The Commentariat -- Dec. 22, 2014

Internal links removed.

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "... , President Obama said he would 'review' whether to return North Korea to the list [of nations that sponsor terrorism], part of a broader government response to a damaging cyberattack on Sony's Hollywood studio.... Republicans pushed back at Mr. Obama's characterization of the attack as only cybervandalism. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, told CNN..." "blah, blah, war, blah." (Paraphrase.) ...

     ... You can watch excerpts of Candy Crowley's interview of President Obama here. ...

... CW: I wonder if Prince Rebus & the Republican party will still promote the film "The Interview" (see yesterday's Commentariat) when they find out President Obama made the movie. At least, that's what North Korea claims. Maybe we've found someone who blames Obama for more stuff than the GOP does: Kim Jong-un. Congrats, GOP! You're better than a goofy dictator....

... Jonathen Behr of CBS Moneywatch: "Big corporations tend to have insurance to protect them from nearly all imaginable risks. But Sony (SNE) may find it difficult to get its insurers to cover the $100 million or so it's reportedly losing from canceling the release of the film 'The Interview.'" ...

... Uri Friedman of the Atlantic suggests that Sony had other options in making the film; for instance, the main character could have been lightly fictionalized. ...

... Ditto David Carr of the New York Times: "... while I am all for bold creative choices, was it really important that the head being blown up in a comedy about bungling assassins be that of an actual sitting ruler of a sovereign state? If you want to satirize a lawless leader, there are plenty of ways to skin that cat, as Charlie Chaplin demonstrated with 'The Great Dictator,' which skewered Hitler in everything but name." In the end, Carr, like Prince Rebus, says he'll watch the movie when it airs as a way of doing his "bit for artistic freedom." ...

... CW: Personally, I do my for artistic freedom by not watching crap movies. Sony has a right to make them, & I have a right to ignore them. BTW, how surprising is it that someone who thought jokes about President Obama's race were funny also thought exploding an actual dictator's head was funny, too? (Although she apparently got the filmmakers to cut back a little on the gore)? This insensitivity is of a kind.

** A Note to Neocons from Paul Krugman: "War makes you poorer and weaker, even if you win.... There is a still-powerful political faction in America committed to the view that conquest pays, and that in general the way to be strong is to act tough and make other people afraid. One suspects, by the way, that this false notion of power was why the architects of war made torture routine -- it wasn't so much about results as about demonstrating a willingness to do whatever it takes." ...

... Alec Luhn in Politico: Russians with money respond to the ruble crisis by -- shopping!

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: Maurice "Greenberg, the former chief executive of A.I.G. ... is not the most sympathetic figure. But the lawsuit he has brought on behalf of Starr International, a large stockholder in A.I.G., seeking compensation for shareholder losses during those crucial days of the financial crisis, raises troubling issues.... To me..., the case's significance lies in the information it unearthed about what the government did in the bailout -- details it worked hard to keep secret. And new documents produced after the trial seem to bolster Starr's case, casting doubt on central testimony by some of the government's witnesses."

New York Times Editors: "Prosecute the torturers and their bosses.... The nation cannot move forward in any meaningful way without coming to terms, legally and morally, with the abhorrent acts that were authorized, given a false patina of legality, and committed by American men and women from the highest levels of government on down.... The American Civil Liberties Union is to give Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. a letter Monday calling for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate what appears increasingly to be 'a vast criminal conspiracy, under color of law, to commit torture and other serious crimes.'"

CW: A reader has recommended these videos featuring Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill & Pardiss Kebriaei, a senior lawyer at the legal advocacy group the Center for Constitutional Rights. I am not self-loathing enough to punish myself during this joyous season to watch them, but maybe you'll find them fascinating.

Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Sally Quillian Yates, a longtime prosecutor and the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia since 2010, is expected to be announced as the pick for deputy attorney general, the official who runs Justice Department operations day to day. Yates, who has served as the vice chair of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s advisory committee, is the first woman to serve as the U.S. attorney in Atlanta." ...

     ... CW: At his end-of-year news conference, President Obama called on female reporters only, ignoring the male reporters who had pressing questions about Cuban cigars. Now the President wants to replace not only the male attorney general with a woman but also the male deputy AG. It's almost as if this President thinks women are at least as competent as men.

Mark Santora & David Goodman of the New York Times: "The man who shot and killed two police officers in New York City on Saturday afternoon, targeting them solely because of the uniforms they wore, boasted to two people about what he was about to do just moments before he opened fire on the officers as they sat in their patrol car. In a chilling and detailed account of the shooting, the police department's chief of detectives, Robert Boyce, said that the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, first walked past the patrol car, crossed the street and then approached the car from behind. He stood outside the passenger side window and fired four shots into the vehicle, killing the officers, Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40. Mr. Brinsley fled the scene but was followed by two Consolidated Edison workers whom the police called heroic. They alerted the police that Mr. Brinsley had headed down onto a Brooklyn subway platform, where he was confronted by police officers and killed himself with a single bullet." ...

... Kim Barker & Al Baker of the New York Times: "Ismaaiyl Brinsley ... had an extensive history with the police, having been arrested 20 times -- mainly for petty crimes like stealing condoms from a Rite Aid drugstore in Ohio. He spent two years in prison after firing a stolen gun near a public street in Georgia. Mr. Brinsley had also suffered from mental problems." ...

     ... The Washington Post story on Brinsley's background, by Peter Holley, is here. ...

... Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "The long-simmering tensions between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Police Department he has pledged to reshape have reached an extraordinary nadir." CW: That's not necessarily a bad thing; the NYPD, like many police departments across the country, needs a serious housecleaning & attitude adjustment. ...

... Liz Robbins & Nikita Stewart of the New York Times: "One day after two police officers were fatally shot at point-blank range as they sat in their squad car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, leaders of several groups who had been rallying for criminal justice reform scrambled to condemn the killings while still keeping the push for police reform alive. Justice League NYC, an organization that had met with Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday, held a march as planned on Sunday night. But after the killings, the route was redirected to end at First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem for a service of healing to remember all victims of violence -- including police officers." ...

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani blames Obama, Holder & Al Sharpton for the officers' assassinations, because the leaders' "created an atmosphere of severe, strong, anti-police hatred in certain communities.... We've had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police." ...

... CW: Okay, maybe I'm not being completely fair to Kim Jong-un. ...

... Hudson Hongo of Gawker has more. ...

... So does T. Bogg of the Raw Story. ...

... CW: I don't know what-all Al Sharpton has said, but I've read most of what Obama & Holder have said publicly about the police. Nothing they said came anywhere near "propaganda" or "anti-police hatred." Their remarks were always measured & supportive of police. It's worth noting that Rudy Giuliani is a former federal law enforcement official & of course mayor of New York City. It is a true outrage that a person who held these important posts could make public comments that are (a) flat-out lies (b) invented to attack the highest-ranking American official & highest-ranking law-enforcement official. Even Fox "News" should not allow this lying, twisted, reckless, malevolent sack of shit near a microphone. And, yeah, that characterization of Giuliani was as "measured" as he deserves. I'd say it to his face.

... Trevor Eischen of Politico: "On Sunday, Obama spoke out against the killing of the police officers Saturday, saying there is no justification for the slayings." ...

... Josh Lederman of the AP: "President Barack Obama is offering full support and federal assistance to the New York Police Department in the wake of the killing of two officers. The White House says Obama called New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton on Sunday from Hawaii, where the president is vacationing and offered condolences."

Emily Badger of the Washington Post on the extraordinary rise of single-parenthood, especially among blacks, over the past decades.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Here's something I'm way late picking up, but it's worth knowing what kind of "independent journalism" Maureen Dowd practices. Matthew Zeitlin of BuzzFeed: "Leaked emails from Sony suggest that New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd promised to show Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal's husband, Bernard Weinraub, -- a former Times reporter -- a version of a column featuring Pascal before publication." Read the whole post. ...

... CW P.S. Do I feel guilty about linking to a story that relies on the Sony hacks? Yes. A teensy bit.

Presidential Election

Justice Sink of the Hill: Marco & Randy bicker on talk shows & Twitter.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Joe Cocker, the gravelly British singer who became one of pop's most recognizable interpreters in the late 1960s and '70s with passionate, idiosyncratic takes on songs like the Beatles' 'With a Little Help From My Friends,' died on Monday at his home in Crawford, Colo. He was 70. The cause was lung cancer, his agent, Barrie Marshall, said."

New York Times: "The fate of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl now rests with a four-star Army general at Fort Bragg, N.C., who will decide whether the soldier, who disappeared from his tiny Army outpost in rugged eastern Afghanistan in 2009, should be court-martialed and what, if any, charges will be filed against him. A Pentagon statement on Monday said the military's investigation of the sergeant's disappearance had been forwarded to Gen. Mark Milley, the commander of Army Forces Command, who will 'determine appropriate action -- which ranges from no further action to convening a court-martial.'"

Merry Christmas, You Power-Hungry Hypocrites." Religion News Service: "Pope Francis launched a blistering attack on the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, outlining a 'catalog of illnesses' that plague the church's central administration, including 'spiritual Alzheimer's' and gossipy cliques. The pope's traditional Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See was less an exchange of warm wishes than a laundry list of what the pontiff called the 'ailments of the Curia' that he wants to cure." Here's the National Catholic Reporter story. CW: Iesus Christus! Bet it sounded worse in Latin!

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Former Milwaukee police officer Christopher Manney will not be charged in connection with the on-duty fatal shooting of Dontre Hamilton at Red Arrow Park, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said Monday. The decision comes nearly eight months after the shooting. Chisholm has said he was waiting on reports from an outside expert on the use of force."

Weather Channel: "... we're monitoring not one, but two storms that may make a mess of your holiday travel plans, much as Winter Storm Cato did right before Thanksgiving. Already, aviation forecasters at the National Weather Service say that a 'high impact event' is likely for airports in the New York City area on Wednesday due to the combination of heavy rain and gusty winds."

BBC News: "The Spanish king's sister, Princess Cristina, is to face a tax fraud trial over alleged links to her husband's business dealings."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 21, 2014

Internal links removed.

The winter solstice begins tonight at 6:03 pm ET.

Missed this the other day. Tim Egan on "Obama Unbound": "... the president who has nothing to lose has discovered that his best friend is the future."

CW: I wonder why Obama didn't make the final cut. He & Stephen Colbert rehearse "We'll Meet Again" (audio only):

Max Fisher of Vox has a helpful post on the history of U.S.-Cuba relations, going back to the days when Southern politicians wanted to annex the island as a slave state. Thanks to James S. for the link.

** Steve Watt of the ACLU, in Slate: "As bad as the stories in the Senate torture report are, there is a whole class of victims who aren’t even mentioned...: the 'extraordinary rendition' of prisoners to foreign custody for 'interrogation' by those countries’ intelligence services — with the full knowledge that the men would be tortured.... There is still no official accounting of what happened to these men and others like them, forcibly disappeared and handed over to foreign governments for torture. We don’t even know whether the practice was authorized — and if so, by whom — and who was subject to it." ...

... In Salon, Paul Rosenberg makes the case for trying Bush, Cheney, et al., for war crimes. "Through reflexivity, Bush and Cheney’s unhinged panic drove the entire [political] process off the rails. Yet, even today they and their defenders continue to pretend that they were the tough guys, the realists, the ones who protected us. They need to stand trial in part simply so that this lie can be publicly put to rest." Rosenberg argues that not just Bush & Cheney, but "America's entire elite infrastructure" is responsible for the public's ignorance of facts re: the Bush-Cheney wars & torture. ...

... CW: While Rosenberg gets his facts right, he seems naive about the effects a Nuremberg-type series of trials would have on "public education." It is unreasonable to think that the winner of the "War on Christmas" (see God News below) & his minions would learn during the course of a trial that torture doesn't work & Cheney is a lying, evil bastard. A trial would not "educate" the followers of Bill O'Reilly & Bill Kristol; rather, it would further harden them in their false beliefs. Not only do these people discount facts, Americans in general don't want to face their own complicity in electing -- & re-electing -- the Bush administration. Patriotism is pernicious.

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "... in an era of hyperpartisan gerrymandering..., Ohio took a step in the opposite direction last week. With the support of both parties, the Ohio House gave final approval Wednesday to a plan to draw voting districts for the General Assembly using a bipartisan process, intended to make elections more competitive."

Josh Lederman of the AP: "The United States is asking China for help as it weighs potential responses to a cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment that the U.S. has blamed on North Korea. A senior Obama administration official says the U.S. and China have shared information about the attack and that the U.S. has asked for China's cooperation. The official also says China agrees with the U.S. that destructive cyberattacks violate the norms of appropriate behavior in cyberspace." ...

... AP: "The GOP is calling on supporters to buy a ticket to the movie 'The Interview' if theater owners reverse their decision not to show the film amid threats of retaliation for its comedic take on assassinating North Korea's leader. The Republican Party chairman, Reince Priebus, says in a letter to theater chain executives that he's concerned that a foreign regime would be allowed to dictate the movies Americans can and cannot watch." CW: As I said several days ago, wingers will see the movie because Freeeedom. Now it's a party platform!

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. David Bernstein in Boston Magazine: "What the hell happened to Boston.com?... In Saturday’s Globe, [Boston Globe editor Brian] McGrory said that despite the multiple errors committed by Boston.com staffers, 'the standards and values of the Globe apply across all our sites.' That seems increasingly difficult to defend."

God News

CW: No doubt many Reality Chex readers will be celebrating Yule today. I will be thanking Mithras for pushing back the darkness.

Phil Zuckerman in Salon: "... for the many millions of Americans who have joined the ranks of the nonreligious, the causes are most likely to be political and sociological in nature." The rise of the religious right as a political force has alienated "a lot of left-leaning or politically moderate Americans from Christianity.... A second factor ... is the ... Catholic Church’s pedophile priest scandal.... A very important third possible factor ... is ... the dramatic increase of women in the paid labor force.... As women grew less religious, their husbands and children followed suit." Excerpted from Living the Secular Life. ...

... CW: Weirdly, Zuckerman doesn't mention formal education as a secularizing factor. Surely the percentage of Americans who believe in the literal truths of religious myths has plummeted in the past 50 years. In fact, major religions -- including the Roman Catholic Church -- no longer insist, for instance, on the historiocity of the Christmas story. It's pretty darned hard to get through a standard liberal arts education & come out buying the Adam & Eve & Noah & Moses stories.

Take 'er Easy There, Pilgrim. Bruce Feiler of the New York Times: "Pilgrimage ... is more popular than ever. At the First International Congress on Tourism and Pilgrimages in September, the United Nations released a study finding that of every three tourists worldwide, one is a pilgrim, a total of 330 million people a year. These figures include 30 million to Tirupati in India, 20 million to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, 15 million to Karbala in Iraq, and four million to Lourdes."

"Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani?" Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches: Christian Americans are more supportive of torture than non-religious Americans.

Jesus Is the Reason for -- Hanukkah. Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post: "Bud Williams, city councilor in Springfield, Mass., stood in the court square earlier this week and participated in a holiday tradition. 'Jesus is the reason for the season,' Williams said at a Tuesday ceremony, according to MassLive.com. His remarks wouldn’t really be notable, except that Williams was speaking at a menorah lighting ceremony, to mark the beginning of Hanukkah." In defense of his remark, Williams noted later to a reporter, "Jesus was Jewish." Via Steve Benen.

Patrick O'Donnell of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Gov. John Kasich's $10 million plan to bring mentors into Ohio's schools for students now has a surprise religious requirement – one that goes beyond what is spelled out in the legislation authorizing it. Any school district that wants a piece of that state money must partner with both a church and a business – or a faith-based organization and a non-profit set up by a business to do community service." CW: As Steve Benen remarks, "... sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen."

Onward, Christmas Soldiers. Bill O'Reilly agrees he "single-handedly" won the "War on Christmas." Thanks, Bill-O.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 20, 2014

Internal links removed.

... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday rejected critics who say he should not have opened American relations with Cuba because of that nation's human rights record, saying the historic thaw would give the United States more sway with the Cuban government." ...

... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "US President Barack Obama has delivered his most sceptical remarks yet on the future of the Keystone oil pipeline, claiming its controversial extension from Canada to Nebraska would do little to reduce American energy prices and generate only a limited number of US jobs, but could add to the infrastructure costs of climate change." ...

... Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "President Obama said Friday that Sony Pictures 'made a mistake' by pulling a movie that sparked North Korea to launch a cyberattack against the company. Speaking at a year-end press conference, Obama said that the movie studio should not have bowed to pressure after the attack." ...

... Michael Schmidt & David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday said that the United States 'will respond proportionally' against North Korea for its cyberattacks on Sony Pictures, and criticized the studio for giving in to intimidation and pulling the satirical movie that provoked the attacks.... His threat came just hours after the F.B.I. said it had extensive evidence that the North Korean government organized the cyberattack that debilitated the Sony computers, marking the first time the United States has explicitly accused the leaders of a foreign nation of deliberately damaging American targets." ...

     ... Here's the FBI's "Update on Sony Investigation." ...

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "In his year-ending press conference today, President Obama called first on Politico reporter Carrie Budoff Brown.... The president decided to banter a bit with Brown, noting that she was headed to Europe. She confirmed that she was going to be working on Politico's European venture in Brussels.... So the president had an opening to crack wise on a notable Beltway news mill: 'I think what Belgium needs is some, uh, version of Politico.' The deadpan delivery cracked up the rest of the media." ...

... ** Barbara Morrill of Daily Kos: "What if the President held a press conference and it made men sad?" Thanks to James S. for the link. ...

     ... Paul Waldman: "Notably, all the reporters Obama called on today were women, which was really outrageous considering that there have only been 4,529 (or so) press conferences in which all the reporters the president called on were men. There was one as yet unidentified male reporter who managed to shout, 'Any new year's resolutions?', while another shouted, 'Are you going to smoke a Cuban cigar, Mr. President?' as he was leaving. Sadly, America did not get answers to these vital questions."

... Frank Pallotta of CNN: "Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, denying that the studio had 'caved' by scrapping next week's opening of 'The Interview,' fired back Friday after President Obama said the studio had "made a mistake.'... Lynton said he would be 'fibbing' to say he 'wasn't disappointed' in Obama's remarks. 'The president, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened,' Lynton said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. 'We do not own movie theaters. We cannot determine whether or not a movie will be played in movie theaters.'" ...

     ... CW Translation: We can make racist jokes about you, but you can't question our business decisions, which you are too ignorant to understand. ...

... Brian Stelter of CNN: "The hackers behind a devastating cyberattack at Sony Pictures have sent a new message to executives at the company, crediting them for a 'very wise' decision to cancel the Christmas day release of 'The Interview,' a source close to the company told CNN.... The hacker message is effectively a victory lap, telling the studio, 'Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy.' The message also says, 'And we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately.'"

White House: "In this week's address, the President reflected on the significant progress made by this country in 2014, and in the nearly six years since he took office":

Darlene Superville of the AP: "President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a massive defense policy bill that endorses his plan to fight Islamic State militants, including air strikes and training Iraqis and moderate Syrian rebels. The law authorizes funds for basic military operations, from a 1 percent pay raise for troops to the purchase of ships, aircraft and other war-fighting equipment."

Matt Apuzzo & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency's search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.'s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials.... While effectively rejecting the most significant conclusions of the inspector general's report, the panel, appointed by [CIA Director John] Brennan and composed of three C.I.A. officers and two members from outside the agency, is still expected to criticize agency missteps that contributed to the fight with Congress." CW: Surprise! A Brennan-appointed panel says following Brennan's orders is pretty cool. Here's some additional helpful information: "The panel's chairman is Evan Bayh, a former Democratic senator from Indiana...."

Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor: "The White House needs a much taller fence to protect the president and first family. That's the headline recommendation from an independent panel convened to assess the Secret Service in the wake of a series of embarrassing agency failures this fall."

Annals of "Justice," Ctd.

Matt Apuzzo & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "F.B.I. agents in every region of the country have mishandled, mislabeled and lost evidence, according to a highly critical internal investigation that discovered errors with nearly half the pieces of evidence it reviewed. The evidence collection and retention system is the backbone of the F.B.I.'s investigative process, and the report said it is beset by problems. It also found that the F.B.I. was storing more weapons, less money and valuables, and two tons more drugs than its records had indicated. The report's findings, based on a review of more than 41,000 pieces of evidence in F.B.I. offices around the country, could have consequences for criminal investigations and prosecutions."

** Nicky Woolf of the Guardian: "Some witnesses who appeared before the grand jury investigating the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown were 'clearly not telling the truth,' according to the St Louis county prosecutor, Robert McCulloch.... The admission came just days after The Smoking Gun, an investigative site which publishes government, police and other documents, claimed to have identified a key grand jury witness and raised serious questions about the credibility of her testimony.... McCulloch, in his interview, appeared to corroborate The Smoking Gun's investigation.... He added that he had allowed [obviously false witnesses] to testify anyway because he had felt 'it was much more important to present the entire picture'." ...

... CW: This is the most preposterous excuse for malfeasance I've heard in a long time. Even an idiot knows "the entire picture" does not include elements that aren't in it. But to mislead the grand jury, McCullouch is now claiming it is good legal practice to present testimony without, apparently, even challenging it. McCullouch should be disbarred, not just removed from office. ...

     ... Update. Mike Hayes of BuzzFeed: "According to Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct, RULE 4-3.3, 'A lawyer shall not knowingly offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.' The law also says that a lawyer 'may refuse to offer evidence, other than the testimony of a defendant in a criminal matter, that the lawyer reasonably believes is false.' 'A lawyer should not present testimony that he believes to be false,' Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University, told BuzzFeed News. 'That is especially true in a proceeding that lacks all of the usual safeguards, such as opposing counsel and a judge.'" CW: That's funny. A young BuzzFeed reporter knows more about Missouri law than the St. Louis County D.A.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for same-sex marriages to commence in Florida, meaning such unions will soon be allowed in five of the nation's six most populous states. The court, without comment, turned down a request to block gay marriages in Florida while the state appeals a judge's order that its ban is unconstitutional. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have granted the motion, but did not explain their reasons."

Sabrina Siddiqui of the Huffington Post on "how the NRA lost its battle to defeat Vivek Murthy." CW: Let me add that this is a battle that should never have taken place. Murthy's remarks on gun violence, as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has pointed out, are accurate & no different from what experts & others have acknowledged.

Ed Kilgore: GOP staffers-turned-lobbyists "are rushing back to Congress like -- well, choose you own infestation metaphor, recognizing these are actual human beings with virtues as well as vices.... It's all part of the career-long climb up the slippery pole in the permanent ruling class, with its own rough justice: at any given moment, top-level staff types may be helping run Congress, or run the country in the executive branch, or failing any direct power, getting rich. It all works out in a satisfying manner." Read to the end.

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd.

Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The National Labor Relations Board announced on Friday that its general counsel had brought 78 charges against McDonald's and some of its franchise operators, accusing them of violating federal labor law in response to workers' protests for higher wages around the country. The general counsel's move immediately drew outrage from a variety of national business groups because the labor action deemed McDonald's a joint employer, a status that would make the fast-food titan equally responsible for actions taken at its franchised restaurants."

Richard Bilton of BBC Panorama: "Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation. Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken. It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories. Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions." ...

... BBC News: "An online petition, signed by 155,000 people, has called on Apple to do more to ensure its Chinese factory workers are treated better. The campaign, on Change.org, follows reports of poor working conditions in factories that make Apple products. A separate SumOfUs petition, with more than 43,000 signatories, calls for the iPhone 5 to be made 'ethically'."

AP: "Staples Inc. says nearly 1.2 million customer payment cards may have been exposed during a security breach earlier this year."

Presidential Election

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Two of the Republican Party's top White House hopefuls clashed sharply Friday over President Obama's new Cuba policy, evidence of a growing GOP rift over foreign affairs that could shape the party's 2016 presidential primaries. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who backs Obama's move to normalize relations with communist Cuba, accused Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) of being an 'isolationist' with his hard-line opposition to opening up trade and diplomatic engagement with the island nation. Paul suggested that Rubio 'wants to retreat to our borders and perhaps build a moat.'... The feud is the loudest public dispute so far between potential GOP 2016 candidates and lays bare the divergent world views of traditional hawks -- including Rubio and past Republican presidents and nominees -- and the emerging, younger libertarian wing represented by Paul."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The United States transferred four detainees from the Guantánamo Bay prison to Afghanistan late Friday, the Defense Department announced Saturday, fulfilling a request from the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, in what officials here characterized as a show of good will between the United States and the government in Kabul.The four men are not likely to be subjected to further detainment in Afghanistan, an Obama administration official said."

New York Times: "In an apparent targeted killing, two police officers were shot in their patrol car in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon by a man who later fatally shot himself in head, police officials said."

Reuters: "Dozens of protesters were arrested on Friday in Milwaukee when they blocked rush-hour traffic on a major highway to protest the killing of an unarmed black man who was fatally shot by a white police officer this year. The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department took at least 73 adults and one minor into custody during the protest that blocked Interstate 43, which runs through the city, according to the department's Twitter feed."