The Commentariat -- Feb. 18, 2014

Internal links removed.

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: " The White House launched a fresh effort Monday to defend the economic stimulus passed at the beginning of President Obama's tenure as Republicans sought to pillory the law enacted five years ago.... According to a report released Monday by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the stimulus saved or created an average of 1.6 million jobs a year from 2009 through 2010.... Most independent economists agree that the law, combined with the aggressive efforts of the Federal Reserve, brought the economic contraction to an end in June 2009. The most common critique of the legislation from professional economists is that it was too small to offset the dramatic economic shortfall in early 2009."

     ... The report is here (pdf). ...

... Mike Grunwald of Time: "The White House, of course, is not an objective source ... but its estimates are in line with work by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and a variety of private-sector analysts. The real long-term danger is that the Recovery Act became so unpopular so quickly that future politicians might shy away from stimulus packages. Europe quickly embraced austerity, which is one reason the unemployment rate in the euro zone is almost twice as high as ours. Historically, recoveries in the U.S. have been much stronger and faster, and from much less damaging financial crises. This time it hasn't been as strong as it should have been, partly because of austerity fever among Republicans, stimulus discomfort among Democrats, and deep budget cuts at the state and local level. The political pendulum has swung back toward austerity, producing the 'sequester' and other anti-stimulus." ...

     ... CW: In other words, everything actually is the Republicans' fault. ...

... Still Stupid after All These Years. George Zornick of the Nation, in the Washington Post: "Republican animus toward the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, popularly known as the stimulus, hasn't decreased over time. Today marks five years since President Obama signed the legislation into law, and Republicans from Marco Rubio to John Cornyn are using the anniversary to bash not only the bill but also the very idea of government spending. It's important to knock down these conservative claims about the stimulus, which haven't gotten any more factually accurate over time.... Most of the spending measures in the stimulus bill have expired, but the point is that it did what it was supposed to do. For Republicans to simply say 'the economy is still bad, so the stimulus was a failure' is a cheap misdirection."

Do-Nothing Congress Vows to Do Nothing. Russell Berman of the Hill: "House Republican leaders, having dispensed with the debt limit and put immigration reform on the back burner, will return to their political comfort zone with a legislative agenda focused on attacking the Obama administration and government excess." ...

... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "After a tumultuous week of party infighting and leadership stumbles, congressional Republicans are focused on calming their divided ranks in the months ahead, mostly by touting proposals that have wide backing within the GOP and shelving any big-ticket legislation for the rest of the year. Comprehensive immigration reform, tax reform, tweaks to the federal health-care law -- bipartisan deals on each are probably dead in the water for the rest of this Congress." ...

... Steve Benen: "Three weeks after President Obama presented a fairly ambitious agenda to Congress in a State of the Union address, the GOP House majority fully expects to get nothing done between now and November." Their "inspiring message: 'Vote GOP 2014: We only shut down the government once, not twice.'" As Benen points out, it isn't that Republicans can't govern; it's that they won't. When Houses leaders claim they can't get 218 votes on anything, what they really mean is that they can't get 218 Republican votes. There's a way, but there's no will.

Rebecca Riffkin of Gallup: "Americans have a new No. 1 problem. Nearly one in four Americans mention jobs and unemployment as the most important problem facing the country, up from 16% in January. The government and politicians had topped the list since the government shutdown in October." ...

     ... CW: So Democrats have succeeded in sending the message that unemployment remains a major problem; now the question is whether or not they can lay the blame on Republican obstructionism of policies to improve the jobs market & help the unemployed.

The Fruits of Inequality. Samuel Bowles & Arjun Jayadev in the New York Times: "Another dubious first for America: We now employ as many private security guards as high school teachers -- over one million of them, or nearly double their number in 1980. And that's just a small fraction of what we call 'guard labor.' In addition to private security guards, that means police officers, members of the armed forces, prison and court officials, civilian employees of the military, and those producing weapons: a total of 5.2 million workers in 2011. That is a far larger number than we have of teachers at all levels. What is happening in America today is both unprecedented in our history, and virtually unique among Western democratic nations.... It seems to go along with economic inequality."

"Travesty in Chattanooga." Ed Kilgore on Tennessee autoworkers' vote not to unionize the Chattanooga plant: "So addicted are Tennessee Republicans to the 'race to the bottom' approach to economic development that they are willing to risk the good will of an existing employer in their zeal to make sure their own people are kept in as submissive a position as possible. President Obama's reported comment during a Democratic retreat last week that the pols involved in this union-busting effort are 'more concerned about German shareholders than American workers' is one way to put it; I'd say they've internalized the ancient despicable tendency of the southern aristocracy to favor the abasement of working people as an end in itself." ...

... ** Harold Meyerson in the American Prospect: "America is where class struggle gets derailed by culture wars. It's happened throughout our history. It happened again last week in Chattanooga." An extremely informative piece which, among other things, reminds us of the history of the UAW.

ObamaCare Winners! AP: "For many older Americans who lost jobs during the recession, the quest for health care has been one obstacle after another. They're unwanted by employers, rejected by insurers, struggling to cover rising medical costs and praying to reach Medicare age before a health crisis. These luckless people, most in their 50s and 60s, have emerged this month as early winners under the nation's new health insurance system. Along with their peers who are self-employed or whose jobs do not offer insurance, they have been signing up for coverage in large numbers, submitting new-patient forms at doctor's offices and filling prescriptions at pharmacies."

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "A billionaire retired investor is forging plans to spend as much as $100 million during the 2014 election, seeking to pressure federal and state officials to enact climate change measures through a hard-edge campaign of attack ads against governors and lawmakers. The donor, Tom Steyer, a Democrat who founded one of the world's most successful hedge funds, burst onto the national political scene during last year's elections, when he spent $11 million to help elect Terry McAuliffe governor of Virginia and millions more intervening in a Democratic congressional primary in Massachusetts."

Adam Aigner-Treworgy of CNN: "The Obama administration will take the next step on Tuesday in its multi-year effort to cut emissions and reduce oil use by getting better fuel economy from trucks. President Barack Obama is set to announce the energy and environmental initiative at a Safeway distribution center in Maryland, a White House official confirmed to CNN. In action that does not require congressional approval, Obama aims to build on the first-ever fuel standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that now cover model years 2014-18."

Palm Springs Weekend. Zeke Miller of Time: "President Barack Obama traveled to California on Friday to highlight the state's drought emergency at two events near Fresno, calling for shared sacrifice to help manage the state's worst water shortage in decades. He then spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the hospitality of some of the state's top water hogs: desert golf courses.... The 124 golf courses in the Coachella Valley consume roughly 17% of all water there, and one-quarter of the water pumped out of the region's at-risk groundwater aquifer, according to the Coachella Valley Water District.... Each of the 124 Coachella Valley courses, on average, uses nearly 1 million gallons (3.8 million L) a day because of the hot and dry climate, three to four times more water per day than the average American golf course."

I probably shouldn't say this, but I will. Had we been transparent about this from the outset right after 9/11 -- which is the genesis of the 215 program -- and said both to the American people and to their elected representatives, we need to cover this gap, we need to make sure this never happens to us again, so here is what we are going to set up, here is how it's going to work, and why we have to do it, and here are the safeguards.... We wouldn't have had the problem we had. What did us in here, what worked against us was this shocking revelation [by Edward Snowden].... I don't think it would be of any greater concern to most Americans than fingerprints. Well, people kind of accept that because they know about it. But had we been transparent about it and say here's one more thing we have to do as citizens for the common good, just like we have to go to airports two hours early and take our shoes off, all the other things we do for the common good, this is one more thing. -- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on collecting & storing phone call records (more at the link)

Niels Lesniewski of Roll Call: "Responding to sharp criticism from Sen. Ted Cruz, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he voted to protect the country from default when he cast the decisive vote advancing the suspension of the debt limit this week."

Paul Rosenberg, writing in Salon, makes the case that because of racial bias, both explicit & implicit, "'Stand your ground' laws are inherently biased against black people, and should be ruled unconstitutional on that basis alone." CW: Seems to me Michael Dunn, the man who killed Jordan Davis for playing loud music, should be charged with a hate crime. Instead, prosecutors did not even introduce strong evidence of Dunn's racial bias.

Sophia Yan of CNN: Three thousand Americans lined "up at embassies around the world to renounce their citizenship. The numbers for 2013 represent a dramatic spike -- triple the average for the previous five years, according to a CNNMoney analysis of government data. Brad Westerfield, a tax lawyer at Butler Snow, said that renunciations have increased following the implementation of a new disclosure law -- the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act -- that targets overseas tax evasion. The measure, approved by Congress in 2010, is aimed at recouping some of the hundreds of billions the government says it loses each year in unpaid taxes.... Some Americans may be giving up their passports to protect their wealth.... It's illegal to renounce your U.S. status to avoid paying taxes, and giving up citizenship doesn't mean you're off the hook for back taxes."

At a speaking engagement in Chicago, Nino Scalia criticizes -- everything.

Re: a good discussion in today's Comments:

CW: Domani Spero, who wrote the post (in June 2013) from which I copied the above, argues that the practice of choosing fat cats is not going to change. As you can see, it really is a Both Sides Do It phenomenon. There is a way to change it, tho -- a way that would solve so many of our political ills -- campaign finance reform. If the fat cats lose their utility, presidents will have little incentive to appoint them to ambassadorial posts.

New Jersey News

The Lonely Guv. Steve Strunsky of the Star-Ledger: "Gov. Chris Christie's office says he never spoke about September's George Washington Bridge lane closures with a Port Authority Police lieutenant he knows personally, and whose conduct during the closures is now the subject of an internal review." CW: Either these kinds of dirty tricks were so routine that the GWB lane closings didn't rate a mention, or nobody ever speaks to Chris Christie -- not his so-called friends, not his campaign manager, not the employees in his office, not his appointed hacks.

Michael Linhorst of the Bergen Record: "... Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich rejected a request from the [governor's] attorney, Randy Mastro, to provide documents and sit down for an interview, according to a letter dated Feb. 17.... But Sokolich 'fully intends to cooperate' with those other investigations -- by the U.S. Attorney's office and the joint legislative committee.... Mastro made similar requests for interviews and documents from Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who accused members of the Christie administration of withholding money slated for Superstorm Sandy recovery because she did not fast-track a billion-dollar real estate development project. Last week, Zimmer said she would not cooperate with Mastro."

... The Forgotten Christie Scandal. Rob Richie & Devin McCarthy in Salon: "There is a strong case to be made that last year's New Jersey special election was the most unnecessary statewide election in American history." It's purpose, like Christie's courting & punishing of Democratic mayors, was to increase the percentage of Christie's win in November, demonstrating own fucking popular he was in a Democratic-majority state, a percentage that most likely would have been lower if he shared a ballot with Democrat Corey Booker, who won the special Senate election.

Congressional Races 2014

NRCC Gets a Teeny Bit Less Devious. Denver Nicks of Time: "The campaign arm for House Republicans has made a small but significant change to a line of spoof political websites that raised questions about whether they misled donors in a way that could run afoul of campaign finance rules. The cookie-cutter websites had been made to look at first glance like sites set up for Democratic candidates, complete with campaign banners and web addresses like NancyPelosi2014.com, but they actually directed donor dollars to the National Republic Congressional Committee. The sites led at least two people to accidentally donate to the NRCC (both got their money back). But while the main pages -- which include pictures of smiling Democrats — remain the same, the donation button now directs to a landing page that is more clearly one raising money for the NRCC. When first asked about the websites by Time, the NRCC stood by the tactic."

News Ledes

Think Progress: "In newly released audio of phone calls made by Michael Dunn while in jail, the man who shot 17-year-old Jordan Davis after a loud music dispute claiming self-defense said he was both the 'victor' and the 'victim,' compared himself to a rape victim, and made racially charged comments about his fellow inmates.... Prosecutors plan to seek a retrial on the first degree murder charge." The trial ended in a mistrial on this charge, but a jury found Dunn guilty of several counts of attempted murder.

New York Times: "Mayhem gripped the center of the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday evening as riot police officers moved on protesters massed behind barriers raised throughout Independence Square, the focal point of more than two months of protests against President Viktor F. Yanukovych."

New York Times: "Hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians have fled rebel-held parts of the city of Aleppo in recent weeks under heavy aerial bombardment by the Syrian government, emptying whole neighborhoods and creating what aid workers say is one of the largest refugee flows of the entire civil war. The displaced, as many as 500,000 to date, the United Nations says, have flooded the countryside, swelling populations in war-battered communities that are already short on space and food and pushing a new wave of refugees into Turkey...."

New York Times: "Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday sharpened the Obama administration's mounting criticism of Russia's role in the escalating violence in Syria, asserting that the Kremlin was undermining the prospects of a negotiated solution by 'contributing so many more weapons' and political support to President Bashar al-Assad."

New York Times: "Two members of the punk protest group Pussy Riot, recently released from prison under an amnesty program initiated by President Vladimir V.Putin, said they were arrested [in Sochi] on Tuesday. Posting on Twitter, one member of the group, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, said that she and her band mate, Maria Alyokhina, were detained in central Sochi, about 30 minutes from the Olympic Park where the Winter Games are taking place. She said they had been accused as suspects in an unspecified crime."

Reuters: "An elderly nun and two peace activists are scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on Tuesday for breaking into a Tennessee defense facility where enriched uranium for nuclear bombs is stored. Sister Megan Rice, Michael Walli, and Greg Boertje-Obed have admitted to cutting fences and making their way across the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 2012, embarrassing U.S. officials and prompting security changes."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 17, 2014

Frank Rich, in the New York Review of Books, on John Kennedy's legacy -- and on conservatives' attempts to deal with it. Here's a sample graf:

A more pressing conservative goal during the assassination anniversary has been to try to shield the current American right from any ties to the radical right of the 1950s and 1960s -- the Kennedy-loathing cadres who sped the ascent of the John Birch Society and the Barry Goldwater revolution within the GOP and who helped imbue Dallas with its reputation as a 'city of hate' well before Kennedy was killed there. (Some of these ties are genealogical as well as ideological: the Wichita oil man Fred Koch, a founder of the Birch Society, was the father of David and Charles Koch.) Such a connecting of dots between then and now is infuriating to the contemporary conservative establishment, which wants to maintain that radicalism is and will always be mainly a left-wing phenomenon in America. But these days it's hard to suppress all the evidence to the contrary.

On President's Day, let's hear from Not-President Romney on President Clinton & Not-President Clinton. Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "Mitt Romney believes former President Bill Clinton 'embarrassed the nation' with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but doesn't think it will be a factor in 2016 if Hillary Clinton runs for president. 'I think Hillary Clinton, if she becomes a nominee, will have plenty to discuss about her own record,' Romney said on NBC's 'Meet The Press' on Sunday. 'I don't imagine that Bill Clinton is going to be a big part of it.'"

Larry Summers Speaks English, After All! "The United States may be on course to becoming a 'Downton Abbey' economy.... Those who condemn President Obama's concern about inequality as 'tearing down the wealthy' and un-American populism have, to put it politely, limited historical perspective.... It is not enough to identify policies that would reduce inequality. To be effective, they must also raise the incomes of the middle class and the poor. Tax reform would play a major role here.... Today's tax code allows a far larger share of the income of the rich to escape taxation than the poor or middle class.... Meanwhile, the ratio of corporate tax collections to the market value of U.S. corporations is near a record low, thanks to various loopholes.... It is ironic that those who profess the most enthusiasm for market forces are least enthusiastic about curbing tax benefits for the wealthy."

Paul Krugman: "During the Reagan years..., antitrust policy went into eclipse, and ever since measures of monopoly power, like the extent to which sales in any given industry are concentrated in the hands of a few big companies, have been rising fast.... It's time ... to go back to worrying about monopoly power, which we should have been doing all along. And the first step on the road back from our grand detour on this issue is obvious: Say no to Comcast."

E. J. Dionne: "There is a magnificent public policy that achieves many of the goals conservative politicians regularly extol. These include promoting work over dependency, reducing the cost of social welfare programs, fostering economic growth and strengthening families. The policy in question is raising the minimum wage.... There's a limit to how much taxpayers should be asked to subsidize employers. Lifting the minimum wage would help correct the balance." ...

... Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times: Mega-rich Seattle venture capitalist Nick "Hanauer has become a leading advocate for spiking the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. While that’s unlikely to happen on a national level, Hanauer is part of a panel appointed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray working up a $15-minimum-wage plan for the city."

David Savage: "Companies that make generic drugs, the medications most Americans buy, are fighting to kill a proposed federal regulation that would require them for the first time to warn patients of all the known health risks of each drug they sell." CW: The 5-4 Supreme Court decision -- Mutual Phamaceutical v. Bartlett -- which led to this situation, is here. The conservatives on the Court all signed onto the majority opinion. When you read Savage's story, you will no longer wonder whether or not the conservatives on the Court have elementary reasoning skills. They do not.

New York Times Editors: North Carolina's "Department of Environment and Natural Resources has engaged in a series of maneuvers that seem designed to protect the state's largest utility, Duke Energy, from paying big fines for water pollution from coal ash ponds and meeting reasonable requirements that it move toxic coal ash to lined landfills away from rivers and lakes used for drinking water and recreation.... The recent events in North Carolina provide ample evidence that the E.P.A., which has belatedly agreed to issue a final rule by Dec. 19, should declare coal ash a form of hazardous waste and regulate it stringently."

Paul Campos, in Salon: "The failure to convict Michael Dunn for shooting Jordan Davis to death in the course of an argument over whether the 17-year-old and his friends were playing their car stereo too loudly illustrates that, as a practical matter, hot-blooded murder is often perfectly legal under Florida law -- and that of many other states as well. Criticisms of the jury fail to appreciate that the prosecution was faced with an almost impossible legal burden in this case, and only Dunn's decision to fire three more shots at a fleeing vehicle (after he had already emptied seven of the bullets in the gun's clip when killing Davis) kept him from escaping any punishment at all.... [Stand Your Ground] laws, in effect, put the victim rather than the killer on trial, which is exactly what happened in this case."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress compiles a few lowlights from a Fox "News" panel discussing climate change, which indirectly helps explain why Americans are so stupid about science -- they listen to Fox:

New Jersey News

Shawn Boburg of the Bergen Record: "The Port Authority's executive director on Sunday asked authorities to investigate the involvement of some of the agency's police officers in the George Washington Bridge lane closures. Executive Director Pat Foye's request for an investigation by the Port Authority's inspector general was spurred by two reports on Sunday, including one in The Record [linked in yesterday's Commentariat], that raised new questions about whether some officers at the bridge knew about the political motivations behind the lane closures or were used to deliver a message to the mayor of Fort Lee. The request ... represented a new front amid an ongoing effort by legislators and federal prosecutors to find out who -- besides a deputy chief of staff in Governor Christie's office and a high-ranking Port Authority executive -- knew the true reasons behind lane closures...."

Richard Brodsky in the Star-Ledger: "The interesting question is whether Gov. Chris Christie will survive Bridgegate. The important question is whether the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will survive Bridgegate, and whether it should." A New York State law has reined in state authorities. "The law was written to include the Port Authority, but legally it can take effect there only if both states enact it." New Jersey should do so now. Brodsky, a former New York assemblyman, wrote the state's Public Authorities Reform Act.

** Trick o' Chrisco. Elizabeth Drew in the NYRB: Chris Christie appears to be using Dick Nixon's playbook: setting up the "issue" surrounding Bridgegate & other scandals as being nothing more than answering the question, "What did he know & when did he know it?" "But this isn't really the issue. The issue is whether the governor can be held accountable for what happened at very high levels in his administration.... There is much still to be discovered, and the full extent of his administration's dealings on the bridge and the use of Sandy money and perhaps issues still unknown should be exposed. It would be an historic mistake, and one with national implications, if the issue of accountability were narrowed down to simply what Governor Christie knew and when."

Elsewhere Beyond the Beltway

Erik Schelzig & Tom Krisher of the AP: "Now that workers have rejected the UAW in a close vote, attention turns to whether the GOP can fulfill its promises that keeping the union out means more jobs will come rolling in.... On the first of three days of voting at the Chattanooga plant, U.S. Sen. Bob Corker all but guaranteed the German automaker would announce within two weeks of a union rejection that it would build a new midsized sport utility vehicle at its only U.S. factory instead of sending the work to Mexico.... Union leaders said after the vote that the senator's statements -- coming in concert with threats from state lawmakers to torpedo state incentives if the UAW won -- played a key role in the vote."

News Ledes

New York Times: "An environmental activist critical of the Olympic Games who was sentenced to three years in prison last week has gone on a hunger strike, members of a public oversight committee who met with him in jail said Monday. Yevgeny Vitishko, a member of the Environmental Watch on the North Caucasus, a regional environmental activism group, has refused food since Feb. 11, calling his sentence politically motivated..., a member of the oversight committee, confirmed."

Guardian: "North Korea's leadership is committing systematic and appalling human rights abuses against its own citizens on a scale unparalleled in the modern world, including crimes against humanity, a United Nations report has concluded. The UN's commission of inquiry on human rights in North Korea has been gathering evidence for almost a year -- including in an unprecedented series of public hearings in four cities around the world, which heard sometimes harrowing testimony from North Korean escapees. Its report cited the country's system of secret prison camps, deliberate starvation and a complete lack of free thought as among probable crimes against humanity." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "A United Nations panel has served notice to Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, that he may be personally held liable in court for crimes against humanity committed by state institutions and officials under his direct control. A letter conveying this notice forms part of a report by the panel to the United Nations Human Rights Council, released on Monday after a yearlong investigation."

Guardian: "John Kerry has accused the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, of stonewalling in peace talks and called on Russia to push its ally to negotiate with opposition leaders."

The Commentariat -- Feb. 16, 2014

** Dana Milbank: As Senate GOP leaders Mitch McConnell & John Cornyn abored desperately to drum up enough Republican votes to overcome a filibuster & save the nation from financial disaster, "Watching the chaos from the side of the chamber was the man who caused it: [Ted] Cruz, his hands in his pants pockets and a satisfied grin on his face. The Texas Republican strolled to the clerk's table to check on the vote count and was met with a look of disgust from Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). And the feeling was widespread: Moments after Cruz walked into the Republican cloakroom, four senators emerged from it and changed their votes to 'aye.' Cruz reemerged from the cloakroom, chewing gum, his hands again in his pockets. He smirked as his colleagues finally overcame his filibuster after a ­59-minute struggle.... Cruz has put himself before his party and even the nation's solvency. And in this sense his actions are typical of the 2016 GOP presidential field. Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Rand Paul are mucking up the gears of government in ways that will earn them favorable attention in the primaries."

** Thomas Frank, the author of What's the Matter with Kansas, in Salon: Here's what's the matter; Democratic elites let Kansas happen. ...

... Dan Balz & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post on the divisions in the Democratic party. CW Warning: Anything Dan Balz writes is bound to be peppered with stupid, not to mention he-said/she-said. Nonetheless, since he & Rucker cite a number of he's & she's, you should be able to sift & winnow out something informative from this piece. Moreover, some of these useful tidbits shine some light (hmmm, illuminating tidbits -- good example of a mixed metaphor, that) on Frank's piece, linked above.

Donna Cassata of the AP: "House Democrats are determined to cast an election-year spotlight on Republican opposition to raising the minimum wage and overhauling immigration laws. To try to accomplish that in the GOP-controlled House, Democrats are planning to rely on an infrequently used, rarely successful tactic known as a 'discharge petition.'" CW: Not news; we covered this here a couple of days ago, but I'm always glad to see stories like this make it into newspapers throughout the country.

James Risen of the New York Times & Laura Poitras: "A top-secret document, obtained by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, shows that an American law firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States. The disclosure offers a rare glimpse of a specific instance in which Americans were ensnared by the eavesdroppers, and is of particular interest because lawyers in the United States with clients overseas have expressed growing concern that their confidential communications could be compromised by such surveillance."

Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "... with a coming rush of [50-year] anniversaries of the legislative milestones of the Johnson presidency — [President Johnson's daughter Luci Baines] Johnson and the diminishing circle of family and friends from those White House years ... are seeking a reconsideration of Johnson's legacy as president, arguing that it has been overwhelmed by the tragedy of the Vietnam War, and has failed to take into account the blizzard of domestic legislation enacted in the five years Johnson was in the White House." With video.

AFP: "US secretary of state John Kerry will on Sunday issue a clarion call for the world to do to more to combat climate change, warning the planet is being pushed to 'a tipping point of no return'. In his keynote speech the top US diplomat will highlight the fact that Asian nations, many of them low-lying, are particularly under threat from rising sea levels. 'Kerry will call on the global community, not just countries but individual citizens around the world, to do more now because addressing the threat of climate change will require a global solution,' a senior state department official said." ...

... Jean-Louie Santini of AFP: "A warmer Arctic could permanently affect the pattern of the high-altitude polar jet stream, resulting in longer and colder winters over North America and northern Europe, US scientists say.... According to Jennifer Francis, a climate expert at Rutgers University, the Arctic air has warmed in recent years as a result of melting polar ice caps, meaning there is now less of a difference in temperatures when it hits air from lower latitudes."

... CW: Good luck explaining that to these people ...

... American Exceptionalism, Ctd. AFP: "Americans are enthusiastic about the promise of science but lack basic knowledge of it, with one in four unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun, said a poll out Friday." ...

... CW: I wonder why Americans are so ignorant of elementary science ...

... Dylan Scott of TPM: "A Missouri lawmaker has proposed what ranks among the most anti-evolution legislation in recent years, which would require school to notify parents if the theory of evolution by natural selection was being taught at their child's school and give them the opportunity to opt out of the class.... 'It's an absolute infringement on people's beliefs,' [State Rep. Rick] Brattin [R] told the Kansas City Star of requiring schools to teach evolution. 'What's being taught is just as much faith and, you know, just as much pulled out of the air as, say, any religion.'" The bill also provides that parent's can remove their children "from any part of the district's or school's evolution instruction." CW: Hey, at least Brattin realizes that religion is "pulled out of the air."

Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action: "Stand Your Ground laws put our children, families, and communities at risk because they give everyday, untrained citizens more leeway to shoot than the United States military gives soldiers in war zones. Children -- like Jordan Davis -- who may simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time are now more likely to die at the hands of the armed and angry.... Research indicates that Stand Your Ground laws embolden people to shoot.... After Florida passed its Stand Your Ground law, its justifiable homicide rate tripled. Over the same time period, the justifiable homicide rate decreased in states that did not pass Stand Your Ground laws. This increase in homicides due to Stand Your Ground laws disproportionately affects communities of color. The Urban Institute found that when white shooters kill black victims, the resulting homicides are 11 times more likely to be deemed justifiable than when the shooter is black and the victim is white.... Texas A&M researchers found no evidence that Stand Your Ground laws deter crime." ...

Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "I wish I had something more to say about the fact that Michael Dunn was not convicted for killing a black boy. Except I said it after George Zimmerman was not convicted of killing a black boy. Except the parents of black boys already know this. Except the parents of black boys have long said this, and they have been answered with mockery." ...

... If you believe Michael Dunn's long-time neighbor, & his account sounds credible, then you will get some insight into the type of person who is disposed to murder a teenager for playing loud music. Via Susie Madrak of Crooks & Liars:

... AND there's this. Nicolle Flatow of Think Progress (February 4): "Letters by Dunn from jail released this week by the State's Attorney's Office reveal disturbing racial animus." ...

... Flatow: "The letters did not come into play during trial. But they reveal the sort of racial undertones that have been prominent in many Stand Your Ground cases. One study found that white defendants with black victims are far more likely to have their killings deem 'justified' under the Stand Your Ground law." ...

... Paresh Dave of the Los Angeles Times: "George Zimmerman, the 30-year-old Floridian acquitted last year of murdering Trayvon Martin, says he's homeless, jobless and struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Zimmerman made these comments in an interview with Spanish-language television network Univision that's scheduled to air at 7 p.m. Sunday...."

New Jersey News

Steve Kornacki & Brian Murphy of NBC News: "A Port Authority police officer with personal ties to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was at the George Washington Bridge when access lanes were closed last September and personally drove David Wildstein, the Christie appointee who supervised the closings, on a tour of the area as traffic brought it to a standstill. Documents submitted to a New Jersey legislative committee by Wildstein also show that the officer, Lieutenant Thomas 'Chip' Michaels, appears to have sent periodic text messages to Wildstein updating him on the effects of the lane closures and their crippling impact on the town of Fort Lee.... In 2010, a Newark Star-Ledger article described the Christie-Michaels family friendship as one that has endured for decades." Michaels' brother Jeffrey Michaels is a lobbyist with an extensive web of ties to Christie. ...

... Erin O'Neill of the Star-Ledger: "Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) said on [Kornacki's MSNBC] program that what this speaks of is the growing number of people who had some knowledge of the lane closures 'that have some tie to the governor's office or the governor himself. It really increases the number of people that seem to have some knowledge and it certainly fuels the skepticism that many have had about the governor's timeline and when he knew.' Wisniewski is leading the legislative probe into the lane closures." ...

... Mike Kelly of the Bergen Record: "Why were some frustrated motorists trapped in gridlock near the bridge last September told by Port Authority police to take their complaints to the mayor of Fort Lee? ... In numerous cases, say drivers, Fort Lee officials and others familiar with the situation, aggravated motorists were told by Port Authority police officers at the scene that they should call the mayor or borough officials.... A special state legislative committee examining the scandal now plans to investigate whether the call-the-mayor instructions were really a way of getting the message to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich.... 'It appears that someone issued instructions or talking points,' said Assemblyman John Wisniewski.... 'Someone orchestrated that.'"

Tom Sherman of the Star-Ledger: "Millions of dollars in federal housing aid meant for victims of Hurricane Sandy went to projects in counties far removed from those areas most impacted by the storm, an analysis of state data shows. Nearly a third of the money -- $47.6 million, earmarked for new affordable housing projects -- landed in Essex and Middlesex counties, while many hard-hit Jersey Shore communities in Ocean saw relatively little of it."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender former member of the Italian Parliament, was detained by Russian authorities Sunday after holding up a sign that read, 'Gay is OK,' in the Olympic Park, the leader of an Italian gay-rights group said. Luxuria, who is also a television host, had said she was attending the Olympics with the intention of challenging a Russian law banning 'propaganda' on nontraditional sexual relationships, and she was detained after holding up the sign, which was written in Russian."

New York Times: "President Obama on Sunday condemned a measure to criminalize homosexuality in Uganda, publicly warning the country's president that such discrimination could harm its relationship with the United States. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda signaled on Friday that he was likely to sign a bill that would punish the 'the promotion or recognition' of same-sex relations with as much as life in prison."

AP: "Defence lawyers in the trial of the ousted Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi have walked out of court in protest over the soundproof glass cage in which defendants are placed, Egypt's state television reported."