The Commentariat -- July 5, 2013

The Well-Trained Hacker. Christopher Drew & Scott Shane of the New York Times: Edward "Snowden’s résumé ... provides a new picture of how his skills and responsibilities expanded while he worked as an intelligence contractor. Although federal officials offered only a vague description of him as a 'systems administrator,' the résumé suggests that he had transformed himself into the kind of cybersecurity expert the N.S.A. is desperate to recruit, making his decision to release the documents even more embarrassing to the agency.... Mr. Snowden's ability to comb through the networks as a lone wolf -- and walk out the door with the documents on thumb drives -- shows how the agency's internal security system has fallen short, former officials say." ...

... Timothy Heritage & Steve Gutterman of Reuters: Russian "Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia had received no request for political asylum from Snowden and he had to solve his problems himself after 11 days in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.... Moscow also has made clear that Snowden is an increasingly unwelcome guest because the longer he stays, the greater the risk of the diplomatic standoff causing lasting damage to relations with Washington." ...

... Surprise, Surprise. Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "Days after President François Hollande sternly told the United States to stop spying on its allies, Le Monde newspaper disclosed on Thursday that France has its own program of massive data collection, which sweeps up nearly all the data transmissions, including telephone calls, e-mails and social media activity, that come in and out of France." ...

... Juan Karita of the AP: "South America's leftist leaders rallied to support Bolivian President Evo Morales after his plane was rerouted amid suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board and demanded an apology from France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, Suriname, Venezuela and Uruguay joined Morales in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba late Thursday to address the diplomatic row. Morales used the gathering to warn that he would close the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia if necessary." ...

... Kate Connolly, et al., of the Guardian: "Germany and the US will begin talks as soon as Monday, to address mounting European concerns over internet surveillance that are threatening to overshadow trade negotiations and damage Silicon Valley exports." ...

... Julian Pecquet of the Hill: "Revelations of U.S. spying on Chinese universities and businesses risk undermining cybersecurity talks with China scheduled for next week. The Obama administration had hoped to press China on the issue during the fifth round of the U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue. Instead, it finds itself on the defensive amid former contractor Edward Snowden's allegations...." ...

... Gene Robinson of the Washington Post: "I don't believe government officials when they say the National Security Agencys (NSA) surveillance programs do not invade our privacy.... It pains me to sound like some Rand Paul acolyte.... I just wish our government would start treating us like adults -- more important, like participants in a democracy -- and stop lying. We can handle the truth." ...

... Andrew Leonard of Salon: "Shrinking costs. Growing efficiency. That’s the 'frictionless' society, baby! Everybody gets empowered by the Internet. 'We' get easy access to all the world's information and all these neat new services and 'they' get easy access to us. Awkward! ... Maybe Edward Snowden's greatest contribution to society will end up being the way in which his leaks crystallized our previously vague sense that something was awry.... If we know the price, we can start to figure out if what we are gaining is worth what we have lost."

Joan Biskupic of Reuters: "At age 80, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, leader of the Supreme Court's liberal wing, says she is in excellent health, even lifting weights despite having cracked a pair of ribs again, and plans to stay several more years on the bench. In a Reuters interview late on Tuesday, she vowed to resist any pressure to retire that might come from liberals who want to ensure that Democratic President Barack Obama can pick her successor before the November 2016 presidential election. Ginsburg said she had fallen in the bathroom of her home in early May, sustaining the same injury she suffered last year near term's end."

CW: last week I complained about Tim Egan's laundry list of mostly petty complaints about President Obama. But this critique by Walter Bello, excerpted in Salon, is substantive & well-reasoned. The title of the piece is "Obama Should Have Listened to Paul Krugman"; however, Bello doesn't limit himself to Obama's policy mistakes, but goes into his fundamental political failures. Or, as I might put it, Americans -- including many Republicans -- voted for a liberal, & what we got instead was a cautious, mealy-mouthed conservative.

Tim Egan: young men are dying to save people's property -- homes they built in high-fire areas.

The Fake IRS Scandal, Ctd. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Two months of investigation by Congress and the I.R.S. has produced new documents that have clouded much of the controversy's narrative. In the more complicated picture now emerging, many organizations other than conservative groups were singled out: 'progressive' organizations, medical marijuana purveyors, organizations formed to carry out President Obama's health care law, and open source software developers who create software tools for computer code writers and distribute them free of charge." ...

... Jamelle Bouie in the Washington Post: "Today's story from the New York Times on IRS 'filtering' should be the final word on whether this was political targeting or a more mundane instance of mistakes and misjudgments from overworked bureaucrats.... Despite widespread evidence this wasn't politically motivated -- as well as signs it may have been justified -- Republicans have continued to hold the controversy up as an example of government overreach and 'Nixonian' behavior from the Obama White House (which, as of this writing, has not been implicated in the scandal).... We should expect Republicans to run hard on the IRS controversy in elections across the country, even as proof accumulates that this 'scandal' isn't very political at all."

Alex Pareene of Salon: "Basically the 'border surge' [provision of the Senate immigration bill] is a very expensive new expansion of a massive government program only it's the sort that conservatives like because it involves detaining people instead of giving them healthcare or something."

Annie Lowrey of the New York Times has a long piece on a "deficit owl" named Warren Mosler. Even though Mosler is really rich, "his prescriptions for economic policy make him sound like a warrior for the 99 percent. When the recession hit, Mr. Mosler said, the government should have spent and spent until unemployment came down to a comfortable level. Forget saving the banks through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Washington should have eliminated the payroll tax, given every state $500 per resident and offered a basic job to anyone who wanted one." CW: weirdly, Lowrey does not address a matter she mentions in her second sentence: "Mr. Mosler lives [in the U.S. Virgin Islands] for tax reasons." Apparently Mosler's zeal for radically liberal tax policy does not extend to actually paying U.S. taxes himself. Virgin Island residents pay taxes to the V.I., not to the federal government, & there are lotsa loopholes -- no doubt those tax reasons for Mr. Mosler's V.I. residency.

CW: I wish I believed this. Paul Krugman: "... we are still, in a deep sense, the nation that declared independence and, more important, declared that all men have rights."

... Josh Levs of CNN: "Lady Liberty reopened her doors to the huddled masses Thursday, a sign of recovery from Superstorm Sandy's devastation. The Statue of Liberty's reopening was a big bright spot for an Independence Day dampened by soaking rains in much of the country and limited by the across-the-board federal budget cuts known as the sequester, which left numerous military bases without annual fireworks displays." ...

Independence Day???

A sign in a Lakewood, Ohio, public park. Via Business Insider.

Contributor MAG has sent along the revised, updated, federally-approved & finalized official Lakewood Parks July 4 sign:

News Ledes

The Orlando Sentinel summarizes the day's testimony & other events in the George Zimmerman trial.

New York Times: Egyptian "security officials said at least 30 people were killed and hundreds wounded in political violence nationwide, with half the deaths in Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city. The Muslim Brotherhood, which organized the protests, said at least 17 of its supporters were killed. Witnesses said they saw at least five pro-Morsi demonstrators killed and many more wounded in gunfire outside the Republican Guard compound in Cairo where Mr. Morsi was believed to be detained...." ...

... New York Times: "The top human rights official at the United Nations, Navi Pillay, expressed concern on Friday at the reported detention of Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt and called on military authorities there to make clear the basis on which they are being held or release them." ...

... Washington Post: Muslim "Brotherhood-allied leaders [in Egypt] responded by calling for a 'day of resistance' on Friday, with nationwide protests planned after the traditional midday prayers. Although organizers called on supporters to remain peaceful, such rallies in the past have led to deadly clashes, and residents of Cairo and other areas braced for more chaos. Egypt's new president, a virtual unknown named Adly Mansour, vowed to include all sections of society, including Islamists, in an interim coalition government shortly after he was sworn in Thursday. But even as he spoke, an arrest warrant was issued for Mohammed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood's 'supreme guide.'" ...

... Al Jazeera: "Thousands of supporters of Mohamed Morsi have gathered in Nasr City in the Egyptian capital to protest against his ouster as the country's president in a military coup. The crowds are expected to swell further after Friday afternoon prayers in response to the call by a coalition of Islamist groups led by the Muslim Brotherhood for demonstrations against the coup. The coalition on Thursday urged people to take part in a 'Friday of Rejection' protest following weekly prayers. The call is being seen as a test of whether Morsi still has a support base in the country, and how the army will deal with it." ...

... Al Jazeera has a rundown of international reactions to Morsi's outster.

AP: "Another solid month of hiring in June could signal the start of a stronger second half of the year for the U.S. economy. Economists predict that the government will report Friday that employers added 165,000 jobs last month, roughly in line with May's increase. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at a still-high 7.6 percent." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "The economy added 195,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department reported Friday morning, slightly more than analysts had been expecting and suggesting steady growth.... The unemployment rate, which is based on a separate survey from the one that tracks jobs, remained at 7.6 percent, unchanged from May." The writer, Nelson Schwartz, suggests how the report might influence Fed action.

AP: "Residents of a small mountain community northwest of Las Vegas were ordered to evacuate Thursday as firefighters continued to battle searing heat and rugged terrain while fighting a large blaze.The mandatory evacuation of Trout Canyon, a small community of about 21 homes, was issued late in the afternoon as a precaution...."

AP: "Pope Francis has cleared John Paul II for sainthood, approving a miracle attributed to his intercession. Francis also decided Friday to canonize another pope, John XXIII, even though there has been no second miracle attributed to his intercession. The Vatican said Francis approved a decision by cardinals and bishops."

The Commentariat -- July 4, 2013

... ABC News: "When he was invited to sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' before Game 3 of the NBA finals Tuesday night, he donned his mariachi outfit and wowed the crowd inside the San Antonio Spurs’ AT&T center with his rendition of the national anthem. Online, however, Sebastien was torn apart by Twitter users who erupted in outrage about the sight of a Mexican-American boy singing the national anthem dressed in a traditional Mexican outfit. 'This kid is Mexican why is he singing the national anthem #yournotamerican #gohome,' wrote on[e] user, @Gordon_Bombay24. Includes a good video report of the story.

... AND, since this is a day when revolutions are on our minds, it might be useful to reflect on what Canadian Paul Pirie, in a Washington Post op-ed, says about ours -- it was a flop. CW: what Pirie doesn't address is the obvious: most of our problems & backwardness come at the behest of the South. The U.S. would be as functional & progressive as Canada (which ain't perfect -- ask a Quebecois) if not held back by Southern politicians & their patriarchal values. The war I thought was a flop was the Civil War.

** Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "... Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States -- about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images." This program, together with a long-standing "mail cover" program, "show that snail mail is subject to the same kind of scrutiny that the National Security Agency has given to telephone calls and e-mail."

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "Two US senators on the panel overseeing the National Security Agency said intelligence officials were 'unable' to demonstrate the value of a secret surveillance program that collected and analyzed the internet habits of Americans. Senators Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon) and Mark Udall (Democrat, Colorado), the chief inquisitors of US intelligence officials during the current surveillance scandal, added a sharp warning late Tuesday that senior intelligence officials 'are not always accurate' in their public statements about the scope and utility of their wide-ranging surveillance efforts.... Senior intelligence officials told the Guardian that the program..., [which] that gathered and analyzed bulk internet 'metadata' records from Americans, such as the subject lines of their email communications and their internet protocol (IP) addresses..., ended in 2011." ...

     ... . The New York Times story, by James Risen, is here: "Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado said the Internet surveillance was discontinued only after administration officials were unable to provide evidence to them, in closed-door hearings in 2011, that the program was useful." ...

... Angelika Gruber & Emma Farge of Reuters: Bolivia accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to 'kidnap' its president, Evo Morales, after his plane was denied permission to fly over some European countries on suspicion he was taking fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to Latin America.... The White House declined to comment...."

... Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "The United States has yet to comment, but the longer it remains silent, the stronger suspicions will be that it leaned on France, Spain, Portugal and Italy to deny permission for [Bolivian President Evo] Morales's plane to fly through their airspace, in effect putting the hunt for US whistleblower Edward Snowden above international law and the rights of a president of a sovereign nation." ...

... CW: This column by Glenn Greenwald is a perfect example of what I've written about Greenwald's methodology. He makes some valid, important points, but he dilutes them with incessant, sneering invective against the clueless Paul Krugman & everyone else who isn't totally on board with -- Glenn Greenwald. I find Greenwald's perpetual snit annoying & tedious -- and ultimately counterproductive, to the extent that he excites & frightens well-meaning but unsophisticated readers & discourages reasoned discussion.

Jamelle Bouie in the Washington Post: parts of the Affordable Care Act, like the employer mandate, need fixing, but that won't happen as long as the GOP controls the House. Republican "indifference guarantees that -- when the administration hits roadblocks in implementing the Affordable Care Act -- it will have no choice but to power through them, even when legislation is a better option."

In an AlterNet piece republished in Salon, Les Leopold argues that a financial transaction tax should fund college tuitions. CW: Sounds good to me.

President Obama said Monday his government makes decisions on aid to Egypt based on that government's respect for democracy and the rule of law. The record suggests otherwise.

Josh Rogin & Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "President Obama said Monday his government makes decisions on aid to Egypt based on that government's respect for democracy and the rule of law. The record suggests otherwise. In nearly every confrontation with Congress since the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the White House has fought restrictions proposed by legislators on the nearly $1.6 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt. Twice in two years, the White House and the State Department fought hard against the very sorts of conditions for aid that Obama claimed credit for this week."

Nitaska Tiku of Gawker: "ExaroNews a British investigative web site, has just published the full transcript of a secretly recorded meeting between media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the staff of The Sun, a U.K. tabloid owned by News Corp., in which Murdoch admitted that he was aware for decades that journalists from his newspapers had been bribing both police and public officials." ...

... The New York Times story, by Alan Cowell, is here. ...

... Nancy Tartaglione of Deadline: "British Labour Party MP Tom Watson, a vocal and enduring Rupert Murdoch critic, has called on the News Corp boss to be questioned by police following yesterday' s revelations about comments he made to Sun staffers last March."

Paul Krugman is influential!

Local News

Lynn Bonner & Craig Jarvis of the Raleigh News & Observer: "The [North Carolina state] Senate, after a long debate that invoked faith, constitutional rights and health statistics, approved a bill that would restrict abortions by stepping up requirements for clinics and doctors. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 29-12 as opponents filled the gallery above and hundreds more waited outside. The bill now goes to the House. After the vote, people in the hall began chanting, 'Shame, shame, shame.' ... The provisions [were] tacked onto an unrelated bill about Islamic law" late Tuesday." ...

... Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress has more. ...

... Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post: even "Republican Gov. Pat McCrory [expressed] concern that the Senate had unfairly rushed the amendments on Tuesday night."

News Ledes

Guardian: "Belgium's King Albert II announced his abdication from the throne on Wednesday, ending months of speculation about an early end to his 20-year reign which has been marked by political strife between northern Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking southern Wallonia."

New York Times: in Egypt, "Adli Mansour, the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court, was sworn in as the acting head of state in a ceremony broadcast live on state television, news reports said." ...

     ... New Lede: "Egyptian prosecutors escalated what appeared to be a widespread roundup of top Muslim Brotherhood members on Thursday, acting hours after the military deposed Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist who became the country's first democratically elected president just a year ago." ...

... The New York Times The Lede is liveblogging developments in Egypt.

... New York Times: "... with no prior presence on Egypt's political or public scene, many experts said, Mr. Mansour could serve as little more than a figurehead." Here's Al Jazeera's brief profile.

... Al Jazeera's main story here. ...

... Guardian: "Egypt's new military rulers have issued arrest warrants for up to 300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood hours after ousting the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and taking him and his aides into military custody. The morning after a momentous night in Cairo has revealed the full extent of the military overthrow, with key support bases of the Muslim Brotherhood, including television stations, closed down or raided. A focal point for Morsi's supporters in the east of the city was approached by troops who fired into the air near angry Brotherhood members on Wednesday night." ...

... The Guardian's liveblog is here. ...

... President Obama's statement on Egypt. ...

     ... The Hill: "President Obama late Wednesday declared himself 'very concerned' by the Egyptian military's overthrow of the country's democratically elected president and said his administration was reviewing U.S. military aid as a result. In his first statement since the Egyptian army and the opposition overthrew President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government, Obama repeated that the United States was not taking sides in the dispute and avoided using the word 'coup.' He called on the military to quickly restore power to a 'democratically elected civilian government.'"

Denver Post: "Authorities Wednesday located the body of U.S. Sen. Mark Udall's brother, Randy, who was reported missing on a solo backpack trip to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. The body of the 61-year-old Carbondale resident was found at 10,700 feet, his poles still in his hand, his sister, Dodie Udall of Boulder, said. Randy appeared to have died from a medical condition, she said."

The Commentariat -- July 3, 2013

NSA Director Forgot All About the Patriot Act. Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The most senior US intelligence official told a Senate oversight panel that he 'simply didn't think' of the National Security Agency's efforts to collect the phone records of millions of Americans when he testified in March that it did 'not wittingly' snoop on their communications. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, made the comments in a letter to the Senate intelligence committee, released in full for the first time on Tuesday." The letter is here (pdf). ...

Seriously, does James Clapper seem like the kind of guy who's got a handle on all this stuff? Even if you believe it's a good idea, wouldn't it be prudent to at least have competent people in charge of it? -- Digby

Did nobody think that hiring hackers to hack might result in being hacked themselves? -- Digby

     ... When she's not pointing out that idiots run the NSA, Digby raises the important issue of the secret cyberwar the NSA seems ready to wage. The New York Times story that Digby cites, by David Sanger & Scott Shane, is here. ...

... Up in the Air. Carlos Valdez of the AP: "The plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria on Tuesday after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the country's foreign minister said." ...

     ... Update. This is an ongoing (at 5 am ET) diplomatic air war. The Guardian is liveblogging it. ...

... David Herszenhorn & Andrew Roth of the New York Times: "Asylum options appeared to narrow further on Tuesday for Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor on the run from American authorities, as at least nine countries reacted unfavorably to his requests for sanctuary and the Kremlin said he had withdrawn his application to Russia. Only Venezuela and Bolivia appeared to offer him a hint of hope for a way out of his limbo inside the international airport transit lounge at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, where he has been ensconced out of public view for nine days." ...

... Max Fisher of the Washington Post: "Edward Snowden's father Lon Snowden, in an open letter co-authored with his lawyer, compared his son’s leaks to Paul Revere warning of incoming British troops, 'summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny and one branch government.'" The Post article cites Lon Snowden's letter in full. CW: one of my ancestors answered the call of Paul Revere; I guess I'm a black sheep descendant, as I'm not shouldering my musket for Ed. ...

... ** Jon Chait of New York on Glenn Greenwald's brand of analysis: "Greenwald, like [Ralph] Nader, marries an indefatigable mastery of detail with fierce moralism. Every issue he examines has a good side and an evil side.... Nader and Greenwald believe their analysis not only completely correct, but so obviously correct that the only motivation one could have to disagree is corruption." Thanks to Haley S. for the link. CW: this is precisely the style of "journalism" about which I've written. While this style can occasionally be close to accurate (think a monkey typing a Shakespeare sonnet), it usually is a cringe-inducing, unreliable polemic. Unfortunately, these disputatious diatribes "work" on the unwary, & Greenwald has led many a naive reader astray. ...

... Leonard Schrank & Juan Zarate, in a New York Times op-ed, on how the NSA could balance security & privacy concerns. CW: I don't like their model at all (which gives more power to a private corporation than to government workers), but they do claim to have overseen a program that worked because it had built-in safeguards. So if that's true, it seems likely Congress could structure the NSA programs in ways that would protect Constitutional freedoms while still being effective security operations. ...

... Contributor Ken W. helpfully points us to this May 22 post by David Cole of the Nation on why the courts & Congress have not accorded Fourth Amendment protections to e-mails, cellphone data, etc., that are routed & collected through third parties. CW: I would add that the original non-governmental purpose of e-mails was intra-company communication; the third party that maintained the network was the corporation or other entity, & the e-mails were business memos, not private notes among friends (or spam!). The writers were as careful in writing e-mails as they were in writing paper memos. The e-mails were conceived & sent with no expectation of personal privacy. Here's a brief history of e-mails, but you can take the concept back to the telegraph & telegrams, where a third party obviously read & keyed in messages of a private nature.

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration will not penalize businesses that do not provide health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday. Instead, it will delay enforcement of a major Affordable Care Act requirement that all employers with more than 50 employees provide coverage to their workers until 2015. The administration said it would postpone the provision after hearing significant concerns from employers about the challenges of implementing it." ...

... Elise Viebeck, et al., of the the Hill: "Delaying the requirement until 2015 is an enormous victory for businesses that had lobbied against the healthcare law. It also means that one of healthcare reform's central requirements will be implemented after the 2014 midterm elections, when the GOP is likely to use the Affordable Care Act as a vehicle to attack vulnerable Democrats." ...

... ** Ezra Klein: "Delaying Obamacare's employer mandate is the right thing to do. Frankly, eliminating it -- or at least utterly overhauling it -- is probably the right thing to do. But the administration executing a regulatory end-run around Congress is not the right way to do it." Klein lays out what he finds wrong with the employer penalty, most important, that it's a disincentive to hire full-time, low-wage workers.

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "Vacancies at district courts are so high right now that they're 'breaking with historical patterns' and burdening the judicial system like never before, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.... A major reason for the district court vacancies is that senators -- namely Republican senators -- simply aren't making recommendations to the president in the first place." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "What happened here is simple: Republicans, in January 2009, extended the war over the judiciary down to the bottom level. Supreme Court judges and Circuit Court judges have been battlegrounds for some years, and rightly so: There's plenty at stake in these lifetime appointments.

Benjy Sarlin of TPM has a good (long) piece on why the GOP thinks throwing Latinos under the bus is an excellent plan. One flaw in their "logic" Sarlin doesn't mention: if the GOP does toe the righty-white line, where are moderate suburbanites to go? Most will not jump on the anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-minority, anti-government bus. Plenty of disaffected middle-class dads voted for that nice Mitt Romney, but they're not apt to vote for Rand & Ted ticket in 2016. ...

... Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg News: "Republican policies already cater to an increasingly narrow tranche of American society: the rich and the old (who, not coincidentally, happen also to be white). When they wax nostalgic over the era of institutional racism and sexism, it sounds like moral obtuseness to most younger, more diverse voters. And so it is."

Philosopher Gary Gutting of the New York Times explains governance to shut-ins -- & revolutionaries on the far-right & far-left. Gutting's explanation is simple & simply-put, but it's a straightforward lesson for radicals.

Missed this, but last week Ian Millhiser of Think Progress posted a list of 10 reasons that "no one should lionize Justice Kennedy."

Local News

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling: "PPP's new Texas poll finds that Wendy Davis made a good impression on voters in the state last week- but that Rick Perry has also enhanced his political standing considerably over the last five months, making him tough to beat for reelection.... Davis would trail Rick Perry by 14 points in a hypothetical match up, 53/39." ...

... Peter Hamby of CNN: "Rick Perry is inviting close friends and supporters to an event next Monday in San Antonio where he is expected to announce if he plans to seek an unprecedented fourth full term as Texas governor...."

Steve Benen on North Carolina Republicans' trashing of democracy. "Originally, GOP lawmakers in North Carolina held back on pursuing voter-ID laws, knowing how racially discriminatory they are. But thanks to the Supreme Court, they no longer care. What's especially interesting to me as how thin the pretense is." CW: if you want to know how Republicans really plan to be successful as a whites-only party, North Carolina provides a few clues. It's not about getting out the white vote; it's about brazenly suppressing the votes of minorities & other Democratic-leaning groups. And doing it "legally" provides evah-so-much better optics than the traditional clubbing, hosing & murdering methodology. Thanks, Supremes! ...

... Mark Binker's headline on a WRAL post is a classic: "Senate tacks sweeping abortion legislation onto Sharia law bill." Just to let you know that the gerrymandered representatives of the people are racists AND misogynists.

Reader Lyle K. sends along this photo (which I've cropped) of a sign "at Milwaukee's Billy Mitchell Field. After disrobing to go through the security checkpoint, this space is provided to help travelers put themselves together again." Lyle says he "thought this photo might help people appreciate that Wisconsin has some good things about it, not just nasty people that make the news to give WI a bad reputation." CW: One thing Wisconsin obviously has is some government or airport employees with both a sense of humor & compassion for their customers; that's well-worth noting:

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Douglas C. Engelbart, a computer science visionary who was credited with inventing the mouse, the now-ubiquitous device that first allowed consumers to navigate virtual desktops with clicks and taps, died July 2 at his home in Atherton, Calif. He was 88."

Orlando Sentinel: "Jurors heard from evidence analysts and George Zimmerman's college professors today as prosecutors came close to wrapping up their case against Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Court recessed for the day about 5:30 p.m. The trial resumes Friday at 8:30 a.m."

New York Times: "As [Egypt] edged closer on Wednesday to a return to rule by the generals, with a military deadline only hours away for President Mohamed Morsi to cede power, both the Egyptian leader and army commanders pledged to spill their blood to achieve their aims, propelling the crisis further toward a showdown." ...

... Reuters: "Egypt's armed forces would suspend the constitution and dissolve an Islamist-dominated parliament under a draft political roadmap to be pursued if Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and his opponents fail to reach a power-sharing agreement by Wednesday, military sources said." ...

     ... ** New York Times Update: "Egypt&'s military on Wednesday deposed Mohamed Morsi, the nation's first freely elected president, suspending the constitution, installing an interim government and insisting it was responding to the millions of Egyptians who had opposed Mr. Morsi's Islamist agenda and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood." ...

     ... The Times is liveblogging Egyptian events. The Guardian's liveblog is here. ...

     ... ** New York Times Update: "Increasingly alarmed about the violent Egyptian political upheaval, the United States sharply raised the threat level in its travel advisory to Egypt on Wednesday, warning [U.S.] citizens to defer visits and advising American residents there to leave."