The Commentariat -- Sept. 30, 2014
Internal links. graphic, photo removed.
NEW. Michael Shear & Michael Schmitt of the New York Times: "Lawmakers from both parties on Tuesday assailed Julia Pierson, the director of the Secret Service, about security breaches at the White House, including an intruder who earlier this month breached multiple security measures and evaded capture as he ran around the first floor of the mansion." ...
... The Washington Post story, by Brian Murphy, is here.
Secret Service Clusterfuck. Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The man who jumped the White House fence this month and sprinted through the front door made it much farther into the building than previously known, overpowering one Secret Service officer and running through much of the main floor, according to three people familiar with the incident. An alarm box near the front entrance of the White House designed to alert guards to an intruder had been muted at what officers believed was a request of the usher's office [because the alarm was, you know, noisy].... [Omar] Gonzalez was tackled by a counterassault agent at the far southern end of the East Room. The intruder reached the doorway to the Green Room.... Secret Service Director Julia Pierson ... is expected to face tough questions about the Gonzalez incident Tuesday at a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee."
Eli Lake of the Daily Beast: "On 60 Minutes, the president faulted his spies for failing to predict the rise of ISIS. There's one problem with that statement: The intelligence analysts did warn about the group." ...
... Justin Sink of the Hill: "President Obama wasn't passing the buck by saying intelligence officials underestimated the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the White House said Monday. Press secretary Josh Earnest said officials were aware of the threat posed by ISIS, but misjudged the will of the Iraqi military to fight back and how successful the terror group would be at capturing territory. He said 'everybody' -- from the intelligence community to the White House -- made the same mistake, but that Obama was ultimately responsible." ...
... Peter Baker & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A reconstruction of the past year suggests a number of pivotal moments when both the White House and the intelligence community misjudged the Islamic State. Even after the group's fighters stormed across the border into Iraq at the start of the year to capture the city of Falluja and parts of Ramadi, the White House considered it a problem that could be contained." CW: Quite a helpful overview; beats the pointing-fingers approach so popular among pundits & politicians. ...
... CW: BTW, for you fans of alternate history -- Were our old friend (& he was an old friend) Saddam still around, either the ISIS success stories would have been confined to Syria, or there would be no ISIS -- the ISIS fighters would be members of Saddam's Ba'athist army & police force. So, once again -- thanks, George & Dick. But of course it's all Obama's fault.
Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post: "The United States and Afghanistan on Tuesday signed a vital security deal that allows some American troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond this year, ensuring a continuing U.S. presence in the region. The Bilateral Security Agreement allows for 9,800 U.S. soldiers to stay in the country past 2014 to help train, equip and advise Afghan military and police forces. It arrives as the Taliban Islamist movement is increasingly attacking areas around the country in an effort to regain control as most foreign troops are scheduled to leave by the end of the year."
Your Assigned Reading for Today: Prof. Chemerinsky on the history of the Supreme Court.
** Erwin Chemerinsky in Politico: "The Supreme Court has largely failed throughout American history at its most important tasks and at the most important times.... The Supreme Court exists, above all, to enforce the Constitution against the will of the majority. The very existence of the Constitution, a document made intentionally quite difficult to change, reflects the desire to limit what political majorities can do.... The Roberts Court has continually favored the rights of business over the rights of employees and consumers and all of us." ...
... Jonathan Bernstein: "Liberals (if they have any sense) would much rather see a 55 year-old mainstream liberal on the bench than the 81 year-old [Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, no matter how terrific they think she's been.... If [Ginsburg & Justice Stephen Breyer] really cared about advancing their principles, they should have resigned soon after President Barack Obama's re-election, giving the solid Democratic majority in the Senate plenty of time to confirm successors." ...
... CW: The only possibly good coming from Ginsburg's (& to a lesser extent, Breyer's) hubris is that they give liberals all the more reason to vote for whomever the hoi polloi nominate for the Democratic party. Hillary Clinton would likely nominate another Breyer-type moderate, but that's better than anybody President Gohmert will nominate. ...
... Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "There are lots of open questions about the road the Supreme Court justices will take to a final decision about whether the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. But one thing seems clear: The answer will arrive next June."
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg News: The trial began Monday in Hank Greenberg's suit against the government for stiffing AIG stockholders. David Boies is representing Greenberg, & among the witnesses he will call are former Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson & Tim Geithner & former Fed chair Ben Bernanke. CW: Could be entertaining. ...
... James Stewart & Peter Eavis of the New York Times: New information has come forward that suggests the Federal Reserve could have rescued Lehman Brothers & saved the economy considerable pain.
Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic publishes seven charts "that show ObamaCare is working." CW: That means that Republicans have succeeded in ensuring that 47 percent of the nation is ignorantly opposed to a law that is working for them and/or their neighbors.
Alex Abdo of the ACLU: "Today [Monday], we're releasing several key documents about Executive Order 12333 that we obtained from the government in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that the ACLU filed ... just before the first revelations of Edward Snowden. The documents are from the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and others agencies. They confirm that the order, although not the focus of the public debate, actually governs most of the NSA's spying.... The order, issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, imposes the sole constraints on U.S. surveillance on foreign soil that targets foreigners. There's been some speculation, too, that the government relies directly on the order -- as opposed to its statutory authority -- to conduct surveillance inside the United States."
Marie's Sports Report
The NFL God Is a Christian God. Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "When Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah intercepted a Tom Brady pass and returned it for a touchdown Monday night, he did what so many other NFL players do to celebrate a big play: He paused to make a religious gesture of thanks. But Abdullah, a devout Muslim, found that his religious display was met with less latitude than, say, Tim Tebow when he brought Tebowing into the NFL. Abdullah was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct because he slid to the ground, then knelt in in the end zone."
Beyond the Beltway
Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "With just sixteen hours before polling stations were to open in Ohio, the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon blocked voters from beginning tomorrow to cast their ballots in this year's general election. By a vote of five to four, the Justices put on hold a federal judge's order providing new opportunities for voting before election day, beyond what state leaders wanted.... Early voting during 'Golden Week,' on Sundays, and in evening hours are the opportunities that civil rights groups have said are most important to black and low-income voters and the homeless.... [Surprise, surprise!] Monday's order had the support of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito,, Jr., Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, although their votes were not noted in the order. Read the whole post. ...
... Rick Hasen: "Although the order is 'temporary' in the sense that it will be in place pending a ruling on a cert. petition ultimately to be filed by Ohio in the Supreme Court, that won't happen before this election, and so for this election the new shorter voting period is in effect.... I am worried this case will make bad law, and have bad effects in cases such as challenges to Wisconsin's voter id law, Texas's voter id law, and North Carolina's omnibus bill making it harder to vote."
Michael Winerip & Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "In the past in Rikers brutality cases, correction officers have frequently managed to escape serious punishment. But in a highly unusual legal decision, published on Monday, Tynia Richard, an administrative law judge, wrote that the six officers had lied about what happened, that [inmate Robert] Hinton had been handcuffed the whole time, and that because such 'brazen misconduct' must be put to an end, she was recommending the most severe sanction available, termination for all six. The judge's decision is a fresh indication that pressure by federal prosecutors, as well as scrutiny by the media, may be starting to have an impact on the way such brutality cases ... are handled."
Soak the Press. Jack Gillum of the AP: "Officials in Ferguson, Missouri, are charging nearly 10 times the cost of some of their own employees' salaries before they will agree to turn over files under public records laws about the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Missouri's attorney general on Monday, after the AP first disclosed the practice, contacted Ferguson's city attorney to ask for more information regarding fees related to document requests, the attorney general's spokeswoman said."
Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "Two high schools in Jefferson County, Colorado canceled classes Monday after dozens of teachers called in sick in protest of a conservative school board's proposal to change the history curriculum. This is the second such teacher sick-out in two weeks and comes on the heels of student walk-outs over the issue. At the two high schools where sick-outs were staged, Golden and Jefferson high school, 73% and 81% of teachers called out, respectively. Unrest is also tied to new teacher evaluations. Negotiations for a new contract between the district and the union broke down last spring."
Senate Races
Dylan Scott of TPM: "The registered Democratic voter who sued to force his party to pick a new Senate nominee in Kansas did not appear at a Monday hearing for the case, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported, and the judges hearing it are now considering whether the lawsuit can continue without him.... David Orel, a registered Democrat in Kansas City, Kan., whose son is a campaign staffer for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, filed the lawsuit shortly after the Kansas Supreme Court overturned Secretary of State's Kris Kobach's decision and took Democratic nominee Chad Taylor off the ballot." ...
... Molly Ball of the Atlantic profiles Greg Orman, the independent candidate who is challenging Pat Roberts. Orman says he will caucus with the majority or be the tiebreaker. If he winds up in the tiebreaker position, we are going to see a real-life "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" story. There might not be a happy ending.
Charles Pierce: The media, the Democratic party & its nominee Bruce Braley have failed to mention that GOP Iowa Senate nominee Joni Ernst is "a complete fking loon," & now that complete fking loon is likely to become Senator Loon. CW: And let me just remind you that Sen. Loon will be owning the seat now occupied by a true progressive populist, Tom Harkin. Thanks to James S. for the link.
Gubernatorial Races
James Hohmann of Politico: "As many as a dozen incumbent governors are fighting for their political lives five weeks out from Election Day -- a list that includes the chief executives of states as red as Kansas and as blue as Connecticut as well as several top presidential battlegrounds. The unsettled gubernatorial landscape has drawn a fraction of the attention of the seesawing battle for the Senate. Yet the state of play is dramatic in its own right: The fate of big-name Republicans such as Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Florida's Rick Scott and Michigan's Rick Snyder are all on the line, and Democrats such as Colorado's John Hickenlooper and Illinois' Pat Quinn are locked in tough reelection races that could go either way."
Right Wing World
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: "National Review writer Kevin D Williamson made the real 'pro-life' agenda very, very clear, expressing his opinion that women who have abortions should be put to death -- by hanging. And not just the women; he says the doctor who performs the abortion, the nurses who assist, and the hospital staff who enable it should also be executed. This was not satire, or a 'joke.' He really believes this." Thanks, I guess, to Akhilleus for the link. ...
... CW: I took at peek at National Review to see if maybe they had totally disowned Williamson, apoligized with his Twitter binge & pulled all his previous stories. Nope. I guess they love this sicko. ...
... Nathalie Baptiste of the American Prospect: According to Values Voters, Williamson's plan could work. At their "summit," they tell politicians that the sure way to win elections is to alienate young people, especially women & show their support for aggrieved men. "Not only is the War on Women apparently fabricated by the godless lefties, [a panel discussion leader] even found a way to paint men as the true sufferers in the abortion debate found a way to paint men as the true sufferers in the abortion debate."
News Ledes
Guardian: "Medical officials in the United States announced on Tuesday the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed outside Africa during the latest outbreak, which has killed more than 3,000 people this year. The patient, who has not yet been identified, is being treated in Dallas, Texas. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said the patient left Liberia in west Africa on 19 September, but did not develop symptoms until a few days after arriving in the US. He was admitted to the Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas on Sunday."
Los Angeles Times: "The Securities and Exchange Commission accused two men of insider trading for acting on advance word that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman planned to bet against nutritional products company Herbalife Ltd. It's the latest dramatic turn for the Los Angeles company, which is under federation investigation and has been fighting allegations for nearly two years that it operates an illegal pyramid scheme."
Los Angeles Times: "Bell Gardens[, California,] Mayor Daniel Crespo died Tuesday after he was shot by his wife, Levette, during a domestic situation, Sheriff's Department officials told The Times."
New York Times: "An Oklahoma man was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the beheading of a co-worker, but federal officials said they had found no links that tie the man to terrorist organizations, including Islamic extremist groups that have beheaded several Western hostages in the Middle East and North Africa in recent weeks. Alton Nolen, 30, who worked on the production line of a food processing plant in Moore, Okla., remains in the hospital after being shot by the company's chief operating officer, who is also a reserve deputy sheriff, the authorities said."
New York Times: "Hong Kong's Beijing-appointed leader on Tuesday called for the pro-democracy demonstrators who have blocked major roads in the city to return home 'immediately,' and he gave no sign that he was prepared to compromise on their demands for more open elections to choose his successor." ...
... The Guardian is liveblogging the protests.
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Report: The Daily Show's "redskins" segment and impact.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/27/1332747/-Washington-Football-Fans-Freak-Out-when-Confronted-by-Actual-Live-Native-Americans?showAll=yes
So the laudable Chief Justice John Roberts, who very recently led the Conservative cavalry charge against the Voting Rights Act, has decided to further stir the voter-suppression pot with his middle finger.
While cutting out the heart of the Voting Rights Act, he assured those paying attention that this undemocratic action was no partisan hackery but instead a move to modern times, in post-racist America.
No statistical analysis of egregious inequalities between whites and minorities could convince the hard-headed justices. Racial profiling, police brutality and incarceration rates of minorities are apparently not grounds for contemplation. Not even the events and investigative journalism surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, a microcosm of white privilege and minority oppression, could register a blip on the Justice's colorblind racist radar.
Chief Justice Roberts assured those that cried foul that it was in fact Congress' responsibility to carry the torch. The Supreme Court called on Congress to take up the mantle of voting rights and redraft new legislation, reflecting the great "changes" we've made since the 1960s, to ensure everybody, including minorities, have the right to vote, because in the words of laudable Chief Justice Roberts, "any racial discrimination in voting is too much..." This, in clear ignorance of the political realities engulfing the most inept Congress in the history of our country and the fact that half of our current political system clearly benefits from dragging their feet on this issue into perpetuity, de facto making a broken Voting Rights Act the eternal law of the land.
Immediately after settling in to their nest in the aftermath of the 2010 elections that turned control of many states to the GOP, red states took up the voting rights mantle and put voting restriction laws as top priority, preparing to ready their suppressive forces for November 2014. Nationwide, conservative legislators, hand in hand with their sugardaddy counterparts, have probably spent more time strategizing and legislating voter suppression laws than anything else since the Supreme Court buried the hatchet for equal representation in our democracy. Besides some abortion restriction laws and cutting taxes for businesses and the rich, one nationwide constant in Red states has been the fanatic desire to pass restrictive voting laws. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 22 states have passed new voting restrictions since 2010. That's almost HALF OF OUR "EXCEPTIONAL" LITTLE COUNTRY!
http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/state-voting-2014
And yet in Ohio, in complete ignorance of all of this reality, the Supreme Court conservative hacks felt the need to again lay their golden toe on the balance of equal justice for all, giving the voter suppression crowd another leg up in the race. Another dip in the lake of GOP chicanery to show their bona fides.
The courts were supposed to be the counterweight against these malicious laws being put in place, supposedly rooting out voter fraud where nearly none can be found. But our recurring topic of tribalism has infected the entire court system as well, and legal precedence has lost all meaning as the flexibility of the English language has gone from a linguistic asset to a Conservative's wet dream, manipulating the meaning of but a few phrases to legitimatize voiding entire laws.
Laudable Chief Justice Roberts will go down in history as this Supreme Court's tribal leader. His clan has made a farce of the justice system and their audacity has spread to the lower minions as they place tribal priorities over the public good. Surely this blatant partisanship cannot continue in our major court systems for decades longer. How long until this disease goes into remission? Or maybe a better question, how contagious is it, and what is its life cycle?
Speaking of middle fingers, I was in downtown Madison, WI last night. I took the opportunity to present the single-finger salute (sans latte) while driving around the capital square just in case Scottie was looking out the window. It probably didn't help any, but it felt good.
At the conclusion of his insightful article, Professor Chemerinsky proposes some fixes for the Supreme Court. Among some excellent suggestions, this one stood out to me as both effective and elegantly simple: "applying ethics rules to the justices."
This seems like a no brainer. It might require justices hearing cases in which their spouses actively work for one side to recuse themselves, for example, to avoid a direct conflict of interest or at least the appearance of impropriety.
This is from an earlier Politico piece on the need for a Cannon of Ethics for the S. Ct.:
"A code of ethics binds nearly every judge in America. The sole exceptions are the justices of the Supreme Court. Today, for example, no ethics rule prevents a justice from engaging in political activity, speaking at the fundraising event of a partisan organization, or joining a club that discriminates based on race, sex, religion, or national origin. Ethics rules for all other federal judges forbid these activities. This vacuum is unacceptable."
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/the-supreme-court-needs-a-code-of-ethics-95301.html#ixzz3Eo2q3QrI
Looks like there is something rotten in the bosom of the S.S. Some film maker is going to come up with a secret plot by some agents to thwart the protective services of the Potus (maybe there is one like this already but since I don't cotton to " blow up the White House" scenarios, I wouldn't know).
I agree with Victoria––Chemerinsky's essay is indeed insightful and I was most impressed that he was able to criticize the S.C. so elegantly. I recall what Ginsburg said in her interview with Rosen (see yesterday) that her colleagues needed to get out more––understand what's really going on in the real world beyond the cloistered court.
Joni Ernst has the most annoying voice––perhaps from calling all those pigs–––sou-ee, sou-ee, pig, pig, pig–-I'll try and find the video where she's in debate with Braley whose voice is not annoying.
Paul Ryan was on Charlie rose last night for a short segment. Charlie, right off the bat, said, "You've had to take some things back, haven't you?" Chuckle, chuckle (Charlie likes Ryan, once extolled his granny starving road map and even after Krugman told him it was a piece of dung, Charlie smelled it like a rose.) "Yeah," said Ryan, "the makers and the takers" (he didn't really mean it like we thought he meant it). Then he claims that it was a guy in Wisconsin at one of those meet and greet bratwurst/beer get togethers that talked turkey to Ryan who then saw the light. A guy in Wisconsin? Really?
There was an interesting moment when Charlie asked him what he thought were attributes a president needed to have; he described Obama to a T and when Charlie pointed that out, Ryan fudged around saying Obama was too philosophical or something. He would like Romney to run again and yes, he'd be by his side if asked. An R&R Redux, fer sure.
Speaking of judicial ethics, and of Madison, Wisconsin:
Four of the SC justices in Wisconsin(the conservative majority) owe their seats to hefty expenditures by the very organizations that are being investigated in a John Doe investigation into Scott Walker's money-laundering scheme. They are considering taking up the case trying to stop the John Doe, and based on their actions in the last three years I would bet money on their doing so.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel acknowledges that the justices have adopted a rule that they need not recuse themselves in these circumstances, but the MJS doesn't think they need to anyway:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/recusals-in-john-doe-cases-not-the-answer-for-wisconsin-supreme-court-b99361012z1-277510981.html?ipad=y
This is life in Fitzwalkerstan, formerly known as Wisconsin.
Here's the video of Ernest along with the double pleasure of Joe Scarborough who thanks God for the Koch brothers.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119632/joe-scarborough-new-yorkers-love-koch-brothers
@PD: It's not referred to as "Morning Joke" for nothing. Perhaps Scarborough and Blondie equate charitable giving with a "get out of jail free card." Seriously, by their logic, Jack the Ripper would have been heralded had he only had the foresight (and money) to donate to the Royal Ballet.
"If you have cancer, thank the Kochs!" -Scarborough
Indeed
Safari- I caught that, too. Priceless. (Irony is obviously dead.)
I look forward to seeing it highlighted on one of the late night shows !
Just watch––one minute and John Cleese will make the end of your day a little bit brighter and better––I hope.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/29/1333141/-John-Cleese-on-Fox-News-stupidity?detail=email