CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”
Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday,leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued intoWednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~
New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~
~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.
Help!
To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>
OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.
OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.
Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.
Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.
Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:
~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.
CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~
~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play.
New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.
Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.
New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~
~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”
NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL ishttps://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
Glenn Greenwald & Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata 'every 90 days'. A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011."
Does it have to be humans? -- Sen. Rand Paul (RTP-Ky.), wondering if the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA will lead to legalizing bestiality
He's right. A court that has given corporations a right to vote and believes that life begins on the first date, is capable of anything. -- Dan Lowery, Reality Chex contributor ...
Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the DOMA case, spoke to the press yesterday:
... Adam Serwer of NBC News: "Families headed by married same-sex couples will now be recognized by the federal government as families. Service members fighting for their country will not have to worry about their spouses being denied benefits. The same-sex spouses of Americans who are not U.S. citizens will not be denied green cards on the basis that their marriages don't count. Kennedy's opinion striking down DOMA applies to states where same-sex marriage is already legal. But Kennedy's reasoning, that same-sex marriage bans violate Americans' constitutional right to equal protection under the law, could easily be applied to state bans on same-sex marriage as well. That fact was not lost on the rest of the conservative bloc, which treated the decision as a tragedy of epic proportions." CW: not sure why we're delicately calling the opponents of marriage equality "conservatives"; after all, many conservatives favor same-sex marriage. Isn't "homophobes" or "bigots" more apt? ...
My personal belief, but I'm speaking as a president as opposed to a lawyer, is that if you've been married in Massachusetts and you move someplace else -- you're still married, and under federal law you should be able to obtain benefits. -- President Obama, today, on the DOMA ruling
... Richard Socarides of the New Yorker: Justice "Kennedy suggested that laws distinguishing people on the basis of sexual orientation needed to be subjected to 'careful consideration' when 'determining whether a law is motivated by an improper animus or purpose.' This is not quite the standard of 'heightened scrutiny' that some were hoping for, but in terms of gay-rights jurisprudence it is new and important." ...
... Emma Dumain of Roll Call: "House Democrats ripped GOP leadership Wednesday for spending millions defending the Defense of Marriage Act after the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that it violated the Constitution. House Democrats said the GOP spent $2.3 million on outside lawyers after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the Justice Department would no longer defend DOMA in court. They also noted that the Congressional Budget Office has scored repealing DOMA as reducing the deficit by $450 million a year." CW: now, there's a scandal for you, Darrell. You should investigate. ...
... Boehner Backfire. Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "... by hiring the best Supreme Court lawyer money can buy [$900/hour], Boehner helped ensure that the court ruled squarely on the merits of the law, and thus reject DOMA, instead of getting bogged down in procedural questions and possibly even tossing the case out on standing grounds." ...
Marriage was created by the hand of God. No man, not even a Supreme Court, can undo what a holy God has instituted. -- Rep. Michele Bachmann (RTP-Minn), Bible-thumping expert, reacting to the DOMA decision
Jacob had two wives.... Esau, Jacob's older brother, had three wives. David had at least five wives and countless fecund concubines. The wise King Solomon had 'seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.' Even Moses had a second, Cushite wife, and God had his back, punishing Moses's siblings, Miriam and Aaron, for speaking out against the marriage. In Deuteronomy, there is even a legal provision for how to split up the inheritance between sons born to two wives, rather than to a wife (isha, in Hebrew) and a handmaiden (pilegesh). -- Julia Joffe of The New Republic
... Jake Sherman & Ginger Gibson of Politico: "Congressional Republican leaders are speaking with resounding unity: the same-sex marriage fight is ending on Capitol Hill. While conservative rank-and-file want to continue the fight that has, in part, defined the Republican Party for much of the last few decades, leadership is eager to shift it to state capitals across the country."
** E. J. Dionne: "In the wake of this week's decision gutting the heart of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, its actions must now be viewed through the prism of the conservative movement's five-decade-long quest for power.... On issues directly related to political and economic influence, the court's conservative majority is operating as a political faction, determined to shape a future in which progressives will find themselves at a disadvantage.... The marriage rulings ... should not distract from the arrogance of power displayed Tuesday in Shelby County v. Holder. Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion involved little constitutional analysis. He simply substituted the court's judgment for Congress’s.... And in other recent cases, the court has weakened the capacity of Americans to take on corporate power. The conservative majority seems determined to bring us back to the Gilded Age."
Ed Kilgore: "Many political observers from both sides of the partisan barricades are genuinely puzzled that so many congressional Republicans seem willing, even eager, to court 'demographic disaster' by opposing comprehensive immigration reform and thus reinforcing their party's unsavory image among Latinos and Asian-Americans.... [It is because] a lot of Republicans in and out of Congress don't buy the basic premise that improved performance among minority voters is the best and only path to majority status. And a lot of them are reading, or are being influenced indirectly by, Sean Trende's series of analytical columns at RealClearPolitics suggesting that the more obvious route to a Republican majority, at least over the next couple of decades, is to intensify the GOP's appeal to white voters...."
It's a pain to click through, but might be worth your while to review the National Memo's compilation of "Darrell Issa's 5 biggest lies about the IRS" fake scandal.
Fareed Zakaria, in Time: "The larger question Big Data raises is, Should any government be permitted to use computer analysis -- even if highly accurate -- to observe, inform on, quarantine or even arrest people simply because they are likely to do something bad? That seems like a scenario from a horrifying sci-fi thriller. Yet here we are, very close to a real-world version. Is that compatible with life in a free society?" ...
I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker. -- President Obama, today, confirming that he has not been personally involved in extradition proceedings against Ed Snowden ...
... The Evolution of Ed. Peter Finn & Julie Tate of the Washington Post: "When he was working in the intelligence community in 2009, Edward Snowden ... appears to have had nothing but disdain for those who leaked classified information, the newspapers that printed their revelations, and his current ally... WikiLeaks, according to [his] newly disclosed chat logs. Snowden, who used the online handle 'TheTrueHOOHA,' was particularly upset about a January 2009 New York Times article that reported on a covert program to subvert Iran's nuclear infrastructure, according to the logs, which were published Wednesday by Ars Technica, a technology news Web site. 'They're reporting classified [expletive],' Snowden wrote. 'You don’t put that [expletive] in the NEWSPAPER.' At the time of the posting, in January 2009, Snowden was 25 years old and stationed in Geneva by the CIA. 'Are they TRYING to start a war?' he asked of the New York Times. 'Jesus christ they're like wikileaks.' Snowden's libertarian and dogmatic online persona adds to the emerging portrait of a shape-shifting young man whose motivations and decision-making remain in flux."
Local News
Rick Perry Must Control Women. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Wednesday called for a special legislative session to convene July 1, reviving GOP hopes of passing a controversial bill to tighten abortion restrictions just hours after it was stymied." ...
... Karen Tumulty & Morgan Smith of the Washington Post on Wendy Davis's epic filibuster. ...
Orlando Sentinel: "Jurors this afternoon heard more testimony from a crucial state witness in the George Zimmerman murder trial: A young South Florida woman who was on the phone with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in the moments before his shooting.... The key witness, 19-year-old Rachel Jeantel, gave a dramatic account of Trayvon's killing on Wednesday, followed by at-times-contentious cross examination by defense attorney Don West, which continued for several hours today."
ESPN: Former New England Patriot "Aaron Hernandezhas been charged with murdering his friend after the two had a dispute during a trip to a nightclub. Hernandez was arrested Wednesday and charged with the first-degree murder of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player whose body was found in an industrial park about a mile from the former New England Patriots tight end's home." ...
... Boston Globe: "Police on Wednesday found .45-caliber bullets in a condo rented by former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez and in a car linked to him, the same caliber ammunition Hernandez allegedly used to shoot and kill Odin L. Lloyd in a North Attleborough industrial park on June 17, a prosecutor said today."
Houston Chronicle: " As scores of death penalty protesters chanted, clapped and sang Wednesday, Dallas County convicted murderer Kimberly McCarthybecame the 500th Texas inmate executed since the state re-activated the death penalty 31 years ago."
The Los Angeles Times liveblog is here. "President Obama this morning tweeted: "Today's DOMA ruling is a historic step forward for #MarriageEquality. #LoveIsLove"
... Update: here's President Obama's statement.The working part: "... I've directed the Attorney General to work with other members of my Cabinet to review all relevant federal statutes to ensure this decision, including its implications for Federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly."
... Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog: "Here's a Plain English take on Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage: After the two same-sex couples filed their challenge to Proposition 8 in federal court in California, the California government officials who would normally have defended the law in court, declined to do so. So the proponents of Proposition 8 stepped in to defend the law, and the California Supreme Court (in response to a request by the lower court) ruled that they could do so under state law. But today the Supreme Court held that the proponents do not have the legal right to defend the law in court. As a result, it held, the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the intermediate appellate court, has no legal force, and it sent the case back to that court with instructions for it to dismiss the case." ...
... Pete Williams: 5-4 vote; Supreme Court decided it cannot take up challenge to Prop 8. Kennedy dissents, joined by Thomas, Alito & Sotomayor. Sets no precedents for other states. Allows trial judge's decision to stand. So same-sex marriage legal in California. ...
... Opinion: The case is remanded. The Ninth Circuit had no jurisdiction to review the state law. ...
... SCOTUSblog: "Majority is Roberts with Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan." "From the opinion: 'We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.'" ...
The Guardian profilesEdith Windsor, the gutsy 84-year-old widow of Thea Spyer. Windsor brought the DOMA suit, which is captioned "UNITED STATES v. WINDSOR, EXECUTOR OF THE ESTATE OF SPYER, ET AL."
Leahy Gets the Last Laugh. Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post has an overview of the decision. CW: Here's something cool: "... comprehensive immigration reform probably need not include a provision specifically tailored to making sure bi-national partners of same-sex couples can get visas automatically, the same as opposite-sex partners." Take that, Marco Rubio. & the rest of you bigoted GOP Senators who forced Pat Leahy to remove his amendment guaranteeing equal immigration rights to same-sex couples. ...
... SCOTUSblog's liveblog is here. Decision is 5-4; Kennedy wrote the opinion, joined by Ginsberg, Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagen. "DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment." "Justice Scalia is reading from his dissent right now. [10:10 am ET] The Court's opinion both in explaining its jurisdiction and its decision 'both spring from the same diseased root: an exalted notion of the role of this court in American democratic society.'" ...
... NBC expert Kenji Yoshino: will not affect states that don't recognize same-sex marriage, so same-sex couples will not get federal benefits (that come thru marriage) in those states. ...
... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... shortly after 10 a.m. [today] the [Supreme Court] justices will announce their rulings on challenges to two laws that define marriage to include only unions of a man and a woman."
The Blue Marble. "The snapshot taken by astronauts on December 7, 1972, at 5:39 a.m. EST (10:39 UTC) -- is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence.[2] The image is one of the few to show a fully illuminated Earth, as the astronauts had the Sun behind them when they took the image. To the astronauts, Earth had the appearance and size of a glass marble, hence the name." -- WikipediaPresident Obama speaks on his plan for reducing the effects of climate change. The transcript is here. The New York Times story, by Mark Landler & John Broder, is here:
... Al Likes It. Al Gore: "This was a terrific and historic speech, by far the best address on climate by any president ever. I applaud the new measures announced by President Barack Obama this afternoon to help solve the climate crisis -- particularly the decision to limit global warming pollution from existing as well as new power plants." CW P.S. Take that, Bill Clinton.
Jackie Calmes, et al., of the New York Times: "President Obama on Tuesday said he was 'deeply disappointed' with the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision ruling a central piece of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, and he called on Congress to pass legislation protecting access to voting." The President's statement is here. ...
... Attorney General Eric Holder responds to the Supreme Court's decision to decimate the Voting Rights Act. Worth listening to:
... Ari Berman of the Nation takes a look back at the many failed attempts -- until yesterday -- to gut the Voting Rights Act: "The VRA hasn't changed, but the Republican Party has. Today's 5-4 decision by the Roberts Court gutting the VRA was the result of three factors, as I wrote in February: 'a whiter, more Southern, more conservative GOP that has responded to demographic change by trying to suppress an increasingly diverse electorate; a twenty-five-year effort to gut the VRA by conservative intellectuals, who in recent years have received millions of dollars from top right-wing funders, including Charles Koch; and a reactionary Supreme Court that does not support remedies to racial discrimination.'" ...
... CW: underlying all that is the strongly-held (and barely-hidden) belief that the United States was perfect in 1790, right before the Bill of Rights was adopted. It has been downhill from there, what with allowing non-propertied white men to vote, abolishing slavery, letting women vote, then ensuring that minorities could vote, too. Slowly, slowly, the right is returning the U.S.A. to the "perfection" of its birth.
... ** "A Decision as Lamentable as Plessy or Dred Scott." Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic: "Five unelected, life-tenured men this morning declared that overt racial discrimination in the nation's voting practices is over and no longer needs all of the special federal protections it once did. They did so, without a trace of irony, by striking down as unconstitutionally outdated a key provision of a federal law that this past election cycle alone protected the franchise for tens of millions of minority citizens. And they did so on behalf of an unrepentant county in the Deep South whose officials complained about the curse of federal oversight even as they continued to this very day to enact and implement racially discriminatory voting laws." ...
... Richard Hasan, in a New York Times op-ed: "... The chief justice couches his opinion in modesty, stating that the court is striking only the Section 4 coverage formula and not Section 5. But don't be fooled: Congress didn't touch the formula in 2006 because doing so would have doomed renewal. Congress avoided the political issue then, and there's no way today's more polarized Congress will agree upon a new list of discriminatory states." ...
... ** Jamelle Bouie of the American Prospect: "... our long history of apartheid, discrimination, and white supremacy requires an equally long attempt at repair and reconciliation. It's why the 2006 reauthorization extended the VRA for another quarter century: because '40 years has not been a sufficient amount of time to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination following nearly 100 years of disregard for the dictates of the 15th amendment,' the law's authors note. The last three years are proof positive of this assessment." ...
... Washington Post Editors: "LED BY Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court on Tuesday gutted a key element of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most potent anti-discrimination tools Congress ever devised. It was an audacious ruling devoid of the restraint the chief justice and his colleagues in the majority should have shown." ...
... Rep. John Lewis and others react to the ruling. (You could skip what the American Enterprise guy says. Like the Stephen Colbert character, he evidently doesn't see color.) ...
... Scott Lemieux in the American Prospect: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) is arguably the most important and successful civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress. Today, without remotely adequate justification, a bare majority of the Supreme Court cut the heart out of the centerpiece of the Great Society. That this outcome was expected doesn't make it any less outrageous." CW: Roberts is a smooth operator who is very good at pretending to be "reasonable & fair." You will not catch him making faces at Ginsberg. ...
... Ah, Adam Serwer of NBC News makes that point about Roberts, too. "By kicking the decision of whether Section 5 the Voting Rights Act lives or dies to Congress, Roberts avoids the blame for its demise.... Rather than killing a landmark civil rights law by borrowing the racial resentment of Scalia or the historical inversions of Thomas, Roberts chooses a route that appears more narrow but may be no less final, one that better insulates the high court from criticism. Roberts didn't kill Section 5, he simply anesthetized a terminally ill patient and left her in the operating room, waiting for a surgeon who will never arrive." ...
Huh. My experience with John Lewis in Selma earlier this year was a profound experience that demonstrated the fortitude it took to advance civil rights and ensure equal protection for all. I'm hopeful Congress will put politics aside, as we did on that trip, and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected. -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), in a statement ...
... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declined to comment...." ...
... "Ku Klux Kourt." Greg Palast in Truth-Out: "The Jim Crow majority on the Supreme Court just took away the vote of millions of Hispanic and African-American voters by wiping away Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965." CW: this sounds about right to me. The white supremacists who dominate state legislatures & administrations, along with their loyal ALEC assistants, must be busy little bees tonight initiating new plans to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning voters. What is needed is a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote & giving the Justice Department the same responsibilities for all states that it had under the Voting Rights Act for some. Thanks to James S. for the link. ...
... If You Think the GOP Is Bad Now.... Joshua Green of BusinessWeek: "The Supreme Court's decision to strike down a central provision of the Voting Rights Act will make it easier for Republicans to hold and expand their power in those mainly Southern states. That will, in turn, make it easier for them to hold the House. It will also intensify the Southern captivity of the GOP, thereby making it harder for Republicans to broaden their appeal and win back the White House." ...
Quote of the Day.The speaker [Boehner] has said, within a period of a little over 24 hours, we're going to pass immigration but we're going to have Democratic votes to do it. As soon as his crazies heard that, I guess they talked to him and next day he comes back and said: 'I will only pass it if I have the majority of the majority.' So the point is, I'm not sure that he -- or anyone else in leadership in the House -- really know what they're doing. -- Harry Reid, speaking to reporters Tuesday
Mark Hosenball, et al., of Reuters: "Even as U.S. intelligence agencies and their global partners assess potential damage from Edward Snowden's disclosures about surveillance programmes, militants have begun responding by altering methods of communication, a change that could make it harder to foil attacks, U.S. officials say. Intelligence agencies have detected that members of targeted militant organizations, including both Sunni and Shi'ite Islamist groups, have begun altering communications patterns in what was believed to be a direct response to details on eavesdropping leaked by the former U.S. spy agency contractor, two U.S. national security sources said." ...
... Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "... Edward Snowden ... has a plan B. The former NSA systems administrator has already given encoded files containing an archive of the secrets he lifted from his old employer to several people. If anything happens to Snowden, the files will be unlocked. Glenn Greenwald ... told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden 'has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.... If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.' The fact that Snowden has made digital copies of the documents he accessed while working at the NSA poses a new challenge to the U.S. intelligence community...." ...
... Diane Bartz & Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters: "Government auditors discovered four years ago that a select group of private contractors conducting background checks for high-security jobs were not doing enough to ensure the quality of their investigations. Some investigators hired by the companies were not adequately trained or closely supervised, and the background reports they turned over to agencies for hundreds of thousands of prospective employees had missing information that could lead to risky hiring, the inspector general for the Office of Personnel Management said in a 2010 report that got little attention. Now ... the report's findings are drawing new attention. Some lawmakers are calling for a full review of how security clearances are done."
Congressional Race!
Michael Levenson, et al., of the Boston Globe: "Veteran Democratic US Representative Edward J. Markeyedged past Republican businessman Gabriel E. Gomez today in a special election for US Senate in Massachusetts that had been marked by its brevity and by low voter interest. The Associated Press called the election at about 9:15 p.m." CW: Thanks to contributor Julie, et al., for your good works. ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Postprofiles Sen. William "Mo" Cowan, the man Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick chose to keep Secretary of State John Kerry's Senate seat warm until voters picked a replacement.
Local News
Kate Alexander of the Austin Statesman: "Hundreds of orange-clad abortion rights supporters filed into the gallery of the Texas Senate Tuesday morning to support state Sen. Wendy Davis' planned filibuster to kill a controversial abortion bill. And there to greet them was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards." ...
... CW @ 11 pm ET Tuesday: State Senate Republicans are being beyond cruel to Davis, attempting to end her filibuster because she put on a back brace. ...
... Austin StatesmanUpdate (4:12 am ET): "Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst returned to the Senate floor at 3:01 a.m., banged the gavel and announced that, 'regrettably, the constitutional time expired' on the special session. Senate Bill 5 cannot be signed because it passed after midnight, he said.... The crowds in the Capitol, loudly cheering early word that the bill had failed, let loose with another rousing cheer when told that it was official. Speaking to reporters afterward, Dewhurst said he was furious about the night's events. 'An unruly mob, using Occupy Wall Street tactics, disrupted the Senate from protecting unborn babies,' he said." CW: all hail the unruly mob. And Wendy Davis. ...
... Manny Fernandez & Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Hours after claiming that they successfully passed some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country, Republican lawmakers reversed course on Wednesday and said a disputed late-night vote on the bill did not follow legislative procedures, rendering the vote moot and giving Democrats a bitterly fought if short-lived victory. The reversal capped a remarkable day in the Texas Legislature here. A petite Fort Worth Democrat in pink sneakers staged a 10-hour-plus filibuster marathon in which she never sat down. Abortion rights activists succeeded in disrupting Republican senators, and the fate of a bill that Gov. Rick Perry had made a priority devolved into a legislative mess...." ...
... Huffington Post: "Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), who captivated the country with her attempted 13-hour filibuster of a sweeping anti-abortion bill, likely would have lost her seat in 2012 to redistricting if not for the Voting Rights Act that was gutted Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court."
Voter Suppression Now! Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Officials in Texas said they would rush ahead with a controversial voter ID law that critics say will make it more difficult for ethnic minority citizens to vote, hours after the US supreme court released them from anti-discrimination constraints that have been in place for almost half a century. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, declared that in the light of the supreme court's judgment striking down a key element of the 1965 Voting Rights Act he was implementing instantly the voter ID law that had previously blocked by the Obama administration.... The provocative speed with which Texas has raced to embrace its new freedoms underlines the high-stakes nature of the supreme court ruling." ...
... Gary Robertson of the AP: " Voter identification legislation in North Carolina will pick up steam again now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, a key General Assembly leader said Tuesday." ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "The eagerness with which Abbott and others are certain that now they'll be able to get away with things that the federal government wouldn't let them get away with before puts a rather large dent in the Court's theory that we can stop being quite so diligent against the efforts now."
Another Texas Milestone. Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle: "For the second time in two days, Texas' highest appeals court on Tuesday rejected Dallas killer Kimberly McCarthy's request that it consider irregularities in the selection of her jury. McCarthy, 52, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday for the July 1997 robbery-murder of a 71-year-old Dallas woman. McCarthy would be the 500th killer put to death since the state resumed executions in 1982."
Carol Leonnig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "A prominent political donor purchased a Rolex watch for Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, according to two people with knowledge of the gift, and the governor did not disclose it in his annual financial filings. The $6,500 luxury watch was provided by wealthy businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr.... He is the chief executive of dietary supplement manufacturer Star Scientific and the person who paid for catering at the wedding of the governor's daughter.... Williams's gift came in August 2011 -- about two weeks after he met with a top state health official to pitch the benefits of his company's health products at a meeting arranged by first lady Maureen McDonnell.... Williams bought the watch at the urging of Maureen McDonnell, who admired Williams's own Rolex and suggested that he buy her a similar one she could give to her husband.... Her proposal occurred moments before the meeting she had arranged with the state official...."
News Ledes
Orlando Sentinel: "From the witness stand Wednesday, the state's star witness in the George Zimmermanmurder trial, Rachel 'Diamond' Jeantel, gave her account of Trayvon Martin's last seconds -- and they were dramatic."
AP: "Moscow's main airport swarmed with journalists from around the globe Wednesday, but the man they were looking for -- National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden -- was nowhere to be seen."
New York Times: "The former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday pulled off one of the most sensational political comebacks in this country's history, ousting in a party vote the woman who replaced him as leader of the Labor Party in a 2010 party coup, Prime Minister Julia Gillard." The Sydney Morning Herald's liveblog is here.
Reuters: "More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, now the longest and most violent of the recent Arab uprisings, a monitoring group said on Wednesday." ...
... Reuters: "Talks between the United States and Russia to set up a Syrian peace conference produced no deal on Tuesday, with the powers on either side of the two-year civil war failing to agree when it should be held or who would be invited."
Bloomberg News: "Marc Rich, the commodities trader who fled the U.S. to avoid federal indictments during the 1980s before President Bill Clinton pardoned him two decades later, has died. He was 78."
John Broder of the New York Times: " President Obama will propose a sweeping plan to address climate change on Tuesday, setting ambitious goals and timetables for a series of executive actions to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and prepare the nation for the ravages of a warming planet. The plan, to be announced in a policy address at Georgetown University, is the most far-reaching effort by an American president to address what many experts consider the defining environmental and economic challenge of the 21st century. But it also could provoke a backlash from some in Congress and in states dependant on coal and other industries, who will say that it imposes costly, job-killing burdens on a still-fragile economy." ...
... CW: More accurate analysis: "... it will provoke a backlash from some in Congress who are climate-change-denying cranks and from some who object to every fucking word the President utters."
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "The bipartisan push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws took a major step forward Monday evening when the Senate endorsed a proposal to substantially bolster security along the nation's southern borders as part of measure that would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country." ...
... CW: when it becomes available, I'll put up a Chris Hayes segment on the Social Security provision of the bill. It's a shocker. Update: here it is:
** Eric Holder will make a statement at noon about the Shelby County decision. ...
"Holding. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance." Roberts wrote the opinion. In a concurring opinion, Thomas would strike down Section 5 as well. "Thomas concurs. Ginsburg dissents, joined by Breyer Sotomayor, and Kagan." ...
... "The Court makes clear that: 'Our decision in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting found in [Section] 2. We issue no holding on [Section] 5 itself, only on the coverage formula. Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions.'" ...
... Justice Ginsberg read her dissent from the bench. ...
... Pete Williams of NBC News says the Court struck down the map. The Court is leaving it up to Congress. NBC News expert: this is a huge moment in civil rights history. Section 5 upheld. Chris Hayes calls the conservatives' decision "a remarkable act of hubris." ...
... The decision & other opinions in Shelby County v. Holder are here (pdf). ...
... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, ruling that Congress had not provided adequate justification for subjecting nine states, mostly in the South, to federal oversight."
... Justice Clarence Thomas compares affirmative action to segregation & slavery. Al Sharpton speaks with Jeffrey Rosen:
... The decision, concurring opinions & Ginberg's dissent, are here (pdf). Thomas's opinion begins on page 18.
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Monday was a great day for sexual harassers and for bosses who retaliate against workers claiming discrimination. The rest of us did not fare so well in the Supreme Court.... The most lasting impact of today's decisions likely will be the twin blows struck against women and minorities in the workplace. Taking advantage of employees just became a whole lot easier."...
... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "A familiar scenario at the Supreme Court on Monday resulted in a familiar result: liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgcalling for Congress to reverse two employment rulings just issued by the court's conservative majority. In both cases, the court voted 5 to 4 to make it harder for employees to challenge what they considered workplace harassment and retaliation for complaints of discrimination, violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act." ...
... Jeff Toobin has a good piece in the New Yorker on Ginsberg's opinion. ...
... "Justice Alito's Middle-School Antics." Dana Milbank: "Samuel Alito..., a George W. Bush appointee, read two opinions, both 5-4 decisions that split the court along its usual right-left divide. But Alito didn't stop there. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, Alito visibly mocked his colleague.... Alito, seated immediately to Ginsburg's left, shook his head from side to side in disagreement, rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling. His treatment of the 80-year-old Ginsburg, 17 years his elder and with 13 years more seniority, was a curious display of judicial temperament or, more accurately, judicial intemperance.... Days earlier, I watched as he demonstrated his disdain for Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the two other women on the court.... At the various oral arguments I've watched over the past few years, Alito's eye-rolling, head-shaking and other expressions of exasperation are a fairly common occurrence, most often when Sotomayor has the floor."
The Travels of Snowden, Ctd.
Alexei Anishchuk & Timothy Heritage of Reuters: "Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowdenwas still in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, was free to leave and should do so as soon as possible. Putin told a news conference during a visit to Finland that he hoped the affair would not affect relations with Washington, which wants Russia to send him to the United States, but indicated Moscow would not hand him over. He dismissed U.S. accusations against Russia over the case as 'rubbish.'" ...
... **Guardian liveblog: "Vladimir Putin says Snowden is in a transit zone at Sheremetyevo International Airport.... Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Snowden will not be extradited to the United States." ...
** Miriam Elder of the Guardian: "Russia's foreign minister has said the surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowdennever crossed the border into Russia, deepening the mystery over his suspected flight from Hong Kong. 'I would like to say right away that we have no relation to either Mr Snowden or to his relationship with American justice or to his movements around the world,' Sergei Lavrov said. 'He chose his route on his own, and we found out about it, as most here did, from mass media,' he said during a joint press conference with Algeria's foreign minister. 'He did not cross the Russian border.'" ...
... Oh. Snowden was in Russia actually but not technically. Maybe. Kathy Lally & Anthony Faiola of the Washington Post: "But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Snowden had not actually crossed into Russian territory, apparently remaining in a secure transit zone inside the airport or in an area controlled by foreign diplomats. Moscow therefore has had no jurisdiction over his movements, Lavrov said." ...
... Jay Newton-Small of Time: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told reporters in a 75-minute telephone conference call on Monday that Edward Snowdenis 'healthy and safe.' Assange also made clear he is relishing Snowden's defiance of the U.S. 'I have personal sympathy with Snowden, having gone through similar personal experiences,' he said. But Assange had few new details to offer about Snowden's dramatic voyage. He couldn't say where Snowden is now, where he's going or even whether Assange had spoken directly to the former NSA contractor." ...
... Ellen Barry & Mark Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "... a stream of reports from unnamed Russian officials, disseminated over Russian news agencies, had been an exuberant deception, throwing up a cloud of dust while Mr. Snowden quietly evaded the United States government. At nightfall, it was impossible to say with certainty where Mr. Snowden was. By contrast, everyone knew where half of the Moscow press corps was: halfway to Havana, on one of the few regular Russian flights that does not serve alcohol. It was the kind of plan that the F.S.B., and the K.G.B. before it, would describe as a 'special operation.' And somewhere in Moscow, it was clear, someone was laughing." ...
... ** Lana Lam of the South China Morning News: "Edward Snowden secured a job with a US government contractor for one reason alone -- to obtain evidence of Washington's cyberspying networks, the South China Morning Post can reveal. For the first time, Snowden has admitted he sought a position at Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the US National Security Agency's secret surveillance programmes ahead of planned leaks to the media. 'My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,' he told the Post on June 12. 'That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.'" ...
... Greg Sargent: "... in an interview [with me] this afternoon, [Glenn] Greenwalddismissed the significance of the new revelations [in the South China Morning Post report], saying they fit in logically with the chronology that's already publicly known about Snowden -- and he challenged critics to show proof of any wrongdoing on his part. 'Anybody who wants to accuse me or anyone at the Guardian of aiding and abetting Snowden has the obligation to point to any specific evidence to support that accusation,' Greenwald told me. 'Otherwise they're just spouting reckless innuendo.'" ...
... Mark Hosenball of Reuters: "U.S. intelligence agencies are worried they do not yet know how much highly sensitive material is in the possession of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, whose whereabouts are unclear, several U.S. officials said. The agencies fear that Snowden may have taken many more documents than officials initially estimated and that his alliance with founder Julian Assange increases the likelihood that they will be made public without considering the security implications, they said." ...
... Peter Baker & Ellen Barry of the New York Times: "The Obama administration escalated its criticism of Russia, China and Ecuador, all of which appeared to be protecting the fugitive leaker Edward J. Snowden." ...
... CW: notice how Guardian reporters continue to describe Snowden as a "whistleblower," while the Times labels him a "fugitive leaker" in its front-page blurb. In the body of the Times story, the reporters call Snowden "a self-described whistle-blower" Words matter. ...
... Update: Jonathan Kaiman of the Guardian does describe Snowden as a "fugitive": "China's top state newspaper has praised the fugitive US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden for 'tearing off Washington's sanctimonious mask' and rejected accusations Beijing had facilitated his departure from Hong Kong." ...
... Julie Pace of the AP: "For President Barack Obama, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's globe-trotting evasion of U.S. authorities has dealt a startling setback to efforts to strengthen ties with China and raised the prospect of worsening tensions with Russia." ...
... ** John Cassidy of the New Yorker has a good piece on why he's on Ed Snowden's side. "The puzzle is why so many media commentators continue to toe the official line." ...
... Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog observed a Sunday ago that "... Obama's failure to get [Ed Snowden] back will be deemed by the right as effectively canceling out the killing of bin Laden." ...
... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Obama's critics argue that Obama has lost influence internationally. [Eliot] Cohen -- a top foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney, Obama's 2012 Republican opponent -- said Snowden's escape was 'a humiliation' for the president." ...
... CW: All that means Snowden is coming back to face the music. Maybe not tomorrow, but certainly before the end of Obama's presidency. The biggest leak-squelcher evah will get the biggest leaker evah, if only to once again prove his political opponents wrong. The Ed Snowden story will not end well for Ed Snowden. ...
... Michael Kelley & Gus Lubin of Business Insider: "At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 13, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) asked FBI Director Robert Mueller if the National Security Agency (NSA) needs specific court approval before listening to a domestic phone call. Mueller said yes. Analysis of leaked NSA documents by Glenn Greenwald and James Ball of the Guardian suggests that this is not true." Nadler disputed Mueller's testimony but later retracted his claim. Looks like Nadler was right. ...
... When Satire Is True. Andy Borowitz: "A U.S. intelligence agency was so busy spying on three hundred million Americans that it failed to notice one dude who was working for it, a spokesman for the agency acknowledged today."
The Incredible Shrinking IRS Scandal. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The instructions that Internal Revenue Service officials used to look for applicants seeking tax-exempt status with 'Tea Party' and 'Patriots' in their titles also included groups whose names included the words 'Progressive' and 'Occupy,' according to I.R.S. documents released Monday. The documents appeared to back up contentions by I.R.S. officials and some Democrats that the agency did not intend to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny. Instead, the documents say, officials were trying to use 'key word' shortcuts to find overtly political organizations -- both liberal and conservative -- that were after tax favors by saying they were social welfare organizations.... House Democrats seized on the documents to question why the Treasury inspector general, in the audit that began the scandal, omitted any mention of scrutiny that did not focus on conservatives. Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee demanded a second hearing with the inspector general, J. Russell George, to allow him to 'explain the glaring omission in his audit report.'" CW: Weisman doesn't say so, but Dubya appointed George, who has compared the IRS "scandal" to Richard Nixon's misuse of the IRS. ...
... Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has more detail.
Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Federal regulators are poised to sueJon S. Corzine over the collapse of MF Global and the brokerage firm's misuse of customer money during its final days, a blowup that rattled Wall Street and cast a spotlight on Mr. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor who ran the firm until its bankruptcy in 2011."
Eric Moskowitz & Martin Finucane of the Boston Globe: "Voters are headed to the polls today to cast their ballots in the US Senate special election pitting veteran Democratic US Representative Edward J. Markey and Republican businessman Gabriel E. Gomez. The compressed election, held because of the departure of John Kerry to become US secretary of state, has struggled to capture the public's attention because of other news events in recent months.... Turnout is expected to be low on a sizzlingly hot day." ...
... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post on "why Ed Markeywill (almost certainly) win." (CW: which doesn't mean Massachusetts Reality Chex readers should stay home from the polls to prepare for victory parties.)
Local News
Will Weissert & Jim Vertuno of the AP: "A sweeping bill that would effectively shut down most abortion clinics across the nation's second most-populous state has stalled in the Texas Senate, and a Democratic filibuster that will only need to last a seemingly manageable 13 hours Tuesday looks like it will be enough to talk the hotly contested measure to death. After thwarting two attempts Monday by majority Republicans to bring the abortion bill to a floor vote ahead of its scheduled time Tuesday morning, Democrats are turning to Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, to stage the marathon speech.... She will have to speak nonstop, remain standing, refrain from bathroom breaks or even leaning on anything. Other Democrats can give her voice a break by offering questions to keep conversation moving." ...
... Mike Ward of the Austin StatesmanprofilesDavis.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Singing crowds gathered outside the hospital where Nelson Mandela, South Africa's former president, lay in a critical state for a third consecutive day on Tuesday, as family members held an emergency meeting at his ancestral village."
Orlando Sentinel: "Prosecutors in the George Zimmerman trial will continue calling witnesses today, hoping to convince jurors Zimmerman is guilty of second-degree murder in 17-year-old Trayvon Martin's shooting. Attorneys in the case returned to court about 8:30 a.m. today. Before testimony resumes, Circuit Judge Debra Nelson will hear argument on whether prosecutors can play for the jury Zimmerman's calls to police to report suspicious people in the months before the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting." ...
Share Article 
