The Commentariat -- June 16
This Is Not a Movie. But this speech is as dramatic, moving & cynamatic as ever came from any actor in any film. This is Rep. Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.) speaking at one of Peter King's anti-Islam committee hearings. The subject here: prisoner "radicalization"; i.e., becoming Muslim. Here's the story by Benjy Sarlin of TPM:
Nicholas Kristof sees "our lefty military" as a good model for society: after all, it has low income disparity, great educational, healthcare and daycare benefits, high racial integration and a true sense of camaraderie. ...
... I've opened a comments page for Kristof's column on Off Times Square.
** Prof. Juan Cole responds to James Risen's New York Times report that the Bush Administration asked the CIA to obtain damaging information about him (Cole): Retired CIA official Glenn"Carle’s revelations come as a visceral shock.... Carle is taking a substantial risk in making all this public. I hope that the Senate and House Intelligence Committees will immediately launch an investigation of this clear violation of the law by the Bush White House and by the CIA officials concerned. Like Mr. Carle, I am dismayed at how easy it seems to have been for corrupt WH officials to suborn CIA personnel into activities that had nothing to do with national security abroad and everything to do with silencing domestic critics." Risen's story, also linked in today's Ledes, is here. ...
... CW: I'm sorry the Weiner resignation is going to push the Cole story to the sidelines, because I think the Bush Administration's attempt to dig up dirt on a university professor to discredit his criticism of their policies is a lot more important than Weinerpix. ...
... Greg Sargent: "Twitter claims its first major political casualty." ...
... Josh Marshall of TPM is disgusted with the Democratic leadership's calls for Weiner's resignation & efforts to strip him of his committee seats. ...
... BUT Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "Weiner’s colleagues turned on him almost certainly because he lied, and because of how he lied — because of the very specific lie that he told.... Claiming to have been hacked when it wasn’t true was too specific a lie. It meant that colleagues who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt repeated that lie.... And while they might have been willing to forgive Weiner for misbehavior, it’s a lot harder to forgive him for tricking them into telling lies to their own constituents." ...
... CW: SO I tend to agree with attorney Jonathan Turley's take on the Weiner affair, who makes several points I've made myself & some legal ones that I haven't. ...
... What Matters to the Media. Brian Beutler of TPM has a terrific video (below) & print report on Nancy Pelosi's regular Thursday presser. All the networks were breathless on the run-up to the press conference & all cut to it as soon as she stepped up to the podium. But the minute she said she would not make any remarks about Weiner but would speak about "jobs..., Medicare and the middle class," the networks cut away. The evidence:
... In case you thought you were watching news of importance to the nation when you tuned in to your favorite news channel, this should disabuse you of that idea.
Louise Story of the New York Times: "Regulators overseeing financial reform are delaying many of the planned changes in the $600 trillion market for complex securities known as derivatives< because they are running drastically behind schedule in writing their new rules. The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that market participants would not have to comply with many aspects of derivatives reform scheduled to take effect in mid-July. It declined to specify how long the delay would be in the equity derivatives it oversees. The announcement follows a similar statement on Tuesday from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, although that agency imposed a year-end deadline for many of the changes in the derivatives it oversees."
Glenn Greenwald on the illegality of U.S. participation in the Libyan war: "The growing bipartisan pressure on the White House today forced the President to once again offer a painfully ludicrous justification for why he is permitted to wage this war in Libya: namely, that the U.S. role is so limited that it does not require Congressional approval.... It is also worth noting that the War Powers Resolution, on its face, is not triggered by a 'war,' but rather 'any case in which U.S. Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities.'" ...
... We’re not engaged in hostilities, we’re just launching courtesy bombs! -- Translation of the Administration's Libya justification by John Cole of Balloon Juice
Fred Schulte, et al., of the Center for Public Integrity: "More than two years after President Obama took office vowing to banish 'special interests' from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events...." ...
... Jay Carney's truly lame responses:
Dana Milbank: "In formal settings — news conferences, or Monday night’s debate — [Mitt] Romney is confident and competent. But in casual moments, such as Tuesday morning’s retail politics in New Hampshire, his weirdness comes through — equal parts 'Leave It to Beaver' corniness and social awkwardness." Read Milbank's column for the details. Romney sounds like the kind of guy whose comments would cause you to get up & move to another table.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The House approved large cuts in for the poor and various agriculture programs on Thursday after a steely weeklong debate that pitted Democrats against Republicans, and farm-state members against those within their own party who vehemently oppose certain types of farm aid. At the same time, the Senate voted 73 to 27 to end tax credits and trade protection that benefit the corn-based ethanol industry, with broad bipartisan backing. As a practical matter, the measure ending federal ethanol benefits will probably not become law because it is part of a larger measure that is likely to fail." The House vote probably won't go anywhere, either.
Los Angeles Times: California "Gov. Jerry Brown issued a historic veto of the budget approved by Democratic lawmakers hours after they passed it, opening wide a rift within his own party and throwing the state's financial future into limbo. The Democrats had pushed through the spending plan Wednesday, relying heavily on crafty accounting to patch over the state's deficit, after the governor's talks with Republicans on a tax package faltered. On Thursday morning, Brown called the budget 'unbalanced.'"
The New York Times has obtained from court papers some fairly mundane statements Dominique Strauss-Kahn made following his detention.
... Contains audible crude remarks from at least one member of the crowd.
** Politico: "Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) will resign from his seat in Congress, heeding calls from President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and dozens of other congressional Democrats, sources confirm to POLITICO." New York Times story here. ...
... Updated Times lede: "Representative , an influential Democrat who had been considered a leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York City, said Thursday that he was resigning from Congress following revelations of lewd online exchanges with several women."
** New York Times: "A former senior official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him. Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President , said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.... Mr. Carle, who retired in 2007, has not previously disclosed his allegations. He did so only after he was approached by The New York Times, which learned of the episode elsewhere."
New York Times: ", ’s No. 2, is assuming the leadership of the organization, less than two months after was killed by American special forces, the group said in a statement posted online Thursday. Mr. Zawahri, 59, an Egyptian who long served as second in command to Bin Laden, had been expected to inherit leadership of the terrorist organization after Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2.
Dennis Kucinich: "Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Walter Jones (R-NC) today [Wednesday] led a bipartisan group of 10 Members of Congress to file a suit in federal court against President Barack Obama to challenge the commitment of the United States to war in Libya absent the required constitutional legal authority."
Time: "Notorious hacker group LulzSec isn't pulling punches — it now claims to have taken down the CIA's website just today, Wednesday afternoon."
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