The Commentariat -- July 19, 2015

Defunct videos removed.

Eric Tucker of the AP: "The deadly shootings at military sites in Tennessee illustrate the threat that FBI officials have warned about: violence directed against a vulnerable government target by a lone gunman with apparent terrorist aspirations.... Law enforcement officials describe an ongoing challenge in distinguishing those who merely consume and share messages and those actually motivated to commit violence.... It can be easy for those who read messages, but do not post their own thoughts, to avoid law enforcement scrutiny." ...

... Timothy Williams, et al., of the New York Times: The FBI is still looking for clues to determine Abdulazeez's motivations. Richard Fausset & Manny Fernandez of the Times look into Abdulazeez's family's life. ...

... Greg Jaffe, et al., of the Washington Post gather info about Abdulazeez's "lifestyle." ...

... William Saletan of Slate compares Abdulazeez's attack on a U.S. Marine recruiting center with U.S. drone attacks on similar facilities in Iraq, Syria & Afghanistan. Satetan dubs Abdulazeez's attack"an act of war" by an "enemy combatant" rather than an act of terrorism, which the U.S. code describes "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets."

Thomas Sugrue, in a Washington Post op-ed: "... many of the racial injustices we associate with the South are actually worse in the North. Housing segregation between black and white residents, for instance, is most pervasive above the Mason-Dixon line.... The division between black and white neighborhoods in the North is a result of a poisonous mix of racist public policies and real estate practices that reigned unchecked for decades.... Education remains separate and unequal nearly everywhere in the United States." New York state has the most segregated schools.

Maureen Dowd: "Time to dismiss the Anger Translator. The president is far more energized than a couple years ago.... He clearly enjoys settling into his favorite role -- the man alone in the arena, disdaining the flattering rituals and back-scratching of politics, the dread drinks with Senator McConnell and stupid golf with Speaker Boehner."

Accidents Waiting to Happen. Jeff Donn of the AP: "Five years after the Obama administration promised to move swiftly to permanently plug unused oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico, even more shafts are lingering for longer periods with only temporary sealing, an investigation by The Associated Press shows. It is not clear how many incompletely sealed wells may have leaked -- they generally are not monitored as carefully as active wells -- but they contain fewer barriers to pent-up petroleum and rupture more easily. The threat to the environment increases with time."

Graham Bowley & Sydney Ember of the New York Times: In a four-day deposition taken a decade ago, "Even as [entertainer Bill] Cosby denied he was a sexual predator who assaulted many women, he presented himself in the deposition as an unapologetic, cavalier playboy, someone who used a combination of fame, apparent concern and powerful sedatives in a calculated pursuit of young women -- a profile at odds with the popular image he so long enjoyed, that of father figure and public moralist.... Through it all, his manner was largely one of casual indifference."

Presidential Race

Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The first gathering of the Democratic presidential candidates played almost according to script here Friday night. Hillary Rodham Clinton stood above the field but did not dominate. Bernie Sanders displayed the passion that has made him such a favorite of the left. And Martin O'Malley's speech got a reception that belied his anemic poll numbers."

S. V. Date of the National Journal: "Black Lives Matter" protesters shut down Bernie Sanders & Martin O'Malley events at the Netroots Nation convention in Phoenix, Arizona. "Netroots declined to criticize the protest." CW: Another lovely example of liberals being as stupid & rude as conservatives.

Jeb! Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Politically, Jeb Bush wants voters to focus on his first name and his own political record. But when it comes to fundraising, he's still banking on the success of his last name. He hosted wealthy donors, many of whom backed his father and brother's presidential bids, at his parents' coastal estate in Maine this month. And on Friday night, he headlined a raucous dinner hosted by a PAC led in part by his two sons."

Let's honor Marco Rubio as Liar of the Day: He blames President Obama & Harry Reid for failing to pass immigration reform legislation. For some reason, Marco forgot to mention GOP senators' opposition -- the last Senate did eventually pass a bill, with only 14 GOP votes -- & House Republicans, who steadfastly refused even to bring the Senate bill to the floor for a vote (which Democrats would have passed with minimal GOP support).

Alan Rappeport & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump upended a Republican presidential forum [in Ames, Iowa,] Saturday with incendiary comments about Senator John McCain's war record, drawing widespread condemnation.... Asked about Mr. McCain during an event on Saturday sponsored by an Iowa Christian conservative group, Mr. Trump said of Mr. McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam: 'He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured.'" ...

... Josh Feldman of Mediaite: "Donald Trump opened his mouth and let slip forth a word salad in trying to clarify why he attacked John McCain's war hero status." ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Trump managed to avoid serving in the Vietnam war because of a series of draft deferments. Asked why he didn't serve, Trump said, 'I had student deferments and ultimately had a medical deferment because of my feet. I had a bone spur.' But Trump said he did not recall which foot was injured and instructed reporters to look up his records. Trump added, 'I was not a big fan of the Vietnam War. I wasn't a protester, but the Vietnam War was a disaster for our country. What did we get out of the Vietnam War other than death? We got nothing.' After meeting with the news media, Trump took to Twitter, where he did not back down from his criticism of McCain." ...

... Adios, Donaldo. Nate Cohn of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's candidacy probably reached an inflection point on Saturday after he essentially criticized John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War. Republican campaigns and elites quickly moved to condemn his comments -- a shift that will probably mark the moment when Trump's candidacy went from boom to bust.... His comments were nothing less than an invitation for the rest of the Republican Party to begin their long-awaited offensive. So far, the Republican National Committee, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker have already criticized him for his comments." ...

... Steve M.: Trump has given "all his pants-wetting Republican opponents a golden opportunity. Now they can sanctimoniously attack Trump for besmirching the honor of a great American who suffered torture at the hands of brutal communists -- and they don't have to say a word about every other obnoxious thing Trump has said recently." ...

... Colbert King of the Washington Post: "That a decorated Vietnam War veteran would be sarcastically put down by a loudmouth celebrity presidential wannabe who never wore the uniform, but escaped military service with a series of draft deferments, is one of the most disgusting turns of events in national politics."

CW: Mike Huckabee, the Christian Family Values candidate, seems to have had some trouble directing his own sons' values, as Ophelia M. pointed out yesterday. Here's Huck's boy John Mark in an unreleased film. Johnny-Boy posted the clip on YouTube, but took it down for some odd reason, maybe around the time his daddy criticized President & Michelle Obama for allowing their daughters to listen to Beyoncé recordings:

... Worse. Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: Huck's younger son David "was fired as a Boy Scout counselor at age 17 for allegedly hanging a stray dog from a tree after it wandered into the camp where he worked." The full story (linked second here) by the Huffington Post is screw-loose depraved. CW: Repubicans -- George W. Bush (blowing up frogs), Paul Ryan (catfish noodling). Mitt Romney (dog on the roof of the car) -- seem to find animal cruelty amusing, "exhilarating," or at least acceptable. David Huckabee seems to have the right stuff to run for POTUS or VPOTUS on the GOP ticket.

Beyond the Beltway

Jeremy Borden of the Washington Post: "The Loyal White Knights of the KKK, which calls itself the largest chapter in the United States, held a rally in Columbia, S.C., on Saturday afternoon to protest the removal of the [Confederate] flag.... The New Black Panther Party showed up earlier in the day to protest, on the north side of the statehouse. Members encouraged the hundreds who came to keep things peaceful, while also encouraging African Americans to take ownership of their problems and fight back when necessary. When Klansmen arrived later, the groups clashed intermittently."

News Ledes

AP: "A Kuwait-born man who shot and killed five service members in Tennessee suffered from depression since his early teen years and also fought drug and alcohol abuse, spending time in Jordan last year to help him clean himself up, a family spokesman said Sunday. The representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid unwanted publicity, said relatives of 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez believe those personal struggles are at the heart of last week's killings at a pair of military sites in Chattanooga."

Washington Post: "Former president George H.W. Bush has been discharged from a Maine hospital following a recent fall."

The Commentariat -- July 18, 2015

Internal links removed.

** Reliving the Past, Southern-Style. Harold Meyerson in the American Prospect: "... The South's current drive to impose on the rest of the nation its opposition to worker and minority rights -- through the vehicle of a Southernized Republican Party -- resembles nothing so much as the efforts of antebellum Southern political leaders to blunt the North's opposition to the slave labor system. Correspondingly, in the recent actions of West Coast and Northeastern cities and states to raise labor standards and protect minority rights, there are echoes of the pre-Civil War frustrations that many Northerners felt at the failure of the federal government to defend and promote a free labor system.... The South's aversion to both minimum-wage standards and unions is rooted deep within the DNA of white Southern elites, whose primary impulse has always been to keep African Americans down.... Never before have Northern-state governments (all of them Republican) sought so successfully to emulate policies of racial suppression and anti-working-class economics that the South originated."

If we keep taking steps toward a more perfect union, and close the gaps between who we are and who we want to be, America will move forward. -- Barack Obama, this week

** It's the perfect response to the Confederate flag wavers. -- Dana Milbank

White House: The President explains the comprehensive, long-term deal announced earlier this week that will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon":

Arlette Saenz of ABC News: "President Obama welcomed the nation's oldest known veteran to the White House -- hosting the barrier-breaking 110-year Emma Didlake in the Oval Office Friday afternoon. The president lauded Didlake, an African American World War II veteran, for her service...."

NSA Summer Camp. Nicholas Fandos the New York Times: "Like the C.I.A. and other elite intelligence agencies, the N.S.A. has for decades recruited on college campuses and run collegiate programs, but this summer the agency is making sure that middle- and high-school-age students -- and some teachers, too -- are learning how to hack, crack and defend in cyberspace."

Richard Fausset, et al., of the New York Times: "The 24-year-old gunman who killed four Marines in an attack on two military sites here traveled to Jordan last year for about seven months, a senior intelligence official said Friday, one of several trips to the country in recent years. The official said that investigators were combing through the computer, cellphone and social media contacts of the gunman, identified as Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, to determine whether he was in touch with any extremist groups in Jordan before or during this trip." (Also linked yesterday afternoon) ...

... This is slightly disturbing. WKYC (Knoxville): "FirstEnergy confirmed ... that [Abdulazeez] also worked at Perry Nuclear Power Plant from May 20 to May 30 of 2013. FirstEnergy[,which owns the plant,] said he left because he didn't meet the minimum requirements to remain employed. He worked as a electrical engineer right outside the nuclear reactor, which they say he did not have access."

Republican Men Find New Way to Punish Young Women Who Won't Have Sex with Them. Rachel Bade & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Republicans on Capitol Hill are betting the secretly filmed Planned Parenthood video -- depicting an executive allegedly discussing the sale of fetal organs from terminated pregnancies -- will give them cover to more aggressively push abortion issues without the political ramifications that have haunted the party in the past." ...

... Amanda Marcotte in Rolling Stone: "... the ... allegation in the video -- that Planned Parenthood was caught selling fetal body parts -- was utter nonsense, plain and simple. Still, that didn't stop the right from acting like this was the greatest scandal since Monica Lewinsky's blue dress." Marcotte highlights some winger reactions. Via Paul Waldman. ...

... CW Note to Republicans: For many people who are not medical professionals, surgery of any kind -- from pimple removal to quadruple bypass -- seems "gross." You boys probably pass out when a technician takes a blood sample. Get over it. ...

... Heather Caygle of Politico: "Sen. Rand Paul is the latest lawmaker to throw a wrench into delicate transportation bill negotiations, suggesting he might hold up the legislation over the controversial Planned Parenthood video that surfaced this week.... [Paul] released multiple statements Friday promising to use 'all legislative vehicles' to 'defeat and defund Planned Parenthood' next week. The statements on his Senate and campaign websites don't directly mention the pending highway and transit legislation, but it is the next big-ticket item on the Senate's to-do list...." CW: True to his usual MO, Li'l Randy is pleased as punch to spew another lie: "The recent revelation that this taxpayer-funded organization is selling body parts of the unborn [blah-blah]...."

CW: I give up. I don't know what Steve King means here. As far as I can tell, Julian Castro's heritage is somewhere around 100 percent Hispanic/Latino. According to his Wiki-bio, King "has Irish, German, Welsh, and English ancestry." (The Wiki-link to this factoid is dead.) If the info is correct, none of King's recent ancestors is Hispanic or Latino. Usually even loons make some kind of sense, even if it's twisted. Steve King is the exception, as far as I can tell.

Philip Klein of the right-wing Washington Examiner may employ some over-the-top rhetoric, but his underlying premise is right: "On Wednesday, America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's largest lobbying group, announced that it had elected Marilyn Tavenner as its chief executive officer. Before joining AHIP, Tavenner led the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under [President] Obama, where she was tasked with overseeing the implementation of Obamacare -- writing the rules regulating the same insurance companies that she'll now be representing as a lobbyist. Tavenner could be a poster child for the corrupting influences of the revolving door between industry and government that Obama once decried. A former hospital executive and lobbyist, she was appointed in 2006 by then Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to serve as the state's health secretary before entering the Obama administration.

There's a reason why Tavenner is so valuable to AHIP -- and it's not for her role in the disastrous rollout of Obamacare's healthcare.gov website. She has a web of connections within the Obama administration and an intimate knowledge of how it works. But her being at AHIP is also valuable for the administration, because it means that the insurance industry's main lobbying group will now be headed by a cheerleader for Obamacare.

     ... Also via Waldman.

Timothy Cama of the Hill: "A federal judge on Friday dismissed Oklahoma's second lawsuit against the Obama administration's climate rule for power plants. Judge Claire Eagan of the District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma ruled that the state's attorney general cannot challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulation until it is made final. It is the second case in as many months in which a federal court has dropped lawsuits against the Obama administration's signature climate change initiative, which is due to be made final next month."

Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times: "Michael G. Grimm, a former New York congressman who resigned from office after pleading guilty to tax fraud, was given an eight-month sentence on Friday. A federal investigation that initially focused on Mr. Grimm's campaign fund-raising turned into a 20-count indictment related to his running of a restaurant in Manhattan, Healthalicious. Prosecutors said he underreported wages and revenue to the government and filed false tax documents as a result.... [Now for a hilarious side-note:] He is now working as a consultant to start-up businesses." (Also linked yesterday afternoon) ...

... CW: What's your advice to start-ups, Mikey? To cut costs, pay employees under the table. AND If the building inspector gives you grief, tell him you want to show him something on the roof, then threaten to toss him off -- especially if you're way bigger than the inspector.

Former Fed chair Ben Bernanke, in a Brookings Institute post, explains how Europe -- i.e., Germany -- is fundamentally failing the Eurozone by not "delivering the broad-based economic recovery that is needed to give stressed countries like Greece a reasonable chance to meet their growth, employment, and fiscal objectives." [Bernanke asks this as a question, but his answer is "nope."] Germany's large trade surplus puts all the burden of adjustment on countries with trade deficits, who must undergo painful deflation of wages and other costs to become more competitive. Germany could help restore balance within the euro zone and raise the currency area's overall pace of growth by increasing spending at home...."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Danny Shea, Editorial Director of the Huffington Post: "After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president, we have decided we won't report on Trump's campaign as part of The Huffington Post's political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump's campaign is a sideshow." ...

... CW: That's a lovely, principled idea, & I tried it myself for awhile. Until it quit working. As long as the GOP accepts Trump as a "legitimate" candidate, as long as other presidential candidates are responding to him & as long as pollsters are including him in their surveys, I think the media have to cover the Trump sideshow, too. Once these factors subside, then the rest of us can faggedaboud him.

Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post: "Gawker on Friday removed a controversial story about a media executive soliciting a male escort who later attempted to extort him, after the decision to post the piece received widespread condemnation on social media." ...

     ... The Gawker staff is upset about this. ...

... Mark Stern of Slate explains why removing the story was a good move legally, altho it might be too late to undo the damage. CW: I'm with Gawker CEO Nick Denton. The story was not newsworthy unless part of a piece on Excesses of the Rich & Unfamous.

Presidential Race

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "The full field of candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination assembled for the first time [in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,] Friday night, with a trio of them giving fiery speeches sounding populist economic themes. Much of the focus was on Hillary Rodham Clinton, the dominant front-runner for the Democratic nomination, and two underdog candidates challenging her from the left, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley.... In a tough, partisan speech, Clinton looked past her primary opponents to go after the leading Republican candidates and brought Democrats to their feet.... Former Virginia senator Jim Webb and former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee also spoke at the dinner." ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont edged closer on Friday to directly attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton, pointedly asking whether the Democratic presidential front-runner would support measures to break up the country's largest financial institutions and reinstate a firewall between commercial and investment banking.... He boasted that he had not received financial contributions from Goldman Sachs, which he said sought 'undue influence' in American politics, but stopped short of calling on Mrs. Clinton to reject the nearly $50,000 in donations she has received from employees of the Wall Street firm. 'That's her decision,' Mr. Sanders said, after pausing for a moment to consider the question." ...

     ... CW: Sorry, Jonathan, that's no attack; not even "edging close." We know you're itching for a knock-down/drag-out, NYT, but this is not your both-sides-do-it moment. Pretending "Ask her" is an attack is both untrue & defamatory. See Trump: "McCain is a dummy" below. That would be an attack. ...

     ... Martin, Ctd.: Clinton "added [a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, rally] to her schedule.... These gatherings ... represent an effort to show that Mrs. Clinton is herself capable of luring big audiences. But the rally served to highlight her inability for now to attract crowds on the same scale as Mr. Sanders, whose Iowa events have drawn more people than any other presidential candidate has in either party. Mrs. Clinton drew a few hundred people to her event here -- her campaign pegged it at 500 -- while Mr. Sanders was met by about 2,500 at an event in Council Bluffs this month."

Daniel Strauss of Politico: Speaking at the Netroots Nation convention Friday in Phoenix, Arizona, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sets out Warren's Rules for Presidential Candidates. "Clinton's decision to skip the convention did not go unnoticed.... Both Bernie Sanders & Martin O'Malley will address the group.

digby: In his column (linked here yesterday) Paul Krugman "hit upon something important in political coverage: when a politician takes a different position on policy from earlier positions (or, in [Hillary Clinton's] case, from her husband's positions) the press assumes that she's flip-flopped for political reasons. But it's always possible that she has changed her mind based upon new evidence. If reporters spent some time probing these differences instead of doing Trey Gowdy's wet work for him, they might learn something.... It's perfectly legitimate to ask what changed someone's mind --- and letting them explain it." ...

... CW: As both digby & Krugman point out, Republicans should try occasionally looking at evidence. The reason they don't, of course, is that facts usually prove inconvenient to the GOP. See, for instance, Li'l Randy's Lie o'the Day, linked above. How can a needy candidate fundraise off Planned Parenthood atrocities if the atrocities don't exist? Necessity is the mother of invention.

Tony Romm of Poltico: "Despite Republican candidates' high-profile outreach to the Bay Area, most tech industry bigwigs are throwing cash at Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Ken Vogel & Tarini Parti of Politico: "Republicans could barely contain their glee when the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision cleared the way for unlimited spending in political campaigns. But now -- headed into a crowded presidential primary that promises to be longer, nastier and more expensive as a result of the ruling -- some are having buyers' remorse. Concerns are mounting among top donors and party elites that an influx of huge checks into the GOP primary will hurt the party's chances of retaking the White House. Long-shot candidates propped up by super PACs and other big-money groups will be able to linger for months throwing damaging barbs at establishment favorites who offer a better chance of victory."

Wherein Jeb! casts himself as the only presidential candidate wearing big-boy pants. Eli Stokols of Politico reports.

Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said on Friday that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R-) is 'vile' for using a speech earlier this week to talk about the violent death of one of Himes's former interns. Himes argued in a statement that Christie was politicizing the death of Kevin Sutherland to fit talking points on criminal justice reform, and that it was unethical of him to do so.... Sutherland was stabbed to death on D.C.'s Metro system in what police have described as a botched robbery.Christie referenced Sutherland's death during a campaign speech on Thursday in Camden, N.J. On Friday afternoon, Sutherland's parents, Douglas and Terry Sutherland, issued a statement protesting Christie's remarks."

Katie Glueck of Politico: "Donald Trump's turn in the national spotlight is mainly taking a toll on Ted Cruz.... That's the assessment of this week's Politico Caucus, our weekly survey of the leading strategists, activists and political operatives in Iowa and New Hampshire.... In New Hampshire, where Chris Christie's hopes are riding on a strong finish, roughly a quarter of Republicans believe the brash and straight-talking New Jersey governor is also put at risk by Trump's emergence in the field." CW: See, HuffPost, Trump isn't all bad. ...

... CW: Also, too, how could you call Trump a "sideshow," HuffPost? Why, just yesterday Trump called John McCain a "dummy," said Rick Perry "should be forced to take an IQ test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate," & backed off a feud with MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell. All very important to the future of the nation.

Beyond the Beltway

Alice Barr of KHOU-TV, in USA Today: "A trooper who pulled over and later arrested a woman found dead in her jail cell was put on desk duty Friday for violating procedures, the Texas Department of Public Safety said. Sandra Bland, 28, was arrested July 10, and after spending the weekend in the Waller County jail, she was found hanged in her cell Monday. Harris County's medical examiner said the death was a suicide, but Bland's family disputes the finding. The FBI has joined the Texas Rangers in investigating the circumstances surrounding her death. The state Public Safety Department and Waller County district attorney have requested that the FBI conduct a forensic analysis on video footage from the incident." ...

... St. John Barned-Smith of the Houston Chronicle has more on the Bland story.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, voiced support on Saturday for his country's nuclear deal with world powers while emphasizing that the agreement did not signal an end to Iran's hostility toward the United States and its allies, especially Israel."

New York Times: "A petty officer wounded in Thursday's attacks at two military facilities [in Chattanooga] succumbed to his injuries on Saturday, according to members of his family and the Navy. Petty Officer Second Class Randall Smith of the Navy, 26, became the fifth service member to die as a result of the shootings at a military reserve center and a nearby recruiting center."

Washington Post: "Three U.S. admirals were censured for dining at 'extravagant' banquets in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore and accepting other gifts from an Asian defense contractor at the center of a bribery scandal that continues to rattle the highest ranks of the Navy, according to documents released late Friday.... The incidents occurred nearly a decade ago, while all three officers -- Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller, Rear Adm. Terry B. Kraft and Rear Adm. David R. Pimpo -- were assigned to the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group. Each was forced to retire this summer."

The Commentariat -- July 17, 2015

Internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

Richard Fausset, et al., of the New York Times: "The 24-year-old gunman who killed four Marines in an attack on two military sites here traveled to Jordan last year for about seven months, a senior intelligence official said Friday, one of several trips to the country in recent years. The official said that investigators were combing through the computer, cellphone and social media contacts of the gunman, identified as Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, to determine whether he was in touch with any extremist groups in Jordan before or during this trip."

Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times: "Michael G. Grimm, a former New York congressman who resigned from office after pleading guilty to tax fraud, was given an eight-month sentence on Friday. A federal investigation that initially focused on Mr. Grimm's campaign fund-raising turned into a 20-count indictment related to his running of a restaurant in Manhattan, Healthalicious. Prosecutors said he underreported wages and revenue to the government and filed false tax documents as a result.... [Now for a hilarious side-note:] He is now working as a consultant to start-up businesses." ...

... CW: What's your advice to start-ups, Mikey? To cut costs, pay employees under the table. AND If the building inspector gives you grief, tell him you want to show him something on the roof, then threaten to toss him off.

If we keep taking steps toward a more perfect union, and close the gaps between who we are and who we want to be, America will move forward. -- Barack Obama, this week

** It's the perfect response to the Confederate flag wavers. -- Dana Milbank

*****

Peter Baker of the New York Times: President Obama "came to the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution [in Oklahoma] on Thursday to get a firsthand look at what he is focused on. Accompanied by aides, correctional officials and a phalanx of Secret Service agents, he crossed through multiple layers of metal gates and fences topped by concertina wire to tour the prison and talk with some of the nonviolent drug offenders he says should not be serving such long sentences.... Where other presidents worked to make life harder for criminals, Mr. Obama wants to make their conditions better":

CW: Matt Bai is kind of a jerk, but I think he's right to suggest that President Obama has -- since the last election -- transitioned from the 20th century to the 21st. This of course is what his opponents can't stand about him, caught as they are in a mist of nostalgia for a mythological past when everything was wonderful (and everybody knew her place).

Julie Davis of the New York Times: "More than 100 former American ambassadors wrote to President Obama on Thursday praising the nuclear deal reached with Iran this week as a 'landmark agreement' that could be effective in halting Tehran's development of a nuclear weapon, and urging Congress to support it. 'If properly implemented, this comprehensive and rigorously negotiated agreement can be an effective instrument in arresting Iran's nuclear program and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the volatile and vitally important region of the Middle East,' said the letter, whose signers include diplomats named by presidents of both political parties." Includes copy of the letter.

Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian: "... Al Gore has made a rare criticism of Barack Obama as Royal Dutch Shell prepares to drill an exploratory well in the Arctic Ocean, denouncing the venture as 'insane' and calling for a ban on all oil and gas activity in the polar region."

** Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that existing civil rights law bars sexual orientation-based employment discrimination a groundbreaking decision to advance legal protections for gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers.... The ruling -- approved by a 3-2 vote of the five-person commission -- applies to federal employees' claims directly, but it also applies to the entire EEOC, which includes its offices across the nation that take and investigate claims of discrimination in private employment."

     ... CW: The ruling seems so obvious to me that I wondered how anyone could think otherwise. ...

     ... Well, here's how. Dale Carpenter of the Washington Post: "The EEOC’s view on sexual orientation, however, runs counter to the rulings of several circuit courts. These courts have reasoned that 'sexual orientation' is not among the list of prohibited bases for employment action, that Congress did not intend to eliminate anti-gay discrimination when it enacted Title VII, and that Congress has repeatedly refused to add 'sexual orientation' to employment protections. The EEOC calls these earlier circuit court decisions 'dated,' and some of them have been undermined by subsequent precedents in the same circuits recognizing that gender stereotyping, including gender stereotypes evidenced by anti-gay comments, is sex discrimination.... The EEOC's views on the scope of Title VII are considered persuasive, but not binding, authority on the courts."

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "For this first time in 14 years, the Senate on Thursday approved a revised version of No Child Left Behind, the signature Bush-era education law that ushered in an era of broadly reviled high-stakes standardized testing. But the passage of the bill on an 81-17 vote, coming just a week after the House narrowly passed its own version, sets up a showdown between the two chambers, both controlled by Republicans, and leaves the fate of a final measure in doubt." ...

... Strange Bedfellows. Libby Nelson of Vox: "Hidden behind Thursday's overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate vote to get rid of No Child Left Behind is one of the strangest alliances in politics: Teachers unions have joined hands with Republicans. That's because they share two goals. They both want to get rid of the testing and accountability regimen of No Child Left Behind, and they want to cut back on Education Secretary Arne Duncan's influence."

Samar Khurshid of Roll Call: "Rep. Tim Murphy [R-Pa.], a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee looking into the video [of a Planned Parenthood doctor talking to sting operators about fetal tissue & organ transfers to research organizations], said at a Wednesday news conference he'd seen the clip weeks before. Asked afterward why he and others waited until this week to take action, Murphy struggled for an answer before abruptly ending the interview with CQ Roll Call, saying he should not be quoted and remarking, 'This interview didn't happen.'... Another Pro-Life Caucus and Judiciary committee member, GOP Rep. Trent Franks [R] of Arizona, said Wednesday he had also seen the video about a month ago." Via Paul Waldman.

Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post: "Alaska would become the latest state to sign on to a major expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act through a plan announced by Gov. Bill Walker on Thursday. Walker, a Republican-turned-independent elected in 2014 on a platform that included Medicaid expansion, had been courting the Republican-led state legislature on the issue. But after lawmakers failed to advance his proposal in their latest session, he decided to carry out the policy on his own authority, he said during a press conference at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium headquarters in Anchorage. Absent legislative action to halt or alter the plan, the expansion will take effect Sept. 1, the governor said."

Adam Goldman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Four Marines were killed Thursday in shootings at a pair of military facilities in Tennessee by a gunman who is being investigated for possible ties to Islamist terrorist groups, U.S. law enforcement officials said." ...

... Craig Whitlock & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The gunman who targeted U.S. military service members in a late-morning shooting Thursday in Tennessee was a 24-year-old electrical engineer who had grown up in Chattanooga as part of a conservative Muslim family. Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait but moved with his family to the United States as an infant after the start of the Persian Gulf War and became a U.S. citizen, according to accounts given by friends and one of his sisters."

Paul Waldman: "... the Little Sisters [of the Poor] (and other religious organizations that have their own cases) are suing on the grounds that having to sign a letter declaring that they do not want to provide contraception coverage is itself an intolerable burden on their religious freedom.... Having to sign a letter opting out of contraception coverage is just too much to bear.... This week, the Little Sisters ... lost before a federal appeals court.... Not surprisingly, since this case is an attack on a provision of the ACA, every Republican everywhere has sided with the organizations demanding relief from their letter-signing burden. Yet at the same time that they see government's crushing hand there, they want government to put as many obstacles as possible in the way of women who need abortions." (Emphasis added.) ...

     ... CW: Aw, c'mon Paul. Signing a letter is a burden. Ow, my hand is cramped. Holy Mother, I can't find my glasses. We're poor, for God's sakes; forever stamps are expensive.

Annals of "Justice," Ctd. Another It-Could-Happen-to-You Edition. Dahlia Lithwick: In Charlottesville, Virginia, a "fanatical" prosecutor won the conviction of an innocent man despite overwhelming (& suppressed) evidence he committed no crime. The "man was finally freed, but that doesn't mean the system worked."

Alison Smale of the New York Times: "German lawmakers on Friday approved entering into detailed negotiations for a Greek bailout amid a simmering international debate over providing more debt relief to Athens and intensifying questions about whether Greece would be better off leaving the European common currency." ...

... Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "... in negotiating a new deal this week to bail out Greece, Germany displayed what many Europeans saw as a harder, more selfish edge, demanding painful measures from Athens and resisting any firm commitment to granting Greece relief from its crippling debt. And that perception was fueled on Thursday when the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, suggested that Greece would get its best shot at a substantial cut in its debt only if it was willing to give up membership in the European common currency." ...

... Anthony Faiola & Stephanie Kirchner of the Washington Post: "... just like that, the image of the 'cruel German' is back. Germany -- more specifically, its chancellor, Angela Merkel -- has faced years of derision for driving a hard bargain with financially broken Greece, which has received billions in bailouts since 2010. But for both Germany and Merkel, the concessions extracted this week to open fresh rescue talks with Athens appear to have struck a global nerve. By insisting on years more of tough cuts and making other demands that critics have billed as humiliating, Berlin is wiping out decades of hard-won goodwill.... In its online edition, even Germany's own Der Spiegel magazine decried the Berlin-led demands as 'the catalogue of cruelties.'" ...

... Whaddaya mean, cruel? "Politics is hard sometimes." ...

     ... Update. Also, Angela Lied to Crying Child. Dylan Matthew of Vox: "Merkel, to be clear, is a liar. Germany can in fact manage more than the 400,000 people a year it let in as of 2012. It currently lets in fewer permanent migrants, as a share of its population, than do many other developed nations."

NOAA: "2014 was earth's warmest year on record. In 2014, the most essential indicators of Earth's changing climate continued to reflect trends of a warming planet, with several markers such as rising land and ocean temperature, sea levels and greenhouse gases ─ setting new records. These key findings and others can be found in the State of the Climate in 2014 report released online today by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). ...

Presidential Race

Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Bernie Sanders is making a push for support from black and Hispanic voters as he seeks to intensify his challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination." Sanders has spoken recently on a black-oriented radio program & at a La Raza meeting. "Sanders' embrace of minority concerns and sensibilities can hardly be called opportunistic. His involvement with civil rights stretches back to his youth, when he attended the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King gave his most famous speech, organized financial support for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was arrested for protesting segregation."

Paul Krugman: Hillary "Clinton's [economic] speech reflected major changes, deeply grounded in evidence, in our understanding of what determines wages. And a key implication of that new understanding is that public policy can do a lot to help workers without bringing down the wrath of the invisible hand.... There's just no evidence that raising the minimum wage costs jobs, at least when the starting point is as low as it is in modern America." ...

... Kyle Blaine of BuzzFeed: "Hillary Clinton on Thursday wouldn't commit to supporting a $15 national minimum wage but said she is working with Democrats in Congress who are determining how high it can be set. 'I support the local efforts that are going on that are making it possible for people working in certain localities to actually earn 15,' Clinton said in a response to a question from BuzzFeed News during a press availability in New Hampshire on Thursday."

** digby in Salon: "The GOP's deranged foreign-policy dream: Build a wall around America -- and then prepare for World War III." But here's a big problem: "... we still don't know if the Democrats and Hillary Clinton will have the fortitude to resist their provocations and wage their 2016 campaign based on reason instead of paranoia. This is an old fault line in postwar American politics and Democrats have traditionally had a difficult time traversing it."

Meaner than a Junkyard Dog. Paul Waldman: "... Scott Walker ... is hell-bent on making sure that anyone who gets food stamps in Wisconsin has to endure the humiliation of submitting to a drug test. First the Wisconsin legislature sent him a bill providing that the state could test food stamp recipients if it had a reasonable suspicion they were on drugs; he used his line-item veto to strike the words 'reasonable suspicion,' so the state could test any (or all) recipients it wanted. And now, because federal law doesn't actually allow drug testing for food stamp recipients, Walker is suing the federal government on the grounds that food stamps are 'welfare,' and welfare recipients can be tested. This is why Scott Walker is never going to be president of the United States.... Walker isn't trying to solve a practical problem here. He wants to test food stamp recipients as a way of expressing moral condemnation.... there is no inherent connection between drug use and food stamps.... Walker ... practically oozes malice...." ...

... Charles Pierce on Walker's state supreme court victory (see yesterday's Commentariat): "If you're keeping score at home, the same organizations that were the subject of the criminal probe gave hundreds of thousands of neatly laundered dollars to the judges who ruled that those same organizations did nothing wrong on behalf of Scott Walker because fk you, that's why. If this happened in Myanmar or Kazakhstan, we'd all be laughing at it. Instead, let's once again congratulate Justice Anthony Kennedy for his immortal observation that: "...independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption." ...

... Scottie's Big Day, Ctd. Kevin Draper of Deadspin: "Wisconsin Senate votes to give $250 million to billionaires.... The Wisconsin Senate voted 21-10 to approve $250 million in public financing for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks. The bill will now be sent to the state Assembly for approval.... Just a few days ago, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed a state budget that includes cuts of $250 million to the University of Wisconsin system, among other cuts to public education funding." CW: Scottie is the prime mover behind the big bucks for Bucks billionaires scheme. ...

... CW: I realize I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but I just want to remind readers how utterly ignorant was this shift of taxpayer dollars from higher education to a sports arena. Walker "sold" the Bucks deal as an "economic development" scheme that will require No New Taxes (because, um, bonds). Never mind that new sports facilities provide only a short-term economic boost (during the construction period) & merely shift entertainment dollars from other venues to the sports arenas. Meanwhile, an equal investment in higher education pays off for this generation of young people & for generations to come.

I have a message for my fellow Republicans and the independents who will be voting in the primary process. What Mr. Trump is offering is not conservatism, it is Trump-ism -- a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense. -- Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) "was particularly rankled by [Donald] Trump’s rally [in Phoenix]. 'This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,' McCain said. 'Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.' McCain, who has long supported comprehensive immigration reform and was a member of the so-called Gang of Eight that successfully pushed immigration legislation through the Senate in 2013, has been at war with the far right in Arizona for years.... McCain, who had a testy relationship with Senator Marco Rubio, another member of the Gang of Eight who is running for President, couldn't resist adding, 'Rubio backed away from it.'" ...

... "McCain Mocks Rubio for Pulling a McCain." Jonathan Chait: "Of course McCain also backed away from Rubio's immigration bill. And that's not all! In 2006, he sponsored a comprehensive immigration bill, and then when it interfered with his chance to win the Republican nomination, declared he would no longer support his own bill." ...

... digby: "The people who are angry about the border situation are ill-informed xenophobes who blame every perceived problem on someone else, usually people of color.... They are right wingers who, by the way, McCain also courted when he was running for the nomination and trying to hold on to his Senate seat. Mr Integrity isn't above a little demagoguery when it's necessary. Where does he think Trump got his ideas?

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Islamic State appears to have manufactured rudimentary chemical warfare shells and attacked Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria with them as many as three times in recent weeks, according to field investigators, Kurdish officials and a Western ordnance disposal technician who examined the incidents and recovered one of the shells. The development, which the investigators said involved toxic industrial or agricultural chemicals repurposed as weapons, signaled a potential escalation of the group's capabilities, though it was not entirely without precedent."

Guardian: "Former Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb has been extradited to the United States following his arrest in Switzerland on racketeering and bribery charges filed by American prosecutors."