The Commentariat -- March 6, 2015

Internal links removed.

Whistling Dixie. Anna Palmer & Lauren French of Politico: "Scores of U.S. lawmakers are converging on tiny Selma, Alabama, for a large commemoration of a civil rights anniversary. But their ranks don't include a single member of House Republican leadership -- a point that isn't lost on congressional black leaders.... Georgia Rep. John Lewis, who participated in the 1965 march alongside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, said he was disappointed that House Republican leaders wouldn't make the trip. But Lewis said he looked forward to hearing from former President George W. Bush, who is set to speak Saturday. President Barack Obama is also scheduled to attend the ceremonies on Saturday." ...

... CW: The WTF leadership is probably too busy in Washington, where they are cooking up bills to further curb the Voting Right Act. ...

... Steve Benen: "Republican leaders declined to participate in the Lincoln Memorial event in 2013; they've declined invitations to Selma; they had no public concerns after learning Steve Scalise attended a white-supremacist event; they're slow walking the first African-American woman to ever be nominated as Attorney General; and they're blocking a proposed bipartisan fix to the Voting Rights Act while their brethren at the state level impose new voting restrictions that disproportionately affect people of color."

** Leaving a Fox to Guard the Foxes in the Henhouse. John Eligon & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "On Thursday..., a [Ferguson, Mo.,] spokesman revealed that the fired official was ... the city's top court clerk, Mary Ann Twitty.... Her involvement in the emails and their wide distribution illustrate how difficult fixing the Ferguson Police Department and municipal court will be when many city officials led, participated in or tolerated the most controversial practices uncovered by the Justice Department. Those city employees include the police chief who authorized arrests without probable cause; the municipal judge who adds new charges when people contest their citations, yet quietly got his own traffic ticket wiped away; and the city manager who was the force behind the financially driven policies that led to widespread discrimination. Many of those same officials will now be the ones attempting to carry out the reforms demanded by the Justice Department." Read the whole story. ...

... ** Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "One should understand that the Justice Department did not simply find indirect evidence of unintentionally racist practices which harm black people, but 'discriminatory intent' -- that is to say willful racism aimed to generate cash. Justice in Ferguson is not a matter of 'racism without racists,' but racism with racists so secure, so proud, so brazen that they used their government emails to flaunt it." Coates see Ferguson in Lockean terms, & he's right. ...

... Tiny Castles. Henry Farrell, in a Washington Post op-ed, sees Ferguson in the context of government racketeering through the ages: The economist & social scientist Mancur "Olson failed to be charmed by the picturesque castles lining the German river Rhine, because he knew that each castle had been built by some local lord to threaten violence to traders going up and down the river if they didn't pay him a tariff. Local government in St. Louis appears to have been constructed along similar lines, with the victims mostly being poor African Americans rather than wealthy traders."

... Jack Healy, et al., of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. cast doubt on the 'hands up' account [of Michael Brown's shooting death] even as he described Ferguson as having a racially biased police department and justice system."

Danny Vinik of the New Republic puts a damper on celebrations of today's positive jobs report: "Wages, the key metric that economists are watching to determine the slack in the labor market, ticked up just 0.1 percent. Over the past year, they've grown 2 percent. Thanks to falling oil prices, which have lowered inflation, real wage growth is positive over the past year. But that's still not a particularly strong number. Wages must grow at a 3 to 4 percent rate to keep up with both inflation and productivity growth. We're still not close to that."

New York Times aids & abets Scalia, et al., with top story, "As Health Law Is Weighed, GOP Plans to Replace It." No link. Because that's bull. As Greg Sargent amply documents this morning. "Perhaps we should celebrate the 50-month anniversary of the GOP vow of an alternative by showing a bit of skepticism towards similar claims being made over four years later," Sargent suggests. ...

     ... Update. Also read Victoria D.'s comment in today's thread. ...

(For context, go here.)

... Moops! Greg Sargent: "... during oral arguments, the idea (floated by Scalia) that Congress might provide such a contingency plan [to fix the language in the ACA which is the subject of the King v. Burwell case] was basically laughed out of the Court. Understandably so: No one who watched the chaos around Homeland Security funding could possibly imagine Congress producing any such plan." ...

... Scott Lemieux in the Week: "Scalia's argument, of course, came straight from a land of willful fantasy.... Scalia has long shown an affinity for the most witless Fox News talking points. Republicans have been making a conscious effort to reassure the court that they have a plan should the court gut the ACA. Needless to say, they don't actually have any plan -- pretending to have a plan is their only plan. Indeed, Republicans in Congress are so dysfunctional that they can barely even pretend to have a serious alternative, and any attempt to fix the law would assuredly be stillborn." ...

... CW: I was a bit surprised by Justice Moops' support for the plaintiffs because (1) this reading of the ACA goes against Moops' previous opinions on the breadth of textual analysis, & (2) even though the tax subsidies reduce income inequality (something Moops no doubt hates, because socialism!), the people who get the subsidies aren't poor layabout slackers; they are low- and middle-income workers. But then. I looked into the demographics of it. The people Justice Moops & his nasty friends want to relieve of health insurance (because freeedom!) are disproportionately women and minorities. So it all makes sense. If you're a twisted SOB. ...

     ... Update: This post by David Leonhardt of the New York Times suggests I didn't paying enough attention to the inequality part: "... the law is the most aggressive attack that the federal government has launched against inequality since inequality began rising four decades ago. It taxes the affluent (and corporations, which are disproportionately owned by the affluent) in order to subsidize health insurance for middle-class and poor households that lack it. If you sometimes wonder why the law has generated such political heat, that fact is the main reason." ...

... Abbe Gluck, in a Politico Magazine piece explains how textual analysis must and has worked in regard to federalism questions: "... the court has a set of doctrines that tell it how to interpret statutory text when a federalism question is at issue. Those doctrines prohibit the court from reading a statute to intrude on the states or to impose a drastic condition or consequence on the states unless the statute is crystal clear. The relevance of these doctrines to King, and the textual interpretation question at the heart of the case, is obvious: For the challengers to win, the drastic penalty their reading would impose on the states must be absolutely clear in the statute. The ACA comes nowhere close to meeting this requisite standard of clarity." Gluck cites other established doctrines of interpretation, each of which requires "a far higher bar for textual clarity than the challengers' reading of the law can possibly reach." CW: All of the justices know this. ...

... Noah Feldman, in Bloomberg View, explains why Solicitor General Don Verrilli conceded the plaintiffs' standing during oral arguments: he thinks Hillary is going to lose! CW: Okay, that's not exactly how Feldman phrased it. But that's the idea.

Paul Krugman: Blame pizza!

Civil Disobedience, Snow-Day Edition. Tim Devaney of Hill: "From sledding to snowball fights, dozens of children and their parents took to Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon to protest a controversial sledding ban. Capitol Police have refused to lift the sledding ban, but some parents organized a 'sled in' on the west lawn of the Capitol to put a spotlight on the unpopular rule." ...

British Gen. Frederick Haldimand meets his match. Boston 1775.... Yoni Appelbaum of the Atlantic provides some enchanting historical & contemporary context, as well as the illustration above. "Thursday's protest was a small act, but it stands in [a] grand tradition." ...

... More about Kids' Rights! Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the link:

Presidential Race

Worse Than Reported. Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "The administration of Gov. Chris Christie offered details for the first time on Thursday about its settlement of a longstanding legal battle with Exxon Mobil Corporation over contamination in which the company agreed to pay a fraction of the damages that the State of New Jersey was seeking. A statement, issued jointly by the state's attorney general and environmental commissioner, said Exxon had agreed to pay $225 million to resolve the 2004 lawsuits. The state's own experts had placed the cost of environmental restoration and other damages resulting from the company's refinery operations in northern New Jersey at $8.9 billion." ...

... S. P. Sullivan of NJ Advance Media: "The $225 settlement also resolves some liability regarding contamination at 16 Exxon gas stations around the state.... Debbie Mans, head of NY/NJ Baykeeper, said it was puzzling why the state was including the other facilities in their agreement with Exxon. 'Those weren't part of the original litigation, so they're doing a big favor to Exxon by including them in the settlement,' she said. She also criticized the size of the settlement, claiming Christie had 'turned his back' on the Union and Hudson county residents who have lived near the two sites for decades." ...

... Charles Pierce: "Chris Christie, currently residing down in the netherworld of Rick Perryland in the latest 2016 form charts, also still has his job as governor of New Jersey. As such, he apparently has made sure that his administration doesn't dreadfully inconvenience any corporation that might want to chip in for firewood when he and his campaign are huddled around a burning oil barrel in a trainyard outside of Council Bluffs next December."

Brent Johnson of NJ Advance Media: "A group of unions representing New Jersey state troopers are the first to sue Gov. Chris Christie to force him to make a larger payment to the state's public-worker pension system than he has included in his latest state budget proposal."

** Tim Egan defines what's wrong with Hillary for President. CW: I don't fault Hillary for this. Yes, she's a rather ruthless entitled person. But the Democratic party, not the ruthless power player, is the entity responsible for leaving the bench empty. After all, Barack Obama was a rookie called up in extraordinary circumstances in 2008: a very freshman U.S. Senator who won his seat in 2006 because one GOP opponent self-destructed & the next was dangerously insane. He had absolutely no significant accomplishments under his belts. On paper, the party has much better than that to offer, but it has not put them at center stage.

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The State Department has had a policy in place since 2005 to warn officials against routine use of personal email accounts for government work, a regulation in force during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state that appears to be at odds with her reliance on a private email for agency business, Politico has learned. The policy, detailed in a manual for agency employees, adds clarity to an issue at the center of a growing controversy over Clinton's reliance on a private email account." ...

... CW: I'm not sure how much "clarity" the policy adds. I don't think the department's "rules" apply to a Cabinet secretary. ...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "An aide said former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood used both personal and professional email on his Blackberry -- with both going into the archives.... LaHood's experience, related in detail to BuzzFeed News, was similar to that of other senior administration officials, officials and staff said." CW: If you read the post, I think you'll find that LaHood's practice makes sense. Hillary's, not so much. ...

... Mark Drajem & Indira Lakshmanan of Bloomberg Business: "The question advocates for open government are asking now is how the public will know if all the relevant e-mails have been sent to the State Department. Instead of a government employee reviewing the records, Clinton staff members did the work." ...

... Martin Matishak of the Hill: "Democrats are scrambling to try and limit the damage from the escalating controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of personal email accounts while she was secretary of State. With their likely presidential nominee now facing congressional subpoenas, Democrats began to circle the wagons Thursday, seizing on Clinton's statement late Wednesday that she wants her emails released to the public as soon as possible.... Republicans moved quickly Thursday to turn up the heat on Clinton over the personal emails, with the Republican National Committee (RNC) asking the State Department to open an independent investigation into whether she broke the law." ...

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), Chair of the Select Committee to Emulsify Hillary Clinton.... Tim Mak & Jackie Kucinich of the Daily Beast: "... suddenly, Democrats are terrified -- terrified that the Benghazi panel is about to become the House Select Committee to take down Clinton, their presumptive presidential nominee." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic has an excellent rundown of Democrats' reactions to #emailghazi. ...

... Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Republicans believe Hillary Clinton's fundamental political weaknesses have been exposed by the controversy surrounding her use of personal email while secretary of State -- and they couldn't be more delighted.... Republican strategists say that Clinton's political abilities have long been exaggerated. They contend she displays an unusual capacity to make trouble for herself and, unlike her husband, no great degree of nimbleness in getting out of it." ...

... Charles Pierce is unimpressed with the Beltway Buzz, especially as it is embodied in one "Ron Fournier, a breezy conversationalist and one-time father confessor to Karl Rove, [who] has waded into the Hillary Clinton E-Mail blogswarm with a take so hot it could melt cold steel. Maybe Clinton doesn't want to run. Maybe she shouldn't." Pierce, contra Fournier: "Look, I'm not sold on Clinton as a candidate, either.... This was an unforced error. Anybody who tries to make it into a moral disqualification for office has a very short memory for what a moral disqualification for office actually is." ...

... Tone-Deaf. Dee Hall of the Wisconsin State Journal: "Gov. Scott Walker’s political nonprofit slammed Hillary Clinton for using a private email system during her time as secretary of state -- even though Walker employed a similar practice as Milwaukee County executive.... Democratic and liberal groups immediately responded, noting the extensive use by Walker and his county executive staff of private email accounts and a secret wireless router in his county office in an effort to skirt the state's open records laws. The secret system was uncovered during an investigation into illegal campaign activities by Walker's staff and associates that led to six convictions. Walker was not charged." Thanks to Nadd2 for the link. ...

... Brian Mahoney of Politico: "Scott Walker's likely pending victory over organized labor -- passage of a right-to-work law in Wisconsin -- will be just the latest milestone in a resurgent anti-union movement marching across the industrial heartland." ...

     ... Update. Mary Spicuzza, et al., of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The Republican-controlled state Assembly passed Wisconsin's so-called right-to-work bill Friday morning after a marathon debate that began Thursday and stretched overnight.... The measure, which bans labor contracts requiring workers to pay union fees, now heads to the desk of Gov. Scott Walker, who has said he will sign the bill by Monday. The Assembly voted 62-35 along party lines in favor of the bill."

CW: You might think that Jeb Bush's egregious treatment of Terri Schiavo & her husband Michael is an impediment to his Bush III hopes. And it is! In Iowa, movement crazies think it was horrible that he "let her die."

Beyond the Beltway

Richard Fausset & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "As it looks increasingly likely that the Supreme Court will establish a nationwide right to same-sex marriage later this year, state legislatures across the country are taking up bills that would make it easier for businesses and individuals to opt out of serving gay couples on religious grounds."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The Labor Department reported on Friday that employers added 295,000 workers to their payrolls in February and that unemployment fell to 5.5 percent. The report was a big improvement from January's...."

New York Times: "A 23-year-old British man has been arrested over a cyberattack in which data was stolen from the United States Department of Defense, the police said on Friday. The man was detained Wednesday morning by detectives from the National Crime Agency of Britain on suspicion of offenses linked to a hacking that took place in June...."

USA Today: Actor "Harrison Ford was injured Thursday afternoon when his vintage single-engine airplane crashed on a golf course shortly after taking off from Santa Monica Airport."

Detroit News: "A federal judge was shot outside his west side home Thursday night in what police believe was an attempted robbery or home invasion.U.S. District Judge Terrence G. Berg was shot in the leg about 9:10 p.m. outside his home on the west side of Detroit...."

New York Times: "Liberia's last Ebola patient was discharged on Thursday after a ceremony in the capital, Monrovia, bringing to zero the number of known cases in the country and marking a milestone in West Africa's battle against the disease.... The disease had flared up recently in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, the two other countries hardest hit by it."

Guardian: "A court order from the US army court of criminal appeals instructs the military to refer to [Chelsea Manning] in all future official correspondence either using the gender neutral 'Private First Class Manning' or employing the feminine pronoun."

The Commentariat -- March 5, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

Links to reports & commentary on the Supreme Court hearing in the King v. Burwell case are in the previous post.

American "Justice," Ctd. Adam Lerner of Politico: "Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that the Justice Department's investigation provided a 'searing' account of unconstitutional police practices in Ferguson, Missouri and that 'all options are on the table' in pursuit of reform."

Matt Apuzzo & John Eligon of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Wednesday called on Ferguson, Mo., to overhaul its criminal justice system, declaring that the city had engaged in so many constitutional violations that they could be corrected only by abandoning its entire approach to policing, retraining its employees and establishing new oversight. In one example after another, the report described a city that used its police and courts as moneymaking ventures, a place where officers stopped and handcuffed people without probable cause, hurled racial slurs, used stun guns without provocation, and treated anyone as suspicious merely for questioning police tactics." ...

... Evan Perez of CNN: "A Justice Department civil rights investigation has concluded that the Ferguson Police Department and the city's municipal court engaged in a 'pattern and practice' of discrimination against African-Americans, targeting them disproportionately for traffic stops, use of force, and jail sentences." ...

... The Guardian has more details. The New York Times has an annotated rundown of key findings of the report. The Washington Post has a graphic summary of the report's statistical findings. The full report is here. ...

... Eliana Dockterman of Time: "Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said Wednesday that one police official had been fired and two others were on administrative leave over racist emails that were cited in the Justice Department's scathing new report on the city's police department." ...

... More key findings from Anna Brand & Amanda Sakuma of NBC News. ...

... CW: Justice Is Color-Blind. The findings are appalling. What with the big case argued before the Supremes yesterday, it's a good day to remember that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't think horrendous racial discrimination of the type seen in Ferguson -- and most definitely elsewhere in this great nation of ours -- are important, or maybe even possible: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," John Roberts wrote in a 2007 decision. Because racism is so over that we can just faggedaboudit. (You might want to read the linked column, by Dahlia Lithwick, because Justice Sotomayor's response was so apt & so cutting that it hurt the Chief's widdle feewings.) ...

... "Pigment Tax." Charles Blow: "The report contained charges that the Police Department and the municipal courts treated citizens less like constituents and more like a revenue stream, violating citizens' constitutional rights in the process.... The report read like one about a shakedown gang rather than about city officials.... Once again, the oppression people feel as part of their lived experiences, and can share only by way of anecdote, is bolstered by data." ...

... ** Jamelle Bouie goes after "the real criminals." And he's right.

Matt Apuzzo & Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Offering the most definitive account yet of the shooting of an unarmed black teenager that stirred racially charged protests across the country, the Justice Department has cleared a Ferguson, Mo., police officer of civil rights violations in the death last August of Michael Brown. The decision, announced on Wednesday, ends a lengthy investigation into the shooting last August...."

Tim Devaney of the Hill: "Congressional Republicans opened a new front Wednesday in their fight against Obama administration regulations, with the Senate voting to strike down a contentious rule meant to speed up union elections."

Gail Collins: "... this appears to be the path to the future: Senate Democrats will block anything they don't like, forcing the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to compromise. In the House, the Labradorians won't vote for any Senate compromises, so Boehner will need the Democrats to pass any legislation that could actually make it into law." CW: ... interrupted by confederate histrionics leading to multiple threats of government shutdowns followed by Boehner caving each time to some measure of minimal governance.

Nick Gass of Politico: Edward "'Snowden is ready to return to the States, but on the condition that he is given a guarantee of a legal and impartial trial,' his Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, said at a news conference Tuesday, as quoted by Russian state media outlet TASS.... Jesselyn Radack, one of Snowden's American legal advisers, says Kucherena's statement echoes what they've been saying all along. Were Snowden to return, he would face charges under the World War I-era Espionage Act.... Snowden would be amenable to coming back to the United States for the kind of plea bargain that Gen. [David] Petraeus received,' Radack said, reacting to news that the former general admitted to providing classified information to his mistress while he led the Central Intelligence Agency." ...

... CW: Ha! Sorry, Ed. You have to be a top-level spy who gets caught sending reams of classified material to his girlfriend, or maybe one with top-secret original documents stuffed in his pockets, then lies to investigators about it, to get a deal like Petraeus's.

Presidential Race

Michael Mathes of the AFP: "Hillary Clinton, facing criticism over her exclusive use of a private email account while US secretary of state, has called for her emails to be made public after Republicans subpoenaed the documents. 'I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They (the State Department) said they will review them for release as soon as possible,' Clinton said in a tweet late Wednesday night." ...

... BenghaaaziMail! Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "The House Select Committee on Benghazi, which first discovered [Hillary] Clinton's use of a personal e-mail based on a home server in its inquiry into a fatal 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, is asking for all e-mails related to the attack from all Clintonemail.com accounts and any other staff members' personal accounts." ...

... Homebrew. Jack Gillum & Ted Bridis of the AP: "The development on Capitol Hill came the same day AP reported the existence of a personal email server traced back to the Chappaqua, New York, home of Clinton. The unusual practice of a Cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton -- who is expected to run for president in the 2016 campaign — significant control over limiting access to her message archives. The practice also would complicate the State Department's legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests.... Homemade email servers are generally not as reliable, secure from hackers or protected from fires or floods as those in commercial data centers." On the other hand, "in 2006 and 2014 that the [State Department's e-mail system] ... suffered significant electronic break-ins." ...

... Michael Riley, et al., of Bloomberg Business: "Although Clinton worked hard to secure the private system, her consultants appear to have set it up with a misconfigured encryption system, something that left it vulnerable to hacking, said Alex McGeorge, head of threat intelligence at Immunity Inc., a Miami Beach-based digital security firm." ...

... Josh Gerstein of Politico: "The mystery man linked to Hillary Clinton's personal e-mail account appears to be a Washington, D.C. stockbroker and former aide to the Clintons who played a walk-on role in controversies that dogged the former first family soon after it left the White House in 2001." ...

... The Word from Anonymous: Nedra Pickler & Josh Lederman of the AP: "The White House counsel's office was not aware when Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state that she relied solely on a private email account.... A person familiar with the matter ... says Clinton's exclusive use of personal email was inconsistent with guidance given to agencies that official business should be conducted on official email accounts. The person says the counsel's office only became aware when some of her messages were turned over to congressional investigators looking into the Benghazi attack. The person said the White House counsel's office then asked the State Department to ensure that her email records were properly archived." ...

... Frank Rich: "... the more important question is why the Clintons, who more than anyone in American politics understand the high risks of perceived improprieties, have left Hillary's campaign so vulnerable even before it is officially out of the gate.... What is the Democrats' Plan B if their presumed presidential candidate falls by the wayside? Answer: None.... The Democrats ridicule the GOP field at their own peril; they have no field at all." ...

"... She's Going to Die by a 1,000 Cuts." Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "One of Vice President Biden's most prominent supporters said Wednesday that twin controversies swirling around Hillary Rodham Clinton should give Democrats serious pause about anointing her as the party's presidential nominee." ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "Even if she did nothing illegal, the sheer stupidity of this blows my mind. I mean, she just had to know this would be an issue. And if she didn't, is she just that insulated from reality by her shield of aides and see-no-evil supporters?" ...

... Oh, the Irony. Annie Lowrey of New York: "You loathe the idea of your personal correspondence getting out to a press you consider pathological, so you jury-rig a private email account and end up in the midst of a massive media cluster[fuck] anyway."

... Brendan Nyhan in the New York Times: "... the conversation quickly veered from matters of policy into ominous speculation about the political consequences for Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, including hyperbolic suggestions that the emails could 'shake up the 2016 race,' cause irreparable damage to her, cause her to lose the general election, or even help force her out of the race. The actual public response to the controversy is likely to be a combination of apathy and partisanship. Few Americans are paying attention to any aspect of the campaign at this point." ...

... Andy Borowitz: "A new poll indicates that the American people are deeply disappointed in Hillary Clinton's State Department e-mail flap because it does not live up to the high standards of sordidness set by Clinton scandals of the past." ...

... The E-Mail Daemon. Katie Glueck of Politico: "If it seems like the GOP presidential field has been unusually silent this week as scrutiny mounts over Hillary Clinton's email practices, there's a logical explanation: Many of them are tormented by their own email demons."

Famous Doctor Explains the Gay. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Possible Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Wednesday asserted that homosexuality was a choice because people who went to prison 'come out gay.'" Includes video. ...

... Ed Kilgore: "Gee, aren't you glad we have a presidential candidate with some serious scientific training?" Also, liberal/gay (same thing) Nazis.

... Luke Brinker of Salon: "Neurosurgeon-turned-GOP presidential hopeful offers further evidence that an MD doesn't guard against stupidity." Also, too: "The renowned neurosurgeon's latest remarks are the latest to put him at odds with the scientific consensus. A creationist, Carson suggested on 'Meet the Press' this Sunday that scientific notions like evolution may be 'just propaganda." ...

... The "Choice of Words" Non-Apology Apology. Eric Bradner & Alexandra Jaffe of CNN: "Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson apologized for commenting Wednesday that prisoners' changes after they leave jail proves being gay is a choice, but said that the science is still murky on the issue. In a statement, Carson said he 'realized that my choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues.'" ...

... Steve M.: "When the story went viral, he did the right thing, as far as the voters he's targeting are concerned: He blamed the media and said he was quoted out of context." ...

... Andrew Kirell of Mediaite: "... during a radio discussion this afternoon with Sean Hannity, Carson blamed the ordeal on CNN. 'It was a 25 minute interview they chopped, and you see what part they emphasized,' he said. 'I did learn something very important: For certain networks, never do a pre-taped interview. Always do it live.' The problem with his attempt to play victim here is that, during that sequence of the CNN interview, there were clearly no jump-cuts and no edits -- just a straight back-and-forth about whether homosexuality is a choice. Playing this off with a 'gotcha media vs. poor ol' Ben Carson' spin isn't exactly going to cut it. Sometimes your words are just your words."

The Image of Corruption in the New Gilded Age. Illustration by Donkey Hotey.Quid Pro Quo. Bradley Camptell in a New York Times op-ed: After Exxon gave the Republican Governors Association, which Chris Christie headed, Christie's personal lawyer 'inserted himself" into New Jersey's decade-old environmental disaster case against Exxon. The lawyer, Christopher Porrino, "elbowed aside the attorney general and career employees who had developed and prosecuted the litigation, and cut the deal" settling the case for pennies on the dollar. CW: Great pro on the quid, Exxon! ...

... Dustin Racioppi of the Bergen County, New Jersey, Record: “State lawmakers are trying to block a reported pennies-on-the-dollar settlement with Exxon Mobil and get answers as to why Governor Christie's administration reached that deal after a decade of litigation. Days after the news of that settlement -- a reported $250 million to end an $8.9 billion claim against the oil company for widespread contamination across Bayonne and Linden -- legislators said they still don't know why the state would strike a deal for a fraction of the estimated cost of damages, especially after the oil giant was found liable."

Senate Race

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen on Wednesday became the first formal Democratic entrant in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Cardinal Edward M. Egan, a stern defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy who presided over the Archdiocese of New York for nine years in an era of troubled finances, changing demographics and a priesthood of dwindling, aging ranks shaken by sexual-abuse scandals, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 82."

NBC News: "The Supreme Court has set April 28 as the date for historic arguments on gay marriage."

AP: "On the first day of testimony Wednesday in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose lawyer admitted he committed the crime, three women who suffered severe injuries described their memories of the blasts, their wounds and the terror they felt."

NBC News: "'We are very close [to reaching a nuclear agreement] if the political decision can be made to get to yes, as President Obama said,' [Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif] said. The minister spoke a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the U.S. Congress, warning against a deal, which he said 'paves Iran's path to the bomb.'"

The Commentariat -- SCOTUS Edition

Internal links removed.

Illustration by Dana Verkouteren for the AP.

Here's the transcript of oral arguments before the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell (pdf).

The stock market foresees a government win; hospital stocks surge on the strength of Justice Kennedy's questioning of the plaintiffs' attorney.

Lyle Denniston of ScotusBlog: "One of the most important functions of oral argument in the Supreme Court is that it can strongly shape the next round: the private deliberations among the nine Justices as they start work on a decision. The much-awaited hearing Wednesday on the stiff new challenge to the Affordable Care Act strongly suggested that Topic A in private could well be: how bad will we make things if we rule against the government?"

Dahlia Lithwick: "... To the extent that anyone believed that Chief Justice John Roberts was the only one to watch in this appeal, this morning Kennedy gave them someone else to talk about: Kennedy."

Jeff Toobin unpacks the one substantive question Chief Justice Roberts asked & explains why it might bode well for the government. He acknowledges that neither Roberts nor Kennedy really tipped his hand, so the outcome is very much up in the air.

It's No Slam-Dunk, People. David Nather of Politico: "Still, legal experts point out that both sides got tough questions, that Chief Justice John Roberts' views are a big mystery, and that oral arguments aren't always decisive in the Supreme Court, anyway."

Daniel Strauss of TPM: "Michael Carvin, the attorney arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs in the King v. Burwell case, said this challenge is different because the argument against the law centers on a statute that was 'written by white women and minorities.' Carvin's comments were published in a Wall Street Journal profile of him on Tuesday, a day before oral arguments began in the King v. Burwell lawsuit." ...

     ... CW: Who could have guessed that opposition to ObamaCare is based, at least in part, on racial & gender animus? Oh, everybody who knows the entire confederate movement is based in large part on racial & gender animus. This case, like so many "controversial" subjects, gets down to a core issue of equal protection. Most of the grand old white boys know enough to use "politically correct" language like "freeeedom" & "limited government" to justify their exclusionary policy positions, but the dirty little not-so-secret is that the party of Lincoln has become a club for angry, deranged bigots. ...

... Dave Weigel: "The irony is that Carvin's joke demonstrates one of the defendants' best arguments: The people who wrote the law are still with us, and can explain what they thought. Whenever they've been asked, the Democrats (and it was all Democrats) who passed the ACA explained that the language in the bill that reserves subsidies for plans purchased 'exchange established by the state' was never meant to deny subsidies. The federal exchange was always intended as a stopgap.... New York Representative Joe Crowley, who attended Wednesday's arguments, said the same thing.... Crowley, while not a woman or minority, was in the room, looking at the justices. Calvin was arguing that the intent expressed by people like him did not matter when one read the law itself."

Dana Milbank got a bad seat at the spectacle. "The conservative majority could still knock down the law, of course, but given the ambiguity exposed Wednesday, it would now be a breathtaking surprise for the justices to cause such massive upheaval -- taking health-care immediately from 8 million and causing a death spiral for the rest of Obamacare -- based on such a slender legal reed."

Amy Howe of ScotusBlog describes the arguments "in plain English."

Jonathan Cohn & Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post highlight ten key moments in the arguments -- and one that didn't happen.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed bitterly divided during heated arguments over the fate of President Obama's health care law. As expected, the court's four liberal members voiced strong support for the administration's position. But the administration must almost certainly capture the vote of either Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. or Justice Anthony M. Kennedy to prevail. The chief justice said almost nothing." ...

... Here's the Washington Post report, by Robert Barnes. ...

... CW: Until today, I would have labeled Justice Scalia "mostly corrupt." Unless he decides for the government, I revise my observation to "completely corrupt."

Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "When [plaintiffs' attorney Michael] Carvin argued that there was no legislative history to support the 'death spiral' concern regarding the federal subsidy, Sotomayor shot back that it was 'the entire point of the legislation.' Kagan described the 'draconian choice' Carvin's argument would have states make, asking why the court should believe this is the most logical reading of the statute when 'it took a year and a half' for this issue to be raised."

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "Obamacare is not out of the woods yet, and neither are the millions of people who will lose coverage or the thousands who will die if this case goes badly for the government. After Wednesday's argument, however, those individuals have good reason to be optimistic. At least one of the Court's Republicans appears to have come to work wearing his judicial robe, and not his partisan hat."

Mark Stern of Slate: "ObamaCare dangles by a single vote, again."

ScotusBlog will not liveblog the King v. Burwell arguments. CW: I couldn't find any other news outlet that will. If you find one, please share. The New York Times says it "will have updated coverage throughout the day," but it has no liveblog. If you want to keep checking back & don't have a Times subscription, open the front page in a private browser window. If you access more than nine stories, you'll have to close the private window & open a new one.

Hey, the NYT is liveblogging the Boston Marathon bombing trial. Weird.

The Washington Post has been deadblogging the hearing. They're posts are now (at 11:55 am ET) an hour-and-a-half behind the action. Update: the Post deadblog has been updated to cover the entire hearing.

But for a Preposition, the Case Was Lost. Post Liveblog: "11:12:Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked [Solicitor General Donald] Verrilli 11:12: Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked Verrilli what seemed to be the toughest question for him to answer: Why does the law use those four words, 'established by the State,' if it meant federal exchanges could substitute? Why not say exchanges established 'in the state?'"

Here's the "first mid-argument update" from ScotusBlog. CW: I assume this means ScotusBlog will post more such updates. Kennedy sounds squishy. Update (2): The original "first mid-argument update" has been updated! Kagan seems to have got the better of the petitioners' lawyer on the "context" point. Update (3): Now the original post has been re-titled "Mid-argument updates," and there's a third update. CW: So I think it's safe to stick with the post linked at the top of this graf. Keep refreshing the page. "Kennedy ... pointed out that, under petitioners' reading, the federal government would be all but forcing states to create their own exchanges.... Justice Scalia attempted to respond on petitioners' behalf.... " Update (4): Roberts "asked no questions to the petitioners and seemed skeptical of Justice Ginsburg's efforts to question standing when the government stood up to give its case. ...

... ** Wait, Wait. There's a new blogger at ScotusBlog: Here's his first update of oral arguments. This is a different link. This post has been updated. And again at 11:33 am. "Scalia seemed to be drawing an even harder line than the petitioners." CW: Shameful asshole. ...

... Here's a new ScotusBlog post on Kennedy's concerns.

** The Wall Street Journal is liveblogging the hearing, and it is not subscriber-firewalled. Thanks to Akhilleus. It's self-refreshing. 11:28 am: Chief Justice Roberts made a little crack that suggested -- ever so obliquely -- that he might side with the plaintiffs.

Arguments are over, but the bloggers are still blogging.

Tea Leaves. Greg Sargent has some suggestions on what to look for in the conservative justices questions & comments in the oral hearing. Not that we'll know what those questions & comments were until later in the day.

Washington Post Editors: "WHEN THE Supreme Court examines the Affordable Care Act again Wednesday, it will have several logical, principled paths to avoid tearing apart a law that has slowly but surely found its footing. It should take at least one of them.... The justices need not rule based on any feared or preferred policy result. They only need to read the law reasonably."

Jeff Shesol in the New Yorker: "The Supreme Court v. Reality."

The Stealth Campaign to Destroy "Liberal" Jurisprudence. Nina Martin of ProPublica: "For more than 30 years, the Federalist Society has worked behind the scenes to shape Supreme Court outcomes to a conservative agenda. In King v. Burwell, its influence could eliminate health insurance subsidies for millions of people."

Brian Beutler: "You have to be delusional or dishonest to claim that Congress imposed a huge condition on the subsidies, or that we can't know what Congress was trying to accomplish. Yet a swing justice could decide that 'by the State' does not equate to 'by the federal government on behalf of the State' -- to ignore the fuller context.... That would be a huge coup for diction scolds and people who get angry at the thought of poor people going to the doctor. It would also reflect a conscious decision to ignore the clarity of the law's purpose. If that's the thin reed on which the Supreme Court interprets Obamacare, in defiance of the democratic process that brought it into existence, something will have gone very, very wrong."

Jonathan Bernstein: "Just how stupid does Paul Ryan think we are? The Wisconsin Republican and two other House committee chairmen claim in an op-ed [Tuesday] that they are just about ready to propose an Obamacare 'off-ramp' if the Supreme Court decides in King v. Burwell to destroy the federal health-insurance markets in more than half the states.... [They give us] a 'working group' and another promise that their plan is in the mail. C'mon."

... CW: Yo, Bernstein. The Ryan, et al., op-ed is about giving the Supremes cover to gut the ACA; it's not even about fooling a gullible public.

Mitch McConnell Is Not Cooperating with the Plan. Sahil Kapur of TPM: "Senate Republican leaders wouldn't commit Tuesday to having health care legislation ready by June to avert a potential crisis if the Supreme Court wipes out Obamacare subsidies for millions of Americans.... TPM asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at his weekly Capitol press conference if the GOP would have bill ready to mitigate the potential health care crisis. The short answer: We're working on it, but won't commit to anything."

Robert Schlesinger of US News looks at all the horrible consequences of a ruling in favor of King in a column titled, "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid."

Pancakes! Jonathan Cohn of the Huffington Post explains King v. Burwell to homemakers: "... you shouldn't read one part of a law in isolation any more than you should read one part of a recipe -- because, just like the Joy of Cooking, the Affordable Care Act allows for substitutions." CW: Thanks, Jonathan! And thanks, Irma Rombauer!