The Commentariat -- May 11, 2014

Graphic removed.

Ezra Klein on wealth inequality. Thanks to Ken W. for the link:

Jenna Portnoy of the Washington Post: "Just a few miles from his family home, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) felt the wrath of the tea party Saturday, when activists in his congressional district booed and heckled the second-most powerful House Republican. They also elected one of their own to lead Virginia's 7th Congressional District Republican Committee, turning their back on Cantor's choice for a post viewed as crucial by both tea partyand establishment wings in determining control of the fractured state GOP."

Russell Berman of the Hill: "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is stacking the House select committee on Benghazi with lawyers as he looks to demonstrate that the panel will be a serious investigation and not a partisan exercise." ...

... CW: Uh-huh. I guess that's why the Orange Man announced the names of the members of the so-called select committee in a Twitter image. What could be more serious than a Twitter image?

Maureen Dowd: "Pope Francis appears guilty of condoning that most base Vatican sport: bullying nuns.... Women, gays and dissident Catholics who had fresh hope are going to have to face the reality that while this pope is a huge improvement on the last, the intolerance is still there."

Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Top Secret Service officials ­ordered members of a special unit responsible for patrolling the White House perimeter to abandon their posts over at least two months in 2011 in order to protect a personal friend of the agency's director [Mark Sullivan], according to three people familiar with the operation." CW: Apparently protecting this particular president & his family is not all that important.

Presidential Race

Peter Hamby of CNN: "Vice President Joe Biden appeared at a closed-door fundraiser in South Carolina Friday and delivered what one attendee called 'an Elizabeth Warren-type speech' about the struggles of America's middle class, remarks that were well-received by a room full of influential primary state Democrats.... Another Democrat in the room said the vice president 'talked about how the system was rigged against the middle class....' Biden did not mention his own White House ambitions. But several Democrats at the event were struck by one remark he made about Bill Clinton's presidency: Three sources there told CNN that Biden said the fraying of middle-class economic security did not begin during President George W. Bush's terms, but earlier, in the 'later years of the Clinton administration.'" ...

... James Hohmann of Politico: "GOP leaders reconsider Rand Paul."

Jonathan Alter on the five Roman Catholic justices who think explicitly Christian prayer in public meetings is constitutional: "With judicial temperaments abstracted to the point of indifference, they seem incapable of imagining themselves even in the shoes of their own grandparents, much less people different from themselves. This is among the worst judicial traits imaginable."

Beyond the Beltway

Christina Huynh of the AP: "Two women were married on a sidewalk outside a county courthouse in Arkansas on Saturday, breaking a barrier that state voters put in place with a constitutional amendment 10 years ago. A day after Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said the ban was 'an unconstitutional attempt to narrow the definition of equality,' Kristin Seaton, 27, and Jennifer Rambo, 26, exchanged vows at an impromptu ceremony, officiated by a woman in a rainbow-colored dress."

Matt Lee-Ashley of Think Progress: "An illegal all-terrain vehicle (ATV) ride planned this weekend through Recapture Canyon in Utah is ... is already drawing criticism from the Navajo Nation, putting American Indian burial sites and cultural resources at risk.... Yet San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman (R-UT) and his supporters appear determined to defy federal law by riding their ATVs through Recapture Canyon, an area of southeast Utah known as a 'mini-Mesa Verde' because it contains one of the highest densities of archaeological sites in the country. Cliven Bundy ... has reportedly urged his supporters -- who include armed militia members -- to join Lyman in Utah this weekend."

News Lede

Washington Post: "Residents of two regions of eastern Ukraine turned out in significant numbers Sunday to vote in support of self-rule in a referendum that threatens to deepen divisions in a country already heading perilously toward civil war."

Comments

[PD Pepe]

MoDo must have been listening to all our kvetching about her continuous Barry busting columns. Praise is due here for today's piece which tackles the Vatican's show of shows. I recall the hoopla around Francis––wow, folks said, a real change, the guy washes feet, for Peter's sake. That's okay, dokay, some of us said, but where's the REAL change? The Church is no dummy–-they have good P.R.; they got rid of that German and put in a warm fuzzy guy that carries his own luggage. But nothing has changed. What did anyone expect from a culture founded on male hierarchical order, and swamped in organizational confusion. Feet may be cleaned, but Nuns, gays, and women's rights be damned––their reluctance to condone condoms in Africa during the AIDS crisis there is pure evil and so it goes and will for longer than I will ever know. I weary just thinking about religion––and am continually amazed at how in this 21st century we are still grappling with this charade. Send in the clowns~~~~~~~~~~

[MAG]

@PD—In light of MODO catching on....others have evidently 'heard' the intense RC comments & similar re SCOTUS which have been prevalent these past few weeks. Adam Liptak has an excellent piece in the Times today. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/upshot/the-polarized-court.html?hp&rref=opinion

And, over on New York magazine, Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes on "Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century has thoroughly dominated the elite intellectual conversation during the four weeks since it was published."
(Just started reading my copy yesterday...650 plus pages to go...)

Interesting how differently 'pull quotes' come across when a little something is left out, case in point:

Here's what BW-W included in the article: "Krugman — pfft,” Piketty told my colleague Boris Kachka. “You know he liked the book a lot.”

Here's what Boris Kachka wrote in his piece on April 21: “And Krugman — pfft,” he adds, with that Gallic aspiration of ironic surprise. “You know he liked the book a lot.”

The first 'pfft' makes it sound dismissive! Subtle, isn't it?

P.S. glad your asparagus are doing well & are delish!