The Commentariat -- August 5, 2014

Internal links removed.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Gay men and lesbians still have a long way to go before they achieve the formal legal equality that women have long enjoyed. But they have made stunning progress at the Supreme Court over the last decade, gaining legal protection for sexual intimacy and unconventional families with stirring language unimaginable a generation ago. At the same time, legal scholars say, the court has delivered blows to women's groups in cases involving equal pay, medical leave, abortion and contraception, culminating in a furious dissent last month from the court's three female members. Many forces are contributing to this divide, but the most powerful is the role of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court's swing vote." ...

More on the Deportation Party. Ed Kilgore: "To grasp how fateful [the House's Friday night anti-DREAMers vote was] this was, you have to think back to the summer of 2012, when President Obama announced DACA in an action that was universally understood as a preemption of a pending GOP initiative being crafted by Sen. Marco Rubio for the relief not just of DREAMers, but of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was trying to find something to embrace to offset the 'self-deportation' position he had embraced during the primary season. Had Obama not announced DACA, its substance would have probably become the dominant GOP position. Now House Republicans have officially moved far to the right of where they were the day before DACA was announced, and ... well to the right of Romney '12." ...

... CW: The Deport 'Em vote would never have taken place had Boehner allowed a version of the Senate bill to come for a vote before the House: it would have passed with mostly Democratic support, & President Obama would have signed it into law. Sorry, Friends of Boehner, your buddy does not belong to "the governing wing" of the GOP.

Jonathan Chait: "Representative Mo Brooks [RWhiteyWhiteWhite-Ala.], appearing on Laura Ingraham's radio program, diagnoses the Republican Party's so-called difficulty attracting nonwhite voters. 'This is a part of the war on whites that's being launched by the Democratic Party,' explains Brooks, 'and the way in which they're launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else.' White racial victimization is a concept as old as racism itself.... The war on whites has raged continuously in the right-wing mind for more than two centuries." ...

... So Mo don't know racial animus is supposed to be subtext, But teabagger Chris McDaniel, who still doesn't think he lost the Mississippi GOP primary to Sen. Thad Cochran, figured out the subtext thing by the final draft: Daniel Strauss of TPM: "The first draft of [a McDaniel] press release according to the Daily Caller said that 'Thad Cochran lost Republican votes in the runoff, but made up the difference with black democrat votes.' That line was changed to 'Thad Cochran lost Republican votes in the runoff and made up for the difference with Democrat votes.'" ...

     ... As Ed Kilgore notes, McDaniel still "managed to scratch the same itch in the same press release by whining about 'race-baiting radio ads' allegedly run by Thad Cochran's campaign." CW: not subtle, but definitely subtext. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "In a brief press conference punctuated by several loud rumbles of thunder, losing Mississippi senate candidate Chris McDaniel announced that the campaign is submitting an official challenge of the June runoff election to the state Republican executive committee." Besides identifying more "questionable" votes than separate the two candidates in the runoff, "McDaniel's team likely aims to prove that Cochran's margin of victory came from Democratic votes, and therefore wasn't a victory at all" under state Republican rules.

Julian Hattem of the Hill: "The Obama administration's attempt to redact some portions of an upcoming report on 'enhanced interrogation techniques' is drawing ire from Capitol Hill and could delay the release of the detailed analysis for months. That's likely to increase hostilities between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA, which are already riding high after the spy agency admitted to snooping on some Senate staffers in the run-up to the report's release. ...

... Jonathan Bernstein in Bloomberg View on why President Obama is standing by John Brennan: "... throughout his presidency, Obama has been overly skittish when it comes to potentially crossing his national security bureaucracy, and I strongly suspect that torture and other Bush-era abuses are both part of the original cause and will cause more of that timidity down the road. Obama has tried to deal with this by getting the policy right. But when we learn more about the events of the last six years, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that getting the internal politics wrong has made it a lot harder to get the policy right."

Juan Cole on the "Top 5 Ways the US is Israel's Accomplice in War Crimes in Gaza." Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the lead. ...

... CW: I hesitated to link this story yesterday, as I wasn't familiar with the author. However, several commentators, including Juan Cole, have relied on the writer & his reporting, so I'm going with it. Richard Silverstein: "[Sunday's] report [linked here yesterday], originating in Der Spiegel that Israel intercepted the telecommunications of Secretary of State John Kerry when he was in flight to the Middle East has just become a much bigger story. The reporter noted that there were two countries who eavesdropped on Kerry. But he didn't say which country it was. My highly-placed Israeli source tells me that the identity of that country is Russia.... Israel provides Russia with transcripts of the Kerry calls it intercepts when his plane is within tracking distance. And Russia does the same when Kerry's calls are intercepted by its agents.... It also reveals a huge, gaping hole in U.S. telecommunications security. How is it that calls made on Kerry's plane couldn't be encrypted or protected in some way."

Chris Moody of Yahoo! News: "Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Monday denied that he once supported ending federal aid to Israel -- an idea he proposed as recently as 2011."

Benghaaazi! Not! Ctd. Last Thursday, the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee released its report on the Benghazi attacks, which "found no evidence of an intelligence failure prior to the attack" & debunked several GOP criticisms of the Obama administration. BUT. Rob Garver of the Fiscal Times: "Over the weekend, the committee chair [of a "select" House committee to investigate the Benghazi incident], Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said that plans are moving forward for additional hearings and that witnesses are being contacted." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... Olivia Marshall of Media Matters: "The findings [of the House Intelligence Committee] present a new challenge for media outlets in the runup to Gowdy's Benghazi select committee, explicitly formed to investigate 'unanswered questions' that previous Benghazi investigations have long-since asked and answered. When House Republicans announced plans to form the committee in May, many in the media presented Gowdy's premise of 'unanswered questions' as legitimate.... The House Intelligence Committee's finding ... adds to a pile of overwhelming evidence against the right-wing's Benghazi hoax. Will it finally be enough to convince the media to stop taking Gowdy and his misguided Benghazi witch-hunt seriously?"

Alex Altman & Elizabeth Dias of Time: "... BCFS, formerly known as Baptist Child and Family Services ... has emerged as one of the biggest players in the federal government's response to the influx of more than 57,000 unaccompanied children who have trudged across the southern border so far this year. It runs two of the largest facilities for temporarily housing immigrant children, as well as six permanent shelters in California and Texas. Since December, BCFS has received more than $280 million in federal grants to operate these shelters.... On July 7..., the Department of Health and Human Services awarded BCFS $190,707,505 in a single grant. BCFS is just one part of a sprawling system of shelters for unaccompanied children across the country.... [BCFS CEO Kevin] Dinnin received nearly $450,000 in compensation in 2012.... Unlike the temporary shelters, the permanent facilities are largely inaccessible to media and the taxpayers that fund them." ...

... The New York Times has some excellent graphs here of where the children are being sent -- and where they're coming from.

Paul Waldman reminds us that in 1991 this "very famous Hollywood liberal tried to exploit [Jim] Brady's shooting in order to take your guns away."

Senate Races

Nate Silver: "... we continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and control of the Senate."

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) & Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) face primary challenges from the right today & Thursday respectively. Both are expected to win.

See also McDaniel challenge to Cochran primary win, linked above.

CW: You may be shocked to learn that former Sen. Handsome Scott Brown does not mind lying through his beautiful teeth to become Senator Scott Brown once again. Here he is in an op-ed in the Manchester Union Leader: "It turns out this [border] crisis is the result of executive orders issued by President Obama in 2012 that halted deportation proceedings against young illegal immigrants."

Presidential Race

David Rauf of the Houston Chronicle: "Gov. Rick Perry has formed a federal political action committee to help Republican candidates, in what amounts to another sign that Perry is jockeying to curry national support for a 2016 presidential bid. Perry filed the paperwork Thursday with the Federal Election Commission to create a political action committee called 'RickPAC.'"

Beyond the Beltway

Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "After Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) endorsed Mitt Romney for president in 2012, McDonnell's wife sought out the candidate to promote the dietary supplement at the heart of the former first couple's corruption trial, a onetime aide testified Monday.... The sixth day of the McDonnells' trial ... was marked again by a series of revelations that could be damaging to the couple. It was also notable in that [Jonnie] Williams -- after 15 hours on the witness stand -- finally stepped down with his account largely intact and with a few key points clarified in prosecutors' favor." ...

... The Washington Post's live updates of the trial are here. ...

... What About Bob? Dana Milbank: "Had he taken the [plea bargain] deal [prosecutors offered him before trial], [Bob] McDonnell would have looked like a sleazy pol. Now, he looks like a sleazy pol and a cad. Even if the former GOP governor beats the 13 counts, the trial is showing him to be not just greedy but also ungallant, allowing his wife and children to suffer to minimize his own shame.

News Ledes

New York Times: "A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion username and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, security researchers say. The records, discovered by Hold Security, a firm in Milwaukee, include confidential material gathered from 420,000 websites, ranging from household names to small Internet sites."

Washington Post: "A shooting at a training academy for Afghan military officers wounded numerous troops Tuesday in Kabul, the U.S.-led military coalition said. A two-star U.S. Army general was killed and a one-star German general was wounded, according to media reports." ...

     ... New York Times UPDATE here.

New York Times: "As a 72-hour cease-fire mediated by Egypt took hold Tuesday morning, Israel announced that it had withdrawn its forces from Gaza and Hamas said it would engage in talks on a lasting arrangement to keep the peace. Most Israeli troops had already pulled back from populated areas in Gaza, and many had redeployed in Israel. But as late as Monday, Israeli officials had said that the army would maintain some positions inside Gaza, and the announcement of a complete pullout appeared to be a major concession to the Egyptian initiative."

Comments

[PD Pepe]

Juan Cole gives us five ways the U.S. is actively helping Israel in its war on Gaza. In a more startling paragraph he says the U.S. political system is the most corrupt in the industrialized world and our representatives have simply been bought and paid for by Israel fanatics like our guy Sheldon A. whose abundant money is thrown at suckers he thinks he can control––and I guess he can.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/top_5_ways_the_us_is_israels_accomplice_in_war_crimes_in_gaza_20140805

[Kate Madison]

..."In return for the cash, he said, he was able to launch his product at the governor’s mansion, was introduced to health-care leaders for his business and had his product placed in gift bags at a National Governors Association meeting."

Thank you Dana Milbank. So now we know that Jonnie Williams gave his supplements (in gift bags) to all the Republican governors. No wonder this county has gone 'round the bend. Can't wait until the FDA gets their act together and finds out what's in those little pills. Some kind of hallucinogen, for sure. Maybe that is why Mitters is so nutty. He probably bought boxes full in return for 'Lil Jonnie's largess! McDonnell is the worst kind of ass wipe--happy to throw his greedy wife and two daughters under the bus. Hope he gets a very, very long term in a un-country club prison.

[Ken Winkes]

But, Kate, that asswipe, the Prober-in-Chief, is a devout Christian, of the Catholic kind no less. Should have been an obvious candidate for a SCOTUS opening.

Instead, the saddest kind of Babbitry amok in the Commonwealth.

Will we never grow up?

[Barbarossa]

Re: Mo Brooks and reverse racism. Awhile back, my wife lent her copy of "Bagdad Cafe", starring CCH Pounder and Jack Palance to a local pair of sisters. When she asked them what they thought of the movie, they said it was "reverse racism." Which only be characterized as "Huh?" "Where did that come from?" Because one of the main characters happened to be black? Because one of the other main characters was a German woman, who became close friends with the black woman?

Lighten up, people! The movie is a comedy, but you'd never know it listening to these two. They seem to be in a perpetual state of outrage and paranoia, yet at other times, they can be very nice. Some Southerners are beyond me.

On gun control, St. Ronald of Reagan didn't think civilians should be able to own assault rifles, either.

[Ken Winkes]

Now that they've siphoned off the cream for forty years even the fat cats have noticed (and admitted) the milk is getting too thin to sustain the nation's (and their) economic life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/upshot/alarm-on-income-inequality-from-a-mainstream-source.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0