The Commentariat -- July 19, 2013

Another day with no postings, although it's possible I'll be able to do something very late today. Sorry about that. -- Not-So-Constant Weader ...

... I will leave you with this "reason to smile":

Karen Bates of NPR: "In late July 1973, Joseph Crachiola was wandering the streets of Mount Clemens, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, with his camera. As a staff photographer for the Macomb Daily, he was expected to keep an eye out for good feature images — 'those little slices of life that can stand on their own.' The slice of life he caught that day was a picture of five young friends in a rain-washed alley in downtown Mount Clemens. And what distinguishes it are its subjects: three black children, two white ones, giggling in each others' arms." Crachiola posted the photo on his Facebook page Sunday, after the Zimmerman verdict. It has gone viral.

News Lede

New York Times: "After a long-running investigation into insider trading at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, an inquiry that has produced several guilty pleas and a record $616 million civil penalty, the government on Friday brought a case for the first time against the fund’s billionaire owner, Steven A. Cohen."

The Commentariat -- July 18, 2013

James Risen of the New York Times: "The Obama administration faced a growing Congressional backlash against the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operations on Wednesday, as lawmakers from both parties called for the vast collection of private data on millions of Americans to be scaled back. During a sometimes contentious hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans and Democrats told administration officials that they believed the government had exceeded the surveillance authorities granted by Congress, and warned that they were unlikely to be reauthorized in the future." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed. John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform 'a second or third hop query' through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations. 'Hops' refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with." ...

... Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Millions of Americans are having their movements tracked through automated scanning of their car license plates, with the records held often indefinitely in vast government and private databases. A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union has found an alarming proliferation of databases across the US storing details of Americans' locations. The technology is not confined to government agencies -- private companies are also getting in on the act, with one firm National Vehicle Location Service holding more than 800m records of scanned license plates."

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), will be just one of several witnesses at a Thursday hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, but he will likely command the spotlight. That's because over the past few weeks, George has come under increased scrutiny for his report on the IRS' screening of groups applying for tax-exempt status."

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: "The 112th Congress got less done than any Congress in more than six decades."

Laura Kellman of the AP: "The House Republican sponsor of the Voting Rights Act updates said Wednesday that Congress must pass a new anti-discrimination law before the 2014 elections that restores the federal supervision the Supreme Court struck down in June. 'The Supreme Court said it's an obligation of Congress to do this. That's a command of a separate but co-equal branch of government to do that,' Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., told reporters Wednesday after urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to get moving on the issue." CW: I don't foresee any problems with getting it done. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? ...

... Adam Serwer of NBC News: "Shortly after the Supreme Court gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act, Republican Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona told Politico that the best way to handle the ruling was to keep a low profile.... But keeping a low profile may be difficult for Franks, who chairs the subcommittee tasked with crafting the new voting legislation. In a 2010 interview, Franks claimed that African-Americans were better off under slavery than today because more black children are aborted now than in that era.... Franks also has a history of opposition to the Voting Rights Act, in 2006 he was one of 33 Republicans who voted against reauthorization the act -- which passed Congress overwhelmingly and was signed by President George W. Bush."

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are readying a flurry of bills in response to George Zimmerman's acquittal on charges in last year's fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin. The lawmakers are drafting proposals intended to rein in racial profiling; scrap state stand-your-ground laws; and promote better training for the nation's neighborhood watch volunteers, among other anti-violence measures."

In the courtroom, it's called profiling. In the real world, it's called common sense. -- Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Kathleen Parker ...

... Hamilton Nolan of Gawker: "One might imagine that after everyone in America who is not a white supremacist slammed Richard Cohen's blatantly bigoted racial profiling apologia yesterday, the WaPo's op-ed editors might think twice before publishing yet another inane and bigoted racial profiling apologia by a clueless white columnist today. Not so! Today, blonde upper middle class white woman Kathleen Parker steps up to once again justify the shooting of an innocent black teenager -- while couching this justification, of course, in the language of sympathy and realism." ...

... CW: in the minds of Kathleen Parker & George Zimmerman, black = suspicious. AND Parker, Pulitzer Prize-winner & all, gives you permission -- nay, urges you to use your common sense & -- to regard every black teenager as suspicious. The Washington Post, which does business in a majority-black city, thinks it's fine to publish this crap, day after day.

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Wednesday passed bills delaying two crucial parts of his health care overhaul that require most Americans to have insurance and many employers to offer it." ...

... Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post explains why health insurance rates for individuals living in New York state will likely plummet under ObamaCare. ...

... Paul Krugman: "... unless the GOP finds even more ways to sabotage [ObamaCare], this thing is going to work, it's going to be extremely popular, and it's going to wreak havoc with conservative ideology."

Tom Edsall of the New York Times: even Republicans realize the Republican party is no longer a mainstream party.

Congressional Race

Gail Collins: "'Over the last several years, citizens across our great state have urged me to consider running for the Senate,' Liz Cheney said.... But a couple of problems with that statement. One is that Cheney only moved to Wyoming last fall, so people were apparently begging her to represent them while she was there on vacation."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The military judge in the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning is expected to decide Thursday whether to drop a charge accusing Private Manning of 'aiding the enemy' that could put him in prison for life. Civil liberties advocates said the judge's decision could set a precedent for whistle-blowers who leak information that gets posted on the Internet."

Washington Post: "A judge in the city of Kirov Thursday found Russia's most effective anti-corruption campaigner and opposition leader guilty of stealing about half a million dollars from a timber company, and then sent shock waves throughout the country by sentencing him to five years in prison. Alexei Navalny, a 37-year-old with a penchant for exposes and cutting jibes, has said since before his trial began in April that he expected to be convicted on what he and his legions of supporters contend are trumped-up charges."

The Commentariat -- July 17, 2013

Interesting comments yesterday. Mostly.

Roni Rabin & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: "Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect, state officials are to announce on Wednesday. State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower." CW: people who live in states that refuse to cooperate with the ACA of course will not reap the benefits of the subsidies, though they can buy into insurance through a federally-facilitated exchange. If you're not sure what your state is up to, this site will help. ...

... AND Republicans' reaction to the good news? Catherine Hollander of the National Journal: "The House is set to vote Wednesday on two bills that would delay implementation of key pieces of the 2010 health reform law.... The legislation isn't likely to go anywhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate — and the White House has said it would veto the measures."

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "... even after the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] opened its doors in July 2011, almost exactly two years ago, its legal authority remained uncertain so long as Republicans prevented the confirmation of a director to lead the agency, as required by law. That barricade collapsed on Tuesday. Republicans agreed to allow the confirmation of Richard Cordray, by a vote of 66 to 34, cementing a new era of expansive federal oversight of companies that lend money to consumers. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who conceived the agency when she was a Harvard professor and supervised its creation as an Obama administration official, presided over the 66-to-34 confirmation vote, announcing the results with obvious satisfaction." ...

Here's the most recent reporting on the Senate filibuster deal, which came out somewhat better for Democrats than reported earlier. Jonathan Weisman & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The deal began to take shape during late-night talks on Monday between Democrats and a Republican, John McCain of Arizona, who appeared to bypass his own leadership. They ended with early-morning commitments in the Senate gym. A clear winner was Mr. Obama, who gained a functioning consumer agency created on his watch, resurrected a defunct labor board and secured confirmation of a new E.P.A. chief and a disputed labor secretary. The Senate will also vote Wednesday to confirm Fred P. Hochberg to a new term at the helm of the Export-Import Bank. Democrats withdrew two nominees for the National Labor Relations Board whom the president had appointed during a Senate recess. On Tuesday Mr. Obama nominated as replacements Nancy Schiffer and Kent Hirozawa. Ms. Schiffer retired last year as an associate general counsel at the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and Mr. Hirozawa is the chief counsel to the board's chairman." However, "... the new deal did not put in place any framework for restricting [obstructive] procedural tactics in the future or address the larger question of how to unclog the Senate." ...

... CW: But I'm with the New York Times Editors: "... it's regrettable that Mr. Reid and the Democrats didn't vote to change the rules for this Senate and for a future one controlled by Republicans. They should have stood up for the principle that simple-majority votes should determine confirmation of executive appointments, not a 60-vote threshold that gives minority parties a veto over a president's team and that was unintended by the Constitution." ...

... David Firestone of the New York Times: "... last night John McCain and a group of other mainstream Republican senators completely undercut [Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's] position, cutting a deal to vote on seven contested nominations without further argument. Mr. McConnell was nowhere to be found in that deal, and in fact voted against it this morning. He voted instead to continue a filibuster against Richard Cordray, nominated to run the Consumer Financial Protection Board, while 17 more sensible Republicans went the other direction.... This afternoon, after voting against the deal, he told reporters how terrific it all was.... And he insisted that Republicans gave up none of their rights.... In fact, Mr. McConnell lost quite a bit of power today." ...

... Ezra Klein: "It's clear now that Reid will change the rules if he believes it necessary. But so too will McConnell. If Republicans retake the Senate in 2014 and the presidency in 2016, there's no way Majority Leader McConnell will permit Democrats to routinely filibuster or otherwise obstruct President Christie's nominees. If they do, he'll throw Reid's words back in their face and make the change Reid threatened to make today." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "If you score these things the way Washington usually does, this is a huge win for the Democrats. It's also a huge win for their leaders in the Senate -- particularly Harry Reid, who emerged with virtually everything he wanted to achieve.... Still, if this is a win, it's a win in a game that never should have been played." ...

... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) lost big in the filibuster battle that ended Tuesday morning. Senators struck a tentative deal to confirm seven nominees to run federal agencies and departments, in exchange for Democrats agreeing not to nuke the filibuster on executive branch nominations -- for now. But McConnell is still winning the war.... Legislation can continue to be filibustered by Republicans as a matter of course -- sometimes to be thwarted entirely (such as the DREAM Act of 2010 and gun control legislation of 2013) and sometimes to be used as leverage to extract concessions. That remains a huge redefinition of the Senate minority's power that has reached unprecedented heights under McConnell, and which Democrats still have no answer to." ...

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: the "Maverick" is back. If you want to know why, take a look at this WashPo photo, taken yesterday (I guess):

If in fact the House recognized the smart thing, the right thing to do, was to go ahead and send the Senate [immigration] bill to the floor for a vote, I think it would pass tomorrow. We need to just go ahead and get this done. -- President Obama, yesterday, on Telemundo Dallas, sticking it to John Boehner

Like it or not, the Hispanic media perceives that approving or rejecting immigration reform is in the hands of John Boehner. When you listen to local radio stations and even national media, most of us are concentrated on John Boehner. We don't even have a problem pronouncing his name. -- Jorge Ramos, Univision news anchor ...

... John Stanton of BuzzFeed: "Conservatives in Congress have been actively opposing immigration reform in recent months, citing a fear that well-funded primary challengers will take them on if they compromise on the issue -- a line of reasoning that has crystalized into conventional wisdom in Washington. But interviews with operatives, campaign aides, and activists from groups like the Club for Growth and Heritage Action, as well as a review of recent election data, suggests the likelihood of Republicans facing serious primary challenges is not only overstated but probably won't have much of anything to do with immigration." CW: so let's just speculate -- if it ain't about the race, what could it be? Oh. Racism. ...

... Manuel Roig-Franzia & Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. strongly condemned 'stand your ground' laws Tuesday, saying the measures 'senselessly expand the concept of self-defense' and may encourage 'violent situations to escalate.' The statutes, which have been enacted in more than 30 states, have become the focus of a complicated national debate over race, crime and culpability since the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla.":

... Scott Powers of the Orlando Sentinel: "The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday afternoon appealed to civil rights groups and community leaders, nationally and in Sanford, for help investigating whether a federal criminal case might be brought against George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, one advocate said. The DOJ has also set up a public email address to take in tips on its civil rights investigation." ...

... Over at the Washington Post, racial profiling is totally justified. (And so is sexual harassment.) Tom Scocca of Gawker: "Not every columnist would look at the death of an unarmed 17-year-old black kid, shot after he was racially profiled, as an occasion to write a column about how all black teenagers deserve to be racially profiled. But the Washington Post's Richard Cohen is a very special columnist." ...

... Elspeth Reeve of the Atlantic: "Cohen appears to believe all black men are the same, and that they are violent. Cohen says he's 'tired' of politicians and activists 'who essentially suggest that, for recognizing the reality of urban crime in the United States, I am a racist.' He justifies Zimmerman's assumption that Martin was a criminal by citing statistics about crime in New York [City]. ...

... Um, maybe Geraldo was right, after all. Juror B-37 is very Paula Deen-y. ...

Good for Chuck. Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that he has ordered a 20 percent cut in the number of top brass and senior civilians at the Pentagon by 2019, the latest attempt to shrink the military bureaucracy after years of heady growth. Hagel's directive could force the Pentagon and military command staffs to shed an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 jobs.... He said the personnel cutbacks would happen regardless of whether the White House and Congress are able to sidestep automatic budget reductions that are scheduled to take place in the coming years."

I guess the only way to do that would be for the president to, somehow or other, fire him. -- Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), on how to hold NSA Director James Clapper accountable for lying to Congress (Levin, unfortunately, is not calling on President Obama to can Clapper.)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren explains to CNBC "experts" why Glass-Steagall should be reinstated. Thanks to Julie L. for the link:

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "What do these large dollar numbers have in common: $6.5 billion, $5.5 billion, $4.2 billion, and $1.9 billion? They represent the latest quarterly net profits made by too-big-to-fail banks -- in order, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs, the last of which reported its second-quarter figures before the market opened on Tuesday. Five years after being bailed out by the federal government, the U.S. banking system ... is generating record profits.... One of the many ironies of government's response to the crisis is that it accentuated rather than resolved the too-big-to-fail problem. By encouraging further consolidation in the financial industry..., which guaranteed them access to the Fed's emergency-lending facilities, the government created an élite group of banks that can raise money cheaply, because everybody knows they are backstopped by the taxpayer."

Jill Treanor of the Guardian: "Barclay's and four of its power traders have been ordered to pay a total of $453m (£299m) in fines by the US energy watchdog, which accuses the bank of attempting to manipulate the US electricity market.... First announced last October, the fine by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) relates to allegations for the two years to December 2008. The FERC told Barclays it had to pay a $435m fine to the US treasury within 30 days; one of its traders must pay a $15m fine, and three other traders $1m each.... The bank must also give up $34.9m in profits which will to be distributed to low-income homeowners in California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington to help them pay their energy bills...." ...

     ... Update: David Sheppard of Reuters: "Barclays will contest a record $453 million fine imposed by a U.S. energy regulator against the British bank and four of its power traders, setting up a likely federal court battle."

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "David Brooks Wonders Why Men Can't Find Jobs: Comedy Ensues." CW: Yes, pondering the laziness of the non-working poor is a cottage industry for right-wing "thinkers." This isn't the first Brooks has theorized about why those lazy bastards don't get off their asses & participate in the American dream.

AP: "... Edward Snowden could leave the transit zone of a Moscow airport after Russian authorities review his asylum request, his lawyer said Wednesday. President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Snowden has been warned against taking any actions that would damage relations between Moscow and Washington." ...

... Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor on why the Snowden Saga is actually newsworthy. "... while he may or may not be a whistleblower with his disclosures about NSA domestic surveillance..., his decision to reveal details about NSA spying on other countries indicates a willingness to go far beyond that. While Greenwald and Snowden said the principal reason for the leaks was preserving US liberty, disclosures about intelligence collection methods in China, Brazil, and Europe have nothing to do with that. What might, in the fullness of time, he decide to disclose next? ... Snowden makes for more than irresistibly great copy. He has information that's vital to the foreign spying programs of the US, and the chances that he can and will use it as bargaining chips with foreign powers are real." Read the whole essay; Murphy does a good job of synthesizing the threat Snowden poses to U.S. security.

When a major university's president tries to secretly curb academic freedom & ban books, ferchissakes, he might be Mitch Daniels. Charles Pierce has the goods on Former Teensy Gov. Hoosier.

Congressional Races

Worth watching:

Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Liz Cheney, the older daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, announced Tuesday that she intended to challenge Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming in a Republican primary clash in next year that national and state party officials had hoped to avoid."

Local News

So if you're managing the campaign of Ken Cuccinelli, candidate for Virginia governor, & your guy is down by 4 points in a legitimate poll, what to do? Oh, you could make up your own poll out of whole cloth in which you announce your candidate is 13 points ahead. Yup. This strategy worked wonders for President & Lady Romney.

Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast interviews the "new" Eliot Spitzer. Amusing, if not convincing on the Newness of Eliot.

Right Wing World

Buy-a-Blogger. Rosey Gray of BuzzFeed: "Several conservative bloggers repeated talking points given to them by a proxy group for the Ukrainian government -- and at least one writer was paid by a representative of the Ukrainian group, according to documents and emails obtained by BuzzFeed."

News Ledes

Reuters: "BP Plc ... asked a U.S. judge on Tuesday to temporarily halt payments from a court-supervised settlement fund for certain claims for damages related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill while former FBI director Louis Freeh investigates possible misconduct.... BP had sought an investigation into allegations that a lawyer working for the administrator of the payments had referred claims to a New Orleans law firm in exchange for a share of subsequent settlement payments."

AP: "The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaida confirmed on Wednesday that the group's No. 2 figure, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, was killed in a U.S. drone strike. The announcement, posted on militant websites, gave no date for the death of Saudi-born Saeed al-Shihri. The confirmation was significant, however, because al-Shihri had twice before been reported dead but the terror group later denied those reports."

AP: "Gunmen assassinated a prominent Syrian pro-government figure at his home in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in the latest sign of Syria's civil war spilling over into its smaller neighbor, security officials said. Mohammed Darrar Jammo was gunned down, shot nearly 30 times, in the coastal town of Sarafand, a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, the officials said...."