The Commentariat -- Aug. 7, 2013
Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Barack Obama will refuse to hold talks with Vladimir Putin when he visits Russia for the G20 summit next month as a row over granting asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden plunged their relationship into one of its chilliest phases since the end of the cold war. The White House confirmed on Tuesday that it had decided to snub the Russian leader by pulling out of the planned bilateral summit in Moscow, but is expected to take part as normal in the broader G20 meeting of international leaders in St Petersburg."
Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "In an appearance in Phoenix, Mr. Obama endorsed bipartisan efforts in the Senate to wind down [Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac] and end their longtime implicit guarantee of a federal government bailout. That dread prospect, once thought improbable, was realized in the fall 2008 financial crisis; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then bankrupt, were rescued by the government at great cost to taxpayers, who only now are being repaid. The president made clear that he will only sign into law a measure that puts private investors primarily at risk for the two companies, which buy and guarantee many mortgages from banks to provide a continuing stream of money for lenders to provide to additional home buyers":
President Obama appeared on Jay Leno's show last night. Mediaite has the full interview (in three parts) here.
Dr. Frankenstein's Anti-ObamaCare Monster. Steve Benen: "... as far as some Tea Partiers are concerned..., conservative Republicans who see the shutdown strategy as folly are suddenly the enemy. It appears that Republican officials have created a monster, and like Frankenstein, they aren't altogether pleased with the results." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... 'stories' which shriek about premium increases are not improving public understanding of Obamacare." ...
... Erika Eichelberger of Mother Jones has an amusing piece on "The Seven Craziest Obamacare Conspiracy Theories.... Obamacare is going to implant you with a microchip. Obamacare is going to tax your golf club. Obamacare is going to create a massive unprecedented federal database to hold all of your 'intimate ... secrets.'" CW: These would be more amusing if great swaths of your garden-variety FoxBots didn't believe them. ...
... Oh Yeah? Sharon Begley of Reuters: "The federal government is months behind in testing data security for the main pillar of Obamacare: allowing Americans to buy health insurance on state exchanges due to open by October 1." CW: unrefuted evidence that President Obama doesn't care if your neighbors find out you have an STD.
** Katie McDonough of Salon: "Since Nebraska first jump-started the trend back in 2010, close to a dozen state legislatures across the country have passed laws banning abortion at 20 weeks. Most ... are given grave-sounding titles like the 'Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,' or some near-identical riff on the words 'fetal,' 'pain' and 'protection.' All of them ... rest on the stated premise that a fetus can experience pain at 20 weeks.... But ... the limited research used to support such claims has been refuted as pseudoscience by both the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (Not to mention smaller studies....) The neural structures necessary to feel pain have not yet developed, any observable responses to stimuli at this gestational stage -- like the fetal 'flinching' during an amniocentesis -- are reflexive, not experiential." Thanks of Barbarossa for the link. CW: read the whole piece.
Oren Kerr, in the New Yorker: "In a major decision last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the location of your cell phone when you place a call is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, which guards against 'unreasonable searches and seizures.' ... The decision is a win for the government and police powers, with the caveat that other cases are pending and may reach a different outcome. And if they disagree, it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide." Kerr explains the logic behind the Fifth Circuit's opinion, & it is rather neat. So if you want to know why James Clapper's ability to hoover your phone records is consistent with the Fourth Amendment, here it is. Cue Glenn Greenwald.
James Traub of Foreign Policy, in a New York Times op-ed: "Tea Partyers often style themselves as disciples of Thomas Jefferson, the high apostle of limited government. But by taking the ramparts against immigration, the movement is following a trajectory that looks less like the glorious arc of Jefferson's Republican Party than the suicidal path of Jefferson's great rivals, the long-forgotten Federalists, who also refused to accept the inexorable changes of American demography."
PolitiFact Blows It Again. Steve Benen: Eric Cantor said this weekend on Fox "News" that the deficit is growing, but it is unquestionably shrinking. PolitiFact called Cantor's claim "half-true." "... even by [PolitiFact's] standards, this is a doozy. Cantor said the deficit is growing; PolitiFact knows that the deficit is shrinking; but it nevertheless tells the public that the claim is 'half true' because in future years, if certain budget conditions happen a certain way, Cantor's claim might someday become true. I suppose my follow-up question for PolitiFact is this: what incentive do political leaders have to tell the truth when you tell the public their patently false claims are 'half true'?" ...
... Paul Krugman: "It is, of course, the same old problem: news organizations in general, and PolitiFact in particular, are set up to deal with a world in which both parties generally respect reality, and in which dishonesty and delusion are roughly equally distributed between the parties. Faced with the highly asymmetric reality, they choke -- treating mild Democratic exaggerations as if they were equivalent to outright falsehoods on the other side, treating wild misrepresentations on the GOP side as if they were slight misstatements. This should be simple: PolitiFact should just rule on the facts; it should seek to be party-blind, which isn't the same as being 'nonpartisan', with its connotation of 'balance'. But apparently it can't do it." ...
... CW: Actually, PolitiFact's problem is that its reporters read the New York Times. Here's Jonathan Weisman reporting in the Times on July 8: "The federal budget deficit will fall to $759 billion for the fiscal year that ends this September.... The White House projected the deficit to bottom out at $496 billion in 2018, then start ticking back up to $593 billion in 2022." This week, in a Times opinion post titled "Someone Tell Cantor: the Deficit Is Shrinking," Juliet Lapidos emphasized the White House's/Weisman's/PolitiFact's qualification. She wrote: "Granted, this trend won't last: 'The White House projected the deficit to bottom out at $496 billion in 2018, then start ticking back up to $593 billion in 2022.'" PolitiFact was following Lapidos' lead. ...
... Update: PolitiFact responds to Benen & Krugman. Worth noting here: on July 24, PolitiFact rated as "true" President Obama's remark that the deficit was falling at the fastest rate in 50 years. ...
... This is worth noting, because, as Jonathan Bernstein writes, "Here's the thing: it just can't be true that the deficit is falling at a record pace, and also half-true that the deficit is 'growing.' ... The real story here, and the real reason I've stopped paying attention to PolitiFact, is that they handle criticism extremely badly. They got this wrong; that's okay. In my view, they probably shouldn't have looked at it in the first place.... Or, having done it, they could realize that their two ratings really didn't reconcile, and they could have admitted error and dealt with it. But if they treat legitimate criticism [the way they did in their response to Benen & Krugman]..., then how can you take them seriously?"
Evan Perez of CNN: "Federal authorities have filed the first criminal charges in the investigation of the deadly terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, people briefed on the matter said. Several suspects charged in the armed assault last September 11 include prominent Libyan militia figure Ahmed Abu Khattala, the sources said. Other identities were not disclosed. The counts initially sought months ago in New York are still under seal, according to the sources." CW: let's see how Republicans spin this.
Interesting. Alan Zarembo of the Los Angeles Times: "A tour of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq -- even one involving combat -- does not increase a service member's risk of suicide, according to a study that tracked more than 150,000 troops for up to eight years. The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., challenges the common assumption that the stresses of being in a war zone and exposure to the horrors of battle are behind a sharp increase in the military's suicide rate over the last decade."
Local News
** Kyung Lah of CNN: Air Force veteran Eldonna "Fernandez, along with Army veteran Gerri Tindley, joins 11 other women who have publicly accused [San Diego Mayor Bob] Filner, 70, of making unwanted advances, from groping to verbal passes. They are also among at least eight female veterans and members of the National Women's Veterans Association of America (NWVAA) in San Diego who have made accusations against the mayor. Almost all of the women were victims of sexual assault while they were in the military. The women, like Fernandez, say the former chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee used his significant power and credentials to access military sexual assault survivors, who they say are less likely to complain." ...
... CW: I know sexual harassment isn't a crime, but I do hope prosecutors from the feds on down are looking for criminal laws to to charge Filner with breaking.
CNN: "Former President Bill Clinton said he and his wife, Hillary Clinton, have many 'personal friends' in the New York City mayoral race and added that he shouldn't talk about the contest. His comments came in an interview with CNN in Kigali, Rwanda, where Clinton is on a six-stop trip in the continent with his daughter for their work with The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. 'We are a hundred miles from that race and everyone understands that we are not going to be involved, as long as our personal friends and people who we feel obligations are involved,' he told CNN's Nima Elbagir.... 'Neither Hillary or I was ever involved in the political campaign, and they understood that from the beginning,' he said. 'There are too many people running for mayor who have been my supporters, who supported her for senator, her for president'":
... Michael Musto interviews Weiner's "friend" Sydney Leathers for Gawker. CW: I read a little of it; definitely not a must-read.
Senatorial Races
Betting on Booker. David Halbfinger, et al., of the New York Times: "... how a few tech moguls and entrepreneurs, many of them also campaign donors, not only made a financial bet on [Newark Mayor Cory Booker's] political future but also provided the brainpower and financing to help create a company that could make him very rich." The tech company with which they gifted Booker also has provided jobs for Booker's friends & supporters. CW: nobody would claim Cory doesn't know how to network.
Kyle Roerink of the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune: "Senate candidate Liz Cheney improperly received a state resident fishing license based on an application with incorrect information, according to Wyoming Game and Fish Department records. Cheney ... received her resident license just 72 days after closing on her Wilson house in May 2012. State law requires residents live in the state 365 consecutive days before they can receive a resident hunting or fishing license, which are cheaper than out-of-state licenses. Cheney's application also lists her as a 10-year resident of Wyoming.... 'The clerk must have made a mistake,' she said. 'I never claimed to be a 10-year resident.' ... The fine for a false statement on the application is $220 and is a misdemeanor.... If Game and Fish imposes the fine and Cheney chooses to contest the fine in court, a judge could ratchet up the fine to $1,000." An official of the state's Game & Fish says the agency will "follow up on this like any other residency issues... It's at the initial stages of verification.'" Via Charles Pierce, who is unimpressed with Cheney's carpetbagging skills. CW: since Cheney & her husband are multi-millionaires, the few bucks they saved on an in-state license is the height of stupid. Of course, um, maybe the clerk made a mistake.
Presidential Race 2016
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Republicans have begun trying to damage former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's political image ahead of her expected 2016 White House bid." CW: no doubt this will come as a shock to Clinton, as Republicans have never done anything like this before.
Alex Massie of the Spectator has a good piece on the appeal or lack thereof of presumptive presidential candidates: "Being likeable is one thing but it's more important for a candidate to be respected. That means they need to project some brand of presidentialism which is not quite the same thing as being able to talk Average Joe even if that quality may also be extremely useful. We don't know if [Chris] Christie can do that yet." Massie argues that Li'l Randy won't make the cut. Via Jonathan Bernstein. CW: But what about Dubya? Massie never mentions him. How is it possible that anyone thought Dubya seemed presidential? -- especially compared to Kerry, who seems like Abe Lincoln in slo-mo.
News Ledes
Houston Chronicle: "One of the biggest capital murder trials in U.S. military history came to an abrupt halt on its second day as Maj. Nidal Hasan's standby counsel team asked that its role in the proceeding be modified. Lawyers on the team said Hasan is intentionally seeking the death penalty in his court-martial. The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, cleared the court Wednesday morning so she could conduct a closed hearing on the matter. The trial in the 2009 shooting that left 13 people dead and 31 wounded is scheduled to resume Thursday morning."
Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Ariel Castro's home is no more. The modest house at 2207 Seymour Ave., where Castro kept Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight locked up for more than a decade, is nothing more than a pile of rubble after crews used an excavator to tear down the property.... A crush of media and onlookers gathered before daybreak as crews from the Cuyahoga Land Bank, in charge of the demolition, and Independence Excavating prepared to tear down the home." ...
... Guardian: "The house is being torn down as part of a deal that spared Ariel Castro a possible death sentence."
Daily Beast: "The crucial intercept that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a conference call between al Qaeda's senior leaders and representatives of several of the group's affiliates throughout the region."
New York Times: "A day after the United States and Britain moved to withdraw personnel from Yemen, a move that had followed embassy closures, Yemeni security officials said Wednesday that the authorities here had foiled an audacious plot by Al Qaeda to seize an important port and kidnap or kill foreigners working there." ...
... Update: here's the White House statement.
... Washington Post: "The Obama administration authorized a series of drone strikes in Yemen over the past 10 days as part of an effort to disrupt an al-Qaeda terrorism plot that has forced the closure of American embassies around the world, U.S. officials said. The officials said the revived drone campaign -- with four strikes in rapid succession -- is directly related to the emergence of intelligence indicating that al-Qaeda's leader has urged the group's Yemen affiliate to attack Western targets."
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The comment that follows got stuck in my spam the other day. My apologies. -- CW:
I'd like to recommend this new post by Ian Welsh:
http://www.ianwelsh.net/bin-ladens-insights-and-the-egyptian-coup/.
It can also be found at http://ianwelsh.net/
Best to all,
Keith Howard
I'm convinced the human race is doomed.
So the Japanese authorities JUST discovered that around 300 tons of radioactive water has been contaminating the Pacific coast of Japan EVERY DAY FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS!!!
Holy fucking shit people! You would think a nuclear contamination leak would be pretty high on the priority list of national security, seeing as they probably need to grow food to eat and fish with five eyes don't sell well, but apparently the Japanese just left the problem up to the TEPCO company who've been pulling their best Paul Ryan impersonation lying through their teeth claiming everything's under control.
Now TEPCO and the government have decided they have an "emergency" on their hands and need to find a solution...two years later.
They're estimating this clusterfuck will take 40 years to "fix" (whatever that means) and $11 billion (I wonder who's footing that bill?)
Whether you believe in climate change or not (if not, pull head out of anal cavity), I think we can all agree that a laissez-faire attitude toward nuclear contamination of our oceans is the wrong direction to go. We sort of have to share the oceans so please GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER JAPAN!
And the news of this continuing social and ecological disaster as we mark 68 years almost to the day (Aug. 6, 1945) of the Hiroshima atomic bomb that first brought nuclear power to the shores of Japan.
The culprits change, but history repeats.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57597331/tons-of-tainted-water-leaking-into-ocean-from-fukushima/
I read Massie's piece with interest. I guess we all have our theories on why a candidate is elected to the Presidency. Current events in the country and the world inform more than a little of how we see the emotional, cognitive and interpersonal skills of a Presidential candidate. I suspect it is nearly impossible to codify those characteristics other than in an a very specific historical moment of hindsight, i.e the election of _____. The interpretation of "looking Presidential" varies across socioeconomic groups and personal beliefs. The more we lose consciousness of kind, the more "Looking Presidential" is a holdover from previous eras. Its definition is too personal to be useful.
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/07/fetal_pain_is_a_lie_how_phony_science_took_over_the_abortion_debate/
So what else is new? The right continues to make up stuff to suit their agenda. "A lie travels halfway around the world while the truth is still lacing up its boots."
An article in the Dailybeast, quoting "intelligence officers" reveals that the reason the embassies are closed is an intercepted alQaida conference call between 19 terrorist lieutenants and their leader in Pakistan. Noting which embassies have closed is a guide to where the calls originated. I guess there is one law for the drones like Snowden and another for Obama and his team. Now, thanks to US government actions and officials, the bad guys know for certain that their calls are being intercepted. At least it is proof that Snowden's actions have done nothing to offer comfort to the enemies of the US, or at least external enemies.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/07/al-qaeda-conference-call-intercepted-by-u-s-officials-sparked-alerts.html
A conference call???? Really?? Osama communicated by sending written messages because he was aware of communications monitoring years ago. So Al-Qaeda is so much more careless now? Me thinks we been punked.
How do you overcome monitoring? Create enough false messages that responses become over taxed. I seem to remember a childhood story about the boy who cried wolf.
The AQAP threat may require a nuanced reading which our current intelligence may not provide. It is possible that the interceptions are an effort to divert attention away from actual targets whilst they are laughing behind their hands. Al Qaeda is pretty masterful at using propaganda as a tool to elicit a US response to real or imagined threats. I use the ubiquitous "they" to designate any number of extremists groups including but not limited to Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, in general, has been weakened, but their tactics have always been focused and don't require a lot of manpower. The US is clearly in a defensive rather than offensive position in this instance. Given the uncertainty of what is unfolding, history, in hindsight, will be the judge of the damage that may have been done by Snowden with any of his revelations.
Obama has no choice but to safeguard US citizens overseas.
@cowichan writes, "Now, thanks to US government actions and officials, the bad guys know for certain that their calls are being intercepted. At least it is proof that Snowden's actions have done nothing to offer comfort to the enemies of the US, or at least external enemies."
If you read the Daily Beast report (which I linked early today under News Ledes), you know that Lake & Rogin's sources were "three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence." Lake & Rogin don't reveal the level of their sources, so they could be "officials" like Snowden or they could be White House or NSA people who have "authorization" to leak. But if Lake & Rogin had talked to "top officials," they would have said so. So my educated guess is their sources were rank-&-file "officials."
Indeed, Lake & Rogin credit "leaks about the original intercepts [to other news organizations]" for "likely expos[ing] the operation that allowed the U.S. intelligence community to listen in on the al Qaeda board meetings." Again, we don't know if these leakers were high-level "officials" or Ed Snowden-types, but more than likely they were rogues like Snowden.
Your surmise that the "US government actions and officials" are responsible for the "bad guys" knowing their conference calls were being intercepted assumes that the leakers had the authority to tip off the news orgs. I don't see where that has been established. At all.
According to earlier government claims (I think Barbara Starr of CNN was the first reporter on this), Snowden's leaks caused Al Qaeda & other anti-American organizations to change their means of communication. If they did so -- as Lake & Rogin imply -- then the NSA has caught on to their new methods, so whoever these new leakers are did tip off Al Qaeda that they'll have to go to Plan C.
On the other hand, as @Diane suggests, if I were an anti-American type who wanted to cause maximum trouble for the U.S. at a minimum cost, I guess I'd assume the NSA was listening in & use my "friends & family" minutes to call a bunch of my anti-American friends in a conference call & tell them that plans to bomb embassies & what-not were in the mail.
In short, Snowden's leaks may have helped Al Qaeda (& others) as Starr's sources claim, they may have been superfluous to this particular conference call, or the NSA may have caught up with whatever changes Al Qaeda made in response to Snowden's leaks. In any event, the Daily Beast piece is not, as you claim, "proof that Snowden's actions have done nothing to offer comfort to the enemies of the US."
Marie
Safari: 20 years ago I worked with some Japanese who had graduated from "top notch" universities. They were totally ignorant of anything having to do with environmentalism or ecology. American school children know more about Smokey the Bear and Woodsey the Owl than the movers and shakers in Japan.
We take for granted what we know while other people in other cultures don't have a clue about our informational touchstones. I think now about the gulf between the young Ivy leaguers and their lack of understanding about the life of all the down-market other little people. Just as the "leaders" in Japan pour nuclear waste all over the future of Japan, the "leaders" in the US are pouring ignorant self advancement into American life. Education is a process; education is not a project. And too many people think getting educated is about money making.