... Nate Silver: "It's striking how preoccupied Harris and VandeHei are with the perception that Politico is too 'insidery'.... The perceptions of Beltway insiders, which Politico echoes and embraces, are not always very insightful or accurate. In other words, the conventional wisdom is often wrong, especially in Washington.... It would be one thing if Politico were to describe the conventional wisdom and then hold it up to a critical examination.... But in most ... pieces..., there's a lack of perspective -- in particular, a lack of perspective about the role that Politico plays in formulating the conventional wisdom which they then 'report' upon.... Harris and VandeHei seem to lack very much curiosity for the world outside of the bubble."

Maureen Dowd on Johnny 'The Executioner' Martorano, who turned government witness and copped to killing 20 men and women as part of Whitey Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang." Read Gemli's comment. ...

... Shelley Murphy, et al., of the Boston Globe have a straight report on Tuesday's testimony. CW: like Gemli, I haven't been following the trial, but for those of you who want to up-to-the-minute details, the Globe has a liveblog, which is rich in 140-character "reporting." Here's Katharine Seelye's report for the New York Times on Martorano's testimony.

The Commentariat -- June 18, 2013

Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald: "The Obama administration Monday lifted a veil of secrecy surrounding the status of the detainees at Guantánamo, for the first time publicly naming the four dozen captives it defined as indefinite detainees — men too dangerous to transfer but who cannot be tried in a court of law. The names had been a closely held secret since a multi-agency task force sifted through the files of the Guantánamo detainees in 2009 trying to achieve President Barack Obama’s executive order to close the detention center. In January 2010, the task force revealed that it classified 48 Guantánamo captives as dangerous but ineligible for trial because of a lack of evidence, or because the evidence was too tainted. They became so-called 'indefinite detainees,' a form of war prisoner held under Congress’ 2001 'Authorization for Use of Military Force.' The Defense Department released the list to The Miami Herald, which, with the assistance of Yale Law School students, had sued for it in federal court in Washington, D.C. The Pentagon also sent the list to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Monday, a Defense Department official said. According to the list, the men designated for indefinite detention are 26 Yemenis, 12 Afghans, 3 Saudis, 2 Kuwaitis, 2 Libyans, a Kenyan, a Moroccan and a Somali."

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/17/3456267/foia-suit-reveals-guantanamos.html#storylink=cpy

Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Tensions over how to deal with the widening conflict and growing humanitarian crisis in Syria have dominated the two-day [G-8] meeting in Northern Ireland that ends Tuesday." ...

... Former NATO commander Wes Clark, in a New York Times op-ed, likens Obama's tentative arming of Syrian rebels to the West's use of force as a leverage to diplomatic solution for Kosovo in 1999. ...

... Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladi­mir Putin, failed to resolve on Monday their significant differences over how to bring about an end to Syria’s civil war, as each leader steps up military support for opposite sides in the worsening conflict. Meeting for two hours on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit, Obama and Putin discussed shared economic interests, the recent Iranian elections and global security issues that have put the leaders at odds in the past."...

     ... CW: Of greater interest to most Americans, President Obama failed in an aborted attempt to wrest from Mr. Putin's finger the Super Bowl ring which the Russian president stole from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Pollsters predicted an immediate dip in Mr. Obama's favorability numbers. Sen. Ted Cruz (RTP-Texas) interrupted his floor speech deploring immigration reform to remark, "It is now obvious to the American people that Barack Obama is not a Patriot. A Fox "News" panel debated whether or not the incident proved Obama was a communist sympathizer. Several panel members identified Putin as president of the Soviet Union.

... Actually, the President's poll numbers are diving. Gloria Borger of CNN looks at why that is: "... the public's view of the Obama administration's handling of civil liberties is beginning to eerily resemble what the public thought about Bush: Forty-three percent in a new CNN/ORC poll say the administration has gone too far in restricting some civil liberties in order to fight terrorism. In 2006, 39% thought Bush had gone too far.... The president ... seems, at least right now, to be losing the benefit-of-the-doubt factor he has enjoyed because people think he's an honest guy who tries to do the right thing. The latest CNN/ORC polling shows that while 49% of Americans consider the president to be 'honest and trustworthy,' that's down 9 points -- in one month. And his approval rating has fallen 8 points to just 45%. The unkindest drop ... comes from Obama's stalwarts, younger voters. A huge 17-point decline among the under-30 set has got to be some sort of wake-up call." ...

     ... Update. OR, Maybe Not. Mark Blumenthal & Ariel Edwards-Levy of the Huffington Post say the CNN poll exaggerates the sudden drop in Obama's approval ratings. His poll numbers have been dropping steadily since January 2013; they didn't just plummet.

The Ed Snowden Story
Starring Ed Snowden

Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian: "The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that the 'truth' about the extent of surveillance carried out by US authorities would emerge, even if he is jailed or murdered. In a live Q&A with Guardian readers from a secret location in Hong Kong, Snowden did not directly answer a question about whether he had more unpublished material. But he said: 'All I can say right now is the US government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.'" ...

With Glenn Greenwald, Who Plays Himself

Here's the livechat. Greenwald: "Snowden ... with the help of Glenn Greenwald – take[s] your questions today on why he revealed the NSA's top-secret surveillance of US citizens, the international storm that has ensued, and the uncertain future he now faces. Ask him anything." ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times: "In the last few days..., Mr. Snowden’s leaks have taken a questionable turn.... Revealing that [the N.S.A.] was monitoring the computer traffic of foreign countries, and listening to their leaders, sheds no particularly useful light on the N.S.A.’s mission, or what most people believed its activities to be.... Apparently he believes that the United States shouldn’t engage in spying except for countries with which it is at war.... What exactly was it he believed the intelligence world did when he first started making money by working for it?" ...

... Zeke Miller of Time: "Snowden’s answers to 18 questions from readers demonstrated that he is not simply concerned about potential government monitoring of American citizens; he is an extreme skeptic of government surveillance of all sorts. In that sense, Snowden is emerging as an heir to Julian Assange.... Snowden’s comments today make clear his agenda goes beyond protecting Americans from snooping by their own government.... Snowden also clarified one of his most explosive claims — that even a single low-level intelligence analyst could pull up records on any American at a whim, a claim top current and former intelligence officials have strongly denied. Snowden said there was no technical impediment to such an action, merely a policy one. 'It’s important to understand that policy protection is no protection — policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens,' he said, voicing another tenet of the free-information movement for which he has become an avatar." ...

... BuzzFeed: in an interview with Charlie Rose, President Obama defends the NSA surveillance, claiming it is "transparent." (CW: Because, um, a secret court hold a secret hearing & secretly approves all the secret spying.) Link is to a partial transcript of the interview. ...

     ... Update. Here's a clip, via Aaron Blake of the Washington Post, who highlights "the 9 most important quotes" from the interview:

     ... The full video is here, on Rose's site. ...

... Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation, in the Washington Post: "We cannot accept a paternal pat on the head, with Americans and the Congress told to leave this to the professionals. At stake is the very heart of the Constitution and the democracy." ...

... Bill Moyers interviews Larry Lessig, who is terrified by Snowden's revelation that NSA analysts have the authority to surveil anybody (the government, BTW, has specifically denied this claim). Via Digby:

... Tim Shorrock, author of Spies for Hire, in a New York Times op-ed: "Seventy percent of America’s intelligence budget now flows to private contractors.... In 2000, thanks in part to an advisory committee led by James R. Clapper Jr., now the director of national intelligence, the N.S.A. decided to shift away from its in-house development strategy and outsource on a huge scale.... First, it is dangerous to have half a million people — the number of private contractors holding top-secret security clearances — peering into the lives of their fellow citizens.... Second, with billions of dollars of government money sloshing around, and with contractors providing advice on how to spend it, conflicts of interest and corruption are inevitable.... Third, we’ve allowed contractors to conduct our most secret and sensitive operations with virtually no oversight.... Finally, there’s the revolving door — or what President Dwight D. Eisenhower called 'undue influence.'” ...

... Anna North of Salon on what makes whistleblowers blow. Thanks to contributor Barbarossa for the link.

David Rogers of Politico: "The White House warned Monday that it would veto the House farm bill as it now stands and signaled strongly that the fastest path to some compromise this summer would be by taking savings from crop insurance to offset Republican-backed cuts from food stamps."

Drip, Drip, Drip. Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has continued to release only select portions of committee interviews with key Internal Revenue Service staffers despite calls to make the full transcripts public." He has been giving some reporters sneak peeks at portions of the interviews. CW: I can't think of a better way to prove that your "investigation" is a sham.

Lolita Baldor of the AP: "Military leaders are ready to begin tearing down the remaining walls that have prevented women from holding thousands of combat and special operations jobs near the front lines. Under details of the plans obtained by The Associated Press, women could start training as Army Rangers by mid-2015 and as Navy SEALs a year later."

The "New" GOP. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "... many Republicans in Washington and in state capitals across the country seem eager to reopen the emotional fight over a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. Their efforts will move to the forefront on Tuesday when House Republicans plan to bring to the floor a measure that would prohibit the procedure after 22 weeks of pregnancy — the most restrictive abortion bill to come to a vote in either chamber in a decade.... Republican leaders acknowledge that its purpose is to satisfy vocal elements of their base.... Beyond Washington, advocates on both sides of the issue say the chance to limit abortion in the near future is very real." ...

     ... CW Worth Noting: compare Baldor's story to Peters' stories & look what you get: the military -- a conservative, male-dominated hierarchical fiefdom -- is less sexist & misogynistic than the democratically-elected Congressional GOP. ...

     ... Office of the President: "The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 1797, which would unacceptably restrict women’s health and reproductive rights and is an assault on a woman’s right to choose. Women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies and their health care, and Government should not inject itself into decisions best made between a woman and her doctor.... If the President were presented with this legislation, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto this bill." (pdf "pretty damned fine")

... The "New" GOP. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Ted Cruz didn’t wait long to mount a legislative response to the Supreme Court’s ruling against Arizona’s voter registration rule. An amendment submitted by the Texas senator on Monday afternoon to the Senate’s immigration bill would 'permit states to require proof of citizenship for registration to vote in elections for federal office.' Cruz’s measure would amend the National Voter Registration Act." ...

... The "New" GOP. Erica Werner of the AP: "A key committee in the Republican-led House is preparing to cast its first votes on immigration this year, on a tough enforcement-focused measure that Democrats and immigrant groups are protesting loudly.... The House enforcement bill, by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., would empower state and local officials to enforce federal immigration laws, make passport and visa fraud into aggravated felonies subject to deportation, funnel money into building more detention centers, and crack down on immigrants suspected of posing dangers." ...

... The "New" GOP. Alexander Bolton of the Hill reports that as prep for his presidential bid, Li'l Randy has offered several amendments to gut Senate immigration reform legislation. No specific mention of alligators, moats or deadly electric fences. ...

     ... Wait, Wait, Leave That to John Thune. Susan Ferrechio of the Washington Examiner: "The Senate Tuesday will vote on four amendments to the comprehensive immigration reform bill, including one that would require a double-layer, 700-mile fence along the southern border before any of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants could apply for green cards. The amendment by John Thune, R-S.D., would require construction of at least 350 miles of the fence before any illegal immigrants would be awarded legal status. The remaining 350 miles would have to be built for legalized immigrants to be able to apply for a green card." ...

... CW: How's that vow to "expand your base" going, guys?

Gubernatorial Race

Joann Kenen of Politico: "A former top Obama administration health official, Don Berwick, formally announced Monday that he is running for governor of Massachusetts. Berwick, a Democrat, is a physician and health policy expert who ran the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for President Barack Obama. But amid the heated politics of health reform, Republicans refused to confirm him to the position atop CMS. They said his comments praising Britain’s health care system suggested he favored rationing, an interpretation he disputed."

The Commentariat -- June 17, 2013

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Arizona may not require documentary proof of citizenship from prospective voters, the Supreme Court ruled in a 7-to-2 decision on Monday. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, No. 12-71, said a federal law requiring states to 'accept and use' a federal form displaced an Arizona law.... The decision ... effectively affirmed a 2010 ruling from a three-judge panel that included Justice Sandra Day O'Connor...." The decision is here. Justices Thomas & Alito dissented. More details from Tejinger Singh of SCOTUSblog.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama on Monday opened a three-day diplomatic trip to Northern Ireland and Germany ... with young residents of [Belfast, Northern Ireland]..., urging them to build on the peace that America helped broker 15 years ago." The AP story, by Jim Kuhnhenn, is here.

Shawn Pogatchnik of the AP: "British Prime Minister David Cameron says leaders gathering Monday for the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland should reach speedy agreement on trade and tax reforms, and draw inspiration from the host country's ability to resolve its own stubborn conflict."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Obama's top foreign policy aides said Sunday that they planned to press Iran's newly elected president to resume the negotiations over his country's nuclear program that derailed in the spring. But while the election of the new president, Hassan Rowhani, a former nuclear negotiator who is considered a moderate compared with the other candidates, was greeted by some administration officials as the best of all likely outcomes, they said it did not change the fact that only the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would make the final decision about any concessions to the West."

Ramzy Mardini, who served in the Bush II State Department, in a New York Times op-ed: President Obama should not have listened to President Clinton's opinion on Syrian intervention. "The Syrian revolution isn't democratic or secular; the more than 90,000 fatalities are the result of a civil war, not a genocide -- and human rights violations have been committed on both sides. Moreover, the rebels don't have the support or trust of a clear majority of the population, and the political opposition is neither credible nor representative. Ethnic cleansing against minorities is more likely to occur under a rebel-led government than under Mr. Assad.... And finally, a rebel victory is more likely to destabilize Iraq and Lebanon...." ...

... Robert Fisk of the UK Independent: "... a military decision has been taken in Iran -- even before last week's presidential election -- to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad's forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years. Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad's regime...."

** Jill Lepore writes an absolutely fascinating little "history of privacy" in the New Yorker and concludes by highlighting the "paradox of an American culture obsessed, at once, with being seen and with being hidden, a world in which the only thing more cherished than privacy is publicity. In this world, we chronicle our lives on Facebook while demanding the latest and best form of privacy protection -- ciphers of numbers and letters -- so that no one can violate the selves we have so entirely contrived to expose." The article is particularly interesting to me because Lepore wraps her story around the British government's invasion of the privacy of Italian radical Giuseppe Mazzini, a friend of my family's. ...

... "Snoop Scoops." Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker: "The N.S.A. programs represent a troubling increase in state power, even if — so far, and so far as we know -- they have not occasioned a troubling increase in state wrongdoing. Obama's 'difficult questions' have a new urgency." ...

... Ewen MacAskill, et al., of the Guardian: "Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic. The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday -- for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings.... The evidence is contained in documents -- classified as top secret -- which were uncovered by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden...." ...

... Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "British and American spy agencies monitored the e-mails and phone calls of foreign dignitaries at two major international summits in London, according to a new trove of documents supplied by Edward J. Snowden ... and disclosed by the Guardian newspaper." ...

... CW: Once again, Snowden has revealed classified information that the public does not need to know and which could harm national security by destabilizing international relations. That the Brits & the U.S. spy during international conferences is hardly a shocker, & this revelation does not expose any wrongdoing. Snowden has trashed his pretense of patriotism. At the same time, as contributor Ken Winkes suggested in a comment a few days ago, he has also exposed one of the weaknesses of libertarianism -- when every citizen makes his own rules, he undermines his own state. ...

... Mehashyam Mali of the Hill: "The intelligence community on Sunday rejected claims from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and reports that suggested analysts were able to listen to domestic phone conversations without warrants. 'The statement that a single analyst can eavesdrop on domestic communications without proper legal authorization is incorrect and was not briefed to Congress,' said the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in a statement." ...

... CW: In an interesting autopsy on how CNET had to walk back -- & eventually repudiate -- its story that the NSA can listen to your every phone call, Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog takes this overview, which I share: "There's a lot to dislike about this approach to national security. There's plenty to be appalled at. But the government really isn't as interested in most of us personally as some of us seem to want to believe." ...

     ... Ultimately, the real problem is that Ike's "military-industrial complex" is now the "military-industrial-financial-spying complex," & most Congressmembers, absent campaign finance reform, are beholden to at least one arm of the behemoth. Booz Allen has been a big campaign contributor, in the last few years, giving much more to Democrats than to Republicans. So when Congressman X has to decide whether or not the Ed Snowdens of the company should be able to access (and scoop up) top secret data, Mr. X is more concerned with pleasing Booz Allen than he is with shoring up national security. I have no confidence that Congress -- even a quasi-responsible Congress, which we certainly don't have now -- is capable of making decisions in the public interest on this or on a host of other issues. ...

... Ben Geman of the Hill: "White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said President Obama will make more remarks about National Security Agency telephone data and internet surveillance programs in the coming days. McDonough, speaking on CBS on Sunday, said Obama holds the privacy of Americans 'sacrosanct' and is seeking to strike the right balance between civil liberties and securing the country against the threat of terrorist attacks."

Paul Krugman: "Last week the International Monetary Fund, whose normal role is that of stern disciplinarian to spendthrift governments..., argued that the sequester and other forms of fiscal contraction will cut this year's U.S. growth rate by almost half, undermining what might otherwise have been a fairly vigorous recovery. And these spending cuts are both unwise and unnecessary. Unfortunately..., Christine Lagarde, the fund's head, called on us to 'hurry up with putting in place a medium-term road map to restore long-run fiscal sustainability.' ... The whole argument for early action on long-run fiscal issues is surprisingly weak and slippery.... Influential people need to stop using the future as an excuse for inaction. The clear and present danger is mass unemployment, and we should deal with it, now."

The Word According to Cheney

I think he's a traitor. I think he has committed crimes in effect by violating agreements given the position he had. I think it's one of the worst occasions in my memory of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous damage to the national security interests of the United States. -- Dick Cheney on Ed Snowden

Evidently it slipped Cheney's memory that -- almost certainly at Cheney's behest -- his top aide Scooter Libby revealed the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband's revelation that one of the major pieces of 'evidence' Cheney cited for going to war in Iraq was fake. -- Constant Weader

Josh Israel of Think Progress: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney (R), whose false statements helped propel the United States into an eight year war in Iraq, said Sunday that citizens should simply 'trust' the federal government on matters of privacy and security. In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Cheney laughed off questions about why federal surveillance of phone records need be kept secret, suggesting that since the people who authorize the program are elected by voters, voters should simply trust their judgment." CW: I usually follow the rule, "If Dick Cheney likes it, it can't be good." ...

... AND exactly how does Cheney's "trust" in the government jibe with this remark, made in the same interview? -- Erik Wasson of the Hill: Cheney "said Obama's alleged handling of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the IRS harassment of conservatives means that people had weakened the president. 'I don't think he has credibility,' Cheney said." So, um, we should trust our top elected official on massive secret surveillance but not on anything else?

Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warns that the GOP will go into a "demographic death spiral" if they don't pass immigration reform:

... The Grim Reaper? Esther Lee of Think Progress: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R- FL), the architect of a comprehensive immigration bill that would legalize 11 million undocumented immigrants, refused to say on Sunday whether he supports the legislation he helped draft. He instead claimed that the measure does not have strong border enforcement provisions and would not receive bipartisan support." ...

     ... Related AP story, by Philip Elliott, here. ...

... Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "Senators are girding for a contentious floor fight next week over more than 100 immigration reform amendments that will be crucial to determining whether the chamber approves comprehensive legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has warned members to prepare for a long slog in dealing with the deluge of amendments -- including the prospect of weekend votes -- in a bid to pass immigration reform before the July 4 recess." Cox lists six contentious amendments that would have major impacts on the Senate bill. ...

... Eric Lipton & Julia Preston of the New York Times: "A surge in migrant traffic across the Southwest border into Texas has resulted in a milestone: the front line of the battle against illegal crossings from Mexico has shifted for the first time in over a decade away from Arizona to the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. This shift has intensified a bitter debate under way in the Senate over whether the border is secure enough now, or ever will be, to move ahead with legislation that could give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already here."

Congressional Race<

Frank Phillips & Michael Levenson of the Boston Globe: "Democrat Edward J. Markey holds a solid lead over his Republican rival, Gabriel E. Gomez, as the two enter the final week of the special US Senate campaign, according to a new Boston Globe poll. Markey, who has driven up concerns about his GOP opponent with a barrage of hard-hitting television ads, leads Gomez 54 percent to 41 percent, with only 4 percent of the respondents saying they were still undecided about whom to support in the June 25 election."

Your Louis Gohmert Weekly Reader

Evan McMurry of Mediate: "On the House floor on Friday, Texas Representative Louie Gohmert accused various federal agencies of aiding Islamic terrorists organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America in their attempts to enact Sharia Law.... Gohmert accused the Obama administration of changing policy so that the FBI, State Department, and others had to 'partner with' CAIR and ISNA, rather than treat mosques as terrorist recruitment centers.... 'They want Sharia law to be the law of the land, not our Constitution.'"

The Putin Report -- The Ring Caper

News Ledes

New York Times: "Pharmaceutical companies that pay rivals to keep less-expensive generic versions of best-selling drugs off the market can expect greater federal scrutiny after a Supreme Court ruling on Monday. In a 5-to-3 vote, the justices effectively said that the Federal Trade Commission can sue pharmaceutical companies for potential antitrust violations, a decision that is likely to increase the number of generic drugs in the marketplace and benefit consumers.... Justice [Stephen] Breyer's decision, which was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, reversed a decision of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had thrown out the F.T.C.'s case.... Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. recused himself from the case."

AP: "The United States and Cuba will resume talks this week on restarting direct mail service despite a deadlock between Washington and Havana over detainees that has largely stalled most rapprochement efforts.... U.S. and Cuban diplomats and postal representatives will meet in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday for technical talks aimed at ending a 50-year suspension in direct mail between the United States and the communist island."

New York Times: "Turkish authorities widened their crackdown on the antigovernment protest movement on Sunday, taking aim not just at the demonstrators themselves, but also at the medics who treat their injuries, the business owners who shelter them and the foreign news media flocking here to cover a growing political crisis threatening to paralyze the government of Prıme Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan." ...

... AP: "Turkish trade unions urged their members to walk out of work Monday and join demonstrations in response to a widespread police crackdown against activists following weeks of street protests." ...

     ... Reuters Update: "Turkish riot police backed by water cannon faced off with around 1,000 trade union workers in the capital Ankara on Monday, after a weekend of some of the worst clashes since anti-government protests erupted late last month." ...

... Reuters: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she was shocked at Turkey's tough response to anti-government protests but she stopped short of demanding that the European Union call off accession talks with the candidate country. 'I'm appalled, like many others,' Merkel said of Turkey's handling of two weeks of unrest that began over a redevelopment project in an Istanbul park but has grown into broader protest Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government."

AP: "Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who was allowed to travel to the U.S. after escaping from house arrest, said Monday that New York University is forcing him and his family to leave at the end of this month because of pressure from the Chinese government. The university denied Chen's allegations."

The Commentariat -- June 16, 2013

Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "Al Gore has called on Barack Obama to veto the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, describing it as 'an atrocity'."

Glenn Greenwald, Short Version: Democrats are hypocrites. Also, "... we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly." CW: probably doesn't make the Obama administration too happy that someone as volatile as Greenwald is sitting on stuff that actually could compromise national security. ...

... Greenwald: "... the stories thus far published by the Guardian are already leading to concrete improvements in accountability and transparency." ...

... Paul Harris of the Guardian: "... the Age of Obama is not one of hope and change; it is the era of the National Security President." ...

... Meh. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "A recent briefing by senior intelligence officials on surveillance programs failed to attract even half of the Senate, showing the lack of enthusiasm in Congress for learning about classified security programs. Many senators elected to leave Washington early Thursday afternoon instead of attending a briefing with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials." ...

... Dan Roberts & Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The US intelligence community has written to Congress to confirm the existence of two sweeping surveillance programmes revealed by the Guardian, but defended their legality and usefulness in preventing terrorism. In the fullest official account yet of how the US gathers domestic telephone data and overseas internet traffic, the document sent on Saturday claims that both programmes were authorised by Congress under section 215 of the Patriot Act and section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. This has been disputed by a number of senators and congressmen, including one of the authors of the Patriot Act, who say it is more sweeping than they envisaged, but the document details a number of internal checks put in place since that seek to minimise the exposure of private data obtained inadvertently from citizens who are not terrorist suspects." ...

... Kimberly Dozier of the AP: "Top U.S. intelligence officials said Saturday that information gleaned from two controversial data-collection programs run by the National Security Agency thwarted potential terrorist plots in the U.S. and more than 20 other countries -- and that gathered data is destroyed every five years. Last year, fewer than 300 phone numbers were checked against the database of millions of U.S. phone records gathered daily by the NSA in one of the programs, the intelligence officials said...." ...

... ** Barton Gellman of the Washington Post: "Foreigners, not Americans, are the NSA's 'targets,' as the law defines that term. But the programs are structured broadly enough that they touch nearly every American household in some way.... The White House, the NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the record for this article. A senior intelligence official agreed to answer questions if not identified." ...

... ** Thom Hartmann: "Privatization enthusiasts praise contractors as efficient and responsible purveyors of public service, but corporations, by virtue of being corporations, are incompatible with the functions of representative government. The lack of accountability or transparency inherent to corporations isn't a huge deal if a company is making, say sneakers, but it is a problem if that company is in control of an essential part of the commons like national security." Thanks to contributor Tommy B. for the link. ...

... ** David Sanger & Nicole Perlroth of the New York Times: "... as Booz Allen profits handsomely from its worldwide expansion..., which sells itself as the gold standard in protecting classified computer systems and boasts that half its 25,000 employees have Top Secret clearances -- [it has] a lot of questions to answer. Among the questions: Why did Booz Allen assign a 29-year-old with scant experience to a sensitive N.S.A. site in Hawaii, where he was left loosely supervised as he downloaded highly classified documents about the government's monitoring of Internet and telephone communications, apparently loading them onto a portable memory stick barred by the agency?" ... Removing contractors from the classified world would be a wrenching change." The writes profile Mike McConnell, vice-chair of Booz Allen, & one of Dubya's NSA directors, who has passed through the revolving government/private sector door more than once. Oh, P.S. "A new job posting appeared on [Booz Allen's] Web site for a systems administrator in Hawaii, 'secret clearance required.'"

... John Broder & Scott Shane of the New York Times: Ed Snowden, high-school dropout, considers himself a "great mind." ...

... Carol Leonnig, et al., profile Snowden for the Washington Post. CW: I assume there are millions of video-game players who are not delusional sociopaths, but I must say that game geekiness is frequently prelude to outrageously destructive behavior. Inasmuch as a predilection to geekiness can produce a skills set of particular utility in cybersecurity work, I'd say we have a problem, Washington. ...

Karen DeYoung & Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "President Obama's decision to begin arming the Syrian rebels followed more than a year of internal debate over whether it was worth the dual risks of involving the United States in another war and seeing U.S. weapons fall into the hands of extremist groups among the rebels. The White House said the final push came this week after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded with 'high certainty' that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces had used chemical weapons against the rebels. But U.S. officials said that the determination to send weapons had been made weeks ago and that the chemical weapons finding provided fresh justification to act." ...

... The Return of Obambi. The Post story came out Saturday morning in the town where MoDo lives. But apparently Dowd didn't read her local paper because in today's column, she credits Bill Clinton (with a hat-tip to John McCain) for getting Obama to send a few arms to Syrian rebel forces. Dowd even selectively read the Times story by Peter Baker, which she cites in her column. According to Baker, "While an aide said Mr. Obama's decision was made even before Mr. Clinton's comments this week endorsing more robust intervention, the president ended up satisfying neither side in the Syrian debate."...

... McCain's Former Sidekick Cannot See Syria from Her Back Porch. Erik Wasson of the Hill: "... Sarah Palin told a Washington audience Saturday that the U.S. should not get involved in the Syrian civil war.... 'Until we have a commander in chief who knows what he is doing....let Allah sort it out!' she told the Faith and Freedom Coalition. The statement shows how far Palin has drifted from former running mate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is the chief Senate proponent of U.S. military action to help the Syrian rebels."

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "The Russian government on Saturday stepped up its attack on the accusation by the United States that Syria had used chemical weapons in its civil war, saying that evidence cited by the Americans was unreliable because the samples were not properly handled by experts until they reached a laboratory."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to the attention of the FBI on at least two occasions prior to a Russian government warning in March 2011 that said he appeared to be radicalizing, FBI Director Robert Mueller said in Congressional testimony this week. The earlier references have led some lawmakers to question whether the FBI acted too quickly in closing an assessment of Tsarnaev's potential ties to terrorism done in response to the Russian request."

A Reason for Immigration Reform. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity. -- Jeb Bush

Local News

War on the Constitution. David Knowles of the New York Daily News: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry is fighting on the front lines in the so-called 'war on Christmas.' On Thursday, Perry signed what has been dubbed the 'Merry Christmas bill' into law. The measure allows schools to display religious symbols such as nativity scenes and Christmas trees so long as at least one other religious image or secular icon is also included. In addition, the new law allows staff members and students at the state's public schools to exchange traditional holiday greetings, such as 'Merry Christmas,' 'Happy Hanukkah' and 'happy holidays' without fear of reprisal.... At the Thursday signing ceremony for the new law, cheerleaders from Kountze High School wore t-shirts that read 'I cheer for Christ.' In May, a Texas judge ruled that the cheerleaders could continue to display signs at football games emblazoned with Bible verses." ...

... Oh, Crap. Virgin Mary Still Earns Only 77 Percent of Joseph's Pay. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) vetoed a bill on Friday that would have allowed women suffering wage discrimination to take legal action, alleging that the measure 'duplicates federal law, which already allows employees ... to file a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.' ... Forty-two states have passed s[t]ate-based equal pay laws, recognizing that Lilly Ledbetter was not enough."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said he had cut all diplomatic ties with Damascus on Saturday and backed a no-fly zone over Syria, pitching the most populous Arab state more firmly against President Bashar al-Assad. Addressing a rally called by Sunni Muslim clerics in Cairo, the Sunni Islamist head of state also warned Assad's ally, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah, to pull back from fighting in Syria."

AP: "North Korea's top governing body on Sunday proposed high-level nuclear and security talks with the United States in an appeal sent just days after calling off talks with rival South Korea."

AP: "Turkish riot police on Sunday sprayed tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators who remained defiant after authorities evicted activists from an Istanbul park, making clear they are taking a hardline against attempts to rekindle protests that have shaken the country. Bulldozers cleared all that was left of a two-week sit-in and police sealed off the area to keep demonstrators away from the spot that has become the focus of the strongest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his 10 years in office."

AP: "A solar-powered plane nearing the close of a cross-continental journey landed at Dulles International Airport outside the nation's capital early Sunday, only one short leg to New York remaining on a voyage that opened in May."