The Commentariat -- Dec. 29, 2013

NEW: AFP: "The US National Security Agency has collected sensitive data on key telecommunications cables between Europe, north Africa and Asia, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday citing classified documents. Spiegel quoted NSA papers dating from February and labelled 'top secret' and 'not for foreigners' describing the agency's success in spying on the so-called Sea-Me-We 4 undersea cable system." ...

... The full Der Spiegel article (in English) is here. It covers other aspects of super-duper hacking done by an NSA unit called "Tailored Access Operations."

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times has a Big Piece on Benghazi! ...

... Driftglass: "The New York Times just pulverized any last remnants of the wingnut fairy tale of Benghaaaaazi! But before you get too excited, do not for one minute imagine this will trigger a sudden outbreak of Conservative self-awareness." ...

... Yes, because there will always be Louie Gohmert.

Ernesto Londoño, et al., of the Washington Post: "A new American intelligence assessment on the Afghan war predicts that the gains the United States and its allies have made during the past three years are likely to have been significantly eroded by 2017, even if Washington leaves behind a few thousand troops and continues bankrolling the impoverished nation, according to officials familiar with the report." ...

... See Jeffrey Goldberg, August 2008. Also, Herman Melville, 1851.

Alice Marwick in the New York Review of Books: "... private companies systematically collect very personal information, from who you are, to what you do, to what you buy. Data about your online and offline behavior are combined, analyzed, and sold to marketers, corporations, governments, and even criminals. The scope of this collection, aggregation, and brokering of information is similar to, if not larger than, that of the NSA, yet it is almost entirely unregulated and many of the activities of data-mining and digital marketing firms are not publicly known at all."

The Pope of Janesville. Joan Walsh of Salon: As he prepares his new campaign to "help" he poor, Altar Boy Paul Ryan laments Pope Francis's ignorance of matters economic: "'The guy is from Argentina, they haven't had real capitalism in Argentina,' Ryan said (referring to the pope as 'the guy' is a nice folksy touch.) 'They have crony capitalism in Argentina. They don't have a true free enterprise system.'"

Lena Sun & Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post have a moving piece on people who are delighted to get health insurance coverage under the ACA.

Sean McElwee of the Atlantic: Vermont is finding out that switching to more-or-less a single-payer health insurance system is mighty difficult, too, even in a state as small, homogeneous & liberal as Vermont. Although the concept was signed into law in 2011, Jonathan Gruber -- who helped develop both the Massachusetts & U.S. plans -- says, “There is no Vermont plan. There are Vermont ideas, but there is no Vermont plan."

CW: Ross Douthat does a self-audit, which makes me like him a little better. Probably we could find more Mistakes Ross Made, but that would mean reading his columns. I would do one myself, except I can't recall all the stupid stuff I said. (Perhaps you'll want to remind me.) ...

... Here's Dave Weigel's "Everything I got wrong this year," which Douthat links.

... Not everybody admits his mistakes:

"The Year of the Weasel." Paul Krugman: "... we've now seen that one side of the debate [over monetary policy] not only refuses to take evidence into account, but tries to dodge personal responsibility for getting it wrong. This has gone from a test of ideas to a test of character, and a lot of people failed."

"Money Talks." Before we bid adieu to the "Duck Dynasty" clan, let give Driftglass the last word, the word which puts this squalid story in perspective: "Obviously, as 25 years of Rush Limbaugh has demonstrated, you can haul the poo-flingingest, bigoted loudmouth out of the dankest wingnut watering hole in America and stick a microphone in front of him, and nothing he says or does -- no matter how offensive or untrue -- will earn him more than token slap on the wrist just as long as he can generate ad revenue and hold an audience. So nothing new there. What is mildly interesting is the curve on which those wrist-slaps are graded." ...

... CW: After today, you will have to satisfy your thirst for "Duck Dynasty" news elsewhere, unless we learn that Phil has a black boyfriend, a development that will raise in me a brief stirring of schadenfreude somewhat vitiated by my sympathy for the young man.

Money Talks, Ctd. Tal Kopan of Politico: The right-wing bill mill ALEC has moved "toward greater openness ... in the wake of dozens of corporate members pulling out earlier this year after ALEC was drawn into the Martin case. By some estimates, as many as 400 lawmakers and 60 companies, including brand names like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and McDonald's, bolted. But critics say the transparency effort is a smokescreen, and they charge that ALEC remains the same corporate-driven 'bill mill' designed to push right-wing business interests in statehouses with as little notice as possible."

Local News

Ken Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times: "... at Shooters World, a Tampa-based temple of American gun culture..., about 50 people took turns on a recent Saturday firing pistols, military assault weapons, an Uzi machine gun and a .50-caliber sniper rifle. It was a charity event called Shooting With SOF, which stands for special operations forces. Organizers say they have raised $75,000 for military and veterans causes by allowing car dealers, insurance brokers, makeup artists and other ordinary folks to live out fantasies firing some of the world's deadliest guns while being tutored by 20 current and former commandos -- seasoned, seen-it-all veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and places they can't talk about." CW: The geniuses who participated in this event used the word "badass" a lot. I myself cannot think of a better way to show my charitable heart than by shooting & "reveling in the gun's destructive power."

News Ledes

AFP: "An Australian icebreaker was Monday battling against bad weather to reach a ship carrying a scientific expedition stranded off Antarctica, leaving open the possibility of a helicopter evacuation, authorities said."

AP: "Dozens of lawsuits seeking damages from the federal government for Hurricane Katrina-related levee failures and flooding in the New Orleans area are over. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. has dismissed the cases. The move comes more than a year after a federal appeals court overturned his ruling that held the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers liable for flooding caused by lax maintenance of a shipping channel."

New York Times: "The detention of four American military personnel in Libya on Friday was preceded by a confrontation at a checkpoint in which gunshots were fired and a vehicle was damaged, a witness in Libya and an Obama administration official said on Saturday."

AFP: "At least 18 people were killed and dozens injured Sunday when a suicide bomber blew herself up in a train station in the Russian city of Volgograd ahead of February's Olympic Games in nearby Sochi. Regional officials said the woman set off her charge near the metal detectors stationed at the entrance to the city's main train station while it was packed with afternoon travellers."

AFP: "The Israeli military fired a barrage of shells into southern Lebanon in retaliation after five Katyusha-style rockets were launched against the Jewish state on Sunday, officials said. The attacks struck uninhabited areas of both Israel and Lebanon without causing any casualties or damage, officials on both sides said."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 28, 2013

Michael Schmidt & Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "A federal judge in New York on Friday ruled that the National Security Agency's program that is systematically keeping phone records of all Americans is lawful, creating a conflict among lower courts and increasing the likelihood that the issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court. In the ruling, Judge William H. Pauley III, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted a motion filed by the federal government to dismiss a challenge to the program brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had tried to halt the program. Judge Pauley said that protections under the Fourth Amendment do not apply to records held by third parties, like phone companies." CW: Pauley is a Clinton appointee. ...

... New York Times Editors: "The ruling, which repeatedly defers to the government's benign characterization of its own surveillance programs, demonstrates once more the importance of fixing the law at its source, rather than waiting for further interpretations by higher courts." ...

... Charles Pierce: "The subtext of what [Judge Pauley] is saying is simply that terrorists from 'a seventh-century milieu' -- actually, strip clubs in Tampa and an apartment in Hamburg -- have rendered the Fourth Amendment obsolete in a dangerous and interconnected world, and that only our all-too-human, and curiously error-prone, heroes of the surveillance state can keep us safe. Oh, and also, we common folk shouldn't ever have known about this anyway.

It cannot possibly be that lawbreaking conduct by a government contractor that reveals state secrets -- including the means and methods of intelligence gathering -- could frustrate Congress' intent. -- Judge William Pauley, in his opinion on NSA phone-records collection

     ... Thanks to James S. for the link.

... Pierce is also incensed about what he describes as numerous instances of infringement of First Amendment rights by "law enforcement in the service of corporate interests.... That, my friends, is how you seriously abridge freedom of speech in this country. You take someone with an explicitly political message who commits a specifically political act and you throw him in jail for having committed it." CW: While I appreciate Pierce's sentiments, I think Pierce is wrong about this, as I'll elaborate in the Comments. I'll expect blowback & would especially appreciate it coming from a Constitutional lawyer.

Caren Bohan of Reuters: "On the eve of the expiration of federal benefits for the long-term unemployed, U.S. President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies are stepping up pressure on Republicans to renew the program. Top White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said in a statement issued on Friday that a failure to renew emergency jobless benefits would harm the economy and he urged Congress to move quickly to pass a short-term extension of the aid. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, has vowed to bring to a vote a bill extending federal unemployment insurance benefits as soon as Congress returns from its holiday recess...." ...

... Ryan Cooper in the Washington Post: "I've been ragging on the centrist brigades lately, even suggesting that their newfound focus on job growth might not be 100% sincere. But if they'll mobilize fully behind an extension of unemployment insurance, I'll eat my words. This is a simple, cheap issue that will concretely help some of our most vulnerable fellow citizens. So how about it, Third Way?" ...

... Let Them Eat Walnuts. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post takes a charitable view of Congress -- the poor things just don't know how to budget: "... sequestration [is] a policy that -- at least in theory -- cut the good and the bad equally. That created odd contrasts: Meals on Wheels was cut, and Army units reduced training; Washington kept paying for dubious expenses such as a plane that didn't fly, an airport with no passengers and farm subsidies in Manhattan. And a private industry's 'spokes-squirrel.' This month, Congress canceled sequestration's across-the-board cuts and gave itself another chance to demonstrate that legislators can make smarter, more judicious cuts. But so far, it has mainly demonstrated the power of old Washington habits, the political reflexes that make cutting government so hard." CW: If an inability to budget is Congress's problem, how come they have no trouble slashing programs to help the needy but rally 'round a program that is supposed to help wealthy walnut growers but has no proven effect?

New Yorker: "... Hendrik Hertzberg and Ryan Lizza join host Dorothy Wickenden to take a look back at the year in politics, with a particular focus on the news we can be happy about":

AP: "The number of reported sexual assaults across the U.S. military shot up by more than 50 percent this year, an increase that defense officials say may suggest that victims are becoming more willing to come forward. A tumultuous year of scandals shined a spotlight on the crimes and put pressure on the military to take aggressive action. According to early data obtained by The Associated Press, more than 5,000 reports of sexual assault were filed during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, compared to the 3,374 in 2012."

New York Times Editors: "Even if the new defense bill spurs progress in reducing the detainee population, the delivery of credible justice for those at the Guantánamo prison camp is far from complete."

David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "... interviews with dozens of academics and traders, and a review of hundreds of emails and other documents involving two highly visible professors in the commodities field -- [Professor Craig] Pirrong [of the University of Houston] and Professor Scott H. Irwin at the University of Illinois -- show how major players on Wall Street and elsewhere have been aggressive in underwriting and promoting academic work [that benefits the businesses]. The efforts by the financial players, the interviews show, are part of a sweeping campaign to beat back regulation and shape policies that affect the prices that people around the world pay for essentials like food, fuel and cotton."

Illustration by Dale Stephanos for the Washington Post.Dave Barry's year in review, in the Washington Post Magazine: "It was the Year of the Zombies. Not in the sense of most of humanity dying from a horrible plague and then reanimating as mindless flesh-eating ghouls.... As bad as a zombie apocalypse would be, at least it wouldn't involve the resurrection of Anthony Weiner's most private part."

Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "The Small Business Administration is moving to ban one of the government's most prominent small-business contractors from new federal work, saying that the firm provided false information about its ownership and operations, documents show. The SBA said it has information showing that Tysons Corner-based MicroTechnologies LLC and its founder, Anthony R. Jimenez, submitted 'false and misleading statements' in order to receive preferential treatment, according to a Dec. 20 letter from the agency to the company."

Patricia Murphy of the Daily Beast: "If Ted Cruz seems like a one-of-a-kind, give it time. A slew of young, hard-charging, Tea Party-endorsed Senate wannabes is looking to knock off the Republican establishment again in 2014. Some have better chances than others, but all have the unmistakable Cruzian commitment to refusing to toe the Republican Party line and make headlines while doing it." Murphy introduces us to the Cruz clones.

Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker: "Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, one of the most remarkable figures in the modern Middle East, is fast discovering that the authoritarian measures he has increasingly relied on to govern Turkey, and the cult of personality he has built around himself, are conspiring to bring about his political demise.... In recent years, intoxicated by his own ascent, Erdoğan began to act like a leader who believed that Turkey's success and his own could not be separated. " CW: Just another NonMandela. And a reminder we should be grateful for the 22nd Amendment.

Will This Story End Now? Please. Reuters: "Cable network A&E said on Friday it was bringing back family patriarch Phil Robertson to the hit reality show 'Duck Dynasty' after fans protested his suspension over anti-gay remarks and big-name corporate sponsors stuck by the series." ...

... Dave Nemetz of Yahoo! News: "Conservative groups that called for Robertson's reinstatement are applauding the move...." CW: Some of those "conservatives applauding the move" are probably unemployed people who will lose their benefits today & their food stamps tomorrow. Yep, it's more important to them that a crude rich guy keeps his job than that they themselves have enough to survive. People are stoopid. ...

... Richard Kim of the Nation: "... Duck Dynasty should get real. It should show Robertson being as homophobic as he pleases, in his home, his church, his community. The show's editors have previously been criticized for asking Robertson to not say 'Jesus' at the end of his prayers; they should now let him get his Jesus freak on.... And, as long as the show's producers 'guide' reality along, they should film Robertson interacting with actual gay people." CW: AND "actual black people," too, of the sort who sing the blues.

Local News

John Ingold of the Denver Post: "Denver's first recreational marijuana store owners picked up their city licenses Friday, the final step before opening on Jan. 1 among the first shops in the world approved to sell pot to all adults."

Marissa Lang of the Salt Lake Tribune: "In the week since a federal judge overturned Utah's ban on same-sex marriage, the number of weddings in the state has skyrocketed, shattering records and accruing thousands of dollars for Utah's 29 counties. As of close of business Thursday, more than 1,225 marriage licenses had been issued in Utah since last Friday, according to numbers obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune. Of those, at least 74 percent were issued to gay and lesbian couples." ...

... Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune: "The state of Utah has turned to outside counsel for help with its efforts to stop same-sex marriages, a move the office said Thursday would temporarily delay its application for a stay to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Attorney General's Office planned to file a stay request Thursday but said the application would be made on Friday or Monday as it coordinates with the outside firm, which it has not yet identified.... The stay appeal will be made to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is assigned oversight of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals."

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: Johnnie R. Williams, Sr., "the businessman at the heart of a federal investigation into Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R), stepped down Friday as chief executive of Star Scientific Inc., the dietary supplement maker. The company has also been given permission by stockholders to look at changing its name, indicating that it might ditch Star Scientific Inc. in favor of Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals Inc."

News Ledes

CNN: Former President Bill Clinton will swear in New York City Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio on January 1.

New York Times: "Four American military personnel assigned to the United States Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, were detained Friday and then released after being held for hours by the country's Interior Ministry, American officials said. The four were believed to have been reviewing potential evacuation routes for diplomats when they were detained...."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 27, 2013

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Obama signed a sweeping defense policy law here Thursday that cracks down on sexual assault in the military and eases restrictions on transferring detainees from the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the custody of foreign countries." ...

... Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama has signed a bill that provides a broad outline for the federal budget through 2015 and eases some of sequestration's cuts, the White House said Thursday." ...

... Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "With the next budget deadline just weeks away, top lawmakers said this week that they had made significant progress negotiating a huge government-wide spending bill that gives the once mighty congressional Appropriations Committees an opportunity to reassert control over the flow of federal dollars."

Peter Whoriskey & Dan Keating of the Washington Post: "... over the past decade, the number of 'hospice survivors' in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren't actually dying, a Washington Post investigation has found. Healthier patients are more profitable because they require fewer visits and stay enrolled longer.... For five years, Medicare's watchdog group has been recommending that the payments to hospice companies be revised to eliminate the financial incentive for improper care, but Medicare has not yet done so." CW: I don't know what Kathleen Sebelius has been doing in Washington, but I know what she hasn't been doing -- her job. ...

... MEANWHILE, over at Veterans' Affairs, Secretary Eric Shinseki is right proud that the claims backlog is way down "to 722,013, from a high of 883,930 in July 2012." CW: Maybe Shinseki spends too much time partying with Sebelius. These people embarrass me.

Phillip Longman & Paul Hewitt in the Washington Monthly: "A frenzy of hospital mergers could leave the typical American family spending 50 percent of its income on health care within ten years -- and blaming the Democrats. The solution requires banning price discrimination by monopolistic hospitals." ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The enrollment figures may be well short of what the Obama administration had hoped for. But the fact that a significant number of Americans are now benefiting from the program is resulting in a subtle shift among Republicans." CW: "A subtle shift"? Read the story. The usual sound & fury, if you ask me.

Tracy Jan of the Boston Globe: "Even as President Obama's health insurance website limps to recovery, at least two states that used the same contractor and are still plagued with malfunctions -- Massachusetts and Vermont -- are taking preliminary steps to recoup taxpayer dollars. Massachusetts officials are reviewing legal options against CGI Group, a Montreal-based information technology company, and will make recommendations on how to seek financial redress at a Jan. 9 meeting."

Paul Krugman: High unemployment benefits the corporation at the expense of workers, which could explain why Republicans don't care about the unemployed & why populist goals are dependent upon jobs creation.

Theda Skocpol in the Atlantic on why the Tea Party will remain a strong force in GOP politics.

AND the Winner Is.... Glenn Greenwald easily bests Tom Coburn in NBC News's "Worst Guest of the Week" competition. (Coburn's entry here.)

Katherine Skiba of the Chicago Tribune has a profile of Michelle Obama at age 50. Obama's birthday in January 17.

CW: Here's the news from Right Wing World, & the level of craziness is alarming. The Washington Examiner is not the looniest of right-wing rags, but here's what the Examiner's regular columnist Paul Bedard writes: "A top financial advisor, [David Marotta,] worried that Obamacare, the NSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a 'bug-out bag' that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive. David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, said in a note to investors, 'Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.'" ...

... According to Jordan Weissman of the Atlantic, one of the teensy problems with Bedard's report is that Marotta was only kidding. "... most of [what Marotta says] seems to be fairly tongue-in-cheek material aimed at talking potential clients down from investing in some of the crazy, survivalist scams advertised on conservative talk radio. And the first scam on his agenda? Plowing all your money into gold, of course."

News Ledes

AP: "Target said Friday that debit-card PINs were among the financial information stolen from millions of customers who shopped at the retailer earlier this month. The company said the stolen personal identification numbers, which customers type into keypads to make secure transactions, were encrypted and that this strongly reduces risk to customers. In addition to the encrypted PINs, customer names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates and the embedded code on the magnetic strip on back of the cards were stolen from about 40 million credit and debit cards used at Target stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15."

Hartford Courant: "State police released thousands of investigative documents related to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre Friday. The more than 6,500 pages is heavily redacted with witness statements from some of the 12 children who survived the massacre partially blacked out. The release closes the state police investigation.... State police also released 911 calls that they received on cell phones including two from inside the school as the shooting was taking place."

New York Times: "India's diplomatic corps, still seething over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York, continued its tit-for-tat campaign against American diplomats this week, revoking privileges, beginning tax investigations and issuing new consular identity cards that say the card holder can be arrested for serious offenses."

New York Times: "A long-simmering dispute between the United States and Japan over the fate of a Marine base on Okinawa seemed to have been resolved on Friday when the governor of the prefecture gave his approval to move the base to a remote area." ...

     ... AFP Update: "Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel on Friday praised a decision by Japanese officials to allow the relocation of a US air base in Okinawa, calling it a 'milestone' for relations with Tokyo."

New York Times: "Just a day after Egypt's military-backed government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, a more aggressive crackdown was already emerging Thursday, as the authorities announced dozens of arrests across the country, and the seizure of land, stocks and vehicles belonging to the Islamist movement's members."

AP: "A powerful bombing rocked a central business district of central Beirut[, Lebanon,] Friday, setting cars ablaze and killing five people, including a senior aide to former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, officials said. The National News Agency said Mohammed Chatah and his driver were both killed in the explosion, which wounded more than 70 others."

Guardian: "African leaders who met in South Sudan to try to mediate a conflict that threatens to unravel the world's newest country said talks had been 'promising' but admitted that it was not clear when a ceasefire might be agreed. Following nearly two weeks of fighting which has left thousands dead, a high-level delegation including the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and Ethiopia's prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, landed in the capital Juba to meet President Salva Kiir on Thursday."

Times-Picayune: "A shooting spree Thursday night (Dec. 26) in Lafourche Parish left four people dead, including the suspected gunman, according to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office. The dead include a Lafourche Parish councilman's wife, the suspect's wife, an Ochsner St. Anne General Hospital administrator as well as the suspect, the Sheriff's Office said."

Times-Picayune: "Authorities continued searching Thursday night for the person they believe opened fire in a crowd of nearly 75 people outside of an Olde Towne bar, killing two and injuring six others. Slidell Police Chief Randy Smith said at a news conference Thursday that police have identified a potential suspect, but would not release any information...."

AP: "Thailand's army chief on Friday urged both sides in the country's bitter political dispute to show restraint, but did not explicitly rule out the possibility of a coup."

Reuters: "Six more of the 30 Greenpeace activists arrested in a protest over Arctic oil drilling left Russia on Friday after being granted an amnesty, the environmental group said."